Amendment Literary and Art Journal 2018

ABOUT THE COVER On Sight

D’Anna Lee “On Sight” is part of a series on hair in today’s cultural context. This image highlights the stereotypes placed on the appearance of black bodies. The figure is shown with their back to us, leaving the specific identity unknown.

In the full work, this image is contrasted with an excerpt on race relations from a real police handbook dating back to 2003. Due to the current state of race relations in America, as well as the prevalent issue of police brutality, the image paired with this text is profound. There is a surreal feeling that this problem should not exist and be so blatantly wrong. Reality only affirms this surrealism, and spurs a reflection into ourselves as a people. We should stand up for what we believe in, and every action towards change and the spread of knowledge is necessary.

AMENDMENT STAFF Co-Editors-in-Chief

Projects Manager

Hallie Chametzky Emily Henderson

Sarah Carter

Literary Editor

Liz Canfield

Advisor

Elise Le Sage Art Director

STUDENT MEDIA CENTER STAFF

Lara Koebke Director Staff

Walter Anyanwu Jasper Behrends Barjaa Brown Cecilia Doss Sonnet Garcia Samra Giorgis Ashley Harden Mary Kamara Ruth Laryea Callie Maginnis Sami Moore Luna Powell Anya Sczerzenie Moira Snyder Tori Thompson Serena Truong Daniela Villegas Sean Wesley

Allison Bennett Dyche Designer

Ryan Rich Production Manager

Mark Jeffries Business Manager

Jacob McFadden Assistant Business Manager

Drew Salsbury

AMENDMENT / men(d)m nt/ e

e

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An annual literary and art journal that seeks to promote thoughtful discussion on issues such as equality, class, race, gender, sexuality, ability, and identity.

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A socially progressive student-run organization at Virginia Commonwealth University that advocates for social change through artistic expression, as well as provides a platform for historically marginalized voices in the artistic and literary community.

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What you’re holding in your hands.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS NOW IN MY FOURTH AND FINAL YEAR WITH AMENDMENT, I have accumulated so many people to thank that I’m not sure how this brief couple pages will suffice. I will try to follow the editorial advice I have often given: get to the point.

First and foremost, an energetic, enthusiastic thank you to our contributors.

Thank you for the gift of your words, ideas, and craft. Without you we quite literally do not have a job, and with you we have the most joyous job imaginable.

Your bravery and vulnerability amazes me everyday.

Words do not do justice to the staff of Amendment. Thank you for being generous, yet critical; accepting, yet questioning; focused, yet endlessly silly.

Special thanks to the wondrous team that is Elise Le Sage and Lara Koebke.

Elise, your fierce commitment to language and storytelling is an inspiration, and your focus on the mission of social progression serves as a lightpost for this organization. Lara, your soft-spoken, succinct guidance has never failed to lead us all to look at art openly and without pretense. Sarah Carter, thank you for your consistency, solidity, and honesty. Emily Henderson, I could fill a book with the things Amendment has you to thank for, but for now: thank you for giving me the reassurance that Amendment is in safe hands.

All that I know about publication and media I know from the professional staff of the SMC. Thank you to Allison Dyche for going to bat for us time and time again when Amendment and the outside world clashed. You are a model for quietly fighting the good fight day-in and day-out. Without Jacob McFadden we would have no food, space, events, lights, money, sanity, or disproportionate knowledge of hilarious local news reports. Of course, thank you for keeping us afloat, but more importantly, thank you for teaching me that when you host an event, you get to choose the pizza toppings, unpopular as they may be. Mark Jeffries not only has a brilliant mind for art and design, but is also one of the most kind, open-minded, thoughtful people I’ve ever known. Mark, thank you for your winding conversations which somehow always end up where they need to.

I would like to thank our friends at Pwatem for their collaborative spirit and complimentary work, especially the ever serene Drew Salsbury, whose efforts helped to bring our organizations closer than ever. Thank you, also, to the other

SMC organizations with whom we are lucky to share a homebase. The quality and consistency of your work is an inspiration and model for us always.

Thank you to the many people who have attended our events, or shared Amendment’s posters, flyers, Facebook posts, and tweets. Our relationships with the VCU student body and Richmond community inform our work, enrich our days, and enliven this organization. Finally, a thank you to you, reader, and all other readers, future and past. There are many books to read, thank you for choosing this one.

Hallie Chametzky Co-Editor-in-Chief

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR I DO NOT FEEL LIKE A WRITER. As much as I wish I could claim this largerthan-life, prophetic title, I cannot. The word is too vague and lacks the finite details that are entrapped within both my stories and those in Amendment.

These works are not just prose and poems and pictures and paintings; they are snapshots of lives and insight into varied experiences. Referring to my peers as writers and artists feels offensive to their practice. The word lacks the inspiration, drive, and passion that breathes beneath the surface of each piece.

Our contributors document the world. They see reality through the lens of their individual identities and transmit an overwhelming amounts of thought, feeling, emotion into something tangible — story, a work of art. These works charge the atmosphere with a static coil that magnetizes the air and generates power. A power that destroys differences. A power that unites individuals. My peers are the communicators of a message that compels readers to consider new perspectives, whatever they may be.

This journal is valuable. Not monetarily, but in the idea that it is valuable to bare your heart and consciousness to people who you may never meet and who may possibly disagree with you. Value lives within every work bound within these pages, as well as the works that exist outside the bonds of these pages, created in different times and spaces. Every piece documented in Amendment is valid, real, and raw.

The works existing in these hallowed pages are not trapped, but continue to breathe and maneuver through the cells of our readers and contributors. It’s about the work, and the messages behind that work. Amendment is about providing a platform to marginalized voices, so I should let the pieces speak for themselves.

Amendment is a collection of art, written and visual. Some of it beautiful, some of it ugly, and all of it purposeful. If it’s in here, that’s where it belongs.

