Issue 11: The Body Issue

Issue 11: The Body Issue Contributors Defectivepudding (defectivepudding.com) ..........................4 Dolores Valles (@vallesdolores) ...........................................5 Sydney Acosta ............................................................6-7, 23 Julie Gautier-Downes (juliegautierdownes.com) ..............8-9 Alif Lameesa (@aliflameesatrevathan)..............................10 Jennie Tudor Gray (jennietudorgray.com) ........................11 Vanessa Godden (vanessagodden.com) ........................12-13 Kate Kitchens (@infinity_dots) .........................................14 Viktoria Valenzuela (viktoriavalenzuela.wordpress.com) ..15 Rachel Stewart (gratefulrachel.com) ............................16-17 Surya ShĂŠkhar Biswas (@raahoull) .............................18, 35 Michi Fink (@fruitscent) ...................................................19 Emma Atkinson (emmakatkinson.wordpress.com) ...........20 Tikva Lantigua (tikva-lantigua.com) .................................21 Michelle Sander (michellesander.com) ..............................22 Sammie Aasen (samanthalyn.com) ..............................24-25 San Juana Guillermo.........................................................26 Sandahl Tremel (sandahlmasson.com)..............................27 Adrianna Michell (adriannamichell.wordpress.com) ........28 Martha Saenz ..............................................................29, 32 Monique Islam (moniqueislam.com)............................30-31 Dezzare Boone ..................................................................33 Lisa Mendoza Knecht (@corazonyfire) ............................34

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Defectivepudding

Chi Chis Out

by Dolores Valles With my Chi Chis Out You criticize me for not attending college Belittle me for not fitting into a size 0 You make fun of me because I look different With my Chi Chis Out She whispers “Why hasn’t she gotten married yet?”

She’s got 3 kids born out of wedlock, you know?”

And Now With my Chi Chis Out you point and holler “Cover up!”

This time, While I am nursing my baby from my breast With my Chi Chis Out My liquid gold drips out of my daisy shaped nipples And covers the corner of my son’s mouth Only to heal his body inside and out With my Chi Chis Out It smells of vanilla ice cream, It reduces the risk of cancer, and it soothes my little brown warrior to melt in my arms With my Chi Chis Out My fist in the air and my crown on my head I will no longer hide to comfort you I become a dancer, a singer, a hummer, and I stand for this breastfeeding revolution!

With my Chi Chis Out I am equipped with my machine gun Chi Chis to feed my baby with leche It is so tragic how you mad dog us for doing what is only natural For this breastfeeding chingona I stand with my baby and my Chi Chis Out.

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The Bone that Snaps Apart Sydney Acosta 2017 -Jules and I set off late in the day with not much to say about our morning bickering.

We drove through Joshua Tree an enormous desert. It’s cold and very silent. But not eerie. The land is inviting. We hiked all day looking ugly but not really looking at each other that much. Mount Ryan was an accelerated elevation climb up to 6000 feet. We hiked past the snow line and ate on the mountaintop rice cakes with salmon, goat cheese and avocado. We set off to my dad’s and arrived after sunset. My dad had been drinking all evening I think celebrating us coming, my job or just to take the edge off. He didn’t stop drinking until I pressured him to go to bed already.

