F-Word Fall 2017 by The F-Word

The F-Word

fall 2017

mission statement At The F-Word, we define feminism as the demand for the equality of all people, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, or religion. We firmly believe that feminist art and writing can be a powerful driver of positive social, political, and cultural change.We aim to provide a platform that privileges the voices of women, queer people, people of color, and other ethnic and religious minorities and help them share those voices with the world. In doing so, we hope to foster a dialogue and put a balanced face on feminism to show that this movement is not just for white women.

editorial board Editors in Chief Managing Editor Poetry Editors Prose Editors Art Editors Copy Editors

Regina Salmons Sara Albert Sophia Clark Maryanne Koussa Elizabeth Lemieux Anya Gilroy Lilli Leight Via Lim Robyn Kweon Aneri Kinariwalla Sarah Fendrich

Design Editors

Sarah Cronin Emma Brown

Design Staff

Monica Chen Grace Ragi

Communications Director

China Llanos

Internal Affairs

Jordyn Shor Olivia Zietz

External Affairs

Sabrina Ochoa

Treasurer

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Anmol Jain

Dear Reader, Welcome to the inaugural mini issue! Three years ago, we re-started The F-Word alongside a small team of individuals dedicated to reconstructing an initiative we believed in. Now, as seniors, we are excited that we will soon leave behind a fully-staffed literary magazine with not one, but two yearly editions and a highly-skilled editorial board devoted to our mission. 2017 was a hard year for many of us, and in this #MeToo moment we are honored to give the big voices on these small pages a platform to tell their stories. We hope that you will share your own stories with us for the spring 2018 issue if you feel comfortable doing so (anonymously or with your name). Our publication is entirely submissions-based, and if you cannot see yourself within our pages, we invite you to send us your work for consideration. We aim to publish a broad range of voices from all backgrounds, and to be intersectional, radical, and revolutionary. The writings within these pages do not necessarily reflect the views of The F-Word, but we do hope they can foster further conversations—difficult ones, essential ones— here at Penn. Even if you do not identify as a feminist, we invite you to this particular conversation, because it is one we believe everyone should be having. We aim to promote discussion, not shut it down, so we welcome those who disagree with our views to attend our weekly meetings as well. Art and writing are powerful tools for social and cultural change. But there are spaces of humility within both; they can only do so much on their own. Our aim is to inspire dialogue, activism, and grassroots organizing, so that one day the act of writing to demand equality will no longer be a radical thing. As you pore over the works within this issue—many of which touch on sensitive topics and can prove hard to read—we invite you to channel what emotions they bring you into positive action. Speak out. Call your legislators. Protest. And when the fight leaves you staggered and weary— physically, mentally, emotionally—as it often can, let us be there to share that burden while you regain your strength. It is a long road ahead to equality. Nevertheless, we must persist. Yours, Regina Salmons and Sara Albert Editors-in-Chief

content warning Some of the following work describes or touches on themes of sexual assault and violence, and may be disturbing and/or triggering for some readers. Because of the nature of this publication and the importance of the process of discovery that occurs within the walls of each text, The F-Word does not provide specific content warnings for individual works. That said, the health and safety of our readers is of the utmost importance to us, and we urge you to explore these pages with discretion, and to read what feels right for you.

