PLUM PLUM PLUM
EDITORS’ LETTER Across America, states pride themselves in their personalized version of the slogan: “If you don’t like the weather in [insert state name here], wait a minute.” The phrase originated in New England, Abigail’s stomping ground, and rings especially true during the winter months, when moods are dictated by snowfall totals or strange bouts of heat. The atmosphere of the winter months is conducive to intermittent despondency and occasional, frightening realizations of the disjointed nature of the universe. This edition exists as an ode to the difficulty of finding an outfit in the morning, of maintaining correspondences with friends, of the stagnant atmosphere of wintertime. This month, the production of Plum, itself, was pierced by the days, even weeks, of lack of communication between two girls who were bored yet busy with so much to do. Snow will soon subside to slush and time will flow more evenly, uninterrupted by icy patches and snowy-wet boots. In fact, as Abigail is writing this paragraph, she has received news of the ways in which the grey-green slush of Toronto is marring Fay's new leather boots. Soon the days will stretch on longer, and schedules will contract, allowing for air to seep into life. There will be bloom, and rebirth, and plenty of allergies. Fay's boots will be momentarily spunky clean, and the grey green slush will make space for the marriage of grass, glass and concrete. Far removed from the sub-zero temperatures of Northeastern North America, there will be plenty i
of time to dream of hot chocolate, and blankets, and sweaters, and the need to lock yourself up every once in a while. “All secrets sleep in winter clothes” and wake up in spring time, only to find themselves back to the charms of early nights and little sleep.
~ ABIGAIL & FAY
~ PEYTON RACK ii
IVORY Sell your bones as ivory and let the elephants crush each ridge of spinal bone, curving your back into an ornament of fleshless inanimation, with tooth and hair and nail, chewed and digested and espoused onto the mantelpiece. In the gallery, eyes and eyes and eyes, without holes, pupils dull and weeping, blandly observe the inexpensive extinction, stroking the creases and smoothing the skin on their fingers over the mouth, the arms, the legs: paralysed. (6th September 2013)
THE BELL JAR On the outside the surface is cold and smooth. Fingers touch it and leave prints but no hand can hold it. People without faces live inside with me, and looking in are eyes and eyes, and you, you try to spit on me, to clean me you say, -- oh bless me for I have sinned -maybe some polish will do on my tongue, my mind, the little ribbons tying my veins with scissor legs, the necklace of gelatine-coated pearls tightens. Are you still here? I wonder if you swallow the same air, the kind that makes my lungs seems shallow until their syrup saturates me. The clock on my wrist tells me to go. I speak into the nothingness. There is nobody home. (7th November 2013)
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VIRUM ET MULIERUM He carried me on a bag over his shoulder, the plastic clinging to my bare skin. I was never small enough to fit in his pocket but he liked to take me everywhere; have me anywhere he wanted. It became hard to breathe and one day he forgot to untie the knot leaving the air to smother me so my words became whispers, and my naked body was framed in the gallery of his bedroom, in his bag always: the muse, the statue, the portrait; the most valuable piece of art and the loneliest creature. (20th April 2013)
~ TILLY MARTIN
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THE LEXICON OF WINTER fathom (v): I never could see why he put up with me. I didn’t try to piece it together until months later. impossibly (adv): I’m silly, and for a while, I thought he was silly, too. We both liked the ridiculous little things like candlelit dinners and window seats and steaming mugs of tea. But there’s always been a rougher edge to him, as if he belongs on mountains instead of the rolling hills that surround us. He has a vague, shimmery quicksilver aura that has always slipped out of my hands. eleutheromania (n): Hearts trying to escape ribcages and words trying to escape tongues and teeth. Everything tangled in the wind whipping our faces. I’m trapped under snow and tightly woven wishes, and suddenly I crave ruthless sunbeams. naive (adj): He’s going to hold on a few more months at least. Maybe he’ll get up, even. If he doesn’t, I’ll probably shut myself in my room for days, utterly silent, and everyone will finally realize how young and brittle I am. By that time it’ll be too late, and salt and pepper tears will fall out of the cracks in my eyes, like the world is ending. cliché (n): Crooked smiles, cheeks red as roses, walks together down the primrose path. Love at first sight. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Throw a stone and two birds fall. “Careful where you step, dear. You’re walking on eggshells.” 5
slumber (v): We were so cautious in the woods. We bundled our faces up with scarves so that not even our faintest thoughts would disturb the sleeping creatures. And a good thing, too, because my very breath, curling through the air, would have woken them with its stinging, overwhelming hope. lissome (adj): I first ran into her that day at the cinema, when we snuck into a second film without paying for another ticket. She was everything I’d once longed to be willowy and tall, with fairy pool eyes. But I thought I didn’t need that anymore when I met him. No, not until I saw the way his eyes held her. reckless (adj): Then he swam out in the town lake when the mercury in my thermometer was teetering just above freezing, trying to decide whether or not to fall. catastrophe (n): Then he wouldn’t wake. disillusionment (n): Not up to scratch, no, I thought then. He was never meant to be held. For now I’m Gatsby, grasping at a green light that should grant all my wishes but has already drifted far off into the clashing of colors. Listen to the voice on the radio, buzzing, and now we wait. My heart hibernates. It’s telling him to come and get it.