I’m abbreviating that night because I can’t bring myself to cry, not now after his stroke. I struggle with letting myself cry, especially when it comes to my dad. It’s an armor meticulously glued together. There are behaviors like denial and laughter that I inherited from my dad even though we don’t share the same blood. Jules and I took off the next morning to Pasadena for the Norton Simon museum. There were chingos of attractive visitors and gallery guards, well dressed with darting eyes. We were both enchanted with the people, the Picasso print exhibit and the Southeast Asian sculpture. I had dinner with Ellen, who is absolutely gorgeous in a raw nonbinary way. We talked about this of course and marriage and Eric. She was married too before coming out. But that was a long time ago, way before I knew her or Andy or anyone in LA. We had thai food in Hollywood. That was the day I ate three huge meals almost back to back. The consumption started off strong in California and it hasn’t really stopped. It’s gradually subsiding and the tide is coming back in along with every emotion. Julian was never up for processing or communication games so by the time we hit the 5 he was a manic depressive mess. We didn’t speak the entire route, until we hit the 49 right outside of El Dorado near Placerville. We came to Eric’s Thursday night, unloaded, made a fire and slept warm, apart. We left for the Bay Friday morning for my banya date with Natalie which as usual she was very late to arrive. I had been caffeinating like mad for two weeks then eating like a pompous queen in LA. I undressed nervously and hit the wet sauna first. I lasted only two minutes before my nerves began shaking my whole body with the caffeine and agony of sexual solitude. I threw myself into the cool pool to chill out. It didn’t help and I only had twenty minutes before the beating, the platza began. At this point, I didn’t know who my therapist was and I was nervous they wouldn’t be good to me, like you. You never know. Natalie arrived unable to undress. We shared a few minutes in the jacuzzi together before I went to find my therapist. Out he comes from the Russian sauna, this tall strapping totally ripped young Russian with disgusting tattoos all over his muscled pale body. I don’t have my glasses on so I see this body coming at me and my eyes are wandering all over him before I see his face. Then he walks up to me wraps his waist in a pestemal and introduces himself as Matt my banya master. Yes please.

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I’m not put together at all. I can barely get a sentence out without shaking and editing. I tell him it’s my first time. He’s surprised and describes what is about to happen in just a few sentences. He’s leaving out so much! I like it this way. The only way seduction should happen. His flesh is still red from the sauna and he sends me in ahead of him to warm up my muscles. I stay in there quietly assuming a demeanor I can only describe as teenaged. I come out after 10 minutes hardly breathing. I shower to chill the fuck out. It’s aquatic therapy. Then he comes for me with the bundles in one hand, his wool banya hat, a towel over his waist, towels for me thrown over his shoulder, his pecs pointed. Our procession into the sauna makes my chest pulse. He started by laying a slab of towels for me. I’m entirely naked, exposed and soft. I lay face down. He adjusts my legs, my feet, tells me to focus on my breathing. He goes down to the oven and throws the water on. He comes up for me and starts waving the branches over the long length of my body. The sauna is now right up against my flesh.

It’s close the air, the heat. I’m in pain instantly. He senses it and presses the branches into my face and neck. He’s suffocating me with the freshest deepest scents, tells me to breathe deeper. I cut our session short because my body is in agony. I’m telling myself to keep breathing, keep living but at a certain point I’m too dizzy for words.

I sit up, he helps me raise my arms then continues slapping me with the moistened oak, now on my ribs, now on my tits, now in my armpits. I’m released downstairs, I walk cautiously feeling lightheaded. I go into the ice bath for 12 minutes. I don’t want to get out. I’m revived but still senseless. He walks me over to a tiled bench, sets the towels down for me and seats me. He starts massaging my head and neck, giving me sips of water to drink. It’s not even erotic at this point. He’s concerned. Natalie is sitting with us and trying to make small talk. I have no memory of what she rattled on about. Matt grabs my shoulders from behind and presses his knee into my back, through my right shoulder then the left. My hearing comes back. The ceiling is stable again. He’s holding my head, finding pressure points. I’m a void filling up fast. We rest awhile before heading downstairs for hammam. I’m so happy he’s doing both, taking me around as his own. People approach asking him for favors. I’ve seen him when I’ve come to banya before, giving platza mostly to the old Russian men who scream at him to go harder. And he does. The hammam lasted about an hour. He scrubbed and washed and oiled and massaged--- Our breathing was rhythmic and loud. At times my skin burned and hurt and I said so feeling like all my words were mangled, like my vocabulary was crude and ugly. Only the breathing was pure and necessary.

