The F-Word Spring 2021 by The F-Word

The F-Word Spring 2021

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.

Table of Contents Mission Statement Letter from the Editors About the Cover Editorial Board Content Warning Campus Resources Inspired by Jenny Slate My Bits, My Pieces My Tinder Messages The Victim Mother of Misunderstandings Starry Night Golden Shovel Love Hourglass—“It Is Time!” or Something Else What They Don’t Tell You About Reporting an Assault at Penn And Then, She Made Me Soup what’s in a name? Give it back! Dear Men Soul Not For Sale Pilar Poetry is a Metaphor in a Dress Fighting Back 2

1 4 6 7 8 9 Rachel Dennis — 11 Lily Sutton — 13 Rema Hort —14 Alyssa Sliwa — 16 Fayyaz Vellani —17 Lily Sutton — 21 Jessica Bao — 26 Yi Feng — 27 Anonymous — 29 Xinyi Hu — 34 Ariane — 36 Lily Sutton — 37 Anonymous — 38 Mattie SimBarcelos — 43 Sabrina Ochoa — 44 Elysia Baskins — 45 Maurice Henderson — 46

“I Will Make Her Smile at Me”: Emotional Labor in Woolf’s To the Light-house “As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us” Tenderloin I Know You Are (But What Am I?) Feast on Thyself Female Gaze Any last words? We Are Sisters Cosmic Asymmetry Compensatory Damages Chakra Series You and Me growing pains *do not machine wash Under the Sun Exit Strategies Sonny’s Diner Icebox Plums With Our Roots I’m Supposed to Dance First Acknowledgments Call for Submissions Contact Us

Rachel Swym — 48 Mattie SimBarcelos — 53 Sophia DuRose — 54 Elysia Baskins — 55 Diane Lin — 56 Kelly Huang — 57 Soso — 61 Mattie SimBarcelos — 63 Elysia Baskins — 64 Sophia DuRose — 65 Libby Saylor — 66 Jessica Bao — 70 Emily Campbell — 72 Elysia Baskins — 73 Xinyi Hu — 75 Jessica Bao — 76 Sophia DuRose — 77 Sabrina Ochoa — 78 Mattie SimBarcelos — 79 Brittany Anderson — 80 84 85 86 3

Letter from the Editors Dear Reader, This issue was more than a year in the making, and the world of our previous issue in Fall 2019 and the one now seem lightyears apart. Within this magazine are tales of a pre-pandemic world, expressions of coping during the crisis, and messages of hope for the future. Filled with firsts, this year pulled many of us away from public spaces and into lives defined by interiority. For some, this created a space for creativity and personal development; for others, the challenge lies in recreating personal spaces of support and affinity online. Many of us at Penn also participated in a national election for the first time, excited to enter into the public political sphere, organize, and use our vote as a voice. While a change in presidential administration won’t solve the structural issues that plagued the nation since long before 2016, and which continue to oppress us, The F-Word is excited to see a generation of political activism borne from grassroots and online advocacy and collaboration. In the words of Angela Y. Davis, “It is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.” But despite this social mobilization, this year has also been filled with violence. The F-Word stands in solidarity with our Black and Asian-American and Pacific Islander neighbors, contributors, and friends, against the hatred and domestic terrorism perpetrated against these communities. We refuse to be complacent— simply non-racist rather than anti-racist—or to accept the daily violent attacks on people of color normalized under a white supremacist state. By providing a

platform and community for voices of color, The F-Word will continue to contribute to the fight to end racial and ethnic injustice across class lines, across all genders and sexualities, and across all other intersections of identity. Through art and prose, education and dialogue, community- and coalition-building, we hope to radically transform the systems that produce all forms of kyriarchy and oppression. As we enter a reopening world, let us remember that some of the most radical acts we can undertake are ones of self-care, of reflection, and of helping each other. Healing from the arduous recent past and tumultuous present will be a collective effort, but also the most unique of experiences. To everyone who chose to share a precious part of their work with us, we are grateful. To our hardworking board and general members, we are in awe of you. We would not have wanted to go through the ups and downs of this past year—the regular uncertainties and the small or big victories—with anyone else. With this issue, and the many more to come, The F-Word hopes to be another contributor toward a future of global empowerment, institutional equity, and collective liberation. We cannot wait to jump into this future with you. — Sabrina Ochoa and Jessica Bao

About the Cover: “In Bloom“ Alyssa Sliwa Gouache

Within feminism there is struggle, there is fight, there is standing staunchly against systems of inequality and inequity and refusing to concede or to bend. However, there is also love, there is beauty, and there is something powerful in blooming in the face of adversity, for however long that may last. Eyes bright. Petals full and soft despite the knowledge that they will wilt. The beauty and hope of feminism deserves to be celebrated, in the same way that we celebrate the warming weather and the blooming flowers of spring—with consistency and pure intention. That is how we might remain inspired and remember that we are loved. By each other and—as much as some might wish otherwise—by the natural universe. This cover is my wish to represent that, and to showcase how we should never lose sight of our inherent luminance.

Editorial Board Editors in Chief Blog Editor Poetry Editor Prose Editors Art Editors Copy Editors Design Editors Design Staff

Communications Director Blog Staff

General Member

Sabrina Ochoa Jessica Bao Evie Artis Emily Campbell Kennedy Crowder Megan Lentz Diane Lin Juliana Yu Rebecca Avigad Sheehwa You Diane Lin Sheehwa You Alyssa Sliwa Megan Lentz Therese Jones Francesca Ciampa Agatha Advincula Brittany Anderson Rachel Swym Liwa Sun Gabriella Raffetto Daphnie Friedman

Content Warning Some of the following work describes or touches on themes of sexual assault and other forms of interpersonal and gendered 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: 3535 Market Street (Office Hours: 9 am – 5 pm), (215) 746-2642, Malik Washington (Director of Student Sexual Violence Prevention, Education) malikw@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. 9

Inspired By Jenny Slate, In Parts by Rachel Dennis When I was a child I used to lie in between both my parents on their big bed. One day my dad and I jumped on the bed and we broke it. One day my dad left and he took the broken big bed and the very same day my mom’s new bed arrived, covered in plastic. When I lay down on it, it was very cushy and nice and it smelled like coffee beans. My mom and I lay down on it and looked at each other. From then on when I would lie downnext to my parents I would lie down with them separately. — Here is how to be a Human Being. Step One: Find a body. At first, it seems like this is the most important part, and life can be hard if you don’t have the right body, but it can still be good. Any body can do anything with a person inside it. Any body can be loved with the right stuff inside. Step Two: Acquire knowledge. Knowledge is one of the gifts of life and is very important. It includes simple things, like talking and reading, and harder things like driving, and learning how to properly comfort someone. Step Three: To be a human you must find that lovable quality. That thing that says: “When I take care of people, they’ll take care of me, too. It’s simple and it’s nice and we love each other.” Without this you cannot be human. Without love you cannot be human. Perhaps it’s under years of harsh truths, and brutal honesty and vulnerability that easily took the turn into a pathetic narrative. Perhaps you drowned it in too many words said. Perhaps you drowned it in tears and too many glasses of water. Perhaps you drowned it and now you have all the trappings but the one that you really need, unfortunately. Imagine you’re not a human because 11

you can’t be loved because you’re missing some sad little quality, and don’t know if you even ever had it. People are surprised when you open your little chest and it’s empty. You are tired of their big round eyes peering in at all your dust and cobwebs. Someday you will be so old that you will never open it ever again and it will be empty forever, and no one in the world will care at all. And then you will be a body and a brain and you will function but never, never be a part of society or be normal or be able to properly interact with real humans. Step Four: Relax. Being human is being hyped up and keyed up and fired up and messed up, which is why there are things that are soft like friends and long, hot showers. Maybe once your little chest was empty but there’s probably, realistically, a DVD in it or something, or maybe an entire found family in there that you completely forgot about. Forgetting is also human. It’s a device that your brain sometimes uses to keep things just on the wrong side of interesting. — My friends text each other in nonsensical couplets with grammar that is just clumsy enough to be of the kids these days as opposed to undisciplined, unlearned, unelitist English. We type our joyful nonsense and I am jealous that Jenny Slate got to make a book of poetic silly prose that warms your heart, because she is a famous comedian and gorgeous genius, and I am a college sophomore who people laugh at and who is smart but growing dumber by the hour. I like to read this book because I like to jump into the future Jenny Slate had to write for me because I could not write it or see it for myself. It is dark, hauntingly dark, with spots of sparkling, pearly, iridescent polymer clay that I use every day to make a slightly changed mask. I wear it over my face, until my real face matches the perfect face I’ve sculpted, until the jovial texts from my fingertips match the jovial gleam in my eyes and the smile on my face.

