Welcome back to our sixth wonderful edition of Pornstar Martini! What a gi to see another spring bloom before our eyes.
When not deep in the work of putting together a literary magazine, the PSM Editors o en bond over sharing pictures and stories of our lives from wherever we may be. Since we are based across continents, these snippets can look very di erent—a Paci c Northwest salmon festival, a European football nal, a return to a Southeast Asian ancestral home. ey can even be as simple as a photo of a beloved pet cat. Each tale paints a picture of a unique environment that allows an individual to experience a full and enriched life. Yet despite our geographical differences, these insights into each other’s lives consistently bring us a shared sense of joy. And overwhelmingly, the stories shared are ones of the natural world.
isisthebasefromwhichthethemeof “ecosystems”wasmanifested. For this volume, we wanted to encourage contributors to be in tune with their environments and to be unabashed in sharing what makes them thrive. With nourishment in mind, “ecosystems” is about imagining the possibilities of the whimsical and the natural while treating those interactions with awe, respect, and care.
Like many biospheres threatened by climate change and habitat destruction, many of our communities face danger and eradication from institutions in violent power. It would be impossible for a volume on ecosystems to not acknowledge the sense of urgency and alarm that appears in its writing and its conversation. Nevertheless, the pieces featured here all set a brilliant example of what ecosystems do best: resilience. Our contributors show us how we can take action by challenging binaries, growing, evolving, and creating.
ank you also to the ever-dedicated Pornstar Martini Editorial Team and all the supporters of this project. Without you, the magazine would have wilted long ago.
In Volume VI, we’ve curated each ecosystem to represent the fabulous diversity of pieces we publish, which in turn re ects our sparkling community. You’ll nd no less than dreams, re, ying blueberries, and a very special dog who expects the rain.
I hope this volume inspires you to blossom.
With Literary Love, Harriet Taylor Editor in Chief
B
Ecosystem 1:
Photographs by Shannon Wallace
One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night
“Alright, everyone. at’s it. Have a good night!”
One by one, and sometimes in pairs, all the employees leave. Punching out, getting in their cars or on bikes or simply walking home. It’s late and they’re all ready to leave the craziness of a Sunday closing shi and go home. Hopefully Monday will be less chaotic.
All around the store are stacks of boxes, empty at carts and hand trucks, and pallets wrapped in plastic. On the shelves, boxes and bags and cans are stacked neatly in rows or laid in baskets. e owers are in their buckets, sleeping and happily drinking water. e coolers are covered by their curtains and the freezers are full to the brim with ready-to-eat meals. Everything is quiet and peaceful and waiting for a new day.
e sliding glass door at the front slides shut with a nal thump and click as the lock is turned. e alarm beeps three times and then falls silent. e last car in the parking lot slowly starts up and pulls away. All is quiet.
A quiet clink comes from the wine section, followed by an echo-y “All clear?” call from the other side of the store, somewhere around the pumpkin display. “All clear!” in response comes from the front where the reusable bags are all displayed on the wall. Suddenly the store is full of sound; crinkling of bags, rattling of cans, tinkling of glass, rustling from the owers and houseplants, and a loud thwip thunk as the magnetic curtains over the meat and the deli/cheese section slide up into their slots at the top of the cases.
And chaos reigns.
All around the store orders of “Form ranks!” and “Man the barricades!” and “To your places! Rice and pastas in front, then beans, corn, and jackfruit! ” are shouted as bags and boxes and cans tumble from the shelves and line up on the edges of the aisles. Bottles of sparkling water and soda spring o of their shelves and roll to the end of their aisle, forming the front line as cannons ready to explode their contents on anyone who dares to attack. Just in time too. e minute the shelf stable products have taken up their posts, the perishable items launch their attack.
With shouts of “Charge!” and “Attack!”, fresh produce rolls o of their stands and stampedes towards the end of the aisles. Potatoes, onions, avocados, and pumpkins head to the east while apples, peppers, tropicals, citruses, and tomatoes head to the west. ey’re followed by bags of salad mixes and boxes of cut fruit and berries while blocks and wheels of cheese roll down from their shelves on the other side of the store and attack from the opposite side. Packages of meat and sausages follow the cheese, rolling and tumbling their way to form shields in front of the produce as the sparkling waters unleash a torrent of avored carbonation at the perishables. e front wall of meat falls, but as it does, the lettuce heads and cabbages are unleashed.
“Stand your ground!” Rank upon rank of condiment and sauce bottles, spice and preserve jars, and boxes of baking mixes and premade soups with their ammunition bags of chocolate chips and crispy fried jalapeño pieces—lined up in the back like catapults ready to take aim—take a step back and then lean forward as the beans, jackfruit, coconut milk, and olive cans topple from above and roll away to form ranks near the catapults.
With the barricades down, chaos reigns. Bags and cans are ying to meet citrus and teeny tiny potatoes in the air, while on the ground sauce bottles clash with pumpkins and apples.
In the next aisle another battle rages. Crackers, snacks, and the beauty department take on the cold produce. Blueberries and mushrooms, having tumbled out of their boxes, y back and forth, while the boxes of cereal and bags of unpopped popcorn tear themselves open and rain down from above at irregular intervals. Candle tins use their lids as discuses, knocking over bags of whole carrots and celery hearts. Boxes of fresh herbs and bags of cilantro launch surprise attacks on unsuspecting protein bars and multivitamins.
Beyond that, the frozen aisle and the dairy case are at war. Eggs and yogurts y o the shelves and hurtle themselves at bags of orange chicken and popsicles, slashing into the bags with their broken shells and foil wrappers. Frozen fruits and vegetables rip their bags open and hurtle themselves back at the cold co ees and pints of milk and vegan whipping cream knocking anything they can reach backwards o their shelves and into the walk-in refrigerator behind them.
Meanwhile, the owers in their pretty special occasion out ts, and the wines with all their dignity and class, have made it a point to never engage in such lowly displays of foolishness. ey are, a er all, much too special and surely above petty ghting, even if it has been going on for generations. e wines would much rather discuss their vineyards and why their grapes are so much better than
the hops and apples the beer and cider come from, and the owers are much too busy admiring their petals in the water and moaning over brown spots or wilting leaves.
Suddenly, amidst the yelling of vegetables, a cabernet sauvignon stops its irting with a newly added bottle of rosé from Stoller Vineyards with a pretty rose shaped bottle. In an aged and gru , but clear as crystal voice it yells, “Halt! Damn you! Halt! Cease re!”
In the corner of its vision while trying to charm the lovely young rosé, it has seen an enemy invader. A rat—one the employees had named Remy—sneaking away under a shelf with a bag of everything bagels clamped between its teeth.
e battle rages on. But the cabernet isn’t the only one who had seen this monstrosity. e bread section suddenly puts up a ght and also starts yelling for help in any way they can. “Help!” “Fire!” “ ief!” Nothing works until, over all the din, a French baguette pipes up and screams “RAT!”
For a moment everything goes silent, and then everyone rushes over to help. Fighting each other is all well and good, but intruders causing serious damage will not be stood for. Together, perishables and non-perishables alike band together and attack the rat. Fruit leathers are sent under the bread drawers to fetch the rat, while boxes and bags of all kinds block up the other side. Berries, potatoes, and kiwi fruits act as lookouts and call out the location of the rat and kidnapped bag of bagels. Potted plants reach their leaves and vines under the shelves, wrap the rat up in their tendrils, and drag him out into the open. Cheese sticks surround the vine wrapped rat, and together they drag him to the front door where he will be found in the morning.
With the clock quickly ticking towards opening time, everything scrambles back to their shelves and coolers and drawers. e boxed wines are the last to take their usual place, as they stand guard over the injured and slightly delirious Remy the rat. ough he is bound and unconscious at the moment, they insist on making sure he is seen by the proper authorities when they arrive in the morning.
e clock ticks ever closer to 5:00 a.m., and cars slowly start pulling into the parking lot. People in hoodies and a few in Hawaiian print shirts get out of their cars and head towards the doors. e wine boxes scamper back towards their shelves just in time. One of the people in the Hawaiian shirts sticks a key in the lock and pulls the sliding glass door open.
“Holy shit!”
“Oh my god. Wait. Is that the rat? Did someone nally get him?”
“Awww nooo Remy!”
“Jesus Christ. Finally.”
“I don’t think he’s dead yet. Quick, someone get a box!”
“Hey! Why’s there an onion all the way over by bread? Jeez, does closing crew not clean up a er themselves or something?”
High on Holy Smoke
Words by Kinsey Edwards
When I rst started thinking about Easter and 4/20 happening on the same day this year, I wanted to focus on the funny jokes. I wanted to analyze and laugh at the deep irony that accompanies these two seemingly opposing holidays sharing a date, but I couldn’t.
Too many thoughts about the reality of our world kept clouding my mind, ghting for attention at the forefront. How utterly tting that a Holy holiday falls on a High holiday this year.
e glorious year where Jesus is being reclaimed as the spokesperson for hate and harm. When Christianity has become synonymous with the Grim Reaper—death, doom, destruction—but under the guise of something much less sinister.
e preachings of my childhood ring in my ears. “Praise Jesus, he has returned! He died for our sins and rose again. is is a true testament of his love for us. He is here to save us all,” they scream joyfully—though I think that if he were real, he’d much rather condemn us.