Emily Henderson Co-Editor-in-Chief

TABLE OF CONTENTS ART ART 1

Drained

Aleyah Aleyah Grimes Grimes 8

Malice I

Alvaro Alvaro Escobar Escobar 9

Malice II

Alvaro Alvaro Escobar Escobar 10 Malice III

Alvaro Alvaro Escobar Escobar 23 Consume I

Xueyan Xueyan Gao Gao 24 Consume II

Xueyan Xueyan Gao Gao 25 Consume III

Xueyan Xueyan Gao Gao 26 Consume IV

Xueyan Xueyan Gao Gao 30 Old Man

Logan Logan Sullivan Sullivan

51 Lifeline

Maggie Maggie Colangelo Colangelo 58 On Sight 

D’Anna D’Anna Lee Lee 61 Diving

Maggie Maggie Colangelo Colangelo 64 Mr. Clown, At Solitude

Jini Park Jini Park 65 Alienne Snot

Jini Park Jini Park FEATURED FEATURED ARTIST ARTIST

Nia Alexander Nia Alexander 33 35 36 37 39 40 43

Moonstruck Lunatic Teach Me (Assignment 6) Squeeze Harder Wastebasket Diagnosis Violated Existent I Violated Existent II America the Beautiful

31 Why Red

Logan Logan Sullivan Sullivan 46 Torment

Nicole Nicole Garnhart Garnhart

 Amendment Art Award Winner  Amendment Literary Award Winner

LITERATURE LITERATURE 2

washington, d.c. 

Hannah Hannah Truslow Truslow 5

january 21st, 2017

Hannah Hannah Truslow Truslow 11

62 a ptsd poem

Diamond Diamond Manning Manning 63 looper

Micah Micah Giraudeau Giraudeau

Song in the Shape of the West Bank

Hallie Hallie Chametzky Chametzky

PICTURE PICTURE BOOK BOOK

22 A Cross-Section of America

12 One Time I Was Seven

AnyaAnya Sczerzenie Sczerzenie

OdileOdile PosticPostic

29 an ode to my acne

Swathi Swathi Deo Deo Sambatha Sambatha 44 Love Letter from the Bond Girls

EliseElise Le Sage Le Sage 48 Every Color in the Rainbow

Calvin Calvin Graves Graves 52 Language Changes

Emily Emily Henderson Henderson 54 Yours Truly

Daniel Daniel JamesJames 56 A Thought

Daniel Daniel JamesJames 59 a different four letter word

Jennifer Diamond Miller Manning 60 My Anxiety Needs a Life Jacket

Diamond Jennifer Manning Miller

WRITINGS WRITINGS FROM FROM “WON’T “WON’T SHUT SHUT UP,” UP,” A FLASH A FLASH LITERARY LITERARY EVENT EVENT 67 The World Can’t Stop Her

Moira Moira Snyder Snyder 70 The burden she carries

Jessica Jessica CruzCruz 71

Hands

Tori Tori Thompson Thompson 72 On my skin

Jessica Jessica CruzCruz 74 02-12-15

Jessica Jessica CruzCruz 75 UNIDENTIFIABLE OBJECT

AnyaAnya Sczerzenie Sczerzenie 76 my mother’s window

Vincent Vincent Mangano Mangano

Drained Aleyah Grimes

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washington, d.c.

Hannah Truslow Amendment Literary Award Winner

5. i see the guiding vision warping, changing “we stand in solidarity with sex workers’ rights movements” becomes “we stand in solidarity with all those exploited for sex and labor” a lone trans pride flag, trying to wave at me from where it’s drowning in a sea of pink, and pink and pink and pink hats, cat-eared when i blink, their afterimage stamps the inside of my eyelids, once-comforting darkness lit blazing bright on my right: GROW SOME OVARIES on my left: NO UTERUS, NO OPINION 4. i feel the slick edge of a program, held out to me by a woman campaigning for immigrants’ rights. before i can get a grip, she is swept away by a tidal wave of white skin stampeding to see madonna

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letters emblazoned on my chest: “she wants the destruction of the patriarchy” she burns through the material, searing my skin all the way to the bone my trans sisters, they are like ghosts. overlooked, they’re losing substance. we link hands and i barely feel it. cold wind on my face the warmth i usually feel in women’s presence has left me. i’m freezing solid, turning to stone.

3. i hear gloria steinem she stutters, umms; for eleven minutes, she reminds us we are women, full stop, no need to split hairs. the crowd is silent, hushed. they hang on her every word, reverent. janet mock she is compelling, captivating; for four and a half minutes, she speaks of intersectional experience, of unity based on respect for difference. the crowd is chanting, is noisy, is not paying attention. they drown her out.

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when i comment on this, there it is. a sibilant hiss: shh!

2. i smell a miasma of street vendor food, prices hiked sky-high portable toilets, stinking of the offerings — the ashes of your first training bra, mixed with a quarter cup of menstrual blood — laid on the step, granting access to those who seek entry to this blue-plastic sanctuary (a sprinkling of dried placenta is optional, contingent on the motherhood status of the womyn shitting out her $10 hot dog) 1. i taste bitter fucking defeat

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january 21st, 2017 Hannah Truslow

six am, my friends and i get up. we’re hoping to beat the crowd eight am, and already things are out of control. the line from the McDonalds bathroom wraps around the block ten am, the air is charged. it’s begun the women’s march on washington: the largest single-day protest in this country’s memory. history in the making, and i’m here to witness it winter break ended a week ago. during my time at home, i came out to my mom, not for the first time. she already knew i liked girls, but the nonbinary thing was new — not just in relation to me personally, but in general. she’d never heard the word before. truth be told, it was new to me too. but explaining you’re not a boy or a girl requires you to front a little make yourself out to be an expert, and people respond better. usually.

