ALLURE by Iconoclast Collective

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ALLURE

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Cover Art: Cosette Gelinas Directors and Editors: Catherine Cassels, Carly Pews, Anthony Tran, and Celine Tsang VP Graphics: Bridget Koza Graphic Design Commissioners: Michelle Chiu, Ella Eum, Shirley Jiang, Tiffany Lin, Miles Obilo, and Michelle Sadorsky Copy Editor: Kaitlyn Lonnee

art by CHEYNE FERGUSON

The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. Its contents do not reflect the opinion of the University Students’ Council (USC) of the University of Western Ontario. The USC assumes no responsibility or liability for any error, inaccuracy, omission, or comment contained in this publication or for any use that may be made of such information by the reader.

CENSORSHIP

EDITORS’

ALLURE began with a simple question: what can pleasure look like now? For the past few years, we haven’t been able to truly want or pursue what we want. As more and more became closed off to us, it may have been difficult to remember exactly what would be like to desire and what you could even dream of having. The pieces in this issue are a reminder of what our lives may look like with desire at the centre. To us, pleasure is not the same as happiness—experiencing only one of these two feelings in your life would be a shame. Pleasure evokes a unique warmth and rich fulfillment, managing to scratch just the right spot in just the right way. It is deeply satisfying, irresistible, and difficult to avoid following, like the blond-haired stranger in Jules Lee’s “A Night Like This.” Choose for yourself the lengths you may go to for pleasure-seeking, but do not let others make that decision for you. At the end of it all, you are the one experiencing the pleasure—and the pain that may come with it. Sometimes, the short-term pleasures may be well worth the long-term consequences, and sometimes, you may elect to refuse yourself your desires in search of a greater goal. Desire and pleasure are so often linked, perhaps inextricably, to sexuality and lust and carnality, but in reality, pleasures are so much more than that. In Elle Thomas’ “I Don’t Want To Go To Heaven, But I Can’t Tell My Mother That,” she turns away from the draws and rituals of religion towards other, worldlier desires. She finds comfort and pleasure not in what is prescribed for her, but in what she seeks and enjoys for herself. ALLURE finds many of us seeking pleasure in the body of another. Alyssa Thulmann’s “Slow Burn” captures an understated chemistry between two people who are moving teasingly slowly, where each touch seems to linger and take up its own eternity, offering up the essence of a connection waiting to explode. Meanwhile, Jess Bileski’s “One Word” is a sensual and up-close exploration of the experience of falling into bed with a lover—soft and caring, yet passionate and yearning. Reader, this issue we ask how you may fulfill the desires of both yourself and your loved ones. Watch carefully. Listen closely. Learn how you can please those that matter to you. While life is so brief and joy can be fleeting, perhaps this knowledge will bring you your own contentment in serving others. As you flip through ALLURE today and in the future, see how and where you might fit in the body of this issue. Decide which pieces you identify with and which ones pose to you more questions than answers. Find the artworks that express your heart’s desires and remind yourself to act on them while you still can. More than anything, we hope you enjoy. Love, Catherine, Carly, Anthony, and Celine

LETTER

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R by MO HALOFTIS A by MO HALOFTIS I fell in love with a deity by MAIA ROSS Cupid and Psyche by KADA SHAW Early December by MIA FIELDING

Mid-January by MIA FIELDING Slow Burn by ALYSSA THULMANN Playboy 1 by MO HALOFTIS Playboy 3 by MO HALOFTIS And within my submission to you, I found power again by PURUSHOTH MEGARAJAH

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ARTPORN No. 1// the watcher by PURUSHOTH MEGARAJAH

ARTPORN No. 2// the lover by PURUSHOTH MEGARAJAH

Delilah, Through the Hourglass by KATIE GOSEN

Reflected Touch by COSETTE GELINAS

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Nina by MO HALOFTIS I Don’t Want To Go To Heaven, But I Can’t Tell My Mother That by ELLE THOMAS

Crimson and Gold by SAARAH NAFEEZ A Night Like This by JULES LEE

I Let Myself Burn by DEMITRA MARSILLO It Runs in the Family by KATRINA CRONE One Word by JESS BILESKI Bath Time by MO HALOFTIS Chapel Veil by ZOE PORT

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

the first time I realized that I was in love with her she pulled me close and told me that she would love me for centuries she offered to dance in the rain as freely as the hunters do each day in the greenery I lost her once before she disappeared as quickly as one could say “vale” and I tried to stop it and grasped at the whispery shadows I remember being tempted to turn back to let myself float in the River Lethe for how can I go on with life with the memories of her it was only later when I realized that I had fallen in love with a mirror and yet despite the screams that she only stares into her own reflection how she is this generation’s Narcissus flower I know differently there was a time when I could have sworn we had fallen in love that she would be the Baucis to my Philemon instead, all I hear are the voices calling after me to turn around—turn away from her

before she turns into Medea the voices promise me that I won’t be able to take it. that she will reign terror on my world just as her predecessor did, take away all I love—I know better.

