Unspoken - No. XI, Transcendence (Fall 2023)

transcendence UNSPOKEN NO. XI

unspoken

transcendence | unspoken | no. XI

"To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; We need to transcend, transport, escape; We need meaning, understanding, and explanation; We need to see over-all patterns in our lives.

We need hope, the sense of a future.

And we need freedom... to get beyond ourselves... to travel to other worlds, to rise above our immediate surroundings.

We seek a holiday from our inner and outer restrictions, a more intense sense of the here and now, the beauty and value of the world we live in."

- an excerpt from Oliver Sacks' Hallucinations

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Reader, Thank you for picking up a copy of the eleventh edition of the McMaster Unspoken anthology. Since its inception six years ago, Unspoken has served as a outlet to give voice to the unheard narratives, conversations, and struggles of daily life that are often personal yet commonly shared.

The theme for this anthology is transcendence. Transcendence is often understood as an experience of going beyond normal limits or boundaries; however, to transcend could have many meanings to different people. It may include, but is not limited to challenging a social norm, overcoming adversity, developing a new realization or awareness of the self, redefining family, growing up, or home.

The anthology is broken down into five themes: desire, ache, self, cycles, and epiphany. These categories are not mutually exclusive as these poems do not exist alone; they influence and are influenced by the greater contexts that they speak to. Therefore, this anthology is an attempt to connect the shared themes within our relationships, ourselves, and our experience of the world.

I would like to thank the co-presidents (Iqra and Kaneera) for their leadership and dedication to Unspoken, carrying on its purpose and values. I would like to thank finance, events and promotions (Adie, Omaima, Aqsa, and Maha) for this anthology would not be in your hands without them. I would like to give a great thanks to the illustrators (Aamna, Mara, Asha, and Ashfia) for their vision and bringing these poems to life. Finally, I would like to thank the writers who submitted their works as this anthology would not exist without your courage and openness to tell your stories.

On behalf of the Unspoken team, we hope you find a fragment of yourself within these narratives and feel inspired to transcend.

Sincerely, Jennifer Zhang Editor 2023-2024

i

meet the team If I could wish upon a star...

Kaneera Uthayakumaran Iqra Javed Co-President “I'd wish for all the love in the world to make a difference.”

Co-President “clarity, comfort, and good health for the roads ahead”

Adie Vucic Finance “I'd wish for everyone to see the beauty inherent in life's smallest moments”

Omaima Owais Host/Events

Jennifer Zhang Editor “I’d wish you would offer yourself the same love you give to others.”

“I’d wish for the fulfillment of dreams, and the manifestation of passion.”

ii

Aqsa Rahim Host/Events “I’d wish for it to tell the moon to shine it’s brightest for you”

Aamna Naveed

Maha Khan

Illustrator “I'd wish for time to slow down.”

Promotions

Mara Li Illustrator “the brightest future for my friends and those I love”

Asha JeejeebhoySwalwell Illustrator “I would fly like a bird in harmony and free.”

Ashfia Choudhury Illustrator “I wish I could rewatch the Prince of Egypt for the first time”

iii

“I'd wish for its light to help you see all the things you hide from yourself.”

CONTENTS i. desire If I Met You as a Child the essence of jasmine In Our Wire Refuge

Hiya Goyal........................................... 1 Aqsa Rahim......................................... 2 M.D.R. O'Toole.................................. 3

ii. ache The sun and the moon A Letter From Pluto The Weightlessness of Emotions Iphigenia and I

Jovana Paramentic............................ 4 Omaima Owais................................... 5 Kaelin Sheridan.................................. 6 Anonymous......................................... 7

iii. self Memory Lane The Paradoxical Woman untitled A Star is Dying Here and Where

Jess Kim................................................ 8 Ramneek Panchi................................ 9 a.t............................................................ 10 Anonymous......................................... 11 salina t................................................... 12

iv. cycles From the Crib we Begin Cyber Transcendence: Ghosts in the Machine smoke show

Doaa Rashed....................................... 13 Asha North.......................................... 14 Rijaa Khan............................................ 15

v. epiphany 20's Prayers Percolated in Cerulean the mundane.

