Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 3.1

Q

Anthology of Queer Culture

VOLUME 3 ISSUE 1 SPRING 2020

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture Copyright Š 2020 by Q* Anthology of Queer Culture All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher.

Printed in the USA

“I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort where we overlap.”

- Ani DiFranco1

Q* ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER CULTURE

Editor-in-Chief: Kasey Roper, CLAS ‘21 Executive Editors of Copy: Sagarika Shiehn, CLAS ‘22 Eileen Ying, CLAS ‘20 Executive Editors of Production: Lily Menzin, ARCH ‘23 Madeline Wynne, CLAS ‘22 Associate Editors: Madison Aurnou, CLAS ‘21 Blake Hower, CLAS ‘23 Jeffery Huang, CLAS ‘23 Financial Chair: Gabriella Vargas, CLAS ‘23 Alumni Advisor: Kyle J. Gename, ARCH ‘19

PURPOSE Q* Anthology of Queer Culture is a student-run annual literary magazine and online platform that publishes creative content relating to LGBTQ (or queer) culture. Not only does Q* create a platform for a range of queer and allied voices by providing an outlet to share their experiences and works, it also promotes dialogue on queer issues, both within the queer community and between the queer and non-queer communities. Q* provides permanence, voice, and visibility to a wide audience, aiming to promote awareness of queer issues, further mutual understanding between individuals and communities, and preserve an important aspect of culture, both at U.Va. and in Charlottesville.

PLATFORM Q* is a multifaceted platform, just as our contributors and their works are multifaceted.

With both a print and online edition—and some pieces available exclusively online—Q* creates spaces for expression and experimentation, both in the genre of writing and in how works are presented via different mediums. The anthology is driven by queer voices. We understand that the experiences of members and allies of the queer community cannot be captured simply by U.Va. students, and thus welcome submissions from U.Va. alumna, U.Va. faculty and Charlottesville community members. Editors select pieces based on the quality of content and relevenance to the queer community.

PUBLICATION Q*’s student editors have complete creative control over which submissions are chosen, how they are edited, and how the anthology is organized. Though we maintain this creative control, we strive to stay true to each author’s original writings, stylistic choices, and formatting when possible. More specifically, Q* submissions are reviewed by our copy team and a smaller team of two to three executive editors. In the final stage, editors review the submissions in more detail, refining flow, syntax, and general layout. Selected pieces are formatted and published online and/or in print by a team of production editors, who also design the entirety of the anthology and create its theme.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 8

Letter From the Editor Thematic Note & Trigger Warning

11 17 29 30 45 46 65

POETRY Bruises Lee RSC

Ode to the Dancers Alex Capria

Screensaver Myka Greene

A Visitor Myka Greene

Lifting the Mask Jake Greenberg

One & Only Jake Greenberg

How Queer You Are RJ Selby

14 19 27 31 41 42 49 62

VISUAL ART Transgender Sunset

FICTION

Anonymous

Vivid Hana Suliman

PiquancĂŠ Anonymous

Sara Hana Suliman

Suffocating

21 33 51

Sneak Jacob Olander

Terminal Velocity Maegan Perry

This Story is Not About You E. Smith

Hana Suliman

She and Her Hana Suliman

Gender Space Explorer Zoe Pham

Gender Chaotic Anonymous

68 70

Afterword Endnotes

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 2020. The start of a decade. A moment for reflection.

I would like to take a moment to reflect on the steps the queer community has taken— across the nation, at the University of Virginia, and, most importantly, as a group of diverse folx.

Members and allies of the queer community have been coming together long before the Stonewall Riots—which were 50 years ago as of last summer—and we will no doubt continue to gather and connect in order to spark political and social change.

The same is true of queer students at the University of Virginia, who have encouraged and pushed for several legislative changes over the past few years. This semester, the QC moved locations, from the basement of Newcomb to the third floor Kaleidoscope room. A fitting name for a room full of such different shapes, sizes, and colors. While there are still concerns over its visibility—especially for students who are not out—the new, bigger room allows for more folx to use and exist in a welcoming space.

Meanwhile, Q* has also made several figurative moves. During its third year at the University of Virginia, Q* Anthology of Queer Culture has maintained its original purpose to be a place of expression, dialogue, and connection for the queer community at U.Va and in Charlottesville.

We have also expanded beyond this purpose.

As an anthology, our mission is to bring together the creative works of many diverse folx.

The asterisk in our name, Q*, is a symbol of inclusion. It is a declaration; it yells, “there is more to us than what you see named here.” The same is true of the queer community, the diversity and complexity of which cannot be captured even by a printed anthology such as this one. It is simply not possible to express the wide range of queer experiences within these pages, which is why we have expanded our online edition beyond reproducing pieces found in the print edition.

By making some pieces available exlcusively online, we hope to provide the opportunity for even more pieces to be published, thus increasing the availability of queer content and the number of queer voices heard.

In a community that is increasingly moving away from restricting people to confining labels and assumptions, it is important to use the terms and pronouns that individuals self-identify with.

With the understandably increasing concern over rights for transgender and non-binary folx, Q* has dedicated itself to ensuring the correct pronoun usage for non-anonymous contributors.

Additionally, we have included a trigger warning for the first time. Q* would like to acknowledge the painful experiences some members of the queer community have by publishing them while also being considerate to all of our readers. That is not to say that previous editions of Q* have disregarded the experiences of our readers, but rather, to account for the increasing amount and intensity of potentially triggering content. The reason for this increase I cannot say; however, I like to think that queer folx are becoming more willing to share their experiences with one another and the world, reaching out and offering others a safe place to connect, empathize, and understand.

If any of this has resonated with you, or if you would like to become more involved with the efforts to support and contribute to this publication, I encourage you to view pieces online and contact The Q* Team. Pieces are available on our website, www.qanthology.com. Submissions, donation inquires, and any other comments can be sent to our email, uvaqueerantholgy@gmail. com. I also encourage anyone interested in being a part of the publication process to consider joining the copy, production, or executive team of the Q* Anthology.

Thank you for your support of the Q* Anthology of Queer Culture. I hope you enjoy the spring 2020 edition!

Sincerely,

Kasey Roper she, her, hers College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2021, Area Program in Poetry Writing (APPW) & Distinguished Media Studies

Kasey is a third-year double majoring in the English Department’s Area Program of Poetry Writing (APPW) and the Media Studies Department’s Distinguished Majors Program. When she is not working on Q* or taking copious notes in class, she is most likely finding pineapples in the most random of places—from cookie jars to baseball caps—and adding them to her ever-growing collection of pineapple memorabilia. She also writes for ABCD Magazine, an online section of The Cavalier Daily, and writes creatively in her spare time. You can also find her hosting board game nights with friends, even though her cat knocks over all of the pieces.

THEMATIC NOTE The theme for this spring’s edition of the Q* Anthology of Queer Culture, “Connect” is about bringing creative pieces and people together. Since its inception, Q* has been dedicated to bringing the works of queer and allied authors together in a single space—the anthology you are holding right now, as well as our online platform.

Q* is also dedicated to the convergence, intersection, and interaction of diverse opinions, identities, and experiences of its contributors and readers.

In a community that has several smaller communities within it, it is essential to acknowledge and include as many voices as possible, which Q* continuously strives to do. No one color makes up the rainbow, just as no one gender identity, sexual orientation, race, or group makes up the entire queer community. And while each color and community stands proudly on its own, we are brighter together. The rainbow bar elements throughout the anthology intersect and join just as the numerous smaller communities come together to make up the larger queer community at the University of Virginia and in the Charlottesville community.

As you read through the third print edition of Q*, we hope that you find various ways to connect the pieces that have found a home within its pages, acknowledging both the strength and the impact they have on their own, as well as the power and resonance they have when brought together. There is no single narrative within the queer community, and Q* does not intend to present one. Rather, we give the pieces a place to exist, a space where they—and their readers— can “Connect.”

TRIGGER WARNING In order to acknowledge the diverse experiences of both our contributors and our readers, Q* includes content on various subjects—from fictional musings on why it’s hard for queer teens to find love to artistic depictions of what it’s like to explore gender identity. Q* also includes content that may be triggering to some readers. As a community that has faced extreme discrimination and violence, we feel that it is important to recognize those experiences while being conscious of how they may affect our readers.

Please be advised that in order to avoid undermining or failing to acknowledge the hardships our community and its members have faced, we have included pieces with potentially triggering content, including: Abusive relationships Gossip Homophobia Physical abuse Suicide Transphobia Verbal abuse Violence Please remember to take care of yourself before, during, and after reading.

There are several resources on Grounds that you can reach out to, including the QC’s HELPLine, which can be reached at (434) 295-TALK and Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS), which can be reached at (434) 924-5556. There is also a 24-hour emergency helpline through CAPS: (434) 243-5150. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255.