She is not Medea nor am I Dido We are not mortal women unsure of our path We love wholeheartedly and live vividly through the world around us— I am helpless against the current of love and passion I’ve already been Orpheus—I let her go once already and turned around when I shouldn’t have and lost her So every day I remember the broken glass and how I tried to glue it back together and apologize and fix it and she never really looked the way she did before. she turned into fragments and they cut me deep and yet when I picked them up and gave her to the moon and smoothed the pieces over I swore that I would never love anyone as deeply as vehemently as I do her.

text by MAIA ROSS

art by KADA SHAW

text by MIA FIELDING We idle away on the porch, sweatshirt with a proud, red emblem of a graduate year not mine, Exchanging pleasant words over a shared cigarette, like old friends in quiet reminiscence; The cars are beat up and parked as totems of a once-hill’s crest, become pooled asphalt; Our breaths come as coolly as our sentiments, and hesitancy is the holiest part of our words: In our naivety, we wonder of each other’s lives while existing within them so profoundly Life’s many failings wear many cloths of many fabrics of many weavers’ careful hands; I often wish I was religious and had devoted my life to a god—I say this loudly in the kitchen— To sleep at night, coddled in the knowledge that I slept under the eye of a minder, To lead by principle and behave by code—I hold love for a god in whom I cannot believe: I hold love for life’s phenomena, which aptly explain away human lonesomeness In a house so familiar, I find myself unable yet to enter the door without a gentle knock, And in the claim of cheap, karmic tricks, I only find myself unable to look in my own eye; If it will take days, then take days—the only condition is the direction of the wind tomorrow; I hand my sleepless self a woven scarf, to keep the warmth in as much as the draft out: If summer is the season for making love, winter is the morning’s cold walk home.

On the crest of hermitry, I find myself in a town just left of where I left myself last; In it, the townsfolk smile with their teeth and indulge in wonderfully hedonistic things, And upon my unhurried return to the world in which my friends wait for me at the bar, I become gluttonous in the presence of cheap love, and I begin to smile with my teeth. Perfumes and other sweet things are an offering, in cold honesty to my intentions, As is skin, as is kindness, as is the hand I place on another’s arm in our laughter, As is the cold shoulder I turn upon dignity in my submission to the want for thrill; Take my hand and hold it—please do—but I will not speak to you in the morning. Watch: I suck the blood from the wound in Jesus’ side, I become a virtuous Madonna, And watch: I fill the kitchen with the homely scent of supper, I become a gentle mother; Watch as the bathwater reflects the tender face of the youngest child I have ever been, Whom I have mothered for twenty years, and twenty years onward, she will be a child yet. A regular Prometheus, I beg to change the ways in which I have depraved love; You approach with your starving eagle eyes, I only dote on your endless hunger— Take my liver and devour, and I will wash up your dirtied dishes as I breathe my last, Because you were once hungry, now fed, and that is all I need to sleep soundly tonight. I offer the least of my sacred solitariness, for to share is to make vulnerable my humanity; You know nothing of me, and that is what I wished for: I can grieve when I get back home; What love you indulge in for ease will be siphoned from the store of future ardour, Drunk off of lonesomeness, you empty yourself by filling yourself with nothing. Perhaps I was born with a holy wound in my side, sucked clean by my own quiet mouth, With a hunger that ate away at my self-interest, quelled only by a drink on the front porch; The young child whose body burned from flesh to fleshly wonder speaks aloud now: You are never without love, only without the wound by which it may dribble out of you.

