The Creative Supplement: Fall 2020

Photograph by: Sara Negrin

The McGill Tribune

fall 2020

CREATIVE SUPPLEMENT CREATIVE SUPPLEMENT CREATIVE SUPPLEMENT

Mule Deer Sarah Ford

bird-killer Alana Dunlop

the bay window at my parents’ house is a bird-killer. a pandemic has stolen my young adulthood, so i move back in. from the couch i count five birds colliding with the glass, their feathers splay out and milliseconds pass before they drop and embrace the ground. i know what it’s like to fly into something that might be solid. i watched doors and mirrors crack from my own lethal hands. from anger i can’t place— it radiates through tense muscles and split ends and overgrown fingernails abused by gold polish. i feel for sale. in need of a deposit. leased on craigslist like a duplicate wedding gift like a barren swing set the crib that can’t conjure up the child. it snows in may and the trees bend, their backs breaking like tiny bird bones against the window. this is the fetid orchestra of my early adulthood: the intimacy of enough water and mud to patch up holes in house foundations. a knuckle snap. a glass smash.

sex in a squeaking bed

that heaves under my sadness. time slows at my parents’ house. now when birds die they say eulogies to an audience of just me— a midair funeral before the wind comes to claim them. i make sure to put blueberries in the bird feeder. my grief eats out of my hand. as a child i was told don’t touch the bird, it could have a disease.

now i can’t touch birds or people. i used to imagine growing up as a ritual. tender rebirth. but it became a lonely hike to the first place i got kissed. to where we used to park the car. to the recycling bins waterlogged from last night. to the scarlet scraped knees of time that i disinfect with the rest of my groceries. to the ugliness of my childhood town bubbling over with tears. to the dead bird dumped on the interstate in a tourniquet made from a baby’s fleece. to my own guilty face in the mirror. bird-killer.

Untitled

Sara Negrin

Landscape Holly Wethey

In my dream, there is landscape (& you).

Hair, wild, as if locust, skin, soft, as if unfallen.

Notice how, the landscape opens up before us, how, we do not turn away.

In my dream, there is landscape (and you);

I have memorized your flesh like landscape.

Nature and Humans Defne Gurcay

lemon

Tasmin Chu

Inertie estivale Camille Delagrave-Ajduk

Lounge

Chloe Gordon-Chow

Unalive: Have I Sinned?

Nixie Akella

most days I lay in my casket unwavering, the heaviness of laboured feet dragging polluted soil. I lay as you sobbed selfish tears, cascading murky with holy water; You commanded I be cured.

Lola

Chloe Rodriguez

I, who lay unmoved, devoid of joyous normalcy, bounded to sturdy Earth; for how could I be reborn when I could not feel. feel? I lift my body, a feeble attempt; it resisted Homecooked meals, meals you blessed with love. but what did You know of undying love, that I had sinned when my mind escaped my body like a helpless mouse eviscerating in unholy traps succumbing to certain death. but how would it live its last moments- did the mouse know its body defied its essence? did it scamper purposefully towards death?

Did I? You’d pray for me, who once swam in the sureness of your womb and howled when you threw me out. for a casket houses the dead and they may rest in certainty, as I wish, but I always will be unalive.

oops!

Ruobing Chen

Beachside with Chitown’s Northshore queen Brian Schatteman

Reading my Palm Erica Brown

Reading your own palm is harder than it seems And I never quite remember how it’s done What all the wrinkles and folds mean Is the broken line down the center my life?

Or my heart?

Or is it just a crease from the heavy box I’ve been carrying

Propped up curbside Brian Schatteman

A Snapshot of Chaos Noah Vaton

Junk

Lowell Wolfe A river-side tire, Tossed aside by some plighted wanderer.

High potential for travel included.

Letter from the Editors:

The McGill Tribune is proud to present the Fall 2020 Creative Supplement, highlighting excellent creative work by McGill students, including poetry, photography, illustrations, and mixed-media. We appreciate all the artists who submitted; it was a pleasure to review your work. Although McGill doesn’t have a formal visual arts program, students find their own creative outlets. This semester has been unfavourable, yet it is so valuable to continue creating through these difficult times. The Creative Supplement serves as a platform to highlight these endeavours. McGill students are notoriously bright and hardworking; we hope this issue proves that they are also immensely talented.

Aidan Martin, Creative Director Ruobing Chen and Chloe Rodriguez, Design Editors Ben Alexandor and Sasha Njini, Web Designers Katia Lo Innes and Kaja Surborg, Managing Editors Kate Addison, News Editor Jonathan Giammaria, Arts & Entertainment Editor Sophia Gorbounov, Science & Technology Editor Sarah Ford, Multimedia Editor Marie Saadeh, Social Media Editor Helen Wu, Editor-in-Chief

Afterschool Adventure 12: Big Foot’s Auto Repair, Tristan Sito