What can’t be told in breath? He didn’t speak much either, maybe, I thought, because he’s dumb, maybe because he has too much knowledge in this routine, or too much power in this workplace. I had this altar made of my old skin, my sweat and this big body mine- which kept changing sizes. And him circling me. At the end, my lips were parted and my nipples hard as diamonds.

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8 Julie Gautier-Downes

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Julie Gautier-Downes

Delicate Mongrel

by Alif Lameesa Walking into flaky rooms a snowless peak, crooked in my stature.

I’m not alone but the grass at my skirts reflects edelweiss and elderflower, I’m a tentative outsider.

Dashing through polished bruised pink streets with strange white towers, I’ll pick the mosaic off my skin so I can fit in.

I’m too much hair and too much prayer.

I’ll snip my roots so you can pick me-pluck me-pull me from home and scatter my limbs from my God-given soul amongst accepted palettes.

When I was little I was the only brownish girl doing ballet.

I’ll keep my skin and I’ll keep my hair.

I’ll adorn my face with colour and I’m no longer an unfinished master - I’m coloured in.

I’m bursting from your silver gold rattling charity tins.

I’m pink and blue and purple and I seek shades and hues that push me-pursue me-persuade me that my race is real and my pride is healing.

Every blooming scar and nicked-prickling-trickling-stinging-stunning-pinch.

I’ll punch back and I’ll slow time to perform its magic.

I’m not your semi-exotic pelvic sweet.

I will listen to my mother natter in Urdu on the phone about the details that matter in gold and the ones that don’t, I will listen to my nani’s songs at night when God is her mighty companion.

I will touch the unapologetically cream-soft bodies of the women I will love and I will hover content in the knowledge of my own pearly pealing putrid purity.

I will let my hair grow and I will be sexual and technical and outspoken and focussed and – I am too big to fit on your racial mood board, my humanity is bigger than your moody boxes and your toxic fingers.

I will drape fabric on my body or I’ll kneel in submission, I’ll turn my head to the rain when I’m in need of gaining love or remembering my Muslim roots in Spain.

And I will not, I will not be ashamed.

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Jennie Tudor Gray, Presencing 4

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12 Vanessa Godden, Cartography #4

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LOCKJAW

by Kate Kitchens the mandible is a place where bone is cuddled by blood nerves and gristle; spongy bone holes filled with watermelon that spilled onto the floor of dad’s Astro van upon performing chin splits on the driveway. years later my tooth man presented me with various colors of headgear as if it would improve my appeal through the surgical eyes of middle school children.

I chose construction cone orange. it says KEEP BACK 100 FT: RESETTING JAW TO HOMO SAPIEN STYLE my concerns for the mandible used to be vain now it’s awkward jaw poppings, lockjaw impending. the prospect of getting my jawbone sawed and shot full of bolts rivets me though. I wonder: can I get video footage? can I keep the bone dust?

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I will ask the tooth people to please not carve reliefs into my masseter or turn it into a bone tool, so I become some jawless fish with nothing to rest its drink on.

Infinitely

by Viktoria Valenzuela My hips, like the multiverse, are in ceaseless amplification. Each elegant face of love my hips have carried inside them spread me out a bit more. My children, uniquely human, are alien to me. Quixotic stares between us lead to unknowable yet innate knowing. Everything alive seems so pitiful after birth. Beyond the body, the expanse of space/ time is not yet on my side. I mean‌ I was approaching the event horizon; I could taste the blood of a tooth long rotted. Those I unborned, miscarried in my youth, still hold a place among us in the form of thoughts and dreams. It is in this time that we are more real than atomic mass. I carry my children with me‌ infinitely.

