Dear Reader, Welcome to the second ever issue of Midriff Magazine! We could not be more excited that Midriff has grown from a baby publication to a toddler publication, and that the Midriff website is underway. Also, check out our recent interview with Reverberations Magazine! Within this issue you will find poetry, personal essays, playlists, and visual artwork, all created by womxn of Wesleyan. You will also find an essay by Amanda Palmer (Wesleyan grad, former professor, and professional musician) that was originally published in Iahu, Wes’s womxn-centered publication of the 80s and 90s. We’re growing up in a very special time in history, navigating our own identities in tandem with a tumultuous social and political landscape. As young womxn, we constantly struggle with our place within a patriarchal society. We hope the following work provides some acknowledgement of those struggles. We are so proud of how much Midriff has evolved since last spring, and we can’t wait to watch it continue to grow and evolve. We have many people to thank for this-- first and foremost, all of the incredible and talented womxn who came to meetings, submitted work, and helped with layout. This magazine is a collection of the creative energy of everyone who gave their time to Midriff this semester, and we are so grateful and in awe of you all! We also have to thank the SBC, the Green Fund, and our friend Dave at Paladin Printers. We hope you find something in these pages that inspires you, and thank you for supporting the magazine! Love always,
Design Team: An Pham JR Atkinson Maya Hayda Stephanie Ades Ava Bradlow Kate Kopf Olivia Luppino Front Cover: Liza Gross Back Cover: Maya Hayda
Always picture the eyes. Like I’m in the wings of a show that’s about to open. I wear the blue dress I know I’ll get catcalled in. Premeditate then forget. For a while until the car stops at the red light and the window rolls down slowly. Or the broken window in the basement. Or the blue lights of police cars at Christmas in 1996 when I wasn’t even born yet. You, in your cowboy hat, your rhinestone tiara. What we can at least determine is that someone is probably lying. About the house and the ransom and how much you enjoyed or didn’t enjoy your mother’s influence. As if it’s about whether you enjoyed it. When he slid his fingers under my new underwear is this good for you? The desire to be touched against the desire to touch. Maybe I’m supposed to be opened. Delicate. There’s a killer out there and yet you are twirling. On the tapes. Dancing. I’ve been watching and re-watching.
I wasn’t even born yet. My mother put me into dance classes at three years old. Twirling on the tapes she shows at Christmas. Someone is probably lying. And I don’t feel real until I confirm my existence on screen and watch myself move. I worry I believe what everyone tells me. That I’m small and quiet and that you were betrayed, that you were captivating in that white bed sheet. Captivating in the dresses and the makeup too. Eyes must have lingered. Fault. Indication. Should have known what would happen. Always picture the eyes when I wear the blue dress. When he slid his fingers under my new underwear they look nice. After he fucked me. Watched and re-watched me. On and off. Something about the DNA. And on the tapes I watch for signs of guilt in faces of people I don’t know. Either they did it or they didn’t watch for the eyes. The interviews and the commentary on how you were dressed too old for your age as if there’s a right age when you’re ready to be devoured as if it mattered what you wore in that white bed sheet.
FEMALE PHYSICIST, an Interview with Renée Sher Kiyo Saso I confess that this interview was borne purely of personal curiosity. I have approximately no exposure to STEM at Wesleyan and I don’t anticipate much going forward. To compensate for this, I thought I would go ahead and get myself a STEM education under the guise of journalistic ambition. I asked around for names and repeatedly heard Renée Sher, a professor about whom people only have good things to say. When I asked her for an interview, she graciously agreed. Professor Sher graduated from Wesleyan in 2007 with a degree in physics and the assumption that she would return only as a visiting alumna. Now, she’s a professor here.
