MAGAZINE
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A LOOK INTO MY SOUL
Irene Kim
Amina Bilic
Hi.
This gives me life.
Jeffrey Schwartz
Rex Sae Lim
Frē is not merely enI like writing and learning about social tertainment, it’s deepissues. Passionate er, it resonates with about life sometimes. people's emotions and experiences.
TABLE OF CONTENTS A little mystery never killed anybody.
Beast
Model: Sarika Tyagi Photographer: Irene Kim
The Female Body Is treated like a commodity. Used in advertising, media, music, to make money. Used in society as a way to earn status. The more women you screw the better off you are. People have seen so many half naked, sexualized women That they’ve become desensitized to how they treat them in the real world I don’t want to be another person that is used. There’s a reason I don’t like being called pretty. It tells me that you want to use me. And I refuse to let that happen. Before you label me as a psychotic feminist. Look up. Look at the first woman around. What is your first thought? Do it. Right now. Then turn the page to read the end.
I DON’T WANT TO BE ANOTHER PERSON THAT IS USED.
Did you think about the humanity of that person? Or just about screwing her?
If it’s the latter you have successfully been socialized to treat women as obj If it’s the former then there’s still hope for you. By: OQ
jects.
Vulnerability Everything rushes around in your body, not in any particular direction, not towards your head or towards your stomach or towards your genitals; just a sense of internal movement, of seismic activity from your toes to your fingertips. Everything is swirling and swirling and swirling and you can’t stop it from happening. Panic. Dread. Terror. Jealousy. You can’t stop it. I mean, she’s in a different state, with different boys, without you. She’s her own person and doesn’t owe you anything. Just because you love her, just because she’s all you want, just because you know deep in your heart that you were meant to be, that she loves you too and the only thing separating you two is distance, doesn’t mean she owes you anything. She’s entitled to her life, to make her own choices, to fall for any other guy. And you’re entitled to your swirling. She comes up to visit you on a Friday. You talk, catch up, fuck. Then she leaves, gone and out of your life for weeks, maybe months. You want nothing else than to relive that weekend over and over again. But it doesn’t work out that way. She leaves and takes with her a part of you. You long to be with her. You’re desperate and lonely and you can’t help the jealousy, so the swirling starts. It starts and it’s constant. All the time everything is rushing inside you. Your emotions are being pushed to the limit. But then everything becomes numb.
It’s always the same feeling. Emotionally numb, emotionally vague, emotionally defeated. You’re a shell of yourself, a trance remix of sadness. Depressed. You’ve lived long enough to understand you have a problem, specifically relationships. You can’t handle them. You get jealous then numb, with the only respite coming when you’re with the girl. But you can’t be with them all the time, no, you’re not clingy. Or at least you try not to be clingy. You’ve sort of figured out why this happens. Your insecurity knows no bounds so you figure that’s where your jealousy stems from. And you figure your sadness is caused partly by your jealousy. But you still don’t understand how to stop those feelings. You figure it’s part of your DNA. It’s now midweek. The past few days you’ve been caught mindlessly staring, thinking about her, or thinking about nothing and just having the weight of everything press down on you. She texts you but for some reason that makes you angry and irritated. You want nothing to do with her. You love her but you are sinking and sinking and sinking into darkness until you can’t see a light. You want to die. You don’t want to feel that way but you do. But after a few more days, for some reason beyond explanation, you pull out of that steep dive and return to normal. Not jealous. Not numb. Normal. You are stupefied but glad. You are confused but fine and content with life, until the next time you see her… By: Javier Silver
NYCTINASTY Message on the machine, “call us when you can, Ms.this morning’s appointment revealed a problem with the fetus.” I collapse: my pelvis closes together like a rose under frost. The fall is sheltering in now with its typical grey blanket and keen way of biting cheeks, making bashful women. Ripe apples plucked from their mother’s safe entwining embrace. The crunch of earth underfoot and the sky left unopened. Legs shut, gown on, sunset in the ceiling, curette, still and stagnant, waiting for the end: alone. You’re no longer in me, near me, with me- gone. Empty womb: self dug tomb. I imagine her: quiet, milky colostrum filling her tummy as my breasts let down, empty. The ways she will never be. I read Hallmarks tucked and stuffed everywhere: sorry for your loss, we are here if you need. The letters sent after being signed thank you for your condolences. My hand is cramping, uterus contracting. A visual testament: the legacy lost. Only in private, at my most intimate, hand around the knife to lash at the spaces, my hand never leaves the paper. Leaves only compost into mulch, one more shot before the big day, iron to the head, menstruation, time to go to work, sweet wine, the showpiece, done.