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twelve pm, i’m elbowed on both sides twin jabs from my friends, pointing gleefully, laughing. in the distance, putin and trump canoodle in caricature. my pride pins, my rainbow bracelets — they wilt, drop to the ground, are trodden upon two pm, i’m blindsided a stranger slaps a sanitary pad, painted bloody, into my hand “we are nasty women,” she says, “power to the pussy.” my uterus shrivels inside of me, cowed by paradox four pm, i’m stopped someone wants a picture of my sign, hand-lettered, neon bright and jagged-edged: FUCK TRUMP FUCK PENCE “this is cute,” he says. in that moment, i am toothless my mom, she’d been set on going to the march since it was announced she and my aunts had it all planned out me, i was wishy-washy i had left womanhood behind did that make me infiltrator, interloper? in transitioning, was i betrayer?

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six pm, i’m bristling with each needle-stick she, each ma’am, each her : my porcupine-quill collection, skin sore and they cannot see the marks eight pm, i try not to slip. the president’s yard is muddy, sodden with these women’s satisfaction. my “friends” will not know to catch me obviously, i ended up going a friend of mine was from the suburbs outside d.c. her mom picked me and two other friends up, let us stay the night at their house she couldn’t come to the march, but she was thrilled on our behalf. “this is history,” she said, “you can say: i was there” ten pm, it’s dark in her room. i breathe. all i can do is breathe.

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Malice I Alvaro Escobar

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Malice II

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Song in the Shape of the West Bank

Song in the Shape of theChametzky West Bank Hallie

This is a new language in which home makes no sound.

Violence whimpers his tune, hollow, and inside, story-caked hands push muddied earth into mounds tall enough to be temples which will burn before there is time to fall to our knees as we thought we would.

Something between a monument and a gravestone is a song, Somewhere between a country and a family is an army.

There are ways to rewrite a song from memory, but only if it is made slick, made to glisten with lush pain, only if it will slide through war’s graceless chasms

and return, triumphant as spit in the mouth of the desert, and sing what we knew before to be true, but have since forgotten.

Someone between a mother and a child is an accomplice, Someday between war and peace is a battlecry:

I will lie in wait forever and I will scream my throat bloody.

The song of home lives inside this small temple of myself.

This is an old language in which death has no nation.

Malice III Alvaro Escobar

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PICTURE BOOK

One Time I Was Seven Odile Postic

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t was a Saturday afternoon and I was seven years old. When you’re young it really is “an afternoon,” unlike now where the day seems like a handful of instances quilted together. I drew my dog while he and I sat in the grass behind my parents house. This was the afternoon that turned into the evening that turned into the night that turned into The Day when the drawing was perfect. I had tried to draw him for so long now, but everything was finally coming together. The eyes! The ears! His nose! It looked so damp! No one had ever drawn a dog like this, I was sure of it. My world was small back then, but feelings, I remember, were confetti, fireworks, a tsunami.

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I ran the two blocks to Melanie’s house. Melanie was my best friend when I was seven. She oftentimes would say questionable things about how her eyes were light blue and mine were hazel and how this was important to her. She always seemed like she was compiling information about things so that she could later sabotage them. Of course, I didn’t make these observations when I was seven, all of the amateur psychoanalysis came later. I liked her because she knew how to braid hair and her home phone was easy to call because it had three zeros in it. I arrived to Melanie’s front door, breathing rapidly with the corners of my mouth beginning where my nostrils ended.

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When it came to Melanie’s room, she would sit in her chair and I would squat on the carpet. I admired the dedication Melanie put into crossing her legs. In a chair, you couldn’t catch a moment where Melanie’s legs weren’t crossed. When she got up from her seat, there was always a round pink patch on the skin right above her knee. I handed my notebook to her.

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With the notebook in her hands, Melanie’s lips looked like a panini that had been pressed by an elephant. The drawing that had once been the best dog drawing was now a total annoyance. It was too aggravating to even keep in the same room as my friend Melanie and me. I put it facedown on the carpet behind me. I didn’t care if the graphite smudged, the world was over. The thrill had left me by then.

I knew the drawing was good, I knew that improving the drawing would be an impossible task. I went home.

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Later on, I came to the conclusion that Melanie was jealous of me. I recalled the instance where she crossed her arms and didn’t say much after I scored higher than her on SingStar. That was the very first and last time we played SingStar together. My mom always bought better snacks than her mom. There were a handful of times when Melanie felt the need to remind me that the food I ate for lunch had too many fats. What I should’ve said back was “I’m seven and I don’t care about things like that.” Melanie and her sister were ballet dancers which implied something invisible to me at the time. Later it was body image, and I learned to know it.

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In hindsight, I must admit, I was jealous too. Melanie’s parents let her have four pet bunnies. When I tried to talk with the bunnies, they would run back to Melanie’s side. Those bunnies liked Melanie and those bunnies didn’t like me. This was a truth that made me second guess myself. What was it about me that deterred them? I worried about gossip. Melanie was the first of our class to wear training bras. Most of her shirts made it possible to see the bra strap along her shoulders. I think that she did this on purpose to brag. I always looked at the strap and thought of her mother’s name, “Cami.” Sometimes I would laugh about that when I was alone or with my mom.

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Yes, the drawing was the greatest accomplishment I had ever made, but I remembered an occasion two years before this, while vacationing in the Bahamas with my extended family, I thought a pony I had traced from a magazine was of a similar caliber. The things you do are not comparable to each other, because time may be linear, but the self exists in all three dimensions and life would be unbearable if it were any other way. I like to think of aging as a series of PostIt Notes, because you when you’re 35 is the same thing as you when you were ten. The only difference is that there’s more. It’s like those zero calorie flavor enhancers that you add to water. By the time I’m 75, someone is going to try and take a sip of me and their DNA will be torn to shreds! One day, you and I and everyone else is going to lie down and say “holy fuck, I sure am tired.” And the world will keep turning.