He watches us worship him, celebrate his sacri ce, ll our bellies with candy we greedily snatched from plastic, pastel eggs while his birthplace is turned to smithereens. e remnants of his once lively home reduced to the le over rubble of bombed buildings, ashes, and the bones of children. e broken bodies of loved ones scatter the streets they say Jesus used to walk. If you love him so much, why are you killing his children?
I eat a Reese’s egg and pack another bowl. I want to celebrate 4/20. I want to be high on holy smoke today, but in this moment, I know I am trying to escape. e weight of this worldly truth is crushing. I hit my bong for what is probably the eenth time today. It’s only noon.
I watch the smoke billow around me as I exhale. I fall back onto the couch and stare soullessly at the ceiling. How funny that the dread of what has been done in the name of religion and greed can only be silenced by the Devil’s lettuce, even if it is for only a few moments. All glory to the ganja.
I hear the laughter of small children outside. I peer out the window to see what I expected. Toddlers and young children hunting eggs, grinning giddily over their latest treasures, gi ed to them by God and the Easter Bunny. All I can think is how fucking harrowing it is.
If he died for our sins, then we are all on equal playing ground. So why do men continue to revile each other? Why do we make enemies of one another? Why do we justify genocide, murder, and torture?
ose are not the teachings of Christ. We blame the Devil. Lucifer is at it again, tempting us with sin. Let’s be real. We are searching for an easy scapegoat to blame our bad behavior on. e Devil didn’t make you do it. We make our own choices. I pack my own bowl. I’d say you dig your own grave, but it looks like you’re too busy digging others.
e neighbor who says he loves me because we are all God’s children is the same neighbor who condemns me to an eternity in hell for loving another woman. e neighbor who tells me her door is always open if I want to pray with her is the same neighbor who whispers to others what a sinner I am because she saw me smoking a joint one time.
If being stoned, queer, and standing up against injustice makes me a sinner, then don’t ever call me a saint. I’ll wear my scarlet letter with pride, can you?
We think we are safe if we sit in silence. Comply. Don’t make waves, don’t provoke. But that isn’t true. I am not the only inhabitant of this planet and neither are you. We share this land, this ocean, this sky. We breathe the same air. We live under the same moon. We smoke the same weed. We are not more worthy or more deserving of space and time based on our sex, our gender, our race, our religion, our class, or our social status. We bleed the same. We die the same.
Is this not what Jesus teaches? He fed the poor. He housed the homeless. He loved people. He loved your so-called sinners. He loved pot smokers, sex workers, and homosexuals. But this is not love. If the game of God has rules, we are clearly out of bounds. Your hatred and your signed bombs won’t save you in the a erlife.
ey say life is cruel, but it’s not life that is cruel—it’s us. We’re supposed to be humans, but I see no humanity. If we cease to exist there would be no famine. No war, no genocide, no hatred. No ghting over land that was never ours to claim. No damage.
I grab my bong and take another long hit. I breathe it in slowly, wanting to savor the feeling. I let it ll my lungs before exhaling with relief. I could continue to question the fallacies of Christianity. I could continue to dwell on the materialism, money-grubbing, and appetite for violence that so intensely plagues us, but for now, I think I’ll dance with the Devil instead. At least Lucifer has good weed.
by Geordie Tilt
Photographs
AE-1 with 35mm film
John Day/Mitchell, Oregon
A Cabernetwithyourbillionaire,ma’am?
“Quand le peuple n’aura plus rien à manger, il mangera le riche!”
“When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich!”
-Jacques Rousseau
Nodding to a treasured culinary history dating back to the French Revolution, Pornstar Martini Restaurant is proud to present a unique dining experience that o ers the nest specially sourced billionaires to sample at your pleasure.
We have suggested ne wine pairings that are sure to complement your choice and bring your meal (almost) to life.
Enjoy your experience, and bon appétit.
Entrées
Murdoch Prosciutto
Dry-aged Rupert Murdoch prosciutto served with cherry tomatoes, balsamic vinaigrette, and Italian greens.
Pair with a bold Malbec to extract notes of smokiness and seventy years of terror upon the media industry.
Terrine de Dyson
Smoked terrine of James Dyson served with rustic bread and beetroot purée.
Pair with a dry, light Sauvignon Blanc to complement the dark façade behind shy claims of genius.
Satay Bu et
Slow-grilled satay skewer of Warren Bu et served with jasmine rice cubes, cucumber slices, and peanut sauce.
Pair with a full-bodied Chardonnay to balance questionable deals with the awe of still being alive.
Plats Principaux
Tartare de Bezos
Premium tartare of Je Bezos served with quail eggs and arugula.
Pair with a vintage Brut in celebration of su ering workers, wrecking local businesses, and championing environmental destruction.
Teriyaki Zuckerberg
Fillet of Mark Zuckerberg served with teriyaki sauce, tenderstem broccoli, ginger purée, and a sesame garnish.
Pair with a sparkling Provence Rosé to lighten dead eyes and highlight a fetish for all things Oriental.
Roast Rump of Gates
Roast rump of Bill Gates served with potatoes, seasonal vegetables, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, and all the trimmings.
Pair with a herbal Pouilly Fumè to accentuate the grassy delight of everyone’s favorite Windows XP wallpaper.
Menu pour Les Enfants
Nuggets de Musk
Elon Musk nuggets served with garlic parmesan frites.
Pair with a Shirley Temple—a simple delight.
Les Desserts
Crème brûlée à l’Arnault
A vanilla Crème brûlée topped with ambée Bernard Arnaut, served with gooseberries and gavottes biscuits. Pair with a semi-sweet Chenin Blanc to revel in all things fashion, French, and audulent.
Ballmer Key Lime Pie
Key lime pie topped with whipped cream and Steve Ballmer eyeballs.
Pair with a bubbling Moscato to complement the chair-throwing zing of citrus and American ego.
Ellison’s Chocolate Delice
Chocolate lava cake with a Larry Ellison lling served with honeycomb ice cream and caramel sauce. Pair with a deep Colombian espresso to revel in decadence and complete narcissism.
Please let your server know of any dietary needs your party may have. Note that we are unable to accommodate allergies to greed and exploitation.
Consuming raw or undercooked billionaires may increase your risk of foodborne illness.
Words by Harriet Taylor
by
“we talked and i’ve decided i’m going to hide a rotten egg in his toilet tank and sprinkle glitter in his carpet and slash his tires (not pictured)”
Lou Lundine
B
Ecosystem 2:
Photographs by Rachel Roberson
Greyson’s Raincoat
Words by Rachel Roberson
It’s your typical evening in Seattle when a woman asks me, “Is your dog expecting rain?”
It’s your typical evening in Seattle so I respond, “Yes, she’s always expecting rain.”
Greyson owns a hot pink raincoat. She’s in between sizes on the doggy size chart so it’s oversized, very practically covering her whole body with just her head and four little paws sticking out. She’s not like those other dogs with their booties sticking out, getting soggy. She gets a lot of attention for her stylish and always practical attire.
She prefers the rain to never grace her back, so she happily puts it on whenever I pull it out of the closet before our evening strolls. Sitting down without command, she allows me to slip it over her head, li a paw, and snap everything into place under her belly before wiggling her butt over to the front door. Without it, she comes quite quickly to a screeching stop just a few feet from our front door at the rst sign of active precipitation. Watching me walk on, she glances longingly at the house, leaning her weight into moving back towards her warm, dry bed.
But with it on, she has the bravery to make it to the end of the block! If she’s not too soaked by that point, she’ll step o the curb and keep going, allowing us to roam the city for a few blocks (a er responsibly looking both ways: le , right, le ).
Unless, of course, it’s windy. e wind, whether it whispers or howls, delivers terrifying messages that send Greyson scurrying for cover. If we’re close to our house, she pulls for the front door. When a big gust of wind comes far from home, she’ll beeline to the closest front porch. A refugee putting on her best puppy dog eyes for a chance to step out of the storm. Perhaps there’s a replace inside that she could curl up in front of while this passes?
I imagine the wind is overwhelming for her slightly anxious canine brain. It brings plenty of smells, which on the back of a light breeze delivers the evening news, but whipping by at dizzying speeds turns our peaceful neighborhood into a blinding Times Square. Along with the smells, it brings terrifying noises. Leaves scraping across the roadway! Pinecones dropping! Branches snapping! And there’s somehow always a plastic bag dri ing by (thanks Katy Perry?). All of her senses pushed past normal operating limits, she hunkers down and powers on. Paws staying close to the ground, she slightly lowers her head out of range of any ying debris and prays I’ll follow her when she takes the next right to bring us closer to home. Am I a bad mother for turning le and dragging her further into the treacherous night?
