When someone asks how I am - Muskaan Aleeza Admani pages 15

I want to say That I am Drowning These walls are caving in And I no longer know how to survive It’s like I’m trying to swim But my hands and feet are tied.

I want to say That this sadness Has infected my lungs So breathing has become an Abomination.

I want to say That life has torn At the verge of my strength I am numb. I am empty. My grave Is this body. But I’d rather not ravage Someone’s mood With my tragic honesty So I goof away Like everything is a laughing matter And I say something acceptable, like: “I’m alright. How are you?”

Substance Use

by Salena Pudaruth

Content warning: substance abuse & suicidal ideation

Drown my pain, empty the bottles Transfer the damage from my heart to my liver Let me feel numb, disassociate me I need powders to mix in liquids The sounds of you crying still weigh my heart down So let me fly, give me pills

You want me in Rehab So send me back to Him

the honour toll

by Innisha (she/her)

honour is a unsurmountable weight they place it upon your shoulders when you cry for the first time.

it is a suffocating anchor one that only serves to kill, a flock of tragedies could befall me but their honour will be what does me in.

their honour has no place in my life I have spent lifetimes chasing it away, screaming, lungs burning, yet it seeps into my mind, exploring it like the nosiest of neighbours, i have not let it in, I would never brandish my key for honour never let it pollute me the way I have seen it slaughter others but honour is a thief, a thief of happiness, of control,

their honour knows how to pick locks. it doesn’t fear crawling in to rob your time and sanity it feels no burden in slinking up to your shoulders and sitting plump, waiting patiently to finally steal you off your days.

by Zehra (she/her)

i have a dainty velvet heart, a fitting muse for Renoir’s art; its gem-encrusted flesh mirrors the fabric of the universe. with fond care, like Minerva’s kin, i’ve sewn into its scarlet skin, pearls filled with love unrestrained, love that just can’t be contained. it gushes out, it pours, it streams, as all the starry gemstones gleam; when pain tugs at the seams so fine, of this dainty velvet heart of mine. for even in the face of plight, as the world unsheathes its blight, come what may, as long as i live, love is all i will have, to give.

*Renoir - A renowned French artist *Minerva - The Roman goddess of handicrafts

If you’re someone who feels everything deeply and loves without restraint, this poem is yours. I see myself in you. You will never be ‘too much’. Embrace your sensitivity, don’t ever change.

by Zehra Azim (she/her)

The holy sanctum of my soul –As sacred as a shrine –Is not built of clay and mortar, And masonry, and brine.

It’s a framework of fears conquered, Of bones veneered with faith; It carries my weight unwearied, No matter how strait the gate*.

Draped in flesh that is manoeuvred Into soft dips and folds; It shelters my resilience, Much gentle grace it holds.

Often I poison my mind with All-consuming loathing: It inflames my blood like acid, Cloaks my skin like clothing.

Yet everything that this mind births Is brilliant and sublime, This heart pumps blood infused with love; It renders me divine.

I can’t not be a godly being; No earthling can sustain Such fatal wounds, and still create Poetry out of pain.

*strait the gate: allusion to Invictus, by William Ernest Henley

DREAMWALKING

by Luna Moon

I startle awake in the middle of the night and reach for a glass of water. I look outside my window and notice the shadow of an eerie, little, curlyhaired girl staring at me, cackling. For a second I look back, stunned. Next, fear overcomes me and I flee into another room, but she appears again. I change rooms once more, yet there she is still. Always at the window. Always staring. Always cackling. In every room I go she is present, mocking me from behind the glass. I can no longer take it, so I run out the house. It’s dark outside and I suddenly find myself being chased by a pack of wild dogs. They have strange cartoonish features, as if drawn from Disney’s Lady and the Tramp. I come across a steel, chain link fence in front of me and clamber over it, splashing into a puddle as I fall to the ground. The dogs continue yapping aggressively on the other side. I look directly in front of me and find one glaring back. Its eyes are bloodshot and saliva is dripping out of its mouth. I’m afraid they’ll find a way to the other side of the fence and tear me to pieces. I get up and begin running once more. I’m now in the middle of a tube station. Hustling, bustling people are trying to get to places only known to themselves. To put as much distance as possible between me and my horrors, I hop onto a carriage just as the doors are closing. Inside, there are people dressed up in extravagant outfits, among wild animals. It appears to be some kind of carnival. Trumpets are blasting and many are dancing.