campus resources The HELP Line: 215-898-HELP: A 24-hour-a-day phone number for members of the Penn community who seek help in navigating Penn’s resources for health and wellness. Counseling and Psychological Services: 215-898-7021 (active 24/7): The counseling center for the University of Pennsylvania. Student Health Service: 215-746-3535: Student Health Service can provide medical evaluations and treatment to victims/survivors of sexual and relationship violence regardless of whether they make a report or seek additional resources. Both male and female providers can perform examinations, discuss testing and treatment of sexually transmissible infections, provide emergency contraception if necessary and arrange for referrals and follow up. Reach-A-Peer Hotline: 215-573-2727 (every day from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.): A peer hotline to provide peer support, information, and referrals to Penn students. Penn Violence Prevention: 3539 Locust Walk (Office Hours: 9 am – 5 pm), (215) 746-2642, Jessica Mertz (Director of Student Sexual Violence Prevention, Education) jmertz@upenn.edu, Read the Penn Violence Prevention resource guide. Sexual Trauma Treatment Outreach and Prevention Team: A multidisciplinary team at CAPS dedicated to supporting students who have experienced sexual trauma. Public Safety Special Services: Trained personnel offer crisis intervention, accompaniment to legal and medical proceedings, options counseling and advocacy, and linkages to other community resources. Penn Women’s Center: 3643 Locust Walk (Office Hours 9:30 am – 5:30 pm Monday-Thursday, 9:30 am – 5 pm Friday), pwc@pbox.upenn.edu. PWC provides confidential crisis and options counseling.

table of contents Mission Statement.................................................................................ii Editorial Board......................................................................................iii Letter from the Editors.......................................................................iv Content Warning...................................................................................v Campus Resources..............................................................................vi About the Cover.................................................................................viii Afterbirth.................................................................................................1 Steamy Romance...................................................................................2 WOMEN SPEAKBLACK.....................................................................3 Malcriada..................................................................................................5 Reaching for What?...............................................................................6 Salt............................................................................................................7 Summer in Philadelphia........................................................................8 Permission.............................................................................................10 Running out of Dreams......................................................................11 A Thank You..........................................................................................12 Sixteen....................................................................................................13 On Meeting...........................................................................................15 Almost...................................................................................................16 Crooked Blue......................................................................................17 This is What the World Made Me...................................................18 Mom.......................................................................................................19 Campus Resources..............................................................................21 Acknowledgements.............................................................................23 Call for Submissions............................................................................24 vii

about the cover UNTITLED BY JACOB KIND MUJI PENN (.5) ON PAPER

This piece is meant to illustrate the duality and intersectionality of feminism and gender. I wanted to subvert the usual symbol of unity by depicting the two individuals standing back to back, but I still wanted to express a kind of union in their locked arms. The person on the right is drawn without a face, showing that even in this process of building solidarity, some individuals are left behind. However, with that, there is still a bond that links people together.

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Afterbirth JOYCE HIDA

The women with the nation in their wombs grab at our collars. “Have you seen my son? The wild one, the handsome one, the jailed one, the freed one” On and on and still no one Gunshots echo in their ribcages Shrapnel where their sons once pressed against. “There is no why,” we tell the mourners, the mothers, the ones we ask to build the hearth, stoke the coals, and pray the spark won’t catch. “There is no why,” we say and still it continues—

Steamy Romance EMILY SCHWAGER i let you take up space inside me// blowing bubbles with my eyes closed/ naked and high/ a thought/ a fuck/ a daze. you and i—existing in a wet dream a smoky bathtub. lick your lips circle your thumb over my nipple i think u really see me, moaning—yes please o thank u

WOMEN SPEAKBLACK MAURICE HENDERSON Women SPEAKBLACK For sista’s with split/personalities and other infected mental diseases For the Ain’t I a women/ who go Unheard Unseen Unloved and misplaced in the multitudes of other people’s lives WOMEN SPEAKBLACK This is a praise song an envisioned wholeness For the sister Girl reality and force fed fiery Nature of she and Heroes Sheroes and now Now again WOMEN SPEAKBLACK so that our words won’t be the same so that the planet won’t be the same so that our names won’t be the same so that our deeds won’t be the same so that the signs of intelligent life on this earth won’t be the same so that effects of gamma rays won’t be the same so that white families won’t have to adopt/ Black children WOMEN SPEAKBLACK BLACKSPEAK WOMEN This is a praise song so that Rosa Parks won’t be mugged by thugs whose fathers still blame the White man and Black women for their problems/ 3