I wish I could explain to her that the wind, especially when it howls, is working to bring her presents! All her favorite branches (note: branches, not sticks) have been graciously gi ed by these winds that torment her relentlessly. Without their strong will, the tall evergreens would never lower their arms far enough for my sweet girl to chew them to pieces.
It’s all for her! e wind to bring her branches. e rain to keep her paw pads so and moisturized year-round. And—occasionally—the sun to shine down and change her cool grey coat to a warm, sunkissed brown.
I know she wishes for the sun every day. She longs for a warm patch of sunlight to warm up the hardwood oors as it peeks in through the windows. Any temperature above 65 degrees Fahrenheit (remember, this is Seattle) instantly drops her tongue out of her mouth into a widegrinned smile. She holds her head a little higher, blinking sunshine out of her eyes and gladly extending our walk at every turn possible until we reach the crest of the last hill on the way home and she slows to a tired, content pace as she soaks in the last block.
When we get home, she melts to the ground, tired and content, ready for a nap. No need to bark for the arti cial warmth of the replace to be turned on or to wiggle around on the carpet to dry o her rain soaked head. Maybe in her dreams she lives in a sunshine town, but for now, yes, she is expecting rain.
by Annika Dietiker
Photograph
Fatal Fungi, Death, and Decay
in T. King昀椀sher’s What Moves the Dead
In the face of loss or disaster, it is o en posited that nature will prevail—roots will continue to grow, nature will sprout through the cracks of destruction. Humans, on the other hand, nd themselves relying on nature for a sense of stability. In T. Kingsher’s 2022 novel What Moves the Dead, Alex Easton returns to their childhood friends’ ancestral home, where it is immediately obvious that Madeline and Roderick Usher are not the same as Alex remembers them—neither is the land that surrounds the Usher house, which is inhabited by invasive fungi. e fungi impacts Madeline and Roderick Usher, their house, the animals around them, and their psyches, highlighting the decay that nature can elicit in humanity’s livelihood. Although ecosystems can elicit a sense of belonging and stability, King sher’s What Moves the Dead decaying ecosystem unsettles and challenges the physiological, environmental, and psychological relationships characters have with the nature around them and the existing human-nature dynamic.
e surrounding land of the Usher house falls victim to the fungi as it takes over the landscape. Alex notes that the fungi looks like esh with “an indescribable smell—rotting esh with a tongue-coating glaze of spoiled milk and, rather horribly, an undertone of fresh-baked bread” (King sher 4). e smell of the fungi carried throughout the landscape, which is only exacerbated by the “cool and damp” mist that clings “to the surface of the dark lake and gather[s] in hollows on the ground” (42). e landscape is unsettling and the disgust evoked from it permeates the land around the Usher house. e fungi disturbs the usual smell and appearance of the area, challenging the characters’ understanding of and relationship with the landscape around them. In addition to the land itself, the wildlife in this decaying ecosystem is impacted by the fungi, which inhabits various hosts; the hares of the area, for example, move slowly, have lost their survival instincts, and can exist “despite half of [their] skull[s] being missing” (88). e fungi utilizes the local hares as hosts, keeping them alive, though with a low quality of life; the animals of the ecosystem are taken over by the fungi, losing their bodily autonomy, thus challenging the typical order of the ecosystem—the fungi rules all. e hares that are impacted by the fungi go against natural laws of life—the dead and decaying are alive and moving.
e environmental conditions of the landscape have an impact on the physiological state of Madeline and Roderick. Alex repeatedly notes how their physical appearances have declined, making them appear sickly and close to death. ey describe how Roderick’s “skin was the color of bone, white with a sallow undertone, a nasty color, like a man going into shock. His eyes had sunk into deep hollows tinged with blue and if there was a spare grain of esh le on his cheeks, I couldn’t see it” (13-4). Alex describes Madeline as a “slender, pale-haired wisp of a girl [who] seemed to have aged forty years, though [Alex] knew it had been less
than twenty” (19). e siblings appear to be transparent and ghostly. As the plot advances, Alex discovers that the fungi and the rot in the Usher house leads to the siblings’ deterioration. It is ultimately revealed that the fungi inhabits Madeline’s body and, even a er she passes, makes her seem alive, though, like the hares, with a low quality of life. When humans have a positive relationship with the nature around them, they might have a positive physical appearance and overall physiological state; experiencing sunshine, observing and interacting with di erent plants and animals, etc. can bene t one’s overall state. Madeline and Roderick do not have this relationship with the nature around them because of the negatively invasive fungi. eir bodies have started to decay at a rapid and unnatural pace. Nature’s sudden change and strength of the change outweighs the strength of the existing “normal” order known to the Ushers.
e fungi and the invaded landscape impact the Ushers’ psychological state, as both Madeline and Roderick descend into distress and madness. Alex references the disconnectedness of Madeline and how she does not seem to be fully psychologically present. In a letter Roderick writes about Madeline, he notes that Madeline has “fallen under the spell of a strange madness, one that leaves her speaking in ways entirely unlike herself” (130). Madeline’s psychological state declines before and a er Alex’s arrival; Roderick notes that she reverts to a childlike state. Roderick, too, experiences a type of mental decline; he says “I hear things now. Everything. My own heartbeat. Other people’s breathing sounds like thunder. Sometimes I fancy I can hear the worms in the ra ers” (30). Roderick has a heightened sense of hearing, perhaps due to the sudden change in his environment. Both Madeline and Roderick’s psychological states decline a er being exposed to the fungi. Madeline regresses and falls into a sort of madness and Roderick becomes paranoid with heightened senses. Much like the environment, the fungi imbeds itself into Madeline and Roderick’s psychological states, negatively impacting their lives and wellbeing.
e ease with which the fungi overtakes the environmental, physiological, and psychological state present in the novel demonstrates the strength of nature and the fragility of humans and their relationship with the landscape around them. Alex’s investigation leads them to nd that the fungi around the Ushers has permeated their home and livelihoods; the fungi has sprouted through the cracks of the Ushers’ lives. e ecosystems present in the novel and established relationships between the humans and nature demonstrate the fragility of humanity. e fragile relationship between nature and humanity is shown through the fungi that inhabit the Ushers and their home. In the novel, the invasive side of nature enables and encourages the decay of the Ushers’ physiological and psychological state, ultimately leading to their own decay and eventual deaths.
Photographs by Sophia de Léon
Windwyrms1
Words by Faith Byars
On our open-air garden path, I found the public kazoo we play
To buzz like bees along the breeze. Pause, let us stay
A little while, perform pas de bourrées like proper ladies do. Wait! Please, it will please the trees, who breathe sweet. eir leaves’ light Won’t fade for a few hours. My tender hand begs, instead, Sit with me, dear sister, ute- utter among the owers.
Our marvelous music magic makes the owers
Bloom to fruition. We full-belly laugh and play Innocent: children running away from homesteads, Scraping knees on the grass, nails grasping at trees. Stay, Says dear sister, silently; she sees Snake. e light Shines; its scales shimmer. We hesitate, heavy with weight.
Too late, we are—only history recorders. Snake never waits. Its brassy body curls around owers
Born at our feet. Snake snaps its jaws around daylight. Struck, frozen in the spotlight, like an ingénue playwright, We, too, poorly navigate this stained pastoral stage, staying In place rather than running to safety. Standing steadfast,
Sister plays drums given in mother’s stead.
Snake pauses in midair and falls, unprepared, unwilling to wait Upon the sounds of childhood compelling it to stay In service to the wind. Shedding its skin, opening like owers, Forming a husk: holy ocarina. I pick it up, and I play In harmony. We circle hallowed ground, bursting with light.
When the night comes, res surge, summoned by lightning—
From the ground up, we grow, fashioning a new homestead,
A safe place of alto, octave, and bass, where we play
From night to day and back again, never waiting
For permission from priests or phantoms or owers.
Yet, the buds join in the dance, and the bugs decide to stay.
Listen, listen, they beckon the others to the homestay.
And the deer and the wolves come out into the light
To meet us in the middle of buzzing branches. ey lay owers
At our feet, which we don’t dare to crush. Steadier
Now, the beat plays on, a full-sized seizure dream. Land waiting
To lull us to sleep, but—I’m all in—there are melodies to play.
A maternal chime calls from the other side of the owers—no longer, can we stay here. We drop our song— Kazoo meets drum; nothing plays. Not even a light, harmonic hum
Reverberates in the dirt of our stead. ey watch, irting with fate; the forest waits—
1
Lindwyrm, also known as lindworm or lindwurm, is a mythical creature in Northern and Central European folklore. ese creatures were serpent monsters (worm being a linguistic equivalent of snake) akin to dragons, which lived in the forest. ey had many o shoots in folklore, such as the more traditional ‘wyvern’ dragon. e windwyrm version of the creature uses wind and sound to protect itself.
by Annika Dietiker
Photographs
Photograph by Geordie Tilt
AE-1 with 35mm film
John Day/Mitchell, Oregon
Photograph by Shannon Wallace
digging out roots
PSM Copyeditor Holly B. McCauley and Guest Contributor Brenelly Díaz Soto sit down to discuss El Olivo, a 2016 lm by Spanish lmmaker Icíar Bollaín. e lm follows main character Alma (Anna Castillo) from Castellón, Spain to Düsseldorf, Germany as she tracks down a 2,000 year old olive tree that was sold against her grandfather’s wishes twelve years earlier.