My Bits, My Pieces Lily Sutton Mixed media

My Tinder Messages by Rema Hort

hey! Yoo hey heyy whats up Hey HI CUTENESS Hi Rema your eyes are beautiful how are you? How was your day? Hey Shit u look just like my wife Hey what’s up? Hey Rema, How’s it going? what up ! i like your name rema What’s up how’s Penn going this semester hey wsp Hey! What’s up? hey hey hey Your face I like it Huh you look just like someone I know?? So weird they must just have a doppelgänger so u paint and ur cute? trynna paint me? Omg you’re being alive too? I can’t believe we have something in common! Hey what’s up Hey! Wats upp Ur rlly cute btw thoo heyy Whats up? lol heyy Tomorrow night I’m going to be at Penn you should come to the party Hey. You have really pretty eyes So I know you’re probably busy, but can you add me to your to do list? What’s your snap Do you paint! What’s good? Trynna smoke sometime Does your name come from that Romulus and Remus story? hey Wsp R u a philly girl Hey! Damn girl you’re too smart for me So you’re a painter? wanna mAyB kiss test my worthy ness Hey Hey I actually recently got into collecting silverware, this is what I got so far: You know where i can find a little spoon? Hey wyd? I must be in a museum, because you truly are a work of art Hey u wanna go out to dinner or somewhere fun this weekend do you Paint hey :) Hey What’s up You looks pretty Hey I’m off to the store, can I get you anything? You know what you would look really beautiful in? You tryna get the pipe? mamma mia Hey! You’ve got a lot of spirit in your photos How are ya? :) Whatcha up to tonight? Hey! If you were a potato you’d be a hot potato You are beautiful Are you the one who does the studies in van pelt hahaha Are you a cigarette Well dang because I wanna crave you all the time and be addicted to the feeling you give me Hey whats up, im flying home in a couple hour, but if you want to hangout my flight keeps getting delayed lol Hey how you doin beautiful 14

Heyyyy How’s it goingggg Heyy! :) Ur mad cute Hey cutie What up where you living at penn? What’s the deal with airline food? Look how beautiful and artsy this girl is Gonna take a wild guess and say you’re from New York Hey Hola cutie how are ya? lol If shag you and shag me are in a bar and shag you leaves, who’s left? Hey Hii what’s happening? are you thriving at penn wanna hear a creative opener? Hello! What has been the highlight and lowlight of your weekend? Big fan of being alive Big fan of being alive Being alive sounds a lot like something a zombie would say Remaa can you teach me to be alive? Just got a new rubix cube personal best wbu Well you seem like a whole lot of fun So you originally from New York? What’s yo sign? Heyy How are you?? Bio game: 10/10 Hey :) you’re cute..... how does smoke date and vibe on my roof sound? Heyy Hey wassup Wassup wyd hey hi in this life: there is no need to have “a look” hey hey Hey how are ya? ur bio is amazing Heyyy Im sorry idk how else to start this convo other than hi i’d think of a cheesy pickup line but i’m lactose intolerant Call me Albus cause I’m the Head Master Wanna go manage some mischief together? I solemnly swear I’m up to no good Hey So do you want a cheesy pickup line, or can we cut past that part? Hi Rema, i really like your curly hair heyy cutie how was your day? Are you from Hawaii bc HI hey! Hey I’m dead Can I offer you a bird fact in these trying times? Convince me to eat your ass KISS ME If we were hanging out and I dabbed all of a sudden what would you do Howdy, I like the hat ‘SUP? what’s good what u doing over there huh Titanic I’m sorry that was a really awful icebreaker, anyways what’s up? Paint me like one of your French boys Mad respect to the people who don’t capitalize their name Hey cutie !

The Victim by Alyssa Sliwa Gouache

Mother of Misunderstandings by Fayyaz Vellani Chandi Maa Daylam—née Chandbegum Khan—heiress to a fabulous fortune inherited from her father’s attentive courting of the British Raj in India and her husband’s shenanigans in colonial Kenya, left this world at the age of eighty-six. Survived by six of her eight children and sixteen grandchildren dispersed across England, France, and Canada, she expired while sleeping in the rear-facing bedroom of her youngest son Mahbod’s pebble-dashed house in London, leaving behind an air of acerbity. Chandi Maa followed the slow migratory drip of her children to Europe since the 1950s. Ever resolute, she refused to emigrate for the second time in her life until she had no choice, warning Mahbod over the phone from Nairobi, “We are not made for these cold countries; it will be the death of me. Do you want to kill me? Yes, yes, very good. Send me a plane ticket and slaughter me.” Ten years later, her prediction had come to fruition. Mahbod’s wife Ishrat, for whom Chandi Maa had held an uncharacteristically soft spot, discovered her motionless while delivering her morning chai. “Mahbod,” she called out to her husband, “come quick, come quick, it’s Maa. She’s gone.” Running up the stairs, he found his wife standing at his mother’s bedside, tears streaming down into the cup of tea she beheld. “Are you sure?” “Of course I am sure. Oh God. Oh God.” “Don’t panic dear.” “Certainly not. What shall I do instead? Put curlers in my hair?” Her marriage into the Daylam clan had gifted her with their ubiquitous sarcasm. An hour later, Mahbod and Ishrat’s front parlor contained an assemblage of Daylams. Had they been in their birthplace, the British Protectorate of Kenya, or Chandi Maa’s birthplace of British India, or her father’s native Persia, the sound 17

of wailing mourners would have carried out onto the village way. Here in Harrow, they spoke the British vernacular of repressed emotion. Although Chandi Maa’s death was unexpected, she had lived a remarkably long life given the childhood demise of her four brothers, the death of her parents and her in-laws shortly after her marriage, and her husband’s untimely demise at the age of forty-nine. Hers had been a lonely life fueled by the spite of having to live for her children. The wily Chandi Maa had wended her way from Asia and Africa to live her final years looking out at the green lawns of Harrow from her bedroom window, whirling a tasbih in her right hand and snapping at anyone who showed her kindness. Her offspring seemed to have inherited strong doses of her antipathy. The eldest, Bahram, was an anthropologist living in Bloomsbury, and had changed his surname to Dale upon publishing his first book. Though it had been decades since he had ceased communicating with his family, they were still smarting from the snub. Her second born, Daulat Khanu, known as Dolly, sat with self-importance in a stuffed chair in Mahbod’s parlor, a veritable Don Corleone presiding over her family. Dolly had inherited her mother’s piercing green-blue eyes, which she used to face down her younger siblings with grandiloquence. Chandi Maa’s third and fourth born, Nour and Farzad, had predeceased her. Her fifth, sixth, and seventh—Hamid, Minucher, and Mahbod—all lived in London. Her eighth, Arya, lived in Toronto. Arya, who had been born six months after her father’s death, was raised by a Kenyan nanny and by Dolly; after the death of her husband, Chandi Maa’s maternal reserves were depleted. On this cloudy Tuesday, the Daylams debated whether or not to ring Arya with the news, given the time difference. In this clan, even a simple matter like whether or not to telephone their sister could descend into Prime Minister’s Questions. “It’ll only worry her, the poor thing,” said Dolly. “Poor thing? This is the death of her mother we’re talking about, not the blooming match of the day. I’m sure she would like to know,” reasoned Minucher.

“Don’t you curse at me, Minnie! Oh God, I can’t believe mummy is gone.” Dolly sat very still in her stuffed chair and cried softly, her green-blue eyes darting around the room, imploring her siblings to sympathize with her. She perked up in her chair and shouted, “Why inform Arya? That princess never knew her own mother, and neither did any of you! Anyway, I’ve been more of a mother to that girl than Maa ever was.” “Daulat...” said Ishrat, casting a pleading glance at Dolly. “Yes, Ishu? What is it? That Arya chose to stay in a boarding school surrounded by white people instead of living with her own mother. Hmph.” “Pardon me, Dolly?” chimed in Hamid—whose wife Anne was English—raising an eyebrow, which made his eyes dart forward. Every Daylam possessed two sets of weapons: piercing eyes, and a sharp tongue. “Oh brother, I am not meaning to slander the lovely Annie. But that Arya, she is something else. Thinking she is too good for us, running off to frozen Canada like an Inuit, taking our niece Sebina with her! How can it be natural to live in such a cold place? Do you know that Maa never wanted to come to England? Oh, how she suffered. How sad. My poor Maa.” “Oho!” chimed in Hamid, and again elevating an eyebrow. They looked at him with surprise, for he was a man of few words. “What ‘oho’? It’s true, no? Can you claim to have loved Maa more than me?” “We all loved Maa,” inserted Mahbod. “Even Bahram, in his own way. So please Dolly, stop the grandstanding.” “Bahram? Oh God, don’t talk to me about that wicked man! Why is he not here? He is another one who thinks he is too good for us, like our baby sister Arya, whom he corrupted with too much schooling and all his hokery-pokery, higgery-jiggery, big-big thinking and clever books!” “What’s wrong with education, Dolly?” asked Minucher. “What is wrong? I will tell you what is wrong. That Bahram, he thinks he is the

bee’s legs!” At this, they all sniggered, providing a welcome moment of levity. “Chup. Stop it! How dare you laugh at your eldest sister, you shameless children!” “We are hardly children, Dolly. We’re laughing because the expression you want is the bee’s knees,” Minnie gently offered. “Ah, so you are correcting me, thinking you are cleverer than me, yes? But, I know things.” “What things?” asked Hamid. “Bahram was Maa’s favorite.” The room fell silent. “Ha! The cat has eaten your tongues, hasn’t it?” No one dared laugh or point out her malapropism. “Bahram? Really?” asked Mahbod. “Yes. That is why she never recovered from their... gharbar,” using the Indo-Iranian word for kerfuffle. “What was the cause of their disagreement?” asked Hamid. “She forbad him from marrying his fiancée; he disowned her and our family in return.” “Wow,” said Minnie. “I never knew that.” “So, you see,” continued Dolly, “Maa suffered all these heartbreaks, children leaving her: Bahram, Farzad, Nour...” “Nour got married. All daughters do. Well, in our culture anyway.” “Very well. But why did they have to run off to France? I mean, who wants to live in a country that smells like cheese?” Her siblings resumed giggling.

Starry Night by Lily Sutton

Chalk pastel on paper

“Yes, yes, laugh, I don’t mind. Maa lost everyone she loved: her four brothers, her parents, her in-laws, Daddy, Bahram, Farzad, Nour, and even Arya and Sebina.” “She didn’t lose Arya and Sebina; they live in Canada!” “Same thing,” she snapped. “Dolly!” exclaimed Minnie.