RENEE SHER: FAST FACTS
Born and raised in Taiwan Attended Wesleyan 2003-2007 Originally planned to become an engineer Learned about Wes through the Freeman Asian Scholars Program Attended Harvard University for graduate school and completed a postdoc at Stanford
Do you think the student body has changed significantly from when you were a student? Prof. Sher mused that because she now “wears a different hat,” students are less inclined to share their thoughts and concerns. However, she added: “I would say that superficially, not getting to know the students how I would if I were a student, I think the students are pretty much the same. Very eclectic.” Do you have any arts-related hobbies? Who are some of your favorite artists? At these questions Prof. Sher laughed and admitted that she’s not the most artistic person. After thinking a bit, she said, “I like sewing, it takes a lot of time so I don’t do it often but I like to do it.” She also fondly recalled a recent exhibition of her classmate Lêna Bùi ‘07, whose work was shown on campus last spring. What is your focus in physics? Prof. Sher studies electron motions in solids. For example, her current research involves observing the energy conversion process (light becoming electricity) that occurs at the moment when sunlight strikes solar cell material. She fell into the field of physics via a plan to study engineering, a plan complicated by Wesleyan’s lack of an engineering major. Her plan in undergrad was to double major in physics and computer science and do engineering in graduate school. However, this plan soon dissipated as she delved deeper into physics, which became her passion. Do you think that physics involves artistry in any way? As a scientific discipline closely associated with math, physics isn’t commonly considered a creative field. However, as boundaries between disciplines blur and change, the public is increasingly recognizing that the association between creativity and the arts is not law, and that STEM fields also foster--and even require--creative, artistic thinking. Prof. Sher attested to this, noting that the distinctions between traditional fields are no longer serving research communities; hence the emergence of new, fusion fields such as biophysics and
chemical physics (also called physical chemistry, depending on whether you ask a physicist or a chemist). She also believes that the most outstanding physicists, the ones whose work transforms multiple scientific fields, are the innovative, outside-the-box thinkers.1 She explained, “Research is not like a cookbook you follow… you will never find anything new just from developed recipes.” Do you see more female students interested in physics, or is it about the same as when you were a student? In her own words: “Oh, I wish I had this number better in my mind. I think the national average when I was a student was about twenty percent, and I think we’re probably closer to thirty than twenty now,2 which is really far away from what i think the right balance, fifty-fifty, is. But at least the physics department here has [put] a large effort towards trying to build a more diverse student body, not just women but also students of color. So I hope that me being a faculty [member] here has positive influence on that direction.” ___
human ities habit, challenging established canons and theories, to scientists’ attitudes: “We never take anything [for] granted… we always design experiments to prove it or not.” I can’t attest to her teaching, but from my encounter with Prof. Sher I can say with confidence that she is enthusiastic about physics, teaching, and opening STEM to more people both at Wesleyan and beyond. On a more personal level, this interview has left me with the sense that maybe physics and my own classes aren’t as disparate as I thought. ___
In 2006 José Stoler, a statistical physicist, conceived a measurement called the “creativity index” to determine the impact of a given scientific article. This score is calculated on the basis of references to other articles versus total citations. Thus, the less dependent an author is on pre-existing research, the higher I ended the interview with questhe “creativity.” This is probably not tions about advice she has for womxn exactly what Prof. Sher meant, but pursuing careers in STEM, and her it shows the scientific community’s thoughts on what the humanities growing interest in original (or “crecan learn from the sciences. She ative”) thought. 2 urged students to participate more According to the American Physiand to not put gender in front of cal Society, the percentage of female their title: for example, to think (vs male) physics majors was 21% in of themselves as simply physicists, both 2007 and 2017. The peak perrather than female physicists. “Be as centage of women majoring in physbrave as everybody else,” she said. As ics was 23% in 2004. 3 for what the humanities can learn Selfishly, I want the humanities from STEM, a question I’ll admit here to have a similar focus on may have had an ulterior motive,3 research opportunities and collaboProf. Sher flipped the question on rative work that isn’t simply group its head. She recalled her experience projects with strangers. Undergrad taking an English class as an underresearch supplements the academic graduate, and how everyone reads experiences of STEM students on beforehand and discusses in class to campus but the same hands-on, longclarify challenging elements. In term experience is not afforded to STEM courses, readings about a topic humanities students. (Of course, this generally succeed the lecture. can be partially attributed to the solShe once again recalled her friend itary nature of humanities research Lêna, whom she paraphrased as which relies often on individual saying “No wonder I question authought and analysis.) thority!” after sitting in on classes last spring. Prof. Sher compared this 1
There is a gaping hole in the oeuvre of breakup playlists. The classics are songs filled with agony, spite, lamentations for love lost, or bitter expressions of “Fuck you, I’m better off.” You’ve likely already created a lifetime supply of playlists perfectly suited to these feelings, but what comes next? You’re not inconsolably heartbroken. You’re not angry anymore. Sure, you can revisit your old playlists when the next heartbreak comes around, but doesn’t this era warrant a new one? We need to talk more about the emotional subtleties involved in moving on from someone you care about without letting the bitter taste of a breakup sour your memory. You’re looking for the “I still think about you even though we’ve been broken up for almost as long as we were together” playlist, the one that encapsulates the sentiment of “our timing was off but I think you’re a good person and I hope you’re doing okay.” Wistful, not devastated. Appreciative, not hateful. Maybe you’re hoping they’ll come back into your life, but just as likely you’re not, and you know it was for the best. What follows is an I wish you well homage dedicated to someone that you really did care about, and probably still do.
