Local Riot is a collaborative magazine created by two girls who wanted to provide an outlet for the creative souls of the world to share their work, thoughts and opinions. It is a magazine for young people by young people and is a place to come together, a place to be free of ridicule, a place to make friends, a place to educate yourself, a place to express yourself, a place to be heard.
Dear Me, You are a piece of worth, not work, you know? Yes you’re rough around the edges, but you’re from Brooklyn for crying out loud! You’re also everything right with this cruel world, because your heart is still pure despite it all. At 8, you were sucker punched by death, TWICE and those losses bring pain daily. You are grateful that life and love failed you when feeling 22 should’ve meant everything would be alright. In reality, it was the most depressing, empowering year yet and you now know you can survive anything. You’re running fast as hell towards all of your wants and you found a love you thought only existed in the mind of Nicholas Sparks. All you’ve ever wanted was to tell people about what they couldn’t imagine you’ve been through, well it’s happening now. So speak of your experiences often and proudly, because your life is beautiful, it’s only getting better and you deserve it! Love, Myself
Road Trip Summer, 2016
Dear Bambi, Yes, you are my puppy and you can’t talk to me or understand what I say to you but you mean so much to me. It’s hard to put it into words but I’ll give it a good shot. You came into my life because I was going through an extremely shit time and the one thing I wanted, which was a two month holiday to Italy, got taken away from me. In exchange for the best time of my life I got cancer, which led to probably the worst time of my life, but I guess you were a pretty decent substitute. Even though I got cancer I also got you, so I consider myself pretty lucky. Even though you don’t know it you really have helped me through everything, from in and out of hospital 3 weekly for the past year to major surgery. You are always there for me, from the times when I just need a cuddle or when I’m too upset and can’t handle what’s happening to the times when I am bursting with joy and have nothing to say and all I can do is smile. You are always there for me ready with lots of love and affection (and a tongue that you can’t keep in your mouth). Looking after you and having you around has been a huge distraction and has helped me so much because let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to take their slightly nuts puppy to the beach and swim with her in the blazing summer sun, and who doesn’t want to see their baby grow up and learn new tricks, and who doesn’t want to go away for the weekend with their puppy and relax together. I will have you by my side for many years to come (unless you keep eating extension cords and short circuiting half the house) and I am so glad things panned out the way they did because if something happened differently I wouldn’t have you to hold at night and tease and play with during the
day. You being so young and being only mine makes me very happy because eventually we will move out together and I might meet a significant someone who will also move in with us (with your approval too, of course) we have so many great things to come and unlike friends and boyfriends and jobs which come and go you will always be by my side and have my back. They say a mans best friend is his dog and this really is true as I haven’t yet met a better friend than you! Bambi you have stuck by my side through what has probably been the worst time in my life and shared a million and one memories with me already and I can’t wait to share a million and two more! I really love you bambi and thanks for everything. Love, Mummy
A Letter to Future Me I pray to God that you are healthy, and please be happy. I know you wanted something else, I know you thought you found complete closure at 17, but pursue it now. Pursue it in the littlest ways, be the person you wanted to be even if you can’t completely be her, at least you are a little bit closer. Remember to continue pursuing all the things you lost by the time you were 17; writing, books, poetry, films, architecture, the forgotten journals, your love for the parts of you you hid from everyone in your bubble. I hope you are well.
Dear friend, I am alright. Life is happening, and death is too. The ‘inescapable happiness’ has found me - the Moon and the sun and the wind and the light and the letters of the Earth immerse my heart in a warm bath of beauty; womb-like illusions will eventually efface the anguish that has been disrupting the beating of my heart. Yours Truly, Aurora Riddley
Dear future me, By the time you see this, all this will be just another diary entry from my teenage days. Now comes the hard part, I’m afraid. Admitting my foolish mistakes and giving you advice about what is to come. Love yourself truly, madly, deeply. You’re all you have. Stop stressing over your flaws. They make you unique. Live today to the fullest, good and bad. You can make mistakes, but don’t dwell on them as much as you did before. Success is a victory after a number of failures. You will get there, if you haven’t already. All the best, Jo
To my mistakes: I know I’m supposed to learn from you, but when will you leave me alone? You’re making it very hard to sleep.
To my future self: Keep in touch with your friends. Have you forgiven yourself yet? Have you done something you’re proud of? Is the world better? Has it becoming even more confusing? Who are you?
To seventeen year old girls: Comparing yourself to someone else only makes you bitter and angry. You will never, ever be that person. You know how it feels when someone who is ‘bigger’ than you says ‘I’m so fat’? Don’t be offended. It’s the way they see themselves. If anything, it should prove to you that even people who are physically beautiful may not be able to see it themselves. Is it the same case with you? Life is short but days are long when you think you are worthless. Don’t. If none of this applies and you are happy and confident in yourself, thank you for inspiring me to do the same.
To my past self: STOP BEING SO BITTER. STOP WASTING YOUR TIME. DON’T SAY OR DO THE FIRST THING THAT COMES INTO YOUR HEAD. I PROMISE IT WILL COME BACK TO BITE YOU.
