Quaranzine

VOL 01

This ZINE will explore our generation’s ability to overcome the obstacles a pandemic has posed to our personal, social, political, and academic lives.

Featuring stories, poems, and art from You.

QUARANZINE VOL 01

Brittney Giardina

” E S lF

"

I didn’t know her very well before / But recently we’ve spent a lot of time together / I used to think she was a little obnoxious / Because she laughs really loud / But now I appreciate her for the joy she brings / I used to think she was boring / Because she never really talked a lot / But I’ve learned to enjoy being silent with her / I used to think she was lame / Because she likes things no one else talks about / But she taught me courage through that / I used to think she wasn’t pretty / Because I could tell she wasn’t confident in her body / But now I understand her struggle and see the beauty in it / I didn’t know Self very well before / But recently we’ve spent a lot of time together / And somehow she made me love her / And I’m a better person for it

SEl F Tori Perrie

Leanne Dacula

LOCKED iN PLACrdinEi Lynsey Gia

ere ells that aren’t th I wake up to sm ss. d Fresh Cut Gra Cookie Dough an ing riarch, the loom at m e th r fo ed I make my b g.

-of-place scoldin ut o e to a f o g in feel . ther year, almost o an r fo t n’ is as Christm I am still home.

QUARANZINE VOL 01

Mary Grace O’Malley

Raeann Koehler

The fear Everything you taught me, you taught me from pain Every breath, every moment, every star in the sky I wished upon to make you change Why was I taught how to be loved by your absence Why did your harsh words burn into me like branding Did you even realize you were hurting me Did you even care I lay in bed staring at the blades on my ceiling fan spin until I am dizzy The dizziness is better than the darkness The darkness you put inside of me

of never being able to be loved by another you threw into my soul Now I’m scared I’ll never be loved Never know how to love properly, but only recognize, weep soak up the absence of another The only question remaining in me, the only power I have left in me, I ask, was it worth it?

Jae Schifano

"

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Merci Lindell

QUARANZINE VOL 01

Brittney Giardina

Mary Grace O’Malley

UNTOUCHABLE Pierce Carter

laire always joked that I was untouchable, as if I was almost uncomfortably distant from her. We ran in the same social circles and I harbored a bit of attraction to her that I placed on a back burner when convenient. After knowing each other for over a year, I think we were starting to get closer, until March 13th. She was sent home from her college, a mid-sized state school while I spent my days listening to my high school friends lamenting about how they were heartbroken about losing the rest of our senior year.

Everyone seemed to be mourning something, but I wasn’t. I was almost elated in a way. I disregarded the rest of my assignments, gaining amnesty from my teachers since I managed to score nearly all A’s in my classes before the world shut down. I hunkered down, did whatever I wanted without the judgment I was used to receiving from classmates. I thrived.

I stayed home most of the time, getting calls from my friends, except for Claire. I hadn’t reached out to her and she hadn’t reached out to me. A part of me felt hurt; I was good enough for her to hang out with, crack jokes in an effort to make her smile but I wasn’t good enough to check up on or even call to make sure I was still alive. Another part of me vowed to forget her, to move on with my life and treat her as a relic of the past.

I missed Claire. I began to feel truly untouchable. I was constantly wearing a mask and prescription glasses, both obscuring my face, but I felt people

like it was beginning to form.

“How’s college?” The question seemed to have depth when she asked it.

“I like it a lot.”

“Are you remote?”

“Yeah. I don’t think I could live with myself if I got my parents sick,” I replied. She nodded understandingly.

“I am too. I’m moving into an apartment. It’s like an hour from your house.”

“Totally.”

Two weeks later, I was at her apartment in Hammond. It was comfortably close to her school and I stepped in and knew instantaneously that she had taken time and care to decorate it perfectly. She offered me a plate of chocolate chip cookies that were slightly warm to the touch and the choice of regular or almond milk. I chose

QUARANZINE VOL 01

ing about her. The dark pit reserved for strangers felt

regular.

We blazed through the surface level topics around the time I finished my third cookie. As I took a second bite out of my fourth one, things began to get personal.

“Do you really think I’m untouchable?” I questioned, placing the plate of remaining cookies on her coffee table. We were both on her sofa; I sat forward, facing her television while she sat sideways with her back supported by the arm and her legs close to touching me, seemingly stopped by an invisible barrier.

“Yeah.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Spence, I think you’re really sweet and I think you’re a good person but you’re so hard to reach,” explained Claire. Her legs were now further away from me and drawn up to the rest of her body.

“Why don’t you call or text?”

“I’ve been awful about it with everyone, I’m really sorry. I wanna hang out with you and talk with you more and-and actually know what’s going on in your life. I hate that I learn things about you secondhand.”

“I would hang out but there’s that pandemic, ya know?”

I replied, hoping it wasn’t too hurtful.

“I’m not gonna let a disease named after a beer stop us from hanging out. Promise you’ll call me tonight.”

I promised.

Leanne Dacula