S. Fan..................................................... 16 Heba Khan........................................... 17 Jennifer Zhang................................... 18

desire

If I Met You as a Child Hiya Goyal If it were possible, I wish I could have met you when you were a child.

We would play catch, paint stars, maybe jump rope.

I’d see you young, sweet and so full of hope.

As we would play, you’d tell me about how you aren’t allowed to cry; that the world hurt you sometimes but you didn’t know why.

It never meant much to you but I’d offer you my arms.

I would hold you so close even well after the tears stopped.

It’s probably what you needed most.

Afterwards, I’d bring you ice cream and I would listen to you laugh.

I would never want to leave you alone, knowing it wasn’t meant to last.

Could I have made a difference?

Present depends on past.

1

the essence of jasmine Aqsa Rahim paint me with the essence of jasmine the flower that blooms every night with the company of the moon. sing to me like i am your rose – gently as if my petals will wilt within a matter of time. write about me with words as sweet as honey, all within a book with chapters that flicker like film in every old bollywood movie. etch down poetry of divinity itself as if you are Rumi – paint me with the essence of jasmine with the ink that is moonlight with depth that only the universe holds; paint me your canvas your flower, blooming the essence of what it means to be your divinity; an epiphany your poetry and prose – paint me with the essence of jasmine; etch me into your soul.

2

In Our Wire Refuge M.D.R. O’Toole Lips bitten until they bleed, Fingers twitching as we click forward, Desperate to find somewhere, To commit the sin of our existence.

There is nothing like that blue light, Illuminating, without scorching like the sun, Carving out a space for being, without shame, With the sparse tools we whittled ourselves.

I feel your pulse travel through me, flickering with fear, We are intertwined, in all ways, even if I would not know your face on the street.

I stretch my hands across this digital vastness, Eager, but unable, to mend our contradictory closeness.

We bicker, just as siblings do, Over the most inconsequential aspects of ourselves, Separate, physically, from those who degrade us, But, mentally, unable to escape their deafening voice.

For this world is one of echoes.

Smatterings of laughter, sharp, spit onto our faces from afar, While we try to find one another amidst walls of carnival mirrors, Too afraid to step outside into the hostile night.

Aching to rid ourselves of sickness, Aching to rid ourselves of self, We purge our stomachs until there is nothing left, And let the acid dissolve us from the inside out.

But, even so, this wire refuge remains beautiful, A gem catching the white-hot sparkle of devotion, resistance, and love, Our words froth and bubble past our tongues once uncorked, Sparkling and effusive, loud and unconcerned with irrationality, impossible to ignore.

We scare them, I know we do, And a part of me thrills at this notion, Because I know it means that we are bringing change; What an honour to live so freely it angers those who construct cages.

I let myself be held by new-found arms, And close my eyes, imagining laying my head gently on your chest.

I wonder if I can feel your heartbeat, steady, if I’m quiet enough, Despite the infinite and incomprehensible distance between us.

Healing our wounded, counting our dead, We make up the place for any who find themselves on our doorstep: Unable to open the curtains, we still manage to make some kind of home, Decorating with glossy magazine covers to brighten our prison's walls.

A table, unending, runs through these bustling halls, As we slice cheese, break bread, and gulp deep red wine, Joining in the act of creation, consumption, and change, Leaving empty seats for those who, starving, laid the silverware and went to bed.

3

past past past

ache

The sun and the moon Jovana Paramentic Knowing you, was loving you.

If I was the sun, you would have been the moon, a light among all the darkness and a beacon of hope.

So, what was I to you?

Brightness on a cloudy day, Or a raging burst of fire, too hot for you to control?

Knowing you, was hating you too.

It was like having the whole world go pitch black when you decided to never come up, Or it was feeling lonely when you’d disappear during the dark of night.

Knowing you, was understanding we'd always be apart, always there like the sun and the moon but never together.

