HOOLIGAN MAG IS
EDITOR IN CHIEF MORGAN MARTINEZ
MANAGING EDITOR RIVKA YEKER
ASSOCIATE EDITOR ROSIE ACCOLA
special thanks GABI MORENO A KLASS HANIF ABDURRAQIB KEISA REYNOLDS KATE SWEENEY EMMA RUTH RUNDLE SHANNON SHREIBAK
hooligan mag issue #25
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If you honor your truest self, there’s something pure in doing that; that should be your compass.
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Buy her new record via Sargent House Twitter + Instagram / @EmmaRuthRundle emmaruthrundle.com
Musician, visual artist, and overall powerful presence, Emma Ruth Rundle, and I sat down for breakfast a table over from her husband and bandmate Evan Patterson and their friend & Chicago artist Jason Gagovski. Emma was in town for an art show at Ars Memoria Gallery, showcasing the paintings that accompanied themes from her new record On Dark Horses. Emma, who is originally from LA is currently living in Louisville, Kentucky with Evan. While she hasn’t been there too long, I am curious about how the scenery has changed her writing, mentality, and state of being. She says, “In Louisville, there’s this leveling ground where nobody’s really better than anyone. But my god, they can drink their fucking asses off here.” She does reflect on the quieter parts of the city, the ways it differs from the mighty Los Angeles, a city constantly brimming with restaurants and people and events.
m a r m uth e // BY RIVKA YEKER
She takes notice of the weather, how it’s drastic shift from hot to cold only exists as extremes, never meets in the middle. She says, “There’s something interesting about the cyclical nature of the weather. In LA, years can pass and you might’ve not even noticed. There’s a certain feeling in the summer in Louisville, like when the lightning bugs come out. It’s such a magical moment. It kind of takes you back to your memories from the last year. It’s a new way of memories associating with one another for me.” I’m from the Midwest, so the changing of seasons feels like an integral part of my identity. I find comfort in the routine of seasons, in the things we do in the summer, in the fall, in the spring and winter. Emma says, “I can see how it’s the birth of traditions.” Aside from the changing of scenery, Emma’s new record On Dark Horses is a shift from solo, more DIY work into a full band, recorded in a conventional studio. I’ve seen her music classified as folk before, but Emma doesn’t see this record as that. She calls herself a rock musician, which can take on many forms. For this record, it is a brooding, all encompassing gothic rock.
The aesthetic and sound of “gothic” has always been something I’ve been intrigued by. Gothic literature, music, aesthetic, exposes a somewhat desolate, intense, haunting image, one I often relate to a femininity I once connected with. I asked Emma about how she defines her femininity in relation to the music she makes or the scene she’s in. Emma is earnest and says, “I don’t necessarily define femininity as anything, femininity doesn’t have to be barbie.” Yet the expectation of traditional femininity is inescapable, even if it is something we refuse to abide by. She says, “I made a video for the split, for the song “Distance” and I made a character based on femininity, which isn’t me at all…. The cover of Mark For Death is just as equally of an expression of my femininity.” In Emma’s records, she takes on personas of characters, telling compelling stories through them, which adds to the gothic essence of her work. Emma views her music as something separate from feminine, and I think maybe because the presence of a written character is able to be removed from one’s own expression, but it is much more about a feeling, a longing, a confession. “I think I’m just making rock music. I talk about deeply personal issues. The strength of my process is not about being a woman, but about being a very honest human, and all the weird, messy experience that comes along with being human. I don’t necessarily categorize myself as a “Female Artist” or [emphasize] the “feminine” aspect of it, it’s more so about reaching the really raw moments that are moving. Music, for me, is my therapy. It’s how I’ve processed things that have happened in my life.” In the song “Races”, Emma encapsulates a feeling often impossible to explain in words. She sings, “Sometimes this place is a prison / sometimes a palace / I’ll be the king in my crown.” This royal imagery, somber in sound, acts as the abstract yet personal message this record is sending out. It exists as is, no weight of gender or social construction controlling its state. I tell her how important it is for me to never tokenize an identity when speaking on behalf of an artist, unless