Lee RSC

Lee RSC she, her, hers McIntire School of Commerce Class of 2020, Marketing & Management Digital Media & Advertising Track

Lee transferred to UVA in her third-year from Northern Virginia Community College, and immediately became involved in as many creative endeavors as she could, with poetry being the main thing that stuck. Writing “Bruises” was a project inspired by memories of her first relationship (and first love), which was inevitably tied to her realization that she is very very queer. Growing up in a hyperreligious household and community, she used to pray that her feelings and thoughts would go away; if not for her sake, then for the sake of the people she fell for. While “Bruises” does not address religion outright, it does discuss violence and homophobia found in family members. Writing this ultimately offered her a sense of closure to a time dichotomously characterized by love and constant anxiety—something many others in the LGBTQ+ community have faced in similar ways. She’s doing very nicely now, though, and has since come out to her sister, who reacted with nothing but support and kindness. Lee’s biggest inspiration in writing comes from poets such as Anne Carson (see: The Glass Essay) and Danez Smith, as well as more visual pursuits such as photography and sketching. She’s also very involved in Queer life on grounds, and you can probably find her napping in the QC on any given day.

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Bruises Gillian Anderson was my Sexual Awakening except I wasn’t so much awake as I was a groggy kind of confused.

See, the 12 year old reflection of me would wake up still dreaming and wonder

How can someone be so beautiful?

Well, Dear Younger Me: Roses are red Violets are blue I hate to break it to ya But you like girls too.

But this is not a love poem.

I was hit with a much harsher wake-up call when I was 14, when I found that dreamlike feeling of white-hot lightning could come off the screen and into my reality.

The first time we met, she was in the middle of laughing —God that laugh.

She was all skinned knees and honey brown eyes.

How can someone be so beautiful?

She was summer in the palm of my hand, all fluid liquid that burned my tongue, challenging the power of the sun.

She was a pyromaniac, looking for her next match and there was me, shyly eager in my willingness to act as tribute.

Do with me what you please.

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Lee RSC

No structure she emulated a thing of nature Making me as aware of the purples, blues, yellows, and pinks above me and the textures beneath my fingertips as I was of her.

We mirrored each other, what was hers was mine.

Together we were unknowingly and absolutely human

Is that alright with you?

I learned quickly that she was something gentle, something that you made sure not to bruise.

Our shared seconds were occupied in the matter of hiding, saving our whispers for lonely moments.

Summer heat, mise en scène, her hand in mine exploring where our ends met and our beginnings intertwined.

Being soft, eyelashes on skin

making sure not to press so hard as to leave a bruise.

And that first kiss? A splash that covered, enveloped me in an ocean of blue.

She taught me how to swim.

Her lips were so soft, like the lilac streak found on the edge of— well, don’t worry about it.

The air was so quiet, still, turning yellow at the fringes and drowning us in our own breathing —she said I tasted like apples.

We always made sure not to bite so hard as to leave a bruise.

This is not a love poem.

We knew this wasn’t allowed.

Wasn’t supposed to be: “This isn’t some fucking movie.”

We must have realized that pretending to be something we weren’t when other people were around would fall through eventually 12

Because I remember when that knock on the door jolted us out of our dreaming.

Her father’s best preaching voice sending white lightning, now panic, through me, saying it was time for me to go.

Why?

After that, she wore bruises like a watercolor canvas.

Across her knuckles, her face.

Someone was not as careful as I had been.

Someone had the privilege of holding her in their hand and abused it.

You should have seen her apologetic eyes, those honey brown eyes, somehow turned into clouds sick with black rain Offering only searing pain, hot-white lightning, accompanied with the whisper of, “My mother has threatened to tell your parents if we keep doing this,” escorted by the beat of a combined rush through our veins—

What is “this”?

Well.

Roses are red Violets are blue My Dear, didn’t you know?

Bruises are too.

Love is not born from bruises; it is killed, and these words cannot revive it or bring it back.

The past is gone, inaccessible.

This is not a love poem.

This is a letter.

To my Younger Self: Please remember to be gentle.

Please remember you will be alright.

Please forget how the colors of her skin matched the bleeding plum of the shifting afternoon light.

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 13

Anonymous

Transgender Sunset

Medium: Chalk on paper Size: 8.5 x 11 inches “Gender Person stands and looks at the sunset in a binary land.�

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Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 15

Alex Capria

Alex Capria he, him, his College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2020, English & Media Studies

Alex loves to write short stories (mostly in the genres of young adult fiction and science fiction) and poetry when he’s feeling particularly inspired. He currently works at the Writing Center, which combines his passions for writing and helping others. His goal is to work in publishing, specifically young adult fiction, to help share stories with those who need it most in terms of shaping their identities—kids and teens. He also loves to run and cook despite being mediocre at both. His other, more creative, involvement is his position as a peer reviewer/editor at the Movable Type Media Studies Journal. ***** “Ode to the Dancers” was inspired by Andrea Gibson’s poetry, specifically her spoken-word poem “Orlando,” which is an elegy for the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting. Alex’s poem reflects on the anxieties queer people face while holding up their ability to endure in an increasingly volatile political/social climate. Other artists he admires are the gay, young adult fiction writer Adam Silvera, as well as two of his favorite poets, Walt Whitman and Robert Frost.

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Ode to the Dancers Persecuted desires in pitch black rave-parlors

play pretend-dance

on tables teetering toward catastrophe viewed through pin-holes

wait, no, I’m sorry, bullet-holes

into the love now wounded because of

bold, brave men and women

compelled to glance, not at each other, nor the same other,

but toward the soft

rain riddled pockets of moonlight puncture

drywall, windows, skin

in an attempt to raise the spirits an alone-boy gently traces his steps, discovering the moonlight was a street lamp and he was still without a voice

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 17

Hana Sulliman

Vivid Hana Suliman she, her, hers College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2023, Undeclared

Hana hopes to minor in Studio Art, exploring the ways in which artistic expression evokes social change in others. Her major artistic inspirations vary from Ilya Kuvshinov to Barbara Kruger. Outside of contributing to a number of publications on Grounds (such as the Q* Anthology of Queer Culture and Scratch Zine), she is a Program Chair for the UVA Art Club and a volunteer for the LGBTQ Center. ***** Information about Vivid: Medium: Digital Art Size: 33.1 x 46.8 inches “Vivid is a celebration of the many colors, shades, and hues that make up the LGBTQ+ community. From the rich reds to the velvety purples, the diverse tones of the community is what makes it truly beautiful.�

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Jacob Olander

Jacob Olander he, him, his College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2021, Political and Social Thought & Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Jacob has very little formal artistic involvements, but likes to journal, listen to music, and write short stories when he is in need of inspiration. ***** “I wrote this piece in a fiction writing workshop two years ago. It came together amidst the gradual disappearance of the inner turmoil that had suffocated me during my childhood years. The glimmering moment of hope that accompanied my entrance into spaces made for and by my queer siblings was unforgettable. In “Sneak,” I try to capture what this moment could have been for someone else: the illumination of a broader community that can displace feelings of isolation in favor of joy, belonging, and celebration of difference.”

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Sneak You stand in front of your closet, frantically tearing articles of clothing from their hangers and laying them on your bed, your heart churning. Ba-bum ba-bum babum. A regular two-beat rhythm pulses quickly yet softly in your chest, so paradoxical that you think it might give out. You gingerly lay a burgundy button-up streaked with heathers atop a pair of khaki jeans. You look up across the room, searching for approval. Cooper walks over and pores over the selection.

“You can’t wear khaki,” Cooper says after a moment of consideration, a tinge of playful revulsion in his voice. He splays across the stitched gray loveseat in the bedroom and stretches his arms behind his head and toward the ceiling, communicating his authority on the topic. “The gays hate khaki.”

Oh god.

A pang jolts through your stomach. You quickly hang up the khakis and double back for a pair of holey dark wash jeans. After cuffing the denim around your ankles to reveal a pair of worn Converse, you slink down the staircase of your childhood home and make your way out of the house with Cooper. The staircase is decorated with various pictures of you and your siblings, including a collection of milestones: first days of school, baptisms, and award ceremonies. You yell your I love yous to your parents, who are making baked ziti in the kitchen one room over as you escape through the front door. You make sure to keep your voice steady when you say goodbye, so as to conceal any notion of deceptions or wrongdoings soon to be committed. *** The groomed wooden door of the Victorian abode closes with a wham as Alicia runs across the lawn towards her getaway car. Her sequined romper glitters in the dim illumination of the street lamps. She opens the silver car door with a gleeful screech, hopping into the backseat.

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 21

Jacob Olander

“You guys,” Alicia exclaims, a smile crinkling from cheek to cheek as she leans forward and places her left hand on your shoulder. She pauses for emphasis. Everything is emphasis with Alicia. “This is going to be so fun.” She takes a moment to adjust her romper to expose a greater amount of cleavage, giggling at the prospect of the night ahead.

“Okay, ground rules though,” you say shakily, pivoting your body to address the entire vehicle. Your hands remain at the 10 and 2 positions. You won’t let go of the wheel, not tonight. “No posts where I’m in the picture, we go to Alicia’s afterwards to wash off the marker, we’re back before my parents can find out where we are.”

“You got it. No one will ever know,” Alicia says with a sarcastic wink. Cooper cackles, which makes you blush red with embarrassment.

Nobody. Rigid. Masculinize. Normalize and Systematize.

