Aug 11, 2017 issue no. i.i
politics, art, literature
TABLE OF C PROLOGUE “timeless” POLITICS Deconstructing
Capitalism
Overpopulation
Globalization
POP CULTURE FICTION
When I Was Ten
to the ones who told me they were too tired Psychopathy: Strength or Hamartia
PERSONAL
Why I Stopped Writing
Pain is Not Weakness Leaving the Body
World Outside of Industrial Society
the in-between
PHOTOGRAPHY
Arshad Mohammad Shraesht Chitkara
ART Angela Xuan
Kellie Chen
“My Mother’s Wedding Flowers” Antony Chen
Emily Liu
COLORS POETRY
THOSE RED LIGHTS AlmostThere
My Left Shoulder the DayNight
EPILOGUE
CONTENTS
This magazine is produced soley for educational purposes under Nonprofit Organization Youth Literacy Society. Like our Facebook Page “P.ART Lit Zine”. Check us out and follow us on wordpress and subscribe for email updates www.partlitmag. wordpress.com.
Be a P.ART of something bigger.
letter from the editor
Writing a “Letter from the Editor” has always been my dream, and wow it sure is coming true. I knew this was going to be my favorite part of the entire process of making this magazine, and now that every single other small thing has been done… Well, I guess I’m actually wordless. I just knew this entire time; I knew with 100% confidence that I would start off my very first “Letter from the Editor” with these words: We are the best. We are the best, and we always will be the best because we bring raw meaning back to political writing, art, and literature. We are better than any other student-run and published magazine because we do this out of good heart. We do this not because some external force (whether that be teachers, parents, or college applications) tell us to, but because we want to. Because we dare to love to. I say “dare” because I see in a world becoming so technologically dependent, that any student living in the Silicon Valley Bay Area who tries to pursue something outside of science, technology, engineering, or math, is called insane-- and almost never in a good way. Growing up in this environment, with two parents who put a roof over my head with those types of jobs, I’ve always been pressured to apply my ambition into this Silicon Valley bubble definition of “success”. And I’m not going to lie at all, it’s been hard, and I understand why so many peers do just fall into this tunnel vision of what “success” means. It’s because of this understanding that I started this personal passion project this summer of starting up this Photo By: Lily Yang
magazine, as a branch of my nonprofit organization Youth Literacy Society. I recognize how little exposure there is to the field of humanities in schools now. I recognize how there are so many after school, school assemblies, and summer programs dedicated to what careers you can make out of STEM, and almost none dedicated to anything related to the arts. I want to change this. I want to help people become a P.ART of something bigger. You don’t know how much it touches my heart when one of my friends messages me a bit late at night saying, “Emily, you are giving people the chance to publish things they wouldn’t otherwise tell a single soul in the world.” And that’s the only reason I’m doing this. That is why WE ARE THE BEST. Issue one is to all the believers, and to all the non-believers, to late nights and early mornings, to friends who cheered me on and gave me advice at every hour of the day, and lastly to my entire group of lovely and loving writers, artists, photographers, and anti-capitalism human beings who are truly a P.ART of something bigger. I hope you all enjoy the very first issue of P.ART Lit Zine from sunrise to sunset.
Much Love,
Founder, EIC
“t i m e l e s s ”
By: Chloe Retika
prologue
I thought he wasn’t going to come and I have never felt more fooling waiting there. Because I know that hope is cruel and misleading but he came, he came, he came. And so we slipped out of the house into a dark night that isn’t really that silent at 3 am. It was muted. It’s a strange feeling, knowing you are awake while most others are dreaming. There was a blanket of darkness around us. But it wasn’t menacing or dangerous, it was… it just was. And so we slipped through the fence while our eyes adjusted and our hearts beat faster and faster. Stars are dancing, the moon is watching, for us for us for us. We rounded a curve and then a bend and I look back and there was power, there was this city humming with electricity full of rushing, awful people, choking the world with their needs and wants but it was beautiful, the silent, hidden chaos was beautiful, so we accept them. I’m still staring at the city until one of them puts her hand on my shoulder and whispers that we had to go. I could see her now. A faint outline and a hint of a smile and star-reflected eyes. If all of humanity could see each other like this, there would be no war, no struggle. The sky travelled spectrums, shade by shade, time was against us as it always is, and so we ran. We made it. This was the top. There was nothing above it and everything below it. Our bodies are slowly freezing as the wind screams at us to leave, that no, no you cannot corrupt my dawn, my sunrise, you cannot touch this, you cannot have her. You will corrupt my dawn, because in order for the most beautiful things to stay pure, they must never be found. But we fought the wind, fingers shaking. I had stopped moving. I was watching the sky. Watercolor brushed blues and purples, melding and disappearing into each other so easily….
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And then the sun moved.
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The world that had been cast in monotone was washed in light. Human gold is nothing compared to the brilliance I saw. This orb, dead behind mountains, was rising. A mass thousands of times bigger than our earth and millions of miles away rose. All those colors washed away for that light, spilling and dancing and touching everything. I know that we’re hurtling through miles and miles of violent space, but to see our sun, the center of our galaxy, creep the last few inches it took to rise from those peaks… I have not felt peace like this in months. So I mix my past tense, future tense, present tense into an incoherent mess because god, am I reliving this moment?
Am I living this moment? Am I about to live this moment? Can you remember this for me? To love the people and the things that make you feel timeless and invincible?
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It wasn’t the most beautiful sunrise ever. It wasn’t ugly or spectacular or breathtaking or marred. It was just a sunrise. Like any other one painted by God.
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But I will never see this sunrise again. My first.
prologue
I will never see it in the exact same spot with the exact same people ever again. It will not happen, it will be an impossibility. Because we were found. We are not pure, this world made us impure and one day we will be the city humming instead of specks of light breathing with the wind. I had that time to cherish it, that time to see it, and that time is over. timeless. 03.28.16
the human fight for power.
DECONSTRUCTI
politics
ING CAPITALISM By: Reetam Ganguli with a short introduction by Emily Liu
Photo By: Arshad Mohammadd
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Why does this gap of wealth inequality exist, when ultimately, there literally ARE enough resources to pass around the entire world?
