do i send the first text
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editor/curator Sarah Dauer assistant editor Christina “Dwight” Seo
images Bianca Estensen………………………………...………………3/ 4/ 5 Grace Grieve-Carlson………………………………………………...8 Tess Hosman…………………………………………………....11/ 13 Cole Hindman……………………………………………….top 18/ 19 text Gina Perry……………………………………………………………...9 Katie Clark…………………………………………………...10/ 16/ 17 Chloe Martin-Poteet……………………………………………..12/ 23 Beata Garrett…………………………………………………….20/ 21 Donari Yahzid………………………………………………………...22
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the space inside you
Gina Perry
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Katie Clark
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i'm gonna write a poem about cigarettes and how they leave the smell of burnt smiles on my fingers the ash falls from the stench in my hair each tap reminds me of that window in the moonlight my breath wasn't stale then our love was ripe your smile leaves its imprint on my memory my fingers shake my lips leave their mark i've needed three good lucks and missed three good fucks but i’ll light another one while i wait for you Chloe Martin-Poteet
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CafeAstrology.com
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Duendita - Open Wide Jay Som - Unlimited Touch Moses Sumney - Plastic Frankie Cosmos - Fool Michael Cera ft. Sarah Van Etten - Best I Can Corinne Bailey Rae - Hey, I Won’t Break Your Heart
Mac DeMarco - One More Love Song Remi feat. Jordan Rakei - Lose Sleep King Krule - Baby Blue Julien Baker - Sprained Ankle Bon Iver - Holocene Sharon Van Etten - Every Time the Sun Comes Up
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Katie Clark
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Silently, Weeds Grow Whenever she felt like it, my mother would tell me the story of a troubled child. I kicked and screamed and even hit her, she would say with relish. It was a story she told when I had done something bad, and when I apologized, I repented for both my past and present misdeeds. What did these words she used during these moments taste like? I believe that she ate them like sesame seeds on rice, and that she kept a container ready for each meal. A pinch here and a scattering there to freshen her palate. She asks for me to scoop the rice for her because her feet and head hurt, and her eyes burn holes in my paper skin when I prepare bowl after bowl for her. If parents must devour their children to sustain themselves, I wonder why I wasn’t born with any siblings to share such a burden. It grows, and I must become smaller to make more space. “Talk louder” she says, pushing my twelve-year-old body into the classroom. She thinks she can force a copious body through a delicate frame. The class is tie dying shirts, and I brought the wrong color. Silence mixes with sticky heat when the teacher asks if anyone has an extra, and I see everyone is already bored with me. I watch the girl who ends up with me dipping her bare hands into the dye again and again, the water too loud and her breathing heavy. She asks me where I’m from, and the thousands of words that I am stringing breaks and scatters back in that mysterious net between lips and throat. “I’m from here and there,” I finally say. “Cool.” The word slips out of her so easily that I hate her for a moment. Her hands mix the water, kneading it like dough. When I return home, my mother will ask me why I ruined my shirt with permanent dye, and why do I always do this. She’ll tell me to eat while asking me why I haven’t made friends. “Because I don’t talk loud enough.” “Exactly. Take care of how you present yourself to others. Be confident,” she’ll say, stabbing her fork at me. After dinner, I’ll insist on doing the dishes by myself. I’ll wash and dry them in a perpetual cycle while I fill the kitchen with my breathing. Soapy water will get on my clothes and no one will look and tell me to be more careful. When one person fills up space, there is less room for others. The territory I carve for myself is as big as other people allow it to be. My mother grows herbs and fruit in pots on the fire escape. When I want to go out onto it to escape the constraints of her space, I must step over them. I feel the invasion of my presence press surround their homes, a weed coming to rest amongst them, leeching their water and nutrients slowly.
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I use it to moisten my lips and to cultivate all the words I will say tomorrow. The correct words that everyone wants from me in the precise quantity. “Why are these so small?� my mother asks this at every tomato harvest. Each time, she claims the new batch is smaller than the previous one. She has bought pesticides, special soil, and higher-quality tomatoes, and she complains each time. I shrug, and eat one in my room so carelessly that it spills down my hands. Beata Garrett
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When She Belongs to a lot of Places, Let Her Be A shy thing. A thing that did not like me. A thing I did not care to know, but now I know. How she speaks to be heard, yet I don’t know how she breathes. I know she breathes poetry, yet I don’t know when she is nervous. If she is nervous. She may run, and she says she does, but I have never seen it. She has been hurt, and I know she has, but it is also something I don’t know. She is the things I have seen her touch, like all the yellow tulips in the land. She is her friends, as they all speak like her, express like her, and yet I don’t know if they know that they get it from her. She is someone that is gone, and I notice. She is what she tells me she is, and nothing more. She does not show me, she tells. I’ m not sure if she is poetry but she sounds like it. I like it and I am fascinated and I am intrigued. But I am not. What if I get frustrated, does one fight with poetry? Would I ever get mad at her, would it even matter, would it go away? Do I care about her, do I care about poetry, can I care for the embodiment of poetry? I never cared for poetry before. Until I saw how much she cared for it. Then I cared for it. Then I cared for her poetry. Then I cared for her. Then I cared if she were happy. Then I was proud of her. Then I found my fault for wanting to know all that was there. All that was inside of her. Then there was love. Then it did not matter what she gave me. Then it was just about what was best for for her. Then there was patience. Now there is patience. Donari Yahzid
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the walls are suffocating barren and blank consuming me whole the light gets lost on its way up to the ceiling those days are long without you the margins of my pages are full of you this is hard this is not easy those are different things Chloe Martin-Poteet
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did you like it did you think about making an egg on sunday were you kissed are you allergic to me now text me back will you please please did you sweat did you miss me on the grass last night when you waited still in the chill of coming down
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a typical day at the office
this zine is a scorpio, which makes sense. don’t you think? thank you so much for reading this zine. a lot of lovely people contributed to making this possible. many many thanks to the contributors for their bravery, vulnerability, and humor: Beata, Donari, Bianca, Tess, Gina, Katie, Chloe, Grace, Cole, and 5 contributers who chose to remain anonymous. i’d like to continue to make more of these in the future, so if you are reading this and it seems like something you’d like to be a part of, look out for more info! be kind to yourself and others. send the text. Sarah
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