You grip the wheel more tightly, lock the car doors with a click, and begin to drive. Cooper takes the AUX and begins to blast “We R Who We R” by Kesha, the bass rhythmically shaking the aged SUV. Alicia dances in the back seat to the music, throwing her hands up in the air and whipping her curly dark locks to and fro. You tap your thumb on the steering wheel to the beat of the song, focusing on the road ahead, continuing to guide the automobile as it zooms through your familiar expanse of American suburbia. *** The worn tires of your father’s 2005 Chevrolet Blazer skid over an ant-hill of slush and ice into an opening on the edge of the parking lot.

You glance at the digital clock in the center console: 9:58.

“We have two minutes to get in to avoid the cover charge,” reminds Alicia, who in her excitement for a night of rhythm and debauchery is childishly bouncing up and down in the backseat. You shift the transmission into park and kill the engine. You

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check your phone, reading a text from Mom. Come home from Alicia’s by 2. Love you, have fun

You look past the scuffed windshield of your timeworn automobile and gaze at the woman guarding the frosted glass door of a building across the way. The neon sign at the forefront of the building broadcasts a colorful defiance to the catchpenny establishments of the strip mall: a greasy Little Caesar’s, a collection of thrift shops and Chinese restaurants, and the Baptist church situated just adjacent to your destination.

“Come on,” Alicia implores, stepping out of the passenger seat into the brisk January air.

Hesitate? Sick of hesitating. Wavering . . . If not now, when?

You take your phone, turn off location services. You pause for a moment to catch your breath, gathering up a certain amount of courage. Hand-in-hand with Alicia and Cooper, you march across the parking lot towards the fiery-haired woman.

“Twenty one?” the crimson-haired woman asks, surveying your trio with a discerning gaze.

“Not tonight,” Cooper replies cheerfully, throwing out his hands for the acquisition of two black Xs across the back of his hands. This earns a quiet chuckle from the woman, who happily obliges with four quick swipes of her Sharpie. You and Alicia follow suit. You appraise the marks, wondering how easily it will wash out before you go home. After everyone is marked up, Alicia swings the glass door open, eager to start the night.

Next thing you know, you’re enveloped in a cloud of vibrant darkness and raucous screeches. The club is dingier than you expected. There’s a bar with a tabletop stained from years of spilled liquor, a few billiards tables, and a modest wooden stage.

The stage is illuminated by a handful of flickering stage lights affixed to the ceiling, most of which obviously need a repair or two. Alicia pulls you and Cooper into the crowd surrounding the stage, so as to get a better view of the performance.

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 23

Jacob Olander

The stage is occupied by four drag queens, three of whom are sitting at a fold-out table bathed in a sparkly purple cloth.

“So Ms. Lola,” says the brunette queen holding the microphone. “What is your idea of an ideal first date?”

“Well,” she begins, snatching the microphone from the brunette queen’s grasp.

“I would say a date that allows me to scam a white man of his coin,” she says with an overwhelming cheek in her tone, pointing her index finger to the crowd. “Because that’s the kinda bitch I strive to be.” The whole crowd erupts into shrieks of joy. The middle-aged man to your left hollers while lifting his right hand into the air and snapping to showcase his approval.

Intrigued . . . ? Yes, intrigued.

You stop for a moment, and a bubbly laugh escapes your mouth. You look at Cooper, who has a told-you-so expression on his face, his lips pursed, arms crossed, and right hip slightly ajar. You embrace Cooper and Alicia, pulling them in close, excited to experience the night ahead with your two best friends by your side. *** Alicia opens her front door and you stumble in with Cooper. She leads you to the kitchen and hands you a half-empty bottle of Windex and a wad of paper towels. You look up at her, confusion darting across your face.

Huh? “It’s to remove the marker,” explains Alicia, chuckling. “Remember?” She proceeds to pantomime a circular scrubbing motion on the back of her right hand.

Oh. The idea of removing the black Xs is strangely upsetting, like losing an old friend

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you can’t imagine yourself without. Nevertheless, your home life rockets to the forefront of your brain. With a newfound urgency, you grasp the Windex, spray it into the paper towel, and begin scrubbing the backs of your hands to hide the night’s events from your hopefully unknowing parents.

“How’d you like it?” Cooper asks pointedly as you cleanse your skin, the corners of his mouth pointing upwards. “That is, your first time clubbing?”

“I would say that he loved it,” Alicia says pointedly. “I mean, look at him!” She comes over to hug you, fastening her arms around your waist and resting her head on your shoulder. “Didn’t you?”

“He must have. I mean did you see how he was dancing?” Cooper asks, proceeding to jerk his body, his hips moving in discord with his arms. Rhythm is out of the question. Alicia squeals with amusement.

You tell your friends to fuck off, but you can’t help but let out a tiny giggle as well.

“Well, I would love to do it all again,” Alicia declares discreetly, making a point to avoid your eyes, while also attempting to gauge your willingness to deceive your parents once more. Cooper pauses and peers over to the corner of the kitchen in which you are standing.

You hesitate.

Undaunted.

You burst into heaps of agreement regarding the possibility of future nighttime excursions, to which Alicia and Cooper rejoice.

“Well, aren’t you just a little sneak now?” Alicia exclaims passionately.

You grin.

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 25

Jacob Olander

*** You turn the key in the lock, swinging the front door open with utmost precaution. You tiptoe across the hardwood of your house’s foyer, conscious to avoid stepping on the loose floorboards that could wake your sleeping parents.

“Well, it’s nice to see you come home.”

You immediately tense up, then turn to find your father sitting in the living room just off the front entrance to the house. He has crossed his legs and his fingers are tapping against the leather arm of the chair. A look of exhaustion dances across his face. The clock on the wall foretells the unholy retribution that is to come: 2:43 A.M. Oh shit.

You begin to apologize, tell him it won’t happen again, that you have never felt so guil“Listen, bud, I’m not mad,” he states, cutting you off. “Just tell us the plan next time, okay? Now that I know you’re alive, I’m heading to bed.”

Right. Tell him the plan. Could never happen, truly.

“I hope you had fun at Alicia’s,” he says, pulling you in for a hug.

Surprisingly? Terrifyingly? So much fun.

You turn your back to your father to walk up the stairs to your bedroom, beaming the whole way, not proud of your secrets, but relishing them nonetheless.

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Piquancé Anonymous Medium: Digital Art Size: 1080 x 1080 pixels “This piece was created to celebrate love, in all its forms, shapes, colors, and sizes.”

Myka Greene

Myka Greene she, her, hers College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2022, English, Creative Writing concentration & Drama minor

Myka is a writer, poet, and filmmaker who was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. In 2019, she began writing her first book, entitled Sanity Slip Songs, a collection of personal prose and poetry from the ages of fourteen to nineteen. With this, she attempts to confront the barriers between her identity and art production and has found sanction in the writings of Miranda July, Otessa Moshfegh, K-Ming Chang, Roxanne Gay, and Carmen Maria Machado. Her prose and poetry has been published in Iris Mag, Cut x Sewn Magazine, the feminist online journal That’s What She Said, and the online zine Plasma Dolphin. Along with writing, she is a filmmaker and has been writing and directing short films through Filmmakers Society on Grounds and through a Richmond-based production company called HOMA Pictures. This past summer she worked as a Production Designer for Micah Watson’s (U.Va. Class of ‘18) web series, Black Enough. ***** Information about “Screensaver:” “This piece was a direct result of my loneliness and how it manifested into an existence of self loathing; I have definitely evolved but the feelings still remain in shadow.”

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Information about “A Visitor:” “This piece was simply a thought which came to me at night in response to my constant insecurities when dealing with lust and affection. It is not an easy feat to confront for me, or for many queer people, and this had led to a lot of angst.

Screensaver let me be your wallpaper the image you see when you wake the break of light in your darkness the picture you wish to see every single time you look at your screen. me. i could be your wallpaper the poster child of a barricade, the thing you punish to confinement in your grip. i can be the outline of that figure, the ghost of what was once there. i could be the wallpaper on your walls, i could be the thing you rip into pieces after you’re tired of seeing it. you want a change of scenery? you can tear me apart and mold another image, another accessory, another compliment of your existence just please don’t throw me away, don’t let me be forgotten.

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 29

Myka Greene

A visitor regret slides through my window at night i watch the shapes form in my bedroom i’ve become his favorite visitor in the dark he whispers, “silly girl, why didn’t you kiss her?”

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Sara Hana Suliman Medium: Marker and pen Size: 8.5 x 11 inches “Sara is an artistic piece aimed at thanking the person who created a space safe enough for me to comfortably embrace my sexuality as a queer woman. From their unwavering support and unconditional love, Sara has become a symbol of growing strength, vitality, and intimacy in my life and the lives of others around them.�

Maegan Parry

Maegan Parry she, her, hers College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2023, Undeclared

Maegan identifies as asexual and homoromantic.

She plans to major in English with the goal of eventually pursuing a career in education. She hopes to one day write and publish works that feature LGBTQ+ characters and experiences.

