Bossier Issue 5

BOSSIER BOSSIER

“All-seeing” by Isabelle Groenewegen

Editor-in-Chief: Elizabeth Cregan

Creative Director: Dan Rojas

Managing Editor: Lana Nauphal

Layout Director: Olivia Jimenez

Art Director: Aires Miranda-Antonio

Head of Outreach: Sophie Septoff

Head of People: Mayeesha Galiba

Business Manager: Alexia Fieger

Editors: Aden Choate, Samantha Freedman, Ciara Hockey, Aurore Ndayishimiye, Eliza Phillips, Ceci White-Baer

Designers: Claudia Chen, Isabelle Groenewegen, Allison Herr, Stephanie Leow, Julia Medellin, Mai Pham, Chloe Suzuki, May Tan, Sidney Wertimer

Creators: Caleigh Andrews, Laurie-Maude Chenard, Mackenzie River Foy, Francis Kpue, Maya Silardi

Illustrators: Layla Gorgoni, Kimberly Jin

Web: Rocco Graziano, McLean Corry, Christina Coughlin

Video: Maya Fleming

Newsletter: Narisa Buranasiri, Fran Mbonglou, Bethania Michael

Marketing & Social Media: Alex Dekkers, Anita Kelava, Chelsea Luo, Nyana Morgan, Caitlin Peng

Outreach & Events: Elaine Liu

Cover: Mayeesha Galiba

Font: Garamond (body), Fat Frank (title)

Contributing writers: Sienna Brancato, Hanna Chan, Natalie Chaudhuri, Laurie-Maude Chenard, Aden

Choate, Elsie Coen, Elizabeth Cregan, Anna Crowley, Grace Crozier, Mackenzie River Foy, Mayeesha

Galiba, Esthela Gonzalez-Vazquez, Kelly Goonan, Rocco Graziano, Sophia Griffth, Julia Hyacinthe, Olivia Jimenez, Jubilee Johnson, Taylor Kahn-Perry, Joosje Lupa, Cira Mancuso, Mallory Murray, Dan Rojas, Emily Shambaugh, Chloe Suzuki, Brittney Sweetser, Tarina Touret, Julia Usiak

Contributing artists: Sebastian Bedoya, Charlotte Böhning, Alexandra Bowman, Mikko Castaño, LaurieMaude Chenard, Anne-Isabelle de Bokay, Stephanie Dekkers, Ninna del Cid, Clara de Solages, Mayeesha

Galiba, Christian Garcia, Marina Gelardin, Rocco Graziano, Gabriela Gura, Julia Hyacinthe, Olivia Jimenez, Kimberly Jin, Allysa Lisbon, Mika Skibinsky

The opinions expressed in Bossier Magazine do not necessarily represent the views of Georgetwon University unless specifcally stated. All content is submitted freely by individuals and may not express the views of the Bossier Magazine staff.

Like our Facebook page and follow our Instagram at @bossiermag

See all content from the contributors on our online edition at bossiermag.com

Resident Creator Projects

Laurie-Maude Chenard.......23-25

Caleigh Andrews.................38-39

Maya Silardi.........................42-44

Mackenzie River Foy................55

Content Warning: Mental Health

Dear Bossier,

As I approach the halfway point of my last year at Georgetown, I’m becoming more and more certain that this will be the hardest goodbye to make. I’ve said this so many times before, but the creation of this community has been the single most important part of my college experience. Tis is truly a labor of love: the words I’ve read over and over, the people I’ve metcomma splices found and friendships made; watching the sun rise from Lau 1; fnding a voice, fnding a roommate. I feel the gifs of this very special little ‘zine everyday. I hold them in my hands, hold them close; I don’t take it for granted that I’ve been given this space.

Tere are no words that could properly sum up my gratitude. “ Tank you” is far too small, but nevertheless: thank you.

Tank you for the vulnerability that has been shared with us, for the precious art and the words that might feel scary to speak out loud. Tank you for showing up to a White Gravenor classroom in the middle of the week to collage with us. Sorry we always lost the scissors and only had super-glue—thanks for sticking around anyway. Tank you for blowing me away with your submissions: all the doodles and paintings and gut-punching essays and poems I tuck away for later.

Tank you for fve (FIVE!) very special collections of pages. I’m still learning how to do this—all of this—but going through this life with all of y’all is a pretty sweet deal.

With gratitude and a lingering disbelief that I actually get to do this,

Dear Bossier,

Tis is... the last go ‘round! Tis semester was the last time I was able to shape the magazine that has admittedly shaped my Georgetown experience into the one it is today. Te most marvelous thing about this journey was being a part of the efort to not only encourage but also amplify voices at Georgetown. We’ve had our travails: the lost relationships, the struggles of enduring a space that’s not always the most welcoming for everyone, the growing pains of a young adulthood that sometimes feels like a helpless adolescence. But there have been successes, too: the friendships we have built––those connections that sustain you every day, that give you the impetus to traverse campus to share a smile or a short chat over a crusty bagel (I like mine double toasted).

I’m grateful for what these relationships have given me in my life. I have been able to discuss the power of art and the infuence of the personal––“How would you want to present this?” “But if you come at it from this angle...!” “Right, but how does that relate back to your central message?” Engaging with so many individuals involved in this organization, from members to submitters, has taught me that those who say “I’m not creative enough,” just haven’t’ found that place yet.

We started as around ten students and have since quadruples in size; we have consistently succeeded in transforming content for students and have brought so many stories to the sunlight. Our active partners—all of you—have given us the ability to connect on levels we haven’t experienced before. Te creative and the personal are in a feedback loop: we learn more about ourselves as we imagine and manifest it into the written, the drawn, the created. I’m not sure what came frst, the ‘zine or the community. All I’m sure of is that we will endure.

