POPPY magazine
issue one / creation
december 2015
there’s something about poppies: delicate and captivating with petals like velveteen wings that feel like they will melt between your solid hands. and then, you open your eyes and see that the softspoken wings scream in powerful hues of royal vibrance. and then, you realize that they are home to opium. they hold the power to cripple the same men who use their nectar to numb life’s overwhelmingly strong pulse. and you watch in awe as the gentle summer breeze bends their spines and ruffles their hair. poppies make no sense. and neither do we. we are poppies: full of beautiful and terrifying contradictions, radiating soft power. and it’s true that poppies grow alone with a single bud on that swaying stem, but i remember gazing out over the fields in france’s loire valley and being unable to count the number of poppies painting the earth daring shades of red. so here we are: a field on which we can grow strong and bright and powerfully and, most importantly, together.
poppy is an online magazine for young humans who might not make sense. it’s a space to explore your intricacies and contradictions, and to realize you’re not the only one who doesn’t make much sense.
in this issue...
editor’s letter, page 3
sunsets are not endings, page 5 why we love it, page 7 painting, page 8 extensions of ourselves, page 9 “reality”, page 11 i need you to know, page 12 new york fashion week, page 13 illustration, page 15 feature photo shoot, page 16 don’t take it from me, page 25 feature story, page 26 mystic musings, page 31 poppy playlist, page 32 “deciduous”, page 33
buds,
i never thought i’d actually sit down to write an editor’s letter. hoped? always. believed? not a chance. yet, here i am: sitting in the barcelona airport, en route to a whirlwind day in amsterdam, eating a breakfast of almonds and milk chocolate, writing said letter, & living a life that seems unbelievable & dream-worthy & like it couldn’t possibly be mine. which isn’t said to make you envy me, or pity me, or really have any reaction to my life. because my life is mine, & your life is yours. they aren’t supposed to look the same because: a. that would be mind-numbingly boring b. you likely wouldn’t be fully happy with my ideal life, & i wouldn’t be completely satisfied with yours. let’s go back a year. i was unhappily pursuing a science major, wrestling with my sexuality, & feeling generally trapped (read: paralyzed & suffocated!!) by society’s expectations. so, then, how am i here - a single rotation around the sun later - doing things that i used to dream of? here it is, folks: the magic fix to all of your problems (not at all magic the hardest thing you’ll do in your life, also no fixing needs to happen your life is not a problem it is glorious & mutable & all of its moments are important for different reasons)
so, here’s your ~magic fix~:
create the life you want. that’s it. bye. enjoy the issue.
...EL OH EL i wish it were that easy. if creation were so simple, we wouldn’t dedicate a whole issue to it (if you didn’t catch on, this month’s theme is creation). creating anything is f#*@!ing hard, though! shoving a baby out of your goddess-like body takes nine months of preparation. why, then, won’t we allow ourselves the same preparation, time, & care when we try to shove (okay, that might be a bit rough) a little creation out of our gorgeously nuanced minds? it’s one of the hardest things we can do in life – making something out of the abstract wisps that float in our heads – & that’s why it might be one of the most important things we do. creation takes us from a place of apathy & passivity into a position of power in our own lives, it gives us concrete evidence of our existence, proof of our voice, & gives others a way to connect and relate to us. i get it: i just told you that the key to creating the life you want is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do. cool, thanks, mads. that’s really helpful. fear not, though, buds – there is hope! i’ve got some tips to get you on the right track.
, madison
visualize, dream, get lost in your thoughts: then pay attention chances are, if you’re feeling unsatisfied with your life, you’re already dreaming. i remember sitting in class, dreaming of a life on broadway, or hours in a messy studio. it was discouraging & distracting. the fact that i was happier inside my dream world than in the real world made me feel like i would never be happy in my reality. what i didn’t realize was that my daydreams were trying to tell me something. there was a reason i couldn’t stop thinking about certain things: they fill up my soul & bring me peace. when i started listening to my thoughts & stopped fighting them, i began to see a path that i actually wanted to take.