Maegan is a fan of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Rick Riordan, and like much of the rest of the queer community, has recently delved into the corpora of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

For the time being, Maegan mainly writes only occasionally and for her own pleasure while she focuses on schoolwork. ***** Maegan’s motivations for her piece “Terminal Velocity” initially began from the seed of an idea revolving around the unfortunate experience that so many queer people go through in which they are essentially trained into giving up on potential relationships and crushes before they can even begin to turn into something truly meaningful, and are also barred from participating in the teenage dating experience that so many straight people are allowed access to. She then attempted to create a story that would embody this quintessentially queer circumstance of teenagehood, pairing variations on her own reallife experiences with an overarching metaphor that carried the wider theme—giving up on having a chance in love due to the repeated and pervasive feelings of isolation that being queer in a predominantly straight environment can bring.

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Terminal Velocity It is hot. The sun is bearing down on you—a simmering eighty degrees, unusual for September in upstate New York—and it feels like a physical weight across your shoulders. The cicadas scream and you usually hate the noise, but you can hardly pay attention to it.

You are too focused on Holly.

Your class has received the rare privilege of playing on the playground meant for the Older Kids today, and she is standing above you on the steps to the swirly slide, which you are too afraid to go on. She is looking down at you. The sun shining on the back of her head turns her bright red hair into fire. She is saying something to you— something, something.

You are not listening.

Originally, you had come over here with the intention of scoping out the competition. When you’d asked Logan Greene to be your boyfriend earlier, he’d told you that you could only be his Backup Girlfriend because he wanted to date Holly first. If they broke up, you would be next in line.

It’s a sensible enough arrangement, you think. And, after all, Holly is very pretty, and she is one of the Older Girls—one of the first graders—just as Logan is one of the Older Boys. It makes sense.

So you’d come to talk to Holly. To see what she’s like. And you do talk. And then she grabs your hand and laughs and she bends over with the force of her laughter and she’s missing a tooth on the right side and she pulls you up the stairs with her and helps you go down the swirly slide for the first time and you are exhilarated. Not afraid.

Holly is nice, you decide, and you decide, also, that you’d like to be her friend.

(There is a precipice ahead of you. You are standing a safe distance away, for now. You are Logan’s Backup Girlfriend, and Holly is a friend.) *** Miss Dull has moved recess inside today. You’ve never liked Miss Dull much,

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but you believe that you can concede to her judgement just this once—it is snowing outside, and since your move, you have learned that Virginians (not Virgins—you’ve already made that mistake once and have been ordered not to say that word anymore) are afraid of snow in ways that New Yorkers aren’t. They wear puffy winter coats when you only need to wear your zip-up hoodie. It’s like having a super power, and the rest of the third-graders have been fascinated by your resiliency to the elements.

Still, the attention you draw is nothing compared to Braxton.

Braxton has dated almost every girl in your class. He has dated Amanda James four different times, and Amanda is the most popular girl you know. She is the only one in your grade who wears real bras, not just trainers. You do not want to date Braxton, but you do wish he’d ask. You are the only girl he has not dated, or asked to date, besides Karly, and that is because nobody asks Karly to date for reasons you’re not quite sure of but have decided not to question.

Currently, Braxton is dating Grace Strickler, whom you’ve concluded is cute, but mean. Her blonde hair reaches her knees, and it is tied back in a braid today. Even though she is dating Braxton, she is sitting with Amanda, and they are leaning against each other, holding hands, reading a magazine.

You have no friends to lean against or hold hands with. You spend recess reading, watching Amanda and Grace. You have lived in Virginia for three months, but you are still the new kid, and people think you’re strange, and the girls with long blond hair won’t hold your hand, and Braxton won’t ask you to date him (even though you’d say no, you still want him to ask because maybe then you won’t be strange anymore).

(The precipice scares you, but it feels like you are taking steps toward it without wanting to, like you are being pulled toward a fate you cannot prevent or control, and you will be weird, weird, weird if you fall, but you’re stumbling, and the edge is so close.) *** You are playing a video game online. You’re nearing the end of seventh grade, but you have been homeschooled since the beginning of sixth grade, so are you really a seventh grader if you’re not really in school? You don’t talk with girls (or boys) your own age much, not since you moved to this new town, which is more dangerous than your old one. The schools here make your parents nervous, so you take your classes online, where you can Google all of the answers and finish your work before noon ev-

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eryday. Then you can go online to talk to people.

The girl you have been playing with for a few months now says that she is your age, but you’re smart enough to be skeptical about whether or not that’s true, and neither of you tell each other your real names, but she says she lives in England and you tell her you live in the United States, and you have each other’s screen names, and that’s enough for you.

She is funny, and she’s good at the game, and that’s enough.

You run a guild together, and that’s enough.

You talk about religion together, and you talk about politics, and life, and the universe and everything. And you still don’t know each other’s names. And you don’t know anything about the rest of that stuff, either, but you think you do, and it fills something that’s starving within you to have someone to talk about it with.

She’s not real—not really. Everything she’s ever told you could be a lie. But you like her, and you like playing with her, and you’re homeschooled and more alone than you’ve ever been before in your life, even counting just after you’d moved, and with each day that passes, you look forward to meeting her on the server more and more.

She’s your only friend, and you feel a softness in your chest when you think of her.

And then, one day, she doesn’t log on to the server.

She doesn’t log on the day after that, either.

And then a month has gone by, and you haven’t seen her.

Two. Three.

You message her on the forum you both use, but she never answers.

You don’t know what’s happened to her, but you stop logging onto the server, too. You try to quell the weird sense of loss you feel—you didn’t even know her.

Not really.

(You trip. Scream. You tumble over the edge, only just managing to grab onto it with the very tips of your fingers. You cry and beg for God to fix this, because it’s not supposed to be happening. Your arms tremble with the stress of holding yourself up. They will give out eventually.) *** You meet Bri. She has princess curls and glasses and gray-blue eyes and a little

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bit of an accent because she’s from Canada originally, and she plays the piano, and she gets your sense of humor and understands the feeling of being an outsider someplace new—because you’re back in school now, back in your original Virginia district. You recognize a lot of people, but you don’t think they recognize you. You’d only been there for two years. There and gone.

Once you’ve been friends for some time, the two of you begin to flirt with each other, jokingly, because Amber, Bri’s twin, is fun to annoy, and it’s harmless. You smack her ass and she wiggles her eyebrows at you and invites you to her boudoir and Amber gags from across the lunch table.

A month later, Bri holds you while you cry and tell her that you’re not normal.

A month after that, you and Bri flirt for real, and then you are dating for real.

Amber still gags at you, but it’s all in fun, and you hold hands under the table.

Your parents don’t know about any of it.

And then Bri moves back to Canada, and Amber goes with her.

You try. For a year and a half you try, and you try hard, but she’s talking about people you don’t know and politics you don’t understand, and you’re doing the same, and soon you run out of things to talk about. And then it’s sophomore year, and every day you struggle to get out of bed.

One morning, you wake up and think of your girlfriend and there’s no warmth anymore; there’s only panic, because you haven’t talked to her in a month, you’ve just realized, and you feel so guilty, and you stay home from school because getting out of bed is too hard that day. You tell your parents you’re sick.

That night, you break up with Bri. You press tears into your pillow, afterwards, and wonder if you just screwed up your only shot at this.

(You’re falling, falling, falling. You’re alone. The wind stings your face and roars in your ears and you can’t hear anything and you’re in pain. It feels like the skin will be ripped from your face if you keep falling like this. No one knows you’re here. You don’t think anyone will come to catch you.) *** In gym, you bump volleyballs up into the basketball hoops. Your forearms sting.

They’re starting to look bruised and sore. But Marcia is teaching you how, and she’s so

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good at it—she’s good at everything. Her hair is a glossy jet and her eyes and skin are almost the same shade of light brown. She’s from Brazil, and while you attempt to push volleyballs through the nets, she tells you about how she used to play soccer, and what immigrating was like, and this is one of the hardest crushes you’ve ever had on someone who barely knows you exist.

You compliment her as often as you can—you know that she isn’t interested, but it always makes her smile, and her smile makes you think of wildflowers and sunshine and the smell of freshly-cut grass. It makes your heartbeat quicken and your face hot and your palms clammy, until you feel like you’re one of those male ingenues from stupid teen rom-coms who can barely get out one full sentence around the girls they like.

You don’t even think about it as flirting, because you have no chance in hell and you know it. You’re just gunning for a smile.

Marcia does not interact with you outside of gym class. Instead, she hangs out with many of the worst people you know—some of the most racist, homophobic, sexist men you’ve ever had the displeasure of interacting with. You wonder how someone so nice can be friends with people so rotten.

In the hallways, you wave at her. She waves back. You smile and she smiles back.

You are infatuated with her for the entire semester that you have gym together.

You don’t see her much after the class ends, but you still smile and wave at each other in the halls. You still compliment her.

Eventually, she stops noticing when you wave.

You cut your hair. Like the kids in middle school, she doesn’t recognize you anymore, and one day when you compliment her, she looks at you strangely and doesn’t smile. You don’t do it again, and you tamp down the hurt because, yeah, you weren’t friends, but... you had thought you were friends.

