raw
issue 2
Protect me
from what I want
mirae lee + amy wang
PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT illustrated by mirae lee designed by amy wang
raw
Copyright © 2016 Mirae Lee & Amy Wang All rights reserved.
raw adjective | /rô/ 1. Honest, vulnerable, natural. 2. Not having undergone processes of manufacture. 3. Painfully exposed, as a sore or a wound. RAW is a zine of real, unfiltered stories and thoughts. This is us, beneath the walls and the ruckus of a socially constructed mask. These are ordinary experiences — ones that you and I all go through. We share not to impose, but to reflect and connect. We hope that as you make your way through these pages, you find parts of yourself, a little something that resonates with your own story.
introduction For our second issue, we wanted to explore an aspect of the human condition that strongly pervades contemporary societies: craving. Whether we realize it or not, we are almost always in a state of longing. From seeking attention, acceptance, success, excitement…to past memories, material items, and even other people — our realm of desire never stops expanding. Once a want is met, we naturally move on to the next. In a healthy state, this helps us survive and progress in life. But when left uncontrolled, our cravings can quickly become larger than ourselves, bordering on obsession or addiction. The title of this issue is a nod to the artist Jenny Holzer’s Survival (1983-85) series. Holzer displayed the statement as an enormous LED billboard installation at the busy Times Square in New York City. Protect me from what I want. A sharp, pithy statement that we think represents craving, or more accurately, our powerful yet fragile self when faced with desire.
Do I love (me in love with) you I hold onto my phone Hoping for your name to flash on For a message of confirmation I try to remember your hands Running down my hair Your arms around me but Those were fleeting moments A sensation only I can recollect Persistently in my head To remember that I had loved And I can love And I am being loved but Only as temporal marks Transient embrace As I record all of our brunch dates The sweet words you texted me The sweet things you’ve done for me When your hands touched mine Our intimate moments The moments between you and me but My phone always in hand I click through our moments For others to see For others to show their likes Their jealousy at what we have and I question myself
Is it really you that I miss Is it really you that I want or Is it the presence of someone Who in that moment Could assure me That I have loved. That I could love. And I am loved. but Do I really have to ensure To delve into my insecurities Do I have to stamp These ephemeral moments In the state of being loved but I just want you to know Is this a love for you Or maybe a love for me But Maybe I’m more in love In love with me Myself In the state Of Being in Love.
— m.l.
Disappearing act Look at her. Smooth, silky skin against satin sheets It’s summertime in the magazines. Lithe, delicate, bigger than life with those bashful eyes. The Perfect Body™ the picture of gorgeous a woman ought to be. A twinge of envy. An empty image grows into a heavy burden You don’t notice until the day you find yourself bleeding on your knees. You starve to be thinner, smaller eventually you get what you want. There’s less of you here You, my dear, start to disappear.
— a.w.
The more you have Hello, we would like to extend you an exclusive, limited time offer. If you buy one more item, you can get 15% off your entire purchase! Are you sure you don’t need some accessories to match with that top? Do you want fries with that? How lucky are we that all we could ever want or need can be right at our fingertips. We are youthful, imperfect, and eager. The perfect demographic to be capitalized on. Going to the mailroom is always a trip to Flyers and Discounts City and there comes a point when a closet full of clothes starts to resemble a suffocation device. We live on Planet Earth, not the Shopping Channel. Consumerism speaks not a loud booming voice, but rather a whisper so quiet it’s commonplace. The more you have, the better you will feel. A lie A myth A parasite home in the walls of our brains happily fed on a diet of insecurities. A message that we like to deny that we subscribe to. How many of us ever really fully make it out of this deception game?
— a.w.
You can’t live in paradise
You gently tell her “I kind of miss you” And memories flutter Through and about Your head space To hers Those few days You were in paradise You set aside your reality Flaws within a dream so unreal By reminders on your phone screen By the ring around your finger By the histories that define who you are Yet those few days You dwelled in a time travel Back to your younger days With sunshine embracing You wanted to savour every moment
You looked into her eyes You teased and joked You opened up your heart Let yourself so vulnerable And poured your struggles To her and her heart You followed her around Held her door wherever she went You wanted to touch her Hold her delicate hands But she brushed it off With an oblivious laugh A lucid dream Reality so detached So hidden behind her smile You didn’t want to smudge it Afraid that she’ll go away You wanted to be with her But you knew your feelings were wrong So unfaithful to your whole story Wrong in so many ways Yet faltering at her every laugh Fighting the pleasures Against your reality check Those few days cannot be replicated It was a paradise left behind You have to let it go.
— m.l.
#can_i_be_you Everyday is a constant cycle of jealousy to be not me to be more like someone everybody will like that you will love. I begin to see the world through a square viewfinder Seeking for the pretty in the mundane that minimalist aesthetic a trend of an ideal what a perfect life you live No more for the fun but a recognition of my dreams to entrust you with my desire to feel like I belong in your world. My life consists of a screen Scrolling through your life Tapping twice to give you a heart A heart so unstable with my envy
As I drool through your YouTube Your colour coded closet A vacation every snap As I move through your alter ego Of a white ghost in yellow Reminiscing a moment not mine The fun I could not attend The money I could not have The time I did not have And so my morning routine And a good night scroll For an escape To a life Your life The perfect, ideal For a dream of the better A life with no flaws No blemishes to be covered #goalz.
— m.l.
Blessings I. I’ve always longed for Sundays. Pull-myself-out-of-bed-for-church Sundays Eat-dim-sum-like-every-other-Sunday Sundays, with congee-slurping grandpas cheek-squishing aunts uncles that laugh too loud and cousins you can’t even count My friends ask if my fam-jams are like theirs too Diving into foreign territory, I can’t relate to the people with whom I share blood are strangers at best, far from a full house that to you might look like a mess, but to me you’ve been blessed.
II. On Sundays, my mom lives in our yard. She used to have me help her pull out weeds as a little kid, and I never really got the deal with the dirty work until I saw the flowers come in bloom. Throughout the years, the houses, and any heartache, one thing that’s never changed — neighbours love our garden. Green Thumb is my mom’s nickname. And it hits me that even when the streets aren’t the same and life carries more weight, our grass is always just as green. I hope I never forget Sundays are a blessing Sundays are rich and colourful just as they have been.
— a.w.
meet the creators
@amyadrien Amy Wang is a writer and photographer. Formerly studying English literature at the University of Toronto, she is now pursuing a path where she can spend the rest of her life creating. She has a thing for subways and haikus, and believes that living with presence is the most important thing we can do.
@miraelxx Mirae Lee is currently an undergraduate art history and sociocultural anthropology student at the University of Toronto. On a lifelong journey of negotiating her identity, her current interest topic is the complicatedness of Asian-Canadian positionality, both within a societal understanding and on a global stage.
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