A praiseworthy song so that the fire Next time won’t be spirited in the bedside manner of Betty Shabazz/ WOMEN SPEAKBLACK A song worth singing so that Winnie Mandela and that chastity of womanhood won’t be crucified at the stake of a man she waited 27 years for WOMENSPEAKBLACK BLACKSPEAKWOMEN until I can Hear your voice Erase your pain and Awaken sleeping Giants as I tap the Power within This is a praise song a missionary tract so that The Fruits of your Labor will no longer be forfeited WOMENSPEAKBLACK BLACKSPEAKWOMEN WOMENSPEAKBLACK BLACKSPEAKWOMEN So that I don’t have to write this poem again Say never Never again WOMENSPEAK/BLACK I Can’t Hear Your Speak Speak Speak Black WOMEN 4

Malcriada SOPHIA CLARK

Ele seguro a minha mão, nossos dedos entrelaçados e ele falou, “Eu te amo.” Eu sorri. The Sun on our backs, I felt warm, at home in Motherland. The boardwalk hot beneath my feet and sand crammed between my toes and stuck between the crevices, unwelcome, hard to wash away. One day he kissed me and I was surprised. “Que que você está fazendo?” Eu perguntei. Ele respondeu, “Não se-preocupe. Isso é que mães e pais fazem. É natural.” We would hide under the sheets, those hands that had entwined in mine exploring beyond my hands. Hidden in the shadows, secreto. Perigoso. Days filled with sandcastles, picolés and dubious amounts of sunscreen spread over my body, a protection. Nights invaded by blankets where eyes couldn’t see and hands could roam free. Two years later, the summer after multiplication, Tamagotchis and the wonderful world of Hogwarts, I see him again. As we play in the waves, our grandfather watching us from the beach, he asks me with a grin: “Vamos fazer uma coisa malcriada depois?”

Reaching for What? SOPHIE LEE FELT MARKER ON PAPER

Salt

EMILIANA YOUNG You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like to talk about the memories that everyone tells you, the way you repeat them to yourself like bedtime stories until they feel like your own. You wish you could say it right. That youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all right always like a bruise you poke to make sure it still exists. To make sure you still exist.

Summer in Philadelphia SARA ALBERT

I. Catch the 23 outside Olney, where the corner boys shout loosies at the passersby, and a man once whispered in my ear as I shot up the subway steps that he wanted to “get to know me.” You think I am not from around here and you are right. But no, sir, I am not afraid of the neighborhood. I am afraid of you. Because your knee is touching mine when all the other seats are empty, and your cratered, sneering, gray-maned face is demanding my number. When I tell you no, you dig that knee into my thigh and lean into me. And when I say, loud, I am uncomfortable. You are making me uncomfortable. You laugh. And when I lock eyes with the young man across the aisle, an arm’s length away and watching, he does nothing. And when I pick up my bag to move, you whisper, So it’s like that, huh? And when you finally fuck off back to your seat, cursing me under your breath, I look up at the young man again and he shakes his head, rolls his eyes, like, “Ain’t some people crazy?” And when I pull the cord and disembark a stop early, I check over my shoulder to make sure you are not following. I keep checking the whole damn way. II. You sit across from me on the 36 to Yeadon. Legs gaping in my direction, leaning forward on your elbows, breathing your hot sweaty meat breath into my hair. I sip from my coffee cup, steal bites of my egg sandwich behind the trolley driver’s back. You call me some bastardization of a name. Hey, Mrs. Sexy. Asking if I am married. Asking who I am wearing that pretty pink skirt for. Asking what I, at 6:30 in the goddamn morning, can do for you to start your day off right. I spot Lindberg in the distance and I am thankful. And just when I think I am rid of you, the 37 bus opens its yawning mouth and there you are again. You ride with me the whole damn way. Last stop. I watch you get up, watch you hobble into my office building. Turns out it is yours too. And when I spot your same red- and blue-striped polo in the cafeteria, you smile at me like we are friends. I eat lunch at my desk that day—and all the days after. 8

