What Broke the Diamondback
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Writing by Esther Besson Design by Gabriela Garcia-Mendoza
I used to live on top of the world, if the top of the world was the roof of my tiny Philly townhome with only a side garden to call its own. Sixteen years old, just had the sweetest year I had ever known. Swept up all the prizes a teenager could hold. The perfect daughter with a job, poised as she runs the halls with her friends, wrapped up in a driver’s license that could take her down the ivy-lined collegiate road.
Yeah, I was feeling bold, I was being told that gravity’s grip was no more. I was gonna soar to the highest rooftops where they keep the clouds of gold. All I had to do was keep the dominos of my soul standing high and tall, “Watch the spacing! Keep the form!” As they spiral ‘round my figure, shielding my mind and body, covering me whole.
I thought my dominoes were diamonds, could never crack, break or fold, With them, I stood high above the water of life, I could never drown. Until one day, that was no more. Until one day, I thought I could handle the pressure keeping my diamonds up, swore I could deliver that perfect girl, poised as she takes on the world. Lo and behold, I was too tired to care.
Too tired to realize that I was standing on unstable ground. All it took was that small quake, it shook off my soul’s shining frame, the smashed self-portrait laid below, My reflection shattered, I could never look the same. All it took was a breeze to blow away the golden clouds taking away the dreams you used to think were only within an arms’ reach.
My eyes were closed when that first domino tipped over, but my ears could never miss that first click.
My stomach sank to the lowest depths as I felt my dominos slam down, one after the other. Dominoes don’t wait for realizations. When they’re already in a formation to fall over.
One crash after the next, the death of my soul did not come quietly. First came down my dreams, rejection after rejection.
As my aspirations hit the eject button, the flight to my next life stopped, my esteem, my confidence nosedived.
As dominos fell, I looked more closely Into the cracks, reflecting back, I saw a girl paint happiness on her face each morning. Over the eye bags and mounds of stress from the sleepless nights before. From behind her, the hands of her soul rush to cover her ears, blocking out the roar of everyone’s expectations cause this girl couldn’t take it anymore. Once invisible, now I could see those hands belonged to me, no longer could I paint over my face’s ever-flowing tears, absent of any glee.
They run down the curves of my fallen soul, tears over the dominoes continuing on till the last one falls in a final boom. My soul died loudly, she didn’t calmly say her last words under her breath, before she slept away her final days. No, she yelled in my face “L O O K A T M E I’ M D Y I N G” on that fatal day.
Esther Besson (she/her) is a Haitian-American poet, writer, artist, and quintessential city girl from Philadelphia. She is a sophomore at Boston University studying Political Science with a minor in History of Art & Architecture, on the Architectural History track. Esther loves hanging out and telling jokes with her friends, photoshoots, and watching *good* documentaries. As a new member of the editorial team, she couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to share her work in this space.
Besson’s piece, “What Broke The Diamondback”, reveals the details of the death of a girl’s soul and her previous identity. Thinking of herself as a perfect diamond, invincible and infallible, it would seem that there is only so much pressure a diamond can take before it begins to chip away.
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My name was not ‘me’ but instead a mirror. Monica Ajorkor Laryea was no more than the world’s distortion of the person underneath. A name is a placeholder.
This is best showcased in the film, “Moonlight” by Barry Jenkins, where names act as tattoos of the soul and define the story’s stages of progression.
“Who is you, Chiron?”
I heard this for the first time and chills danced down my spine. I sit in the audience—thirteen and angsty about life— while the question ‘who is you?’ stays both close and far.
Little. Chiron. Black. Little. Chiron. Black.
These names seem to tell the stories of so many different people. As Chiron grows and repeatedly experiences the death of his egos, each is shed one after another.
As a child, he is Little, a cursed nickname. As a teen, he is Chiron, at war with his identities. As an adult, he is Black, a facade of security to extinguish the existence of everything he has been subsequently told and made to be. We watch his anger and fear wax and wane across the screen until by the end, Chiron has transcended any name. Who remains standing amongst the bodies and sharp words is a fragile boy that stands in the moonlight and becomes Blue.
Monica Laryea (she/they) is a Ghanian-American student at Boston University and comes from Atlanta, Georgia. For now they study Computer Science amongst other dubious things.