“Even Though” Joan Shelley I’ve seen the sun rise over you / Now I watch it setting down / But I keep saying / Yes I can bear you / Yes I can bear it all “Rivers” The Tallest Man on Earth I’ll sing of seasons ‘til you turn me off / I see the way of letting go / They’ll be the same / And whatever changes, these changes I know “Wild Indifference” Joan Shelley In your wild indifference / It’s all centered around you / Well I’ve been the chaser too long / Ain’t it lonely “Those Memories of You” Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris I’ll always love you little darling / Until the day they lay me down “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” Willie Nelson Love is like a dying ember / And only memories remain / And through the ages I’ll remember / Blue eyes crying in the rain “Joy to you Baby (Live)” Josh Ritter There’s pain in whatever we stumble upon / If I never had met you, you couldn’t have gone / But then I wouldn’t have met you, we couldn’t have been / I guess it all adds up to joy in the end “Dink’s Song” Dave Van Ronk If I had wings like Noah’s dove / I’d fly up the river to the one I love / Fare thee well “Keep Me in Your Heart” Warren Zevon Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house / Maybe you’ll think of me and smile / You know I’m tied to you like the buttons on your blouse / Keep me in your heart for a while “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” Odetta I ain’t saying you treated me unkind / You could’ve done better but I don’t mind / You just wasted my precious time / But don’t think twice, it’s alright “Maybe” The Ink Spots Maybe you’ll ask me to come back again / And maybe I’ll say maybe “High Hope” Glen Hansard Maybe when our hearts realign / Maybe when we’ve both had some time / I’m gonna see you there “Living In A Memory” The Growlers Help me forget her / Eclipse my heart with yours / Help me remember that life’s worth living for “Hopeful (Live)” Josh Ritter These days I’m feeling better about the man that I am / There’s some things I can change and there’s others I can’t / I met someone new now I know I deserve / I never met someone loves the world more than her
into a state where everything was so magnitudinous and miserable that there was nowhere to go but up. My body released all the bottled-up sadness in the from of tears and sweat and mucous. Then it all got washed down the train, wadded up and thrown in the trashcan, gone. It sucked. When I say it sucked, I mean it was completely great. We sat through a movie in silence before I did it. American Animals was playing at the Music Box, where we had seen 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Rocky Horror Picture Show the summer before. We left the theater and walked back to my house. I sat him down on the couch and told him we should just be friends. He agreed. I said my piece, he agreed. We said it was the mature thing to do. The only other prior experience with “uncoupling,” about two years earlier, climaxed with blowing tear-filled snot into toilet paper while scream-crying to my mother that she couldn’t possibly understand. Making a day of it, I compiled a delivery order of $30 worth of carbs from Domino’s, sat on my basement floor, watched 10 Thing I Hate About You, and wallowed. I composed and (regrettably) sent an after-the-fact desperate text, blasted the music he had shown me, and sat down in the shower. It was my unadulterated time to feel, let everything come crashing down, let my fears and sadness escape reality, my emotions run rampant. It let me transcend
This time was infinitely better. And when I say better, I mean uncertain. If break up no. 1 was the world crashing to infinite microscopic pieces, no. 2 was a pothole. A pothole that the city miraculously fills over the next day. I had preemptively set up a plan for my evening post-deed. I lined up the Reese’s products he had given me for my birthday, queued Call Me By Your Name on Apple TV, and prepped a playlist. I looked forward to rolling around in self-pity. It was going to feel so good. But when his Uber picked him up from my house, I hugged him goodbye, locked the door behind him, and felt remarkably nothing. No immediate spell of the sobs, sinking into the ground with my back pressed up against the door. In fact, my initial reaction was to cheer. I waited until he was a non-offensive distance away and then fist bumped the air in my living room. This might have made sense if it was a toxic relationship that dragged on for years and I was finally getting me and the kids the hell out, but it wasn’t. It was a nice, sweet relationship that had to end
because of difficult circumstances (long distance, first year of college, etc.) Between bursts of joy, I felt a little sick. Not sick in the way of losing a lover, but sick in the way of unease. Why wasn’t I rotfiapomot (rolling on the floor in a pool of my own tears)? Sure, I choked back a couple of peanut butter cups, but they didn’t taste that good. They kind of made me nauseous. I showered to “our” playlist, but didn’t cry. In fact, I had gotten a little bored of the songs. I brushed my teeth, went to bed early, and slept like a baby. On paper, this is all great. Doesn’t everyone wish for a no-muss, amicable breakup? Isn’t that what we’re all working towards, why we read advice columns on the best lines to use, coping mechanisms, and tips on how to remain friends? We must have figured it out. People must be jealous. I woke up the next day to texts frantically asking “how’d it go?!??” I replied, “it went fine.” Their immediate reaction was to think that I was “putting on a brave face.” But I wasn’t. At this point it goes without saying that I missed the drama of it all. I hated the idea of picking up and resuming my normal life the next day, but I had no reason not to. The story was too boring to be worth telling to my friends, so I kept it brief. Was it even a real breakup if I wasn’t inconsolable for at least an hour?