(The continual swooping feeling in your gut that comes with your free-fall is beginning to become a sensation that you are used to. If you continue to fall forever, you think all of your internal organs will eventually rearrange themselves into new places, and will you survive that? You hope you will, because you do not want to die. Determinedly, you do not think about what must inevitably come at the end of any very long fall.) *** Katrina sits next to you in World History II. She looks a bit like Bri, and she

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doesn’t laugh so much as giggle at all of your jokes, high and hypnotizing, and she’s endlessly sweet. She struggles with the subject, but you know just how smart she is.

So you help her when she needs it, and she thanks you, and you complain about the teacher together and gossip about anything and everything because that’s what she likes doing.

When tests come around, you don’t say anything when she peeks at your papers, and you sometimes leave your hand resting just so on your booklet, so you’re pointing to the answer that you know she needs. The teacher of this class doesn’t teach so much as constantly expound upon his mildly-racist, mildly-sexist personal opinions, so you figure that fair’s fair.

The way she grabs your wrist and calls you a “life-saver” after class has nothing to do with it. You feel jittery and warm for weeks afterward. You start making her personalized notes for class, even though doing so eats up time you don’t have. You get less sleep, but you run on the pseudo-caffeine of her gratitude.

After this class ends, you will stop talking with her also, but it’s okay. You are more than used to people only liking you as far as you can throw them, and you understand that she has real friendships that have not been forged only in the trenches of shitty WWI education. Ones where she can hold her friends’ hands and hug them without people whispering and making assumptions.

When you see her at her retail job a year later, that lingering trace of affection will still be there, but you will ignore it and buy your loaf of bread, and that will be plenty.

You are growing used to what not having a chance feels like.

(You almost feel like you could go to sleep here, falling. You’ve been doing it for so long.

And you’re so tired. You figure that you will not have to be aware of your quickening pace and of the eternity that is passing if you are not conscious of either.) *** After Katrina, they come in an almost never-ending stream.

There is Katrina (a different Katrina, though they look similar to one another), whom you meet through theater. She must be the funniest person you’ve ever met, and her nihilistic humor matches yours exactly. She makes you feel protective over her. She smells like cupcakes and vanilla when you hug, and she feels like coming home. Even-

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tually, she starts dating a boy named Samuel, and he makes her happy, and so you are happy, and she simply becomes one of your best friends, instead.

Then there is Margaret, with her auburn hair and strong personality and loud, borderline-obnoxious laugh that draws out your own. You meet her through theater as well, and she’s the best singer (and one of the best actresses) that you know. You have always been drawn to talented people, and she’s the female lead in every show. After high school, she dives straight into a professional company, and you’re so proud. Your crush on her never really goes away, but it’s low-level and manageable, and she’s more like an incredibly gorgeous friend than a real crush, anyway. She tells you she loves you on the regular, and you say it back, and eventually, you mean it more in the platonic sense than the romantic.

Elizabeth, who has the most melodic voice, and she’s another redhead, except she has blue eyes, and you’re realizing that you’re weak for both of these traits, and she has them both. She’s infinitely kind, a year older, brilliant, and quite possibly the prettiest person you’ve ever met. You don’t talk much. Like Marcia, she doesn’t really know you exist. You admire her from afar, and then she goes to college and you accept that you will never see her again. You’re right.

There are others, too—tens of them, maybe hundreds, whom you pass in the halls or on the street and fall in love with just the idea of, even if only briefly. When you immediately accept that you have no chance with anyone you meet, falling comes easy, and feelings of affection and attraction pass over you as smoothly as the tides, drowning you all the same.

(You reach terminal velocity. The resistance of the wind, from now on, will prevent you from going any faster. This is your peak. You no longer ask God to fix things—instead, you hope that They will accept that this is not something to be fixed, as you have been forced to.) *** You meet Caroline and she is enchanting. You are enchanted. She is intelligent, a triple threat, and she is just as passionate about politics as you are, and you frequently have long, rambling conversations about the intersections of your respective identities.

You admire her courage and strong will and sharp mind. She’s brave and bold and beautiful and you’re a little bit in love with her.

It’s the strongest crush you’ve ever had on someone, and it lasts the longest, but

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by now you know how to give up from the start, and you’re good at it, too.

You cherish each moment you spend in her presence, even when she lashes out at you because she is in a bad mood and when she will not speak to you for reasons you can’t understand. You look forward to your free-period because you have it with her, and she sits next to you, and you frequently spend the time talking to one another.

She’s beside you in English, too, and you may know that you have no shot, but you also know exactly how to accept what you are granted, and you do so as much as you’re able.

Her last name is close to yours, and because of this, her chair is right behind yours at graduation. You throw your caps in the air, and even though she hates hugs, she hauls you in and presses herself tight to you and you feel like floating. It almost beats out the graduation, itself. Then she walks away at the end of the night and you don’t see her again.

Two months later, a mutual friend will tell you that Caroline had confessed to her that she’d never really liked you much. You will struggle to reconcile this with the time the two of you had spent together, and will ultimately come away hurt and confused.

You will avoid thinking about it.

(Terminal velocity probably won’t be so bad, once you get used to it. And you will get used to it, you think. Eventually. You hope. Falling for forever will be awfully dreadful, otherwise.)

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Medium: Digital Art Size: 39.4 x 55.6 inches “According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), more than half of transgender male teens reported attempting suicide in their lifetime—this harrowing statistic struck me greatly and prompted me to create this piece. Suffocating was created with the struggles of trans and non-binary folx in mind, with the intention of increasing their visibility and representation in the artistic realm.”

Suffocating Hana Suliman

Hana Suliman 42

She and Her Medium: Digital Art Size: 23 x 12.5 inches “The role of women (especially black trans women) in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights is extremely prominent throughout our history, beginning as early as the Stonewall Riots with Marsha P. Johnson on the front lines of protests, advocating for safe spaces for transgender and homeless youth. She and Her is a piece that celebrates the diversity of queer women while also serving to recognize the sacrifices such women have made in order to benefit the broader LGBTQ+ community.�

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Jake Greenberg

Jake Greenberg he, him, his College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2022, Psychology & Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies minor

Jake is a student athlete on the UVA Swim and Dive Team. He has always loved poetry and writing to express himself during times of hardship and stress. However, he was finally able to take a poetry class during his second semester in college, when he wrote these pieces. During this time, he explored his sexuality and feelings about his first relationship with a man. He took another poetry class last fall, and cannot wait to continue to develop his writing skills. ***** Information about “Lifting the Mask:” “The most important idea I wanted to get across was the contrast between what I went through in my head for over eight years of my life to my reactions when I came out. I am lucky enough to have had very supportive and loving experiences when I came out, which I am so grateful for.”

Information about “One and Only:” “I wanted to explore my feelings about my current relationship with a man. Although I enjoy my vulnerability, I am more proud of my writing in this poem. This poem was revised for 6 months to reach its final product.”

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Lifting the Mask I used to lie in my bed and stare up into the abyss of solitude as I wondered why God hated me.

I would spring up after hours of attempted sleep, feeling the tears cascade down the sides of my freckled cheeks.

Why me?

My rib cage would expand, shrink, expand, shrink, faster faster hyperventilating from the fantasies that played on and on, an everlasting movie in my head until the intrusive thoughts consumed all the energy in my body, permitting me my peace.

I tried to change. I punished myself when I thought this and rewarded myself when I thought that. Even after I acted on desire I was convinced that I didn’t, that I wasn’t— Everyday, mask on, ready for a show: speaking deeper, watching my steps for a particular masculine flow; always alert, living in fear that I would ineffectively play the role.

One day on a walk with my sister through Fashion Island Mall, I looked at her with tired eyes and said without care, “I’m bisexual.”

Her hazel eyes looked back at me, she shrugged.

“Now what took you so long to finally tell me?”

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Jake Greenberg

One and Only “Tonight, I just want to hold you,” he said; so, that’s what we did. I slept inside his built arms, he slept in mine. The light peeking through the white curtains woke first me, then he.

The birds chirped. His muscular body pressed up against me. My hand rested on the small of his back, his on my hip.

I smiled at his beauty.

His ebony eyes, eyebrows, and hair accentuated his rosy lips. Stunning. Awake now, his neck bent forward and his eyes closed again. I knew what was near.

His soft, perfect lips made contact with mine, pace escalating within seconds. All of my insecurities vanished when we moved as one. I followed his lead like a Swan Lake flawless duet, and for once it was easy, right.

His tight embrace provided me comfort, and his touch made the skin on my back electric. I wished to look at him for eternity and peck every inch of his beautiful body. I did not want to leave that bed, our private paradise.

I wondered if what I experienced—those overwhelming sensations down my spine, legs, and hands each time his extensions danced across and in my pale skin—was only my virgin body reacting to a man, sole sexual attraction.

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After that morning the answer came when we parted, when I felt meaningless and empty without him.

I realized, after one night, I only belonged in his arms. Our constructed architectures, that complement one another like puzzle pieces, were deliberately designed to be together. I was meant to spend my life with him: my first and only man.

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Zoe Pham

Gender Space Explorer Zoe Pham they, them, theirs College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2022, Computer Science

Zoe is a huge nerd and is influenced by punk rock, comics, and cartoons, and a love for science fiction and fantasy. They create digital art and comics to explore fantastical and queer themes in the media they enjoy. Some artists Zoe admires are N. K. Jemisin, Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda, and Janelle Monae. ***** Information about Gender Space Explorer: Medium: Digital Art Size: 595 x 842 pixels (A4 dimensions) “This piece was inspired by Mitski’s song, ‘My Body’s Made Of Crushed Little Stars,’ presenting an alternative explanation to my nonbinary gender as something nebulous, unexplainable, and joyful.”