Hello, my name is Monica Laryea, not noname. My piece, “Hello, I am No name”, was born from my lifelong struggle of feeling trapped by labels and definitions. In my fight to be understood, I became enthralled by the idea of shedding my name with the thought in mind that it would help me evade perception—spoiler, it did not. Instead it gave me the space to find and to be who I really am. So, hello I am: Monica, Noname, that girl. You do not know me even if you have heard of me. I am more than six letters can express.
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In another story this time of Blacks and Reds, the name Little appears again on a similar journey. For Malcolm X, the drop of his last name was a rejection of the very same— who it relegated him as and prevented him from being. “For me, my ‘X’ replaced the white slavemaster name of ‘Little’ which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears.”
The loss of name is as intentional as it is spiritual. So hello, I am No Name. I am X. I am love. I am whatever I assign myself to be.
To sacrifice your name in order to lose the selves we have been prescribed is crucial in the facilitation of our awakenings. To be no one is to be free to create a new relationship with yourself and the world.
Namelessness is both radical and crucial in the restoration of our beings. It is here that we begin to discover who we were before the world told us who to be.
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It was sudden: like braking too fast for traffic, a joint dislocating in the middle of a set, or a hiccup when dipping in for a kiss. Thrown out of headspace, I stared at my unfamiliar self and wondered who it was.
This arm, this tilt of the head, there was a sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t actually doing the things I was doing–no, I was sure of it. This wasn’t my own body. Untethered, I wandered behind the body and felt like crying. Another time: Another dream: NO, ANOTHER LIFE:
I woke up to the sound of music playing. I was in someone’s arms, chin to shoulder to neck to cheek. I tapped out a beat to the buzz of the speaker. We danced around the morning, teeth to toast to tea bags on swollen eyes. The morning turned to evening turned to more-nings like a plural thing. I passed through the days in easy, practiced steps. This rhythm, this flow, I slipped into this life seamlessly.
Annette Yan (she/her) is a senior at Boston University studying Sociology and minoring in English. Born in California and raised in Beijing, she is interested in tenderness and how memories are held in the spaces that we occupy, including our own bodies. This is her second time writing for Charcoal, and she is so honored to share a part of her heart in this issue.
“Uncanny Valley” describes the feeling of not being in your own body, and how we find ways to live through it all. Dissociation didn’t seem like the right term for the emptiness and disconnect Yan felt after surfacing from a difficult period in her life. She turned to the uncanny valley instead, which hypothesizes the relationship between a human-like object and the emotional response it evokes in others. In a way, this piece is an attempt to reflect the feeling of seeing yourself as a human-like object.
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Like I would a dream.
Tortured by the thought, the days become incessant. Each day I am preoccupied with something new, something vapid, something insignificant. My frustration grows. There’s something inexplicably wrong and I can’t explain what it is, but I feel trapped. The microwave keeps beeping even when the food is ready and the news keeps showing the same damn reels, the cucumbers always melt in the fridge and the bread decides to grow its own freckles. Despite the dream, the seconds feel excruciating. So much of life is banal, so many things we do arbitrarily. This must be a dream: this can’t be the life that I’m living.
The kaleidoscope turns, the dream loses its body. I choke on something tangible, more than my own breath. I stare at my unreal self, multiplied by a hall of mirrors. Each self gazes passively back. Those can’t be my bodies. I only get a few moments of cruel clarity before I’m pulled under the surface again, sinking back into the dream.
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Photography by
Sam Li
Modeling by
Julian X, Hannah Dedji, Milena
Campos, Imandi Herath
Makeup by Atiyyah Mayaleeke, Hikima Lukomwa
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Design by Rayne Schulman
My fingers to yours, Tear drop to another,
Moments in the mirror, Imagine your other, Your skin on mine
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Sunset to sunrise,
Under the covers,
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Grasping one another.
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Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? Who do we love? love? Who do we love?
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Relax, breathe with me.
Imagine your body in space. Remember, that we come from love.
On summer-like days you can sit outside listening to a British accent saying: your breath is always here for you. Curled up on the papasan, you thumb through pages as September threads its breeze through your hair. Poetry on the pages spills out into your life, colouring everything tender.
On colder days you can still usher warmth inside. The room is filled with your friends. The room is filled with laughter. The room is filled with shrieks. The room holds part of our beautiful life, tipping out onto this page.
This is to the hundred shades of afternoons in our living room, to the flowers in our tissue paper vase; flowers overflowing, flowers arranged, flowers waiting sweetly.