they explicitly label themselves as that identity in correlation with their work. Emma recognizes that whatever she creates will be perceived as a woman making music, which is true and she is not mad about that, but she wants to direct attention towards the universality of the human condition. Emma is a multi-faceted artist, creating paintings that share resemblance with her music. I ask her about the difference in mediums, if she feels like creating art looks different depending on what she’s working on. She says, “The visual art is almost like a refuge. I enjoy it, it’s relaxing for me. I don’t associate the stressful process of trying to make it my career like music has become, which has detracted the sort of pure expression for me in music. Music is a more of an inward journey, and making art is more of an external one, where I can get lost just looking at it.” Emma says, “The pieces in this show were all very intentional and they don’t always necessarily inform each other.” The symbolism of horses remains strong, making me wonder if the move to Kentucky inspired the imagery. A lot of her art, both in the record and in her visual work, is about overcoming, and the animalistic urge to survive that lives within all of us. In the song “Darkhorse”, she sings, “It’s the darkhorse you give legs to / no one else can ride In the wake of strange beginnings / we can still stand high” as she refers to a sister figure. There is strength in overcoming, in the chaotic movement of a horse’s gallop. I ask Emma something that I ask all the artists I interview. I ask about what she could say to young artists who aim to create. She says, “If you honor your truest self, there’s something pure in doing that; that should be your compass. It will lead you to making good work, or at least valid work. You also have to have endurance, no one is going to do anything for you. It’s a long road. I think if you persevere as an artist, that’s the key to success, in any way, whatever it looks like to you. It’s not for quitters.”
EMMA RUTH RUNDLE creates art that lingers, that reaches towards you and asks for your presence. She doesn’t ask for you to do anything with except to feel it in its entirety, to let it cover you like a cloak.
// BY RIVKA YEKER // PORTRAITS BY A KLASS
Gabi Moreno, better known as GIMO, and I met up for the first time after mutually approving each other through the internet for months. They are an artist whose work reflects a deeply earnest concept of the self, identity, and inner turmoil. I was curious to understand how they manifest the intense energy that comes out in their work. But first, I wanted to know more about their name. They said, “It’s a name my friend gave me because of a cat. I love my name and I don’t feel any sort of disconnect, though I do feel like my name is very feminine.” GIMO is non-binary, but that doesn’t necessarily mean denying gender altogether, but rather, exploring the ways in which it can exist in one being. GIMO said, “I’ve always seen myself. My mom wanted me to be more feminine. I didn’t play with dolls or play with other kids, didn’t have many friends. She wanted my hair to be longer, and always down,” they then sheepishly continued, “I think she wanted me to be accepted and normal.”
A lot of their exploration of identity comes out in their own work. GIMO’s work is a product of the surrealist movement, which is deeply reminiscent of how they view the world. “Frida Kahlo didn’t see her work as surrealist, because that was her reality. That’s how I see my work. I went through old drawings and it was kind of like an immature version of the work I do now. It was a lot of androgynous drawings of people crying with words scattered everywhere. I didn’t have the craftsmanship to flesh it out; it was very raw. This was before I knew what surrealism was.” The topic of surrealism then brought us into post-modernism and the ways it screws with the current reception of art. I asked them if they thought we were still in the era of post-modern, and if we can ever leave that era. They said they don’t believe we’re currently in post-modernism. We live in a state of post-irony, a place where the delineation of high art and low art is blurry and unnecessary. They say that art isn’t taken as seriously as it once was. I wonder if that is necessarily a bad thing, and if we could ever take anything “seriously” again, especially when our collective attempt at coping is through memes.
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I see myself as an optimistic person. Someone would look at an image and think, this is making me sad, but there are aspects where my art can be funny or dreadful to look at. Just because a figure is crying doesn’t mean it’s a sad image.