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E. Smith

E. Smith College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2021, Area Program of Literary Prose Smith wrote this fictional short story to address the real children of LGBTQ+ parents who may feel invisible, confused, and hurt in communities where homophobia complicates already messy stories of the discovery of one’s sexuality and coming out.

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This Story is Not About You You are 14 years old, the only daughter of your mother and father, spending the two defining teenage years of your life in the middle of nowhere. Of course, the middle of nowhere has a name; one hour and 53 minutes outside of Roswell—of UFO crash site fame—is Good, New Mexico, a small town off I-285 with a population of 4,206 people. It is exactly 11 miles from the Texas border if you were to draw a straight line, and the host of what you consider to be the smallest military base in the United States.

You live in a concrete duplex with a green tin roof built for shift workers, with the bedrooms at the front of the house and the living room at the back, like all the other military families. It is in a cul-de-sac of a neighborhood of identical duplexes next to a playground made of green plastic. This neighborhood is backed up to the place where an arroyo winds its way below the Cherish Range, which is really nothing more than rocky hills above the flat land that look artificial, like a billboard cutout against the blue, cloudless sky.

You go to Good High School, the only high school in the town, with seven other military teenagers in ninth grade. The middle and elementary schools are located on the same campus, comprised of single-story buildings capped with white tin awnings and a carefully manicured lawn for recess. You sit next to Brian on the bus home.

Your school bus is driven by a woman named Shirley, who drinks from an extra-large cup of soda every afternoon and never looks in the rear-view mirror as long as everyone is quiet enough. At the back of the bus, students crowd into the aisle next to each other and bus surf, all trying to maintain their balance without gripping onto the seat backs as the bus moves and sways and stops. The bus stops for you down the road from the casino, a restaurant called the Nice Slice, and the convention center where there was once a Def Leppard concert, so that you can cross the street to your uniform neighborhood and walk down the road to your uniform cul-de-sac.

You meet the Wilson family for the first time at Nora Park for the Good Talent Show-

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case. They are with Brian’s family, new arrivals that only flew into Eddy County two weeks ago. They are baffled and amused by the idea of a town talent show in a park.

You are not paying attention to the show. Brian’s mother, Ms. Heather, introduces you to the wife, Mrs. Wilson, as Ms. Colleen. They are sitting on two picnic blankets pulled together to make one big blanket. You sit next to Brian.

The Wilsons have two blonde daughters, Emily and Corinna, who are respectively in fourth grade and second grade at Good Elementary School. They sit next to their mother while their father stands at one of the park grills. Their mother takes out PB and Js from a picnic cooler for them.

When they finish their sandwiches, the girls want to explore. You and Brian offer to go with them. The four of you cross the grass field littered with families on blankets, down to the sandy, dry bed of the river, and back up the other side to a seemingly never-ending chain of hills. You clamber up the boulders, testing some unsturdy ones with your foot before trusting them with your weight, and look behind you to see Emily and Corinna following. Brian is behind them, ready to catch them if they slip.

You make it to the top and see the park across the river, now below you. Behind, the chain of hills springs up from the dirt and shrubs and cacti as far as you can see.

The August air is dry, and the sun is hot on your back and you take off your green windbreaker from this morning and tie it around your waist. These hills make you feel like a wanderer, like you could walk out into the desert forever, never stopping, searching always. Up here, you can pretend to be purposeful, to be serving something other than yourself, or to be filling the footsteps of ancestors that are not truly your own.

“Let’s play frontier,” Emily says when she catches up to you. Corinna and Brian agree when she asks them to play as well. So, under a short and slightly dead looking wattle tree, you build your house by arranging a circle of small stones to mark the walls. You untie your windbreaker from your waist and hang it on a branch of the ceiling-tree as a flag.

Emily insists it is now time to find food, so the four of you head out of your rock and tree house in search of it. You stay close to the front of the hill, keeping the line of cottonwood trees that mark the border of the park in sight. You come around the edge on the other side of the hill, and below you is the sheer face of a massive boulder.

You could slide down the gray and brown stone right into the riverbed. Another tree, this one much greener, is growing in a crevice between this boulder and another right beside it. Corinna peers over the edge of the crack and announces that it would make a much better home. She scrambles down into the crack, and you follow her. The

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boulders make a skinny hallway, and at the end you can still make out the grass across the river, but you have the exhilarating feeling that no one over there would be able to see you. There are ants, though. Big, fat red ants that crawl over your sandal-clad feet when you stand still for too long and give you the heebie-jeebies.

You climb back out and pull Corinna up after you, declaring the place uninhabitable. You continue to navigate along the edge, collecting leaves and rocks and twigs as you go, until you reach what you estimate to be the middle of your hill, and you lead the group back to the very center, to your wattle house. There, Emily finds a large, flat rock not too far away that looks like it could be a table where she dumps her gatherings and declares it the kitchen.

Corinna actually gets hungry at this point, and Brian says he needs to drink some water, so the four of you abandon your newly forged home and return to the field of people for orange slices.

It is not until much later, on the drive home, that you remember you have left your windbreaker on the wattle tree, no longer a jacket but a flag.

The people in Good have legends, stories of people who came and went, but the things they did in the desert remain, talked about, shared with the people who come even long after them. Warnings. Gossip. These people broke the mold, the story tellers say, they went crazy out here, and I’m gonna tell you about them so you don’t go crazy too and turn into your own legend.

You have heard these stories, sitting at dining tables long after the meals are over. One, a woman who caught her husband cheating, drove out of town on the straight and empty highway heading to Roswell. She drifted on the road and was struck and killed by an oncoming semi. That is the worst one, though they are all mostly about adultery.

The first time you babysit for the Wilsons is a month after the talent show. Mr. Wilson and Ms. Colleen want to go to the casino with a group of military adults, including Brian’s parents and your own. Your parents walk with you down the street of identical concrete duplexes with green, corrugated roofs to the Wilsons’. In the dark, a chaste tree stands short and purple by the carport in front of the house.

The Wilsons leave with your parents, walking to the casino to meet up with other couples, and you take up your watch of Emily and Corinna. They are easy to occupy, playing a three-way game of Mario Kart on your Nintendo DSs, and then putting on

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the Boomerang channel until their bedtime. When they go to sleep, you take out your phone, a heavy, gray brick that you can’t use to call anyone because you can’t hear anything and can’t figure out how to change the volume, but that you can use to text. You text Nate, a local boy in your class who gave you his phone number a week ago. You have texted with him every night since, but nothing has changed in class between you.

He still sits across the room with his friends, and you still sit with Brian and a local girl named Jessica who invited you to her birthday party a few weeks ago.

Before Nate responds, Emily comes out of her bedroom again.

“I can’t sleep,” she says and curls up next to you. You pull a blanket off the back of the couch, which is red and patterned with orange triangles that make you think of Doritos, and wrap the both of you up, letting her lean into you, her blonde head against your side, and fall asleep watching Scooby Doo. She seems so much younger than nine in that moment, but you don’t say anything.

Your mother hosts a small party on the fourth day of October. When it is over, and most of the guests have gone home, you sit at the dining table with your mother, Ms. Heather, and two other military wives, Cathy and Julie. They drink wine and you nibble on the left-over platter of cheese and crackers. You listen as they talk.

Ms. Cathy asks your mother if she knows Mark. You do not, but your mother says she does. Ms. Cathy says he is having a hard time. His father is sick, probably dying. He has put in an emergency request to go back to Colorado for a few weeks. Ms. Heather says that is so awful. Ms. Julie wonders if there is anything she can do for him.

You stay quiet, scared that you will be dismissed from the table, thrilled that you have not been. Being here makes you feel like an adult, included amongst the women. Like you know things.

The conversation shifts. Ms. Heather asks why Ms. Colleen didn’t come today.

Ms. Cathy echoes the question. She doesn’t socialize very much, does she. Your mother smiles. The Wilsons have a family member, Colleen’s sister, visiting right now. They went to Living Desert State Park. Oh, I almost forgot about that, says Ms. Heather. We were talking about that a few weeks ago. She’s having a hard time too, right Heather, asks Julie. Yes, Heather answers. She’s having a hard time being this far away from home.

On Halloween, you take Emily and Corinna trick-or-treating for twenty dollars so Mr. Wilson and Ms. Colleen can go to a costume party. Mr. Wilson has re-pierced his ear

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for the night with a safety pin to complete his 1980s hair band look. Ms. Colleen has already left when you arrive.

You are wearing a make-shift Dorothy costume, a blue dress, red converse, and your hair in two braids, because Emily insists that you two match. Her costume is store-bought, well-put together. Corinna is dressed as a pirate, and she has to keep pushing the hat back up because it is too big for her head and falling into her face, knocking her glasses down her nose.