“What ‘Dolly’? It is a God-forsaken place: half the year it is covered in snow, the other half mosquitos are drinking your blood. Nairobi had neither. Even this miserable London, with its daily rain and drunks on every corner, is better than that cold wasteland.” “That’s harsh, sister” observed Mahbod. “I only speak the truth,” replied Dolly. “We live in a cold, cruel world. Can you blame Maa for leaving it behind?” Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “I don’t think anyone is blaming her,” said Hamid, as he walked over to Dolly, placing his hand over hers with uncharacteristic warmth. “Darling sister, why don’t you call your Begum or Shams and ask one of them to leave work and come ‘round?” “Thank you for the kind suggestion; now you are using your brain.” Ignoring the barb wrapped within her compliment, Hamid added, “Very well then, ring them, dear.” “And in the meantime, we are all here for you, Dolly,” said Minnie. “I’m sure Maa would be happy that we are together.” Hamid, however, couldn’t resist ruining this rare moment of harmony: “Yes, Maa would be happy. She would certainly like the idea of us shedding tears for her, but she never showed us any love while she lived. She was Machiavellian.” “You have no shame, Hamid?” retorted Dolly, withdrawing her hand from his. “And what is this fancy Spanish nonsense?” “Machiavelli was Italian, not Spanish,” he replied. “Spanish, Italian, what is the difference? When you visit their countries, the men will be staring at ladies in the street, panting just like dogs, and lifting one leg! Khalas!” she said, invoking the Arabic signal for a conversation’s end. Dolly’s pronouncement drew muffled guffaws from the others and a pitying look from Mahbod, who stood at the door to the hall, with his arm around Ishrat.

“You shouldn’t speak about what you’re not qualified to, Dolly,” countered Hamid. “As for Bahram and Farzad, she lost both of them because of pride. What possessed that woman to tell our brothers that she disapproved of their fiancées?” “Money,” ejected Mahbod, not realizing that he had just verbalized an inner thought. He beheld his silent siblings: Dolly’s jaw had dropped, Minnie looked down at her manicured nails, which matched the magenta carpet, and even Hamid’s assertive eyebrow seemed placid. “It’s true,” he continued. “She thought she could use her money to keep her sons in line with her wishes. Farzad chose love, and Bahram self-respect, over loyalty to their mother. It was the worst mistake she ever made. Twice, the poor dear.” “No, no, what are you saying?” asked Dolly. “Maa was a good lady, bichari. We should not speak ill of the dead.” “Good and bad don’t come into it Dolly,” replied Hamid. “She was a force unto herself. Does anyone here think that Chandi Maa was a shrinking violet?” “Oho, calling your mother—the dead lady who gave you birth—by her name? Shameless! Did you know Maa never uttered Daddy’s name? That is our culture.” With this pronouncement, Dolly turned her chin triumphantly towards her mother’s corpse upstairs, apparently proud of this gender differentiation, a fitting tribute to the language of patriarchy. “And what is this fancy poetry language, talking about flowers shrinking and all? Are you trying to impress someone? Not impressed, I am! Khalas.” There were knowing smiles all around. Even Ishrat, who rarely took pleasure at the expense of others, was grinning. Dolly’s verbal journeys into ridiculousness always seemed effortless. “All right everyone, let’s settle down,” said Mahbod, restoring order. “We’ve got a funeral to organise.”

— Mahbod sat on the bed in Chandi Maa’s room, looking at her worldly belongings: a tasbih, a handful of dresses, two small books of Khojki-scripted hymns, a cashmere shawl, a handbag, and a few other garments. It was surprisingly humdrum for a woman who had once lorded over an elegant section of the Parklands, that verdant slice of Nairobi cut off from the rest of the city by high walls. Chandi Maa wore her restraint with great élan, apart from two gold bangles gifted from her beloved father. In the end, all she had left in the world was a week’s worth of clothing and religious paraphernalia. Never recovering from the deaths of her siblings, parents, in-laws, and her husband, Chandi Maa’s inherited wealth did not enthrall her. Mahbod recalled a particular scene from his childhood that captured his mother at her best. He was seated in the back of the family’s Peugeot with Chandi Maa on one side of him and Arya on her nanny’s lap on the other side, driving around the market stalls of Nairobi’s leafy Westlands neighborhood. Mahbod was five or six years old at the time. His mother was dressed in her usual simple white frock. She was fearless: her arms were bejeweled with her two thick gold bangles—a bold move at a time when Nairobi was known as Nairobbery—pointing out various household supplies. Vendors would run up to the motor car and display their wares. She would banter with them effortlessly in Swahili, as if chatting over a cup of tea in her parlor. Asking after the health of her husband, not because they had known him but as a courtesy, she would reply, “Wapi? Mungu (Where? God),” shrugging her shoulders and pointing to the sky. Wapi indicated Chandi Maa’s philosophical acceptance of her lot in life. Her facial expression seemed to say, “Take pity on me, a mere widow,” while her car, her staff, and her gold bangles conveyed her real position. Ensconced in the back seat between her and Arya, Mahbod had felt so proud of his intrepid mother and so loved. Mahbod felt injured on his mother’s behalf; what had it felt like to be unloved by her own children? Granted, it seemed not to have dawned on Chandi Maa that her children’s recalcitrance was a result of her own harshness. He did not doubt that this other, crueler version of his mother existed. If not, then why would the prodigal Bahram blast off to England, abandoning both family and fiancée? 24

According to family legend, Chandi Maa had made clear her disapproval: “She comes from a family in which the men drink alcohol. These are the devil’s inducements; Satan himself imbibes this poison. My chokro (boy) will not marry into such a socially undesirable family! Khalas.” Clinging to her role as the Daylams’ judge and jury, Chandi Maa also disapproved of Farzad’s fiancée, decreeing: “The chokri (girl) is too modern; she wears lipstick.” Was Chandi Maa’s judgement vindicated by the early deaths of Shelly and Farzad, and her grandchildren’s estrangement, or should she have resigned herself to accepting her family’s life choices and remaining in contact with them? From Mahbod’s perspective, Chandi Maa had been a loving mother who was concerned only with her children’s welfare during an era in which reputation counted for everything, and who was robbed of a husband at a relatively young age. The respect she garnered came not from her offspring, but from strangers. How could it be that cooks, cleaners, ayahs, and shopkeepers all admired her, while her own children, bar himself and Dolly, did not? Mahbod clutched her tasbih tightly in his hand and allowed the tears to flow freely down his cheeks; for the first time that day, he felt zoetic. Misunderstood though she had been, Chandi Maa’s legacy would live on. As the verse of Chandi Maa’s favorite Sufi hymn went:

Neither your daughter nor your son will accompany your soul on its ultimate journey

Golden Shovel Love by Jessica Bao

“Let it be alleys. Let it be a hall … Let it be stairways, and a splintery box.” — Gwendolyn Brooks Where is the blessing in a definitionless Love? The troubles rendered slow in Splintery breaths. A world encircling this Tiny circus, under the master’s one strict Eye, our passion fruit of an atmosphere. Gin-choke stings the eyes but not The tongues. Itchy casual animals found in the folds of my neck and belly and by Tracing my legs down the wrinkles on any Bed. The master’s eye licks up and down a wise Old Cinderella, while all the good-spending men Watch mice, crackered for the wrong signs. Either You cop first or I do, but no need to run. The cool little seconds before people Rush in the big tent. The pink fireworks are Not for us—too brilliant—but still coming Apart like exploding horns. I love the sound they Make. The crystal blessing bell must Have rung three times now. No rules, but I cannot Keep you, because tomorrow we will catch A glimpse of the Big Top, and know that there was never an us (I wish I had met you) anywhere but here.

Hourglass by Yi Feng 27

Hourglass—“It Is Time!” or Something Else Yi Feng is a scholar, poet, translator and associate professor at Northeastern University, China. She was a visiting scholar at University of Pennsylvania in 2016.

Sometimes, I see the female symbol as representing a little mirror—a superficial reflection—and one of the most famous questions: “Mirror, mirror, who is the most beautiful woman in the world” will come into my mind. But in this visual poem, I would like it to be a lake, a river, or a blue ocean, which represents thriving life and love, and nurtures humans and the world. When I see a male symbol , I sometimes see it as a charged arrow/error, a weapon, and something violent and powerful. It also represents Mars, a red planet, but in fact extremely cold in temperature. In “Hourglass—‘It Is Time!’ Or Something Else”, I mostly use fire to fill in the shape of the male symbol and make water overflow out of the female symbol, because I want to show the common perceptions of genders in today’s world, like water and fire. However, since both elements are so essential to our nature, as time goes on and the sandglass turns over, words in this visual poem are reversed, or crossed over, and I hope that the world would follow suit in change. All genders can be empowered, and no one gender has a weapon. Learn with each other and keep a good balance. It is time that we stop any one gender’s hegemony and correct all these errors in the world. As I insert some Chinese characters into this poem in English, I would also like to think that cultural conflicts resemble gender conflicts, to a large extent. I hope that this little visual poem can show the subtle relationship between humans and nature, and the way of coexistence of different cultures.