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In our world, it seems obviously like it would be so much easier to be a kinder person if one had more money. However, this (also obviously) isn’t the case. I remember in a car ride with my mother before when she would boast about how her Bay Area Silicon Valley software engineering job had paid about the same as the president of the United States. She says this in a lighthearted, joking matter, but in my mind, a bigger question arose. Why is it that the president earns just as much as my mother, yet he/she will probably change the world in a month more than my mother probably would her entire life? Shouldn’t there be more value to money? Why is it that some of the richest people in the world spend money on “fine art”, and other luxuries, while others across the world die in numbers because of waterborne diseases? Why does this gap of
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wealth inequality exist, when ultimately, there are literally enough resources to pass around the entire world? Karl Marx argues that much of societal oppression within the status quo originated as a byproduct of the capitalistic system. Capitalism distorts perception in society to create an oppressive system to take advantage of the less powerful. The relationship between the elites and the non elites in a capitalist system is unequivocally fickle. However, the exploitation of those below them by the powerful is uniquely exacerbated by the structure of a capitalistic system, giving rise to several issues currently observed in the real world. By setting up power constructs, the capitalist system as a whole enables the powerful to both culturally and ontologically suppress the less powerful in an unethical manner. Through the capitalist system’s manipulation of societal ideology, it is able to dominate over foreign cultures and instill power imbalances, exploiting the less powerful non elites. Primarily, capitalism gives rise to cultural imperialism, denigrating deviant cultures in comparison to the ideal “white culture”. In its more common
practice, the system tends to suppress the ideologically nonconformist cultures of immigrants, as primarily observed through the experiences of Gogol Ganguli, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. Upon discussing Gogol’s validity to be her friend’s suitor, Astrid dismissively remarks, “‘I just don’t see you with some Indian guy … American men are simply better husband material’” (Lahiri 103). The clear evidence of cultural discrimination is evidenced in the dichotomy between the descriptions of “some Indian guy”, addressed in a condescending tone, homogenized with the rest of the Indian culture, and looked down upon. The generalization that American men are better husbands is clearly untrue, yet still serves as a testament to the racist perception that lies within Western ideology. This is an example of a capitalist frame of mind creating a perceptual distortion between the “American men” and all other cultures, distancing the rest as lesser cultural others. In contrast to the perceptual cultural denigration Gogol was faced with, the cultural domination which capitalism facilitates can be seen at its extremity in the case of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, where there exists a systematic deconstruction
of the Igbo culture due to western interference. Upon reflecting on the takeover of their tribe, Obierka laments, “Now he [the white man] has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart’” (Achebe 202). This inability for their clan to “act as one” indicates an internal disruption, showing the destabilization of the Igbo culture as a whole. This is further highlighted through distressed end of Obierka’s line, “we have fallen apart” insinuating “we”, the Igbo race, has crumbled apart and will be lost in the tides of Western influence. Although both texts entail the experiences of two widely differing cultures, both share the unfortunate commonalty of being stifled due to their deviation from the capitalist system’s fabrication of the ideal, homogenized white man. It is due to the very internal structure of the capitalist system that allows for this systematic takeover of other cultures. Although it may be argued that the justification for this takeover of other cultures possess an underlying altruistic intent for the sole purpose of helping other cultures, the problem resides within the metacognition behind this belief. A prerequisite to believing other cultures need help is to see these other cultures
as inherently lower and weaker than Western culture. It is in and of this inherently self promoting, egocentric viewpoint the capitalist system holds which allows them to view native cultures as more disposable, helping them more for the purposes of expansion and internal satisfaction, as opposed to benevolence. In continuation of the ideals of cultural hegemony, capitalism not only exploits other cultures, but also immorally formulates a hierarchy where the few on top can benefit off the backs of the non elites. Correspondingly, the capitalist system creates a rigid power construct binary between the powerful and the powerless, iniquitously enabling the elite to dehumanize those below them. In the experiences of young Elie in Elie Wiesel’s haunting novel, Night , a clear loss of humanity can be observed when a rigid power system is constructed between the Germans (the elites) and the Jews (the non elites). Upon being trapped in a cargo train, a guard berates the Jew , snarling, “‘There are eighty of you in the car … If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot like dogs.” (Wiesel 24). The initial designation and homogenization of the Jews as simply numbers like “eighty” and not actual people play a major role
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into building the power constructs which allow German authorities to see Jews as lesser beings. Furthermore, the abhorrent simile employed equating the Jewish families to dogs depicts the prominence of racism in the ideology of the German soldiers at that point. The simple act of devaluing the lives of the Jews to the point where they are seen as less than human dehumanizes them, and this lowers the threshold for any atrocious act to occur against them. The capitalist system is responsible for designating a greater amount of power to some over others, forcing those that are weaker to be seen as less, and therefore dehumanized. This loss of morality in the face of power binaries isn’t exclusive solely based on race, but evident in the form of gender imbalances within the political turmoil in Afghanistan throughout Khaled Hosseini’s novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Upon explaining to his wife for why she has less authority than him, Rasheed condescendingly explains, “‘God has made us differently, you women and us men. Our brains are different … This is why we require only one male witness but two female ones’” (Housseini 129). This misogynist perspective gives insight into the unfortunate truth in Afghanistan at the time - women were simply seen
as half what a man was, supposedly even in the eyes of god. This cultural stigma arises from its root at the heart of the capitalist system, which juxtaposes the rights and authority of the elites (in this case men) and nonelites (in this case women), giving one societal authority over the other. This creates a breeding space from which societal stigmas to emerge and become deeply embedded within the ideology of each and every citizen and even within the legal justice system. Rasheed alludes to the latter claim through his mention that even in the law system, men are indirectly seen as twice the value of women. Although it can be argued that these observed forms of inequality are observed in several other political ideologies like fascism and dictatorial style governments, the controversy inevitably defaults to a question of root cause. It is due to the fact that fascism and dictatorships are ultimately a byproduct of capitalism, born from the principles of power constructs and commodification. These capitalist power constructs provide a gateway for systemic oppression in forms of both racial and gender inequality carry through the stigmas within society, and ultimately sovereign individuals, proving to be terminally inherent.
In finality, through its oppressive means of cultural hegemony and inequality, the capitalist system employs elitist methodologies to take advantage of the powerless. First, as seen through Gogol’s experiences, the capitalist system not only perceptually disparages diverse cultures by societally making them seem lesser than mainstream western cultures, but also holistically destroys native cultures through its imperialist practices in an attempt to further promote its Western ideology. Moreover, capitalism serves to be the root cause in the construction of societal barriers between the elites and non elites, arbitrarily assigning a few individuals with a disproportionately larger amount of power than others, which allows the powerless to be looked upon as disposable populations, and therefore exploited based on both ethnicity (as illustrated by the experiences of Elie Weisel) and sex (as depicted by Rasheed’s dialogue). Ultimately, the issue fundamentally lies within entrenched capitalist ideology that some beings should have more inherent worth than others, which sets a path for devastation as the accumulation of power and autonomy for the few on top create a loss of authority and self-determination for the many at the very bottom in
a rigged zero-sum game. The culmination of the works of so many modern activist authors help to destabilize this ingrained ideology from the very core of our society through the utilization of the most effective weapon possible - the epistemological impacts garnered from the educational dissemination of knowledge for the benefit of the greater population. It is only through educating the common public about the cultural hardships that people like Bengali immigrants and African tribal villages face, as well as the inequality and oppression that people like Jews during the holocaust and women in the political turmoil of Afghanistan live through by recounting their personal experiences in the hopes of changing individual ideologies. The works of these esteemed authors have echoed and continue to echo across the walls of time to teach the youth of today an important lesson - the unconditional acceptance of cultures and individuals vastly different from our own in absolute rejection in the face of societal constructs fueled by capitalism.