4

A Letter From Pluto Omaima Owais Did I drift too far? Or did you push me away?

Was I really so insignificant to you?

Did you think I wouldn’t feel the gravity of the hurtful words you would spew?

Was I perhaps not interesting enough, Always at the edge of the crowd?

Did I not fit well with the rest of your circle Is that why you cast me out?

Maybe if I had been a little more warm Like Mercury or Venus perhaps?

Maybe if I had Jupiter’s big personality Or Earth’s contagious laugh Maybe if I made more effort If I could dance or tell jokes or sing Perhaps if I was more frivolous and bold Like Saturn and her numerous rings Then you would have valued me Paid attention, admired, and cherished But I could only bring to the table My more subtle kinds of gifts Yes I was quiet, distant, pessimistic too But did you ever consider the virtue?

I listened, I was observant, attentive and honest And God, I genuinely cared for you!

But I guess 9 was too many for your system I'm sure it has a perfect balance now I bet they give you everything you need And that you relish the “love” you’re endowed But sometimes I can’t help but ask Do you ever think longingly of me?

Yes I have moved on, long gone, far off…

Yet I’d still choose you out of the entire galaxy

5

The Weightlessness of Emotions Kaelin Sheridan Bubbling up from a part of myself that I had tucked under my rib and poorly named the steady throbbing of my heartbeat I started to understand deflation in new terms You stepped on the edges of my down feather pillow Until the weight of us collapsed onto me In a flurry of my version of what happens at a ‘girl’s sleepover’ I unloaded everything I’d been sitting on with the force of my hips behind my beatings to the soundtrack of your ignorant laughter But in all of our innocence, my feelings were begging to be picked up from the guts of the pillow and held in the space in front of us feathers solidifying into Bricks And the ton of crumpled up and fanned out feelings for you Erupted into an infuriation of your betrayal You were the one person Who was never supposed to recall my memories of suffocation Get that pillow out of my face.

6

Iphigenia and I Anonymous half hungry days where light blends into shadow forcing ribcages to get dressed in their sharpest attire to be paraded around like animals for slaughter. no one really likes staring anyway, (COME SEE THE SICK GIRL) you just can't peel your eyes away from the morbid display mom, you taught me to be afraid. you taught me to be the deer caught in the headlights of my own car. i am all curled lips and coagulation i can't imagine myself without a severed head and broken bones (MOUNT ME ON YOUR WALL MAKE A SHOW OF SUFFERING) its dark out by the time you find the energy to move, crackling joints like lightning. i've been having a hard time adjusting, something inside of me does not want to sleep. mom, you taught me to be afraid. you taught me to carry knives and gut the vulnerable (I ONLY KNOW VIOLENCE AS LOVE) two heartbeats in one body, sick sick sick, stuff me in the body of a deer i watched you sever the head from the cervine, her dead eyes follow me around the room i watched you dismantle her body and then i watched you devour her did they tell you, iphigenia, that your mothers love would burn for 10 years? i'm sorry we've both had knives to our throats. girl inside belly, belly inside girl, girl inside deer, deer inside girl, deer inside belly, whose antlers are who’s...

(MOUNT ME ON YOUR WALL MAKE A SHOW OF SUFFERING)

7

self

Memory Lane Jess Kim “Alas!” I cried. “My ghost is gone!”

As I walk down the cold, Snowy lonesome road whom They call Memory Lane, the Wind howls the name of my ghost.

And I never loved anything– or anyone– Again.

It’s quiet–the snow falls silently And the only wails that pierce its illusion Are the cricks and cracks of the Old aching trees.

The howling, therefore, seems to be For my ears only–and they whip Left and right as my eyes Dart through the forest branches, Searching for the wolf surely Lurking in the shadows.

“Let me go!” I beg, “Set me free!”

The wind howls louder and Enters my nostrils, invading my throat and Scratching my soul; I felt my ghost–so Dearly wanting to leave–untether.

I collapse in the snow, fingers Matching the pale white, as I Stared into my own dead eyes And sunken expression.