III. On the way home from the theater, I pass the stop for the 42. Grinning over Atomic Blonde and kickass ladies as the late July sun whips sweat beads down my back. Clad in black tank top and camo shorts, combat boots, I feel like Charlize Theron. But I am no MI6 agent. I do not see you until you shout at me from your rusty Ford pickup, the three of you. And your words are mangled because my mind has a way of doing that. But I know what you are sayingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;hear it in the gruff croak of your voices, your dry, husky laugh. And as you drive off, craning your necks out the window to watch me as you go, I think how I would like one of those expandable batons, the kind you can slip into a pocket, or a purse, or up a sleeve. I walk the half a block back to my house, watching for your truck to pull around the corner again. But it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. And as I slide my key into the door, the pepper spray my mother gave me jingles on my keychain. I will not use it today.

Permission AELITA PARKER

I was traveling when I met you You were standing by a locker Tall, curly hair and eyes speckled gold I liked you immediately. When I said I was leaving they told me not to go alone my mother and my sisters but I wasn’t alone for very long Anyway. You asked permission that first time before you kissed me and I laughed because Then, I didn’t know what it felt like to have something stolen. You said your mother raised you field trips for three you and your sisters were homeschooled

strong women who never apologized you said they were feminists You called yourself one too. I thought that was nice A quirk. You asked before everything touching and kissing licking Before your hands traveled across my body You said “Is this okay?” It was sweet Silly almost. I didn’t know that Soon, someone else and then another someone else would take without asking without permission. I didn’t know sex would become frightening that it would hurt that later I would feel gratitude for how you asked.

Running out of Dreams SOPHIE LEE FELT MARKER ON PAPER

A Thank You EMILY SCHWAGER i. You, draped in equilibrium, take too deep of a breath and float up / up / up— purposefully suspending yourself. I am grounded for once. I am guiding you, dreamily. A celebration.

ii. Levelheaded, curly-headed, you with the crooked pinkies lead me towards a new winter. Gently, barefoot, blue-lipped, a cicada song. The water sings to me, christens me. My mind: vulnerable. iii. My mouth, my throat.Your hands, —careful and tender— choking. Thank you.

Sixteen VIA LIM

sweet sixteen never been kissed bold and keen never been respected. she flew 8000 miles across the globe an adventure among excited peers she flew to a country where sweet beer ran the rivers and christmas welcomed cold winds and chocolate covered strawberries were as sweet as the foreign taste of thrill host family welcomed her with kind hearts and herbal tea she unpacked her bags in the attic empty for the weekend that night as she put herself to sleep alien shadow loomed over her bed jolting awake she blamed herself for leaving the door unlocked the intruder was unbothered claimed all that was there

in the silent night dark hands coaxed her foul mouth leaning in she pushed away a no was not a no until salty tears wet her cheeks the stranger left without a trace but she had felt the lingering touch around the muscles covering her ribcage the trip continuedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; all smiling faces but a heavy stone sat in her stomach undigested.