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Rachel Stewart, Cowgirl

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Rachel Stewart, Reflections II

Surya ShĂŠkhar Biswas, Anxiety Illustrations #1

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Letting people live their lives in their natural bodies without harassment. Sounds easy. Sounds legit. We do not live in a society where it is so. Society wants me to drag a razor across my skin several times a week, so while they are out buying their groceries, running the trails or what not, for those quick passerby moments, sometimes not even a full minute in time, they can feel comfortable. The concept that people actually feel uncomfortable because of my body has hair is, well, dumb. It is body shaming to look at me and say “eww,” or make the face of “eww”. Or to tell me to shave, that is body shaming. People ask me if I do not shave because I am a lesbian, or a feminist. Though I am proudly both, my reasoning is neither. I am just natural. A natural womyn. A natural human, regardless of gender. Real. My definition of natural, being real, is simply being the you you feel truly, sometimes that might mean some alters to the body, and sometimes that might mean not a damn alter to the body. That concept does not connect with people, but still, that is my answer. Simple. People can not wrap their minds around it, and still end with “you’re such a feminist” or “you’re such a lesbian”. Which is offensive yet interesting in the fact to say, many womyn who do not shave are lesbians, not all, just many. Says something about general male culture and the womyn who do it to please the culture. I am not of that ness, so my writings on it stop there. Not to say I do not get body shamed by womyn who find my hair to be disturbing, threatening even, by straight and lesbian womyn, cis and trans. Gross is something I am called much too often. Telling someone that their natural body structure is gross, is body shaming. It is ok to have your preferences, it is not ok to tell someone they are not yours when they did nothing to be be rejected by someone they never tried to be accepted by in the first place. But as long as my hair grows, forever, I shall speak up for the natural, unshaven bodies of womyn. To clear things, I am not saying you can not be of natural body and shave. Just, this is how I personally feel at my most natural. Yes, truth is that a few times a year, some years, I will partake in shaving. San Anto, Tejas heat, it is surviving. Artist life, it is surviving. Back to the core, shaving is a made up industry that became a nightmare. Spread like wild fire those razors scraping womyn over and over again, bloody nicks, oozing bumps. Society wants womyn to shave their legs, slit their wrists and slice off their tongues, all with the same razor, which we had to pay for on our own. But if we boycott the purchase, we can down size the industry. Yes, aware that there are several hair removal procedures that involve no razors. But there is zapping, plucking, killing of the root and so on. If we let our hair be, we can use that time to fill our intellect instead, by just refusing to play the made up gender game. I personally, find hair to be beautiful. Sexy. Yes, sexy. It is damn sexy when a womyn fully embraces her body. When anybody of any gender or non gender fully embraces their bodies. It is freeing, beautiful and empowering to be a womyn with body hair still intact in all its glory without worry. All the body shaming and ugly faces will not make me feel otherwise.

Be free grrrlfriends.

Michi Fink

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What does it mean to love a body?

by Emma Atkinson Is it simple aesthetics, the slope of feet into the ground like hillsides, the symmetric harmony of fingers over toes?

Is it teamwork? The ability - no less than mystical - to be the lips against the knees and the knees against the lips?

Does it just mean forgiveness?

What if our bodies are altars to the god of the self ?

Warm water spreads across your back, and your nerves rush faithfully to report it. Your skin reddens as it opens its gaping pores to receive the sensation. Is this all for you?

What if our bodies and ourselves are altars to the universe? What if we are conduits for living information? Is loving a body the same as loving creation? Does it carry the same weight as loving a mind?

I am curled into my body, chin to chest, eyes filled with water and the sight of my skin. Cold air creeps in between the drops, rushes to me, rushes for me.

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Tikva Lantigua, I fell off the roof today (and some other euphemisms) #2

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Fresh Flowers at Kinkerstraat Market

by Michelle Sander She hacks at the bundle Leaves and greenery; several thin, rubber bands; thorns; nubbins, maybe they aren’t called that. It doesn’t matter because they find themselves underfoot now. Did the detritus ever exist?

One-by-one, she selects from the bunches. She looks into their faces and quickly hands down judgement. All the beauty packed tightly together— two dozen cheekbones pressed painfully. Knocking skulls. Hips.