text by ALYSSA THULMANN text by ALYSSA THULMANN

It started so slow that it nearly hurt, my shoulder bumping yours in the restaurant It started so slow that it nearly hurt, my shoulder bumping yours in the restaurant booth, your fingertips grazing mine as you grabbed something out of my hand, or the heat booth, your fingertips grazing mine as you grabbed something out of my hand, or the heat radiating from your side with such blazing intensity that the movie we were watching became radiating from your side with such blazing intensity that the movie we were watching became white noise. The first movie night, I wanted to grab your hand, but I didn’t, settling for the white noise. The first movie night I wanted to grab your hand but I didn’t, settling for the way we slowly migrated inwards until we leaned up against one another. As our shoulders way we slowly migrated inwards until we leaned up against one another. As our shoulders touched, I could feel the curves of my body skating alongside yours, and at first, that was touched I could feel the curves of my body skating alongside yours, and at first that was enough. enough. But I wanted more. The next movie night, I slid right in next to you, ignoring the social But I wanted more. The next movie night I slid right in next to you, ignoring the social protocols of slowly inching inwards—I didn’t have the patience to pretend. My hand stayed protocols of slowly inching inward; I didn’t have the patience to pretend. My hand stayed within your view, palm up, or palm sideways, matching the movement of your own hands within your view, palm up, or palm sideways, matching the movement of your own hands in a dance routine. Silently, I begged for you to touch me, to drop your hand into mine and in a dance routine. Silently I begged for you to touch me, to drop your hand into mine and squeeze it. squeeze it. It was right there! I took a sip of water then let my hand “naturally” fall into place It was right there! I took a sip of water then let my hand “naturally” fall into place on top of yours. Still, you didn’t grab it. And so, I took a long, deep breath, and exhaled it on top of yours. Still, you didn’t grab it. And so, I took a long, deep breath and exhaled it loud and slow, before opening my hand up and grabbing yours. Winding each of my fingers loud and slow before opening my hand up and grabbing yours. Winding each of my fingers through your own, I locked them firmly into place. Later, when I pulled away to grab another through your own, I locked them firmly into place. Later, when I pulled away to grab another sip of water, you groaned, and immediately reached back for me. sip of water, you groaned and immediately reached back for me. I wish I could say things sped up after that, oh how I yearned for them to. I spent far I wish I could say things sped up after that—oh how I yearned for them to. I spent far too long remembering the feeling of your hand against my skin and imagining what it would too long remembering the feeling of your hand against my skin and imagining what it would feel like against my hip, my back, my collarbone… But no. We were both too timid for that. feel like against my hip, my back, my collarbone… But no. We were both too timid for that. At the bar you grabbed my hand under the table. At another one I placed mine over At the bar, you grabbed my hand under the table. At another one, I placed mine over your knee. The next movie night your hand curled around my shoulder, my head rested your knee. The next movie night, your hand curled around my shoulder, my head rested against yours, and you rubbed small circles around my wrist with your thumb. I can’t against yours, and you rubbed small circles around my wrist with your thumb. I can’t remember the plot behind the movie we were watching. Such a small act it was, the pad of remember the plot behind the movie we were watching. Such a small act it was, the pad of your thumb circling the bone on the side of my wrist, but it stole all of my concentration. your thumb circling the bone on the side of my wrist, but it stole all of my concentration. I promised myself I’d kiss you if by Halloween you hadn’t kissed me first. Then I promised myself I’d kiss you if by Halloween you hadn’t kissed me first. Then Halloween passed, and the next week, and I cursed under my breath as I unlocked my front Halloween passed, and the next week, and I cursed under my breath as I unlocked my front door at two am wondering what I had to do to make it obvious I pined after you. door at two a.m. wondering what I had to do to make it obvious I pined after you. Laying on the couch after a couple of drinks, I looked over at you and the way you Lying on the couch after a couple of drinks, I looked over at you, and the way you looked back at me turned my thoughts to ash. Your brown eyes looked black; your face was looked back at me turned my thoughts to ash. Your brown eyes looked black; your face was calm. You are always so calm. It was instinctive the way I tilted my chin and pressed my lips calm. You are always so calm. It was instinctive the way I tilted my chin and pressed my lips to yours, rotating my body so I could be as close to you as possible. So your body’s heat to yours, rotating my body so I could be as close to you as possible. So your body’s heat could breathe me in and fuel the inferno that radiated out of you like Sirius. could breathe me in and fuel the inferno that radiated out of you like Sirius. Even now, as your fingertips trace the path from my hand to my shoulder and your Even now, as your fingertips trace the path from my hand to my shoulder and your lips brush the skin that stretches across my jaw, I think of how slow we move, and it almost lips brush the skin that stretches across my jaw, I think of how slow we move, and it almost hurts. hurts.