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Keep up with GIMO below gimo.cargocollective.com
Though GIMO does take a modernist approach to certain pieces of art. They said, “If there isn’t feeling, if the content isn’t telling a story, if it’s not creating a discussion, it’s a beautiful picture but that’s about it.” This is an argument that all art scholars and critics have: the desperate search for meaning versus the sheer beauty of a piece at face value. Both have a place in the post-post modernism landscape we’re currently taking up. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter that much. GIMO makes art for reasons separate from capital. As many artists do, they make art to escape. Since their work can be dark and viscerally haunting, I asked them, “Do you view yourself as more of an optimist, a realist, or a pessimist?” They said, “I see myself as an optimistic person. Someone would look at an image and think, this is making me sad, but there are aspects where my art can be funny or dreadful to look at. Just because a figure is crying doesn’t mean it’s a sad image. I would classify my work as spiritual, so it covers all of those feelings.” I asked them if they ever work on paintings that exude happiness. They said, “The more positive works I’ve done show strength, wisdom, and overcoming.” I began understanding how prevalent the intense energy in GIMO’s paintings is since so much of the surrealism they’re attuned to has a spiritual essence. They said, “My escape from my pain and my trauma is being spiritual. I’ve always been fascinated with witches. Growing up I never felt like I had a voice, I was always bullied, I never stood up for myself. Being a witch was like power, for me. It was like me having a higher form of thinking.” GIMO is Mexican-American, so their spirituality comes from a familial foundation. They said, “I started making altars, that became my work for a while. It was another way for me to figure out my identity and culture. I used to make altars for my ancestors. I used to say prayers and perform rituals.” Their desire to apply their culture into their work comes up mostly in what they wish they could do if money weren’t a problem. They said, “I’ve always dreamt of painting murals in Morelia, Mexico. Just real big self portraits with monarch butterflies on clay foundation buildings. I also really want to do that all over the world... but I want to end up there at some point because that’s where my roots run deep.” When asked what they’d say to younger artists who need some guidance, they said, “Practicing every style and medium is essential. Grab from what inspires you and hold onto it for as long as you need. I’ve been drawing and painting all my life, and my pieces still always look different every time. It’s because my feelings and thoughts are different from where I was a few drawings ago. Intuition is key in your practice, so follow it and keep it close to you. Just because you think you’ve mastered a medium or a style, doesn’t mean you have to stick with it. Allow yourself to grow and tell your story the way it is meant to be told.”
GIMO is certainly telling that story in a way that is honest and authentic, refusing to do anything that doesn’t come from within themselves. It is a brave move as an artist, to let yourself free in your work. GIMO shines with boldness, illuminating their work with a vivid self-awareness and a desire to unleash each idea that lives inside of them. To me, that is a good way to describe surrealism and art itself: a way to extend the mind into unexpected directions, an attempt at explaining the unexplainable.
interviewed by
KEISA REYNOLDS
photographed by KATE SWEENEY
I went to my first local show when I was 13 years old. A friend’s older sister took us to her favorite venue. Despite us being the youngest people there, many people took us under their wing. They taught us the safest ways to mosh, and which predatory creeps to avoid. It was a place that felt it could be the home I didn’t realize I needed. Until I realized I was the only Black girl in the room. It didn’t matter, which was a foreign concept to me. I was able to belong in a place where my relationship to the music mattered more than anything else. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something meaningful, I knew that much. Reading Hanif Abdurraqib’s work reminds me of searching for a voice through music and the people who eagerly taught me how to survive a mosh pit and listen intently to the bands whose words would carry me through the worst of my days.
Hanif Abdurraqib is an essayist, poet, and cultural critic. He released The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, his first full-length poetry collection in 2016. A former columnist with MTV News and author of They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (2017), he has probably written an essay or two about your favorite musical artist. Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, Hanif was exposed to both writing and music at an early age. He grew up in a household with a writer for a mother and a father who was musically-inclined. His older siblings introduced him to metal, punk, and riot grrrl. There was no limit to how music could sound. In a pre-internet world, Hanif was eager to learn about what went behind the music. He did research through linear notes, music videos, and thank yous on the back of records. “There wasn’t a lot of discussion of music, and I found myself interested in the machinery of the songs, the people behind the song, and the emotional turmoil that went into the making of the song.” In his punk scene growing up, it seems Hanif was able to find people who, like him, felt as strongly about not only listening to music, but experiencing it. I wanted to talk to him about his eclectic taste in music that includes, but is far from being limited to, Bruce Springsteen, Fall Out Boy, and Carly Rae Jepsen. With that in mind, I also looked forward to our conversation because I wanted to hear from a black person who frequented their city’s punk scene. I wanted to know how he navigated the punk scene as a young black man. Most black people have heard the narrative of being an outsider as a black kid who liked anything but hip hop or rap. It is a tired Alternative Black Kid trope that might be true for someone out there, but Hanif had a completely different experience. “Yes, I was one of the only black folks in my scene, but there were other black folks there and we took care of each other. Usually [people] will say I grew up listening to punk rock and I got alienated by other black people. That didn’t happen to me. When I was at my school, which was largely black, kids of color, I played “alternative” music and I would never feel alienated.” Participating in punk scenes did not mean he was wholly accepted. He was still one of the few black people in his scene. “That really taught me what it means to be both marginalized and in community. The punk scene is about brotherhood. It’s not about anything else, [it is] very gendered, even in a familial sense. It’s very much something for brothers, which is why being black in the punk scene is one thing. Being a woman in the punk scene was another thing. Being a woman of color in the punk scene was another thing.” Many people grow out of music scenes — whether it’s due to growing older, getting a 9-to-5 or experiencing constant mistreatment — but most of us do not lose what brought us there: the lingering hope that we belong somewhere. For Hanif, Columbus is where he belongs. It is where he received informal training to become the cultural critic he is today.