She wraps their long, spindly stems in wire. A bouquet of Barbie dolls, bound tightly by their smooth, stiff legs and unpointed toes. She lifts them at once. She lets the space between them grow. They breathe.

She examines their beauty, then drops them harshly together against the metal surface. Shears in hand, she strikes. Unpointed toes fall to the ground. She strikes again and again. Until, bloody and wounded, she sees perfection.

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Sydney Acosta, Untitled 2016

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Sammie Aasen, Eyes

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Sammie Aasen, Feet

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I Am Woman

by San Juana Guillermo I am powerful and intelligent.

I am Beautiful, although it took me a while to accept it.

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I have been through trials and tribulations that took me to the depths There were times when I couldn’t face any more and thought suicide was the only door left I have survived rape, beatings, and verbal abuse.

I have been demoralized, dehumanized, and dissected.

I have flown high above the clouds and I have dragged myself across the floor.

I am woman!

Pessimism always pulled at me but Optimism never left my side.

I never let the music leave my soul .

It’s what kept me strong.

Through all the dark clouds, I was always reaching for the rainbows.

I laughed through all the pain, if I didn’t I would have surely died.

I have been belittled and humiliated Yet I have continued to hang on.

I am Woman.

I love love!

And I have also learned to love sex.

I have cried over lost loves and broken heart, I have broken hearts and made them cry.

I might not have picked the right partners, But I birthed the right children!

Who in turn gifted me with beautiful grandchildren.

I have siblings who love me And Who for the most part, understand me.

I am powerful and intelligent I educated myself in many areas that cannot be taught in schools I educated myself in many areas that were taught in schools I am a good friend, I am a bad friend.

I am accepted, I am rejected It has taken me awhile but I have come to accept myself, And in return I am now being accepted for who I am.

I am beautiful, I am intelligent, I am talented.

I am gifted, I am nice, I am loved, I am proud!

I am not liked by some, but I don’t care.

I have learned to hold my head up high and revel in the woman that I have become!

I am a mother, a grandmother, a sibling.

I am nurturing, I am loving.

I am sensuous. I am woman!

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Sandhal Tremel, Boobs of All Kind

The sky is bright and framed with the green of leaves from trees

by Adranna Michell The sun forces itself through the glass of the window. I stare at the light until my vision goes spotty. With my eyes closed I feel the heat of my friends’ bodies and remind myself I am protected. I open my eyes and see the green of childhood home front yards. I am under the covers of Abbey’s bed; I trace the pattern of the duvet gently with my hand. I follow the white and yellow flowers and watch them wave to me hello. I wiggle my toes beneath the covers and watch it dance. Abbey’s bed is small and the duvet is made for a child. I am a teenager, stuffed into a bed that I have outgrown but linger in.

Sahra and Abbey sit near me and Maddie is on the floor. Music is softly playing and my friends hum along. The guitar is soothing but the melody is quite sad.

“Icicles hanging in caves Have very special names I love my honey’s lungs I kiss him on the tongue” My face is puffy and my skin stinks of salt. The pillow holds my cheek gently. The window holds the sky.

Outside I stare at two boys playing across the street. They are probably about twelve; they run around their driveway that’s littered with half forgotten toys. A net stands at the end of the driveway and they chase a ball around with sticks. One boy I watch for a while; he throws the ball up into the air twice his height and then hits it with the stick as it comes down. Each turn he tries to bounce the ball off of the plastic of his stick and misses it. He stands there oblivious in the repetition of his game. I cry while I watch him. I see youth saying goodbye to me in the wave of his hockey stick. …

We sit in a park on top of a small mound. Although the air is slightly cool the sun is bright and warms my shoulders. The grass below is soft as I lie on it. There is a man sitting on a blanket while his young child climbs over him. He eats take out and looks content. His child is very young and likely has only just learned to stand; looking at the infant makes my heart jump and I am scared.

There is a man and his dog running around the field near us. The dog is very friendly and runs to greet the people of the park. The dog startles a young boy and the owner does little about it. The owner tries to coax the dog away but is disconnected with his pet.