What They Don’t Tell You About Reporting an Assault at Penn by Anonymous The system did not fail me, but the community did. On September 2, Labor Day, at 4 a.m. in the morning, my then best friend assaulted me. He struck me twice that night, once across my shoulder, the sound echoing across the highrise’s elevator hall. Once on my right arm, just above my elbow, before punching the wall in front of me—his face inches from mine—as he screamed about what a huge fucking bitch I am. Earlier that night, we had gone to a frat party with a few friends. All of us were drinking and dancing, but he was getting so drunk that the frat had cut him off. When we tried to move him away from the bar, he flailed his arms around and shoved us off. When the night was winding down, only he had insisted on staying. Not wanting to leave him behind, we half-dragged, half-persuaded him out. As we walked down Locust, a commotion erupted. For reasons unknown, he had gotten into an argument with the students walking behind him. He stumbled 29

and screamed, “Fuck freshmen! Fuck freshmen!” We did not know if that group was really freshmen, but they were not happy. As we walked into the highrise where me and him shared a suite, one of the maybe-freshman yelled toward us, “Fuck you, man!” He slouched across from me in the elevator, and my mind wandered back to the many times before when he became so angry about leaving a party, he took his anger out on others. I then remembered a concert that we planned to attend together, and suddenly realized that I could not stop him from drinking too much there, or stop fights from happening. Leaning against the elevator, I said, “X, I don’t want to go to the concert with you anymore.” His head popped up, and he shouted, “You don’t? Well, Fuck you!” His vitriol shocked me out of a reply. Earlier that night, he had been aggressive, like he often was when he’s drunk. A “friendly” but hard slap on the shoulder, or two hands grabbing me by the face while it burnt from how hard he had slapped it. That night, as we left the eleavoter, I was fed-up and annoyed. I said, “X, don’t fucking hit me again.” As if taking my words as a challenge, he reached his arm out and hit me. He struck me so casually, he didn’t even look at me, as if my words naturally required him to assert his dominance. But he hit me so purposefully, so violently, that the pain increased even as he walked away, and the “whack” of his palm echoed. I froze, stunned, and could not stop myself from crying. “He can’t just hit me.” I repeated. “Did he just hit me? He can’t do that. He can’t just hit people…” Meanwhile, he went to lay down—belly up, like a child—on the ground in front of our suite. As if my cries were a lullaby, he closed his eyes, his face slack. One of our friends came to comfort me, patting my arm. Exhausted and angry, I

said, “Fuck you, X. I’m going to bed.” That was when he jumped up, blocked my way, and began to scream, “Fuck me? FUCK YOU! Why are you such a huge fucking bitch?!” He struck my arm. “I’m so fucking nice to you! Why are you such…” He began punching the wall right next to my stomach. A substitute, perhaps. He was still flailing and screaming when people grabbed him around the midsection and dragged him away. Someone else led me—speechless by then—to a different floor. Behind me, he screamed on. When I woke up the next morning, my shoulder was throbbing, and last night felt like a nightmare. He had already left—went to one of the many community events that he had helped planned. Later, I heard that he was telling people there, “Man, last night was wild.” — The day after it happened, the thought of covering for him never actually crossed my mind. When I called my mother on the phone that morning, I tried to downplay what had happened, but broke down. “他不可以打人啊,” I cried, the familiarity of our language enveloping me, “他再怎么样也不可以打人啊！” He can’t hit people. No matter what happens, he can’t just hit people. He had shouted so loudly that people woke up throughout the hallway, including our RA. There was never any hiding what he did, but not everyone saw it that way. That afternoon, minutes before I was due to meet with the RA, our suitemate called me. I had known this man since freshman year. Like X, I thought of him as a brother. He consoled me at first. He was kind. Then, he said, “You absolutely have the right to do what you want, you do. But I just wanted to let you know what the consequences could be if you tell them what he did. He probably can’t live with us anymore; he might get suspended. This could go on his record forever.”

Later, this same man knocked on my door to tell me that X was going to be here at a certain hour, and that I should not be here then. He was curt, solemn, and did not meet my eyes. A few days later, a mutual friend told me to talk to X. There is a second side to the story, she said, every story has two sides. You need to know his side of the story, you can’t just assume. In this only conversation I had with him since the assault, he claimed that he remembered nothing from that night—that he had blacked out while he was at the party. I asked him, Why? Why me? Why did you hate me so much? And if you did, why couldn’t you have just told me instead of using such a painful method? He could not answer. All he said was that he didn’t know, and he didn’t remember. He had issues, and that was all. Instead, he promised many things. He promised that he would go to CAPS, that he would alert his work, and that he would even tell his frat that he can’t drink anymore, that he would quit drinking. Actually, well, I’m gonna stay sober for at least this semester, and then maybe just like a beer or two at a party or something next year. I don’t know if he kept his other promises, but three weeks later, I saw him at a different party. Drunk. When we made eye contact, he ducked and hid under the bar until I walked away. It would’ve been such a funny scene, like a real-life whack-a-mole, if it hadn’t been so sad. When our then mutual friend told me to listen to his side, I asked her, If he had hit you, would you forgive him? She said, Yes.

Turns out, all of our friends could forgive him, but they couldn’t forgive me. It wasn’t long until I noticed him at events we once planned to attend together, surrounded by our old friends. Friends who, since the assault, have avoided me more and more. Friends who stopped inviting me, talking to me, or answering my texts. Meanwhile, his face appeared over and over again. In person, online. As if nothing had ever happened. When I reached out to a couple of people, their responses were surprisingly uniform. They wanted to give me space after the assault. Space for me, but not him. They didn’t have time to hang out with people. But that was just me, not him. There was plenty of time for him. Most of all, they emphasized, We had just drifted apart, and you can’t blame us for not hanging out with you. That was one way of saying it—not hanging out with you—as if they had simply left me alone on the playground. But there was a before and an after. Before the assault, I saw these people every day, every week. We went out together, did homework together, cooked together, ate together. After the assault, I saw many of them once, and never again. Today, he sits on the board of one of the biggest cultural organizations at Penn. One whose events I cannot attend unless I want to face my assaulter. Our then mutual friends—today, just his—have since told me to think about his feelings, instead of just my own, like a selfish person. They told me to stop viewing all men through such negative lenses. Not all men are bad, they said. They told me to believe that everyone has goodness in them.

Yes, the man who hit me has goodness in him. Even today, I want to believe that’s true. He is the man who sat with me in the emergency room when I had the flu freshman year. He is also the man who hit me so hard that my shoulder was sore for days after. He can be kind and funny, and when I close my eyes, I can still hear the sound it made when his hand connected with my skin. He is loved by the community, and in reporting him and refusing to forgive him, I am rejected by it. The case of Brock Turner infuriated the world five years ago, but people often forget that his family and friends—39 men and women—wrote letters defending him, blaming his actions on alcohol or the school’s party culture, and arguing that 20 minutes of mistake should not define his life. Before my assault, I never thought that this could happen today at Penn. But I also never realized that sometimes, the people infuriated by Brock Turner might be the same ones writing letters for someone else. When I first reported my assault, I was worried about navigating the system, but I never thought that I would face backlash from my own friends and community. These are the same people who campaign for feminist issues, who champion for minority causes, and who would have never forgiven Brock Turner. These are the people who pulled my assaulter away from me as he thrashed and screamed, who watched him hit me. And if these people can prioritize him—who cited intoxication for his actions but continues to drink—if they can keep his place in their hearts and minds over mine, then what chances do I have? What chances do any of us have?

And Then, She Made Me Soup. 2019, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches

by Xinyi Hu I am a motivated, versatile Chinese female artist who has developed a body of work in photography, oil painting, drawing and video. My practice targets on the new era, of adapting the ingrained cultural traditions and the socio-political impact of the rapid modernization in China. By addressing subjects from the personal narrative, my work focuses on questions about intimacy and the reciprocity of life as being lived in China. Ultimately, I am searching for affirmation and reassurance of my identity as being both modern and Chinese. This series targets on the traditions rooted in contemporary Chinese culture, which are re-interpreted and questioned by me. 35

what’s in a name? by Ariane

they tell me

to hyphenate my last name

if it bothers me so much

but that would just remind me

that according to society

my identity is straddled between the legacies of my father & my husband imagine if we told

men to preserve their

identities within a limbo -

floating somewhere between

the legacies of their mothers & wives

asked them to genuflect

and offer an ounce of respect

rather than just, quote/unquote, “protect” perhaps the world would be a better place.

Give it back! by Lily Sutton

Mixed media on paper

Dear Men, by Anonymous Don’t touch me. It sounds simple enough. But apparently, it’s not. I grew up in a white suburban neighborhood where I was sheltered from most issues that the rest of the world faced. Still, as I got older and went through the dreaded stages of puberty, I quickly found out that I was a little more well endowed than most. Not outrageously, but enough to catch attention from you. Enough to be jealous of my sisters’ thinness and wonder why I’d gotten the unlucky genes. I first become aware of my assets in middle school, when a white van honks at me while I’m on a jog. I wave back. As a naive 11-year-old, I assume that it must be one of my dad’s friends. That would explain it. I go home and excitedly tell my father that one of his friends drove past me and honked in a white van. He tells me with a horrified look that none of them own white vans. It’d been one of you. One of you who had oh so kindly let me know you thought I was a hot piece of meat when I was still a child. Fast forward a year, and it’s a chilly January afternoon. I’m the ripe age of 12, again on a jog, when you decide to pull your car up next to me, roll down the window, and lean over. I don’t know what you say. My music is too loud. I can see it in your face, though, your inflection. I keep running, terrified. Seconds later another car pulls to a stop and this time, it’s a woman. “That man has been stopping next to all of the girls on this street. Do you know what he said to you? I have his license plate.” I shake my head no and don’t go jogging for a month afterwards.

14, and I’m walking in my local mall, purposefully striding towards the food

court because my stomach is rumbling. One of you steps in front of me trying to hand me something. I ignore it and keep walking, hearing you mutter something along the lines of “feisty bitch” as I leave. 38

15, 16, and 17 I become an object of male attention. You look at my ass when I walk by. You fantasize about me while I don’t know any better. My dad starts telling me to cover up. To wear long sleeves and jeans to protect myself. I find myself uncomfortable around most older men.