You take them down your own cul-de-sac, then the street with the townhouses, then across the road and past the Super 8 Motel to a larger neighborhood where there are more people. Emily and Corinna tire out, shivering in the chilly desert night and their pillowcases becoming too laden to carry. You take them home, and their duplex neighbors take over for you, Emily and Corinna joining their children to sort the candy and bargain out trades.

On your walk home, you get texts from Nate and Brian at the same time. They are both at the golf course with a small group of kids from Good High School. You go, hopping the low-lying wall that surrounds the course down the street and crossing the dark green until you see flashlights wavering in the distance.

Nate pulls you down on the ground next to him when you reach the circle of kids, and you throw a wave to Brian and Jessica across from you. They all seem to be in the middle of a game of truth or dare, but you aren’t paying attention because Nate tugs on one of your braids and whispers that he likes them in your ear, and you think you might die at just that.

Then the circle gets back around to Nate, and you’re paying attention now, and he picks dare. Carly dares him to kiss Jessica and he does, and you feel like you might just actually die this time. Your legs are itchy from the wet grass and you’re cold and you want to go home, and Brian seems to notice that you’re upset, but he doesn’t say anything. He catches your eyes, and you just shake your head.

It’s your turn now, and you pick truth. Corey asks if you have a crush on anyone in the circle, and you hesitate before saying no, so everyone laughs at you because they can tell that you’re lying. You’re wondering how everything went so sour in a matter of seconds, and Nate tugs gently on your braid again, and now you hate that feeling in your stomach because if you had been dared to kiss someone else you wouldn’t have done it.

The circle carries on a few more rounds before you spot security riding down the green in a golf cart, floodlight mounted on the front, searching for your group. The six

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of you extinguish your own lights and split. Nate grabs your hand and pulls you in one direction as the rest of the group scatters. The two of you get soaked under the water of a massive sprinkler as you sprint. You can’t help the shocked squeal that escapes you, and Nate shushes you, but he is laughing.

He leads the two of you to a low point in the wall where the course is backed up to a neighborhood full of single-family homes and locals, and he helps you vault over before following behind you. The two of you keep running still, knowing you’re out of range for the security officers, but still filled with adrenaline. He slows down finally and pulls you to a stop at the end of the road where it is unlit and the trees grow more densely together. You are both winded, bent over with your hands on your knees trying to catch your breath, but when you both look up at each other, you start laughing too hard and have to sit on the curb to calm down.

When the two of you can finally breathe, Nate looks at you more seriously and apologizes. You ask him for what, because you want to hear him actually say it, and he says he is sorry for kissing Jessica, but that it really was only for the dare. Then you forgive him, and he says he wished it was you, and you tell him he can kiss you now if he wants. He does.

When you get out of the shower later that night, having washed the sprinkler water out of your hair, you put it back in two braids.

There is a New Year’s party at the base. When you drive in, in the distance, on a hill, you can see huge, white domes sticking out of the rocks. They remind you of Spaceship Earth in Epcot, and your dad tells you they are antennas.

When you find Brian, he is with Mary, another military teenager. They are heading to the pool. You didn’t bring your bathing suit with you, but your parents are occupied with their friends, so you walk with them across the parking lot to the rec center. On your way, you run into Mr. Wilson, Emily, and Corinna. Ms. Colleen is not here. She did not come.

Emily asks to go with you, and Mr. Wilson lets her, telling you there is free soda in the kitchen of the rec center as he heads off to the main building where your parents are. Brian and Mary go to the pool, and you and Emily go to the kitchen. She wants to play hide and seek, and a few other kids who are with you in the kitchen join. On the third round, Emily hides next to you behind the couch, covering her mouth with one hand to quiet her breathing, holding your fingers with the other.

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March is the first time you hear about the affair. You’re sitting at the dining table again with your mother and a few other military wives after a small house party your parents threw for St Patrick’s Day. The husbands and some of the wives have all left to put their kids to bed, and only your mother’s close friends, Andrea, Jane, and Cathy, are left.

They are talking, and you are only half paying attention, your phone angled under the table so your mother can’t see the text messages Nate is sending you. He just had a moment of clarity that you will be moving to Washington in a year, and he wants to break up now so it doesn’t hurt so much later.

Next to you, your mother is saying something Andrea said can’t possibly be true.

Jane is saying that it is, that John told her himself. You look up at the light, trying to keep a few tears inside your eyes, and your mother turns to ask you if you’ve noticed anything weird at the Wilson house when you go over to babysit. You are confused by the question but say no. You are paying full attention now. Jane insists again that John figured out his wife’s email password and read them. That is how he found out. Cathy says she isn’t surprised, that Colleen came onto her in the bathroom at the ball on the base in February. You want to ask what they are talking about, but you’re still afraid that if you say anything they will realize you are a child and will expel you from the circle of women, and you really want to hear what’s happening with Emily and Corinna’s parents. Nate has stopped responding.

Your mother says that is disgusting, how could Colleen do that? Of course she is not gay, she has two children. Andrea says that gay people have children all the time to cover up their behavior. How could she lie to her husband about this, Jane asks, how could she expose her children to this? Disgusting, your mother says again. Cathy asks how Colleen could break up another family? She seduced an unsuspecting woman. A devil, Andrea agrees.

You feel guilty, sitting there at the table, waiting for Nate to text you back and listening to this conversation. Had they not all been friends with Ms. Colleen two days ago? Is this what Mr. Wilson could have possibly wanted when he told Jane about those emails? But you stay, wondering if they will reveal the name of the woman Ms. Colleen is supposedly cheating on her husband with. When they finally do, Heather, you feel even more guilty, and you wonder if Brian already knows. Your mother tells you that you won’t be babysitting for the Wilsons anymore, and you leave the table to go to bed.

The next time you see Emily is at the convention center in April. They have opened a temporary ice skating rink, and you go with Brian. You have not asked him about what

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you heard at the table. If he knows, if he wants to tell you, he will.

You step out onto the ice, clutching his arm for balance. You haven’t skated since you were eight, and it takes a minute for you to find your legs again. Across the rink, you see Emily and Corinna gliding on the scratched ice. Emily does a spin, bringing her arms in tight to her chest to make herself go faster, and you wonder if she took figure skating lessons in some town with a permanent rink. Corinna does a hop and gets stuck in a track when she lands, falling. She laughs, unhurt, and Emily helps her up.

You want to wave, but you’re unsure if that would be considered “picking sides.”

Brian takes you around the rink, and when you are done, you have a new bruise on your knee from stopping yourself with the wall too often. Emily and Corinna have left with their father. You are unlacing your skates and putting your sneakers back on when Brian finally asks if you know. You tell him you do. Your mother won’t let you babysit at their house anymore. He nods, looking at his own fingers unlacing his skates. His parents were fighting last night, he says. It’s messing with his head. You ask if he wants to take a walk instead of going home right away. He says yes.

The hot sun is a shock after the cold air in the convention center, and you walk down to the riverbed behind your neighborhood, under the range. You stop to watch a lizard scurry up the trunk of a cottonwood and out of sight. She’s my mom, Brian says, you know?

At the beginning of May, barely four weeks before the end of the school year, Emily and Corinna start riding the bus home. Corinna, round eyes magnified behind her glasses, tells you it is because their mom wants them to be more responsible. Brian whispers to you that his mom and Ms. Colleen are using this time, when Ms. Colleen used to drive them home from school, to see each other before their husbands get home from work. He sounds angry when he says it, and you’re not sure if it is entirely true. You put your hand in his, and he squeezes yours back before he stands up from the seat and teaches Emily and Corinna how to bus surf.

The four of you get off the bus together, and you and Brian watch Emily and Corinna cross the street before the two of you turn away and walk to the playground in your uniform cul-de-sac. You climb on the roof of the play tower, perching on two of the four plastic outcroppings like weird, casual gargoyles, and you give him one ear bud, sticking the other in your own ear, and hit play on your iPod. The sun is on your face and in your hair, and the dark green plastic is hot on your thighs under your skirt. You

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lean back against the fake plastic shingles, your head resting against the pole of the plastic flag forever blowing in a fake breeze.

Brian tells you his mother is thinking of going back to North Carolina alone for the rest of his father’s tour. Your roll your head to look at him, but he’s facing straight ahead, looking at the corrugated roof of one of the concrete duplexes, his dark hair shining in the sun. You ask if he wants to go with her, and, selfishly, you hope he will say no because he’s your best friend. Jessica doesn’t really count. He doesn’t give you a straight answer, saying his dad would never let him. He thinks they might actually hate each other now. You let that hang in the air, unsure of how to respond. You try to imagine yourself in his place. Your parents’ marriage broken, hearing terrible things about your mother, and terrible things about the woman your mother has risked everything for. Your own mother’s words ring in your ears again. Disgusting. Disgusting. Is it? Which part?

Brian asks you if you’ve ever thought about how temporary Good is. Even the locals don’t stay that long. You think about Chloe, the girl who was in your class before she moved to Amarillo with her mother a month ago, and Courtney, who moved to Albuquerque two weeks before. You think about Nate. You shrug. Brian tells you that none of this feels real to him, like when the two years are up, his family will move back to the same house in Fayetteville, North Carolina and everything will go back to normal.