My ghost said nothing to me, And I, her, as she took All the pains of Goodbyes–this one, And the next–away. I watched her Drift down Memory Lane, hips swaying With the mist of the wind, and slowly, Oh, so slowly, creep Out of sight.

Overjoyed, I darted back to the village Of lights and festivities, Building snowmen and women with my Numb pale white fingers.

8

The Paradoxical Woman Ramneek Panchi I present a conundrum.

My very own being.

I claim I want to be free, yet I am scared to take the first step.

I claim I want to reach for the stars, but won't let my eyes leave the ground, And if I claim I want to be happy, but then why do I inflict my own suffering?

I say I love the rain, yet I open my umbrella.

I say I love the moon, but I won't say it to you.

I say I love the sky, but I don't know what colour it is tonight.

I don’t know who I am.

Or rather I am afraid to find out.

For I know if I look in the mirror, I will see nothing but a black hole.

I am a woman who is absorbing everything, but incapable of doing anything with it.

I am a teenager who is so engulfed in time and space that she doesn’t exist in her present.

I am a child of skin and bones who only wears black because it is the only way to make sense of what is going on inside of her.

I don’t want to know myself.

For I am afraid that if I do, I will be forced to endure my very being.

And I am a ‘being’, whose only companion is a dull pen and thin piece of paper.

A ‘being’, Who smiles when sad.

Who laughs when angry.

And who is silent when happy.

I present a conundrum.

My very own being.

9

untitled a.t. well, my long hair is gone & i traded my push-up bras for sports my t-shirts got baggier & i tugged them away from my chest, preventing their clinging there i don’t wear much makeup anymore and wonder if i miss it i thicken my eyebrows and accentuate the bone structure of my face brush on dark circles and opt for a natural blush; no glitter, no colour. i hunch my shoulders into a relaxed posture, bending myself into a boy. my legs are farther apart when i sit, like i was meant to take up space. i jut my chin upwards in an oh-so-casual manner, if i look above you i can’t see you looking at me. and and and and

i am so nonchalant i am so confident in myself i am not scared of any of you i check my reflection in the mirror a lot.

What do you do when you’ve been given a body that isn’t yours?

1. You cry, a lot, and you’re not sure why at first 2. You see someone else when you look in the mirror. You try to make that person look pretty.

3. You wonder if anyone else thinks this much about the extra weight on their chest; you wonder if anyone else feels suffocated by it 4. You browse haircuts for hours. You tell yourself you could be a girl with short hair.

5. Your voice sounds wrong; it’s as if your brain is sending messages to another person to speak out loud.

6. You are your brain, working a strange body. You are not your body. when my dad calls me “young lady”, when my mom calls me “pretty girl”, well, now it feels like they’re daring me to correct them.

10

A Star is Dying Anonymous He wasn't explicitly out.

But he was out of his mind.

The torment was all internal.

There were no bruises to show for it.

Only panic attacks and the quiet disarming pain.

He was folding in on himself.

It was the only way to survive.

He had to pretend that he didn't exist.

He had to take the real and earnest parts of himself and squeeze and squeeze.

His heart was throbbing.

Inside it, gravity had compressed his individuality and morality into the tiny space of his atrium.

But when he sat in the dining hall amongst his family, he could pretend to be an empty vacuum of space.

No one could see the black hole forming deep within his chest.

Impenetrable.

Not even light could make it through.

He didn't realize it at the time, but this is what happens when a star is dying.

Maybe it was the only way.

But he didn’t want to preserve himself.

Self-preservation came naturally.

It was the only way to survive.

He was, barely.

He didn’t want his existence to be confined.

In the closet.

In his mind.

In his heart.

It doesn’t have to be buried.

It can exist.

It can be welcomed.

Maybe he wasn’t as far gone.

