babyteeth spring '23 issue 4

O babies, My babies.

‘Tis our last edition. EVER. Or until next fall. This is, as you must already be saying to yourself, devastating. As our first year as an org comes to an end, we would like to extend our deep gratitude to you, dead reader. If we go down, we go down together. We have shown them we are better. JK BABIES! We are not throwing away our shot! We’ll be back, you shall see. We will fight the fight and be-so happyyyy.

Get your juices flowing and seeping for the fall. But, first, as one more straight up knife to the heart: Olivia and Lily will be traipsing about Europe rather than in Sayles 250 come fall. We know, it hurts. But do not fit, dear reader, for good, soft, cherubesque hands will continue to hold you tight. It’s been a lit year. For real tho, what an awesome time. We lurv you. See you sooner than you might imagine.

HAGS, xoxo, ily sm,

Ruby “Angelica” Mead

Lily “Eliza” Akre

Olivia “Peggy” Ho

Sofia “WORK!” Durdag

dutiful & radiant contributors

dutiful & radiant contributors

<3

<3

elsa snowbeck, billy bratton, ava blaufuss, katelyn harder, aidan walker, kate ward, julianna baldo, ethan kinsella, tyler chodera, elena parkerson, any, sofia durdag, nelson serrano, rahim hamid, annie bergmann, mitch porter, lily akre, ruby mead, olivia ho, adiana contreras, hannah knapp, stewie goooooooooooon

PS: come to OPEN MOUTH NITE

RECORD LIBE

7pm

be there or B2

cover by hannah knapp <3

Leave this place mitch porter

I do not know why I am here. Drenched in sickly sweet wine that I did not drink. Heavy, entangled communion. The good word. Here I am. Here I am.

Is this what you think of me? Touch the body in front of you. Go on. All of you. Touch the body you asked for.

Hold it. Feel it. Do what you will with it. Let the lamplight show you what to touch, where to place your fingers.

Let the shadows grow fuller. Let my shallow eyelids grow calloused, as I bury myself in the darkness, as I leave my empty body here alone.

And then, go on. I am still here. Have your fill.

What do I want? It cannot have been this. Is this what you think of me? Is this what I think of myself?

Go now in peace. All of you.

Remember my body and go out into this world, choking on your wine, preaching your gospel.

illustration rahim hamid

MARE NOSTRUM

when my father was young, his own father threw him into the deep end of a pool to teach him how to swim. but he didn’t swim. he sank to the bottom and sat there, six feet under water.

getting caught in a riptide is much like falling in love, in that it happens slowly and then all at once. the four of us are swimming to find a good spot to skinny dip, and then suddenly the waves will not stop crashing over our heads and the undertow is ripping at our ankles.

swim parallel to the shore. my mother has told me this a thousand times. she is an excellent swimmer. it is one of the many ways that i hope we are alike.

and i am swimming parallel, furiously swimming, waiting for the awful wrench of the ocean to stop, the sea tossing me up and out and down and in. a wave sucks me under. i swallow water. this is the turning point. when i come to the surface, i am so so far from the sand. my friends have nearly made it back, and i am further than ever. i am ridiculous enough to be embarrassed by this.

so i try to swim again. but i can hear my own rasping breath, like i have been swimming for hours. my body is so heavy that i feel that i could really, really sink, right to the bottom, where i can wait and sit for somebody to get me.

i realize, in the midst of an insane lucidity, that i have conceived of riptides wrong my whole life. you drown first, and are yanked into the heart of the ocean second. but i am too prideful to call for help. i am an excellent swimmer.

my father never tells the part of the story where he stops drowning. he understands that the drowning is always more interesting than the undrowning.

i sit in the sand. my friends have pulled me out of the riptide*. my hair is a thick mat across my back. i feel my heartbeat in my throat. i am thinking of vomiting, or bloodletting. purge all the bad. rebalance my humours, or whatever.

my mother worries about what i do not tell her. i think she fears that i am silently sinking to the bottom of a pool somewhere. and so i sink, and do not call her.

SOFIA DURDAG

*as a matter of public safety, i must let you know this is not how you are supposed to save someone from a riptide.