Author’s Note

Mars Glazner

I wrote this piece as commentary on social media and second-hand trauma. Speaking from my personal experience as someone living in the US, my peers and I are struggling. A crumbling economy and an international pandemic makes finding a job that pays a livable wage extremely difficult and the idea of retirement a laughable dream. Debt is at an all-time high and many of us have intersectional identities which means we are predisposed to being victimized by the system. There is constant paranoia that you 'could be next,' either ending up on the streets, afflicted by some sort of trouble, watching someone you love struggle and being unable to help, etc.

A theme emerges. The prevalence of these issues and the fact that they are constantly in our faces leads to feelings of paralysis and helplessness. Walking around under the constant pressure of these threats and seeing them happen to others every day is going to have lasting effects on our psyche. Therefore, I tried to capture the utter and callous disregard systems of oppression have for us(and have had for the generations before us) and the numb stress this evokes.

Liz Axelrod

Church For Sale

For months I’ve been biking past four marble goddesses guarding a boarded temple door. I assumed they were Greek Hera, Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite. Just learned they are Hebrew Sara, Rachel, Rebecca, Leah. The square shouldered ladies face North South East West. I ride around in circles asking for their blessing. The old sanctuary they shield is beaten up, they stand on cement posts green with age and washed graffiti.

Sometimes there’s a body lying quiet under blankets

I try not to disturb, stop silent place money & water at the foot of the goddess facing south.

Once this was a thriving community, gaining strength and hope from the ladies and their woven copper halo.

Not enough answered prayers I suppose, as I ask for strength to embrace my expanding age & waistline.

Still holding up, just barely, like the Goddesses, their braids and molded marble scarves straight backs, narrow shoulders intact, facing all four corners. Not quite yet in ruin.

Liz Axelrod

At the Georgia O’Keefe Museum

I gazed a perfect bloom reaching for the ceiling

It’s wide mouth full of fuchsia and berry

Picture of an ancient woman resting with a horned skull mounted on the wall above her head

How prolific she was! Little did I know she started at thirteen in the roaring twenties A beauty, taken for a wild ride through NY City

She claimed her power here in the west, bleached bones and sand colored studio her hands gnarled her spirit never broken

I want a gilded age to work in solace

Not this present cage of dust & pestilence I dream of stretching large canvases

Mounting sculls above my mantlepiece As I drive east toward mountains on Route 66

Liz Axelrod

New Voyager

The mirror shows my black-rimmed eyes. I grab a tissue and wipe the etched Deco surface. I quickly moisturize. Age and living in the dessert have syphoned the oils from my body. I need to reapply my shine. I spackle and paint – eyes, face, lips, neck. Use mineral oil to take off yesterday’s remains while adding in today’s new frame. I grab a long thin brush and define my brows with taupe eye candy. I can never get them quite even or straight enough, but without, I’m non-existent. The brow frames the face, and I think of Betty Davis in Now Voyager. At the start of that film, she had a unibrow and glasses resting on her pudgy nose. By the time she comes out of the asylum and gets on the cruise, her brows are plucked and precision drawn. How she took over that ship with just a bit of make-up and new clothes. How she survived her overbearing mother, a mother that wanted to keep her in the shadows, a mother I would never be. My daughter, in from Brooklyn for her birthday weekend, sleeps in my office. Her room. My room. The world has so much to give and take from her. How I long for those days when we shared makeup and I showed her how to line her eyes. Now she shows me new styles, and her sunshine hued glow-in-the-dark hair lights up the room. I want to give her everything; share my zombie masks and make crispy kale for breakfast. I look in the glass and wish for the moon and the stars.

Bridgette Silva

All my life I've been called a failure, but Jesus you’re my savior, when I'm running towards the gate but then I hesitate, or is it just fate, that I'm a mistake, and I can't make it towards the gate.

Then I awoke, my eyes open up, in my mind, my consciousness got me thinking it was just a dream, but it was the real thing!

Every day the price I pay for those wicked ways I played till this day I still pray. I couldn’t take the pain, so I got out of the game. It isn't about the money and fame my life isn't a game!

My heart is still ashamed I got nobody to blame. These days I give God praise, still I strive to survive as long as I got you by my side, you'll provide.

Everday, I take a test I'm so glad to be blessed. No I'm not the best but I pray for the rest, every day before I rest.

Oh, how ill always miss the way you made me feel, & how your love was just unreal.

Never did I know that not loving you could be so real.

I still can't stand the way I feel and cope with how I feel.

Now my heart will never heal.

I just had to show you, you are in my heart, not no one could ever steal. Until the end I have to keep it real on how I will always feel.......