17, and I get honked at on jogs around my neighborhood. I get followed. One

of you thinks you’re being discrete in your bright orange jeep. You pass me once, and I don’t think about it. You pass me twice, and I wonder why you’re driving in a loop. You pass me three times and I start to think it’s not an accident. You try passing me another time, but I manage to stop and hide at the corner. You stop too. You wait. You wait at that stop sign for me to come out. You wait for so long as I hide behind a tree and count my breaths. Eventually, our tense game of cat and mouse comes to an end as you drive on. I sprint back home like my life depends on it. Finally, sitting in the safety of my room, I watch out the window as you pass by my house two more times, obviously wondering where I’d gone.

18, and I go to college. I have freedom, independence. My mom tells me to

take self-defense and always stay in a group if I’m going somewhere. I go to my first frat party, in a group. You grab my butt and try to get me to grind on you. I’m thankful when you let me pull away. I wonder if somebody else wouldn’t have let go.

18, and I have my first kiss. I’m sitting alone in a freshman dorm lounge at 2

in the morning. You come swaggering in, and start up a conversation. You tell me I’m beautiful. You’re a stranger, but I can’t help but feel flattered. We talk for almost an hour. You say every little thing I want to hear. You’re almost too good at this. As an innocent virgin who’s never been asked out, I soak it all up. When you ask to kiss me, I say yes. Afterwards, you’re out the door and you ask to kiss me again. The first thought that comes to mind is no. But I don’t say no. Because giving you another kiss isn’t really that costly, right? Might as well say yes again for your sake.

I run back to my hall when you’re gone and tell my two closest friends. I soon find out that I wasn’t your first kiss -- far from it. I find out that you have an unfortunate habit of going to every freshmen lounge at 2 in the morning and convincing girls to kiss you. Why would you do that? Because, in your words, you don’t feel anything anymore and just want someone to fuck you. Despite this, I must be a very fuckable someone because you spend the next two weeks searching for me, going out of your way to check every lounge I might be in. You finally find me and I tell you I don’t want to talk to you. You stay. You touch my leg. I move away. You ask if I like you romantically, and I clearly say no. You still continue to look for me for weeks after. I stop using the lounges.

18, and I’m headed to another frat party with a group of friends. There’s four of us, one girl I don’t know very well. She’s never been to a party before and is excited. We get there and split up. I lose sight of her. My roommate gets a drink and throws it out immediately claiming it tastes roofied. She’s right. We desperately search for the fourth girl. When we finally find her, she’s wandering the middle of the road. She’s bawling her eyes out, saying someone stole her wallet, saying she feels weird, saying something about a bedroom. We take her to the RA’s and they tell us we should just go back to sleep after a while because it’s bad. I never ask what happened. Rumor has it at least half the girls that’d gone to that frat were roofied that night. Truth has it there were absolutely no consequences.

18, and I start going on walks around campus because I need to get out. You

call me a pretty little thing. I keep walking. Another walk, and you try to reach out and touch me. Another walk, and you say something inappropriate about my ass as I walk by. Another, and I get catcalled four separate times within the course of a half hour.

18, and I’m on a club trip. We visit a college out of state. After a day of compe-

tition, one of my guy friends is absolutely wasted and wants to go to a pizza place. I decide to accompany him for his safety. It’s very crowded. We’re standing in line.

You grab me by the shoulder, look me up and down and drawl, “You’re really out to get it tonight, aren’t you?” I don’t remember what happens next. I think my mind blanked out. I do remember my friend trying to step in front of me. I remember him, so drunk, showing me his clenched fist and saying, “I’ll punch him out, I swear.” I remember you calling out to one of your other friends and trying to intimidate the two of us. In the end, you let us go. We leave, and on our way out, another one of you yells at me that I have great tits.

19, I get dating apps, but all you ever want is sex. You convince me to start

talking to you on snap and I think it’s going to be something. Then you ask for nudes. I stop using dating apps.

20, I start using dating apps again because the pandemic is lonely. I get sent

my first dick pic. I didn’t ask for it. And then I find you. I think you’re great. You don’t immediately ask to fuck me. But when it’s late at night, you ask me if I’m a virgin. I say yes. You’re a little too interested in that fact. You ask me a lot about sex. You ask me too much about sex. You joke about sneaking into my dorm. You joke a lot, but I don’t think you’re joking. I don’t think you’re actually into me. I think I can be summed up in a single word to you.

21, and I’m tired of your bullshit. It’s pretty simple. Dear men: don’t touch me. Sincerely, Me

Soul Not For Sale

by Mattie SimBarcelos

Mixed media. Recycled sale sign with acrylics and metallic pens.

I recently realized that the idea of perfection is completely oppressive. It’s like being chained down, unable to move—no freedom to explore or make mistakes. I was so afraid of not living up to my own impossible standards that I stopped creating completely. The joy had been stolen from it. In 2020, I took an African Art history course (taught by Dr. Imani Roach) and was reminded that the standards within my mind were not of my blood. These perfectionist standards were not ancient wisdom, but much newer and reeked of supremacist inferiority. I now think of creation as a form of worship, a way of connecting. Not only are we communicating with the present with our art, but we are simultaneously learning from the past and humanifesting our future liberation. This makes art so much more than a symbol of an object, person, or feeling. This makes it magic.

Pilar by Sabrina Ochoa Amante, no me olvides. Tú, quien me definiste Desde la sombra de la deshonra Tus ojos tan sabios Sin saber mi nombre. Amante, recuerdas bien el calor Persiguiendo a nuestros pies desnudos Persiguiendo al camino, la verdad, y la vida Contigo podía creer el espejismo Que Dios nos bendijo Amante, por la luz de luna Cuando niñitos negros paracen azules Tapo mi cara vacía Y lloro lágrimas de remembranza De la traición de ser desconocida. Amante, hasta que tus pechos Como arena en viento, Se desvanecen a las axilas Te juro, viejita, serás bella Y ofrezco los míos caídos Y aunque la alma me cueste, amante, Yo te dejo al sol.

Poetry is a Metaphor in a Dress by Elysia Baskins

sleep is a fight in a dog park under a full moon and i’m losing love is an iron supplement gone to hell in in a handbasket and i’m bruising if everything i’ve ever done is my own choosing then safety is a seat on the back of the bus and every bump you hit is trust, lost and racketeered until all that’s left is fear because healing is a bumpy road with no cruise control and the devil asleep in the backseat, refusing to put up for tolls, at least his playlist is lit, but he’s waiting for you to hit a sinkhole, so he can steal the wheel or your cheetohs too bad for him, you’re done being unaccountable

Fighting Back by Maurice Henderson

Someone dying hear tonite by gunshots or police brutality Summoned tears and loud cries will become hollered as wind chimes that weather the storm Colored Girls Now push back toward the violence that signify ITS WINTER IN AMERICA the abide within Godspell of Go Tell My People Chained/Shackled/Bound Harkening of No More Dying Hear and the Resisting Arrest of Near death experiences laid down as burden to Say that the River Turns These Colored Girls otherwise/also/known as

Bitches Are No longer countless of the Unbroken Endangered Species and the America’s Most Wanted postcard signature lost of Black Lives Matter Colored Girls, Ladies, Women, Females and their bodies so often echoed in the chambers of cradled robbed graveyards and tombstones that soothe say/ a brilliance that resound from the captivity as the matters and fact finding of Death be Not Proud and the Souls looking Back of wonder/years arrested development

Resist the Fighting Temptation Unarmed/Arrested Fortune Told Sequential of DOA (Dead On Arrival) And the We Shall Not Be Moved

Assault/Say It Ain't So

Resist........ Resist....... Resist....... Resist.......... 47

“I Will Make Her Smile at Me”: Emotional Labor in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

by Rachel Swym

In 1983, Arlie Hochschild gave the name emotional labor to a vital element of many occupations: the work, for which you’re paid, which centrally involves trying to feel the right feeling for the job. This involves evoking and suppressing feelings….From the flight attendant whose job it is to be nicer than natural to the bill collector whose job it is to be, if necessary, harsher than natural, there are a variety of jobs that call for this….The point is that while you may also be doing physical labor and mental labor, you are crucially being hired and monitored for your capacity to manage and produce a feeling. (qtd. by Beck) This concept can be seen in unpaid work as well, in circumstances where— for social, cultural, or protective reasons—one chooses to perform emotions for another and mask their own. Being asked to perform this labor continuously in professional or personal settings buries one’s self concept within others and greatly impacts one’s ability to think, work, and be creative. Voluntary and involuntary emotional labor negatively affects not just its laborers, but society at large, including the companies and individuals that ask for this work. Every reader of To the Lighthouse can recognize something parasitic in how Mr. Ramsay demands sympathy of the women around him. While exaggerated, his dramatic interactions with his family offer a very visible example of emotional labor. The relationships between Mr. Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay, Cam, and Lily Briscoe serve as an impactful demonstration of how emotional labor is performed and how it can consume the lives of its employees. By recognizing these examples, we may be able to reduce its effects in our contemporary culture. 48

Voluntary Emotional Labor: Mrs. Ramsay The relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay portrays domestic emotional labor. Mr. Ramsay, a one-hit wonder of an academic, has been unable to reach his next breakthrough for years (Woolf 37). Convinced he is a failure, he frequently demands reassurance from his wife, who sacrifices her activities, energy, peace of mind, and even her son’s needs to satisfy him: “There he stood, demanding sympathy. Mrs. Ramsay, who had been sitting loosely, folding her son in her arm, braced herself, and, half turning, seemed to raise herself with an effort, and at once to pour erect into the air a rain of energy... animated and alive as if all her energies were being fused into force” (Woolf 40; emphasis added). Mrs. Ramsay is plucked from her casual relaxation to serve her husband. She physically “brace[s] herself ” in preparation, giving her energy to him in a burst described like water but burning like a sacrificial flame—dependent on its finite source (Woolf 40). She provides compassion on the spot at his request. “But he must have more than that. It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life, warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness made fertile, and all the rooms of the house made full of life…” (Woolf 41). Feelings generated at will, reassurances, and free therapy are emotional labor, and because our society represses male emotional expression, men often demand it of their wives and partners in this manner. The effects on Mrs. Ramsay are obvious; in her subsequent exhaustion, “there was scarcely a shell of herself left to know herself by” (Woolf 41). In such a state, it is impossible for her to do anything more than recuperate. The child James, ever perceptive beyond his years, is the one who best describes the impact of his father’s demands: “He hated the twang and twitter of his father’s emotion which, vibrating round them, disturbed the perfect simplicity and good sense of his relations with his mother” (Woolf 40). Mr. Ramsay deprives James of his mother, a figure he arguably needs more and Mr. Ramsay’s emotional labor makes Mrs. Ramsay unable to do her job, what she most loves: caring for James.