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Time passed and I got bigger, but not by all that much. I learned what the opposite of doubt was and to hold it close. My dog is blind now but he and I are both the same as back then in a lot of ways. I don’t let people push me around anymore. When I make something, I love it for what it is and I don’t let people change me unless I know where they’re coming from. Instances like Melanie have calloused me for better and for worse. I make my past-self jealous now. I love myself for what I am but also what I’m not. A walking contradiction, an egotistical woman who gets really fucking angry every now and then, an experience worth exhausting.

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A Cross-Section of America Anya Sczerzenie

Throw a tack at the map, and see where it lands In the crystal column skyscrapers of New York, Or Louisiana’s verdant swampy ground, In a hot piece of sun-baked Arizona, Or a hush of pines in northern Maine, What town will it land in? Will it be thrown so softly It falls, or will it dent the wall behind it?

Will it be red, a blood-colored thumbtack, Will it tear open the town it lands in?

Will the town bleed too?

Throw a knife at the map, and see where it lands Will it land in a theater? A church? A school?

Will it cross-cut a path through the states, Will it shake when it lands? Will it shudder?

Will it stick in the wall, will people remember?

Shoot a gun at the map, and see where it lands Will it land in Florida? Connecticut? Colorado?

If a tack can punch once, and a knife can cut twice, If a gun can shoot 90 rounds a minute, Then what will happen when the smoke clears?

Will the towns bleed like wounds?

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Consume I Xueyan Gao

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Consume II ARTIST STATEMENT

Xueyan Gao I composed these images to expose the way that capitalism in the United States permeates every facet of our lives. I grew up in a culture that was traditionally communist, but has gradually begun to embrace capitalist systems as a way to bolster what was a weak economy. However, culturally China is still very different, and I feel that my time in America has pulled me into a way of viewing the world around me that I never experienced in China.

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Consume III

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Consume IV  Xueyan Gao 27

Plums  Maggie Colangelo

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an ode to my acne Swathi Deo Sambatha

She overstayed her welcome after 20 winters and brought her friends with her.

You wondered if the phrase “beauty is only skin-deep” was literal.

Before you leave your home, you look at yourself in the mirror and desperately want to touch your craters and volcanoes, both dormant and active.

Desperate, you scour the web.

They say turmeric and yogurt with a squeeze of lemon helps, so you become a golden-faced goddess once a week.

Only it doesn’t work in time. You listen to strangers tell you “Just drink water and wash your face.”

How cruel it is to be born in an age where “good skin” is the new makeup.

But you must hold your head high.

Walk with confidence because you carry on your body the memories of fiery suns gone to dust and the births of glorious stars.

In the end, you must remember that you are not the moons Io or Callisto, you are Juno herself, the Queen of the Solar System.

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Why Red ARTIST STATEMENT

Logan Sullivan These artworks portray reflections upon the current fate of the Uyghurs, who have become the victims of ethnic cleansing in China. Millions are currently detained in a vast network of internment camps across the Uyghur Region (known officially as “Xinjiang” since 1949).

Old Man

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FEATURED ARTIST

NIA ALEXANDER Nia Alexander is pursuing her BFA in Painting and Printmaking and minor in Art History from VCU and will graduate in 2018. She spoke with Amendment about the processes and inspirations for the works in this collection.

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Moonstruck Lunatic 

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MY ARTWORK CENTERS AROUND IDENTITY and the circumstances that influence it. History, culture, and family bloodlines are factors that can shape someone’s sense of self. My fascination with identity often couples with my passion for storytelling. When merged together, my artwork becomes an exploration into how stories — fictitious, historical, and contemporary — express a sense of identity in both individuals and communities.

Art and storytelling have accompanied me through life, first as the daughter of a visual artist and a musician, and later as I began to encounter the vivid history associated with Virginia. With Richmond as my hometown, stories of colonizers, slaves, and indigenous peoples filled me with a curiosity that only expanded as I learned more about the world. As I began travelling to other countries like Morocco, Greece, Qatar, and Turkey, I observed how others view their own history — their own stories — and how this contributes to their collective identity.

Witnessing the relationship other communities have with their stories and sense of identity, I began considering my own. I am a woman of both African and Chickahominy Native American heritage. However, I know very little about my ancestors and the stories they carried with them. Due to America’s tumultuous history with Native Americans and people of African descent, much of my peoples’ history and storytelling traditions are lost to me, and I realized that not knowing their history impacts my identity.

Many of the historical narratives I learned pertaining to people of color in the U.S. were almost exclusively steeped in violence or overgeneralized to the point of dehumanization. The circumstances that have affected my people in the past continue to affect us in the present, and though it contributes to our identities as a community, I have also come to realize that it limits the way we see ourselves. As I search more into my heritage, I encounter the many stories of my ancestors, the histories and legends they identified with, and create a more positive and well-rounded image of who they were. The stories humanize them.

I am inspired to share the narratives I encounter, hoping to frame them in a way that will have my audience consider what aspects of life, legend, history, and contemporary society inform their own identities.

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Teach Me (Assignment 6)

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Wastebasket Diagnosis

  Squeeze Harder

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I see collage as a way of piecing together a variety of materials to express one cohesive idea, to tell one cohesive story. This process parallels my efforts as I piece together the histories and identities of both my ancestors and my ethnic communities.

The piece Teach Me (Assignment 6) considers the inaccurate and glorified way European colonization during the “Age of Discovery” has been taught to students.

The children who are taught this misconstrued narrative carry it with them as they age and in turn create a pattern of miseducation with each generation. Among many other side effects, this type of misteaching limits the way people of color see themselves in the cannon of history. I seek for my audience to consider what other effects the miseducation of history can have on people over generations.

Squeeze Harder considers the violent effects of the transatlantic slave trade in contrast to the simplified narrative of slavery many of us are taught. In the 300 years of transatlantic slavery, millions o​ f people — people with lives, stories, and identities — were forcibly relocated, losing much of their identifiers over time.

Languages, names, families, and histories were squeezed out of them, along with the myriad aspects of life that contribute to identity .