11

Here and Where salina t i exist i exist i exist.

pull my feet to the earth,

then why don’t i feel real?

i want to feel warmth on my skin, see light in the obscurity,

my feet don’t stand firm on the ground,

i am here, i am real, i am real.

they’re buried in a heavy fog.

my body belongs to everything but myself

sinking deeper, deeper, deeper.

she’s travelled the world

swimming in the stars,

soared in the wind

drowning in the sky.

intertwined fingers in the soil

i exist i exist i exist.

she’s spoken to the stars

my head is my own,

they’ve giggled in my sleep

my eyes don’t feel so.

and in sleeps before

the moon shines brighter tonight,

she belongs where i don’t,

she smiles on me and i bathe in it.

she’s been here much longer

drink in the light, pool it in my hands,

much longer to go

this isn’t real.

my fingers grasp blindly for soil, they slip through auroras instead. it shimmers as it disperses, taunting in dance.

12

cycles

From the Crib we Begin Doaa Rashed In swaddling bonds to suits we climb, Life's a burp, a laugh, a nursery rhyme.

Babes in awe of the peek-a-boo, Grown-ups still ask, "Who are you?"

Toddler emperors, scepter in hand, Claiming the sandbox, ruling the land.

But soon the sandbox is a desk's confine, Castles to spreadsheets we resign.

Teens in revolt, with each hormonal surge, Adulthood looms, responsibility's dirge.

Yet within the adult lingers a child's gleam, Aging bodies clutching youthful dream.

From diapers to dentures, life twirls fast, We crawl, then walk, then rest at last.

In the cosmic crib, we're babes again, Life's a circle, a peculiar chain.

13

Cyber Transcendence: Ghosts in the Machine Asha North Living is old Only brains grow Cyberdipped drips on fingers The crows are getting hungrier We must hurry The flies will fly Make our heads full Moonlit by tomorrow No sun, no light Electricity We should say goodbye Living in the wind I felt free like you To be with you and be you A different space a different time Nostalgia at its best We have fallen from the bottom Any clue?

Rats Draining in and out Crawling never down We are sold to stars Illuminations are in the sky Sparkling against our visions At lightspeed, we succumb Dark but light Time frozen love Cold hearts Numb lies Where did we go?

Brainstreams lost in space Memories kept in computers How did we get so lost?

I don’t think we will go back Hold your soul Hold it tight.

Roses die upon the flame We are all lost Ghosts in this fair cosmos.

As one we came in and as one we will go

14

smoke show Rijaa Khan part of the party ended the night before it even started, but most of us have our jewelry on now, and it’s shining under the tattered disco ball an ache forms and it’s carried up by gravity, momentarily you know, it’s just like smoke in a chimney you learn, amongst the sweat and adrenaline and anxiety, that dancing is easy when you forget your body is yours when you swallow down the smoke and tell yourself: there’s years that will come out of this you see a newcomer at the doorway, nervous, you can tell they’ve never surrendered their physical form before you don’t know what to think through the open window, the smoke is blowing out the chimney, into the clouds back to the world from which it came you think, the party is forever, the party started long before we were born

15

epiphany

20's S. Fan After Richard Siken’s “Snow and Dirty Rain”

Isn’t’ it interesting? How I’m the last person in the entire world?

Autumn leaves populate the place of people and how I crush them in families with each fall of my foot.

Friends laughing in light, and the warmth of something yet known.

Which brings us all back to empty streets with hollowed vision and legs of cotton trying to make it to the next block.

Looking at the lines on the pavement and the cracks and the cracks and the space between the cracks so closely that they might just open wide and swallow my ego whole.

Is this what it is? To grow up?

To write a story when the back of every book tells the same?

We are running in outlines of footprints hidden by millennia of dust and doubt.

So that we may find a garden which is really a playground which is really a home, of course a home.

What might we call it? Snow in the summer? Light from a watchtower?

Stardust moving closer and closer until it forms a thought?

The wind whispers its way through the seal of every home and only a view from the clouds knows they all look the same, like the playhouses we once created and wished to live in.

Fall matures into winter and the colors disappear until the right time.

Do you envy them?

If only our hearts had the courage to leave and return so surely again.