Involuntary Emotional Labor: Cam Ramsay An excess of emotional labor can harm one’s own emotions and detract from their ability to perform more rewarding work, especially when the labor is involuntary. Cam, the Ramsays’ seventeen-year-old daughter, is dragged to the Lighthouse by her father with James, and the two board the boat in anger and resentment, determined to together to resist the “tyranny” of their father “to the death” as he forces them to act out a charade of happiness after their mother’s passing (Woolf 166). After upsetting Cam by insulting her intelligence, Mr. Ramsay tries to lift her spirits (Woolf 170). Mr. Ramsay never says he is apologizing, or that he feels poorly for talking down to Cam, rather he says his anger is wrong: “Women are always like that; the vagueness of their minds is hopeless...they could not keep anything clearly fixed in their minds. But he had been wrong to be angry with her; moreover, did he not rather like this vagueness in women?” (Woolf 171). His motivation to make her happy is to enjoy her pleasure and her love for him, pleasing himself through a manufactured mood that supports him, validates him, and makes him feel gracious and appreciated. James also requests labor from Cam, asking that she remain enraged with her father as her grudge begins to fade. “[Mr. Ramsay] was so brave, he was so adventurous, Cam thought. But she remembered. There was the compact; to resist tyranny to the death. Their grievance weighed them down” (Woolf 168). James asks Cam to sustain not only an unnatural emotional state, but an unhealthy one of maintaining bitter anger. Cam has the maturity to acknowledge both her love for her father and her hatred of his controlling behavior. But because of his and her brother’s demands on her emotions, Cam struggles to find something to say that accurately captures the complexity of her feelings, and “[can] think of nothing to say like that, fierce and loyal to the compact, yet passing on to her father, unsuspected by James, a private token of the love she felt for him” (Woolf 172-173). She instead sits silently, distraught and divided, and James and Mr. Ramsay’s attempts to control Cam’s feelings oversimplify her interwoven emotions, ruining her ability to enjoy the pleasant day at sea. 50

Emotional Labor and Work: Lily Briscoe Lily Briscoe, who works as a painter, suffers doubly from Mr. Ramsay’s demands for her emotions, detracting from her ability to do her job. Lily paints in a way that requires clarity, focus, and mental tranquility, which Mr. Ramsay disrupts entirely on his quests for womanly sympathy. He shows a blatant disregard for her work, waiting for her to pause for just a second so that he can steal her attention, believing her art inferior to his emotional wants (Woolf 154). Lily is entirely unable to paint under the weight of Mr. Ramsay’s insistence, pressuring her to abandon her own wants and fulfill his. She feels humiliated as she fusses with her supplies without intent, “playing at painting, playing at the one thing one did not play at” (Woolf 153). For Lily, who has spent much of her adult life trying to convince others that she is a true artist, this mockery of her real work results in utter self-loathing. Between her inner disgust and her inhibited productivity, Lily dons an expression of “self-surrender”, resigning herself to Mr. Ramsay’s emotional predation (Woolf 154). Mr. Ramsay’s continuous emotional siphoning leaves her unable to properly paint even after his departure. After she satisfies Mr. Ramsay with attention, she is inextricably struck by genuine sympathy, which rises again and again in waves that knock her off-course. “The sympathy she had not given him weighed her down. It made it difficult for her to paint” (Woolf 174). She is unable to paint again until she is fully free of him, when he has reached the Lighthouse, and she has the insight she has been waiting for. The Nature of Emotional Labor Women in To the Lighthouse are frequently perceived as wanting to give emotional labor or using it to boost their own egos. “...All this desire of hers to give, to help, was vanity,” Mr. Carmichael thinks of Mrs. Ramsay, “For her own self-satisfaction was it that she wished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her ‘O Mrs. Ramsay! dear Mrs. Ramsay...Mrs. Ramsay, of course!’ and need her and send for her and admire her?” (Woolf 45). When women are not auto51

matically skilled in this, they are somehow broken and malfunctioning. “...There issued from him such a groan that any other woman in the whole world would have done something, said something—all except myself, thought Lily, girding at herself bitterly, who am not a woman, but a peevish, ill-tempered, dried-up old maid, presumably” (Woolf 155). Even women in reclusive and independent fields are expected to offer emotional support whenever demanded - Lily as a solitary painter is still expected to be effusive. Society deems Mr. Ramsay’s academic work important and excuses his emotional incompetence for his “genius”, but for the women of To the Lighthouse, their personal projects and domestic work are devalued, and their emotional work and how it benefits men is valued above all else. To men like Mr. Ramsay, the women in their lives are rarely people and primarily resources. Frequently “an enormous need urged him, without being conscious what it was, to approach any woman, to force them, he did not care how, his need was so great, to give him what he wanted: sympathy” (Woolf 154; emphasis added). Disregarding their feelings, and at times even their humanity, Mr. Ramsay expects conjurations of genuine emotion on cue, and in fact even invents a fictional group of women in his mind to give him sympathy when the real ones in his life will not (Woolf 169-170). Under this influence, we see Mrs. Ramsay, Cam, and Lily Briscoe vampirically drained, depressed, and distracted from what they truly care about. The consequences they suffer from emotional labor are a timelessly poignant indicator of its importance, able to transcend years to educate us, and hopefully mitigate its effects.

Works Cited Beck, Julie. “The Concept Creep of ‘Emotional Labor’.” The Atlantic, The Atlantic Monthly Group, 26 Nov. 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/11/arlie-hochschild-housework-isnt-emotional-labor/576637/?utm_ source=twb. Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. 1927. New York City, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005. 52

“As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us” – Robin Wall Kimmerer by Mattie SimBarcelos Created on iPad July 2020

Tenderloin by Sophia DuRose

I saw the blistered sun-bleached diaries of an American lyric, whose citizens unspooned Themselves on streets begging for backlash and redemption; I saw frowning shoulders Who knew only take, ask which direction to Jerusalem’s appointment with Black Stone, Which way to Mount Sinai at the hilltop of Salesforce, Who braided lice into their beards With stolen forks from the restaurant on the corner Whose window’s chipped smile caught the red and blue sirens of Last night’s stupor, drunken gunshots unzipping the air, gremlin-like and crouched Under the moon’s ugly hoopskirt, These are the werewolves whose eyebrows curved into question marks On my summer stoop, adirondack unfolding backs in the oozing sun, A starving sled-dog battalion of hungry days, weeks, years, yapping Like artists with nothing to say except a cough, cigarette plummet In the tender pants of concrete wastelands, which aren’t even concrete at all, Because whoever built them used blood as mortar, And my neighbors’ bodies as brick.

(San Francisco Summer 2019)

I Know You Are (But What Am I?) by Elysia Baskins

I existed first! OK, you existed first but I existed better and I still do because as long as I’ve existed I’ve been better than you Right now I’m out of practice at being myself some parts of me I put up on a shelf and left so long I forgot they were there until I was so small I couldn’t reach the rest of me but I’ve knocked down that shelf and gotten back the best of me new and improved bruised, missing a tooth, but unfused

and I can’t sew it back together but I can glue and make one better If you’re rubber then I’m a silicone dick fake, long lasting, born from an imprint and still more real than you more here than you, more feel, more zeal, more me than you it takes one to know one so I know that I’m better Now that I don’t try to love down to the letter if I made you better you made me the best it’s not a compliment (it’s a test) and if I’m under arrest miranda rights can kiss my ass

like, who I used to be but better like, how I used to fuck but wetter

because shut doesn’t go up but the prices do and I never grew up but neither did you and neither did my parents

now that I don’t try to love like a shrunken wool sweater: suffocating, scratchy,

but I digress maybe I didn’t exist first but I’ll exist the best 55

Feast on Thyself by Diane Lin Watercolor, gouache, and sharpie on paper 56

Female Gaze by Kelly Huang INT. CASEY’S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT The Michael Bublé Christmas album creates a blanket of sound among murmurs of conversations. Close on: Casey (17) sitting on the couch drinking a Christmas ale. She speaks to someone next to her that we do not see. Her eyes are a bit red and squinted, but she is incredibly engaged. CASEY You know, a lot of girls nowadays say they’re bisexual, or bicurious, but I don’t really think it’s that. Female masturbation isn’t as taboo as 57

it used to be... SJP and Charlotte’s “rabbits” are no longer unique, y’know what I mean? A beat. No answer. Clearly this is something Casey has thought about extensively. CASEY But, yeah, women are masturbating. Teenage girls are masturbating. And they’re also watching porn. But normal porn is so aggressive, and definitely dominated by the male gaze. Plus, a lot of women are still attached to this idea that sex is romantic. So most of the girls I know prefer to watch erotic LGBTQIA+ movies, especially lesbian sex scenes. She pauses again. Still no answer. CASEY Oh, don’t tell me you’re homophobic… not for lesbians at least, right? She laughs and takes a swig.