find your self and find your voice – explore now that you’re paying attention to your beautiful, glorious thoughts, you probably feel overwhelmed. because life has given you a lot of time to find a lot of things to dream about. realistically, you don’t actually want all of those dreams to come true.it just wouldn’t work. i had to try on a lot of different realities to figure out which ones fit. sometimes, things won’t fit at all, & sometimes they’ll fit a little bit; the unique combo of what fits will make up your wonderful self & your reality. Jesse rocks the most glorioius witchy wardrobe i’ve laid eyes on. on some days, i channel her badass aesthetic. other days, i’m into grandma chic flowers. that’s my style, though: a weird mash-up of polarized, bold looks - whatever fits that day.
take baby steps through the fear
this is the hardest part. it’s easier to sit in your room & try on outfits & research cool new life paths than it is to take steps to make something new happen in your life. this is where baby steps help. you can’t overhaul your whole self &/or life at once, & change is scary, so taking it slow seems like a solid plan. I can’t say what baby steps will look like for you, but i can tell you what they looked like for me. it was a lot less scary for me to share these new & authentic parts of myself with two types of people: strangers, & people who seemed similar. i talked to my more artsy friends, my cool aunt, & people i’d just met. these were the safest ways for me to explore my passions and identities. as i became more comfortable with those, they naturally became more engrained in my life & self. i’ll be honest, fear still exists. i find myself bracing for judgement when i show certain types of people who i truly am. but i’m realizing a lot of that falls on me for assuming they’ll reject me, & it’s up to me to give them the opportunity to surprise me & love who i truly am, because i am – like all of us – pretty darn alright.
the making of. . .
Poppy t a y a ld A typica uarters. arters Headq u q d a e oppy H P I’ve . e d c e i a l l p I l , Okay ctiona fi a y l e t is defini dreamed up. the n i l l e w really k r o w or, on s e t w n , e y t m i t l r apar in rea u o f o rite s s o e v a m f c r i t u chao y, at o a d d o o ag op! coffeesh
Here’s model a snap of o ur , best p Jazmin, an dedicated hotog raphe d Elissa, th r e asked we could ha They fo ve re new h ally took c r. o eights ! (col mmitment le my em t barra ctive groan o ssing puns) @
I was working on layout one day, and a woman I know came over to me, handed me these flowers, and may have never realized that they: 1. are my favorite general type of flower: tiny, wild, and purple 2. beautifully compliment the color palette of our creation issue 3. made my soul smile and served as an inspiration throughout the process.
sunsets
poloroids by: jesse frost
are
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” -Henry David Thoreau
not endings
E V O
L
IRREVERENCE
From Kanye to Malala, the voices of our generation seem to be hell bent on contradicting tradition, authority, and the status quo. It’s easy to write some of these people off as attention-seeking pot stirrers, but we think there’s more to the story. We can’t move forward and make progress by doing what we’ve always done, so the irreverence of our time may be our greatest asset in creating the change we hope to see in the world. Check out some of our contributors’ favorite instances of irreverence.
“Anti war movements and the counter culture in the 1960’s. They fought against “The Man” and found their own niches outside of society as protest to the “needless” and “meaningless” deaths from the Vietnam war. It was looked down upon, but caught enough traction to make a difference and allow their voices to be heard.” -Nicole
“Look up [the movie] Paris is Burning ! The vogueing scene in the 1970’s. “ -Rayne
“Amber Rose and her battle against slut-shaming women is incredibly inspiring. She is attempting to change the public opinion towards the relationship between women, sex, the media, and even the language we use in a way that de-stigmatizes and encourages women to always bring each other up rather than pit us against each other.” -Helene
“My first thought was irreverent comedy and the value it has in helping us not take ourselves or our institutions or our lives too seriously. There’s a fine line between meanness and irreverence, but if you play it right you can point out just how absurd human behavior is and get folks laughing with you. It’s Louis CK pointing out the extent of our political correctness while admitting he has racist pieces of himself. It’s John Mulaney flippantly discussing how he had to quit drinking because he was told he would black out and “ruin parties”. It’s funny people reminding us that stoicism and clinging to institutions and beliefs and ego is not only a waste of time, but decidedly unfunny.” -Kelly
“The Black Lives Matter movement inspires me to practice what Ira Chaleff calls “intelligent disobedience”. People have passionately banded together to rock a boat that so desperately needs to be rocked. (if you didn’t catch on, the boat is systematic racism)” -Madison
“I think Nicki Minaj said it best: “I’ve accomplished something, and I’m not going to be ashamed to be happy about what I’ve done.” She owns who she is in an amazing way!” -Alex