You think about Emily. You wonder if she knows what’s happening. Corinna is too young, but Emily is ten now. If she doesn’t know, she can probably tell something is not right. Does it affect her the same way it affects Brian? Does she think about it all the time? Is she sad and angry when she goes home?

You think this story will not be so temporary. That the people here will be talking about Brian and Emily’s moms long after you leave.

The Wilsons do not come to the Fourth of July party on the base. Emily told you at the playground, the only place you get to talk while school is out for the summer, a few days before that they were going to see the Grand Canyon. On the couch in the rec room, in a group of teenagers sharing ghost stories, you think about Mr. Wilson and Ms. Colleen. Maybe they know that they are being talked about. That they are becoming a story that will be shared. That if they came to this party, they would be observed and those observations would be talked about tonight around tables, and they would become entertainment.

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It is the day of the Good Talent Showcase again, and Nora Park is speckled with picnic blankets. You and Brian find Emily and Corinna up one of the cottonwood trees hanging over the arroyo. You don’t know where their parents are this time. They are not sitting near Brian’s parents.

You place your hand on the veiny, brown bark and call up to the girls. You’re going to the hills and ask if they want to come with you. They scramble down to the lowest branch and jump the rest of the way to the ground, running across the sand before they’ve even given you an answer. When you make it back to your old wattle tree and rock house, your windbreaker flag is still hanging on its branch, now sun bleached and covered in a thin layer of dust. It looks like it belongs there now, one permanent thing in the desert.

Brian and Corinna are trying to scale one of the boulders to see how high they can get, and Emily sits next to you under the shade of the tree.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks. You say of course she can. “I heard my mom and dad fighting outside in the car port last night,” she says. “She didn’t come home, and dad went out to find her, and when they got back, they were yelling at each other. I heard it outside my window.” You ask if she could hear what they were saying, and she shakes her head no, scratching her pointer finger into the dirt. You place your hand on her back, feel the warmth of her skin through her cotton tee shirt, and tell her that everything will be okay, even though you don’t know when that will be true.

Corinna and Brian come back then, and Corinna wants to pretend that you guys have superpowers. You and Emily stand up and decide what each of your super powers will be, and when it is decided that Emily can fly, and you can be invisible, and Brian has super sight, and Corinna has super hearing, you set off through the hills.

You lose track of time and lose count of how many hills back you are. Somewhere around five, most likely. Ahead of you, Emily is flapping her arms and galloping, pretending she is airborne. Behind you, you think you can hear the faintest yell. Emily looks back at you, and she hasn’t heard what you have heard. She smiles and waves her arm forward, telling you to keep up, to keep going. Your heart is twisting in your chest, and you feel guilty again. She doesn’t really know or understand what is happening.

She doesn’t know what your mother said about her mother at the table.

To your left, Brian is looking back. He has heard the yell too. Someone has shouted his name.

You keep moving forward into the desert, following Emily. She is purposeful,

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flying. You want to shout to her, to say I see you.

You think you hear your father’s voice call your name.

What good would it do to say it? You are moving to Washington with your family in less than a year, and then you won’t know her anymore.

Mr. Wilson’s voice calls out for Emily and Corinna. Your parents are searching for you. You keep following Emily.

In less than a year, you won’t see Emily anymore. But right now, in this moment, yes, you see her.

Brian calls out to them, to tell them you are here.

I see you, I see you, I see you.

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Anonymous

Gender Chaotic

Medium: Chalk on paper Size: 8.5 x 11 inches “The superhero Gender Chaotic crashes down into Binary City.”

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Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 63

RJ Selby

RJ Selby they, them, theirs College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2021, Area Program in Poetry Writing (APPW)

RJ, a queer student, wrote “How Queer You Are” around the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, head full of ruminations on queer history. There’s a desire in this poem, & in the LGBTQ+ headspace as a whole, of immortalisation: to try & reclaim some permanent space, sense of identity, in the face of oppression & institutions of force, herein addressed in the latter section of the poem as death. This poem wants to reject those forces, through ignoring it in the first half, while overpowering it in the latter. The first section is explicitly directed towards the archetype of queer youth, as during the AIDS crisis, with the second towards those repressing forces. RJ also wears their inspirations openly here, in the epigraphs preceding each of the sections, which further reference the existence & empowerment of a queer canon. RJ performs their poems with U.Va.’s Flux Slam Poetry & Spoken Word CIO, & that sonic element is an integral part of their poetry given this background. You can find them at Flux’s weekly open mics.

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How Queer You Are I.

that maybe you are what it is all for, but it does not last so very long,

but you will last very long 2

but you bided your time in silence

& there were hours for grieving3

spectre, you muse, eviscerate speak my name, you enervated

shade, I swear we’re gonna make it

marble statuesque, you angel, you arsonist: sear the streets

paris is burning & my throat is full

of brick dust & choked words break my windows down & claw protests into my stone your touch as revolutionary taboo, tattoo love down to my bones, mark me as “queer”

stop pose vogue move those hips like they mean something

like you’re not gonna die before you’re 30

like your family name wasn’t something you were forced to choose

or starve

addict, infuse these lungs holy these veins spiritual

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RJ Selby

lover, I swear we’re gonna make it

I’m not lying I’m just afraid I see Death’s sickness in your shadow

seraphim, split these headaches & invert my gravity we are rooftop smoke breaks, ceiling choreography nephilim, we are giants we are famous I swear we’re gonna make it

I’m not lying I just see your smile has cracks

in the stone, parallel lines in the wall, our sashayed world, parallel lives

in dance halls & drag balls I swear we’re gonna make it

***

II.

Oh Death, oh angel, oh honey

you shameless emissary with4

my body, water, your body, a trail of hands carrying the river to the sea

i ink your name into my arm to fasten what is already there5 I’ve known your sickness too intimate, your sweet whispers in alley wall murals painted in red splatter & intoxicating ichors, your liquor bled his eyes out

but not as much as his self, skin bonetight. he looks up at me with hunger, with your eyes I see him beg because you stole his name, his mouth. your fangs

stole the blood from his veins

you thief, you codependent, reliant narrator

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who wrote our story a predictable ending

but blink & your claim is null, we revised the past fifty years I will make a heaven for the flesh you tried to devour half a century is trivial when we’re eternal out here

I am an everspinning wheel of names I am alive

Ouroboros, you will not take my words, not my soul this time I will make this poem a hostel, halfway haven for his lost names he & I, we are alive I swear we’re gonna make it I don’t care if that’s a lie

I mean it I’m a carved marble queen, call me sacrilegious because I am divine & I will not erode. he is saved in my eyes & in names engraved on my stone

that will not fade with age, we are immortal, in chosen family & stone warm lips

archangel, come kiss me with those hands & smile,

cup my heart in your heart & with your heart,

cherubim, preserve me we’re gonna be fine I swear we’re gonna live forever

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture 67

AFTERWORD In the past year, the Q* Anthology of Queer Culture has sought to increase our presence and visibility on Grounds and around Charlottesville through connecting to other organizations, students, and community members. We hosted a tabling event outside Clark Library with a sign and some sharpies, inviting passerbys to respond to the question, “What does queer mean to you?” For a community still in the process of reclaiming the word intentionally included in our name, we think that it is important to consider the various meanings of the word queer. Our responses ranged from one word answers such as “authenticity,” “confidence,” and “unapologetic” to full phrases, including “the whole spectrum of human expression.”

Both students and community members participated in this event, demonstrating the importance of connecting to each other.

We have set up an Instagram account (qanthology_uva) and maintained our Facebook page (@qanthology) to spread news about our events and share progress on the production of the anthology. By expanding our online presence with exclusive content on our website and new social media accounts, we are better able to connect and engage with our readers.

Every year, current students work to connect all of the stages of production and bring them together into the final print edition. The Jefferson Trust and The U.Va. Parents Fund have generously supported Q* for the publication of this year’s print and online editions, not only enabling us to connect with students and community members, but also encouraging them to connect with each other through the experience of reading Q* and all of the experiences it brings to light. Support from The Serpentine Society has enabled Q* to maintain our website, ensuring the continuation of our online platform. Stay connected with Q* and consider donating to our publication fund to support our mission: giving queer voices the space and platform to be heard.

With all of our original goals in mind, Q* has remained an indispensable part of preserving and celebrating queer culture, both at U.Va. and in Charlottesville. As the anthology continues to grow, it will be up to future students and community members to protect and preserve these values through the continued publication of this anthology. Brené Brown, a professor at the University of Houston, defines connection as “the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued.” Ultimately, we strive to make these words a reality.

ENDNOTES 1 Ani DiFranco Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2020. https://www.brainyquote. com/quotes/ani_difranco_386530 2 Whitman, Walt. “Scented Herbage of My Breast.” Leaves of Grass.

1891-1892.

3 Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. 1982.

4 Hall, Lynda. “Suite for Emily.”

Collected Poems. Graywolf Press, 2006) 5 Smith, Danez. “acknowledgements.” Poetry, December 2018.

6 Brown, C. Brené. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2010.

Q* ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER CULTURE

Q* Anthology of Queer Culture Volume 3, Issue 1 Published at the University of Virginia with the generous support of The Jefferson Trust and The UVA Parents Fund