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Our world’s current population growth is a topic of rising concern. From a narcissistic point of view, overpopulation can be viewed as the greatest environmental issue mankind could face. It is that an increasing uncontrolled population will use all natural resources our planet has. This could link to a loss of biodiversity and inevitable environmental annihilation. One might argue, however, that this issue does lie in the hands of overpopulation, itself, but rather in the flaws of capitalistic societies in developed countries, where materials are wasted. Malthus had once argued that because of how population grows exponentially, while resources grow linearly, that one day humans would outrun the food and supplies they need for everyone to survive. However, due to miscalculation of technology in our modern world, we know we can completely disregard this issue. Wealth inequality is the true culprit here, which can only be solved through a more equal distribution of our world’s resources. One the converse, however, one can argue that “overpopulation” will never truly occur. Once population has reached it “brink level”, it will simply stop growing. This is supported by analysis of population growth trends within developed nations. While I do support the facts and believe in the ideology behind that true overpopulation will never occur, I do believe in more control on population growth. If left as is, Nigeria’s population is estimated to be greater than the United States by year 2050. Less developed countries are the areas of the world contributing to the most population growth, and this is devastating because those
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It’s become a positive feedback system-- the solution is racing against time.
politics Photo By: Shraesht Chitkara
OVERPOPULATION By: Sarah Shen
areas are correlated with a low standard of living, a toll on women’s rights-- all of which actually slows the rate of the countries from transforming into developed countries. The standard of living in less developed countries is incredibly low because of the lack of resources. Majority of these people live on land controlled by abusive governments with little food and safe shelter. The families within these countries cannot accommodate to even more population growth. Contrast to developed countries, developing countries lack the technology to match resource production with population growth. With inadequate resources to circulate the entire population, every body in those areas will suffer.
The cause of this overpopulation in less developed countries is the lack of human rights. Culture and men oppress women by not offering them education or access to birth control. As less women are educated, they aren’t able to go out and pursue jobs, and rather, then, stay at home to tend the family. This lack of women in the work force also worsens the economy and strains progression of the country. This results in an endless cycle of women being unfairly controlled alongside an uncontrolled growing population. This slows the rate of a less developed country from growing into a developed country. The additional economic inequality over time worldwide make the process of development more and more difficult to keep up with. Population control is an issue to discuss and attempt to solve because of how much it would help the families born into less than ideal countries. Keep in mind though: the benefits of population control are easier reaped sooner than later.
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GLOBALIZATION By: Sarah Shen
Living in the United States, we can take for granted owning several pairs of different types of shoes, and enjoying fresh fruit in our wintertime. This is all thanks to the growing implementation of globalization. With increase in technological advancements humans are able to contact and work with others on the other half of the world. However, looking past kiwis in December and visiting relatives across the world in a few more hours. Globalization comes with many other pros and cons. The voice of a museum loving, documentary watching, democratic 30 year-old mom might argue against globalization because of how it risks tearing the unique cultures that our world’s geography has crafted. It is believed and feared that eventually by we will become one
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giant “global melting pot”! What a scare! A politically aware, perhaps beer-drinking, tattooed, motorcycle riding perspective brings up the argument of how interaction with different cultures can be dangerous. People are very protective of their own traditions, and meddling with them should be avoided. On the contrary, a utilitarian standpoint sees globalization as economically and ultimately net beneficial. Necessities and luxuries are made cheaper millions of people globally, which mean an increased standard of living. At least for those of us on this half of the globe, while this utilitarian view might seem logical at first, it is actually immensely flawed in terms of global net benefits. Ignoring the voice of the 30-year old mom, we can see that there are, indeed, greater issues correlated with globalization. Globalization can be socially unjust and politically dangerous. Globalization has led to increase of wealth inequality worldwide. The cheaper clothing and produce enjoyed by developed nations is produced by developing nations with relationships of child labor and dangerous working conditions. These nations’ economies are stuck on this dependence of laborious work because of the increased demand for these products across the ocean. Taking advantage of cheap labor associates with the now inevitable increase of globalization. These citizens in developing nations are only dehumanized by their governments forcing them to work and make the nations more money to find things that probably won’t go towards their own living conditions. While utilitarianism behind globalization increases standard of living on one half of the world, it dramatically decreases it on the other half. This increase in globalization also raises cultured tensions worldwide. Through recent history, western influences on the rest of the world haven’t always been appreciated. The power and hegemony certain countries carry over others raises the pressure of those other countries to try to match up. We can see that this trend of globalization has resulted in increased nuclear weapons production in areas ruled by corrupt leaders, and an increase of proxy wars. Within globalization, we see more participation on an arms race to become the most destructive, powerful nation. Therefore, while somewhat economically beneficial, we must keep in mind how globalization can also be socially unjust.
In our current world, social media and pop culture are the greatest influencers of each other. With new, faster, technology, people anywhere with access to internet can learn practically anything. Political ideas are easilly shared and better understood with the use of social media. This helps give everybody the fair right to form any of their own personal opinions. There was this one touching video that I originally saw on facebook of a teenage boy asking his younger baby brother how he would feel if he grew up and married a man. The baby boy had just said, “That must be so cool!” and when the brother asked why, he had replied, “Because I see all these boys with other boys on TV and in other videos and they all call each other cool and wow you must be so cool too!”
It’s the beginning of a revolution.
By: Emily Liu
We write fiction not to run away from reality, but to better understand it.
fiction
WHEN I WAS TEN
By: Anonymous
When I was ten, we were- what you’d call, a common family. When I was ten, I met my best friend. When I was ten I had a huge crush on this boy. When I was ten my mother
committed suicide.
When I was ten I finally saw my father cry. When I was ten my father began to beat me. When--when I was ten my father gave me my first kiss. and when I was ten, my father raped me. Life right now, is just, eh. You know, not too bad, not too good, just eh. The days just keep coming and going, quite boring if I say so myself. Nothing ever exciting happens anymore, not like when I was younger, everything seemed so much more dramatic back then, I mean, it’s not like I would want to go back to then, but it would probably make an interesting film if I do say so myself. In fact, when I look back on it, what happened was just such a predictable chain of events. I grew up in a small town, I… don’t exactly remember where. I know we had this ice cream shop my dad would always take me to. It was a place to get away from my mom. My mom had a lot of stress upon her, she would take it out on us verbally, I got used to it after a while. But I didn’t realize it there was a limit for her.
