Sirens Zine Issue #3

by

qu

ee

rP

OC

cre

ati

ve

s

sirens zine in I. Re .

L t by r a r cove

oso

Stephanie Ngo Stephanie Ngo Stephanie Ngo

-03

Magazine Title

Stephanie Ngo

-05

Magazine Title

You Bring Out the Yucatecan in Me ( a love letter to myself )

AN HOMAGE TO SANDRA CISNEROS’ YOU BRING OUT THE MEXICAN IN ME

by FLORIX

You bring out the mayan jungle in me, the complex art of silence in me.

You bring out the abstain-from-sex in me, the paintings in me, baths of color falling out of me.

You bring out the alchemist in me, the poet of many worlds in me.

You bring out the mask in me, the snake-in-the-tambourine in me.

You bring out the wear-bright-colors-to-thefuneral in me, the peninsula wishing to be an island in me.

You bring out the cherished in me, you do.

You bring out the revolt in me, the threat of caste war in me.

You bring out the echo in me, the sound of cenotes in me.

You bring out the jasmine oil in me, the brush-my-hair-and-sing in me.

You bring out the serpent in me, the fierce medicine in me.

You bring out the blood in me, the corn as flesh and water in me.

You bring out the crone in me, the all-seeing eye in me.

You bring out the storm in me, the tear-it-all-down-and-run in me.

You bring out the graveyard picnics in me, the quiet nights with ancestors in me.

You bring out the sex in me, the dance with the spirits in me.

You bring out the Frida’s daughter in me, the individualist spirit in me.

You bring out the words in me, the prehistoric prayer in me.

You bring out the creator in me, the destroyer making room for the sun in me.

You bring out the song in me, the surreal raven in me.

You bring out the silver in me, the nine copper bangles in me.

You bring out the joy in me, the screw-the-world-I’m-whole in me.

You bring out the inner walls in me, the unknowable in me, my love.

You bring out the soldier in me, the greet the dawn and work in me.

You bring out the ancient in me, the stink of other lives in me.

Stephanie Ngo

AMBER MILLER Piranha Mouth I’m on vicodin/or ritalin or the pill you pop that/ends in “in” or “et” that makes me not feel or forget my ends or that /I’m ending [this]/ i’ve called you fifty times since five let me know you’re alive/but you’ll be in the ground quicker if you/decide to dis me tonight don’t you miss me tonight?/ am I in your dreams swimming deep like that fucker you like?

AGEMO FRANCIS SEWANU My Ugly Art don’t Smell, it has survived the tidal wave of information, and remains an unpredictable source of imagination.

The world may not change at instant by art,but it’s slow and insipid spread into the active part of our brains lives to tell the tale.

-09

AGEMO FRANCIS SE WANU Magazine Title

Stephanie Ngo

BY LEE

-011

E

BY L.I. REINOSO

Magazine Title

Stephanie Ngo

Sk Hold me b Keep me tog

Eye Cryi tears Shed the other k

Mou Mak mist Kiss he

Ea Hear please and Bleed from all t

Han Break everythin Wish to hold you m thin poem by

photos by Mei

-013

kin ding back ping gether

yes ing of joy dding kind of tears

uth king takes sing er

ars ring d thank you ding the noise

nds king ng in sight hing more than anyng Shanjani

ilani Mandery

Magazine Title

Stephanie Ngo

H A’A H E O AUWAE-DEKKER POEM BY

I. Pussy says Soak her lips in soy sauce and ginger root To clean the exotic out and Wash away with ocean water Scoop handfuls from the beaches If you find Haole trash She says whisper a quick “sorry for your loss” Before boiling it in your grandmother’s favorite kettle To evaporate any impurities.

She said a watched pot never boils So don’t give it the pleasure of your eyes.

II. Hips says Scrub his bones raw with Seaweed and lava rock Make them shine just as Ancestors before may have Or perhaps how they do now Mom always said they watch us from the stars Are they up there?

III. Scalp says Fill bomb craters that may be resting In the hair follicles With oha berry juice so that it may Shine under the moon glow just as Amethyst glistens under light Or as a freshwater lake reflects a scene like a mirror Papa always said the head held our knowledge Teach scalp to hold healing just as they cradle the gift of wisdom.