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I like to be out in the world talking to people about what songs they like. Or concerts they were at, what it was like for them to step outside after that concert and feeling like air, holding hands with someone they cared about. Or the way songs build a whole world. I want to hear those things from people. That’s why I write.
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“I came up with a lot of kids who loved music but were not musicians. I mean, my brothers and I would kick back and freestyle in our basement. My friends and I would fight over CDs. It’s funny now what we see play out on the internet with music fans because that was happening with me on the basketball court. I am not saying one of those are better than the other, I like talking music with people I don’t know. But I am able to articulate my interest in music because that was part of shooting the shit when playing video games or basketball.” Hanif later expands on the impact of growing up in his Midwestern city. He says, “Growing up in the middle of the country where your music taste could be anything, not necessarily tethered to your geographical standing, allowed me to lead my own musical tastes and not have to fight for them at all.” There are many people who do not see the value of living in a city that doesn’t have a vibrant literary scene like Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York City. While he may not be able to live there consistently, Hanif’s growing list of accomplishments won’t deter him from living in his hometown.
“I cannot think of a better thing for a writer to do than live in a place that is both familiar and loved by them. Right now, it is a better thing for me to just wake up and know the architecture of the city, the people I am writing for. Beyond that, I think that to love where you are from is a real privilege that not a lot of people have. Sometimes it is a courageous thing to do. It is very brave to leave, also. But I think to stay and imagine ways to enrich this city from its beginning is something I’m really excited about.” It is important to remember our roots, whether we consider our roots to be our hometown, family, or bands we grew up with. As we evolve as people, those entities may or may not join us for the journey. According to Hanif, “Misery Business” is arguably one of Paramore’s greatest songs, but it also shames a woman for promiscuity. In July, he tweeted, “I know hayley williams has renounced some of the more problematic lyrics and themes in miz biz and I’m definitely with that on the sociopolitical front but good lord the song still bangs.” He is referring to Williams’ interview with Track 7 where she said, “I was a 17-year-old kid when I wrote the lyrics in question,” she said, “and if I can somehow exemplify what it means to grow up, get information and become any shade of ‘woke,’ then that’s A-OK with me.” As of September, it was reported the band will no longer play the song at live shows. Jokes aside, Hanif thought it was responsible of Williams to own up to the impact of the song’s damaging lyrics. “I came up around the punk scene where that kind of disdain for woman was like a currency. It was a lot of, to be frank, uninventive songwriters. So, if you have no songwriting skills that grant you any reflections, then you rather just target a woman. That’s how that genre formed itself.”
That sentiment echoes what Hanif wrote in his essay “The Return of the Loneliest Boys in Town,” in which he describes attending a Cute Is What Aim For show in 2016. The band played the same songs that made them famous in the early ‘00s. Unlike the band themselves, Hanif was older and wiser. He learned enough to write this striking sentence: There are endless ways that we have found and will find to blame women for things, particularly when it prevents us from unraveling from our own unhappiness. Hanif does not think he is better than anyone for recognizing how his faves perpetuated misogyny or rape culture. He does, however, want to see more self-reflection from bands and fans alike. He says, “I am trying to complicate the things I love, or loved.” How has Hanif grown as a writer? He acknowledged how his earlier work was focused on black men. He has been fortunate to know other writers, such as women of color, queer and trans people, who showed him the ways they were also affected. “Seeing the many ways music touches identities that aren’t my own has been illuminating to listen, read, and watch the blending of work that isn’t my own so I can best learn how to articulate what I can get in the movement of it all.”