To you, I don’t like to talk about myself. Which is funny when considering I’m very much obsessed with ‘me’. I found out, or better: realised, that everything surrounding -me- I use to either (re)create ‘me’ or to express myself (even this letter, to you, is a (re)creation of ‘me’). The world outside, words (of others) and imagery, are all there for ‘me’. To be used, to be described and to be(?). I don’t want to seem superficial but I’m afraid ‘I’ am (and therewith I like to dare that others, ‘you’, are so too, although who am I to say such a thing?). I often question who ‘I’ am and therewith who ‘I’ want to be. And again, this is funny because I’ve got no clear notion of myself, of my being, to make any ideas about what I want (perhaps one of the reasons I don’t like to talk about myself or to a certain extend. I’ll never show all the cards I’m holding, I’m sometimes sorry for that, playing along, having a conversation with myself and leaving you out. Sorry). I simply don’t know what I want, what you want. Often I don’t want anything. I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to exist within that moment, at that time, during that situation (so you could say that I very much know what I don’t want, but that doesn’t unfortunately rule out all that I do want. It actually, by the looks of it, makes me want less. Well, it creates a situation whereby I clearly know what I don’t want but I can’t specify what I do want. One doesn’t rule out the other). I feel a lot of things are being pushed in my face. A certain pressure from the outside that gets to be internalised and heightened in a search of ‘self’ (or all that’s related to it. Doubts, feelings and others; but not to forget also good things can come from challenging ‘me’, because it turns out ‘I’ don’t always know best. ‘I’ am wrong most of the time (but then again fully trusting ‘you’ wouldn’t make me feel any better)). I feel that I need to push myself (I need to push myself. I do push myself, sometimes, from time to time, occasionally...). Is it so hard or is it just me? Everything, it, can be so changing and different and still feel the same. You can for instance have the same impact on me like you did a hundred times before, reassuring, stressing me out (it’s a bit like standing on a staircase and not daring to go either up or down, finding yourself just standing there, waiting. But waiting for what? For who? For you? For me? In reality it turned out I was waiting for a kind stranger to help me
down while others climbed passed me, ignoring ‘me’ and even be embarrassed by my presence. By my standing still and being scared. But I (‘I’) am. I’m scared all the time, but you knew that already). I’m experiencing and feeling and (trying to) describing ‘it’ and how ‘it’ relates to ‘me’, but I find that after typing these words, feelings, thoughts, this conversation I have with ‘myself’, with you, that all these words, written, thought, aren’t mine to begin with. Not only because they are learned and (quite literally) foreign to me, but mostly because I feel like I’m repeating someone else’s feelings and thoughts that perhaps are mine at this very moment of writing, but on a more reflective note -after reading this for the first, second, third time- they are an echo of ‘me’ and not me (if you get what I mean). It’s a bit like what I’d said about that book I’m reading where the writer, during a low point in her investigation, finds comfort in the idea that through his words, but mostly through his paintings, ‘he’ becomes real to her. Flesh and blood instead of a mystical being or topic of her research. Someone that exists opposed to a ‘he’ described by others, words used by others (and perhaps used by himself). Arguably within her idea of his reality ‘he’ still doesn’t exist because it’s a reflection (a (re)creation) based on her own personal experience within that moment, at that time, during that situation. I’ve got this strange idea from time to time -bare with me- that ‘you’ do not exist, that ‘I’ do not exist, without each other, without these words, paintings, pictures, expressions and feelings(?). Do I exist within you or is it just ‘me’ that haunts you that makes me a reality (a version of your reality)? (and naturally vice versa). As I started this letter: I don’t like to talk about myself. I don’t like to talk about myself because I don’t know what to say about ‘me’ and the words I do use to try to poke a hole in the web, I find, I think, dissatisfying. Or at least the words I use are defining me/‘me’ at that moment, but do I now feel the same? I don’t know. Although it’s a conversation I often have (with myself) (I’m self obsessed but -hopefully- not selfish or superficial (I am, though, but -again- we all are, I think, from time to time. The question is: is that bad? Am I/’I’ and you/’you’ bad? I don’t necessarily think so, do you?)). From, me.
Dear Friend, My dearest friend, by the time you read this, you’ll be gone. I wanted to immortalize you, to truly show how much you mean to me. I treasure my memories with you. You are chlorine-bleached hair, caramel freckles, and the warmth of undying love. Friend, I know you will read this and miss me (or at least, I hope you will miss me). I know for a fact I will be missing you. You and forest adventures, singing in the car, movie nights, and comfort. Do you remember how I clung to you when I was so sad I couldn’t breathe? How you wrapped me in love and support, even if it was just sitting and listening to my broken record sobs? I’m not there to put your hair up, or to massage your back, but I’m still with you. You’ll find fragments of memories when you see a forest, a pool, a blue hair band. You’ll still see me in dogs, movies, and good food. My dear friend, I will love you no matter the distance between us. You are my best friend. Call me when you read this, and remember, I love you. Love, Sam
Dear ND, - A letter (an attempt to sum up our friendship in lists of threes) From Italian to physics to art From strangers bathrooms to long walks From train stations to sale rails Conversations between stalls between shelves between desks and duvets 8am 1:30 3am 1925 1975 1953 The red in the blue The blue in the grey in the maroon, Yellow in the black my Heaney to my Hardy my Sherlock to my John my McCracken to my Thompson From your favourite, SOJ