Just after my tenth birthday, I met this weird girl, her name was Alison. She was always reading on the benches during recess, it didn’t seem like she had any friends. I finally decided to go up to her and -well, you know- we shared multiple of the same interests, which led to us being great friends. There was also this boy, his name was Leo, and you know what, looking back at it now, he was a pretty good looking kid. He had these green eyes, just like my mom’s, that’s the only reason I can remember them. …My house was located on the outskirts of town, next to the woods. It had 4 rooms, my parents, mine, their office, and the living room. We also had an attic… I’d hide all my belongings up there, it was my favorite room until that day. March 9th, 1996, the day I found my mother hanging from a rope. Dead. she was dead. I called my dad up, he wasn’t as shocked as I, it was as if he knew it was going to happen. He told me to go downstairs to my room. I never saw my mom’s body after that, we didn’t have a funeral either. I’d hear my father cry as I my eyelids slowly closed. This repeated 3 weeks. A month after my mother’s suicide, I went up to the attic for the first time, my brain prepared itself to see my mother’s dead body again as if the situation would repeat itself, but instead just a horrendous odor of booze
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lingered. My father was passed out on the floor with tear stains running down his face, bottles surrounded him. I shook him awake. He kept saying Raquel over and over again, my mother’s name. He started to cry. He held his arms out, asking for a hug, so that’s exactly what I did. That was my first mistake. He kept kissing my forehead and cheeks, his saliva and tears mixing on my face. He then proceeded to kiss me on the lips forcefully. I struggled to get away from him. I knew this wasn’t right. He cried even louder. I tried to get away. I tried and I tried.
And then I thought about it. Who was the one in more pain?
to the ones who told me they were By: Chloe Retika
TOO T IRED
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*Author’s note: This story is 100% true. Or not. Take a guess.”
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They got tired of hearing her complain about the pain in her head and the hell in her heart.
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“The boy who used to live here fell in love with the girl who used to live next door,” he murmured as he leaned against the brittle wall, hastily cobbled together to be given form. “Oh. That’s nice.” “But he wasn’t supposed to. His parents didn’t allow it at all, didn’t want him to fall in love with this girl who lived a wall and a yard away. It was this great forbidden love that should never have existed.” “Wow, how exciting.” She drawled, tracing the rough outlines of the stones in the wall, rubbing the dust away from her fingers in annoyance. “The girl was sick. It was a terminal illness too, I think.” She froze and pressed her palm against the wall, completely forgetting about the dust she had just wiped away in order to steady herself and calm her pounding heartbeat. “All of the girl’s friends had already given up on her. They got tired of her complaining about the pain in her head and the hell in her heart. They were exhausted having to wheel her around at school and help her struggle up the stairs. They didn’t want the pitying looks from strangers anymore or the terrified faces of mothers pulling their children a little bit closer.”
He turned his back on her and walked up to a half white half black pole that stretched over the height of the wall. The top three fourths of the cylindrical rust was twined with jutting metal, sharp enough to cut and draw blood. She watched him warily, four paces away, not saying a word. “Do you believe in the concept of soulmates? That someone in the world was made just for you?” “That’s retarded.” He shook his head and laughed quietly, placing the tip of his index finger on one of the wicked wires, continuing, “Well, he did. He felt an unexplainable attraction to this girl. Her bald spots from chemo and her sunken cheekbones didn’t hide the fact that she glowed from the inside, didn’t mar how beautiful she was. He admired how she still had the capability to laugh even though she knew she was dying, he admired that she was strong.” She joined him, now, but chose to smooth her hands over the bottom fourth of the pole,
devoid of the wire. “And?” “I got your interest.” “Shut up, jerk.” He laughed louder this time, “And so every night, he would climb this pole and scramble down the other side of this wall to visit her. He’d never go inside her house. He’d just sit outside her window and she would press her hands against the screen as he told her stories about the world. He wanted to give her hope and love when she had so little left. He wanted to tell her about the good in life as she slowly-“ “There is no good in life.” “-lost her eyesight because of the cancer. He told her about how beautiful his newborn cousin’s eyes were. He told her about what his coffee looked like at breakfast, with cream and milk and 36 grams of sugar. He described how the autumn leaves danced in light for the few seconds it took for them to fall to the ground and turn from gold to dead. He made her laugh when he told her how it felt to step in dog food, made her cry silently when he told her how white his grandmother looked as they closed the
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casket. He told her about how beautiful she was, but she never believed him.” She became angry now, and he knew it because he grabbed her chin and her shoulder scraped against the wires, but not deep enough to pierce the skin. Her gasp was covered by the tumble of words that came from his mouth as he said, “His parents found out about what he was doing, and decided to cover this pole with wires. But he didn’t stop. Under the sliver of blessed moonlight when he couldn’t even see what he was touching, he’d climb this pole and slip and cut his fingers his palms his wrists his thighs his shins his feet his face, but he would keep climbing and visit his love every single night to tell her stories about the world because he knew that if he did not, she would lose herself and concede to her sickness.”
“Let go of me.” “He felt the need to tell her stupid little stories about how his dog shed fur all over the couch or how beautiful the chorus in his new favorite song was because he wanted to save her in the only way he knew how, he wanted her to fall in love with the world and keep fighting to live.” “I DON’T WANT TO LIVE.”
“
And then the moon slipped out from beneath the clouds and reflected off of her angry, wet eyes and off of his calm, determined ones as he took in the tubes twining through her neck and nose, so much like the wires on that pole, keeping her alive and breathing.
”
He looked at her, with her head covered with tufts of hair that was falling out anyways, her nails that were as brittle and broken as the wall, and found her beautiful. He pulled her close, careful not to jostle her breathing tubes, and pressed her head against her shoulder as she sobbed so angrily, so unforgiving of the world that had decided to give her this sickness. “By the way, nothing I just said was true.” “Jerk.” Her words were muffled against the folds of his jacket.
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“But stories are based off of facts and I read this one off of like Facebook or something-“ She hit him softly on the hollow of his chest. “-and I’d like to think that somewhere, at some point in time, a love as pure and unyielding and powerful exists. I’d like to think that love, not only for one person, but love for the world and small, beautiful things in life, can fuel the will for someone who only knows pain to want to live. They just need to meet someone who would climb impossible walls for them.
Like I would for you.”