Words by Holly B. McCauley & Brenelly Díaz Soto
Holly B. McCauley: What was the main theme of this movie to you?
Brenelly Díaz Soto: Connection. Connection to your land, connection to your family, connection to community. It’s spirituality to me. is tree is uprooted, and that breakage takes a life force out of the grandfather. And he knew it would.
HBM: Right, so we see a ashback to this family argument that happened twelve years before about selling the tree, and the grandfather says “If you take away the tree, you take away my life.”1 ey sell the tree anyway, and that obviously creates a ri between him and his sons. And now it’s twelve years later, and he’s no longer himself.
BDS: And yet, when he gave up on the tree, he gave it up. He even took Alma away when she was trying to stop them from uprooting it in the ashback. He was like, “You know what? Okay. ere’s ve of you. Majority rules. My granddaughter is with me. at’s all I’m gonna take with me. at’s all I can take from the tree.”
HBM: And all of them are screaming at Alma and telling her to get down when she climbs the tree to stop them. But the grandfather is the only one who climbs a er her. I mean, even when she nds the tree and climbs it again as an adult, no one climbs a er her.
BDS: Even when the tree is removed from the land, she still has that connection to the tree. It still sparks up all these memories.
HBM: It’s the way that you miss a family member.
BDS: It is. It’s like we said, the olive tree is a character.
HBM: It absolutely is. I mean, it’s the titular character. It’s a prodigal son.
BDS: Yeah. But it’s also a millennial tree. It’s not just the grandpa; it’s all the people that came before him and have taken care of the trees. Because for a tree to last that long, it’s because it was taken care of.
HBM: And he says that. When they’re arguing in the ashback about whether or not to sell the tree, he says something like “But that tree is not ours. It is my parents’ and my grandparents’, etc. You’re not the only people who are allowed to make this decision.” And I think that has to do with the spirituality that you mentioned as well. is idea that ancestors still have a right to this tree.
1Note that all quotes are translated by the contributors, so inaccuracies may arise.
BDS: at reminds me of how in my sustainability class, they were talking about how, yes, trees are out there, but it is so important that we take ownership. Even if they’re in public, having the ownership of having to take care of them. And in the movie, who’s taking ownership? A company? Is that natural? And they said a lot of olive trees when they get removed, they die.
HBM: Yeah, this one didn’t die.
BDS: I wonder why that was. Was it because the grandpa was still connected to it? I don’t know.
HBM: at’s an interesting thought. I de nitely think there are some questions about what happens to the tree a er the lm ends. Like, a lot of people are involved in Alma’s journey as an environmental protest. We do tend to get burned out on protests and move on to the next thing that we’re upset about. But do they continue?
BDS: We should focus, should lock in.
HBM:I know.
BDS:And I feel like that was a good way to lock in. I feel like that’s why the German girls were interested. Because they could root around a story.
HBM: I guess maybe it seems like too big of an issue to address otherwise. So the Germans hearing this one story that they can root around gives this purpose or avenue to accomplish what they want.
Something else that stuck with me about this lm is who gets involved. e two people who are most involved in tracking down this tree with Alma are her uncle and Rafa, this guy who has a crush on her. And they’re both involved because she lies to them and she makes up this story and paints their involvement as much smaller than it ends up being. And Rafa kind of knows.
BDS: He kind of suspects that she’s lying to him, but he does it regardless. At the end of the day, it was just, “I see you’re hurt over this, so I want to support you.”
HBM: Exactly. But both Rafa and the uncle have some kind of tie to her, right? Some kind of reason to support Alma. But they’re also not operating with the full truth. But the people that she tells the truth to, she tells them, basically, “I have no plan. I’m just showing up to Germany. I’m gonna try my best to nd this tree. I have no idea what’s going on.” Or even before that, when she’s trying to gure out what country it’s even in, the people who know the truth and help her anyways are always women.
BDS: But they have no stake. It’s community. It’s humanity.
HBM: Exactly. It’s Spanish identity, but it’s womanhood as well. Because there are even the German women who think, “Wow she’s crazy. I’ll help her anyway.”
ere’s also this song that comes up three times throughout the movie. Alma’s singing this song when she’s in the truck going to Germany. She sings it in a ashback as well, when she’s a child and she’s painting her grandfather’s nails pink. Which also speaks a lot to the culture in Spain, when you’re growing up under a dictatorship and huge machismo culture, and then sixty years later you’re getting your nails painted pink.
BDS: I think it’s about valuing his granddaughter as a person too. My granddaughter wants to feel connected with me, so why wouldn’t I let her? Why would I let machismo culture take that?
HBM: Exactly. So the song comes up in that ashback, and then it comes up again when she’s trying to connect with the grandfather in the present and she’s trying to get him to lock in when his mind is somewhere else. But there are two things that stuck out about it, and one is that it’s in Valenciano. But what caught my eye was I had the Spanish subtitles on, and they say “Sings a song in Catalán.” And that felt very intentional to me, because I’m watching this on the state-owned streaming network. Essentially the Spanish version of PBS is calling Valenciano Catalán, which for a lot of Valencian people feels like erasure.
BDS: It’s so divided.
HBM: Right. But Alma is holding onto this language that is divided today, and that was completely prohibited under Franco. Nowadays we go and we see the regional languages on the signs above the Spanish, and then you see the Spanish, and then sometimes you see the English as well. But at the time that the grandfather is growing up, Valenciano is not on signs. It’s not taught in schools. It’s not public at all. So for the language to have survived all the way to Alma is such a big accomplishment to begin with, and for the language to still be alive is intentional. So I think there’s a really big parallel there as well, between Alma really trying to hold on to this language that the government has tried to take away from her family, and her also holding onto this tree that capitalism and recession has tried to take away from her family.
BDS: You know, this is a random thought.
HBM: Please tell me.
BDS: But why was the movie in Castellano? Because in pueblos, they speak Valenciano.
HBM: And some of them were established actors, but a lot of them were just people from the pueblo in Castellón. e grandfather had never acted before.
BDS: And there were not a lot of lines in Valenciano, were there?
HBM: No. We had more German than we had Valenciano.
BDS: I guess they were just trying to hide the connection through that song. But at the same time it’s like, why wouldn’t you make the whole movie in Valenciano?
HBM: e director is from Madrid, and it was a joint production with a German company. So they’re trying to make it more accessible.
BDS: Quotation marks.
HBM: Yeah. Accessible to who? Maybe not the people it’s about.
But I’ll pause it there, because I do want people to watch this lm, so we don’t want to spoil anything or say too much. Just know I’ve seen it twice and cried both times. An absolutely beautiful lm.
billions swimming, sparkling, since the beginning before the idea of gender existed
All the love I give to all my Mermaids, Mermen, Merthems
You hate all the beautiful beings you deny existence, all the ghosts you deny death
You fuel rage.
You burn Nature with a smile
Aery smirk
but Nature is much richer than you the empty ght you started
Your grin cannot erase the bursting ood of our bodies lled with our joys and tears drowning you with our gleams e tide returns relentlessly, to extinguish the re of ephemeral cigars.
Photograph by Annika Dietiker
Photographs by Harriet Taylor
Photographs by Harriet Taylor
Words by Jazmin Polido & Ellie Williams
Blossoming Local Art:
An Interview with Ellie Williams on her new single, “Hostage”
With the Cali sun and birds chirping outside my window, I sat down one a ernoon in May for a Zoom call with Los Angeles-based indie singer-songwriter Ellie Williams. With more upcoming releases, I was keen to discuss “Hostage,” Ellie’s latest single released this May.
“Hostage” is an upbeat melodic ballad with Ellie’s signature incredibly airy vocals, li ing harmonies, grounding guitars, and a diverse production of rhythmic guitars, drums, and bass. A beautiful lyric video created by Remi Frogo featuring Lizzy Cameron was released along with the song. e single’s cover art was captured by Juneau Janzen. I asked Ellie about this art in relation to the meaning of “Hostage.”
“I did this photo shoot with Juneau Janzen,” Ellie explained.
“ e photos were so beautiful, and I thought that this photo spoke to me. I liked that it was of my feet, and dirt, and some owers surrounding it. To me, the song “Hostage” is about having an argument, but it’s also a love song in a way like, ‘I would rather talk out our issues’. So, having this photo that has a really peaceful vibe to it relates to me having an ultimately peaceful relationship if we work through con ict. Con ict and navigating con ict is a very important part of relationships. You got to stay grounded and do it, you know?”
is single is the start to an upcoming EP and came out just in time for a tour from May 16, 2025 in Miami, Florida to her last show on June 1, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Williams’ process o en involves writing songs by herself and playing them out on her guitar before going to Jack Kolbe, her frequent collaborator, to build out the larger instrumental of the song. Ellie and I both went to e University of Southern California and have stayed in LA since graduating. Ellie is in Virgil Village
near LA City College and a family arcade that she really loves. Since I rst started to listen to Ellie’s work her artistry has grown with quiet con dence. In terms of our digital community, Ellie has been a friend of the editors from the start and was rst featured in PSM’s second volume in my Heartbreak Recovery playlist. William’s “Warning Signs” is the rst song on that playlist. (“Warning Signs” was also produced by Jack Kolbe.) Now here we are two volumes later with “Hostage.” Ellie is still knocking it out of the park!
