opal. a poetry and prose zine
intro when i was five years old practically every girl i knew was in ballet camp at the local dance school. each morning we skipped past a small plastic fountain spouting sugary fruit punch and stretched our legs while giggling and chatting about what was to come. after we had performed our final, glitter splattered numbers at the nearby bookstore our teacher gave us each a letter with our birthstone inside. i remember pulling back the red paper to find a small shimmering fake opal stone. its luminescence felt holy in my sweaty palms, a whole universe unto myself.
credits: editor: brianne allen illustrator: grace mahz contributors: nia, age 14 colleen cosette goodman, age 15 chealsea t, age 17 amber p ben wilson
sunday self-awareness someone put voodoo on my house or something. my sister rainn developed a chest and got a boyfriend who speaks spanish, and whenever he calls her in the mornings she forgets to feed the cat and pours laundry detergent instead of the milk that expired last week into mama's lumpy brown sugar oatmeal. she smiles with her shiny braces and her heart gets all applesauce soft and when they fight it molts and rots and she hides it in her messy closet and lets the maggots and the roaches and the flies eat it up and her ribs knot and mat over her insides and she waits for summer to come, for the sun to comb them out and for her rancid strawberry heart to bleed out like a mosquito bite and then he comes back with his spanish laid on thick like grape jelly or warm marmalade on mama's toast, or the heavy chocolate syrup dripping like hot magma from pops' mountain of buttery sunday morning pancakes or too much makeup, and calls her his corazรณn and she wants it again, slips it back inside her bra and daydreams about him while waiting for her ramen noodles to soften like his lips, while the bathtub gets too full and toby chews on her shoelaces and throws up the tuna she's allergic to now all over her cheap platform heels. she's got scratches and welts from where he loves her, and bruises the color of ripe plums on her
knees and neck from where she loves him mama and pops love harder than rainn. they say they named her after bad weather because of her tantrums and that her real name is adeline, but i know its because mama's actually the black version of selene (goddess of the moon) and pops is a sea tide who was pulled up too high and rainn is the ugly storm that came after. no one loves me yet, but when they do it'll be a worse kind of black magic. one that sinks louisiana and drowns me in alligator swamps and green blood. - nia
x I imagine us in a church, Hands intertwined, Organ music playing softly in the background; Sheppard Me O God, or Ave Maria I sit in the pews, decked out in flowers, the smile coated in pink never leaving my lips because you are here, beauty in all your respects. Each day I fall you for just a bit more, your soft, the way my cheek can fall upon your back, my arms around your stomach. I am coated in all shades of pink; the words I speak are drenched in fuschia, my skin like a sunset, my lips flushed coral, my hair like a pale ballet slipper. I bite into a watermelon, catch the flesh with my teeth, and pink water runs down my chin. I smile with the seeds stuck in my teeth; you laugh. My love for you is hot pink; blushing, passionate. My love for you is wide and spanning, like acres and acres of cherry blossoms. - colleen cosette goodman
the dark girl the dark skin girl stands alone in a fight she cannot win. with the words that are thrown at her daily that slowly tear her from within. they say cruel things, with no sense of feeling. she shakes them off as if nothing happens. but, i swear, behind close doors a river of tears form. “why do I have to be dark. why can’t I be light,” she screams. then a voice from within says, “dark has beauty. the dark has courage no one else has with eyes of beauty and grace of hands but the skin is the best feature with it’s riches of dark, smooth chocolate that everyone admires secretly. so stand up, my child. for dark skin is the greatest skin of all.” - amber p
untitled late at night i think about my pawpaw, his toothless grin and the knife he uses to gut squirrels. his left hand on his rifle, he pours whiskey into his orange juice and swirls it with his finger. my mawmaw, bless her soul, holds a knife to her breast and dares him to love her half as much as he loves the country. i put honey and sugar water in a bowl to catch the flies that buzz in our stomachs. sometimes i imagine i am the strongest person in the world; me and my gapped teeth and my duck feet. hungry for something other than cornfields and bullets, i just want to be free. bravery is long unheard of. we are no longer courageous for withstanding the short winds; a hurricane is needed to be thought a hero. me, myself, and orion watch as the sun goes down and we know that if the sun feels anything in this moment, it must be commiseration. -
chelsea t
"artist/lover/gone" Bitter sweet goodbyes Sweetly here eyes Wept For the both of us "Lost souls" She called us Chained to our damage She shook her head Both sweetly and Mournfully Artists Make the worst lovers I know this to be True As I know, truly That I will never Have the strength to separate The glow of sunset And her tears From the rich oranges And pale blues That coat my brushes Even in the most intimate of moments I am taking note
Of the many shades of Brown That adorn her face I have visions Of palette knives Gliding across porous, Stiff canvas Forming the soft curves Of cheek bones and Trembling philtrums I have spent nights Slamming my palms against The sides of my skull Unable to sleep Haunted By the constantly refreshing image of Supple skin stretched across A rib cage Immortalized in ink on Paper Please Forgive me if I stare But sometimes You resemble my dreams - ben wilson
special thanks thank you to the wonderful, understanding contributors of this mag and to grace mahz for her fantastic art. thank you to the friends, family, and followers who encouraged this project and remained supportive during any setbacks. i hope for many more zines akin to this one. brianne allen