It’s strange how they would choose to take the tube, I think to myself. Maybe the bus was crowded. After a few stops, I step off the tube alongside a normally-dressed person, and walk towards the exit. I try to stay close to my new companion, but we are separated as I push my way through a sea of people. Once I’m out in the open, a big clock tower looms over me. I look up and check the time, it’s 3:15. Wait. I look at the clock again. It now reads 5:30. A lightbulb goes off in my head, but I have to be sure of what I’m thinking. To prove it, I pinch my nose. I can still breathe. This is a dream. I’ve just triggered my brain to lucid dream with reality checks.

But, wait. I’m always alone in my dreams, at least the ones I remember. It’s just me and no one else. This isn’t my dream, it can’t be. The beginning could have been my dream, since I was alone, but not this part. I just walked myself - or better ran myself - into someone else’s dream. But whose?

Think, think! I tell myself. I look around. The man from the tube carriage! It’s the only person that I really noticed, that truly stood out. I walk towards the clock and sure enough, directly under it, the guy from the train is at the centre of the attention. He’s being lifted up by the circus from the tube and tossed up into the air, as if they were cheering him. Out of the corner of my eye, in the shadows, I notice a man in a suit with a painfully wide cartoon of a sneer. As he heads towards the person from the tube carriage, he slowly morphs into a clown. This can’t be good. I want to shout Look out! But I can’t seem to find my voice. I just stand there, gaping at the scene that is unfolding in front of my eyes.

The clown joins the circus aggregation where they are tossing up the Tube Carriage Man. He finally reaches the man, who shrieks. The circus is all of a sudden replaced by a mass of clowns. They have malicious smiles plastered on their faces while they grab at the man, who is engulfed by the pile of clowns. I see him looking at me, begging for my help, but I’m too afraid to do a thing. I need to get out of this dream. It’s getting way too out of hand (and in some strange way, also oddly personal). Wake up! I tell myself. I look around. My eyes are open because I can see the ceiling of my room, but the dream is still playing, like a thin film coating, on top of my eyes. Everything is spinning and I start to panic. Wake up! WAKE UP! I beg myself. It takes every ounce of strength I have to force my eyelids open. The only thing I see is my bedroom ceiling. My alarm clock is going off. I check the time, once, twice, three times and it’s always the same. I sigh, relieved.

I get out of bed and take a shower, washing off all that remains of the dream from the night before. As I’m walking to the tube station, I stumble and bump into someone. I look up. For a second, I’m surprised. It’s Dream Man, as I’ve now decided to call him. He looks at me as though I were familiar. An expression of recognition passes over his face. He opens his mouth, as if he’s about to say something, but then thinks again. All this must have taken a fraction of a second, but it felt like ages to me. I feel like I know this man somehow, in an unusual and perhaps intimate way, but in reality, I don’t know him at all. I smile politely. “Pardon me,” I say. And then I walk away, deciding to move on with my separate life and becoming just another stranger. Just another face in the crowd.

The Other Side of the Road by Maria Pakpahan (she/her)

Where Dramaturgy Meets Demonology

by Shwetha Mahendran (she/her)

I think I’m alone when I sit in my room with hands that spasm one second and still the next under the weight of my Betaal brain— he piggybacks on a body that belonged to no king.

But when he whispers into my tear-bordered ears, I realize I’m up, spotlit with him as a seated spectator; I am nothing but the thing he implies,

“Glycerine helps, doesn’t it?”

smile, you’re on CCTV by Simrun Kaur-Rathore (she/her)

by Simrun Kaur-Rathore (she/her)

So I guess that’s it We’re done talking I feel empty There was never weight, on my shoulders More of a pressure, On my conscience Like a piece of furniture You moved out of my mind palace you never belonged there you acted like an insult to what I’d previously put there to what I’d so delicately nurtured with my own confidence confidence you used to love confidence you tried to overpower, with the musky stench of your insecurities so I couldn’t be happier that There’s an empty corner in my mind Where you used to reside I get attached to my furniture, yes but I won’t let one replaceable item jeopardise a priceless palace.

Thank you to the peachiest of teams for making this first issue of PEACH Magazine’s Peach Pip possible! Editor in Chief Maya Barter Deputy Editor Alexandra Craveiro

Assistant Editor Emma Inez MacPherson

Event Producers Tali Stowell & Anthony Crittenden Workshop Leaders Alisha Isherwood & Abbie Harrison

Social Media Managers Shwetha Mahendran & Laila Ali

Welfare Officer Zo Sajjad Secretary Yanisha Luckhea

A special thank you to Abbie Harrison for creating our beautiful front and back cover of this issue of Peach Pip. Illustrations by Abbie Harrison and Maya Barter.