CASEY Anyway, what was I saying? Oh right. Lesbian sex scenes. The industry loves them. Because what’s better than objectifying one woman? Objectifying two! It totally capitalizes on the years and years of work sexualizing the female body. And gives this illusion of progress because of the queer lovemaking. But you know who is still behind the camera? A man. She pauses. Still nothing. We begin to loosen the close hold on Casey to reveal her listener: TREVOR (5) sitting back on the couch patiently playing with his fingers. We also reveal that there is a holiday party going on. It’s crowded; upwards of fifty people dressed in different shades of green, red, and black. Most of them are blonde. All of them are white. A huge tree dominates a corner of the two-story living room. Whoever decorated this house obviously spends a lot of time on Pinterest.

CASEY And that is the issue. Women and girls currently coming into sexual maturity have been optically co-opted by the male gaze and therefore see themselves--and other women--as sexualized objects, mistaking this for genuine sexual attraction. So, they identify as bisexual. TREVOR Are you a bicycle? She thinks for a moment. Then: CASEY Probably. TREVOR Can I have that cookie now? CASEY Knock yourself out. Trevor grabs a snowman sugar cookie and runs away leaving Casey alone on a huge L-shaped sectional.

Any last words? by Soso

I wanted, I suppose, to be free of this costly burden that has tied me to the stake and is burning me alive. In the past I could, when I was very still, or my mind went quiet, feel the flames of my obligations and worry lick at the corners of my insides. There were times when I felt my heart was so encased by hardened blisters, that had grown, burst, and dried to form a dense scab-like encasement, that I felt the need to take a knife to it. To plunge a blade into my chest and scrape the cracked, blackened, gnarled lesions that had wrought itself in the decay. I could see it within myself. The shell that had formed inside me, protection from being grabbed, taunted, touched. I have since grown accustomed to the heat, but every now and again a great surge of white-hot rage would overcome me and I would be so inclined to scream that I would have to speak aloud and tell my soul to be silent. Somehow, that only seemed to keep the flames alight in the cavernous pit within me, carved by years of swallowing my sharpened impulses. I was so filled with venom, so blackened, so utterly exhausted that I was on the verge of collapse. Robbed of air, all I wanted was to breathe clear of the smoke, to fill my lungs in some small bit of atmosphere that was mine and mine alone. I longed to cut my bonds and laugh as I dove headfirst into the cooling waters of a raging sea of obscurity. I wanted to let the salt sting my cuts and clean my swollen carcass. And so. Watch me now, as I scrape myself clean, slit my skin, and let all the filth drain from my burdened stomach. Watch, as I tell you there is more to this life that being burnt alive by the careful slavery of being what they tell you to be. There is more than this fire lit beneath us and the chorus of songs hanging around us, binding our minds and souls to the burden of learning words we can never bring ourselves to sing. I assure you that this cage is crafted by man, for man can be

thwarted, and not by God or some heavenly power that wishes to keep us at bay, to train us to submit, to thrust a bit in our mouths and turn our heads from the laughing wheat fields, patient and bending, and towards the shining towers of shimmering glass and baseless self-indulgence. For, I am now convinced, the mistake is not God’s and not my own. That my life is more than this tempest of always having enough of what I did not ask for... and always being refused what I have begged to find. Is not my purpose burned into the universe, marked by the stars? Or am I merely a cloud, formed by pressure and moisture, filled with things no eye can see, destined to float on in the sky, morphing, sinking, and dying an unrecognizable fog? A part of the earth and yet, unearthly. To what accident do I owe the pleasure of this dance? To what purpose was I given the steps but deafened to the music? I see them. They are all dancing now, they smile, they bow. The world is loud. A boisterous flurry of shouts and applause. I smile, I clap, I move my feet in the way they march. But my body is screaming, still bound to the stake. Begging for it all to make some sense, for them to bear witness to my martyrdom. Can you not see that I am deaf? They tell me to keep listening. The world begins to blur and tilt on its axis. My form becomes not quite a girl, not quite a woman, tied to the stake of caring too much and never enough, told to be smaller and narrower and quiet. They whirl around me as the flames climb higher and burn my throat. “Stay away. Stay away. I am free. I am free.” And in the wicked light of the orange tongues of fury, I begged. Then I finally realized. They cannot hear me either.

We Are Sisters

by Mattie SimBarcelos

Created on iPad February 2021

Cosmic Asymmetry by Elysia Baskins

she said it’s not you or me it’s the way they wrote our names in the stars i’ve got too much aquarius in my chart and you don’t even know your mars she said our spiritual energies aren’t in alignment my personhood needs more refinement but i wanna fuck a girl just to say that i’ve tried it Has the moon pulled the tide yet? be my knight with a trident, a girl but a guy, a dyke with the guidance, don’t be too compliant but let me put makeup on you i wanna see you look like me i wanna see how pretty you look next to me she said i’m sorry, i loved you, albeit imperfectly

Compensatory Damages by Sophia DuRose

We can not be held accountable for any lost or stolen Neighborhoods. We can not be held liable for the destruction of Attitudes. You have agreed to pay the full price of Your flesh. In exchange for the participation in the activity of survival Organized by Philadelphia You are personally responsible for Your daughter’s tears. This agreement and each of its terms are The product of an arms length negotiation Between you and the Pavement. You agree to pay for full damages and facilities with Your tongues. If you have any problems or concerns, Please direct them to the brick-lined blocks of Above the river Where you will be told to take a number, Pay $14.75 for a salad, And pointed to the graffitied speck of street on Spruce. “Scrub.” We will provide you with the necessary tools: Your toothbrush.

Crown Chakra by Libby Saylor

Third Eye Chakra

Throat Chakra 68

Series by Libby Saylor I created these drawings at the prompting of my therapist. During quarantine in 2020, I was experiencing more anxiety than usual regarding my health, my weight, and my overall life. I would become obsessed with one of my “ghost” ailments and would become fixated on the speed and progress of my “recovery.” I was also eating so poorly at the time and was feeling very disgusting about my weight and appearance. My therapist suggested that I just draw out my feelings, which I honestly thought was super obvious and was never going to help. But I do what I’m told, so I began that day, and found so much emotion coming out of me. The act of drawing became such a tool for soothing my nerves, and I started to develop a theme. I worked my way through the entire chakra system, creating one drawing for each chakra, focusing on the energy and personality of that particular chakra, and its associated body part. For instance, the throat chakra is associated with creative expression and communication. These drawings became cathartic ways for me to understand my own power—or lack thereof—and with each drawing, I felt a release of anger and tension. Working my way through each chakra, from the base to the crown, I uncovered all of the muck I was holding onto so tightly, and my obsessive thoughts and tensions began to melt away. Themes of power and silencing became most prevalent in these drawings, and whatever I was unable to say in my own life during this time, was articulated through these drawings. They became a safe way for me to feel angry and powerful and honestly, just made me feel better.

You and Me by Jessica Bao

I held my two little girls in my hands who were clinging to the crevices of my thumbs before I flung their translucent bodies over that railing where someone once said, “Don’t worry, we are gonna suck that bundle of cells right out of you.” This is the promise I took for you when the blue-green running underneath our hands, which were stinging to hold those bundles of joy, had instead let vomit pour through the thumbs. The un-scooped light that we once loved now had two flesh-fragile bodies stuck on its back. I peeled those bodies away, before they could crawl back into your arms, so that no one could tell they had once trailed there with melting jelly hands and imagined bellies. I twisted holes with my thumbs, filled them with flowers that I adore—a bundle of daffodils, gossypium, and mothballs—all bundled up for the water. But later I saw a body lying next to your pillow, her thumbs tangled in your hair, and I did not wake you. I cradled the flittering girl in my hands and said, “Shhh.” You trusted me that once,

which means I would wait for once her sister showed up, wrapped in a bundle of guilt and blue dreams. Her hands peeping out, reaching for the heat of a real body. I snatched her up before any sun could wake you and buried them. Our thumbnails caked with dirt. Tomorrow, I will squash with my thumb if they land next to your pencil, their mouths—once nestled within our belly—opening to call you Mama. I would envelop them in a bundle of shards and grenades and then cover it with my body if they peek out between the grass. Your hands

must let go of mine now. I will protect you once more, pressing deep into the earth my body, their gummy mouths gnawing at my back, so that you will never wake with a bundle of angels in your hands, our fetuses reaching out like a bouquet of thumbs.

growing pains by Emily Campbell no one told me that growing was stripping down to your bones skeletons taken out of the closet and laid out on the table for everyone to see unburying the parts of yourself you promised that you had killed and instead accepting them as alive growing with you against you forever enmeshed in your brain but not destined to control your heart

*do not machine wash by Elysia Baskins i’m hard on my stuff: cracked soles, cracked screens, chips in dishes, seams with rips, outdated firmware, CDs that skip i’ve got burn holes in my sheets, a thousand scratches on my CDs my laptop casing has a dent the stuck keys are a non-event this is what i’m working with when it’s a struggle to exist chipped teeth and a patched heart, a body like all my books that fall apart (bent at the spine) but it’s fine they’re just well-read (so the covers fell off) and i didn’t punch hard (the drywall’s just soft) isn’t this love? i think i ripped the tag off

Under the Sun

by Xinyi Hu

2019, oil on canvas, 60 x 80 inches

I cwaptured this baby’s facial expression while he was surrounded by a group of adults. He was dressed like a clown in yellow outfit, uncertain about what is going on around him. My indication here is to ring a bell for questioning some Chinese traditions and therefore bring out the anxiety for the new generation.