Being fine ended up taking more of a toll on my mental state than being unfine. My lack of feeling set me into a quiet tailspin of questions, confusion, and waking up unsettled. I examined the validity of the relationship, my own ability to feel, and the permanence of the situation. Were we really going to stay broken up if there was no turmoil to mark the event? Even if the balloon manages not to pop, the air still has to escape somehow. Like a slow hiss through an imperceptible hole. For a couple nights that summer I formed a habit of waking up 4 or 5 hours after I fell asleep, parched and grasping at for my staple anxiety lifeline, a full cup of water within reaching distance of my bed. In those hours, I felt a way that can be only described in cliches: (empty, existentially doomed, alone, pointless). I couldn’t point at the time to the breakup as the source of these episodes. It was more of an unnamed looming unease. The world came crashing down but it looked like kicking pebbles around in a parking lot.
As the summer progressed, listening to my playlist of “ruined” songs wasn’t an instant gut punch, but a subtle paradigm shift. He was just gone, not to return for the foreseeable future and that was just it. An absence, a chapter end. I didn’t cry at those songs because I didn’t really feel like he was gone. I’ve found other things to fill his absence, at least superficially. It’s just past now, and it’s not enough to complain about. In the long run, it’s unclear to me which way is “better,” which makes me think it’s neither. It feels good to feel, and we should allow ourselves that, undoubtedly. Catharsis is good. But you don’t always get it even if you’re looking for it. This, to me, makes the notion of breakups a little harder to digest. People enter and leave our lives and it doesn’t always have to hurt. But sometimes you want it to hurt, and it doesn’t. I don’t think there’s a way to prepare for which outcome you’re gonna get. We’ll always find different ways to feel it. There’s no right way to feel, which seems obvious, but is a little hard to swallow. The one thing I do have to show for our breakup is the 10 pounds I gained by steadily pounding the rest of the birthday Reese’s over the remainder of the summer.
Time here happens in hurdles. When did I become so good at waiting? Was the skill sneaked into my eighteenth birthday cake? Shh, they have drug-sniffing dogs. No, Waiting Pills are on the list of approved items. My leg still shakes as it has all my life. Dad’s, too. United by our nervous systems. Clouds today have invisible cities, monorails of air among them. Here in Coach we love to be unhappy. But we all bring something to the table. If each of us brought one book on this death machine we’d all be rather wellread. Cosmopolitan, but alone (the way it should be?) because only in movies do we talk to our armrest neighbors, and even less do we fall in love. Am I really so old? To be resigned to it. All I can do is sit, and think, think as we are taken to the sea by gravity. Gravity, don’t ruin thinking for me. At least I finished the Sopranos. I am a space between space and earth. What I want is simple: a space to stretch my fluttering feet. When did my claustrophobia learn that its rage is powerless? (Here, at least [let’s leave elevators and relationships out of it for now]). I’m nearly touching knees with two ugly grown men on either side, but that’s okay—there’s no monorail amongst our ears. We are ancient civilizations on opposite hemispheres: mourning rituals of our very own yet with strikingly similar architecture. Feeling the flyover states in blissful solitude.
In 2017, Kevin Abstract of Brockhampton proclaimed of the group, “Best boy band since One Direction/Makin’ n***as itch like a skin infection, mm” on the song BOOGIE. Brockhampton is composed of rappers, producers, artists and designers. They’re edgy, innovative, cool. At first glance, they read as an art collective of 20-somethings, cranking out collaborative works at breakneck speed (five full-length albums in the two years they’ve been active). Some may want to label them as such, but the boys of Brockhampton beg to differ. They call their group a boy band. In so doing, not only are they opening the “boy band” genre up to more than pop music for the youth; they are redefining the term entirely. Until the advent of Brockhampton, the term “boy band” conjured the image of small—but cute—white teenage boys (usually straight, too) singing in harmony and dancing in sync for hordes of teeny-bopping girls. It began, in large part, with the Beatles, and continued for decades with doo-wop groups and the like, all leading up to a crescendo of boy band popularity in the late 90s (a la *Nsync, Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees), and again with Green Day and One Direction in the early 2010s. These groups are made by straight, white men, for straight, white women, and they leave queer people and people of color behind in pursuit of greater commercial popularity and capital gain. Brockhampton, by design, aims to flip that model upside down. The group contains artists of many racial backgrounds with diverse skill sets. The question may be raised, then, what brings them then, what brings them together?