With endless love,

Elizabeth Cregan (COL '19) Editor-in-Chief

Dan Rojas (SFS ‘19) Creative Director

HideMyFace-AcidGhosGodandGreen-SlaughterHouseGimmeAllYourLove-AlabamaShakes

DR.WHOEVER-Anime21-Samia

UpTop-BusyandtheBass

PrettyLittleFears-6LACKHowDoYouFeel-TheMaine

SeaofLove-PhilPhillipsandtheTwilightsWavyGravy-OkeyDokey

Home-PhillipPhillips

INeedIt-JohnnyBalik HoneyWhiskey-Satica Moodna,OncewithGrace-GusDap2009-MacMiller

LoveInStereo-SkyFerreiraChicago-SufjanStevens

Pearly-Dewdrops’Drops-CocteauTwinsWhentheParty’isOver-BillieEilishGroceries-Mallrat

Lucky88-SpeedyOrtiz

SesameSyrup-CigarettesAfterSexConfdentlyLos-SabrinaClaudio

It’sNotLiving(IfIt’sNot WithYou)-The1975

Don’t-LocoHwasa

BonnieandClyde-VanceJoy

Temptation-Raveena

beach w girl

by Julia Hyacinthe

Dreaming

In my best dreams, you’re there When I wake up, you tease me with scattered snippets Of the night’s love story

Begging me to sleep again and fnd what happens next

But maybe one day I’ll wake up And instead of willing myself into unconsciousness for another taste of your love You will turn to me in the bed we share And I will remember that I don’t need to rely on my dreams anymore To know what it feels like to have your heart And I’ll fall back asleep with the heat of your body next to mine Tinking that a dream could never be this sweet

by Julia Hyacinthe

“All Angles” by Stephanie Dekkers

MÅÑÅGÏÑG THË ÅRT

(hër)

by Tarina Touret

Once again I’ve managed it: to shove her under the rug with my split ends and the brown gucky dust.

She emerges up from time to time to greet me and say hello prompting me to reply: how are you?

And this is when she realizes she is not well, no, not well at all.

But then she goes back into hiding and everything is like totally fne again: no need for help, a doctor, a pill.

“Go for a run.”

“Exercise!”

“Stop complaining.”

As though any of those would be heavy enough to weigh my foot down on this rug.

You should know better by now. You should know that this isn’t how it works. How do you not?

I get it though, It’s hard to see me sufer and you would rather convince yourself otherwise.

It’s okay, I forgive you I sometimes forget about her too and start believing she is gone forever.

I’ve become so good at hiding her I’ve even tricked myself into believing the fantasy myth of glitter and glory: happiness.

by Clara de Solages

glitter— ideas bouncing like sunshine on snowfakes pop rocks and frefies in caves i know me (with glitter) with camera clicks with doodles with screens of cinema of text-cursors of vectors of make-believe galaxies of pastel landscapes with apple trees

GLITTER (louder, this time, for efect) i began refecting on my … self ... and found ladybugs scuttering over white rose petals and oceans seated beneath bright rays i found parts of me that i love

scribble— that was ridiculous who am i? if i ask myself again, i might throw up i scribble, even scratch, to bury some parts i’m tired of thinking of hiding of trying so i will stop showing and i will stop searching my headscape / but i guess i’m doing just that... — this revelation might be enough

scrawl— furiously writing in a notebook is a soothing activity (not always) when my hands cramp up from overuse or overextension or whatever this is how i cope and how i sufer with the paradoxes the splits, the cuts, the stifed and bare, i write, i guess, but my head wildly scrawls to fnd glitter or to just scribble again

one day it scribbled then scrawled then slowed into cursive—

by Olivia Jimenez and Michael Castano

“One day, I’ll fnd so much glitter, there won’t be room to scribble or scrawl anymore.”

d i s c o m f o r t

by Kimberly Jin

Don’t Tell Anyone I’m a Bad Person

by Sophia Grifth

Hello Sophia,

I’ve recently been trying to make some changes in my life, and one of them has been to practice the act of forgiveness of self and self acceptance more. I’ve been speaking with ------ a tiny bit and that just reaching out would be a good idea.

I’m sure there are a million and one things you could say to me, most not positive, but I would just like to say I’m sorry for the way I acted. I’ve tried to grow since then.

I was wondering if you’d be willing to sit down and talk at any point? I’d appreciate it, but if not, I’d understand.

A note from Sophia:

I originally “made” this as a blackout poem, with the portions in parentheses blacked out. Te dashes are to protect a friend’s name. Below is a statement that contextualizes the poem more.

I received this email a little under a year afer my friend sexually assaulted me. Without specifcally addressing the assault or the ongoing abuse he subjected me to, he sent me this apology email, which seems to focus more on forgiving himself than anything else. My therapist, who treats me for the PTSD he gave me, agreed with me that the apology was insincere. Consequently, I use the “blackout poem” form to demonstrate his internal recognition of his lack of remorse for what he did and his awareness that any remorse he attempts to display lacks true substance.

Te title is the last sentence he ever said to me in person.

SHADES

i lost her in shades, in droplets of paint, in bristles shed from the paintbrush

i lost her in cloves of garlic, in diced tomatoes, in slices of fried eggplant

i lost her in forgotten names, in misremembered details, in faraway dreamy gazes

i lost her in hobbled steps, in helpless sighs, in tears escaping the corners of eyes

i lost her in glitchy hearing aids, in nurses ‘round the clock, in the sons who became caregivers

i lost her in slurred speech, in wayward eyes, In a stunning lack of conversation

i lost her in recluse, in no longer attending performances, in rotations from bed to couch and back again

i lost her in mumbled prayers, in half-hearted Italian, in paralyzed tongues

so when i fnally did lose her it did not feel like a slap— more like a whisper, more like a sigh, more like a dream, a smile

by Sienna Brancato

by Christian Garcia

dama de honor

I never thought of myself as having a problem with food. We didn’t really have much junk food in the house growing up, so every day after school, I binge-ate full bags of butterless popcorn, apples upon apples upon apples, and tablespoons of peanut butter from the jar.

But my family, Greek salads, and I, mac and cheese. My family refuses M&Ms, and I eat the whole concession stand bag, not because I really want to but because it just becomes a habit to bring fingers from bag to mouth and the sugar feels good and for a second the motion of eating and the rush of sweetness fill the empty space until the acids in my stomach spill up into my mouth and burn and burn and burn until I feel nothing again

and when I got to college, I had all the freedom in the world. No more structure, no more balance. I came back for break, and family members commented on how I “beat the freshman 15,” and how I actually look “skinnier than before!”

And it is important to note here that just because someone isn’t gaining or losing any weight does not mean that they have a healthy relationship with food.

This year, I’ve developed a tendency to forget to eat. And by that I mean I sometimes I don’t eat for hours, even a day at a time, for no real reason––and when I do, it’s an unhealthy, unbalanced meal or slow sips of caffeinated soda just to feel my stomach distend over my waistband in a masquerade of fullness. And I have fallen in love with this feeling of emptiness: the dull headache at my temples, the dizziness, the head rush after sitting up too quickly, the numbness, the lack of energy, the weakness in my limbs, the control I exercise over my body based on what I put into it.

When the world spirals and my mind steals the foundations from under me, I stop eating. Anxiety rips holes in my esophagus, and I just know that feeding this beast would only whet its appetite. The sharp emptiness gives me clarity, saps my energy so I have no choice but to sit still, if even for a moment.