I asked Hanif where he would like to be as writer in the future. He immediately responds, “In my house, not going outside.” He recalls a story about J.D. Salinger’s reclusive years. He doesn’t want to be as extreme as Salinger, but staying home to write and chill does not seem like a terrible idea. However, Hanif knows himself better than that. “Ultimately, I began writing about music because I had no one to talk about music with. I’ve been writing my way toward people I can talk about music with. I feel like I finally got that. I’m learning so I can have a dialogue with people about this thing that I love, that they might love too. I say I would like to be a recluse but I know, at the core, I like to be out in the world talking to people about what songs they like. Or concerts they were at, what it was like for them to step outside after that concert and feeling like air, holding hands with someone they cared about. Or the way songs build a whole world. I want to hear those things from people. That’s why I write.” I wanted to know what gave Hanif hope in 2018. I thought of Mariame Kaba and how she popularized the phrase, “Hope is a discipline.” He seems to take the question to heart and answered carefully. He talks about shifting his resources to folks who could make better use of them, the Trans Women of Color Collective is one of the organizations he chooses to support when he is feeling a way about the world. “I’m really hopeful what maybe will make things a little better for young activists of color, young queer and trans folks who are aggressively amazing. Not only space. Yes, they are demanding space, but they are also demanding that space be used adequately. They demand that space be used equitably. What gives me hope is that I am confident I am always going to be willing to seed ground to those people first. Those are the people I am writing for. Those are the people I am lending my curiosities towards. Those are the people I make choices towards. That is where my hope lies.”
SPILLED INK SPILLED INK SPILLED INK SPILLED INK
THE NAMES OF FLOWERS by River Ian Kerstetter
Every living thing on the planet is given a name in a language spoken in ancient Italy. If you visit a botanical garden in the United States, the labels read like the thoughts of a white explorer getting lost in a forest, looking for any sign of home or God: Burning bush Easter Lily Horsetail Jacob’s Ladder Money Plant Narcissus Queen Anne’s Lace Maiden Grass These Savages Must Be Glad We Finally Showed Up Damn I Miss My Wife What if we recorded the names of plants In the first language that named them? My father keeps bear medicine in the pantry at all times. In Oneida we say that the bear taught us everything we know about medicine: How to care for the body using the gifts that grow all around us. My father says to chew the dry looking root until it’s a paste, then swallow. I bite and the juice is warm and stringy, like ginger and bitter. Dad says that we learned to use it to cleanse the body and soothe the throat. When people saw the bear wake up from months in a half-death, this was the medicine she ate before anything else. This living thing has a name in an ancient Italian language: The first part refers to a region of northern Italy, the second part refers to a Christian botanist. Neither word mentions the plant, the bear or the continent where it evolved for millions of years.
I swallow the bitter juice. When I wake up one night and can no longer deny that I am not a man, I become ravenous. 25 years of trying to breathe through a straw has left me gasping, having no language to describe such things, I begin to search for words in other languages. I learn the names of: edible plants, trans poets, goddesses with breasts and penises, bodies of water, valleys on the moon, the first colors that humans named, trees that grow in Chicago, poisonous flowers, the soft white hair on my earlobes, my grandmother’s ocean wave hair, my mother’s maiden name, bear medicine, an interview with Dolores Huerta about how women of color are treated in America, my flat chest, my inguinal canals, smiling ladies on Home & Garden Television, my ancestors from two continents who taught my parents and their parents to grow food. I aspire to wear flowers in my hair again. I cover my walls with color again I stop wearing black and I remember how much I love the smell of sweetgrass and the taste of wild cherry. What if we instead of naming plants in human tongues We named them in their own language? I’ve read that when you mow a lawn, the smell we find so sweet is a chemical message the grass sends to other plants to warn them of danger. If flowers could fall out of my mouth when I speak their names, I would never close my mouth.