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Psychopathy: Strength or Hamartia? By: Melvin Zhou In this fictious story of romance and internal conflict, we are better able to understand the themes behind true psychopathy, and judge how they can be/are applied to our own lives. It is not a good feeling to be helpless, and I have known this all too well. Having been brought up in extreme poverty, my father would have been astonished to see how far I have come, how filthy rich I am now, and how powerful and influential I now am. Power and influence. The sources of my egotism. Two main driving forces that keep me going, and two driving forces that have gotten me where I am today. I look down from
the grandest building in the Shinjuku prefecture in Tokyo, and then I look towards the horizons. Olympus has merely become a new point of reference. Not many would not approve of my methods. My father would have been one of them. He was always considerate of the feelings of others, always helping others, and always feeling remorseful when he did anything immoral. He was empathetic and could easily committed to others. He would speak out against those who had done wrong or immoral things, and that, was dangerous. It was why I had to eliminate him. I hired a hitman to kill him two years ago, and I have never missed him. I have had to do many immoral things to get to where I am today, but I believe it is more rewarding to be powerful than to be loved. As Italian politician Niccolo Machiavelli said, “[It] is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with�. Then I met a woman who made me consider the very foundation of my beliefs, who made me question my character and ultimately, my identity. I remember the day as clearly as if it were yesterday. It was a beautiful spring afternoon in Osaka. The wind flowed through the violet wisteria, the bright pink cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom, and the sunlight accentuated the pure, innocent beauty of the peach flowers. I could not help but feel a tinge of despondency. Pure, innocent, uncorrupted beauty is difficult to find in this world. I sat down by
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the park bench overlooking the river and immersed myself in quiet contemplation. I did not notice her sit down next to me. I felt her hand brush gently across my shoulder as she asked, “What are you thinking about?” I looked at her and thought: damn, she is beautiful. I realized I had been staring, and that I had forgotten the question. She quietly laughed and repeated, “What are you thinking about?” The question took me by surprise, and I almost refused to answer. I never talk about my feelings, the ones that show the deeply repressed vulnerable side of me. No, I couldn’t do that. I looked back at her, and she was smiling, expecting me to start speaking. And for some reason, I did. I did not know how long I spoke with her for. As the sun began to set, I suddenly remembered that I had to be back in the company in ten minutes. I excused myself abruptly, and ran for the bus that was just about to pull away. That evening, she was all I thought about. I had never had a conversation quite like that.
“
She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved.
”
She was not just beautiful for the way she looks. There was something about her that was more deeply captivating. She was vivacious and witty. She seemed shy but she talked about so much. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I had fallen in love. I went back to the same park bench the next day. She was there, writing in a notebook. I realized I had not even gotten her name the day before.
To Be Continued...
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because you are NOT alone, and you need to know that.
WHY I STOPPED WRITING
By: Emily Liu
The concept of “support” has always been something of great importance to me. This is probably because humans tend to value those things they get very little, if not any, of. My family has never supported me. And the thing about family, is that the concept of “family” seems to serve as a reflex go-to for any first thoughts that come to your mind. Home? Family. Love? Family. My train of thought has always just been that if even your own family doesn’t give you a home, who ever will? If even your own bound by blood family will not love you, who ever will? If even my family won’t support me, who in the right friggen mind should? Obviously I’ve been doing something wrong, right? I have to change myself, right? You, my reader, have proven me wrong.
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Because the fact that you’re reading this irrelevant “post on not posting” means that you see something in me… It means on some degree, you support me. My family always says I can do better. No matter what I achieve, I can always achieve more. They believe this is the technique to making someone beyond perfect. So, they push and push and push, but one day I will fall. I tell them this, but they just laugh. But one day I will. One day, I will finally fucking fall. Because perfection does not exist, and “beyond perfection”, let me just make you realize, is mind-boggling contradicting within itself. I’m not a content person and you all know that. There’s too much for me to humanly do to finally be content, and I know this very well, yet still I try. I have this idea of perfection and a the determination that it must be achieved. Because only then, do
I believe, will I finally be able to breathe. Only then, will I only allow myself to breathe again. However, like with the rest of my family, satisfaction really does not exist even within my own self. I run and run and run until I don’t even realize I’m running anymore. I stress and stress and stress until I don’t even know what it feels like to not be stressed anymore. I’ve been staying up so late every night to work that now I’m not able to physically sleep more than 4 hours a day. Because I feel like only when I know that I am trying my hardest, hurting myself to my brink point, that I will ever achieve the satisfaction. It’s just another one of those prerequisites. As self destructive as this is, I guess I sort of like this life I’m only hardly living, right? My image of perfection is also almost entirely based off of other people and other people liking me. However, I have come to learn that this end destination does not exist. There will always be people who want to tear me down. My family will never be happy with who I am. Ultimately, I probably won’t ever either. So, I’m going to stop trying so hard. This is burdening me and it’s burdening others. This burdens others because, as much as I hate immediately assuming the worst in people, I have developed a hunch and fear that people only now talk to me out of moral obligation to. It is as if if they are not a hero, then they are a villain. What a beautiful way to describe pity. This burdens me because while my writing has helped some, it sure has not helped myself. It makes me sad. Lose sleep. Cry. Wonder more about things that don’t deserve my wondering. Think thoughts I don’t want to think
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about. In the past few months, I have compiled around a dozen unfinished pieces. I call them unfinished because I never dared type the last sentence because I am sick and tired and tired and sick of all of my stories having undesirable endings. Everybody who has ever talked to me about posting my writing tells me how they admire me. This is not because of my “quality”--if you can even call it that--writing. This is because of how supposedly, I am “courageous” for putting my mind out there like this. For being vulnerable. For the sake of others, right? Somebody needs to be the one writing about everything I write about, right? I joke around a lot about how I lack feelings. So I take this numbness and I convince myself, “Emily, you don’t matter. If you could feel the pain for others, do it. It doesn’t matter to or for you. If you could suffer so that somebody else wouldn’t have to, then do it!” I’m not going to do that any more. This is because of two reasons: 1) It literally doesn’t work and 2) Because that’s actually dumb as fuck. So what I used to think was, “Huh, this is cool. I’m doing a good thing.” But I’m not. I’m not cool, I’m not in any way talented, and My God, I am not “courageous”. I realized I’ve been mixing up “courageous” with oblivious. I’ve been the only one oblivious to the effects of publishing my vulnerability. The things I’ve been writing are honestly not meant to be heard. I am not just another sad story. I’m not that one emo kid. Stop telling me to smile. Stop asking if
I’m okay. Stop telling me to “stop”. LIKE WAIT PRESS PAUSE KUMBAYA LMFAO WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? *insert tumblr setting and lowered depressed voice* *everything around us pauses and the world stops* *sighs* “Stop.” You’re so hilarious. So now is when we get this crystal clear; right here, right now. I’m okay. I really am okay. I’m better than ever right now. So let me repeat: I am not just another sad
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story. I am alive. Right now, I stand up and see the lights on the building and everything that makes one wonder. And, like, I’m listening to that song, on that drive with the people who I love most in this world. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite. Oh, and if you’re wondering why that last line sounds so awkward and out of place, it’s actually from Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Maybe you should go read that shit instead.