But every choice not to eat feels like ungratefulness, like unintentional defiance. I don’t eat when I’m hungover, even though I know eating would help absorb the poison left behind, because sometimes I want to preserve it. Because by doing so, I force myself to reckon with the mental turmoil. Normally, I keep my head down and keep busy and don’t stop and never stop to think or breathe, and by not eating, I purge myself of everything. I cleanse away all the garbage and leave behind nothing but empty space. And I have fallen in love with that control,

except now it’s starting to feel like I don’t even have control over that. Over Easter, I try to eat like I always have at home but find that a normal-sized plate of food is suddenly too much for me, and I see the damage that I’ve done to my body by not nourishing it properly, how I need to make it whole again,

but how can I feel whole when you’re gone? your absence is a physical thing, a hunger that sits deep in my stomach, a void that neither food nor starvation can fill. you’re the nourishment that i’m unwillingly dependent on. every memory is a hunger pang. every ‘i miss you,’ a head rush. every accidentally

A Tribute to Artist Charlotte Salomon: Look Her Up

by Charlotte Böhning

by Natalie Chaudhuri

He is in third grade. He tells me that his crush’s mother doesn’t like him, and he doesn’t know why. Tears roll down his face as he explains that he always goes out of his way to be nice to her, but she always goes out of her way to be rude to him.

What am I supposed to say to this child, who is only trying his best?

What do I do when I have the nagging suspicion that the reason this wealthy white woman is rude to him is because he is black?

What am I supposed to say to a young boy who doesn’t yet know the stories of Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, and every innocent black boy who will face more than rudeness in the future?

The Age Limit

He is in third grade. He tells me that he’s scared, that Donald Trump is president and he doesn’t know why. Te pages of a kids’ version of a news magazine crinkle as he explains that his parents told him that Trump doesn’t like Mexicans, but that he’s Mexican, and he doesn’t know why someone who doesn’t like him is now the most powerful person in the world.

What am I supposed to say to this child, who has every right to be afraid?

What do I do when I am equally, if not more, terrifed for him––and for every everyone who looks like him––to already feel the normalization of hate?

What am I supposed to say to this young boy, who should be more worried about completing the homework in front of him than the safety and legal status of his friends and family––of the people who give everything to our country, only to be rewarded with deportation?

of Oppression

She is in third grade. She tells me that there is a boy in her class who constantly bullies her––her parents told her it just means he likes her––and she doesn’t know why. She pulls her dark hair up into a ponytail, her young features fawless without makeup, as she explains that he makes her uncomfortable.

What am I supposed to say to this girl—this intelligent, brave, and beautiful girl—when I know that these things will only get worse as she gets older?

What do I do when I realize that she will have to face being nonwhite and a woman in a world that has not come to terms with the intersections of her identity?

What am I supposed to say when I wish with every fber of my being that she retains that innocence, that they can all retain their innocence, when every barrier they have to face is forcing it out of them?

“Breaking Our Silence” by Laurie-Maude Chenard

Summer Smell by Mayeesha

Galiba

the smell of blooming jasmine is lifted up to my nose from the twisted plant outside our front door for a feeting period in the beginning of summer time when it’s warm but breezy and forgetting about school is easy because all you have to do is breathe in the summer smell

i splash boiling water over the teabag in an old mug my mother got at a garage sale i watch the water seep into the dried petals it takes a moment or two before the smell of steeping jasmine is lifted up to my nose

i take the vial of perfume from the middle east

decorated with fading gold paint and roll the cool tip onto the base of my neck and across the soft skin of my wrists i feel my body soaking it in as i bring my arm to my face so the smell of perfumed jasmine is lifted up to my nose

i wander the clearance candle aisle of marshall’s in search of hardened wax that will bring me melted joy a small, opaque white jar reads “blessed” i breathe in deeply under the fuorescent lights as the smell of soft jasmine is lifted up to my nose and without hesitation i buy it

isn’t jasmine the one?

isn’t jasmine love?

isn’t jasmine The Answer?

isn’t jasmine?

“In my feminist utopia, I would want to be able to feel the range of my feelings and not feel like I have to bite my lip and not feel the embarrassment or the guilt that comes with reacting—reacting in our human way. I want all people to be able to do that without having someone say, ‘you’re acting like a girl.’ Sofness and emotions are usually attributed to the female constructed gender role; emotion is seen as a sign of weakness and as an inability to lead. I would love if we could just feel whatever the heck we feel, but still be able to be amazing, excellent, and intelligent people in whatever eld we choose to go into.” dww

To Feel: To Be Human

“In my feminist utopia, I would want to be able to feel the range of my feelings and not feel like I have to bite my lip and not feel the embarrassment or the guilt that comes with reacting—reacting in our human way. I want all people to be able to do that—to feel whatever the heck they feel—and still be able to be amazing, excellent, and intelligent people without someone saying, ‘you’re acting like a girl.’”

-Mayeesha Galiba

Beauty in Resistance

“In my feminist utopia, people would have a beautiful combination of human traits because we’re all essentially human. Race, class, and sex wouldn’t matter because we would be liberated from the oppression that is currently tied to each of those constructs. We would be our genuine, authentic selves in whatever way is most fulflling for each of us. It comes down to when all those labels and identities are stripped away, who are we really?” -Sam

Almon

“In my feminist utopia, I would want to be able to feel the range of my feelings and not feel like I have to bite my lip and not feel the embarrassment or the guilt that comes with reacting—reacting in our human way. I want all people to be able to do tht without having someone say, ‘you’re acting like a girl.’ Sofness and emotions are usually attributed to the female constructed gender role; emotion is seen as a sign of weakness and as an inability to lead. I would love if we could just feel whatever the heck we feel, but still be able to be amazing, excellent, and intelligent people in whatever dww

Metamorphosis

“In my feminist utopia, everybody would be able to do what one wants without fear of judgment from anybody. It is a place where the expectations of being gay and straight would not exist on a strict binary, but rather in a fuid manner where there would still be space for diverse individuals to come together as a community.” - Graham

Ritter

Two Worlds Apart

“In my feminist utopia, expectations wouldn’t be diferent depending on what your gender is—they would be very neutral. Women wouldn’t be judged for certain things they do that currently seems fne for men to do, whether that’s playing basketball, doing something sexual, trying to get a leadership role, or having ambitions and goals for which women, today, are sometimes deemed incapable of achieving.” - Alia

Kawar

Deconstructing Gender

“In my feminist utopia, gender roles would be eliminated entirely, which would therefore remove power dynamics and any sort of gender expectations. In this much more level playing feld, everyone, regardless of gender, would feel equally comfortable in every environment. This would require the deconstruction of the social construct of gender.”