SWEET by Reese Alexander
the daughter of Hades only knows love as grievance or memorial but worships her father anyway, remembers the sound of his car in the garage, memorizes how to split expression / how to entertain even if they call your house the underworld it is still your house -- pink and faded where you first learned to crack your skull how he is still your father, no matter the deaths he claims. you ask, how many of your siblings he has buried in the backyard / he says, not even hell could this fiercely love you
DO NOT READ THIS by Sarah Lisovich
Sometimes, as far as I am concerned, there is me and then there is you. What would happen if they found we were not putting on a show for men? My words are small like guppies-- scared and easy to kill, comfortable only in schools of their own, but take one into the light and-- what little guppy? Sometimes, When my heart is full of you, and my head feels aligned like a marketplace doll, my words are whales swimming by your bedside.
OUR LADY by Jessica Palomo
the summer before you left, our brown bodies lay side by side in your bedroom where the windows were open but the wind would not blow and the sweat on our legs felt like a million grains of uncooked rice against our wet skin. i watched your mother grow her hair long just to cut it off place it in a ziploc bag leave it over the virgin mary’s cracked feet painted peach the basilica is so full of dead hair and scribbled prayers that if i were to tell someone how after eighteen years of not knowing where you were i saw you at an airport buying cashews and a navy neck pillow they might wet their lips with holy water and claim you as their miracle
WHITEFISH POINT by Haley Winkle
the bluest water I’ve ever seen is not the Atlantic, nor the Cote d’Azur, even at first sight. instead, Lake Superior. cold even in August, freshwater letting each curve of tiny pebbles lining its mouth shine. if the tide did not foam as it pecked my feet, I would’ve scooped a handful of pebbles without expecting the sharp shock of the northern water, so clear on the shore. so invisible. yet ahead, true cerulean with ultramarine folds like wrinkled crushed velvet. horizon is shy pale, polite before the gradient begins. far above, a mirror. the smooth blue of sky begins to mimic, or the other way around: wise mother looks over her child, playing in the lake and sees her same blue in his. she’s proud.
THE QUIET IS LOUD FOR A WOMAN by Carina Maceira
a symphony is sometimes the ghosts of a 9 o’clock marina on a wednesday night/ the rumba of construction and traffic as dead artists come waltzing into my room/ the night of the dead and dreamful/ there’s a black cat in the corner with a swollen belly for the third time this year and time has just arrived more sober than ever and ahead by an hour because that is the only way writing this will make sense/ and el cafecito that is now cold reminds me of all the relatives I should give a call/ the rusted balcony door sighs and takes a drag, sways at the city like he too once thought he could be a poet and the world would appreciate his song/ I imagine the moon once wanted to be a dancer the way a dancer wants to be a star/ and this is no longer a symphony/ its bachata/ a westside story of inanimate objects and colors with dreams/ suave papi tells the ocean it’s okay, she was worth the wait/ the moon tells her abuela/ men aren’t worth the trouble and those who don’t sing surely couldn’t fly/ tired of falling in love with the music we take away the right from art/ in their jealousy, the abstract asks Frida what his name was/ everyone laughs/ and I ask forgiveness to all the canvases I wasn’t patient enough with/ ask the wax how she is so tender to the flame/ ask the flame if she’d write her lover a poem what would it be titled/ niz says, “don’t be one of those ‘to be or not to be’ assholes”/ and because I didn’t have enough words to tell/ and I wanted to speak but not say/ I narrated the world of the universe in her own, unapologetic wonderment/ in a childhood language of all the things we’ve stopped listening to/ all the things that wanted to be but dont know how/ all the things that dreamed, loved and breathed with their all even when their all was only rock and cheap metal/ I unhinge/ write the ways of all things figment/ find a soul in one or two/ a candle, a door, a moon, a man, la mar/ a poem without direction, only a voice content with being free on a night filled with such soul/ the silence is the world gozando su amor/ we, all young, dead and dreamful, enamorados con la música de la vida