After all, I am only trying to describe us to ourselves.

I have made it to the corner of the street at the corner of the neighborhood at the corner of my mind – a place where, I could host a dinner party, say, “bring that wine the colour of all your troubles, we’ll drink to them!”

And somewhere in the kitchen, someone would paint themselves a pretty blue, reminding us all of reflections in a lake, mountains hiding valleys, winter yearning back into spring.

We are swimming in youth, leaving the stars to watch billions of its last children pass each other by.

17

Prayers Percolated in Cerulean Heba Khan I have been painted as the Sun but the ocean crashes against these veins. cerulean infests my chambers — opaque, viscous. it calls my name, summons me Home, paints hope in the feeble gold of sujood, says these memories were meant to be forgotten and all the sorrow was not mine to keep. so I crush the lapis beating within, and offer it to these walls, beseech them to transcribe scriptures from it for I am afraid I will not be called an artist if I do not make a masterpiece of my grief because I once dreamt that the ocean came to visit me it bore its anger in its receding waves and I drowned in the melancholic memories.

It wrote a poem for me that washed up on the shore remnants of words that I'm unsure hold any meaning beyond the abstract invite to make a bridge between cities that have long since been estranged.

The ocean titled it Inhaled and presented a riddle scribbled in prose and God alone knows when I will be able to sleep enough to solve it. it said the water in my lungs is enough to drown me but it keeps me parched.

I behold the vastness of azul and let the gold become the noor. the wisdom of this mural whispers that when the cerulean orb is consumed by the ocean, when night falls again, only then, will the mystery unfold.

18

the mundane.

Jennifer Zhang Perhaps it is the predictable rhythm of traffic Lights, subway sounds and people Crossing the street, a strange feeling that –

Perhaps it is the celebration of growing up.

You have been here before.

A possibility Of apartment lights and busy streets Of leaving home.

A reinvention of the self.

This brief – Intimacy with strangers seems to Reincarnate memories from a distant Past.

A collective validation of Shame – An enigma unsolved.

And through this perpetual motion of coming out of the subway and seeing the lights – I have come to realize:

You forget about the days you were left Frozen.

Devoted to a story you fabricated Only to discover – it wasn’t true.

Aliveness is not merely a feeling But a realization.

The magic cannot leave, because it was always

Yet you return again, With a reinterpretation of those moments Wondering: "What the hell am I doing?"

Here.

But – this must be the place?

Because I feel – A vulnerable freedom A desire to know The mundane.

Coffee in the mornings Same path in the park Reloading the transit card for Another trip Home.

And somehow this knowledge Fills a void in my body.

Recalibrating the emotions Once unsettled.

16

ILLUSTRATOR CREDITS i. desire If I Met You as a Child the essence of jasmine In Our Wire Refuge

Asha Jeejeebhoy-Swalwell.............. 1 Ashafia Choudhury........................... 2 Mara Li................................................. 3

ii. ache The sun and the moon A Letter From Pluto The Weightlessness of Emotions Iphigenia and I

Aamna Naveed................................... 4 Ashfia Choudhury............................. 5 Mara Li................................................. 6 Jennifer Zhang................................... 7

iii. self Memory Lane The Paradoxical Woman untitled A Star is Dying Here and Where

Aamna Naveed................................... 8 Ashfia Choudhury............................. 9 Asha Jeejeebhoy-Swalwell.............. 10 Asha Jeejeebhoy-Swalwell.............. 11 Jennifer Zhang................................... 12

iv. cycles From the Crib we Begin Cyber Transcendence: Ghosts in the Machine smoke show

Ashfia Choudhury............................. 13 Asha Jeejeebhoy-Swalwell.............. 14 Jennifer Zhang................................... 15

v. epiphany 20's Prayers Percolated in Cerulean the mundane.

Asha Jeejeebhoy-Swalwell.............. 16 Asha Jeejeebhoy-Swalwell.............. 17 Aamna Naveed................................... 18

“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”

- Audre Lorde, “Poetry is Not a Luxury” (1985)