PAIN IS NOT WEAKNES I remember one morning when I was biking to school and decided that it would be a good idea to try riding with no hands on the handlebar. Luckily, no one was there to witness me losing control of the bike, crashing into a curb on the sidewalk, doing a 180-degree flip in the air with my bike, and ending face down on the cement with a 50-pound bike on my back. The most immediate sensation was pain of course, which then dissolved into embarrassment, and then the situation seemed almost hilarious after I saw the bruises and cuts on me in my phone camera. I bike a lot. In fact, my bike is my transportation to school, cafes, work, practically everywhere a 17-year-old teenager might need to go to. My favorite moments with my bike, however, were with my friends. I loved going on biking trips with my friends, where we would ride side by side to where adventure might ever lead us. It was these moments in my life with just me and my friends that I cherished the most.
I actually didn’t have very many friends at all, because I have trouble bonding with most people I meet. I had four friends that I would hang out with at school, after school, before school, on the weekends, and late at night online when we should have slept hours ago since school starts in less than 5 hours. When I was with my friends, I felt confident and vulnerable in a good way. Instead of having to shield every single emotion I had, I was able to openly express how I felt around my friends without feeling anxious and nervous I was being judged, and they felt the same way. It was a mutual system of support for angst-y teens going through a critical period of extraordinary physical, intellectual, and emotional growth.
“
Until one day the very friends I turned to for years seemed foreign to me, and I to them.
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SS LEAVING THE BODY By: Anonymous
It was earlier this year, when a certain traumatic event lead to a chain of disasters that caused what I am certain now would have been diagnosed as clinical depression. I had completely changed as a person, and my friends weren’t able to accept that in the end. For the first few weeks, they offered me a great deal of support; I was dragged along to bike rides, malls, movies, etc. However, they soon began to become hesitant in inviting me to the things we used to always do together. Maybe it was because I started making jokes
that were too dark for even us, or my total apathy in everything I used to love that defined me as person. Slowly, I drifted away from all the people I thought I could never live without. The pain of these particular friendships being shredded to pieces was not sudden and abrupt like falling off a bicycle. It was a slow, burning, heartache that seemed to eat me from within my guts. It’s not the type I might experience biking uphill, with my whole body painfully screaming at the lungs to inhale more of that oxygen, and especially the legs burning and trying to push for long enough to just get me over the hill so I can cruise along on the glorious downhill. No, it was the sad and lonely type of pain that a person might experience after a rough
breakup. The jealous and guilty type of pain from looking at my friends congregating in the hallway at the “usual spot,” and walking straight past them because I know that although they’d never tell me I wasn’t welcome, they actually can’t stand the new me. And with every step I take, tears well up in my eyes, my heart beats so fast it feels as if I might go into cardiac arrest at any minute, my vision darkens with dancing spots everywhere, and my lungs feel so tight I physically cannot breathe properly. With every laughter from them I hear, I hatefully and angrily place one foot in front of the other to get away and wash my face in the bathroom, so then I can let out a few camouflaged tears among water I’m drenching my head in. Even now, 3 months after that crazy hailstorm of anxiety and fear, I still can’t even look at a photo of my friends without having to hold back tears. Even though I got back on my bike and kept riding, I can still feel bruises and cuts on my face, arms, and legs. Although a few days afterwards, I did learn to bike with no hands very well.
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“Although a
few days afterwards, I did learn to bike with no hands very well.
�
The World Outside of Industrial Society Change is imperative, but human beings love the comfort familiarity provides. Indeed, the vast majority of people are comfortable living in today’s technologically-advanced industrial society. However, I have always felt that there was something missing, a bleak emptiness. I always felt an internal conflict, a certain inexplicable unease, at the way life was in the society that we are so seemingly content in. I felt a loss of individuality in the society that silences the individual voice, in the society where the diversity is reduced to uniformity. I believed there was an illusion of freedom, which enables people to “tolerate social conditions that they would find otherwise intolerable” (Kaczynski par. 145). Perhaps, I thought, the people who are so comfortable with this mode of existence are truly the ones who are abnormal. Feeling a lack of fulfillment in so-
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By: Melvin Zhou
Art is a powerful form of self expression.
ciety, I began to seek for my own sense of individuality and freedom, and I found it my exploration with nature. I visited Japan in the spring of 2015, and the experience was formative to my appreciation of art, my perception of the world, and my aspirations. When I visited Japan in the spring of 2015, I was astonished at how aesthetically pleasing everything was. There was art in ceramics, calligraphy, architecture, and most beautifully of all, in nature. The Japanese highly value the preservation of nature, and I felt a profound catharsis when I explored the beauty of nature in Japan. I wanted to preserve every fleeting moment and sensation as I wandered through the forests and springs of Hakone, the beautiful beaches, mountains, and sea of Ishigaki and Okinawa, and the cedars Yakushima.I began to notice how much of the art in Japan was influenced by nature, and my own appreciation of art involving nature began to flourish.
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“
The most peaceful settings evoke the greatest sensations, thoughts, and ideas. The sensations, thoughts, and ideas that nature evokes are those most intrinsic to our humanity.
�
I looked at the world from the top of Mount Fuji, and faced a daunting reality. It was the reality that those parts of me have been repressed all my life. My perception of the world changed through my exploration of the natural world. It was nature that was the real world, my real world. The life I had known was founded upon illusion of freedom. The beauty I saw in the blooming cherry blossoms was so true, so pure, so original. Exploration of nature assuaged the feelings of ennui that had developed from living the life I had been living. I found my own sense of individuality and freedom in nature. The experiences of my exploration in nature were formative to my appreciation of art, perception of the world, and my aspirations. I found the world outside of industrial society, and this was the world that has been kept from me all my life. I found pure beauty in nature, and this is the environment I wanted to return to in the future.
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the in-between
By: Sage Shiloh
Sometimes, the easiest way to forgive is to forget. I can vividly think up that piercing screech of my brain laughing at the rest of my own self. I think up this piercing scream and I imagine myself in a modern art museum. The walls are grey but the lights are just so bright, and I’m standing there examining this painting. It’s on this grand canvas slathered with oil paints of different tones of colors in different places, with the different strokes in different lengths, with different brushes in different directions. And somehow, this mess of a color scheme all adds up to what I recognize as a gruesome battle of my head versus my heart. One is telling me to forgive, the other is telling me to forget, because both know there is no in-between. No ideal in-between. Not one without that piercing screech of my brain laughing at the rest of my self.