-Ian Scholer

Symmetrical Empathy

“In my feminist utopia, there would not be an information asymmetry; everyone would understand the circumstances of everyone else perfectly so that they could act in accordance with what somebody else is dealing with. Empathy is the most important part of being on the same page—of having everybody be in a fat social hierarchy.” -

Owen Shome

“In my feminist utopia, I would want to be able to feel the range of my feelings and not feel like I have to bite my lip and not feel the embarrassment or the guilt that comes with reacting—reacting in our human way. I want all people to be able to do tht without having someone say, ‘you’re acting like a girl.’ Sofness and emotions are usually attributed to the female constructed gender role; emotion is seen as a sign of weakness and as an inability to lead. I would love if we could just feel whatever the heck we feel, but still be able to be amazing, excellent, and intelligent people in whatever dww

A World Out of This World

“In my feminist utopia, a holistic space that’s not based in patriarchy, we would fght for equity, not just equality; create new systems by tapping into knowledge bases that aren’t conventional and embracing people we’ve historically deemed nonhuman; and be more inclusive by rethinking what feminism is, embracing a womanist approach, and understanding that not all women are feminine.”

-Sebastien Pierre-Louis

A Shattered Ceiling

“In my feminist utopia, any career feld—specifcally business, which is so male-dominated—would not be a scary place for women. Anyone, regardless of gender, would have the opportunity to succeed. A woman would be able to go to class or work without thinking ‘my voice isn’t going to be heard.’ Rather, a woman would think, ‘what I have to say is as valuable as what the men I work with have to say.’” -

Claudia Chen

Freed

“In my feminist utopia, women would not be limited in school to perform certain roles in society and would be free to aspire to what they really want to do in life. There would thus be an equal distribution of responsibilities among partners, both fnancially and emotionally. Women, as contributing members of society, would be able to fully take advantage of their true capabilities, making the world a better place for all.”

- Alejandro Lesmes

One with Nature

“In my feminist utopia, we would have no competition—or at least no losers—and a healthy relationship to the earth and our natural systems. To me, nonbinary folks embody that; it’s about respecting your intuition about yourself. If more people did that, we’d be more open to ideas of more winners. It’s a communal and relative process to me—defning myself—and I think that process would also belong in my utopic world.” -Mackenzie

Foy

l i m b o

by Chloe Suzuki

limbo, /’limbō/ (noun): an uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution; an intermediate state or condition.

if you feel anxious... if you’re holding your breath in apprehension... exhale

fnd contentment in your limbo exist in the present but just foat

this is a playlist to help fnd yourself in limbo

Te Unknown Guest - Dean // Let It Pass - Jakob Ogawa // Diferent State of Mind - Kid Bloom // Is Tere a Place I Can Go - Trudy and the Romance // Not Enough - FUR // Surfer Girl - Happyness // You Might Be Sleeping - Jakob Ogawa, Clairo // Wavy Gravy - Okey Dokey // Driving to Hawaii - Summer Salt // Across the Universe - Fiona Apple // Everything Stays - Te Marcus Hedges Trend Orchestra // All My Loving - Te Stairwells // Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae // Up and Away, Jakob Ogawa // Tomboy - Hyukoh // Yuuwahuu - Gym and Swim // Prune, You Talk Funny - Gus Dapperton

// Wash It All Away - San Cisco // When Did We Stop - New Move

FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER FLOWER

by

Olivia Jimenez and Mikko Castano

prompt 2

each twisted coil of streaky blonde drew attention away from the entangled thighs the slow dance as their bodies lay slick against each other

as if all the stars had intended for this one moment a slight nibble of the neck words sweet like candy that lingered in her mouth

the fre cre t out through her toes and left her ashes there, in his bed

by Elsie Coen

space

his idea of space––was simply so different from hers. as if it were something hereditary, born into the shrinking feeling among the masses of air and cold and winter and bright stars and huge moon. he tried to show her, she couldn’t fgure out h

by Elsie Coen

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE: From the Perspective of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope

Oh, hey. I didn’t see you there, until precisely this very moment, when I climbed off my Harley-Davidson Freewheeler, removed my vintage leather bomber jacket, and shook my ___________ (long red curly tresses) / (short blonde Pixie cut) / (Zooey Deschanel bangs) out from under my helmet.

The same helmet that’s covered in stickers from my favorite _____________ (bookshop) / (café) / (bookshop café).

But by the way—when we bumped into each other accidentally? Thanks for picking up my _______________ (leather-bound books) / (paint palette) / (ukulele) / (monkey wrench and spark plug pliers).

I’m sorry if I seemed out of breath, or left our meet-cute abruptly. Mysteriously.

It’s just that you wouldn’t understand. You see, I’m late for my favorite, not classically feminine activity. I can only be bothered by a bumbling, well-meaning man-child who/m ____________ (I will teach how to enjoy each moment) / (will teach me to enjoy each moment) for about thirty seconds at a time.

on’t orr though ec use tonight ill defnitel recount the entire inter ction in gushing det il to m singul r fem le friend ou fumbling to pick up my Activity Apparatus, sweating ever-so-perceptively in a delightfully boyish, male, masculine way. That’s right, I’ll recount the whole shebang to my ________________(older, more practical sister) / (sluttiest, most vulgar friend played by Judy Greer) / (Aidy Bryant).

“ ________________!” (“This is just like you!”) / (“This is so unlike you!”), she’ll say. And then she’ll ______________ (toss a pillow at me at the sleepover) / (demand we go back to work at our consignment shop) / (shush me so she can go back to reading Foust at our favorite dive bar).

“Shut up, ____________ (Erica) / (Donna) / (Karen), I’m not in love!” I shudder and look out the rain-streaked bay window, a single tear trickling down my cheek before I close the curtains. “I don’t do emotions anymore, remember?”

Flashback to The Boy That Broke My Heart Last ____________ (Summer) / (Summer) / (Season after Spring). He looked just like you, you know? The resemblance is striking: you both have the same ___________ (calves) / (number of arms) / (ability to respirate). I used my full eighteen years of wisdom to swear off love for good. I’m certainly not going to break that now! It’s too soon!

You, New Boy, you wouldn’t get. it. You’re no ________________ (Brad) / (Ryan) / (Bryan). Do you know what mine and ’s r d n frst iss s e l ed me this re ll underground nd th t e oth lo ed nd tot ll onded o er _____________ (The Beatles) / (The Strokes) / (LMFAO) / (Hoobastankaroonie).

e ut one e r ud in m e r nd one in his nd e sh red our frst iss right there itting right on to of the (hood of his Hundai Sonata) / (Coney Island ferris wheel) / (world).

You wouldn’t get it. But wait——what’s that tee shirt that you’re wearing? Is that the logo of __________________ (The Beatles) / (The Strokes) / (LMFAO) / (Hoobastankaroonie)? You’re also a fan? Of music?

o ’ e een iting to tell ou this e o h te er our n me is e er since the frst moment l id e es on ou f e minutes go think that I was running from you, because I knew that I would fall for you. Because I think that… this thing between us? It could be real.