Putting their soul into all their products, staying true to their sound, and above all, a commitment to provide representation for queer men and people of color in a moment where it’s most necessary. How does Brockhampton set itself apart from the tradition of exclusion in the boy band model?
They prove their interest in and commitment to representation in their looks, their sound, and above all, their actions. Representation seems like an abstract concept that “woke” teens like to talk about, but in reality, it’s the very concrete idea that people should be able to see themselves portrayed dynamically in media (music, film, TV, books, ads, art, all that). This means that
it’s not enough for an Asian-American character to be present if their only role is to be, as the stereotype dictates, smart and quiet. is to be, as the stereotype dictates, smart and quiet. People of all identities deserve better than to see themselves reduced to a single (often inaccurate) dimension. Thus, Brockhampton is a perfect example of good representation at work. As we are constantly inundated with content -- across all media -- the band delivers products that are deeply meaningful to marginalized people. They’ve harnessed their power and used it to spread their work in all of its forms -- more than music, even though that’s their main schtick. Brockhampton was born out of a consumerist and media-hungry society; they know innately how to navigate it through social media, art, and, of course, music. Beyond this sense of mastery within their craft, they’ve chosen -- curated, even -- exactly which pieces of the boy band model they want to keep, and furthermore those they want to transform. For example, as Kaitlyn Tiffany writes in a profile on The Verge, “They live together in a house in North Hollywood that they have dubbed — completely sincerely — the Factory.” Living in a communal space like brothers has a distinct boy band quality to it; it’s a conscious decision. At the same time, it’s clearly a vehicle for greater collaboration and creativity. Media consumers of all backgrounds can see Brockhampton’s intentions as they innovate the classic boy band form, in all its white, heteronormative glory. We have the privilege to witness that work as it fulfills some part of the true need for representation of queer artists and people of color.
“Oops! Don’t touch me there – That is my no-no square! R! A! P! E! Get that penis out of me! Don’t rape! (Clap, clap) Don’t rape! (Clap, clap)”
– Rape Chant, 2010
I recently found myself in the stands of a soccer game when a chant began. Muscle memory suddenly and violently brought the Rape Chant to my mind, where it has lurked uneasily ever since. In 2010, I was a sixth grader at a small private school in New York City. One day at an assembly, my friend Sarah* and I were sitting with a male peer, Miles. Miles and Sarah had an on-again, off-again relationship in that way a select few socially adept middle schoolers are able, and they were flirting before the presentation began. Sarah pushed Miles, who pushed her back. Their shoves got increasingly powerful (and, perversely, flirtatious) until Sarah, giggling, said, “I’m going to tell the teachers that you raped me!” She repeated it, in a hushed scream, cackling: “MILES IS RAPING ME!” To shut her up, Miles pushed her again, and said, “Well, you raped me first.” This interaction was normal at our school, for a brief moment in time. It perfectly reflected our collective knowledge of rape, which was largely based on the popular question, “Did you know that if you touch someone’s belly button for longer than five seconds, it counts as rape?” (The question would normally be accompanied by a finger to the belly button and unflinching eye contact, which devolved into giggles immediately afterwards). Rape was not a serious transgression, but a minor sin, humorous to bring up in the midst of flirtation. We didn’t know there was anything wrong with it, so the rape references continued. The Rape Chant was sung in the hallways, people would touch each other’s belly buttons during quiet moments in class, and an uninhabited locker outside our classroom became known as the “Rape Locker,” in an absolutely tragic reference to the 2009 film The Hurt Locker. … In the world outside of reflected my middle school, 2010 marked a time when the public began to recognize rape as a real and prevalent societal issue. This is proven by the number of rape reports filed per year, which increased exponentially at the turn of the century and have continued doing so since. This statistic does not signify that rape is more common now than before; rather, it points to a large scale change in the way the conscience collective views rape. For a long time, society as a whole agreed that rape was not a serious issue, an attitude I unknowingly mirrored whenever I touched a friend’s belly button. Mindsets condoning rape and supporting domestic abuse were so accepted that they were written into marital law: as late as 1840, rape was recognized as a valid reason to file for divorce in less than half of American states. More recently, feminist movements have begun working to place a spotlight on society’s tendency to blame victims, (evidenced by systems of power refusing to believe survivors’ tales, supporting perpetrators of crimes, and allowing favorable media portrayals of rapists) and are making a conscious shift towards blaming the actual criminals. Furthermore, significantly, blame no longer means a slap on the wrist or Names changed for anonymity. Coontz, Vanessa. Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage (p. 180). Penguin Group. Print. 1