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There is a set type of items that humans are attracted to. You know how dads generally like sprinkler systems that are self-timed and can cover an entire field. Colleges like 4.0 GPAs. Boys like blonde chicks with long legs, and Californians like kale and avocados. My mother likes houses. My mother likes nice big pretty houses because she believes they are a sign for success. My mother likes nice big pretty houses because only when she is in ownership of a nice big pretty house will she ever let herself start living. She is so fond, no, she is so obsessed with this idea that Perfection must be achieved. And she believes that having her name signed on a paper for a nice big pretty house is one of those last deciding factors towards Perfection. Photo By: Shraesht Chitkara
And that’s exactly what happened. 35347 Farkle Circle to 3146 Durham Court to 1514 Magnolia Street. This journey from circle to court to street has been my mother’s journey towards Perfection, and it has been her run away from all things bad. She chooses to show the world not her head, heart, nor her in-between, because she is constantly running, and never settling. Never in the time continuum is she anything more than just a blur. My mother never finishes anything off, and runs away from old problems into new problems, until she finds a potential ideal solution. We have resided from dollhouse to dollhouse, filled with doll people and doll furniture. The windows are always shining and have matching curtains and shutters; pillows are perfectly placed; the tiles are perfectly symmetrical. This type of life is what society tells us Perfection is-- with the backyard barbeques, the wine sipping, the holiday family vacations-- and this is what my mother has brainwashed herself to believe as well.
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One night, I found my mother in my room examining one of my paintings. It was this very depressing piece, telling the story of a man and a woman who just found out their son had taken his life. The two were standing within a background of colors flowing down the paper crying for them. The mother was holding onto the father with her hand clawing on suit, and the father was holding the mother on the crook of her back and clenching her golden brown hair. The hair was beautiful… Not in any other parts of the picture did I show sunlight, except reflecting off of that hair, and I had textured the paint to exaggerate every single strand and the calculated placed highlights. With his fingers woven through her hair, they were one. “I see hope,” My mother told me. “This is definitely sad, but it’s not just any sad drawing about death, is it? This… you… this has a purpose, and it isn’t to make people sad when they see it.” “I get it,” She said.
I hated hearing those words. I hated hearing my mother tell me she understood me. I hated that my mother understood me, because what she really meant was that I understood her. And I hated that. I hate it because it feels like those words are the looming choking pollution to a city that could be so alive and so beautiful and so Perfect. I hate that she needs me in her life. My mother likes me because she saw in my teenage self the ability to understand things that none of her friends, or the rest of our family, the same way as she does. She needs me with her. Yet, I make it so hard on her to love me, which is something I understand. Of course I understand. I know I’m a hard person to love-- I have an issue with it too. I make it so goddamn hard to love me‌ so hard that it hurts.
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People tell me that the most net beneficial way of going on with life is to always take control of things. Don’t let that bothersome thing bother you. Forget. Move on. Be smart about things. Follow your head. That’s what my mother did. She decided to forget. That’s what my entire family did. They decided to forget. When you forget, you don’t need to forgive, right? One unforgivable thing happened at Fitzgerald Circle one night. It’s one that every one of us in this family was supposed to forget. My mother was argueing with my father over a bunch of things: how he shouldn’t be taking my older brother out to the movies to have fun… how he was treating her mother (my grandmother) unfairly… probably one or two things on the growing stash of alcohol on this shelf in the garage…
The typical.
I think he was drunk. I hope he was drunk. My mother was crying and yelling. She cries because she wishes she loved him like she did ten years ago. Then, my father started smashing things around him. He threw plates, that my grandparents had hauled all the way from Alaska when they first came to the United States, and had broken chips of the tiled floor. Hell, he even broke a bottle of vinegar. I remember when he pulled together all the curtains that night, and locked every door of our small house. And I remember amidst all that mayhem… So, I live in this wonderful small city in the Bay Area of California, and I never really experienced what “bad weather” was like. I never had to hide in bathtubs for tornadoes, or seek shelter underground during hurricanes. Yet, I know that same feeling so well. The moment where the screaming around you is just so loud, it’s more than just sound waves. It every single sense-- it’s the taste of bitterness, the smell of the sour fucking vinegar, the sound of the screaming and the heavy air clos-
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ing in on me, the sight of blackness and inverted colors as I was shutting my eyes SO TIGHTLY to MAKE IT ALL GO AWAY, and the feeling-the physical feeling of colors, but this time bad colors, because colors are typically supposed to be beautiful and nice, but they really weren’t-- of everything around me punching me. It wasn’t this sharp pain like needles all over my body, or a slap, it was just like… it was just pain. It was pain, and it was the pain of not being able to do anything. There was screams coming from everywhere, and amidst that I remember starting to scream too. Because my father had pinned my mother to a wall and choked her and she could hardly breathe and she just had this little chuckle like an I can’t believe this is happening chuckle, you don’t mean this chuckle, that damn nervous laughter of her’s and he asked her who she thought she was and she just gave up and was crying and crying and crying and he was holding this kitchen knife up against her throat and
We still use the same kitchen knife.
Now, I don’t remember exactly what happened after that, or how it all ended. I just remember you gathered my two brothers and I around and we all agreed to pick up all the pieces of broken glass. We slept with the windows open that night so some of the stench of the vinegar would wash out. And we all promised to never let our grandparents know because we knew just how much it would break my grandmother’s heart if she found out about her missing china. My mother slipped into bed with me that night. I don’t remember who started crying first, but we were both in the course of time crying. Crying, for every single reason out there. And you told me, “Who needs him?” “I don’t.” “We don’t.” “You don’t need him.” “You have me.”
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I guess I fell asleep, eventually. That’s when I first came to realize my mother needed me. From all these years, she had finally found someone who just gets her. And I’m a pain in the ass, stressed, depressed, not doing her best girl. Sometimes, the easiest way to forgive is to forget. When selling that house on Fitzgerald Circle, people had asked what had happened with that crack in the tile in our kitchen, and my mother always said she just dropped some heavy object. She said it with no emotion, a perfect poker face, that she probably thought she wasn’t even lying. The way my family treats it; it’s like it never even happened. Good for them. Good for them that some stupid thing that happened ten years ago never got in the way of what this dollhouse family is now. Good for them, because I know that only because they have all forgotten have they have been able to move on. Move on to having those weekend backyard barbeques and wine sipping and holiday vacations.
Good for them, because they don’t experience that same attack of panic, that sudden random 2 PM or 2 AM flashbacks of fear, and that same feeling of loss of control. Good for them for taking the utilitarian route and not letting stupid shit from a good decade ago keep them up at night. It’s self-destructive to be inable to let things go. The battle with myself has broken me down. I just don’t have the strength, or perhaps I am too strong, to give in to either my head or my heart. Forever, I will be stuck in this in-between. I will be stuck in this in-between that society knows so well but doesn’t accept. People will always prey on me and call out this weakness of mine, while in truth, everybody has this weakness. I just don’t hide it. I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of hiding, like my mother. I am tired of hiding on this stupid Magnolia Street in this stupid dollhouse with it’s stupid barbeques and disgusting wine sipping and fake smiles on family vacation photos. Forever, I choose to live in this No Man’s Land and stay
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in my ugly colored in-between. After all, we are human, aren’t we. We need both head and heart. Just let me live.
gifting the most vulnerable parts of ourselves out there for others.