~ CHRISTINA IM
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ANONYMOUS Convince me with the commercials the moisturisers to lavish upon my dewy complexion with rosy hewed cheeks frost bitten, but never chapped, lips behind which I’ll sing you a carol, a sonnet, devoid of denomination. Across the snow I come careening like the last scenes of a forgotten festive favourite surely it’s contradiction to say I adore dragging a dying evergreen and clothe it in plastic fluorescent lights I’m the drunk in the corner and I adore everything it’s the reason my blood is forty per cent alcohol and my heart is two sizes too small. ~ CLAIRE SOSIENSKI SMITH
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~ CHARLOTTE STRANGE 8
THE SKIN, THE KEY, & HE It was as if a thick pane of clear glass was separating me From the rest of the world As if I would never be able to get passed it- Trapped. I was trapped. Rendered completely dependent on some form of salvation that obviously wasn’t coming. I wanted to run. Escape from my cage, But I was contained by my clear walls.
as a foreign entity. At night, I wept. Allowed the tear from my eyes To be dried by the memory of his smile. But by dawn he had washed away. He does not exist except in societal proportions. There is No key being handed to me. I sit in English class Day dreaming about things that will never be true. Looking out the window as if the sunshine Could save me But no amount of wishful thinking could ever speed up time
"This" he said Is no way of living As he reached through the wall to hand me a key. I held it close. Allowed it to make indents on my palm until it became part of me. Sunk deep into the skin I had grown so tediously.
I fill the key hole in my palm With poetry and scenery. Allow my thoughts to run free form Running suicides in my mind And pole vaults in my heart. Because the only thing that fits my palm is complete and utter freedom.
This He said Is growing.
~ ELIZA CLAIRE D
The walls stayed up- Turned from glass to brick Because my body recognized his love 9
~ CHARLOTTE STRANGE 10
~ CHARLOTTE STRANGE
STRIPPERS IN OREGON jelly fingers and rotten fingernails—babies babies babies the yelling of five men rings as orange peel skin rubs down the edge of copper and there aren’t any windows here… the blonde rays coming from the damp lights. doughnut glaze dripping down their backs. they all struggle to say what their mothers meant to tell them about checkered table cloths and shucking corn (not shucking fucking corn) 11
bubbling smiles until they start to realize that they are bleeding they could never love those brimming breasts that everyone else praises even though it’s always musty black in here they can some days hear birds singing in mornings through the glittering bra straps and it reminds them that they are alive— ~ BERTILLE SOBIESK
~ CHARLOTTE STRANGE 12
CONTRIBUTORS Peyton Rack is an artist from Virginia Beach currently residing in Chicago. Her current portfolio investigates ideas about overindulgence and the subject of display. In the past year, she has exhibited paintings in galleries throughout the city while attending school. Tilly Martin is a third year at the University of Chester studying English Literature and Creative Writing. She is a collector of small and beautiful things: she collects perfume bottles nearly as much as she collects words. Christina Im is an aspirant wordsmith obsessed with anything that floats around the word "whimsical". She is currently working on a novel in her prodigiously rainy hometown, where she enjoys disrupting puddles and other norms. With her leftover time, she blogs at lifeisinexpressible.blogspot.com. Claire Sosienski Smith is 17 years old, from Brighton. Bertille Sobiesk is from NY, USA. She spends her days immersed in school, poetry, and her constant battle for self love.
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~ PEYTON RACK, to whom we are incredibly grateful for our cover art 14
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