2
detention, (like Sarah received when the administration found out she was still calling that empty locker the Rape Locker) but rather concrete consequences, like jail time and social ostracization. Continual media publicity have also transformed collegiate rape into a hot topic. Since 2014, colleges and universities have begun to see a massive increase in reports of Title IX violations, significant in conjunction with the #MeToo movement as more and more young women are reclaiming negative sexual experiences and are attempting to push the onus onto perpetrators. These ideas have all been floating around and gaining traction during my lifetime as a student. … While all this political shift was occurring on the outside world, us sixth grade students were left stranded, completely confused as to what rape was. To be fair, many people still disagree on the parameters of what constitutes rape – and how consent can be given successfully – but no one is likely to giggle about being raped anymore, and that seems like collective growth. We certainly did not understand rape, but the world around us was beginning to change its perspective, and, here’s the important part, that change fed into our schoolyard politics. Yes, we were dealing with the issue in an entirely insensitive manner, but it was still being addressed, and rape was indeed being established as criminal in our prepubescent minds. “Oops! Don’t touch me there, / That is my no-no square” seems at first glance to be minimizing and mocking the issue, but it establishes a few important pillars of a newly popular school of thought: that the body can only belong to its owner, and that there exists a “no-no square” (the crotch) that no one else has the right to touch. Furthermore, the chant does not fall into the ever-cited trap of blaming the victim. “Don’t rape,” it calls, not “Be careful,” or “Wear less provocative clothing,” or “Don’t drink.” This chant, and our other juvenile ways of dissecting rape, were certainly not the most pleasant way to forge a better collective understanding of the issue. However, they acted as tools in our quest for understanding without us even knowing it. … This summer, when a few students trickled into my camp classroom at the beginning of the day, one boy tackled another boy into a massive hug. He responded, “Ouch,” squirmed against the hug and protested, saying, “Stop that.” The hug continued a bit longer, but finally the hugger released the complainer, who ran to go play at the building blocks station. In response, the mother of the hugger called her son over and stooped down to his level, looking into his eyes. “Remember what I said about respecting other people’s space, Matthew? What are we supposed to do when someone doesn’t want us to touch them?” “Stop,” the boy begrudgingly replied. “That’s right, because that’s his body, and he’s allowed to choose what to do with it. And he’s always allowed to tell you to stop touching him, even when you’re just giving him such a sweet hug.” That boy will probably not grow up to flirt like Miles and Sarah did, shoving one another to communicate their barely-formed attraction. He’s not going to need a Rape Chant to figure out what makes rape bad. He has already begun the process of internalizing respect for others bodies and of choosing when to share his body with others. He is of the new generation and is currently metabolizing #MeToo, Trump’s presidency, and Kavanaugh’s appointment in ways he doesn’t understand yet. The boy ran off to play with his friend at the blocks station, and I smiled. No Rape Chant necessary here.
Grigoriadis, Vanessa. Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus (Kindle Locations 2211-2213). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition. 3
Pick up the phone, An. What will it take? “I’m dying, An”? No.
Yes. No. Stop asking me questions whose answers
render me unsoft and unkind
Does not everything in your bones
and skirt steak tell you to
Forgive?
What is there to forgive?
You will, one day,
be a mother,
and you will understand. Will I?
God! I hope not.
What will
it take for you to call first, An?
Mom, my girlfriend, she was dying.
I wanted her to fly and she shattered, mom.
Mom, do you hear me? Do you hear the-
Your friend, how is she
-Amen’s and Hallelujah’s in my chest
Stop crying, there’s nothing to cry for
-Like funeral horns?
Now you’re silent. Now you won’t call.
Because while you were dying,
I was being born.
54645
76836
Penelope taught me to wile away the day with masturbation and seltzer-fill myself with fizz. Pretend every little drop of rain is a dream of a queen long gone.
This is a love poem, and it’s about you. 76835 I turned off the TV to be alone with you.
54647 I said god give me a sign and she sent me two in button-ups and matching haircuts and matching glasses, and running shoes for support, an anxiety shroud woven with love.