painting by amber sheldon
extensions of
ourselves
photography by: linnea rohdin-bibby
this isn’t a love letter this isn’t me missing you this is sitting in a coffeeshop as the sky goes to sleep wishing i could smell you in your sheets feel your skin on my cheek this is my heart exploding into constellations even though my knuckles turned white on the lock keeping your breath from weaving its way into my veins and your from eyes becoming my home this is crying because you are so far from the ground and she is the only thing far enough away for you to fly to i am lead poisoning to your escapist mind chaining your heart to the hurt you fight i am tears and falling into the vastness of your existence i am power and earth and your biggest fear i am raw and wild and bleeding and brave visceral pain and your lightest summer days it is why you’ll never leave and why you’re scared to touch me reality terrifies you reach out to grab me i’ll be the realest thing you’ve ever felt this isn’t a love letter and this isn’t me missing you this is just –
i’m realizing that i have no idea how to end this in every sense of the phrase laugh at the irony of it for me because even though this isn’t an a love letter i’ll still end up crumbling into the floor and it’s a little hard to laugh from where i stand
-marie
i need you to know One thing I know for sure is that we’re all our own brand of fucking crazy. By extension, it’s pretty fair to assume that your parents – the beautiful, complicated sets of DNA that combined to form your being – are also fucking crazy. It’s easy to worry that their oddities, flaws, and dysfunctions will combine and create in you a human made up of the most irritating, obtuse, and (perhaps most terrifying) unloveable blend of crazy.
Here’s the thing, though: when you mixed vinegar and baking soda together with friends in elementary school, what you got wasn’t some weird vinegar-soda hybrid. What you got was hypnotizing wisps of gas and sprightly bubbles that were nothing like the sour liquid or the soft, crumbling powder of its creators.
Yes. Your parents may very well have some not so desireable traits. Realistically, so do you. But here’s the beautiful part: you aren’t doomed to live out some weird mash-up of your parents’ existances. You will live your own life – full of twists, and bumps, and infuriating flat tires that make you stop and smell the wildflowers that are growing on the side of the highway.
NEW YORK FASHION WEEK REVIEW BY: HELENE MAYER
(Prabal Gurung) 2015
I was 7 years old. I had a sketchbook and a box of colored pencils. My face was no more than an inch away from the paper as I scribbled and furiously tried to draw a woman’s shape that I was yet to understand myself. The dress on the page was lime green and hot pink: the colors of my room and my energy at the time. Immediately after finishing, I realized that I had no career in fashion design (or any kind of design for that matter). Despite that fact, I was still proud of it. I still made my mom hang it on the fridge. I still wanted fashion to be a part of my life, even if I wasn’t the one doing the literal creating. I have years of doodles of looks and collections from years of loving fashion. Fashion is a part of who I am. Even when I wear sweats and a basic t-shirt or the same outfit three times in one week, my mind is always thinking of new combinations or looking with a jealous eye at the people around me wondering how they came up with the ideas and put their look together. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve forced myself into a cute outfit when I’m having a terrible day just to give me something to smile about. Spring Fashion weeks have always debuted lines that have been my favorites. Spring is a season full of in-betweens and uncertainty, and this gives designers so much freedom to take looks wherever they choose to. So many of the looks this year left me breathless. The trends lent themselves to a springtime ease which manifested in ways that never felt forced. I want to highlight a few of my favorite trends that emerged this year to show you exactly what I mean by this year’s easy brilliance.
citrus color palette
NYFW embraced the trendy juicing fad and came out with bold and vibrant looks featuring citrus tones. Nothing screams, “I’m here!” quite like the orange and yellow striped dress shown here from Prabal Gurung. I love this dress because it is all about confidence. Even if you aren’t feeling your best, throwing on a bright citrus dress can give you that little boost to turn your mood around. Spring is about vibrancy and brightness and joy and this year’s citrus looks were beautifully bold.
cowgirl chic
(Jonathan Simkhai) 2015
classic lace
It’s a classic for a reason. Lace in combination with the easiness of these spring looks give off vibes of effortless beauty. So delicate and simply pretty, the lace trends this NYFW were in all colors and styles and have the ability to vibe with any person’s style. Jonathan Simkhai’s blend of geometry with light delicate lace show how, even though lace is a classic, it is not overused or washed up. I think the lesson here is that a touch of lace can add sophistication to any look without seeming overworked - all while still maintaining the essence of spring ease.