AZÚCAR Y HERIDAS Sugar and Wounds by Carina Maceira Is peace sweet, I wonder/ if death is eternal rest does that make me a honey bee/ throwing up everything that I would’ve thought was trying to kill me/ flower petals like daunting, merciless blades trying to find a balance between hedonism and selflessness/ I continue to chase after the nectar/ a busted lip, a swollen tongue, my throat is a tombstone of apologies never having should’ve been uttered// drink tea// you are body bag, bones and someone’s sacrifices/ dragging our limbs and dipping our spoons, stirring into what we know has no future/ azucar y heridas/ we say drink to and for everything like we’re still pretending our culture ever taught us to heal/ this tea is all encompassing/ it’s his shoulders and a steeping soul/ his hands and a heart like an anchor taking up more space in this bed than either of these constellations ever could’ve dreamt// never heal yourself in another human being// we are all beautiful tragedies becoming and undoing every inhale, every exhale/ never heal yourself in another human being, we love each other like the last thing that broke in our apothecary/ for some there is grass, for some there is opium, for others there is simply sugar and if religion is all the same poison then perhaps godless, faithless, pathless is my new diet/ azucar y heridas, I remember all the blood seeping through the cracks of the dining room, the terracotta tiles bathed in crimson/ my father, back hunched and limbs sprawled/ pouring sugar over a split calf/ sangre y azúcar, I was never taught to heal/ sangre corriendo/ spilling/ they ask me for my prayers/ a hypocrisy heavy enough to break a breast plate/ the only miracle I have ever encountered...was table sugar
sangre; blood
corriendo; running
CLEARED HISTORY AT FOURTEEN by Nicole Moore
angelina jolie shirtless, angelina jolie sex scene, am i gay, am i a lesbian, what to do if gay, if lesbian, am i going to hell, halle berry, halle berry in a bra, mark ruffalo, mark ruffalo shirtless, in love with best friend, i want to die, best ways to die, am i going to hell, i’m going to hell, i want to die, am i gay, i’m going to hell, i want to die, am i gay, am i gay, am i gay, i’m going to hell, i want to die, am i gay, i’m to going hell, i want to die, am i gay, i love her, i love her, i love her
“LISA, I SAW SO MANY GEESE COMING OUT OF A DARK GREY CLOUD” by Lily Someson
i must ask if you care that i saw them, too. those feathered, flung astral and heavenward, carving the air hard with their bodies. my mother pretends she has not seen them, maybe, but i’ve always waited for their ascension, followed them down route 20 until everything was winged and disastrous. these geese disrupt everything, these geese fly through the poem, the exosphere, demand to be touched by the hand of god or whatever’s closest to it, paternal and otherwise. you call and ask for my mother but i can’t admit that i, too, have come out something grey and cumulus a thing who cannot love you correctly. your voice, paternal and otherwise, asks me to write more letters, but i am suddenly her, just rounded at the edges, softer and more willing to listen. my lisa where have you been? i am hurried at the mention of her name. here we watch as grief reroutes the sky, makes everything push back out. when the birds finally drop through the air they all wear your face.
MOON CRICKET by Khalypso
i pick the scales the burn created off and fling them to the floor, settling like rose petals on a lover’s sheets. i imagine the spiders will use my forfeited melanin to dress their homes, opaque flakes of scar tissue glittering like goldleaf in their webs when the sunlight hits them just right. this is the only part of my body i will surrender to the dirt. i refuse to bleed into the soil or pillage the bedrock with my deathsong. let me be alive as long as the river runs or, as loud as thunder dances on the flittering hearts of the creatures that fear it. i am so afraid of dying but so fatigued by life. the drudgery of suffering only sings higher when you’re black. when you’ve tossed body after body into the silt with your terrified silence. i want to say i am like my mother. brave & beautiful & strong, but the truth is, i cannot stand up to white boys when they anger me. i cannot work hard. i cannot remember to brush my teeth. i cannot have children. only thing i have ever had to offer the world was my song. i open my mouth & a garden jumps out. the petunias foxtrotting. the tulips hitting a two-step. the roses, of course, the roses belong to the ministry of the charleston, a fragrant toss over the shoulders or a spin between the legs. my tongue does not dance but what more can you want from a minister? the teeth are my choir and with all parties present & worshipping,
a new doctrine arises from the ashes of my failure to die. it sounds like a vibrato’s release at midnight.
thank you thank you thank you thank yo
fo
fo
ou
for being here or being here for being here or being here