You see, _________________ (I’m not like the other girls) / (you’re not like the other boys). You and I? We’re ___________ (different) / (the same), and the highest praise that I can offer you is that you are also not like your gender. Because what a tragedy that would be!

So, in summary, I know it’s crazy. But some things are meant to be. But _________________________ (I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy, saying that she loves him) / (I will accept this marriage proposal).

Yes! A million times, yes!

by Julia Usiak

small steps to giant leaps

i fell in love with a man the way that the stars love the sky: infnitely

i spent light-years tracing the crevices of his skin with my fngertips until they turned into constellations

he spent light-years sprinkling my life with stardust, the magic of his kiss and the radiance of his touch

my life, electrifed, becoming its own big bang every time we collided

our love, coruscating through the milky way, the sweetest supernova to ever transpire gravity falls to its knees in surrender and the sun is crippled with jealousy to know

that our worlds revolve around each other that our galaxy eclipses hers

and Galileo made a mistake when he attempted to uncover the meaning of the universe and skipped you for without you, there is nothing you, my north star

by Brittney Sweetster

by Mikko Castano

“rain jacket” by Anne-Isabelle de Bokay

Belleza en Soledad

by Gaby Gura

My Job

by Cira Mancuso

Tey say my job as a woman is to bear the next generation.

But they don’t understand that I do not want to contribute to the cycle of children who grow up, only to try and forget their childhood.

by Cira Mancuso

I need to learn to love myself as much as I had loved you.

When You are It (Mania)

by Tarina Touret art by Mika Skibinsky

It was one of the nights: bumps, acute, hair, sticking straight. In the dark, there was an overwhelming sense of being––feeling and then, of course, the desire––no, the need for––the physical attraction to it.

I don’t know it I can’t name it I only feel it and yet I devote myself to it.

I felt it frst they started to fall, those small and salty droplets of love after one of those long sessions: jump up, run out, close the door slide down, stare, make no noise I felt the gaze look back at me while the vibrations traveled through my drums and tingled my knees.

Tis is how it began and then I migrated––from the den to the white bench and there I looked up the light was (is) an aluminum rod of time: endless, continuous and yet broken apart into minuscule pieces that sprinkle the night.

Tis is when it started to crawl across the marrow of my toenails and shoot through my frame like ice on white teeth––or a tack in your lunula.

Te structure changes each time: most times it’s refective like a holographic piece of glass––a distorted, extraterrestrial yet colorful expression of myself separate from my physical body.

But each time, it brings tingles––cinematic streams of emotions, passions, and sensations that overwhelm my organs––

And urges me to compose meaningful, musical verses But I fnd myself struggling to lead my plastic inky bulb to touch down on the lines and string these diamonds of words.

I fnd it comes best in the darkness––not of the night but of the emotional partition that blinds me from all that surrounds.

Tis is when you feel unstoppable But when you regain your consciousness and look back, you see your ridiculousness, your grossness (failure) splattered, illegibly scribbled across the long uniform bands.

So you put your uniform back on and go back to doing, studying what you think is right, what will bring you SUCCESS!

Your tongue hisses, swears that you love it that you’re the happiest you’ve ever been and your cheeks––they plump up as you smile softly.

Is it the truth?

You don’t even know (yourself)

Maybe it is

I Will Never Love You

10/7/18

Citizenry melted away into expressionless squares of Bitterness (masked by the smell of cheap meat and downtrodden livelihoods).

Paper stars

hung above sunken dreams in unquiet minds

Not-quite-enough ice cubes

Buoyancy engulfed in a slow burn

Stony eyes panning the street corner where We walked home those times, and

People with imaginary families stared through the diner window.

Two bodies stayed twisted in a double knot

Te door slammed, but it was still just like the time

Under the soft glow of fuorescent light, face to face in a sticky booth, You understood that I didn’t need pity and I saw that we stayed us when we praised apathy.

Te street corner people and you and me

Listened to pseudo-jazz and made our best nonjudgmental judgments

At least for that night

Everyone said they were okay, October is weary.

10/8/18

Pretending to be adults at a corner table

Ducking under poorly situated yellow lamplights

Of-white napkins and the-wrong-color polos and makeup that never came of

As if I had never before tasted such comfort in a cup of steaming acid

In the soft glow of rainy sweat and a MacBook Pro, We looked at our infnity while sitting in our impermanence.

Not-quite-enough ice cubes

by Hanna Chan

by Olivia Jimenez, in honor of a beautiful little warrior, Imogen Louise Kramer (December 19, 2012-October 19, 2018).

Auras

by Caleigh Andrews

When drawing anyone, especially friends or those who you hold closest to you, it can feel impossible to properly capture their essence, In my own art, I typically keep graphite portraits clean cut and avoid adding color, thus providing little insight into the inner character or personality of my subjects. For my project, I wanted to not only share portraits of two women I admire, but I wanted to break this habit.

Women and femmes are hardly given the opportunity to fully show of their shining selves at frst glance, so I wanted viewers to see these portraits the same way I see these friends—the left, Aires Miranda-Antonio, the right, Seo Young Lee. As I could not hope to sum up an entire person in a few words, I will not try to do so in writing about what these drawings and these people mean to me. Instead, I chose to gild halo-like embellishments onto their portraits to more properly display their auras.

the type

by Jubilee Johnson

You’re the type to make me sit back and praise God, Te way some mothers hold an infant and with eyes Shining like a prism, kiss their forehead, toes, and stomach You’re the type to make me praise God for fnding something Organic, that hasn’t been marred with the bullshit I use To push through life and get me farther than the honest way could ever

You’re the type to make me stand up, and choose to do So beside you, when I really never stood for anything You’re the type to make me go to church and praise God, Step into a sanctuary and say amen, take the Eucharist and clap on Beat, when an atheist has no business praising God at all

“Wildly Ting” by Marina Gelardin

Wildly Thing

by Marina Gelardin

by Taylor Kahn-Perry

I have come to the conclusion recently that I peaked in elementary school. I was a student at Mount Pleasant Academy from kindergarten to ffth grade, and I often felt superior because of it. My sister Emily was four years ahead of me in school. I had every teacher she had, minus one who had retired, and I remember thinking they all liked me more than they had liked Emily. I was old for my grade. September born, my parents had considered putting me ahead a year but eventually decided that being the oldest would be easier than being the youngest. Te younger we are, the more age matters. I remember dangling the three or four months I had over my peers as a source of validation every time someone said something silly or I felt detached for thinking too far into things.1

When I was small, I kept a notebook by my bedside to write down all the reasons I couldn’t sleep.2 I was always too scared to turn on the light or put on my glasses, and so, in the morning, my thoughts were scrawled so sideways and crooked I was embarrassed to have written them at all. One night, I remember writing in bright red Sharpie a question I considered paramount: If SC’s economy is struggling and stuf, why aren’t other states/ other countries helping us? I remember racing to ask my dad the next morning. I couldn’t tell if he looked proud or sad when he answered. “Because their economies are struggling too, honey.” I nodded, but I didn’t understand.3

In fourth grade, I learned to ask questions. I adored my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Horton. I don’t think I had ever met someone who could see so much good in every single student she taught. Walking back upstairs after recess one day, I sighed, my skin sweaty, and asked her why drama existed.