3 art by MO HALOFTIS HALOFTIS

Part 1: Anhedonia I am born of frailty a creature molded from dust and light born powerless prepared to seize control anhedonia porn star wet and senseless fingers greedy and searching not for answers not for redemption but for domination a whore dressed in fine silks hands clasped in prayer tell me I’m Yours and call me worthless I use You and You use Me when I am touched I feel nothing at all what was once ripe is now bruised and sodden I pray for a release I will never have I cry out for it every breath stolen from my throat take my voice with my body a mouthful of spit and rust the air dries the evidence of what we did together do I leave You or do You leave Me power is façade and frailty is a lie I am nothing and I yearn for everything when we are finished, I pray this is idol worship now this is what it’s like to feel nothing

text by PURUSHOTH MEGARAJAH

And within my submission

Part 2: Euphoria in the dark, my body thaws cold and blind, but with tingling fingertips every cell in my being burns naked and left alone if this is purgatory, i feel safe here the rain beats down on my scraped back the prostitute outlawed and seeking refuge finding asylum in my own chest an altar to the physical form crawling out of the ground toward the light i will find myself again and when i do, i’ll call out to you not because i need you but because i want you to know i’m alive the violence is over and the grass has grown again the water that spills from my mouth is clean once more i cradle myself not for self-protection but to revel in my own softness self-pleasure is revolution every touch a tribute to the life that courses through me the wounds have been sewn shut saplings grow from my arms i am done searching hands tired and wise with age i let my guard down i submit and as i let go, i can breathe again each heaving motion drives oxygen to my brain exhale pure ecstacy the harvest is bountiful a peach is plucked from the tree that birthed it the juice drips from my chin to my chest a return to the womb the hooker, the priest, and the ground they share may they all find a redemption as pure as this one i sit and wait for you like a bitch every second that i wait is euphoric i am ready for us now you can touch me and i will be okay for my body is finally mine again

art by JAN DAVIDSZ. DE HEEM

to you, I found power again

Like a lavender moon hovering coolly above me, so distant did sapphism loom in the peripheries of my desire, my unknowing, my asceticism.

The root of all suffering is desire. A swell of breast under my schoolmates’ sweaters, the allure of women’s laughter, the agonizingly, sensual draw upon a cigarette. All of these intangible carnalities demarcated my adolescent prism. When the light shone through, as everyone said it should, it became eschewed in these forbidden directions. Leading me like a siren song, I thought of Lot’s wife. My mouth salivated, aching for salt.

But, in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, as sharp as a two-edged sword. Though ghouls they were not, those enchantresses who lulled me from the Righteous Path; they were as soft as cashmere, velvet, their contours as unjagged as their breasts. Lilithian they embraced me, and as unscorched as rain, they left me. Wet. In the tidepools of my shame, pleasure swam crystalline. To be nourished by your saboteur is to know the taste of entropy.

From your lips she drew the hallelujah. Weaving myself, I became undone. But their forms, in tantric mirage, mirrored a truth I observed not in my own visage; their ecstasy—entangled in another—alit the damp, spoiled darkness where intimacy resided in me. In their presence, I witnessed the absence of the oppressor. They did not fill his void for they did not exist in his shadow.

I existed in His shadow. In the hollow of my piety, I watched the sands of my own life empty from me. Truths became oblivions, prescriptions expired. I opened a tin where, as a child, I’d foolishly hidden a rose. It had rotted, filling the room with an acrid remorse; what I had sought to immortalize had withered in the capsule of time. Captivity does not suit a sacral life.

A thinking woman sleeps with monsters. Submitting to the shallows, I was amazed by the depth. What slept behind the veils of lust was more bare than mythologies warned. Where trepidation led me, transformation met me. Dislocated joys rediscovered their positions. Lies elaborately outfitted retreated sheepishly, aware of how grotesque they looked in the light. Marauding façades crumbled, the curtain tore.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, that what once was returns to that which will be—

A renaissance of moonlight in violet filigree.