New York Fashion Week 2015 was a week full of trends, innovation, color, and, most importantly, hours of drooling over Snapchat stories that made me long with unbearable intensity to be there in person. The ability to take a vision and turn it into a collection walking the runway is a talent so few people have, but watching the designers’ work strut down the catwalk, I was inspired to pour my soul into my own creative passions; because that is the essence of fashion. Be yourself and don’t compromise for anyone. Take trends and make them your own. Or ignore the trends completely and follow your own aesthetic. That’s the true beauty of what fashion can do.
(Coach ) 2015
This has got to be one of my favorite trends of the season. Growing up in the Southwest, the Cowboy-Western culture has permeated my consciousness since I was little. Pulling off a western look without looking costume-y is not easy. But this is NYFW, and these people know what they’re doing. Coach’s separates here are a perfect example of the ability to take the Western vibe and make it wearable and stylish for everyday life. The suede and fringe of this trend give a sense of whimsy and fun to spring. I seriously dig the Chic Cowgirl.
illustration by: jesse frost
Rebelle:
real life goddess
elissamphotography.com
ohotography by
elissa m. anderson
Persephone
goddess of spring
queen of the underworld
Artemis
goddess of the hunt,
protector of young women
Medusa
serpentine monstress,
guardian of tempestuous famininity
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” -Arthur C. Clarke
“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” — Helen Keller
“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” - Lao Tzu
“Let’s end by pointing out all the positive ways you can scare yourself and feel alive. You can tell someone you love them first. You can try to speak only the truth for a whole week. You can jump out of an airplane or spend Christmas Day all by your lonesome. You can help people who need help and fight real bad guys. You can dance fast or take an improv class or do one of those Ironman things. Adventure and danger can be good for your heart and soul. Violence and desperation are brutal things to search out.” -Amy Poehler
“When I look up at the night sky, and I know that - yes - we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up- many people feel small, cause they’re small and the universe is big. But I feel big because my atoms came from those stars.” - Neil DeGrasse Tyson “I thought art was a verb, rather than a noun.” - Yoko Ono
“Ideas can come anytime, anywhere, while I am making this gazpacho or going to the bathroom. I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I’m afraid of.” - Marina Abramovich “Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea.” - Lou Dorfsman
“Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” -Pablo Picasso
don’t take it from me
Thanks for Stabbing my Hopes and Dreams, John Green: How a blog post, a movie, and some critic’s made up blog post label changed my life
written by: madison ryan
It took me what felt like forever (and was really only 2 weeks) to figure out why Paper Towns messed me up so badly. I went to see it with no pre-existing knowledge apart from the trailer making me feel a fluttering desire to spend time basking in a flowery meadow. I watched the movie, innocuously enough, with my mother. It was a week after the boy that I thought I had fallen in best friend and romantic love with told me (after I had justifiably demanded an answer) that he needed to close the door on the possibility of taking things anywhere further than friendship. It was on a visit home from a summer that felt like midnight drives, drought-dried fields of grass crunching underfoot, and smelled of the delicate flowers that cascaded through my floating mind. I watched Q as he watched Margot, and I ached to be watched like that. He looked at her the way I watch the world: awe-struck, breathless, enticed by its ability to flit just beyond my grasp every time. I watched as Margot sputtered protests and denied the reality of his love for her. My face was hot and my stomach in a vice grip of denial. I protested as vehemently as she, but
I protested against her words, and she against his. I left the movie winded and full of dread. Ouch. That one hurt. I told my mother. Too close to home for me. She threw away the large Diet Coke we shared. We walked through the hot parking lot to the stuffy car and the walls of my brain chewed away at themselves. Somehow, the barriers to my own self-expression were growing exponentially and crumbling into deterioration at the same time. I’ve learned that this tends to be the case when I have something important and uncomfortably personal to say, but that knowledge doesn’t do much to temper the stubborn pride and hot shame that cements my jaw. As we weaved through the all too complicated mall parking lot, I baited and cast my
