supplement creative
fall 2022
Roberto Concepcion
"Baignade à Byblos" / Joseph Abounohra
4 A.M. St. Laurent Stranger
by Ahmad Aamir MalikNeon flashes burn in columns stretched beneath a broken night skyshop lights and speeding car lights diffuse on the wet road.
Drunk bodies emerge struggling as they collapse and coalesce into one anoth er’s shoulderstheir motions as directionless as the lights that have burned all night-
some scream about fears and friendships to an October sky bringing news of winter, breaking bottles the way broken hearts doothers stand contemplating mysteries like the parked cars that never seem to move from their parallel formations.
Moving along the street, the windows into the city’s soulgraffiti, shops, stores, and barsincessantly appear and recede.
Many strangers in their time have walked this walk and looked above, wondering how the city dangles over us all in alternating patterns of brightness and spacelike the lights that hang over St. Laurent.
In those half-moist, half-hopeful eyes glimmered the skies of a hundred other cities and the stars they would also be watching.
“Immeubles de Beyrouth” / Joseph Abounohra “Frozen Time” / Meng Xuan “Night Time Nostalgia” / Roberto ConcepcionForgive Me
by Grace Keats
I talk about you on filthy washroom walls, the stall, a wretched confessional, your name a crudely inked litany on white tile. Words held hostage in my throat, here I can admit without admitting anything, boots peeking pigeon-toed beneath the door. A lover’s pseudonym. A lefty has scrawled shut up bitch in harsh ebony and I think about that word dripping from your tongue, how it tastes like honey on mine, sweet and cloying. I tell Marie with the pretty penmanship about your hands and my heart and it staining the linoleum crimson because you thought it would be fun to wring it like a dirty dishcloth. Tell her you laughed with your teeth bared and your fingertips tinted pink. Tell her about one hour on a bus to see you because it was raining hard, and you wanted to be Allie and Noah. Wednesdays pressed burning against the gilded cross on your chest, trying to play hide-n-seek in your bones. Tell her of the things you don’t remember and the things I write poetry about. Know that I’d tell you if I thought you’d hear it.
“Broken Promises” / Lauren Nordstrom
“Fading Wings” / Julia Buckle
“Polly’s Portrait” / Sydney Saleh
MOTION SICKNESS
by
You’re the coolest kid on the block, While you’re out I’m hiding the clock. You have the universe on your skull, You’re a planet with a gravitational pull. You’re a big kid now, But you still light up the house–Scootering on your own down the street, Not yet scared of who you’ll meet
And I wish it could stay this way, The clock gone, leaves floating mid-sway. But one day you’ll leave, You’ll leave and I’ll be bereaved, You’ll drive your neighbor’s cheap car, You get motion sick, but you’ll get far. Breathe through it and focus on the horizon, And remember you’re not too old to keep that helmet on.
You might have to stop for a while, Your cheeks might forget how to smile, Your heart will shatter And fall with a pitter-patter–
It’s okay.
Put the pieces in your pocket and hop on a truck, Stare out the window at the cows in the muck. Your eyes glow honey-gold in the sunset, Your hair’s red and aflame and you let It free
When you get to town you find a B&B, The bathroom mirror’s cracked but breakfast’s free. The oatmeal clumps, coagulates, Your sadness abates
Because in your breakfast there’s a universe, Little oat pieces held together never disperse. Stars implode, Your brain explodes, But your skull’s intact And the dust comes back, Nebulas form and new life begins–You check your pocket and grin.
Your new heart isn’t new, The old pieces are all there–save a few. They’ve been arranged differently, Refract the light to a greater degree. Your heart is old and beautiful and new, And now it’s a clue,
Follow it and you’ll find me.
Natalie Co “I’m fine” / Lauren Nordstrom “Reflective Street”/ Joseph Abounohra
“Warp Drive” / Meng Xuan
“Resting” / Wendy Lin
“Lana” / Sofia Stankovic
“Shades of Cool” / Roberto Concepcion
Payday
by Matthew Molinaro
Charging extra for the service that you share is the last Pompeii of our waning humanism without cause because you support the arts and humanities work generally.
The soldier’s rage beats my heart and you lack requisite capabilities for comfort and care.
I am not a painting and yet your traps in the grass catch me in the museum where tourists fall over, delighting in the crumbs of bread and gruel the victorious homefront bakes.
The hungry spectator forces my hand, and I let them.
My colours bleed, unaccounted for.
The book at the giftshop crushes my petty, unpaid, destitute lips
Sarah Ford
"Montage" / Meng Xuan
Berfin Simsek
by Camylla Wiser
I would like to go to the shore. The noises of bustle are fresh and welcome, within our sidewalks but putrid when alone. like an empty dustpan after hours of squalor, of sudden care.
I would like to go to the shore because I feel that someone is waiting for me, they have been waiting for some time for fear of misfortune has wrapped me like a silk scarf, the smooth allure comfortable, forgiving.
There is simplicity in the tender roll of waves, always there when I think of them in your head.
I would like to clean the voices there with my dustpan, and cut my scarf in two so you will not see the sidewalks, and the sand will swallow you whole. The salt will nourish you: as if a seashell you will be happy drifting on the shore.
Seashell
Sarah Ford
"Transference of Culture" / Wendy Lin
Letter from the Editors
The McGill Tribune would like to thank all of those who submitted their beautiful and poignant art pieces to the Fall 2022 Creative Supplement. The diverse media of photography, mixed media, illustra tion, and poetry remind us of the power of artistic expression to find clarity amid chaos. We are proud to share this semester’s edition of the Supplement with the McGill community and hope these works will inspire reflection, introspection, and awe—just as they did for our team.
Wendy Zhao, Features Editor
Ghazal Azizi, News Editor
Anna Chudakov, Multimedia Editor
Julia Buckle Madison Edward-Wright, Managing Editor Anoushka Oke, Creative Director Mika Drygas and Shireen Aamir, Design Editors Madison McLauchlan, Editor-in-Chief Oliver Warne and Sneha Senthil, Web Developers