When probed on how “Hostage” came to be, Ellie described,
“I had been bee ng with my girlfriend for whatever reason. I literally don’t even remember why. I was just venting in my journal and it kind of became. at’s how I process a lot of bigger emotions, is through music, and this was de nitely the case for that. I was messing around on the guitar, I found something I liked and started speaking and singing at the same time. at’s usually how it happens; sometimes the rst thing that comes out is what sticks. Other times, I’ll sing a little bit and then it kind of falls into place. When I had this verse, I brought it to Jack. He lives twenty minutes away from me, so I’ll go over, we chat for an hour and catch up on our lives, and then we do the whole thing. I played the verse for him, which is so awkward when I’m thinking, okay, I need to sit through these thirty seconds of an idea I have. But he entertained it, and I’m glad he did because he said, ‘Oh, that’s really cool, I like that, let’s do it’. en we started recording whatever we thought. It was us going back and forth: okay, what’s the story? What’s the vibe and do we want to keep the same guitar part? Do we want to change it up a little bit? How do we want to build the song? You know, it’s very, very collaborative. Jack helped esh out the song. His attention to detail and building out that soundscape fully is a skill set that I don’t necessarily have. It’s very collaborative; we’re in the room together talking through ideas.”
When asked if she had any favorite parts of the song, Williams said,
“I think the rst section of the song is kind of my favorite part. Speci cally the lyrics in the rst pre-chorus of, ‘sharpening swords with harbored defenses’. at line, to me, is very nice. I like ‘taking space’, ‘taking my words’, ‘making sides’, ‘making a mess’. I like the use of the same word twice to say di erent things. And, obviously, I love the whole thing, but I am biased.”
Being the rst lyrics that she wrote, I thought this was particularly interesting considering their depth. Williams explained further,
“In my experience, I always start writing songs from the rst verse to the chorus. at sets the vibe. e second verse usually comes to me when I’m actually building out the song with the producer. Which is fun because then it just has a di erent vibe to it and a di erent perspective.”
At the risk of causing an upset, and possibly o ending Jack (if you are reading this Jack, I love your work and respect your skills; please don’t hate me), I wondered if Ellie had any plans for working with other producers. A er all, LA has a lot of musical talent, and I thought it might be a fun way to switch things up. Ellie graciously answered,
“Yes, I actually have been ... I have a project coming out. “Hostage” is the leading single of that project. at new project is entirely done by Jack Kolbe but there’s also a whole collection of music to come out a er that, which I worked on with di erent producers, but I am also still getting Jack’s help on. It’s very, very collaborative and has a di erent vibe as well.”
As a fan hidden in my little corner of the music universe, that’s what I wanted to hear. ere is nothing like knowing that the music will be ever owing and the collaboration abundant. I’m excited to hear if there will be any more connections made on the road. Ellie said, in terms of her community in LA that supports her music,
“My family is very supportive. I literally got dinner with my mom and sister last night and got dinner with them the night that “Hostage” came out. It feels very good to have family nearby that I can share those milestones with. I also have so many music friends that are releasing music right now and it’s so awesome to think, ‘Oh my God, you’re releasing a song this week. I’m releasing a song next week. ey have a show’. It’s all so supportive and I feel so grateful to be surrounded by such talented people and kind people.”
It was wonderful to talk to Ellie about her section of the music-verse and her collaborations. “Hostage” can be found on any streaming platform. Everyone mentioned has been linked in some way shape or form (the beauty of a digital work!). Lizzy Cameron has recently-released music of her own (including “Your Level,” which is also featured on my Heartbreak Recovery playlist). Juneau Janzen, as Ellie mentioned, is a phenomenal photographer. Jack Kolbe not only works on Ellie’s work but also works on a variety of projects for other artists. A beautiful part of making art is creating the community to produce it and it’s clear that Ellie Williams is a core facet of that. In these times it’s important that we go and connect with those making art. See shows at your local venues and interact with those around you—you never know what artists you will bump into and love. Here’s to many more songs from Ellie and Co. that will be featured in many more PSM editions!
If I li up my skin using my bellybutton for grip you would see the aquarium contained by my ribcage. I am lled with water like amniotic uid; the creatures both live in it and swallow as it passes through their systems. eir rst and last drink. ey grow in the ocean of my body. I, as an aquatic ecosystem.
e marine life thrives o of the energy that ows through the organ I bought and installed within my torso. Like a placenta, a part of me I have never had before, they nd a home. e a erbirth’s veins carry blood like tree roots carry minerals. When I came home, my body round with tiny beings, my boyfriend said I should have gotten a terrarium instead.
Despite his doubt, he likes to peek inside, bypassing my heart to watch the shes move around in there. ey circle one another and respond to his voice and touch. I thought I would experience warmth where he places his palms between my skin and organs, but I notice they swim slower beneath his ngers. I do not tell him. He only knows the one speed he can feel.
When I hear the glub glub of shes my nipples drip down my chest and in between my rib bones. My esh conditions are compatible with life and make a food source for their need. ey swim up searching for the white and fatty sweet milk. eir cries signal feeding time like the moon phases signify the passing nights. He looks at me crooked when there are damp spots in my shirt like I’m giving away something that should be his but never was.
I feel uttering, kicking, and swimming; never am I alone now. e minerals in the water are taken from my behavior, what I eat and sleep and breathe. And so I eat clean, sleep long, and breathe deep. When I am too tired to make him dinner or suck his dick, he blames my body for being weak.
He nds someone with a terrarium behind their chest. Fertile soil and ora ush with creatures inhabit the person he le us for.
My aquarium swells as the life inside develops color and texture, gaining sight and instinct and taste. I do not know how long it will be until they outgrow the habitat I implanted and nurtured beneath my esh. I ready myself for when the boundaries of my body limit their potential and I am forced to release them. ey will breach my borders and nd their bodies in the wild.
I nd him and ask if the shes do not need his care. We named them together. When I say so he gets angry and pushes me away. As I fall, I feel the splash of waters within me before a stream rushes out of my body. Algae green uid splatters the ground beneath me as my young nd their way to freedom. His eyes go wide while he backs away, never holding out a hand to help me up. e saltwater full of living things races towards him and causes him to slip facedown. His breath is caught up in bubbles, choking him, but I disregard his struggle to frantically scoop up the shining bodies cupping water in my hands. My ngers interlock to make a bowl, and my shes and I leave him at.
Without him I set up my tiny creatures in an external glass tank with vegetation and a heat lamp and little akes for food. I watch them utter their ns and ash back and forth as I call them by their given names. I attach the tank to a harness so I can carry it around with me to keep them warm when it cannot be plugged in.
Once my bruises are yellow and my shes are fully grown, I see him out on the street, alone, his body round with what I assume is an aquarium, maybe a terrarium. I do not make eye contact and ignore his cries when the waters gush out of him, but once I see little tails and ns reach the ground I make my ngers into a bowl. I reach down but there is no apping, there is no movement to be seen, and so my shes and I leave the scaled bodies on the pavement for him to mourn.
Photograph by Geordie Tilt
AE-1 with 35mm film
Still
Tides stop turning. I’m standing on your right, Where the land and ocean are meant to kiss. Clouds shadow the moon’s tango with the tide As the air goes still. Noise is to be missed. Gulls hang in the sky, stalled, like forgotten ornaments. My feet refuse the porous Earth; for a moment I feel like floating. Plucked from my lungs, my words are not for us, But stolen, in someone else’s pocket. I want to look for them across oceans, Capture the words in a safe and lock it.
On our own, I’m made still, caught in motion.
Wind stirs, there’s laughter, a gull cries crosstown, Alone, I watch the tide come crashing down.
The Astronomers
It’s late and he rolls over, away but not gone. I map our future, using freckles on his back. The little constellations dance with his breaths; I become the first astronomer as he sleeps.
I slip my hand into his calloused palms, holding him, orbiting at a safe distance. He is the fragile, youthful Earth, I am the moon, ever-changing and ever-constant.
He collects pieces of outer space as small gifts for me: hot, dying stars, lost and confused spacemen, the discarded projects of honey-lipped politicians, uninhabited planets, and crater-filled moons.
It’s nothing much, he says. I thought you would like it.
I do, but my fingers do not have the strength, And often the gifts slip right through them. They float back To where they came from. I chart their courses, Feeling out of orbit, and trying to capture the universe, The vast sky of nothingness, the blessed heavens, That only exists between our sheets and in the constellations Of our skins, not yet touched by the rising sun.