Wastebasket Diagnosis and Moonstruck Lunatic are part of a series about mental health in the black community. For hundreds of years the socioeconomic adversities of blacks in America — including slavery, racism, and limited access to quality healthcare and education — has forced issues of mental health to settle on the backburner in black communities. This in tandem with the taboo associated with mental health issues has made it easier for it to be dismissed, ignored, or misunderstood. My hope for these pieces is that they increase awareness not only of mental health issues, but of the particular way mental health exists within the black community.

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Violated Existent I

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The series Violated Existent specifically addresses violence to black bodies. For centuries, blacks in the U.S. have been dehumanized. This dehumanization has resulted in mistreatment and an uncomfortable detachment regarding the value of their lives. For this series, I used stained fabric, thread, and found objects.

These materials retain a decorative quality, akin to jewelry or clothing, which represents the way black bodies have been objectified and seen as property. The processes I put the fabric through included staining, ripping, heating, boiling, and stitching, which signifies a long history of physical abuse. This is furthered by the mutilated silhouettes of the figures, which reference disfigurement, sexual abuse, and gunshot wounds; the abuses that were and are taken out on the black community.

  Violated Existent II

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America the Beautiful, named after the American patriotic song, is the first painting in a series commenting on what it means to be American. An “American” is often portrayed as white, young, able-bodied, English-speaking, and middle-class.

Though this is the social norm marketed to us, the reality is that there is no uniform definition of “American,” aside from simply anyone who is a citizen of the country. Despite this truth, divisions continue to plague the U.S., forcing people who do not fit the skewed definition of American to be marginalized, discriminated against, and under-represented.

This piece specifically challenges the idea of a black woman being considered just as American as those who fit the social norm. She wears the colors of the American flag in the form of clothing associated with her identity, an identity just as legitimate as her American identity.

Alongside challenging the definition of American, I felt it was necessary to portray my subject in a medium that has a weighted history. She is depicted in oils because portraits painted in this medium historically have an association with importance, permanence, and status, qualities that I felt were relevant to the theme of the painting.

To see more from Nia, visit her website niaalexanderart.com and her Instagram @niaalexanderart. Her show “The African-American Allegory” will be at VCU’s Anderson Gallery December 5th-12th, 2018. 

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America the Beautiful

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Love Letter from the Bond Girls Elise Le Sage

Dear Mister Bond, We love the strength of your hand as it grabs hold of our hair, shoving our heads, our chests, our feet into the passenger seat of your Aston Martin, thus saving us from a rain of bullets — and we do not ask where, Mr. Bond, are you taking us? for you know best / lest we come off as hysterical.

This is a love letter from the Bond girls: blonde, brunette, we sit with one leg crossed over the other, stomachs sucked in. We breathe — so as not to disclose the air-swelled organs beneath our bones — all shallow and thin. There is always either a pout on our lips or that sly little grin that begs love me, fuck me, remind me of what I am.

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And golly we’re glad we have a real man to drag us along on adventures, a man who knows that when we say no, we are only pretending. We love being tied up and gagged like you love a girl with a mouth on her, one who’ll talk back until you shut her up with a kiss. We might resist your charm, at first, but, oh, you’ll wear us down.

You’ll remind us — as you snatch us from the brink of being shot, of getting drowned — that we are alive by sake of your grace.

So here are our hearts, our pussies, our names.

Eat us up until we fade into the next girl for there will always be a next girl to sate the spy who loved us until we liked it.

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46 Torment 

Nicole Garnhart

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Every Color in the Rainbow Calvin Graves

I’d like to think that one day I will be famous. I hope that Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas on Stranger Things, will portray me in the movie about my life.

The climax of the film will be the night I came out to my parents.

My mom had just picked me up from a theater in Downtown Norfolk, where my teacher had directed a Shakespearean ballet. I anxiously sat in the passenger seat. I crave the validation of others and I was worried that I wouldn’t get that from my mother.

“You have an orthodontist appointment next Monday at eight,” Mom droned.

“I’ll have to take you there, and then take you to school…”

I took a deep breath and just let the words fall out of my mouth, feeling as though my lips weren’t even moving to form the consonants.

“You know that I’m gay, right.?”

My mom shot forward and turned down the radio. “What did you say?”

My heart fell out of my chest. “You know that I’m gay, right?”

My mom shot off question after question — “How do you know? Do you have gay friends? You know that’s a sin, right?”— I had trouble forming answers to her interrogation.

We arrived home and I hurried to my room, but the night wasn’t over yet. I still had to suffer through my dad’s speech.

“I’m disappointed,” he lectured. “I never wanted my son to be like that.”

This was peak heartbreak, reminiscent of Molly Ringwald when her parents forgot her birthday in Sixteen Candles.

However, time passes and trouble doesn’t last forever. In a movie, the character must endure turmoil before they can get to their happy ending. It must get worse before it can get better. For me, it definitely got better.

A little over a year after my coming out, I felt antsy. I was a new graduate with a car, unkissed lips, and a groove in my hips. I asked my friend, Capri, to sneak out with me to the LGBT Pride party. I wanted to experience complete liberation. I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy some skimpy compression shorts, which I paired with a revealing mesh shirt. Everything was coming to-

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gether amazingly. I had a dance partner and an outfit, but I was still missing an alibi. Even though my parents knew that I was gay, they wouldn’t let me spend the night at a girl’s house. They were hoping that I would magically turn straight as if God could give me Robitussin to heal my “sickness.”

I told my parents that I was spending the weekend at Jacob’s house, a Boy Scout who was a family friend. Jacob was a special Scout, he liked the gays!

Finally, Liberation Day was upon us.

I got dressed, doused myself in glitter, and hopped into Capri’s yellow Beetle. ABBA carried us down the highway as we giggled in anticipation. We were hellbent on being Dancing Queens that night.

“Tonight, is all about finding you a guy! I’m going to be your wingwoman.”

Capri told me.

“What about you? You look so much better than me!”