line. I can’t figure out if I feel more like Q or more like Margot. And I don’t know which one scares me more. She nibbled. Well, I think that’s pretty normal – to feel one way in certain situations and another way in other situations. Well, shit. Apparently that bait sucked. I attempted to recast my line, but instead proceeded to explode into a blubber of emotions and explain what was really bothering me, or, rather, what I thought was really bothering me. Ijustreallylovehimandimreallyhappywerefriendsbutimstillsoterrifiedhewillleave andwhatifheactuallysecretlyhatesmeand - you get the picture. Fast forward a week or two. My gloriously patient mother and I are sitting on grass cushioned by a summer of Minnesota rain drinking iced teas and avoiding looking suspicious as
we spied on the couple who looked at buying our house. Things were great. My best friend had sent me a text telling me how much he loved and valued me, and that he couldn’t wait for our year together back at school. Yet my brain was once again becoming cannibalistic because what if he, god forbid, was actually in love with another girl and iobviouslywanthimtohavefriendsotherthanmyselfbutIdon’tknowwhat’sgoingonIjustneedtoknowhe’snotgoingtoleavemeandifhewasinlovewithmethatwouldbesomucheasierandi’djustfeelalotbetterbecausethenidknowhewantedtostay, okay?! (You’ll soon realize that my brain tends to be both dramatic and exhausting.) Two days later I was in an AirBnB house in the Hudson River Valley that was owned by a designer and a chef and their infant. I read essays online while my feet rested on an abstract canvas turned into a coffee table and my younger brother reclined in a chair that looked like a plasticine peep with legs. I had spent days trying not to obsessively worry about whether or not I should call, or if I was snapchatting too much, or why we hadn’t talked in a record four days. If you were curious, a road trip is not the place to attempt to curb obsessive thoughts. Distractions are limited. 0/10 would not recommend.
I had spent the previous night gazing at the Upper West Side of Manhattan the same way Q had looked at Margot as they overlooked their paper town. I smiled into the night, stopped at flower shops, lived vicariously through the couples I passed on the street and looked up at the constellations of fire escapes and street lights. It was a dream. I felt my chest radiate love and my soul soar, and I couldn’t figure out why I still felt like something was gone. As I made my way through the internet’s fateful labyrinth, I read this stunning piece on the manic pixie dream girl. Shortly after, this and this followed into my brain. I was mad and I wanted to cry. I had heard it all before, but I hadn’t been listening. It was always drowned out by my need to become someone’s
manic pixie dream girl. Yes, you read right: I have always, buried deep below my feminism and independence and attempts at self-love, felt this suffocating need to be a MPDG. It was quite the contradiction, so I think I just ignored the issue altogether. You know, until the universe smacked me in the face with it in rapid succession. It’s an amazing feat that I made it two decades and twelve years in therapy without recognizing my now blaringly obvious affinity for manic pixie dream girls. On my thirteenth Christmas, my brother and I stole away and watched RENT for the first time. I was enraptured with Mimi ; her lithe body, damaged mystery, ability to be just what a broken Roger desperately needed. I read Girl, Interrupted and swooned when her
gross boyfriend visited her in the hospital. He was revoltingly demeaning, a free-spirit using her as his validation, and I loved him for it – wishing for my own reductive institutionalized quickie. Lana del Rey crooned to my twisted fantasy. I dreamt of seedy hotels and brief, never-enough flirtations that left them fixated. I felt in neon light and glimpses across dim rooms. At some point, it would turn into a tumultuous love story of Frida and Diego’s proportions. We would fight and love and hate fiercely, but we’d never be freed because, after all, he needed me. I was his mania, his otherworldly pixie, his dream girl. I don’t know if the “manic pixie” part, for me, would have been necessary in a different life. I think dream girl would have done just fine, but I was born with
enough emotions for the whole family and a need to get them out. I create, I cry, I wallow, I feel freedom and joy with the intensity of a cinematic montage. I’ve also got untamable curls and hips that have always refused to be confined by the waifish ideal Winona Ryder cemented in my adoring brain. If that wasn’t enough, I had my crazy on my side. My mental health has been an undertaking for as long as my memories reach. While pixie may have been more of a challenge for me to obtain, manic seemed a natural fit. Being a dream girl of any sort seemed acceptable: you don’t get rid of your dream girl. The manic pixie had an extra, codependent allure to me. I romanticized passion. Fighting, needing, sobbing: it was all proof of the strength of the need,