Photographs by Sophie Barnard
Embers
On the end of loving an LA woman
Words by Harriet Taylor
A sapphic couple in which neither party could drive was never going to end well in Los Angeles. I should have known it then, when I’d just turned twenty-three and fell hopelessly in love with you, the city incarnate.
A muggy April a ernoon, ground freshly wet. You insisted on a picnic date and I stupidly agreed, because even though you actually live in Northridge and have been avoiding me for weeks, I still believe LA romanticism will work its magic. I pull a tarot card and call an Uber. It doesn’t take long to wind out of my neighborhood, passing sage green duplexes adorned with lush plants in earthen pots. A few corners later, I trundle onto the freeway, where mysterious lives leave hot seconds on the asphalt. I’m nervous to see you.
When Reyner Banham wrote about the Four Ecologies of Los Angeles, he forgot to mention the most important of them all. Perhaps if he’d listened to Joan Didion ( e Hierophant) or Eve Babitz ( e Fool), or simply looked at the light in this city for long enough, he would’ve discovered the Fi h Ecology of the Heart.
In LA, the light is heavily perfumed in aphrodisiac pink, and the hills are so fragile they nurture their lore like worried parents. Eve’s lustful undoings mix with Joan’s electric anxiety, and the resulting cocktail tastes like an intoxicating spell for love. e heart races faster when everything’s about to crumble into the ocean. And in this ecology, Los Angeles and queerness have a lot in common. ey both stray from the prescribed order of things; a city and a heart that refuse to follow a linear path. De ned by community, touched by hope. Radical.
From the car window, I take in the thin mist blurring the distant Hollywood horizon. e city seems sheer, like an Italian lace veil that, when lightly draped over its subject, tantalizes the skin. Living here is a constant promise that nothing is as shallow as it seems. e Center Will Not Hold. It’s a recipe for weaving through thoughts as I merge onto the 405, radar planes above me like dragon ies skimming a pond, measuring the speed and my reasons for loving you.
When I discovered we were both writers, I gave up my title for the kind of LA Woman Tom Petty wrote songs about. You see, I fell for the Los Angeles in you. Your devastating beauty, as bougainvillea that quietly claims a midcentury modern. Eyes the color of winter sun through persistent leaves. e way you blink like time is nothing to you. e way your long hair hangs innocently; you smile at me so ly and give me an impossible look as if to say, “Can you take it from here?”
I arrive at Lake Balboa Park and see you from afar—glowing, faltering. We set up and I remember all the reasons you make me irate, rumbling with the pathetic fury of London rain. You pick at the grass while I want to smoke it. I want to kiss you while you only want the possibility. I ask you what’s wrong. You tell me you can’t do it. And you set me on re.
My problem is, I like when a ame doesn’t want to die easily. So I let it scorch me inside out. I do everything I can to reassure you, to x things with chocolate-covered strawberries, to stop you from sabotage of the heart, from destroying the Fi h Ecology. You say I met you at a Fucked Up Time, that there are fault lines, and with a quiver of a lip the ground shakes: the Big One is here. And you can’t even look at me as you tell me, in every way except for speaking, that I’m not worth it.
We’re both aming now, but you get to go home to those who have always loved you and will lick your wounds once again. I will smolder until I learn to save myself because I came here alone from a distant place. You watch me burn and do nothing until I walk away. Just like that, my Los Angeles is over. Now do you believe in God?
I’ve taken a lot of journeys since you le me. Journeys mostly to the most wretched parts of myself. To bookstores, where seeing your latest work bore into me like the Santa Ana winds. To tears, to gasping for air, to 7/11 breathing and “Tell me, what day of the week is it?” Grief burns as the brush does: engul ng everything.
But thanks to you, I have the slow joy of rediscovering Los Angeles. I’ve learned to rely on beloved friends, who hold me as an ember. I’ve returned to bookstores—they no longer make me cry. I like to sit out and gaze in the lone company of a new moon; venture up to the hills for forgiveness and to ask what the sunset really means. Los Angeles holds my queer body gently in its topography; it’s Fi h Ecology. It’s a place I can love without a person.
Now there is only one stop le in order to let you go: I nd myself hurtling towards Malibu in the dead of night, summoned by the tide. It was only going to end one way, wasn’t it? Tired engines pull me along the PCH in the way so ly-sung Elvis pulls middle-aged couples into drunken oblivion. Humid August evenings, ocean resort, he’s fucking the shady assistant and she knows, although she’s past the point of caring.
I nd a silent beach—its sand twinkles in Mazzy Stars. I wade into the crisp water. It’s so easy, salt in the cracks of my lips
Dousing the re. I want to be held.
And I am, serenaded by weeping canyon guitars, A limp cruci x in the current. I was raised to believe that to be baptized is to be cleansed. But in Los Angeles, in the Fi h Ecology,
To be baptized is to take communion with the light And know that you will never understand. To dri as wood; As would.
by Lou Lundine
“i like a boy who’s actually
Why the Fuck Am I Still in LA?
Words by Maya Gardner
I’ve discovered it is possible to go stir-crazy in the second-largest city in the world. Back home, when I felt listless, I would get in the car and drive until it subsided. I’d go to the forest, a waterfall, the mountains, all within a quarter tank of gas. Now I only go past the 405 for special occasions, and driving is torture. My car, which once granted me freedom, now tightens around me the longer I wait behind lines of taillights. One hour to get to Brentwood. Surrounded by my thoughts, by bad drivers with poor manners and honking horns, by houses I’ll never a ord.
Gas is up to $6.99.
Even when I try to drive it feels like the city repeats itself. e neighborhoods di er—Beverly Hills and Chinatown are in no way identical—but the drab blocks on blocks of strip malls and concrete that separates them feel redundant. Where am I?
When I do escape, it feels like a magnet draws me back to the city. I have two days of rest before I start to itch for more. Itch for to-do lists. Itch for movement and chaos and sirens. Why don’t I leave? Why don’t I leave for good this time? It is the question that covers my thoughts like a blanket of snow. e question that I am asked when I assure people back home I have not been changed—I still hate LA, a city synonymous with the Californians moving in and making changes, changes they hate. A city known to take people and contort them into leeches—the land of vanity and backstabbing.
Why don’t I leave?
e only answer I can think of is that I’m not done with it.
I moved to LA for the same reason most transplants did—hope for more. e city was antithetical to everything we had been running from. Tired towns that sleep at 6 p.m.. Schools where everyone knows our name and our mistakes. Places where your options were limited. Where, if you don’t leave when you’re young, you never escape. LA was hope. It was hope that you could do anything, be anyone.
e anythingness of LA is addicting. You really can do anything. Friday nights are ooded with variety. Friend groups get stuck in the paralysis of choice—should we go to dinner in K-town? Trivia in Los Feliz? A rave in the warehouse district? Rocky Horror at the Nuart? Clubbing in Santa Monica? WeHo? Hollywood? ere are sixty concerts a night, a quarter of which we can a ord, some don’t even have a cover.
It is easy to drown in the variety, to be all consumed. Especially when, in the span of a few years, your norm changed from having to create your own fun among the sleepy woods into having fun shoved down your throat.
at is the other thing about LA, you have to have fun.
ere is an Orwellian sense that everyone is watching you in Los Angeles, and they can tell when you aren’t enjoying yourself. Online and in-person there is an unspoken competition in some settings to be the person having the most fun—to be the person who is the most fun. In elds like the arts, which so many transplant Angelenos occupy, there is added pressure. You are taught to think of every moment as an audition. You never know who could be the person to give you a name, to make you into something beyond yourself, to rationalize why you moved across the country and went into debt despite the disapproval of your family.
is isn’t just every public moment. It is every moment on social media, every second in the sticky bathroom of the club. I found myself nervous about wiping my nose when walking down Sunset— someone could see and judge.
I had an ex tell me, “No one cares about you that much,” when I told him these fears. A self-proclaimed writer/actor/comedian, he too felt the watchful eyes of LA on him but had coped with it by repeating this mantra.
ough I still feel the pressure of LA’s watchful eyes, he was right. Somehow, in Los Angeles, it feels as if there can be two simultaneous truths—every single thing you do matters, but you do not.
Everyone in LA is a number, a means to an end, a connection. Someone could be stabbed in the streets and, in certain neighborhoods no one would bat an eye—they’d mind their own business. Dissociation manifests into something larger when people’s eyes glaze over you. No one looks your way in the city of stars.
With all of this in mind, I o en feel lied to by LA. I bought the idea that is sold in countless Hollywood lms, the American dream, the guarantee that I too could make it,could have my name written in the stars on the boulevard and live forever. No one had told me that the era of LA movie magic was bygone, if it even existed. e studios don’t even lm in LA anymore.
But it isn’t LA’s fault that I did not read the ne print, and maybe the quest that led me to LA was doomed to begin with. To be bigger than myself.
I think the rst step towards loving LA is to accept that it is not like the movies, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.
e res have made me realize how grateful I am to live in Los Angeles. Everyone is in a love/hate relationship with it. We complain about tra c but when the cool breeze blows between our bumpers it is like we all take a breath for the rst time. We think everyone is inconsiderate but when the community is in need so many Angelenos come out to help. ey donate their time, their money, their belongings.
e truth is, though our relationship is troubled, I’m in love with this city, and that is why I don’t leave.