“Anytime there are people, there’s drama,” she said, but she didn’t seem cynical about it.4

In her class we read the book Te Boy in Te Girl’s Bathroom, and I liked it so much that I made my dad listen to me read it aloud to him after we had fnished reading it in school. He always said yes to things like that.5 I remember there’s a part of the book where it’s raining, and Mrs. Horton told our class, “Pay attention to that. Writers include each detail for a reason.” I never read a book the same way again.

By ffth grade, I had started asking harder questions. I remember typing a journal entry for English class when a green squiggle appeared beneath a sentence. “Passive voice––consider revising.”6 I thought it said “reversing” and spent hours trying to fgure out how to order the words so the green would disappear. When my dad got home, he attempted to explain passive voice to me, and when I didn’t understand, we looked it up on the internet together. Finally, he told me I ought to ask my teacher.

Tat same year, girls had started wearing bras, and I remember the last week of school being called out of class to my principal’s ofce.7 She told me my favorite skirt was too short and that boys had been making comments and God, was I at least wearing shorts under it? I told her yes, because it was the kind of skirt with the little cloth shorts sewn in underneath because they sold it at a youth store and skirts were comfortable there. She told me to show them to her,8 and so I lifted the

¹ My mother called me sensitive. I hated it. Sensitive meant fragile, a leaf split at the stem.

edges until she could see the horizontal line of black shorts cut against my leg.

“Tose aren’t shorts,” she said.

I smoothed my skirt back down.

“You’re gonna have to call your mom, have her bring you something.”

I waited an hour for my mother to show up to school with a pair of denim shorts and a grey and white striped sweater that was my favorite. By the time I got back to class, we were in the computer lab, and everyone noticed I had been crying.9

I was embarrassed, sure, but there was something else there that I wouldn’t really understand until high school. Te objectifcation of the female body was not a thought in my little ffth-grade head. I just remember wanting to go home in a way I had never wanted to before. Te pedestal of elementary-school innocence had been shattered, and I write that in passive voice because it wasn’t my principal who shattered it, but my school that was enforcing the rules. Tat day was the frst time I remember feeling ashamed of being sensitive, of feeling everything.10

But it was oh-so important that I did feel that way. Disruption is what allows for activism; without it, we are complacent with the world around us. No education is worthwhile if it only leads to comfort.11

I realize now that the sensitivity my mother assigned to me was the ability to become disturbed. And no part of me hates that ability, no matter how hard it is to fall asleep, how many red Sharpie questions I have. I don’t know who I would be if I was comfortable. To be undisturbed is to be disengaged, and therefore complicit.

Tere is no shame in wanting to lead a comfortable, satisfying life. Te pursuit of happiness, after all, is an American right. But we must all recognize that the option of comfort is a privilege in it of itself.12 My greatest fear is slipping into the white moderate “who is more devoted to order than to justice”, as Martin Luther King Jr. would say.

I don’t remember what grade I was in, but at some point, a select group of students, myself included, were selected to practice critical thinking skills with the school guidance counselors. We worked on analogies for at least an hour. I remember loving it––the way completely diferent ideas could be completed with a simple recognition of the association at play. Writing is to books as construction is to building. Water is to water bottle as pillow is to pillowcase. Tis was the moment I began to examine the world in terms of parallels. And everything connects. Oversight is to the female body as watering is to a plant: necessary and inseparable. Tese are the lessons we’re taught as children. Tese are the lessons we must educate against. Worth is not to be determined for a woman by anyone but herself.13 And therein lies the challenge of being a woman: to reject all that we’ve been taught for the sake of all we’ve had to learn––and like God said to Abraham, “Lech Lecha: Go forth”.

² I could never keep up with my own mind when I was younger. I used to think my thoughts sounded like wind, but maybe that was just blood rushing to my head.

³ Nodding is nice, because for a moment it feels like your head is foating, and I suppose it is, because it’s alone. With a nod you’ve decided you don’t need help from anyone. I think we nod with our heads instead of our whole bodies so we don’t foat away from ourselves.

4 Cynicism operates on a bell curve it seems, where optimism is highest in the and end of the lifespan. Still, I think that cynicism begins to grow earlier in women, whenever those frst few experiences of sharp discomfort remind us we were engineered to be silent in an oh, so loud world.

5 What must it be like to say yes in an instant without fear that the ability to say no would shrink away each time?

6 My family used to take me to therapy so I could learn how to be more passive. But the world already teaches submission. Yelling is only efective in small doses, but submission is not the necessary alternative to aggression.

7 Have you ever noticed how counterintuitive it is to rob a student’s experience of learning for the sake of discipline, when a greater understanding acquired (gained in a classroom) is likely to curb signifcant disruptions?

8 Would I have gotten in more trouble if I refused?

9 I felt fragile, a leaf split at the stem. A dragonfy with one bent wing. A newborn dressed in pink.

¹0 Tere’s a special type of person who can act like nothing is wrong when everything is but not appear heartless like other people do when they try to suppress their emotions. I wished more than anything in that moment I could be one of those people, elicit a cool hello as I walked back into class, calm.

¹¹ Discomfort feels ugly and so people shy away from it and so teachers are scared to touch it and so we all remain comfortable, but those who shy away from the truth for the sake of ease can never truly be called educated.

¹² But it must be so easy to stare at the inside of your eyelids instead of at the world.

¹³ And women are worthy of the world: with shoulders soft and rounded, carrying femininity on our backs and clenching passion in our throats, no time for passivity. Despite all odds, submission is not the lesson we’ve allowed ourselves to swallow.

Female Masturbation.

I am deeply indebted to the beautiful women and femmes on this campus who openly shared their masturbation experiences to a complete stranger.

Tis project has been a long process in the making. It started as dialogue with my friends. Did they masturbate? Why didn’t women orgasm? Why was it that we couldn’t talk about it? Tere was so much unanswered and so much more left unsaid.