67462 All I really want is to get paid to write the word “fuck”.
76834 Some bug-eyed fish babies. That’ll show us.
76831 I want your hand to bite like the gaits and smiles of boys who are newly men bite-like sunburned shoulders freshly showered for dinner. Are you having fun? My resting state is in love or in New York or both.
something like blasphemy they say your body is a temple i say bullshit. i say no one has ever traced meaning from my hips, found scripture in the protrusion of my stomach, but i’m still searching, tearing apart my limbs in search of something holier than a god in search of somewhere the nose can’t be seen & my body is no longer a phantom limb i am trying to shake off the place where i can see myself & feel myself & i do not have to compress the space i take up i am searching for the the i do not have the word for something that does not yet exist.
Joanna Gerber
November 8th, 2016 changed a lot of things. Like every other election, it changed the occupant of the White House. Unlike every other election, this new occupant brought chaos, fear and hate along with him, and it therefore changed the current American political climate. It also changed my relationship with my best friend. When Connor and I first met, the world was simpler; Obama was being elected to his second term, and the two of us didn’t really discuss politics because we didn’t know anything about them. I knew that my parents voted for Obama and his parents voted for Romney. We mostly talked about school and whatever our passions were at eleven years old instead. The most political our conversations at the time got was this: “You know, Mitt Romney can’t sit on a stool,” I said, twirling in my stool in our old art room. “He said it himself: he can’t sit on a stool because he’s a Mormon and apparently that means that he has little experience sitting on them because they don’t drink alcohol.” “That doesn’t make any sense,” Connor mumbled as he finished his painting of a mouse riding a skateboard. “Your parents voted for him, not mine.” Civil. Lighthearted. Political discourse. Well, for middle schoolers anyway. Some things have changed since then. I know a little more than just who my parents voted for. I would argue that Connor does not,
especially when I scroll through his Twitter and see his Alex Jones retweets. When I used to see Connor, I saw a friend. I used to see the boy thinner and shorter than me with a mop of red hair and an awkward smile who I spent hours and hours with. He and I would bond over Blink-182 songs, laugh about countless inside jokes, and roughhouse whenever we were together. He would copy my Latin homework before class (while listening to my lecture about the benefits of doing your own homework) and would always be there to hear whatever it is I needed to talk about. We even had a crush on each other at some point, in a timid and simple middle school way. Once I decided to attend an all-girls boarding school, and Connor enrolled in the all-boys school down the road, I was sure that we would date for real, but not until junior year - I wanted to play the field first. But, three months into my junior year came November 8th, 2016. When I was making this plan, I didn’t account for all of the changes that would emerge during the first two years of my politics and social justice filled high school career. As I learned about these things, I became more and more politically aware (and more and more passionate). By my junior year, I was politically charged, and I was informed; I was a Bernie supporter. Connor, who was no longer the straggly haired middle school boy in his Mooreland Hill School sweat-
shirt, was now the rich white man across the aisle, not understanding that he should care about others. This was hard for me because while I simultaneously knew all of the good things about Connor, I could not help but see the bad too - and I could not avoid the worst thing of all - that he was a Trump supporter. At first, it was fine. I knew that people would have different political opinions than me, and I knew that was okay. I had respect for Connor and his ideas just as he would have respect for mine. However, this election quickly started to not be about ideas, it became personal. I struggled thinking that he was okay with Trump’s anti-immigrant sentiment, or his anti-black people sentiment, or his anti-women sentiment, or his anti-gay sentiment, or his anti-Muslim sentiment, but I still maintained that his political preferences were to be respected, and that they wouldn’t change our friendship. Politics aren’t the only thing that make up who a person is, after all. We could talk about other things. Blink-182 was releasing new music at the time. We went to junior prom together (as friends), and it was clear that there was already some distance between us. His father kept pressuring me to wear Connor’s jacket because it was “really cold out,” (it wasn’t cold) in an odd and forced attempt to be chivalrous. I tried to make it through a slow song (Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years”), but by the second time Perri sang “I have died everyday waiting for you,”