I’m in love with endless options at 1 a.m.. I’m in love with the constant din. I’m in love with the quinces that boom through the neighborhood until 3 a.m., the lowriders that set o car alarms with their bass. I’m in love with the variety—the soul the city has, the beauty of its people a microcosm of human existence. I’m in love with the blatant wealth disparity, for the way it unites the oppressed. I’m in love with the communities that are kind and welcoming even when transplants like me displace families and gentrify their homes. I’m in love with the camp of Beverly Hills—the botox and logos and impractical cars. I’m in love with the chihuahuas and pitbulls and cockroaches that scurry beneath your feet. I’m in love with the food—the endless food, authentic and homemade. I’m in love with the cracks in the streets that owers poke through, a testament to the rolling hills that once were. I’m in love with starline tours, Mel’s, and the gooey, tourist mess of Hollywood Blvd. I’m in love with the camaraderie, the vividness, the a nity. ere’s always something new to discover—line dancing, jazz bars, turtle racing, museums for anything you can think of. It is a city of curiosity—with every ethnic group, religion, and even cult, having a home. No matter who you are, your people are here: sheltered in overpriced studios; buying cups of fruit, freshly sliced under colorful umbrellas; seeing midnight 35 mm screenings; cheering on the Dodgers or the Lakers (this city has made me care about sports, as sports are a part of its people), they are here dreaming and hurting and living.
It’s a city for everyone—from street food vendors to Erewhon shoppers—and it is not meant to be beautiful. It is meant to be real. A place where you can experience every walk of life, what it is to be human. It is the city of dreams—the city of hope. While living here o en pushes me to cynicism, there are moments that ll me with youthful joy—a bliss I thought died at the age of ten.
When I lose myself in the miles of concrete I know I can pull over to a red tent, get a handmade taco, and sit back. Have my moment of rapture among the noise, watching the complicated people in my complicated city.
Photograph by Harriet Taylor
Photographs by Cal Geib
Trash Tulips
Words by DeliaBennett
My rst serious boyfriend, Craig, a kindhearted and bookish British boy I fell in love with while studying abroad in England, once told me that if I could keep a tiny IKEA orchid alive for a year; we could get a pet hedgehog. He wasn’t joking or at least he didn’t seem to be at the time. I wanted that miniature hedgehog so badly. A little thing to care and plan a life for. I wanted that with Craig. Whenever I showered I would bring that little orchid into the bathroom I shared with my three atmates in our Camden row house. I misted it with distilled warm water, and put ice cubes in the pot—a trick orchid-rearers o en recommend in various orchid Reddit threads. I prayed that my £2.99 IKEA orchid would give birth to the miniature hedgehog I so deeply wanted, who I dreamed Craig and I would name Henri and make miniature hats for.
Six months later, my orchid died.
I was never again tasked with plant care in that relationship and the ones that followed. Craig never gave me anything that was meant to last. It was always dried baby’s breath or cut owers in storebought vases. When what is still the longest romantic relationship I’ve been in; close to four years with a man named Dean, ended three months into the pandemic, he took all of our plants. It wasn’t even a question, even though I’d paid for half of them.
e relationship that took root far too quickly a er Dean and I split was bookended by plants. William told me he loved me three weeks a er we met, while we spent fourteen days quarantined in his apartment under the suspicion he had Covid. When we emerged, he took me to Home Depot and bought me a weed whacker so we could tame my new backyard together. Towards the end of our relationship, he gave me a succulent called curio herreanus—a string of watermelons. He told me this plant symbolized how he felt when he was either falling or growing in love with me; like all the hot end of summer days we spent eating fresh watermelon on a sweat drenched blanket in Prospect Park. Somehow I managed to either overwater or underwater the string of watermelons in less than a week. William never stopped teasing me about how I killed his love plant; a sign that our future was doomed. Some plants, I suppose similar to people, are hell bent on decay.
It took writing this essay for me to begin to see the various root systems where plants, the way they come in and out of my life, have corresponded with the growth and rot cycles of my past relationships.
I began to resent my weedy, frozen square of city-trapped nature in the cold months that followed my slaughter of the string of watermelons. e dullness of the dead vines crushing the stone slab stepping stones mocked me with memories of the August days William and I spent chasing them o everything
they touched. I felt as if I’d failed my garden and myself. I’m not sure I’ve met another person who longed to be as deeply and irrevocably in love with someone as I once did. Every single break up felt like another setback from ful lling my teenage dreams of romance and relatively stable partnership. I wanted everything I touched to be a perennial, but dead annuals and weeds were all that remained of the yard we built.
Healing from the end of my relationship with William felt di cult in a new way. It was the rst time I began to think, “oh, I might not get what I want in the end.” I didn’t know if I had the energy and additional lives I’d need to bloom again. My Aunt Beth, who is part of Canada’s Master Gardener society, once told me that anyone could garden. She said there was no such thing as a “green thumb.” But that sentiment felt less true about keeping a relationship alive. In those rst few months of fresh heartbreak, I remember telling one of my housemates that I felt like I was a cheap Home Depot rosebush that was trying to thaw a er an especially long and hard frost.
My spring came early that year, where the sudden end of February met the beginning of March. I took my housemate’s Subaru to Home Depot. A solo trip this time. Flashbacks of William were hard to avoid. He and I dancing through the houseware aisles; him painting dreams for me of the house he’d build for us, and how we pretended to pick out sinks, doorknobs, and all of the other home- xings we’d never buy. I let him buy me that whacker because he said we’d grow the garden together, but now I was alone and barely strong enough to hold the damn thing up.
e memories drove me into some kind of gardening fugue state, and by the time I recovered I was driving home with six large bags of topsoil, a atpack of above ground ower beds, dozens and dozens of bulbs I had no idea how to raise with names I couldn’t pronounce, various gardening tools and kits, and several bug sprays for myself and the plants. I also bought something called a garden kneeler, which essentially looks like a makeshi prayer bench. I laughed, a little manically, at all the smutty jokes I’d make about spending more time on my knees as a single woman in love with her garden than I did in any of my relationships.
And yes, I knew at that moment that I was doing something besides gardening. Was this one of the stages of a grief cycle that I was growing through? Was this my upward turn that I felt would never come? Maybe I was in the reconstruction phase. Or maybe I was somehow and rather inadvertently learning to care for myself by restoring and raising my abandoned garden.
Fast forward to a few weeks a er my solo trip to Home Depot, with gentle nudging from the housemates, I nally hauled all the large bags of topsoil out of our living room and decided it was time to gure out how to break the jungle that had overtaken the backyard. e vines had
emerged from their icy nap with a vibrant vengeance, and had grown over all the random bits of furniture we’d acquired o the street and from various family members. ey weaved into cuts of broken rattan tables and chairs covered in dust, dirt, and bug parts. One very large and thick vine, which looked comically like something Tarzan might swing from, had fully encircled the squat rack my housemates and William had installed back in August, when William talked a big game about leading CrossFit sessions. He had purchased a large tarp to cover the rack to keep it from rusting in the elements, but as our relationship began to deteriorate, he also stopped harassing my housemates to keep it covered. It was now rust red with weeds shooting up several feet high through the holes in the weights that they’d le scattered on the grass. If it didn’t make me so sad, I might have laughed or found beauty in the makeshi brutalist art that parodied the archetypal bachelor’s planter.
When it came time for me to use the whacker on my own, a feat which required pressing multiple buttons and switches as I prayed (not on the garden kneeler) for it to begin humming, I ended up begging one of my housemates to crank it to life a er I dropped it on my toe. Caring for this rented land of ours was already a community e ort.
I built the rst above-ground bed—which we needed because our city soil, according to several metropolitan planting blogs, wasn’t conducive to growing much more than weeds—on a rst date with a guy I met on Hinge. We never hung out again, but he was helpful enough in assembling the bed.
I spent the rest of spring and summer planting our garden—which I began telling my housemates was my garden. I built another slightly smaller bed for a tomato bush, which produced the cutest and sweetest cherries for all of my summer salads. I grew poblano peppers and a corral of daisies. I bought a very fancy rosebush from a local nursery and a trellis for it to climb up. When the majestic palm in my bedroom didn’t like the mixture of light it got, I brought it outside. It loved me for it and rewarded me by sprouting more and more fronds in the weeks that followed. e sun ower seeds I scattered in all my beds grew into owers so tall—giant golden upside down umbrellas that grabbed the sky—that I needed to buy bamboo supports just to keep them upright. A fat ginger stray cat began treating my beds like a litter box, so I had to place mesh covering over them. Light enough to not crush the good growth but sturdy enough that he’d stop shitting on and digging up my tomatoes. I felt bad for him but worse for my plants.
At the end of the growing season, on a whim, I bought a hibiscus knowing full well that our climate wasn’t tropical enough. Everyone told me it was a lost cause, but it bloomed all through October and into November. I still don’t know how.