We eat snacks happily and we take turns playing the ukulele. I feel content even though I was sad not very long before. I don’t feel as young as I did a few days ago.

I touch my stomach and think about the stranger and his baby. I think about the plan B I swallowed this morning. I thought it would stick in my throat but it went down easy. My friends gave me water. I feel like I killed his baby; I feel like I killed my baby. I cry watching the dog and mourning my youth. I’m the first of my friends to fuck someone. …

I walk home from the bus as the sun is setting. The orange glow fades in through the trees. The canopy of foliage covers the sky above me. Flowers dot the sides of the roads like the red spot on my underwear. I wonder if all the people passing by me see the sad look on my face. I wonder if I look as uneasy as I feel.

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Martha Saenz, Part Spared 3

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Monique Islam

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Squeezing Into Her Jeans

by Martha Saenz Squeezing into her jeans, she lies down on the bed his voice still laughing in her head.

She sucks in her gut bracing for the force she is about to exert upon herself.

Inching the solitary zipper up skin-pinching increment by flesh-poking increment compressing and constricting natural bends and curves.

Wedging herself into a denim corner, altering natural contours.

Metal teeth bite her fingers, sweat slips from her back, her cheeks are crimson red the deed done at last, yet she cannot summon enough air.

Feeling tight and slightly dizzy, attempting to rise becomes a haphazard odyssey of struggling twists, striving turns leading to a final jerk-off from the bed.

She has squeezed into her jeans!

She looks magnificent...from the waist down ...yet she can’t put her shoes on.

From the waist up...she is ready to implode and burn with the force of self-inflicted duress.

Takes a wire-hanger to the exposed white, cotton flaps of bulging front pockets.

Begins plummeting these vulnerable sections that will never bear loose change.

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Teeth thrumming with the beat of her heart she aborts their pale peep from public view.

Her normally delicate feminine cleft?

Looks suspiciously like a beefy camel toe -rimming her ribs is a roll of pale, flabby cookie dough -and she still can’t put her shoes on.

She has squeezed into her jeans!

Tight jeans... jeans...tight... right up against her: constricting organs, cutting off movement breaking capillaries, tearing up flesh.

She has squeezed into her jeans though.

She is halfway to becoming the woman of his dreams: a paperdoll, folding, packing it in to become paper-thin.

One-dimensional flat, pale, without sound or smell, plus perfectly lit.

She’s whittling down, attempting to fit his idea of what she should be -what she should look like -- how to dress, made to please.

Because she the only time she truly exists is when he deigns to look at her.

Dezzare Boone, There is No Wrong Way to Have a Body

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allows your Tias to shame you in mid carne guisada con queso breakfast taco bite gives your mom permission to say, “You’d be so pretty if you would just lose 30 lbs.” pretends to satisfy hunger through acts of drinking protein shakes, counting points and calories, and calling your insurance company to inquire about weight loss surgery forces you to grab your sofa pillow in an apologetic act of covering your protruding belly of flesh—the very same belly that twice provided a sacred place for your babies to grow pushes you down a spiraling, twisted dark tunnel of anxiety when the scale screams 280 lbs. encourages women to talk freely about their latest diets in the middle of that lunch break you were SO looking forward to uses exercise as a form of punishment and guilt as opposed to the simple body pleasure of moving and breathing obligates you to give me unwarranted health advice makes us see food in terms of good/bad, and thin as superior and fat as inferior creates a sense of mistrust between you and your body allows praise for weight loss attempts and shame for weight gain uses diabetes to create panic among people of color fuck this fat phobic society! give me my nachos my margaritas my cold cervezas with wedges of salted lime watch ME as I slip on my bathing suit and unapologetically claim my space, my body, my place in your fucked up, fat-fearing world.

Living in a World that Fears FAT . . .

by Lisa Mendoza Knecht

Surya ShĂŠkhar Biswas, Anxiety Illustrations #4

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