I reached out to as many groups as I could. Tough I did not anticipate much response, I wanted to hear from anyone and everyone interested in chatting with me about their experiences and opinions with female masturbation. I was met with overwhelming enthusiasm. Women and femmes across campus, most of whom I had never met before, wanted to be heard. Teir perspectives were fantastic, complex, and detailed.

It was a humbling learning experience for me. Tere was so much I didn’t know, and so much I still don’t know. My goal in doing this project is to destigmatize female masturbation, or at the very least begin the process. To start a dialogue and make people re-evaluate the ways in which we are socialized to think about female self-pleasure.

Here is a collection of words from some of the most incredible and open and empowering(ed) women and femmes I have ever met. Tough I recognize this does not nearly embody every perspective, I hope it is a start.

by Maya Silardi

Collage by Elizabeth Cregan

What does masturbation mean to you?

Taking charge of your own pleasure.

A form of self-love.

Initimate. Empowering. Fun.

Relieving. Wholesome.

As a trans person, it really helped me afrm myself. Okay this is who I am . Tis is who I want to be.

It depends on whether I am using the vibrator verus not using the vibrator. I am masturbating for two very diferent reasons.

I didn’t know if it was right. I knew it really felt good.

Masturbation says a lot about autonomy and female empowerment.

Penetration is overrated. You don’t need it. Tat’s not remotely the end all, be all.

Kindness to myself.

It’s about getting to know yourself better and getting to know your body better.

Tere’s so many facets to masturbation. Sometimes masturbation is super intimate, and sometimes I’m just trying to go to sleep.

I am a frm believer that no once can make you orgasm like you can.

I like it to be my own. It’s an area of sex that has never been tainted by other people who impose their thoughts on what they think sex should be.

Colorful. When I orgasm I get synethesia. Te sensation of it makes me see diferent colors. Te most vivid thing for me is the colors.

What is something people should know about female masturbation?

Te normalcy of it. While it’s about taking my power and sexuality back, it’s also something that should be normal and normalized. You don’t have to be superwoman to masturbate.

Everytime my mom caught me masturbating, she would hit me. My parents would mock me. Tey would make a freak show out of it.

Tere is a group of women who can’t orgasm and that’s not being talked about.

Our entire culture view is male pleasure centric. We need to close the orgasm .

I think an issue is that things I am supposed to fnd sexy, are not sexy to me.

Te more we talk about it, the less scary of a topic it becomes.

Tere is so much importance in overcoming the shame and the stigma.

I would go home, masturbate, and go yeah, I’m not broken. Tere’s nothing wrong with my body.

I actually started when I was really little. Defnitely grade school. I fgured out that it felt good.

Porn in conjunction with masturbation is very stigmatized. Girls also watch porn. I feel like oftentimes if girls watch porn it’s fettishized. People don’t think of it as legitimate.

As a woman, as a Black woman, as a Haitian woman, with a super Catholic family, I have always been shamed when it comes to sexual things. For a long time, I felt like masturbating was a deep dark secret.

On the one hand, college is a really bad sexual environment. on the other hand, college is a really positive environment sexually for women. Girls can be overwhelingly supportive.

The goal for this shoot was to explore the tension between Africa and its diasporic relatives. While studying abroad in South Africa, I wondered often about what my relationship to the continent looked like and how to balance the sensation of being a foreigner but also having a deep ancestral connection that I felt but couldn’t explain. What does it mean to return to a place that you’ve never known? Is it possible to go so far away that you just can’t get back? How far can you reach back to recover what has been lost?

These were my questions for myself and my models. Like most profound questions, the answers are always changing and will continue to develop every time I come back them. For now I hope these images speak to both the beauty and complexity of long ancestral aches and our deeply personal yet collective search for belonging. Like every cycle, the beginning will become the end, and come back around again

by Alyssa Lisbon

One fall day amid the golden red leaves that dotted his neighborhood I pulled up my car by the curb.

One fall day I realized that I always get lost, wherever I go. But I didn’t get lost going to him— or maybe I didn’t mind getting lost when I was with him.

One fall day I realized that I would do anything for this boy— admit he was better at Mario Kart, admit no one can beat Sinatra, admit wafes were better than pancakes, admit that the Vampire Diaries pales in comparison to the romance of real life— admit that he meant more to me than I meant to him.

One fall day when we fnished playing Scrabble (excuse me, “Words with Friends”— or maybe, “Words with More-than-Friends”) I realized that no perfect combination of letters could form the words that described how I felt about him but that whatever it was was better than any triple word scoring win.

One fall day amid the golden red leaves that dotted his neighborhood, we drove around together not knowing the way forward but knowing we would reach the destination together.

One fall day like the golden red leaves that dotted his neighborhood I fell... in love.

One Fall Day

by Natalie Chaudhuri

art by Emily Shambaugh

fallalwaysmakes

KATELYN

fall always make me think of you.

i remember sitting on your swing, the cool breeze in our hair, looking at all the colors of the leaves.

fall always makes me think of you.

i remember our frst time trying to smoke together. the weed blew away with the leaves, and there you stayed.

fall always make me think of you. i remember our happiness, smiles plastered across our faces. i remember running through the forest, lost and afraid and cold, and there you stayed.

by Rocco Graziano

“fall women”

me thinkofyou .

fall always makes me think of you.

i remember everything: every moment of happiness, anger, love, and discord. we’ve changed along with the leaves, turned from greens to yellows to browns, and yet there you stay.

my katerina, my kate, fall always make think of you.

i am shaky

my depression on friday 6/8

my brain is frmly rooted, but my world spins out of orbit around me

i have a longing to connect deep, deep deeply with another person

this longing is here everyday

i am not sure this is healthy but it feels so permanent

very few people make my entire world

i am scared of people and the power they have

by Murphy Zaun

to crush me, hurt me

i must remember to look up at the sky more i must remember to call my mom

i must always pet dogs

i must take deep breaths and hold them and let them go

i must be okay to let go if i hold people too tightly, they will wilt under my projections

i am too shaky for this body

“White Fortress” art by Mayeesha Galiba

Early April in Houston

by Elizabeth Cregan

All I’m saying is that it started raining the day I left. Not that there was a connection, just that for the four days I visited, the sun was out––aggressively. Tere was no hesitation, no second-guessing, no stage fright. Just unabashed ultraviolet. Take one look at my older brother Michael, at his pale skin dip-dyed a diluted pink, and you knew: the sun was fucking out. Ten I left––or really, I got ready to leave––and a biblical storm started to creep in again as it did six months ago, and six weeks before that, and the year before that. From my apartment window, I could see thick clouds migrating towards us, its own sort of air pollution. My city is hydrophilic. A plant perpetually in need of water, entirely ambivalent about whether or not its residents can swim. Houston is, at times, a merciless place––and yet, we stay.