Eight years ago, a few months before my mom died, I brought her some tulip bulbs that I got on a trip to Amsterdam. Tulips were her favorite. ey came packaged in a little Del blue clog. She had our gardener, Stacy, plant them in our backyard that spring. Whenever my mom would make her way outside during that nal spring, she would see the tulips in bloom and text me about the trip to Amsterdam we’d take together one day.
Later in the fall, during a visit home to New Orleans, I dug up the bulbs from our backyard, wrapped them in a wet paper towel and put them in a Ziploc, and brought them back to Brooklyn with me. I remember thinking at the time that it wouldn’t work and was more than a little bit crazy. I was essentially bringing long dead or dormant earth on a plane and praying for it to come back to life. e miracle of the hibiscus plant had created a sense of magical thinking where me and my garden were concerned.
I planted the bulbs right at the start of winter. Before I laid them in a little pot outside, I held them tightly and whispered, “come back to me.” And then, yes, I put the dirt to my lips and kissed their desiccated roots, and buried them.
And while I know this will read as wildly unbelievable, the truth is that one day, the following spring, when I walked down the steps from my porch to my garden, I saw tulips fully bloomed.
A part of me used to die when things would change, especially when they changed quickly. It would feel as though a part of my brain would shut o and be cleaved right down the great longitudinal ssure of my brainy brain matter. I would close up when things, life itself, would shi beneath and around me—like a perennial bracing for a long winter frost. is is how I protected the rest of my body, the other half of my brain that had to keep me going—waking up for work each day, showering, brushing my teeth, and occasionally seeking food to keep my clothes from slipping o my hips and shoulders.
But that year, I think my garden saved my life. It kept me grounded, rooted in the earth, and forced me to care for myself through looking a er objects outside of my own well being in a way that had previously felt unknown. I had to do this ultimately on my own, with bits of help,
yes, but largely it was me out there each morning spraying my plants against bugs that would otherwise eat their leaves, giving them the right amount of water, and scaring the cat away. In some of the hardest moments, days when I wondered for a variety of personal and professional reasons why I was alive, when everything felt too hard, the simplest thing I could do, watering my plants, felt like a victory. It showed me that I could keep something alive and in doing that it made me feel, in the tiniest but most meaningful of ways, that I was capable and worthy of continuing on.
Our neighbors didn’t seem to care about their garden. ey had a few pots of plants that seemed somewhat alive, green weedy things that I didn’t know the names of, and an expanse of soil covered in trash and construction rubble. It was more than a wreck. One day, when I was headed outside to water the garden, I noticed two volunteer tulips blooming out through piles of abandoned bricks in their backyard. I remember thinking of that famous Je Goldblum quote from Jurassic Park—“life nds a way.” Several years later, a photo of the trash tulips made their way to my phone’s lock screen. I kept it there as a reminder, a planted touchpoint in my gardening and self-care journey of the ways in which sometimes in spite of unforeseen and external forces, a poor environment or incompatible surroundings, even in the absence of protection or a love life, my life and my garden is capable of continuing to nd its way.
“he broke up with me in the middle of the day in the middle of a date in the middle of the huntington”
by Lou Lundine
Photograph by Annika Dietiker
Gutbook of Conibuts
Volume #006 Spring 2025
Literature:
Blue Gacel
Brenelly Díaz Soto
Cal Geib
Delia Bennett
Faith Byars
Ellie Williams
Harriet Taylor
Holly B. McCauley
Jazmin Polido
Kelsie Crough
Kinsey Edwards
Madeleine Frost
Maya Gardner
Rachel Roberson
Tara Marshall
Art & Photography:
Annika Dietiker (@annikacarina昀椀lm)
Blue Gacel
Geordie Tilt
Harriet Taylor
Lou Lundine
Rachel Roberson
Sophie Barnard
Sophia de Léon
Shannon Wallace
Design:
Harriet Taylor
With inspiration from Enrique Martinez III
Logo by Katie Liu
Editorial Masthead:
Harriet Taylor
Cassidy Kuhle
Isabel Kettler
Cal Geib
Rachel Roberson
Jazmin Polido
Holly B. McCauley
Hayden Hurt
Tara Marshall
Selma Oueddan
Editor in Chief
Managing Editor
Poetry Editor
Features Editor
Fiction Editor
Reviews & Criticism Editor
Copyeditor
Marketing Editor
Editorial Assistant
Editorial Assistant
With thanks to:
Fleetwood Mac Twitter
Greyson
Pexels
Rawpixel
The Public Domain Archive
The Literary Editing and Publishing Master’s Program at The University of Southern California
Harriet Taylor (she/her) is a British-Malaysian writer and avid Stevie Nicks connoisseur from Penn, England, where sheep and the village ghost run free. She dreams of moonlit adventures and growing her platform boot collection.
Cassidy Kuhle
Managing Editor
Cassidy Kuhle (she/her) is a writer and editor with a so spot for feminist horror. Originally from Phoenix, she enjoys painting, and cottagecore moodboards.
Isabel Kettler
Poetry Editor
Isabel Kettler (she/her) is a writer and artist from Nebraska. She likes movies, ber arts, and jigsaw puzzles.
Cal Geib
Features Editor
Cal Geib (he/they) is a writer and editor with a passion for pieces about place, identity, and the meaning of “home”. Cal lives in Portland, Oregon where the outdoors, his cat, and his “old man hobbies” dominate his life.
Rachel Roberson
Fiction Editor
Rachel Roberson (she/her) is the Fiction Editor and a library enthusiast. Based in Seattle, you can nd her at an ice cream shop, in the library, or along a body of water— o en with her dog Gracie
Jazmin Polido
Reviews & Criticism Editor
Jazmin (she/they) is an LA native who works in music and can’t wait to nd her next favorite album. ey love traveling, chai, and the search for the next iconic media moment.
Holly B. McCauley
Copyeditor
Holly (she/her) is a wanderer constantly searching for home. She resides in Madrid, Spain, where she teaches English and tells stories about strangers.
Hayden Hurt
Marketing Editor
Hayden (she/her) is from sunny San Diego. When she’s not lost in Canva designing graphics, you can nd her creating romance fueled Spotify playlists, revisiting nostalgic movies, or reading the latest YA romance books!
Tara Marshall
Editorial Assistant
Tara (she/her) lives in Rhode Island for the ocean. She reads and writes ction about bodies and blood, the more unsettling the story the better.
Selma Oueddan
Editorial Assistant
Selma (they/them) is a community manager by day and spoken word poet at night. ey write and read to make sense of the world and themself. A sea creature at heart, they love to spend their weekends sur ng in Casablanca, where they live.
Community Resources
Feed the Streets | USA
https://www.feedthestreets.info/
Mutual aid organization bringing food, clothing, and other necessities to unhoused populations.
826 | USA
https://826national.org/
Writing non-pro昀椀t offering free educational programs to underserved communities across the US.
New American Pathways | Atlanta, USA
https://newamericanpathways.org/need-services/
Atlanta-based immigration nonpro昀椀t offering a range of free and low-cost services for refugees settling in Georgia.
Nebraska abortion resources (NEAR)| Nebraska, USA https://www.neabortionresources.org/
Nebraska Appleseed | Nebraska, USA
https://neappleseed.org/
Nebraska Appleseed works on issues directly impacting Nebraskans in urban and rural communities across the state.
LA Works | Los Angeles, USA
https://www.laworks.com/2025昀椀res
A good place to look for ongoing volunteering opportunities to help those impacted by the Los Angeles wild昀椀res.
Remainders Creative Reuse | Los Angeles, USA
https://remainderspas.org/
Remainders Creative Reuse is both a creative space and arts & crafts thrift store. They host sowing get togethers and different community craft events.
Kitty Bungalow Charm School for Wayward Cats | Los Angeles, USA
https://www.kittybungalow.org/
A wonderful cat shelter based in Leimert Park with regular volunteer roles.
AS220 | Providence, USA
https://as220.org/
AS220 is an artist-run organization committed to providing an unjuried and uncensored forum for the arts. AS220 offers artists opportunities to live, work, exhibit and/or perform in its facilities.
LitArts RI | Providence, USA
https://www.litartsri.org/about
LitArts RI supports Rhode Island writers through community events, workshops, and shared creative workspace.
McMinnville Trans Network | McMinnville, USA
Instagram: @mactransnetwork
A community organization that hosts events for trans folks (and their families) and also provides gender af昀椀rming products to the trans community.
White Oak Books | Vancouver, USA
https://whiteoakbooks.net/books
A small family-run bookstore in Vancouver, WA that hosts book clubs, poetry readings, and writing/study events for children and adults.
Queens Coffee | London, UK
@queensoncaffeine on Instagram
A small local cafe with delicious coffee and pastries run by two fabulous drag queens at the Playground Theatre!
Stonewall Housing | UK
https://stonewallhousing.org/ Free housing assistance for LGBTQ+ folks.
Trans Legal Clinic | UK
https://www.translegalclinic.com/
Trans Legal Clinic provides free and accessible legal help to transgender and non-binary people in need.