the passion, the love. And, to a girl terrified of being rejected, abandoned, or unloved, it seemed like a pretty damn secure way to let someone else get close to me in the ways I so desperately craved. Let’s head back to that comfortingly artsy rental home owned by the couple living my dream life. It might now be easier to understand why it felt like white hot fear had been given a direct line into my veins while hearing John Green say, “when you put people on a pedestal and you idealise them, you romanticise them, you may think you are somehow doing them a favour but in fact you are dehumanising them. You are imagining them as someone other than a person. That’s a very dangerous thing to do. When you throw all of your gazes and your expectations onto someone you’re trying to control who they are, you’re trying to define them and not allow them to define themselves.“ The existance I had built my validation and acceptance on was a sham. That meant the ways in which I was subconsciously trying to get the people around me to love me and need me was a sham. I was floating around without
a self, allowing others to project their desires and needs on my existance. I walked into a room and immediately tried to figure out what other people wanted from me rather than announcing my presence. With all honesty, I’m still unsure what presence I would announce if I mustered up the courage to announce one. That’s what’s been so hard to cure, I think. It’s hard to feel confident in myself when I’ve let myself be defined by the impossibly inconsistant whims of whomever I put my need for acceptance in this time. I spent so long being an ideal that I lost what it meant to just be. This might be where the old “you have to be okay on your own before you can be okay being with someone else “ cliche comes in, I’m realizing. The only ways I’ve been able to find what feel like authentic parts of who I am have been through trial and error. That’s right. I found myself by pretending to be other people again. This time, though, I measured my success not by how much approval I was getting, but by how I felt. I took the other person out of the equation and focused on if I approved of and loved myself with
these characteristics, with these people, or acting in certain ways. I was, at first, lost as to where to even start. There are endless combinations of ways to exist, and that felt daunting (and hopeless – this would take forever!). Rather than taking a shot in the dark and hoping it landed, I surrounded myself with the people that made me feel happy, full of life, safe, and loved. I tried on different parts of them to see how they felt in my being - not so that I could instantly have the friends or love or joy that they had – just to see how it fit. After a while, I was able to see if something felt forced or if it felt like coming home. When I think about it, finding myself was kind of like shopping for jeans. When I was younger, I spent agonizing hours at the mall with my mother, crying and hating myself in dressing rooms. I looked (insert hurtful and derogatory expression here) and I just wanted to look like the other girls. I went to school and envied the way the popular girls’ jeans seductively sat so low on their slim, swinging hips exposing enticing peeks of midriff. I was convinced that if I could just get rid of my god damned hips, I could be admired, too. I spent
years fighting against the reality of my physical bone structure. That is true Irish stubborness, folks. What I realized a few years ago (thanks to one of the strangest compliments I’d ever recieved) is that I have some glorious hips. They are powerful, feminine, and will give life to some damn cool kids. I have the hips celebrated in portraits of the greek goddesses, canonized by Marilyn Monroe and perfected by the curvy girl’s prophet, Khloe Kardashian. I have beautiful hips; I was putting on the wrong jeans for them. My first pair of high waisted pants were a liberating revolution. Rather than feeling dumpy and feeling my muffin top and worrying about my butt showing, I felt the denim skim my curves and watched them sway with a newfound confidence. I had spent so long hating my body and loving the trendy jeans when all I needed to do to feel the way those girls looked was to embrace my body and get some new jeans. We can spend forever wishing we had someone else’s life. We can wish we were someone else. The reality of the situation is, though, we’re sort of stuck with what we have. We’re already the person we will have to eventually
John Green, I’ll admit, you really pulled the rug out from underneath me for a while there, and I’m not super into that feeling. Actually, it’s kinda the worst.