Annette Yan (she/her) is a senior at Boston University studying Sociology and minoring in English. Born in California and raised in Beijing, she is interested in tenderness and how memories are held in the spaces that we occupy, including our own bodies. This is her second time writing for Charcoal, and she is so honored to share part of her heart in this issue.
“Dexter Diary” is a letter to everyone who passes through Yan’s life and home in the final year of her college life. It is a wish to spend more time together before she barrels into the future, but also a promise to fill new homes and new cities with memories as they continue to grow together. And for those who are wondering, one of her speakers really did survive a fall off their ninth-floor balcony at Dexter Park.
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This is to the secret gifts, a new yellow throw spilled over the couch; electric candles that flicker as they roll off the table; a lamp cradled in a chair still full from a spring shower. Sunset leaves a small moon in the chair, glowing against softened features. Orion lopes above us to shoot down Sirius. There is no more background music.
A rounded speaker ambles its way off the balcony, landing nine floors down to play jazz in someone else’s backyard. I think about writing these days somewhere more persistent than my memory.
I swallow these days like late night ramen, made in the kitchen swaying as ten chopsticks reach into the same pot.
I think of crossing paths on our three-mile stretch of road, looking up to a familiar smile or a hug on the way to class. How do we appreciate what we have before it’s gone? I want to grab onto this life as tightly as I can.
So, this is to keeping in touch.
No, really, I thought of you today.
This is from love to loss to loss to love to days we wish would never end, to days we live knowing already how much we’ll miss them.
I close my eyes and think of gratitude, I feel softness wash over me like a new dawn.
Relax, breathe with me.
Imagine your body in space. Remember, that we come from love.
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Photography by Kaito Au & Ramsey Khalifeh Design by Alya Zouaoui & Joshua Diamond Modeling by Jaden Bridges, Allyson Imbacuan, Frehiwot Bayuh Styling by Monfaye Nabine
Stop, Open your eyes, And step into the light.
light all around you.
open your eyes do you realize there is
have your eyes closed. Only when you
You can’t complain in the dark when you
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WHISPER
but how, when I think I might belong in hell? why, when I believe I might deserve to rot in a cell? soft-shelled, begging to be held, boneless, spineless, I deserve it, I’m mindless, I’m stupid. don’t be so kind, miss, let me sit and weep, and lie and cry, let me tell you I’m okay, that I don’t want to die.
SOPHIE
No need to pine, no really I’m fine, just caving, shaking, bending under pressure. Hold me, make me feel like a treasure, but oh, no, not for your pleasure, not like I’m another name to sign in your ledger, but alright, okay, I want you to stay, so maybe you’ll stay if I let you touch me that way, maybe I’ll feel realer if you fuck me that way, because this is all just… fiction, right?
WHISPER
friction, right? Rubbing until you come, right? Stupid me, believing it would be alright, moments after crying all night, your hand on my thigh like you could relieve my plight, you said, it’ll make you feel good, babe,
SOPHIE
And I want to feel good, babe–
WHISPER
you said let me touch you, let me fuck you, babe; SOPHIE
I said oh I don’t feel good, babe,
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Humble
Writing by Neha Chinwalla Design by Drew Demeterio
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It’s me again. It’s been a while since I’ve written, but I have a lot on my mind. Someone described me as humble the other day. Am I?
All my life, I have been so aware of my own presence presence, so aware of my differences and flaws. With a constant focus on improving myself, I never stop to admire who I truly am. I’m always looking for the next achievement, though even when I attain it, I think it must be a mistake. Why am I always seeking another measure of success to validate myself?
With words of affirmation as my love language, I often doubt my self-worth and look to others to find it. Please don’t tell me I’m fishing for compliments. I am simply trying to find myself—accept myself. Am I so helpless that I need your assurance to boost my confidence? Your love letters and compliments to know who I am?
Self-confidence is a virtue I do not have. As a kid, I felt ugly and small — a girl like me couldn’t be beautiful and pretty, right? I developed such low confidence that I overcompensated by working myself to perfection, having to be the best at everything and hating myself when I wasn’t. Trying to build an ego that I could never actually carry. Now, clouded by anxiety and doubt, my perception of myself remains distorted. I’m living in an alternate reality where I calculate my every move, overthink every word, and hold close beliefs about myself that my rational side knows are not true. So who could I be if I had a bigger ego?
Neha Chinwalla (she/her), from the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, is a senior at Boston University studying Earth and Environmental Science, with minors in Political Science and Environmental Analysis and Policy. As a staff writer and production assistant, she is honored to be a part of this issue.