text by KATIE GOSEN

art by COSETTE GELINAS art by COSETTE GELINAS

art by MO HALOFTIS

when she’s waiting, halo-headed, on some silver cloud for me, tell her i was turned away at the gate. it’ll hurt, but not as much as if she knew i didn’t even try to climb those pearly stairs. no, i dug myself into the ground until there was more dirt beneath my fingernails than blood, until i found that the hell my parents feared was nothing more than the rotted roots of their own religion. they tried to bury me under the compost of catechism, but now i’m exhuming the corpse of who i could have been: a girl who finds blasphemy sweeter than communion bread. i don’t want your heaven or your god. my holy texts are those of the poets who bring me my daily bread and let me feast on their blood spilt, body carved into language, amen, amen, amen. mother, i’m sorry, but when i opened my mouth to pray, the dirt fell in, and i always loved the taste of an ending

text by ELLE THOMAS

Crimson and Gold it was not the allure of Eden that contained me. it was that I saw you past it. a whole world reformed by desire that I would live in. you, dripped in crimson and gold as if a son of Helios was before me. a voice that traversed time, but when it reached me, it was mine. the one no one had thought to pray for. desire in the shape of your hands. you, having held damage close. Eden paled in comparison to having been seen by you.

text by SAARAH NAFEEZ

A Night Like This The waxing gibbous fell elegantly on the top of her dark brown hair, each strand swaying softly in the salty breeze. If she squinted hard enough, she could almost see the outline of the rundown lighthouse across the shore. The girl gingerly walked toward the edge of the pier, where the dark and murky water met nothing but the distant horizon. She wondered what reached beyond the suffocating beach town she grew up in. It was always the same. Thirty-minute bike rides from one end to the other (if the local fishermen came back from their daily trip as scheduled, pedestrian traffic could increase the ride by five). Mid-afternoon swims at the beach. A walk to the convenience store for a slushie in the summer, a pack of cigarettes in the autumn. Though her mind was often glued to the mundane tasks of her small life, she couldn’t help but wander to the pier located on the far east side. It normally bustled with tourists in August, but was completely isolated in late September. Tonight was unusual. She was accustomed to the sound of seagulls chirping and water crashing onto the rocks below, but not to warm, bright laughter. The girl’s eyes shifted, scanning the pier under pale moonlight, until she saw a thin silhouette resembling the shape of an enlarged fish on land standing upright on the end of the ledge. She walked faster, shoes slapping the cracked concrete in a clear rhythm. “Hey!” she shouted, her voice echoing into the water and crisp air. “Be careful. There are rocks down there.” Her feet moved hastily, reaching the end of the pier to uncover the ambiguous figure.

“You are loud,” the person replied in a singsong voice. Her vision adjusted slightly, and she could make out the person’s appallingly bright green eyes. “Here, climb over the railing. Come stand with me. What’s your name?” The stranger held out their slender hand. “Mary,” she answered. “But you should really come back behind the rail. One slip and you’ll crack your head right open.” Mary looked at the stranger while fiddling with her fingers. “What about one jump?” the person rebutted. Before Mary could answer, she heard a big splash, followed by whooping and cheering. Mary ducked under the rail, looking below at the calm water and clinically insane individual floating with a grin on their mesmerizing face. Mary was enchanted, her eyes meeting theirs, which glowed in the dark like green lights, as their blond hair floated on the surface. “Don’t just stand there!” the person shouted playfully. Come join me. Look, there are no rocks,” they taunted. Mary didn’t know why she started to remove her cotton sweatshirt and jeans, but nonetheless, she stepped off the ledge and felt the autumn waters embrace her fragile body. There was a moment in which she swore her breathing stopped and the confinement of her town was lifted. When she reached the surface, the person with emerald-green eyes grinned mischievously and asked, “Do you feel refreshed?” while sinking under the water once again. text by JULES LEE

I LET M YSELF text by DEMITRA MARSILLO

How does one live in the destruction of a home?

A charred memory of a time when everything was bright— ablaze with warmth, not flame. Cinders fly from a heap of lost possessions: your pillowcase, my necklace, your promise, my naivety. The red-hot incineration of a dream so beautiful that your heart of fire scorches it all— because fire does not care what it takes and takes and takes as long as it all comes crashing down. But nobody teaches you what to do when your safety becomes what you need saving from. So I let myself burn, in this house of ashes, until there is nothing of me left.

art by KATRINA CRONE

You don’t have to say a word I know that look in your eye When the sun has fallen and the stars have come to play You look at me With hunger With yearning You don’t have to say a word I know that when I place my hand on your waist Your breath will coil You’ll look at me With hazed eyes Lips full of words that don’t need to be spoken You don’t have to say a word I know that when I take you to bed And run my fingers over your skin like an artist with her brush You’ll sink into my chest and I into yours Two porcelain remnants Of Sappho’s deepest desires Don’t say a word, my love I know that when we sink into silken sheets Entwined in the most human kind of love The stars could disappear And the only word I would need to hear Is the softest yes falling from your throat text by JESS BILESKI

art by MO HALOFTIS

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