Issue 3: City Series

CITY SERIES: HEALING

For the love of where we’re from.

“Haunted On a Bluff”By: Madalyn Whitaker

Each city that becomes a part of me has a river that I wish I could lay at the bottom of. This city... its river haunts me. It never reflects the color of the sky. On days when the sun is the only thing sitting in the blue of the atmosphere, the river stays black with subtle undertones of green. On days when the sky cannot be seen through a thick blanket of gray clouds, the river still remains the same shade. It never changes, and maybe this is why I find solace in its presence.

I’m pulled to this river every day on my walk to work. Some days, I leave my apartment early so I can sit on the cement steps next to the water or let the grass on the banks entangle me while everyone walks by. Most people only give the black surface, maybe, one glance. They don’t know that, here - you can whisper your secrets, your sorrows, your fears, your pain, into the current. No matter what is thrown in, the water still runs down stream, bubbles and swirls underneath the sea foam green footbridge, and falls in turmoil over the dam.

This river is why I stand on that green bridge too long, or sit on the bluff even after the water level rose too high the day before. I’ve sat next to this river and cried after a night of drinking too much about the despair that only a severe hangover can bring on. I’ve laid in the grass in the cold spring sun and timed my breath with the sound of the water rushing by. My ears have become in tune to the way the water sounds when it hits cement, compared to when it hits the mud. I like to imagine that I could sit at the bottom and ignore the rubbish that floats by. I could create an oasis of my own on the mushy river floor.

But for now, I wipe the silt from the banks of the river on my face and declare my love to its soullesssurface.

“Nick K. Meza”By: Sarah Harwell

About thirty miles north of the pristine suburb I reside in lies the city of angels. Los Angeles, the city I loved everything about - the city I could still write pages and pages of prose about. What lies in that city are memories that are now broken, memories I look back on and despise. Places that remind me of that moment I could feel the blood drain from my face with jealousy, places that spark the revelation that gave me a lump in my throat from sadness. I went back to Los Angeles alone, in the hopes of making new memories by myself that I optimistically would attempt to replace the old ones with. There was a certain empowerment in going to a city alone. I gazed at art that brought me to tears downtown, and sat under the sun whilst listening to the vague sounds of ducks at Echo Park. I felt valid, but not healed. I still felt broken, I still had pieces of me that I had yet to put together.

But thirty miles south of Los Angeles lies the suburb I am from - the mere thought of the pretentious hill had always made me scoff with irritation. But still thirty miles south of Los Angeles lies my undenying home, my place of healing - where not only I am from, but that place is from too. A place I call bliss, a place I find comfort in. I find it in the warm embrace at the very first sight, the boyish smell that keeps me in, and the ease I feel radiate from head to toe from just one glance. Every worry, any emotion that does not cause the ends of my lips to curve into a smile, each dark idea that I could ever think of, diminishes. To me, your arms are my place of healing. I take solace in your presence and your voice is what I fall asleep to.

My place of healing is not a location, but a person; a person that not only makes me feel significant, but also soft and allows me to be vulnerable yet not weak. I have learned that I can empower myself, I have learned that I can love every broken piece of me, but it’s my place of healing, my person, who has taught me how to put them all back together again. A place that makes me feel whole, makes me be so undoubtedly myself that I can feel again - allowing this place, allowing you, to be a part of me.