I squirmed off the dance floor and made my way over to the chocolate fountain, alone. Then the election happened, and I took a break from communication with Connor for a little while (I took a break from everything for a little while, to mourn, anyway). He did not have anything to say the first time I saw him after the fact; he did not rub the win in my face, because he was mature and this was just an election. There was going to be another one in four years and another one after that. This is how the system works, right? So why, then, did my best friend look different to me? Why did he feel less trustworthy and caring? Less lovable? I felt like an immature sore loser (as Trump would put it). I felt a little crazy for being this impacted by an election. Hanging out with Connor after the election was hard because our political debates were no longer hypothetical. The thoughts and opinions that I used to be able to dismiss as crazy were now validated, and they were governing our country. Everything felt heavy because the irrational things Connor said about Muslims could end up being real policies, while my reasonable hopes for the environment were now being ignored by the ones in power. The unassuming and sweet middle school boy I once knew was now mansplaining the economy to me, and I was losing my liberal intellectual authority. Nonetheless, I could deal with being (according to the electoral college) wrong. This is not what changed our friendship. What changed our friendship was Charlottesville. Though Trump had given me plenty of opportunities before to fully dismiss him as the worst person alive, Charlottesville was the moment that I officially began to feel this way about our unfortunate commander in chief. I laid in bed watching the news the entire day, stunned by the Charlottesville protests. I remember my mother’s immediate response was: “what is Donald Trump possibly going to say about this?” No one could have predicted that he was going to defend Nazis. You would think he had better sense than that, or that someone in the White House would have had better sense than to let him say that. Regardless, Donald Trump decided to defend both sides which reveals quite a bit about where he stands. To defend Nazis or white supremacists, to defend the violent death of people, is an unforgivable act. This is not politics. This is basic human decency. Donald Trump is a bad person definitively (I decided). I thought of Connor. Connor who stayed up late to text me when I was alone at a summer camp for the first time. Connor who paid for my food every time I forgot (or ran out of) money when we went to the mall. Connor who would hold onto my tampons because girls’ pants don’t have big enough pockets. Connor. Is he a bad person too? I still cannot comprehend how he supports Trump, and my heart still breaks to think that he doesn’t care about me, his Puerto Rican, female best friend enough to realize that the things Trump stands for are not good, but there is still love in there for him. I don’t know exactly how this story ends. I know that I have not responded to his text from two months ago and that we never talk to or see each other. However, I do not feel that our relationship is over. We never had a definitive end. I do not know that it is possible to end a relationship with someone you imagined would be there for your whole life. But it is not possible to just not talk about politics when we are together. They are too omnipresent to avoid. And, when I’m around Connor, all I want to do is talk about politics. I feel an urge to start talking about the wall or ICE or Brett Kavanaugh. I feel an urge to start screaming. I think it’s because I want to hear him say something just as bad as Trump so that he can be a bad person (definitively) too. Or maybe it’s because I think that he just needs to talk to me one more time and then he’ll understand my point of view, and that I was right all along, and then he’ll start waving a rainbow flag and advocating for gun control. With every passing day that I don’t talk to Connor, it is clear that it is less likely the latter will occur. He’s away at college, surrounded in his own bubble of like-minded individuals, plotting the downfall of our democracy (at least, I think that’s what Republicans do). And I, in my own political bubble, have a decision to make: is my history with Connor enough for me to keep reaching out to him? At what point does a person’s politics become their personality? And, at what point have you lost your best friend?
I just got another message. It’s from rainbow spandex shorts. She’s such a kiwi and it makes me insecure about my corn flakes. Right, left, right, who’s next? I’m trying to find someone exciting. I’m trying to find someone to hide behind, someone fake who I can be fake with for a few hours, someone to mask all the looming fear and relentless uncertainty making slaves of my weary muscles and sunken eyes. What, ho! To the left or to the right? A prince, a pauper, another round of faces I will never meet. Another round of laughter bellowing from the crowd below me. Another round of clenched teeth and holy shit, look at his six pack. Must’ve been sculpted by Michelangelo. And damn that chiseled jawline, yes puhleez. I’m supposed to be doing work right now, not indulging in my hypnotic cellphone. I’m supposed to be laying in bed with my boyfriend, but instead he’s in Colorado and I’m here, tapping and swiping and left-right-lefting with rainbow spandex shorts and Michelangelo. This is really such a waste of my precious time but it’s no use trying to stop now. It’s no use hitting delete and starting over, it’s no use making small talk and saying heyyyy cuz hay is for horses. At least that’s what the burning bush told me. Right? Left? Definitely left, she looks like an animal cracker and you know what my duckling would say about that? Godzilla; that’s what. Then she’d crinkle her nose, throw her head back, and laugh like a snowflake. So beautiful yet so cold. So fair, so delicate, so goddamn irritating! You know when his bio says “looking for a good time” that he’s really just looking for some pussy, and he ain’t gonna find it here. No sir, I do not want your unsolicited dick pics, I do not want your emotional availability because I am emotionally unavailable; I am emotionally exhausted, exploited, and empty. I am one thousand, three hundred, and forty-four pixels, a network of infrared light, and an infinite spectrum of colors.