spring '24 issue 1

Babyteeth st24 issue

1

Hey tgerem,

Good to see you. I know you can tell that there are only two of us writing this editor’s note right now. It feels a little empty here today. that ‘s because it is. Where are adiana and olivia?! We don’t know. Not here. We (sofia and lily) seem to care about this publication in a way that others simply do not. Olivia can golden rooster her ass right out of babyteeth for all we care!

Welcome to small little baby issue. We may be slightly more slender this week, but trust me, we pack a punch. In honor of Blue and Maize Days, our issue is alight with blue and yellow! Look for it, circle it, and send your marked up issue to the Blue and Maize HQ in Sevy. They will LOVE it!

[ten minutes later]

Okay guys, been thinking: why are the mean name-adjectives always women’s names? Debbie Downer, Nosey Nellie, Chatty Kathy, Plain Jane… the list goes on. What about Smelly Seymour? Or Critical Kyle? Point being, they’re (sofia and lily) a coupla of Critical Kyles.

anyways, that was cruel of them to be so mean to us - (olivia and adiana)

love, olivia “Miss party” ho

Sofia “dignified and beautiful” durdag Adiana “poopooo” Akre

Lily “aidand acontreeras“ Akre

contributors

stewie goon, phoebe ward, toby pasternak, adiana contreras, ethan kinsella, sofia durdag, sunniva maharjan, max votruba, mitch porter, kaija maier, lily akre, olivia ho, e.j. talbot, billy bratton, elsa snowbeck, noel wang

a self portrait . . . kaija maier

I summon my spirit in front of a mirror. It is the only way. Sometimes, when the reflection is just so, I can tip nose-first through the silvered glass, back to thirteen and into another hour that I have spent in front of it. She winks at me in the fluorescent lights, grinning with two shiny rows of braces, color-coded for Saint Patrick’s Day. I turn the tap, like a river flowing from this world to its underside, a little Duat.

My spirit likes sacriﬁce, like the Greeks cutting the throat of a bull, begging a god for attention. Come back to me. Instead, I ram the blunt screw top of my navel piercing back through the pale, freshly knit skin, marking my stomach with panicked red streaks. My spirit needs smoke, a bitter savor. I burn off the edge of my thumb with a strike anywhere match. The keratin turns as white as bone.

The underworld rises up to kiss me, cool as mist, scented of gin and self-tanner. The air is so still, like a sunlit memory, like dreaming. Come back. Like the crack of a slap bracelet, my spirit shimmers in the mirror. Girlhood, dragged up from the grave dirt, my katabasis. I am always trying to reach back. My lovely ghost wears a bra wrapped in white electrical tape, and our hair is the same length. We are both trying to ‘grow it out’. Please let me go back. But my spirit, my very own heart, touches our brow, hands sweating, and says nothing that I can hear.