the home issue
grapefruitsoup
Editor: Liam Skillen
Website: grapefruitsoupblog.wordpress.com Email: grapefruitsoupclothing@gmail.com
Illisutrators/Artists: Robin Bissett-@robintbissett (cover image) Bethany Fulks-@bethanyjlf Remi Germaine-@remikeahi Jennifer Lewis-@_jenniferlewis Kristรณf Szabรณ-@kristoflab Jamie Windsor-@jamie.windsor (this page)
Photogrpahers: Beth Alexander-@bethalexanderfad Jaina Cipriano-@jainasphotography Tess Elizabeth-@tesselizabethw Andressa Monteiro-@monteiroacarte Sophie Warwick-@sophs.snapshots
Writers: Robin Bissett-@robintbissett Shei-@sheinicorn I.V. Kallin-@ivkallin Aisha Monks-Husain - @aishamonkshusain Robot with Anxiety-@robot_with_anxiety_poems
Social media Instagram: @grapefruitsoup Twitter: @grapefruit_soup Spotify: @grapefruitsoup Issuu: @grapefruitosup
Home is a small word for such a big meaning. A home is not just a house, it is a personal sanctuary, a place for comfort and relaxation, away from the dreariness of everyday life. Where else can you completely let loose but at home? That is why a home is essential. Not because of the warmth of brick walls, but the feeling of being free of judgment from the world. Most people find home in their house, a permanent address to root their life. But for many living in housing situations brought about by circumstance rather than choice, that house can be a dreaded reminder of all the less than ideal realities of life. So without a house to call home, where do you find rest and tranquility? Without the conventional four walls of a house, people, myself included, have found comfort in places in their life that hold significance for one reason or another. A favourite cafe maybe where you've spent so many hours laughing with friends, applying for jobs, and reading, it feels just as familiar as home. Or maybe it's not a physical place but the people you surround yourself with. Meeting with a particular friendship group where you feel completely at ease, free from the judgement of societal norms. Wherever you find home, we can all agree it's important to have somewhere you feel safe. Freedom and security is essential, whilst a "Live, Laugh, Love" sign is not. This zine is a collection of photos, illustrations, graphics, and writing representing peoples view of home.
Remi Germaine
Home, a four letter word, home, something outside of a physical context — there is no direct phrase for “going home” in German, there is “gehen nach Hause” or “gehen zu Hause”, both meaning something like “going to house” but it’s more abstract than that, because lately I’ve been nach Hause gegangen to see you with both your hands in watermelon-shaped oven mitts and pulling something that’s very good out of the oven. The watermelon comes from an old place distant in my memory, I was not home then, I was at a Kroger and saw the ugly seeds, I buried them in the garden with those old pet birds for good measure. The fabric sprouted the next season. Or, it didn’t. It really didn’t. There’s no house I call home, there’s a little subleased apartment with kitschy knick-knacks covering every surface (let’s take attendance: watermelon oven mitts, kewpie doll heads, a small crystal ball, snow globes from every home we’ve seen before, etc.) There’s you, a slender boy with milk-fair hair, you as my home. I walk into the garden and lean against the doorframe and you come up behind me and kiss the back of my neck. You are the very sunflowers that grow out of me. And, at the clothesline it is like love. Our shirts dance in the wind. A sock has fallen! I pick it up, you peel the petals of a rose back to check for insects. Our tomatoes are not yet ripe, but I have the plastic earrings to prove they can be. It is something like home, exactly like home, my finicky heart has to admit. You are the very sunflowers that grow out of me, reach towards the sky like hands from the ground. Fingers leafy, the fleshy thumbs yellow petals. My hair, my petals, is too long. We’ll cut it tonight with fabric scissors. Give me something to frame my face like a family portrait. Give me something to frame my argument like nach Hause. Beth Alexander
I.V. Kallin
Beth Alexander
picnic
home
the blades of glass touch our hands as we tumble down the hill no need for class, those blades of grass, they make the world stand still the softness of the land surrounds our every waking hour the rain pours down so lightly it’s almost like a shower
home, it’s the soft footsteps at 3am the damp hair on your pillow it’s the fireside warming your hands and midnight questions as the tensions rise
i sit there with her lips so sweet, with honey freckled skin her peach-stained cheeks are underneath of her mischievous grin and when the night starts to dim, i see her start to glow
home is her hair her touch the everyday rush of seeing my love the moonlight shines upon her face as the wind continues to blow in my home we sit there with daisy chains looped around our necks homemade pies and sandwiches leave crumbs about her chest home, but all is good, and all is quiet, while i wilt into her sighs it’s the coldness of the wooden floor because out here, looking at the clouds above, i can only see her the embrace of an open door eyes it’s the aftermath of a love affair gone wrong and the time we’ve forgotten who we are home is her loss her fingertips the key under the door that she left before me in my home home, it’s the freedom of being alone the handcuff unlocking once again it’s the comfortable silence of a house that is a home once more
Robot with Anxiety
Andressa Monteiro
Hemoglobin warmth My blood is pumping through the walls As I trace the path of their veins on the floor The rooms fills with hemoglobin That comes and goes as they Pass Through these doors But what does passing really mean When your raw, naked truth emerges as you Pass Through these doors Into open bleeding arms Here we'll use our scars as furniture And whisper secrets into our arteries For home is where the heart is Home is where they are
Shei
Bethany Fulks
BLOCK I.-III., 120x80cm, oil on canvas, 2018
Kristรณf Szabรณ-KristofLab
Jaina Cipriano
Sophie Warwick
Second Gen
Thoughts On My 23andMe Report
the first definition given when googling “second generation” reads: denoting the offspring of parents who have immigrated to a particular country. "she was a second-generation American" I read this and think of my dad’s first night in america spent in hollywood where he slept on the floor of a stranger’s front entrance, looking for a place to rest but only finding “restrooms” I think back to my first night in hollywood spent doing molly at the abbey staying up until 5am despite the hotel bed calling my name same but different the second definition found when googling “second generation” reads: more advanced stage of technology than previous models or systems I read this and think of my mom in her first year in america hitch-hiking from riverside to mexico with her british accent as armor I think about my night out last night I took an uber and shared my location with my parents just in case my pepper spray backfired same but different
I am land that is and is not mine phantom limbs aching with imposter syndrome my body slips into and out of borders searching for home in-between passport stamps and spices I cannot speak our language but I can understand the swear words unseen: not white enough/ not brown enough/ not american enough a gora in a catholic school uniform a sham in a shalwar-kameez clarified by hyphens, mispronunciations and misspellings by stolen land and immigration papers by partition and plane rides, percentages and pigment, by alcoholism and abuse to my father, then to my mother, my brother and me My uber driver asks me, did you know Aisha is an Arabic name? is a Muslim name? while the guy I’m sleeping with says, did you know Pakistan is in the Middle East? the idea behind these questions is the assumption I must not know myself, that they must know better is the perpetuation of western thought the answer to these questions is me knowing where I belong not only on a map but in my heart the difference between henna and mendhi is the difference between who they think I am and who I know I am
Aisha Monks-Husain
Home is when I am all at once everywhere and nowhere
Tess Elizabeth
┏┓ ┃┃╱╲ Home is where I find you, ┃╱╱╲╲ baking cookies to surprise me on an early Tuesday afternoon. ╱╱╭╮╲╲ Home is where I fall into your arms, ▔▏┗┛▕▔ thankful to be alive on this big gray rock at the same time as you.
RobinBissett
Jennifer Lewis
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