Capri was the embodiment of a sexy country bumpkin — the perfect blend of Dolly Parton and Disney era Miley Cyrus. She was wearing a cute, yet sensible, button up shirt matched with a pair of Daisy Dukes. I, on the other hand, looked like the gay cousin of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

As we neared the Scope, the large coliseum in downtown Norfolk, I grew more self-conscious about my attire. Even Stormy Daniels must get nervous about prancing around in her underwear. Calvin Graves is no Stormy Daniels, so you can imagine my discomfort. As we parked and walked toward the line, I let out a sigh of relief. We were walking towards a throng of people strutting in underwear, kinky bondage gear, and giant rainbow flags with virtually nothing underneath. I wasn’t the odd one out. I wasn’t a weirdo. Or at least, we were a gigantic group of weirdos who were going to be weird together. When you are accustomed to not fitting in, it’s earth-shattering when you find a space in which you do. I had discovered my oasis in the desert of masculinity.

We made our way through the maze to find the actual party, guided along the path by volunteers who cheered us along.

“Happy Pride!” They welcomed. “Have fun! Dance all night long!”

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The volunteers made us so excited. I loved their multicolored hair, a fashion choice which always seems to brighten my spirits, as if the hair dye were mixed with sunshine. These cheery folks were the gatekeepers of the party.

Capri and I arrived at the giant double doors that blocked our destination.

A volunteer handed us some foam glow-in-the-dark rods. He was a cute guy, probably in his twenties and, not to stereotype, but he was probably gay. He was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans and a black crop top adorned with the word ‘Pride’ in rainbow, cursive letters. It made me stop and think: Is every volunteer here in the Queer family?

If that was the case, then how amazing. I wasn’t involved in any predominantly queer social circles, so I started to view that night as my baptism. I was being baptized in rainbows and glitter, and it was now time to become a dancing queen.

“Dance your hearts out,” the cute guy smiled as he swung open the doors.

A wave of music and lights erupted from the open doors. We walked in slowly, mesmerized. We approached the ledge of a balcony and gawked down at the rave happening below us. Then, we descended the grand staircase and weaved our way through the sweaty bodies to the dance floor. As we danced the night away, we saw a man dressed as a dog being led by his master, a stunningly tall woman that was armed with a gun that blew bubbles, and a gaggle of drag queens that were vogueing around the room. If my life were a movie, this would be the point where Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” blares into the audience’s ears.

I had never been in such a loving environment. The goal of the night was to dance our collective troubles away. Many of us had heartbreaking stories about growing up gay, but that night was only about twirling until the sun came up and getting jiggy with cute boys. There’s always time to get jiggy with a cute boy.

I may not have had my first kiss that night, but I did lose something else. I lost my inhibitions about being left out of the Gay Family. My life is not always this magical. Heartbreak and embarrassment are daily affairs. Therefore, my movie would be comedy. It’s necessary to laugh at your misfortunes. If you don’t, then your movie becomes a tragedy. Pride was the opening scene of my movie. It opened my eyes to the possibilities that I have at my fingertips. I am quaking with anticipation of how my story will end. Maybe you’ll see how in a movie theater near you.

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Lifeline  Maggie Colangelo

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Language Changes Emily Henderson

Words lose meaning when shoveled through processes encompassing time, transforming ACTIVIST into a word the current administration can deconstruct. To him, it is a label to slap upon fragile identities. All we must do to receive it is survive and respect ourselves, speak on issues of autonomy and life. Yes, through this, we earn this token: Activist.

Branded by peers and expected to speak for an entire community, an activist does not choose that which labels her. She adopts it in the forced fight of enfranchisement.

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The appropriation and accessibility of the phrase lodges dysphoria in the chest cavity and clings much too tightly to the flesh, to the biography of marginalized identities, requiring them to do more work than the rest.

A term that has been more reductive than progressive leads to none other than a dead end. activist

That word may have been applicable to myself before, but language changes and maybe it is not my word anymore.

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Yours Truly Daniel James

There is nothing quite as satisfying As witnessing the end of a clique A loud, ever-present band of satisfied individuals Each one performing to fill the empty spaces.

Like a puzzle.

I was a foreign piece, trying to push my way into an empty space They were queer.

My edges were jagged.

Rejection was never more clear.

All 73 pieces refused me.

I watched from the sidelines Bent edges from my attempts at acceptance They don’t even know my name.

Grateful I never had to carry the weight.

Rejection is much lighter.

I’m not sure who I am without my empty spaces the significance of my existence is not your validation.

I don’t need to numb pain I feel everything.

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But the clique is falling apart now.

They’re once again individuals Ghosts, Pale, Lonely, their faces are diminished searching for acceptance with those they once rejected.

The Ink. Is dry.

Yours Truly, Regret

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A Thought Daniel James

We are the creators The different, the unconventional, The eccentric, the antithesis to homogeneity, The worthless, the questionable The disparaging, the offensive We are the creators The skin that holds together in darkness and light.

A movement caused my thoughts to crack into being.

Reasoning in full armor A movement shepherded by isolation Understand that in isolation, loneliness is never found.

A deeper understanding, Suspended belief.

Who are we?

Creatures created; now capable of creation Who are they?

Creatures created; incapable of creation.

Lacking understanding.

Thoughts unarmed.

Unformed.

Shielded by who they claim to be.

Our existence is a threat.

Trapped in four walls, they know we’re surrounding.

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We are the outcasts, but their voices are our own.

Every word they utter drowns out the sound of their internal silence Each mock reinforces the significance of our contribution Nothing can break or mold our understanding, We found the openings and filled the spaces.

Our minds are Zeus Our thoughts are Athena Strength and wisdom The creator and the creation A warrior fighting to build something anew

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a different four letter word Diamond Manning

the sweet sound of your wind chimes masked the warning shots meant to be my saviour. transformed them into distant rumbles of thunder, too faint for me to be sure of their presence. ivy ropes and hornet stinger cocktails topped with shards of glass were your recipe for Love, but Fear’s frostbite breath turned my blood to ice water and numbed the pain of each spoonful of poison — when your body is no longer yours, what good are the senses?