My mother grew up around the corner in a red brick house with a navy door. Tirty years on Milford Street. It was there that she learned how to be who she was: radiant and funny, an at-times painfully archetypal American teenager; she learned how to hide her diaries, how to artfully disperse smoke from a crumbling joint, how to drive an old mail Jeep to and from cheerleading practice. Her mother was a Francophile from the Mississippi Delta, her father a lawyer rooted in the traditions of this city. Her brother was an artist, slow to speak and quick to anger. One time, Robert made a replica of himself out of newspaper, dressed it in his own clothes, and threw it from a tree onto passing cars below. Te psychological implications of this are yet to be determined.

Houston is a monstrous sprawl, an exquisite corpse of buildings and parks and patchworks of museums: sunken pieces of culture waiting to be excavated. It is a place built on bayous, thick with mosquitos. I’m not sure if I would ever call it pretty, its form erratic, its construction never over. But it is beautiful. On Sunday I sat in the park with my mom and brother, watching as a couple struggled to take a photo of their twin girls, about three years old, wearing matching Easter outfts and wide-brimmed hats. Nearby, siblings played a game with a football, calling out a diferent word with every throw, switching between English and Spanish; I watched for a while, but never quite fgured out the rules. Someone was grilling; the smoke bled into the sunshine as we walked back to our apartment. Te honeysuckles were blooming; a man with a wide gash across his face told us to enjoy the rest of our day; my dog’s tongue lolled out of her mouth, greedy for oxygen, or water, or both.

Earlier in the weekend, my brother Michael was driving us back from lunch. His beat-up Jeep turned the corner, continuing down an achingly familiar street, threateningly close to where our house of twenty-one years stood. Still stands. It’s strange to think about it existing without us, like a hollowed out shell of an insect, fragile chitin, gently plucked from the leaves. “Do you think you can handle it?” His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. He said this with a playful tone, but there was a spark of truth in his eyes––just enough to make me wonder if I actually could. I feigned dramatism and sighed. “Yeah, I think so.” And so we turned left onto Shepherd Street (not Shepherd Drive––that came deeper in the city) and then swung a right onto Quenby. 2133 looked as it always had, the only diference being that the last time I was in Houston, that white house with navy shutters had been my home. I often imagine myself as an adult, driving past just as I had done with my brother, pointing to the diferent windows like puppet shows, silhouettes behind each, memories waiting.

Te night before I went back to school, my mom took me by my shoulders and steered me into each room. Trough tears and hyperventilations, I recounted my favorite memories––still very much present in these spaces. As they spilled out of my mouth, these times and anecdotes grew to mythic proportions, taking up physical space within each room. I stood at each door frame, timid and reverent, not wanting to invade or disturb what had suddenly become so fragile.

We had painted over the walls so many times, smoothing out scufs and scrapes, hiding the spot where my brother spilled chocolate soy milk all over the wall. I had already peeled of posters, the hundreds of photos I had taped to the wall, including one of John F. Kennedy’s handsome grandson that watched over me with the steady, reliable charm of his family dynasty as I did my homework. I knew that the inside of my drawers were to be painted over––soon forgotten would be all of the names of all of the ants that died during my brief stint as an ant farmer. Margaret, Teresa, Rosa. Why they were all Catholic, I’m not sure––maybe out of an ingrained anxiety to save their Formicidae souls.

On the drive to the airport this morning, my mom and I stopped at a stoplight near the freeway. By the underpass, a man sat at a desk. No walls to hold him, no clear business to conduct. Two dogs loped around, playing with stufed animals scattered about the concrete median. Te man stayed at the desk, reclined in his chair, overseeing all that unfolded beneath the humming of the freeway. “I guess he works from home,” my mom said. I laughed, knowing I shouldn’t. Houston isn’t always forgiving. I wonder if the rain has started.

lavender is a type of mint lavender is a type of mint

if you’re not tired, you’re not paying attention.

The goal of this project is to create space for rest that Black students are entitled to, but rarely take for themselves. Whether staying up to complete academic work, extracurricular work, the type of work that pays the bills, or social work, Georgetown’s general culture of stress and restlessness over-impacts its most under-represented students. This exhaustion is layered upon the emotional work that is constantly demanded of marginalized peoples -- explaining, processing, explaining again. Supporting each other, seeking support, not fnding it. Burnout is normal here.

We’re lucky to be surrounded by models of hardworking, exceptional Blackademics, but we also deserve models of us doing nothing extraordinary. In fact, doing nothing at all. The rest project imagines a resistance that looks both peaceful and alive.

by MacKenzie River Foy

ginsberg impersonation: howl (holy)

holy holy holy these eyes that watch me at dawn and wait for my internal eternity to crack and ooze with the blood and puss of the angry internist hipster

and holy all those evenings of anger and pure poetic thoughts of dreams and boys and skin touching loving and holding me tighter tighter please stay stay

holy orange and purple lights waving me down in the distance as i run from the new arsonists and crazy people who watch me from afar

holy holy holy concert hall of a thousand suns booming with the ecstasy of musical thought and the feeling of heartlessness fnally emoted by the heavy brasses and the fairy-light strings on a viola

holy morning and night of waiting and wishing for more that never came and will never come and reading horoscopes searching for hopes to come

and holy holy daylight of the nighttime its realism shining through the schism of scratched contact lenses and aviator sunglasses and the popes of a thousand and one countries all their religions tarnished and battered in a sexual haze

holy venture of the new god who wears Rastafarian hats and wishes for peace as he waits passive on the golden throne for someone to make a diference big enough to see

holy holy holy holy nights of love holy mornings of wishes holy holy morning of regret and fatigue holy holiness of the sheets and the bed and the pillowcase holy holy holy sleepless nights and wakeless days and battered and bruised poetic manuscripts drafted up in the mind and scribbled out in the mind and crumpled up in the mind to the waste can of the mental abyss

of the rockland of the mind of the electric chair of the basement of the mind and his faulty doorknob and his sticky lock

and holy bedroom of the beat poets whose generation defnes themselves as nothings and nobodies those holy nobodies holy holy waste can crumpled up boxcar match-lit cigarette angry furious oozing crippled minds

holy poets who sing and sang their silence into the cold breath of the chilled air and the steam that arose from the furious car engine as it sputtered and scatted to start

holy holy holy fngertips the smooth the cold the chill the comfort holy hands hold me tighter holy touch my arm and run your fngers through my hair holy tight grasp holy love me stay here stay holy fngers holy ashes

holy ashes turn to ashes

by Elsie Coen

by Rocco Graziano

by Sebastian Bedoya

“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They fnd a way.”

Celeste Ng

-

artowrk by Clara de Solages