On Melting IZZY LÓPEZ

I take the plastic trays from the freezer and fill just one cube in each until the water runs over and floods the others. When I am done, I stack them neatly in the freezer again, always hoping my mother will see and compliment my balancing act. But I put too much water in and it freezes in sheets and my fumbling fingernails cannot pry a cube out to cool my lemonade. I crack a tray, holding it steady in my hands, ripping back and forth, an overzealous chiropractor. The fissures shatter and I pluck out shrapnel and plunk it into my glass. Ice never looks like it does in the movies. It isn’t square, or even rectangular. On good days it is a triangle, on bad days an axe, and I can never fit more than two pieces in the glass because the little bayonets take up too much space, too much air between spears. My mother told me to make ice, but in winter when no one wants ice, I want fire in between bricks and my mother always made the fire. I want to know how to make the wood burn and crackle and warm a home, but she never taught me. Once when she was gone, I tried to make fire but the New England wood splintered my middle school palms and the matches were damp and I scorched some newspaper and the smell was rotten, not sweet. My mother taught me ice and kept fire for herself, and now she is gone—she left—and I am tired of ice. I am sure I could learn it somewhere—online, in books—but I know that a mother’s fire will always smell like cookies and Christmas, and my fire smells like desperation in the rain forest. It is not the same. When ice learns fire, will she melt? When ice learns fire—if ice learns fire—if ice never learned ice, if flame had built fire, if home was warm in winter, would they have licked icicles off the roof just because they could? Will hell ever freeze over? Until then, I will find another way to stay warm. 15

Almost AELITA PARKER

It wasn’t the first time but it felt like it Almost, with you. You wanted to explore my body, you said, the space between my ribs and the upper part of my back where I would suck in breath and exhale deeply each time you found it with your hands your mouth I didn’t know it existed. I asked you what you liked and you told me “I want you to find out” so I wrapped hands around your wrists and scraped skin off your back

I was used to playing games fantasies recreated but you wanted only what was real could be tasted and touched You used your hands so well like they’d spent whole summers exploring my body to you both familiar and exciting like an ancestral home It wasn’t my first time but this time my body moved in waves hands pushing until I dripped water making the bed wet you liked it when we had to change the sheets

Crooked Blue SOPHIE LEE FELT MARKER ON PAPER.

This is What the World Made Me CHLOE GONG

ThisiswhattheWorldmadeM e; not a hurricane, not a storm— a slow, wispy thread of air winding and winding and choking and freezing. not a monster, not a princess— ever-changing, ever-moving, burning like the dawn, then fleeing for the night. an organic being: muscle and bone and white-hot lightning limbs on skin, created to shrivel and will shrivel to create. not a hero, but a tragedy— torn green vines still crawling up an ivory tower and trampled roses, slick with mud and rain. the tear in a cape, salvageable, moments before blood wells as the skin swells and slow, slow, oozing. not the bullet, but the barrel instead; not the fist, but the poisoned caress.

Mom

AELITA PARKER

You wore a white gown Today with blue flowers springing up like grass. I tied it around you just two bows holding it together I took pictures You modeling a cotton dress and blue socks with white hatch marks so you wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t slip.

Soon They will cut into you Scraping lymph nodes to see how far the cancer spread But Now, I hold your hand brown leather and cracked skin like tectonic plates colliding you were already made of mountains

acknowledgments We would like to conclude this edition of The F-Word by thanking all those who supported us this year. Thank you to our advisors and friends at the Student Activities Council and PubCo. Thank you to Jessica Lowenthal and the Kelly Writers House, Litty Paxton and the Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Center, and Demie Kurz with the Alice Paul Center.Thank you to our dedicated editorial team and our general body, who worked so hard to make this inaugural fall issue a reality. We are also tremendously grateful to everyone who submitted to the publication this semester, and encourage others to do so in the future. Finally, thank you to the University of Pennsylvania community for reading this edition of The F-Word and thereby participating in this vital conversation.

call for submissions The F-Word is officially seeking submissions for our Spring 2018 issue. As Penn’s only feminist arts and literary magazine, we accept submissions from all members of the Penn community (undergraduates, graduates, faculty, staff, and alumni). Send us your poetry, fiction, nonfiction, academic papers, photography, drawings, paintings, anything—we’ve even had music! In other words, if there is a way to put it on a page, we’ll do it! Entries should be no longer than five pages and should explore topics related to feminism, race/ethnic identity, gender and sexuality, and social justice. Multiple submissions are encouraged. While we do accept submissions on a rolling basis, we ask that those who would like their work considered for the Spring issue submit to upennfword@gmail.com no later than April 1, 2018. We look forward to working with you!