Exit Strategies by Jessica Bao

The art room. The kiln room has reinforced steel doors. The math room. The closet full of textbooks, glossy. A beautiful smell. The movie theatre. The mall. Blend into the crowd. The church. The library. Duck Behind some books. The biology room Too many windows, Not enough hiding spots. Protect yourself. Always remember a way out. Find something to protect your chest —your center mass— And your head, That’s where your brain is.

Sonny’s Diner by Sophia DuRose Cracking eggs sound like bills I can’t afford Sound like yesterday morning and tomorrow’s morning Like the forever brunching train toward Decomposing composting high sodium warnings As if I don’t already know what’s going into my body As if sunlight and shadows don’t have a taste; On this side of the country’s waist, everybody Is after the lowest calorie rent, coffee, toothpaste Sloppy Joes are swapped for baggy basements Burgers forget their hats and shoes as waitresses bite Love letters on restaurant pads in the place meant For what is wanted what is needed what is copyright... I am running late caught like food in San Francisco’s smile. I am running late pouring on concrete, spilled like coffee, at my own breakfast trial.

Sophia DuRose is a twenty-one year old writer and avid pug lover from Orlando, FL, now living in Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Rainy Day Magazine, Revelry, The Same, Contemporary American Voices, National Poetry Magazine, The American Library of Poetry, and Apricity. Her first book of poetry, “Losing Teeth” was published by Shantih Press in May of 2019. She wishes she could say she lives with a pet pug named Edgar Allan Pug, but she lives alone. Currently, she is working towards her English degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Twitter- durosemarysbaby

Icebox Plums by Sabrina Ochoa Shaking your fringe over your eyes to save some face shoulder blades swimming, nosing rising in the air Careful now, mind the tangerine soft, sweet in your mouth

With Our Roots, We Rise Together by Mattie SimBarcelos Created on iPad February 2021

I’m Supposed to Dance First?! by Brittany Anderson

What had previously been an overly lit, large warehouse suddenly became just a stage floating in darkness, as if a black velvet blanket had been dropped over the place. “Oh, by the way, there’s a musician that will be performing throughout the show and he’s going to jam out for a bit after I introduce you, so if you would just dance around for a couple minutes before your jokes while he does his thing, that would be great.” DANCING?! MINUTES?! WHAT?! These people don’t know me and are expecting jokes. And I’m supposed to... dance first?! Okay… Think, Britt. You have a few minutes to prepare… but what’s to prepare? I don’t have any dance moves mastered or ready to go. The only option is to improvise. Welp, I guess it’s a good thing I’ve taken improv classes… “And this is my son he’s only 10 if you can believe it! He’ll be the one in charge of giving you the time warning light. The first flash will be at four minutes and the second will mean your five minutes are up.” Oh great, a ten-year-old child in the back of a huge warehouse will be giving me my signal to end. That will work well. I walked up past what I could barely see of the crowd, up to the left side of the stage entrance. I breathed in the odd peacefulness of this moment after days of utter fear for what was about to happen in those next five minutes. Deep breaths, right? That’s what to do here? I analyzed what I could of the small sections of faces in the first few rows: expressions gleefully, expectant, and hopeful. This is their night out. Their night out consists of me doing these jokes I’ve only ever done at small shows and open 80

mics, and they didn’t in any way ask for me specifically. They just know that it’s a comedy show. Ohhhkay. An all-white, middle-aged audience, I realized. Perfect, they’ll totally relate to my jokes about the woes of twenty-somethings in diverse, urban areas! “And here’s your first comedian… Brittany Anderson!” Channeling my inner goof, I walked out into the scorched stage, doing some jiggling, some jumping and some funny hand gestures, while simultaneously immediately questioning why I had willingly signed up to do this. The guitarist played a tune I could barely hear over my mind screaming at me. Everyone is staring at you, BE FUNNY! Keep dancing! I looked into the audience, a blanket of darkness below bright blinding lights already drying out my eyes. If only I could have only seen just one face to confirm that anyone out there in that charcoal sea was rooting for me. Heart pounding, sweat dampening, eyes widening, breath shortening. I think it’s been enough time. My set began. The words to the first joke flowed out in what I hoped was a coherent order… “So… I’m tall, and a lot of people like to point that out to me. I like to mess with them about it, like sometimes I’ll say ‘thank you, it just happened a few months ago!’” Please laugh. Please laugh. I heard a few giggles. “Or I’ll say ‘Thanks, I actually got this machine on Amazon, it’s super easy and it will just stretch you out, I’ll send you the link!’” Not as many giggles this time. Oh god, what am I doing? “Or my favorite: ‘I just eat a lot of asparagus!’” Ugh, I hate having to pause in between jokes! Why can’t I just blurt it all out and then leave the stage? “I’ll pour a little bit of soy sauce on there, that’s how I got my color!” A little bit heavier laughter this time. Phew. But I still can’t see a single soul let alone my one friend that came. God I’m so mad that the rest of them bailed because they were too hungover. Help me, someone! But I couldn’t say that out loud, and there’s no one that could help me now. In a warehouse full of hundreds of people, I’m alone in this. The stand-ups’ simultaneous pride-point and existential dilemma. 81

Okay, but my one friend here IS rooting for me. Maybe I’ll just try to make HER laugh. One friend that I had just met after she had married a good friend I knew through work. A spontaneous marriage, not unlike mine to comedy, born out of a desire to reinvent myself by taking a risk and sticking with it. It really was like a marriage, taking much of my time with its highs and lows, learnings and failings, intense emotions and utter exhaustion. Hustling on weeknights, staying out till midnight to mingle, taking brutal gut hits to my self-esteem some nights, while getting overdoses of it on others. “I’m really awkward, too. Like the other day, I got in an elevator with a guy I think is cute, and I tried to think of what I could say to him… I could talk about the weather, I could ask about how his recent trip went… but all that came out was “How was your weather?” Annnd the dreaded pause... a few warm giggles bubbled into the silent air. “Then I tried to fix it, but this time all that came out was ‘How was your elevator?’ Chuckles. Okay. “So I say ‘Haha, sorry… let me try one more time ‘what’s going on in you?’” Actual laughter. Oh, thank god. The high from the laughter disappeared right after it stopped though, and Iwas back to square one. Dignity: that’s what I thought I could lose here. Complete humiliation in front of a large group of people that would traumatize me so much that my comedy career and confidence would poof into dust. I knew all along that I would be terrified once I stepped on the stage, but I knew that opportunities like this have to be pounced on. I knew that I was confident enough to get stage time, and I knew it would be an opportunity to perform in front of a big crowd; as a new comedian, that doesn’t usually come so easily. This trip to Cape Cod, randomly planned by my most spontaneous friend, was an opportunity. I had to go for it, and so I did. I messaged the host of the Cape Cod Comedy festival asking for stage time right before driving up to the Massachusetts island. The host said yes the day before the festival, and there I was, all eyes on me. Jokes kept going by, some didokay, one flopped hard because I changed the wording over the punchline, thinking that a tampon would be more PC than an IUD. My friends’ advice echoed in my head seconds after: “Be careful changing the word of a punchline on a whim.” 82

Memories flooding back of my first ever set, how the audience was similarly shaded in darkness, how that stopped me from trying stand-up again for years, and how that had never happened again until now. How have I forgotten that fearful sight? So many experiences in lit bars and theaters; privileged, in hindsight. The ability to see every inch of the place and the smiles in front of me, all to bring me down in my biggest opportunity to shine yet by making me forget how difficult the darkness can be. The same thoughts returning… Who am I? Why am I doing this? And what on earth are they thinking about me?! My long-winded joke about my six-year-old sister walking through the insanity of Times Square doesn’t land. Tension. Some silence. Confusion? Anticipation? Boredom? Am I too different from them? Or is this just because I’m the first one up? Also, where the hell is that time warning light?! Okay, just finish with confidence. You have this. You have this. I spat out my last joke about a train conductor asking what kind of animal my dog is, annnd. Done. “Goodnight all, I love Cape Cod!!!” I shouted with semi-sarcasm. I rushed off the stage in a blur, almost tripping on the mic cord, eyes bugging out of my skull. I looked at my watch—it had only been three minutes. Three minutes that had felt like three years. I collapsed into the arms of a fellow comedian off-stage. “It wasn’t as bad as you think! You did good!” she whisper-shouted. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” was all that came out in response. Rush of emotions: stomach turning, feeling as if I’m on a far-off planet, and then slowly, slowly, slowly… Bravery. Pride. Relief. It all came over me like a rogue wave, leaving me startled and shaken but appreciative of its power. I had changed. I made it. I can do okay. This was a very anxious experience, but the fact that I can do that in front of a huge all-white audience means I have balls. I spoke. They listened. They laughed. I just performed stand up at an actual comedy festival. What the–

Acknowledgements 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 Women’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 post-pandemic Spring issue a reality. We are also tremendously grateful to everyone who submitted to the publication these past semesters, 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 Fall 2021 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, and we accept submissions in languages other than English. While we do accept submissions on a rolling basis, we ask that those who would like their work considered for the Fall issue submit to upennfword@gmail.com no later than November 4, 2021. All work submitted may also be considered for publication on our blog at upennfword.com. We look forward to working with you!

Contact Us To learn more, connect with us at www.upennfword.com www.facebook.com/upennfword www.issuu.com/fword Email us at upennfword@gmail.com Or meet us in person— Our meetings are open to all Penn community members and are held on Wednesdays at 9:00 pm upstairs in the Kelly Writers House.