learn to love. We can either fight it and end up crying in American Eagle dressing rooms, or we can accept it and learn to love what makes us who we are – hips and all. So where does that leave me in terms of being a dream girl ? Honestly, I don’t know for sure. I could feed you a line about how no one will love you unless you love yourself, but I don’t really believe that. What I do believe, though, is that dreams are lovely and intruiging and ephemeral. It’s hard to love a dream, because they are hard to pin down. I’ve woken up so many times yearning to go back to the dream I was having, but by the time my eyes adjusted to the light, it had disappeared from my mind. When I need something to escape to,
I don’t visit my dreams, for they are too fickle. I visit my solid memories. So, no. I might not become the dream girl of “the one” the second I embrace who I am, but I will be real. I’m going out on a limb and trusting that, like dreams and reality, a real relationship is more sturdy than an idealized one. With the latter, the moment the illusion is shattered, so is the whole relationship. And, if I’m being honest, I don’t want to be with someone who will tap out if I have a hard day or don’t like the same restaurant as them. In order to be sure they won’t leave when things get hard, though, I have to dip my toes in and unapologetically have feelings and opinions for others to agree or (gasp!) disagree with.
In this case, though, I suppose I’ll cut you some slack, because while it’s an unbearable amount of pressure to be considered a miracle by someone else, I’d argue that it’s even more painful to walk around the world expecting and waiting for yourself to be everyone else’s miracle – confused when you realize that no one wants your miracle. Without this (excrutiatingly terrifying) reality check, I’d still be doing just that. If you ask me, you succeeded at stabbing the manic pixie dream girl idea in its heart, or, at the very least, you succeeded at stabbing the part of my heart that depended on becoming that idea. For that, O Eldest Green of the Vlogbrothers Empire, I’ll always be grateful.
Hello my lovely mystics, This is where I, Jesse, don my witchy counseling hat and guide all of you confused souls through the hardships you are facing. By no means are my mystical ways backed by science or a psychology degree, but, just a life of hard-knocks and experience. I have always been the person who people can open up to and feel comfortable sharing their innermost secrets and fears with (no matter if they’re my best friend, someone in my class, or the stranger on the bus-- and yes, it has actually happened). Being flung into this position by forces outside of my control, I have adapted and grown in ways that would have been previously unimaginable for myself. I do not wish to make decisions for anyone. I will give advice, but that is all that it is-- advice. One’s life journey is not something that I, as one mystic soul, can actually shift, especially without the willingness of the one in need. I may give counsel that is compassionate; I may give advice that is harsh. I think that honesty is the only way in which we can grow, but I also fully recognize that words are often easier spoken than put into action. And, please trust, I struggle following my own advice on a daily basis, but it is the struggle that eventually gets us through. Please open your mind, heart, and eyes to the wonderful world of spiritual guidance and inquire within to the Mystic Jesse Danelle about any and everything your soul is in need of counsel of. send your curiosities, worries, and unimaginable dilemmas my way at freneticpoppy@gmail.com with the subject line “mystic musings” to be featured in the next issue
poppy playlist For my first compiled playlist, I struggled to find just the right theme and just the right sound. In this playlist, I have included artists and songs that encompass erethreal, flowy, and powerful emotions.
here’s an introduction to
some groovy jams I’m into:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
ZHU x Lana Del Rey - West Coast Halsey - Drive
Toro Y Moi: I could listen to the Anything in Return album on repeat forever. I saw Toro in concert for my nineteenth birthday and I fell even more in love (I didn’t even know that was possible). I feel like, for me, Toro was the band that I found out about my freshman year of college that forever changed me. Toro y Moi’s sound takes you on a journey that never really ends. The funky synth sound
Shlome -Wen Uuu (Evenings Remix) FKA Twigs - Figure 8
Lana Del Rey - High by the Beach Discolsure ft. Lorde - Magnets
Toro y Moi - Rose Quartz Son Lux - Easy
Darkside - Paper Trails
FKA TWIGS: First thing, if you don’t already follow her on instagram, go do it now. You’ll thank me. She is a true artist on so many levels. Her music speaks volumes to that, but her music videos and social media platforms
Jungle - Drops FKA Twigs - Papa Pacify Troye Sivan - DKLA Flight Facilities - Clair De Lune
“Deciduous� by Brady Ryan
Running Path Your roots will drink The tears and sweat Of our collective Separation, aspiration, love. You transform our struggles Into majestic life. Show me your leaves, Deep green with our passion. Surround my path with a forest.
Sugar,
Spice,
& everything vice submit writing, artwork, content ideas and the kitchen sink to freneticpoppy@gmail.com
we want YOU in Poppy
February’s theme is...