Chinwalla wrote “Humble” about the vulnerable relationship she shares with herself, her insecurities, and her ongoing search for confidence. By questioning if she has an ego and if she can be characterized as humble, Chinwalla tries to invite the reader to question their own sense of self too.
March 2022
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Maybe I would stop treating life like it’s an assignment. Maybe I would stop spiraling every time I faced rejection. Maybe I wouldn’t accept failure every time I didn’t achieve perfection. Maybe I wouldn’t attribute luck to any success I do receive achieve. Maybe I would accept the love others so generously offer me and see myself the way they see me. Maybe I would stop apologizing for taking up space. Maybe I would start living, but this time for myself. Does that make me selfish?
Generations of women look down on me and sigh. They sacrificed so much, just for me to turn out this way? Like my grandma, Aaji, who had my mom at 19 and has devoted her life to her family. I, at 22 years-old, am about to graduate and pursue more school. And then her daughter, my mom, who left her career to bring me up raise me, to provide my siblings and I everything she never had in a country so far from home. I know already that I am choosing my career over raising a family. And then her daughter, my sister, who put her aspirations on pause to support her younger siblings when we lost our parents. I am the youngest, always nurtured and protected. The women in my family live to serve others, to love others. I find myself living to please others and putting their needs over my own. Where is the room for self-interest?
Maybe being humble is only for those with egos, for people who have something to be humble about. But with all the time I spend thinking about myself, writing about myself, am I full of myself too? All the time I waste worrying and overanalyzing and fretting and doubting and criticizing could be spent experiencing and learning and creating and loving. If there is a fine line between selfdoubt and self-obsession, where am I on the tightrope?
Am I actually humble or just self-conscious?
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Brown eyes unmoving, Slowly watering until a single tear leaks. I reach for my reflection.
As I touch it, the glass gives way to water, Ripples form and evolve into waves. Startled, I step back. Breath gone, muscles tense. My face distorts into the waves, Dissolving away with Profoundness and silence.
It’s terrifying. Heavy. Beautiful. This undoing of reality.
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The water grows and an ocean Expands beyond the mirror’s frames, Rushing past me.
Water rises to my knees, My chest, My neck. Am I floating? Am I drowning? I am lost.
Lungs burning, head spinning, heart racing, The water consumes everything.
Memories flash in my Mind then fade. Everything I know about myself Surfaces in my mind only to Vanish.
It’s almost cruel How vividly my Memories and identities arise, How quickly I forget.
As if I’m bleeding out, Shedding myself bare, my body and soul Quaking and disappearing in the sea. I thrash in the waves, Glass cutting my skin, The current pulling me under.
Tears fall down my face but I can’t feel them, Merging with the water pulling me down. I desperately Search for air.
Lauren Richards (she/her) is a senior studying Journalism at Boston University. She has a passion for storytelling whether it be through writing or visual arts. She loves reading, painting, cycling, cooking, and traveling.
Through “Perfect Perception”, Richards strives to illustrate the process of undoing and reconstructing one’s understanding of themselves. Encapsulating the emotional journey that occurs when stepping into a place of vulnerability and reckoning, she hopes to highlight the hope and pain of shedding old identities and stepping into new ones.
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My thoughts run further And further from me. Discombobulated and alone.
My body leaves me, My mind unravels
As I fade into nothingness and everything all at once. Stillness.
I dissolve until I don’t know Myself as separate from the water.
Darkness and depth give way to Light and colors dancing in sunlight As the water recedes.
Eyes open, inhaling deeply, Everything is reversed. The rippling mirror now shattered in Pieces glistening on the floor. My face, my body distorted In the reflections.
I am connected to the disarray; Mirrored in the cracks. I resonate more with the Brokenness than my reflection. Who was I to think I was whole?
The shards of glass around me Reveal more than my image, More than my actions, More than I know.
In this perfect isolation, I’m left to collect Pieces of this new perception: Of being part and not whole.
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Writing by Suhera Nuru Design by Hannah Ramos
Creative Direction: Shelby Barthelemy Photography by Shelby Barthelemy Design by Asjha Malcolm & Derek Ewers Modeling by Becks Loo, Ea’sus Jiménez y West, Gabriela Garcia-Mendoza, Monica Laryea Styling by Rhea Bandaru Makeup by Gahyun Kim & Hikima Lukomwa