“My Mother’s Wedding Flowers” Emily Liu color pencil
art
art
Antony Chen Ink
art
Master study of Georgia o’Keeffe Angela Xuan Oil Paint
art
“Where I Want to Be”
Angela Xuan Color Pencil
art
Emily Liu Ink
Lady Pride Shraesht Chitkara Watercolor
art
art
Emily Liu Sketchbook//Mixed Media
art
making the intangible tangible.
Arshad Mohammad
photography
photography
Shraesht Chitkara
photography
photography
photography
Portraits Kellie Chen
photography
when less is more.
COLORS
poetry
I think it’s the reds and the blues. The Saturday nights where you’re digging your nails so far into your palms that you feel your skin breaking, but it doesn’t really matter because how dare he. The Sunday mornings when you wake up with tears in your eyes because it’s cartoon day but she’s gone so now you don’t have her laugh to fill up your empty living room. It’s the greens and the yellows. The time your father actually came home and mowed the lawn and you walked out into the front yard not quite comprehending what was happening, but the freshly cut grass felt so nice on your tired feet. It’s the time your friend pushed you into her swimming pool and even though the fear of drowning keeps you up at night, she was just trying to have fun and so were you. It’s the orange and the purple. The pile of fall leaves you spent hours collecting only to break your arm as soon as you sunk into it. The drink he mixed for you that night; the only thing you remember from that night. It’s the black and the white. The I don’t know what happened last night. But the hospital looks real pretty in this light.
--Anoushka Singhal
Photo By: Kellie Chen
THOSE RED LIGHTS poetry
Damn those red lights.
We’re racing down the 3rd street, And your laughter has somehow entwined with this wistful sadness that I have come to hold close to my heart, But you see the crimson color and I hear the screech, And the moment ends with the speed just like that. We’ve both got thoughts, But your’s go on for miles and miles and mine? Words. But according to me and according to this energy flowing through my fingers, typing out these thoughts, Words don’t matter. Nothing ever happens. Really? Or is this just bullshit I tell myself because I need a reason, no an excuse to keep feeling sad, to keep feeling this horrid feeling of unbelonging within myself. Somedays, I want to rip my skin off. Electricity isn’t an easy thing to contain within your veins, Because one moment you’re buzzing a bit and
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then the next moment you feel like lightning and you know that this isn’t a forever feeling, but really who’s to say what forever is because for me forever is “borrowing” food and laughing as we walk through the wind and using every single inch of my emptiness to fill you up, But what if your forever may be something entirely different and that’s so scary and terrifying because what if your forever doesn’t include me at all? And we all live in a gauntlet of forevers but the only true forever is the unavoidable emptiness of
What is this emptiness? It’s swimming with stones tied to the bottom of our feet, And saying words that take detours so you never really realize that they’ve hit me, And this emptiness if those fucking red lights that never seem to cease.
--Riya Kataria
ALMOSTTHERE Do you know the feeling of almostthere? It’s strange, Almost like thinking there’s one more step of the stairs than there actually is. But when you actually try to climb those stairs, Your foot passes straight through and you get this and you get this sickly feeling Of missing something that was never really there. That’s kinda how I feel about you. You’re there and it seems as if you’ve always been there but you’re never there. And that’s just my problem because really, How do you love a shadow? Life is like this too, Live every day to the fullest right? But how do you live ever day to the fullest when the only times you’ve ever felt full is when you’re full of sadness of doubt and full of wanting– no– needing something more. I’m always sad but never sad enough, Never sad enough to do anything about it and never sad enough to say it out loud but I’m always sad enough to feel this way,
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Always fighting for other people to be okay because if you can’t succeed the first time try try again but on a different person right? Because you can’t fuck up when others feel okay because who needs feelings when you could just bury them and let them simmer and stew, Only when they boil up instead of letting them explode, You implode and take every single thing you’ve ever felt and let it take over you until you– You move past almostthere. What happens after that?
Blank space. Where your story could be because it ended too damn early. Go love a shadow, Because behind every shadow, there is a person. I’m just waiting to see who you are.
--Riya Kataria
poetry//art
my, left, shoulder, Emily Liu Mixed Media
My Left Shoulder I still fucking smell like you. and as i take off my clothes and step into the shower to, like, yenno, wash you gone all the flowers, those small small flowers, that a small small child picked, picked with passion and happiness and color and so many stories, all the flowers you put in my hair, and the ones that fell down my shirt, they all wash away too. Dead. they wash away dead. Dead, Like what I’d led myself to believe I would be without you.
--Emily Liu
poetry
t h e D a y N i g h t
It’s that feeling, The one where you feel like you’re alone, But you know you aren’t. So like I’m laying there On this one kid bridge in a kid playground, A kid castle, Where the kids can pretend they are the princes and princesses of the world. So I’m laying there counting the stars that aren’t even yet in the sky, And you come lay by me on that bridge, And my entire right touches your entire left, That goddamn human warmth, It feels like we are one, It feels like we are a We. It’s that feeling, the one where you feel like you’re alone but you know you aren’t, There’s so much we can talk about, But nothing needs to be said, Because in these mere moments, we are looking up at this same sky we look up to every day and every night, Every DayNight, Except this time, we are looking at it Together. As one, as a We. So much to say, but we say nothing Nothing about those Day things or those Night things, Just that the sky looks real pretty todaynight, The purples and the blues and the pinks, and if you look real hard enough The really bright specks of orange hues. We tell ourselves that these Daynights are special, That this get-together of the melting of colors into one another from the outside world nobody knows well enough, That these mere moments are the ones that matter. Or maybe it’s just that nothing else matters, Not when it’s you and me, and one, and We, princes and princesses on these kid bridges in these kid castles, Feeling that feeling. --Emily Liu
epilogue
Index All photos used are public domain images, from photography friends, or otherwise purely for educational purposes. You can contact any of the photographers listed through Facebook and other social media sites. This zine is operated under CA Nonprofit Organization Youth Literacy Society. YLS is a group founded by high school students, which goes around to elementary schools implemting curriculum in journalism and writing, producing the magazine The Whistleblower at the end of each year. All extra profits from the organization will go into Project Color is Everywhere, which produces coloring books that will then be distributed to children in less-than-ideal living conditions.
The P.ART Lit Zine will take into consideration publishing close to any work-- whether that be opinion articles, current journalism, art, photography, or any type of literature. To submit work, email EIC heyitzem.ilyliu@gmail.com, or through the website www.partlitmag.wordpress.com.