On Sight D’Anna Lee

Amendment Art Award Winner

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My Anxiety Needs a Life Jacket Jennifer Miller

I strip off my life jacket and feel it drop to my naked feet.

It will be hard to swim without its aid, but at least I won’t be seen in it.

I won’t be seen as different.

With a slosh, the water is spilling over my toes.

It’s not the water I’m scared of, it’s what’s inside the water.

It’s the people inside the water that are splashing around without life jackets on.

I sit down and sling my legs over the side, bumps rise up my thighs as the water caresses my skin.

The normalcy of this water is comforting.

I almost forget that I don’t have a life jacket on.

I lower myself into the chilling water, my heart pounding in my ears.

I start to feel it dragging me down.

With every stroke, the water grips and pulls at my skin.

I have lost control of my muscles.

I’m telling my body what to do, but it won’t listen.

It can’t hear me because the water is filling its ears.

I’m screaming at my body to respond, but its mouth is full of chlorine.

I wish I didn’t leave help lying on the cold tile, all the way above water.

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Diving Maggie Colangelo

I keep drowning; I can feel my lungs exploding against the inside of my chest.

Why am I drowning?

I make all the correct motions to swim up, but my body doesn’t want help.

It’s easier to stay down here.

I wish I could float, just like everybody else.

I close my eyes and open my mouth in surrender.

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a ptsd poem Diamond Manning

you say i am not broken. but tell me, Darling, another explanation for the way i crumble with the lightest of touches for the way i crack under the phantom of an impact for my inability to be both here and whole. you say i am not broken. but tell me, Darling, another reason for my shying away for fear of a blow for my reluctance, my potential to fall to bits for my arms wrapped tightly, shielding my fragile soul. you say i am not broken. but tell me, Darling, another way to justify my shaking hands the syncopated ticking of my hummingbird heart the wall i’ve so artfully built around the deepest parts of myself. you say i am not broken. but tell me, Darling, how you can be so sure.

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looper Micah Giraudeau

i set the in and out points so the loop runs short: over and over and over. i wake up (eyes open) in hopes to find an ignoble disruption. i have these mixed feelings about the empty fields you see along highways harvested of trees: i like the fact that they’re there but feel a great loss for the same reason. helpless to stop or slow down, but there’s another one up ahead and there will be more. cognizant of my present state, i look for some sort of alteration. it’s sort of like how a “hey” text moves through space and gets lodged between your head and chest, but more frequently. the feeling is like a stone that’s somewhere between, since rocks are talked about more often than pebbles. looking at my hands, i search for some semblance of minimal variance. the michael kors supplier in my spam folder isn’t getting any easier to ignore. it’s like an eardrum in front of a constant subwoofer or watery eyes before an industrial fan: rotary movements, yeah rotary motions. transformation? it’s like every other exhalation is manifesting itself in the form of a cough. insert the clichéd phrase regarding the difference between breathing and living here. there are lots of differences between woah and woe but they both sound the same.

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Mr. Clown, At Solitude  Jini Park

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Alienne Snot  Jini Park

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WRITINGS FROM “WON’T SHUT UP,” A FLASH LITERARY EVENT These pieces were written in response to various prompts developed by Amendment Literary Editor Elise Le Sage. They were written on the spot, with no prior preparation, on Friday, September 28th, 2018

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The World Can’t Stop Her Moira Snyder

The carpet scratches my legs as I sit with them crossed, my back leaning against the front of the couch, and my eyes trained on the television screen just two yards away. The 40" flat screen TV flashes the faces of thousands of people who all congregated in front of the White House.

My little sister lays on her stomach with her head in her hands, tilted up toward the mounted screen as a woman with curly, shoulder-length red hair steps forward in a professional black pant suit. Her blue eyes shine in the sunlight of the clear sky, and her smile is radiant as it stretches across her face. The woman steps in front of an aging man with wrinkly skin, and graying hair, who holds out the bible in front of him. She places her hand on the bible and raises the other as she repeats the words: “I do solemnly swear…”

I hold back my flinch as my father scoffs behind me. He sits in his brown leather lazy boy with a scowl on his face.

“I can’t believe the world has come to this,” he grumbles. “Not only has the country elected a woman, but they voted for a lesbian to run our nation!”

I remain silent, ignoring him as she continues swearing in: “…and to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

I finally smile as she finishes, because she immediately turns to her family who stands right behind her. Her family that never stopped believing in her despite the discrimination they continually face. She walks over to her wife, and places a chaste kiss on her lips, and takes her hand to raise it towards the sky. Her wife, a petite blonde with a pixie cut, turns towards a young boy to her left and grabs his hand.

“I think it’s fabulous that there’s finally a woman in charge. Not just one but two in the White House who have such political influence is astounding!” my mother softly claims. She stands behind the couch with her hands on the back.

Her brown eyes stare at the TV with pride — she’s always been one for equality and feminism. However, I don’t think she quite understands how important

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this is to the LGBTQIA+ community. To have someone from the community be voted into such a powerful position is groundbreaking.

“No, honey. It’s disgusting. How do you think it looks to other countries to have a lesbian run one of the world’s most powerful nations? We look like idiots,” my dad retorts.

“You don’t understand, dear,” my mother tries to calmly say. “This doesn’t show stupidity, it’s revolutionary. It demonstrates diversity and equality…”

I mentally facepalm as the two bicker about this. I turn to my little sister who hasn’t said a word. I tap her calf that lays beside me and ask “you okay, Bee?” At first she doesn’t answer or react, so I tap her again. She sits up and positions herself next to me against the couch. When she first looks at me I have to double-take, her emerald eyes are glassy. She leans closer to me and whispers so quietly that I strain to hear.

