Dear bebe, We just put on our best lipstick to give you a big ole kiss. Why, you ask? Because week five has destroyed us—we have zero iotas left in our bodies—lily is just tryin to make her Indesign work—sofia is taking bad pictures of herself and hacking all the while—olivia and ruby are distorted in lily’s phone and also in the depths of her(s) mind and heart. Trust us, babies, we’ve tried it all, and there’s nothing we won’t try (with the exception of publishing 70 pages of writing, unless you were planning to submit 70 pages of writing. Try us. You think we won’t publish it?)–and still nothing works. We have never been so confused. Fun fact about us: we speak all of the Scandinavian languages fluently and all the time. Fun fact about us #2: Tak means thanks in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. Beat that, babies. Shout out to the guy that said babyteeth is his favorite publication as we kicked him out of his study room in order to hold a meeting! if you don’t love something while it’s actively wronging you, you don’t love it at all. best wishes, baby PSA. We are not abandoning our civic duty as public servants a la babyteeth. Call your senators, make cool art, and love freely. Not to preach at y’all. sofia “force quit it!” durdag lily “i hate it here” akre olivia “spiteful” ho ruby “jesus mary and joseph” mead
contributors contributors elsa snowbeck, E.J. Talbot, billy bratton, tyler chodera, joe, drew rodriguez-michel, adiana contreras, sunniva maharjan, stewie goon, olivia ho, ava blaufuss, lily akre, sofia durdag, tava guillory, ruby mead, max vortuba, ethan kinsella, noel wang, ezra kucer, nelson serrano, aselya gullickson, abbi vosin
“deerbird” by nelson serrano artwork by lily akre
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Tyler Chodera Billy Bratton
Tyler Chodera
Elsa Snowbeck
comic by Stewie Goon
opposite page by Elsa Snowbeck
chaos from my notes app— I don’t think I can write sometimes. In fact, I rarely believe that I can write. I think of things to write and all that comes to mind is waterfalls overflowing, blue ladybugs, cups with holes in the bottoms—all things odd and contradictory and a square pea in a motherfucking peapod. Am I thinking too much while I write? Am I yearning so desperately for wanting metaphors and genius lyricism that all that talent once balanced in my chest passes me by for the next normal girl. Normal girls. Normal girl, am I? I am. Motherfucking mundane and sick of it, sticking to it like taffy frenched between lovers. My lips feel like babies—a gentle caress and then a lovers’ spat. A short fuse, smelling of stale hydrangea and toilet robes—dusty turtle figurines and rust. My gramma’s leaking and lesbian breast—my grandpa’s flannel, felt, fibers of archaic sweat—my aunt’s autistic husband—my uncle’s dark Black skin—my brother’s bleeding cuticles—my brow, quaking with echoes of sold. Maybe all I can write about are those things which I’ve lived. Maybe that’s the trick. My sheer association with empathy has fractured—stick to that which you have seen to reign true. Ruby, try writing about your family. For is there anyone else in this world for whom you do not perform? I don’t want to write a performance. I want to write a real fucking life—worth living and precious. Escapist and heartbreaking. Solid and mythical. I feel like the world could become much better if we pilloried binary thinking. Don’t you, girls? This morning, a squirrel said hello on fourth Libe and then fell four flights downward, straight into the snow like winter cattle. They landed softly—on four feet, I presume. Have a happy ending, darling—someone, somewhere said.
ways to understand nothing
Was there a moment when I actually chose this? Did I forget saying yes? Did my mouth curve around the word no, only to reject it? Or was I just solid and still? Did I just stay? Was staying a choice? Why are my legs so heavy in dreams? Why do I run in place?
olivia ho in writing & photo nelson in beaver
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today i walked around northfield and i wore my scarf and my jacket, and my fingertips were cold. i could feel my stomach jostling around under my shirt because it was before dinner, i was hungry, and hungover. i listened to a song that said i just wanna go to a place where i am known and i found my feet tracing a path back to where i saw the fox a couple weeks ago. the first time i saw a fox in northfield i was with you walking home and i thought i could write a sad poem about that night and the other night i saw a fox in dublin when i was very drunk walking home alone. but then i thought about how i walked on these same streets over the summer with all of my friends to lay in the rain and the grass in the middle school. and we watched the sky lit up with fireworks. we yelled for each one , for no reason other than to be loud. and i thought, why don’t i ever write poems about things like that? nights like that? poems about when it’s the fourth of july and you are filled with beer, and hotdogs, and you’re in shorts and a cutoff t shirt. i think i need to make a change. i think i see my life as one long series of sad events. i don’t think it’s like that. i think i need to make a change. i think i need to write about my one wild and precious life. i think i need to press my face into the snowy mush on the ground and hoot like an owl and clap my hands together. i think i need something i can have. i
didn’t
see
the
fox
again
Scary Sunflowers Ezra Kucer When I first met you I was scared. You represent all the things I have always hid away inside I was scared that letting you in would mean letting those parts of me out And I was right. By letting you in I had to let me out I had to let out all the feelings I had so Deliberately Carefully Packed away. Feelings folded and tucked into a beaten-up cardboard box with the words Christmas decorations scrawled across the top. Something that I had decided needed to be forgotten. But part of me still thinks That everytime you pull away You are scary to me. It will be the last. Scary. And everytime I sit quietly I am scared. You would say it’s the end. But I’ve decided that scared looks good on me And everytime I mess up Not as good as love looks on you And forget But hopefully you see And not make time In me I will lose you. That same love for you. And oh my is that My sunflower, Scary. You represent feeling more More than the feelings I once represented by a cardboard box. Oh how scary it is You make me feel to be in love And that is scary. What an awful thing to subject myself to I see now that the thing I feared was myself and not you. To tie my happiness to another You allowed me to see how foolish Myself for who I could be to spend all my hours Not what I was. thinking of someone else to forget myself But part of me still thinks That everytime you pull away How brilliant it is It will be the last. to be in love That everytime you sit quietly What a extraordinary thing knowing you is That means it’s the end. How I feel endless joy just looking at you That everytime I mess up how wild and bold and exciting and amazing and fulfilling Or forget I want to spend every waking and sleeping moment Or maybe get just a little too busy No time to dwell on gnawing thoughts That I will lose you to forget myself. And that is Scary. I am scared, I really am. But I still would throw myself in again. I fall in love in the little moments and the grand gestures. To lay myself bare to the one I care about. I love you.