Myself revealed: laid out, bulging, curved, only now ever this way stuck in two dimensions. Meanwhile I halfheartedly peacock my body: breasts without stretch marks, my pink meat well rested, underfed bones, maintained, Baton Rouge on my lips- crusting in the corners. I stand before you naked, my journal a brazen vulva under your scrutiny, is any of this any good? Red pen stains on paper, emptiness stains on my underwear, do you smell gun powder? Mustard seeds? Lips of lilacs leave kisses below the belly. Kicks to the mouth, a sucker-punch no doubt. The baby is asleep now, the one who called my womb home: the phantom, kicking like a lost limb. Come closer, I’m cold. I am an olive with no pit, summer’s produce held underground, preserved for the winter. Hypothermia: trembling, gout, blue pallor of the limbs, naked heat, come closer. Whisper in my ear, “we can make it better.” Beat your hammer against the carpet, the work of reproduction, our sex. Our livelihood, our lack, our nothing, no children. Never immortalized: It’s not my fault I ask again: is any of this any good?
By Chelsey Kubeck
Think twice before you judge head scarfs
Model: Shima Sadaghiyani Photographer: Amina Bilic
The white of the scarf over my hair highlighted the contours of the frown on my face. My mom patted my head. “It’s called a roohsari. You have to wear it whenever we go outside now.” I was standing in front of the floor-length mirror in my grandmother’s apartment in Tehran, Iran. It was the middle of summer. Sweat had already pooled in the hollow of my throat under the knot that secured the knot of the scarf in place. I had just turned eleven. The next time I visited Iran for the summer, I was thirteen. Maybe it was because I was older, or maybe it was because I had had time to mull over the culture shock that had been thrown at me two years ago, but I began to notice details I had missed when I was younger. I saw how my overall Iranian culture has a smaller community within it consisting solely of roohsari-clad women. It’s not spoken about, but it’s there: ingrained in the underside of the linings of life. I saw it in the way mothers teach daughters how to tie a knot under their throats so it won’t chafe, the way grandmothers teach granddaughters which colors look best against their skin, the way older sisters teach younger sisters which styles are the most flattering. This community that men cannot even comprehend the depth of gave me a pillar to stand on. Every scarf I saw dulling the bright shine of a girl’s hair was a reminder to me to learn to work with what I’m given, but every sweat drop that rolled down my neck a reminder to never let it bow me down; I didn’t want the heat to melt me down to a puddle, easy to step on and step over. The next time I went outside, I forced myself to blaze brighter than the sun. The roohsari that I am forced to wear whenever I visit Iran changing from a source of oppression to a source of empowerment is the main theme I want to convey with these photos. There are many stereotypes that linger today about women who cover their hair, the main ones being that these women are suppressed, docile, even ignorant of their own imprisonment. I want to show there is a different side to the story: when I wear my roohsari I become part of a community of women who I know to be outspoken, optimistic, and strong, despite all the challenges they have to go through to make their voices known. By: Shima Sadaghiyani
"There’s no such thing as “pulling something off.” There’ thing as “the right clothing for your body.” We all deserv the things we adore.” - Marie Southward Ospina
’s no such ve to wear
Photographer: Irene Kim Mode: Alex Boscolo Photographer: Model Director:Irene SarikaKim Tyagi Model Director: Sarika Tyagi
“You must lose your life in order to find it.� referenced in Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life by Adam Phillips
The box we live in. Do you think you are a unique person?
Chances are you’re a basic bitch. Does that make you feel upset? Prove me wrong.
Everyone thinks they are special. That they will change the world and help people, but how many of us actually do that?
By breathing like any other human, you aren’t special.
Next issue: "It wasn't until I spoke Spanish that they actually believed I was Mexican." Development of a Multicultural Identity
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“ When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.� Audre Lorde