“Is this how they’re going to react if I come out to them?” she brokenly asks me. My chest constricts as I listen to her voice, rough with emotion. I run my hand through her dark, wavy hair as she continues. “Dad won’t be able to look at me. He won’t be able to stand the sight of me. He’ll be embarrassed of his own daughter. While mum will be more than ecstatic to use me as a social movement in the neighborhood and community. She’ll tell everyone about me — all the mothers, fathers, everyone!” Her voice cracks at the end.

I look up for a moment to see if our parents have noticed yet. Of course they haven’t, they’re still too intent on attempting to prove each other wrong. Focusing back on my sister, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and bring her to my side.

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Rubbing her arm gently, I attempt to soothe her: “Oh, Bee. If they don’t accept you or they take advantage of you, you’ll always have me. Dad can’t avoid you forever. You’re still his daughter, his flesh and blood. He’s just too ignorant right now to see how you’re the same person you’ve always been, you just so happen to prefer girls.” I pause for a moment to let that digest. “With our mother, now, she’s a different story. You’ve got to be direct and straight to the point — yell at her, scream, cry, throw things. She’ll get it eventually.”

I pulled her away from me a bit to look into her eyes. “Never be afraid to be who you are. If things get rough, it’ll pass. Everything does eventually, it’s simply a matter of surviving through it,” I say as I wipe her tear stained cheeks.

She smiles and hugs me.

“I love you,” I hear her whisper.

I chuckle and smile, as I reply, “Always and forever.”

We hold each other and watch the rest of the celebration on the television.

We filter out the voices of our parents, and smile contentedly at the screen as we watch the new president hug her wife and son. As the new presidential family waves to the thousands of people before them, some holding rainbow flags, and signs of support from the community, they look genuinely happy. I pray that my sister will find that sort of happiness in her future, but right now I pray that she finds acceptance within herself and within the rest of our family.

I hear my sister say something that makes my heart happy.

“That woman is my hero,” she says. “One day, I’ll live as content and happy a life as she does. I’ll be successful. The world can’t stop me.”

Her declaration of self-acceptance.

No one can stop her.

No one will stop her.

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The burden she carries Jessica Cruz

What to do when the unfree Do not know what liberation means, No one knows.

Who to claim oppression for And whose chains remain locked, No one chooses.

The movement of the laughter and The swiftness of the whispers, No one questions.

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Hands Tori Thompson

Metal cuffs met shaking hands just thirty years ago, twenty years ago, ten.

But now they are met with another pair of hands Warm, radiating compassion and soft with care, they are cradling a victim, a patient, not a criminal. No, we don’t call them criminals anymore.

These shaking hands have faded from darkest brown to palest white.

Ditching their color makes us ditch the prejudice. It seems we can hold them now without fear of being defiled, dirty, diseased.

Nixon and Reagan and Clinton, they told us to stay away from the crackheads.

You laugh but it’s true!

They used to be unsafe, could not be saved, they had to be punished.

Swat those hands away lest you become addicted too! But things are different now.

Better.

What is public safety to public health?

Squeeze those hands, white middle-America needs us in ways those thugs didn’t before.

Why? Oh, you know why.

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On my skin Jessica Cruz

Memories cannot be avoided on my skin.

History is not forgotten on my skin.

To live alone is to live a lie, But there are scars on my skin.

A hard worker who hardly works, I still have blisters on my skin.

My master enjoys complaining but, Does he burn like I burn on my skin?

A lack of pigment says too much, Because I carry grief on my skin.

1,604 miles travelled almost all on foot.

Oh god, how the sun flared on my skin.

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A walk down the street reveals my luck.

Their words are etched on my skin.

A life growing inside of me, Leaves marks on my skin.

A loud noise awakens me, frightens my people.

Harsher than any of the cuts on my skin.

How can someone carry so much hate in their heart?

I’ll never get rid of this tattoo on my skin.

You’re foolish, Jessica, if you think— You will ever understand all of the pain on my skin.

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02-12-15 Jessica Cruz

cerdos machistas que ni a su madre defienden. se les olvida de donde vienen. somos sus hermanas, sus primas, sus tías, sus sobrinas, sus hijas, sus abuelas, sus amigas. les damos la vida, les damos de comer, les ponemos un techo sobre sus cabezas. me quisieron enseñar que él era superior a mí, pero eso nunca. y nunca te dire que valgo más que un hombre pero si valgo lo mismo. nada, ni las políticas, ni la religión me va a ver de menos. yo no solo soy una mujer, yo soy una persona y eso nadie me lo puede quitar.

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UNIDENTIFIABLE OBJECT Anya Sczerzenie

The smog was so thick that no one went outside without wearing their Glasses.

Otherwise, they couldn’t see anything. The Glasses never lied, everyone knew that.

The software was perfect. It knew exactly where all the buildings were, showed them to you the way they were pre-pollution. The Library of Congress (now called the iBrary of Congress), the National Museum of 21st Century History, the Simulation Inc. Factory with its moving shuttle pods that took visitors up its impossibly high spires. Now that the Washington Monument was gone, you could build higher than the skyscrapers of New York City and no one would care. Of course, an augmented version of the monument existed on what now was an empty, smoking hill.

One day you were walking down the street when you saw a lump of dead pixels in the road. Strange. The software couldn’t identify it, and a red UNIDENTIFIABLE OBJECT flashed across your eyes. It was tiny, and its pixels shuddered over each other like dying coals.

Your curiosity was strong enough for you to reach up and unscrew the winch that kept the glasses on your head. Last time you did this, the smog stung your eyes for days, but now, curiosity wins out over the pain. You crouched down and took off your glasses, which instantly powered down to save energy as they did when you were in your apartment. The smog stung. You pressed your hands against your eyes and grabbed at the object. It felt vegetal, soft, delicate. You opened your eyes to see what it was through the smog.

It was a dandelion.

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my mother’s window Vincent Mangano

why is it that whenever she speaks it seems she is on the verge of tears, as if a million histories are leaking out from the seams laid down by conquistadors and Reaganites, stitching her, sedating her.

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