-015

S W E AT O F COMFORT ALEXI DUCH AND TRENT DOYLE

PHOTO BY

L.I.REINOSO

IIII. Feet says“Keep me calloused” Never scrub and never wash, Please keep me scarred and hardened, I am the feet of your mother and your grandmother and You. I am bearer of good news And the one who shoulders your pain.

Never make me soft for it is I, Who holds the weight of the Generations behind you and the Generation in front of you I am the part of your body that will never forget.

Magazine Title

Stephanie Ngo

EVI PIN

-017

NESCHI Magazine Title

EYEDENTITY THEFT

Stephanie Ngo

Marinna Shareef is a 20 year old Trinidadian multimedia artist who manipulates both digital and physical media to portray the magnitude of her emotions that she experiences as someone who has bipolar disorder. Using visual imagery to organize her thoughts into a way that she can better understand, she aims to take viewers out of their world and into hers so that they can have a better understanding of the illness.

-019

Marinna Shareef Marinna Shareef

Magazine Title

M A N I C PA N I C

Marinna Shareef

-021

OSCAR GALLEGOS ZAMORA

Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

Oscar Gallegos Zamora

-023

Magazine Title

A Well Balanced Decision

Marinna Shareef

EMILIO CARABALLO

Forever includes now We have choices to be made To be stuck Is a lack of movement On one’s own part I choose today as I’ll choose my tomorrow I gurantee my forever Is how I want it to be If it is not what I like I must decide if the ends Justify the means Facets of me are assets Worth safeguarding If my hunger is not satisfied I will go to the tree Set the water for the fruits I truly need May I bathe off Any subjectivity For its dirt Will not only muddy skin But these labors of life Muddle the mind

Humans Their own blocks And bridges Forever is now What walks into your universe Over your earth Will seep unto your soil Is all that encompasses you Providing sustenance Or the egos neediness Is there any sign of growing foliage Has your spirit been left destitute If a decision need be made Will you?

Now is part of forever But forever is not permanent Merely consistent Life is ever changing It’s asking if you can change with it Now, decide love Now, decide peace Now, decide patience Now, decide kindness And you shall receive This can be your universe forever If you decide now You’re an entity beyond worthy So go ahead spare yourself Give the soul mercy

KELSEY

-025

DANI Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

JUSTINE OF SWORDS

-027

T H E E C S TA S Y O F L I F E ERIKA REYES

You need me to bite you Until my teeth sink into your nectar.

I need to feel you.

Your nectar wrapped around me.

Juices running as I grab harder.

Not intending to release these fingers clenching the flesh of you.

The joy.

The delicacy of pain.

You bring and I bring you into me even more.

I look only to taste you then keep rubbing lips and tongue And all of me until there’s no more.

No more to you and no more energy left in me.

Until satiation tastes like monotony and I feel like I’ve done it all and you stop sending me to ecstasy.

It will be then when there’s nothing left that I can let go of indelible yearning and tell you once more.

The ultimate and final time.

Take me, but take me completely.

I’m ready for nonexistence.

Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

BOIFREND

by Zoraida Ingles

BOIFREND series is an exploration into Chinese lineage and gender play, influenced by historical dramas and modern pop culture.

-029

Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

-031

Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

-033

A POEM TO TIME-PASSED (13 lines)

I do not know if you see yourself as luminous.

The rays of warm light evade you like partially-misshapen blinds in a barren window.

A distortion of a handprint sits there, on the dusty sill. Fingerprints and skeleton keys with naught a perfect composite, nor opposite left behind.

Lemon peels, scraped and dried, sun-dyed and forgotten.

All my years in six medium-sized boxes two of them books, 17 missing jackets.

ARBALAST

(8 lines)

honesty is a growing wildness in the feral intelligence of athena’s tongue, in the kiss of sacred artemis; licking her arrow of poison before she darts. tender, teeth-tugged truth like a fellmonger, biting into the resilience of musk and hide; you cannot stretch such sincerity but so far before it breaks - either you, or it

CASEY FRANCIS Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

SHANE ALLISON

-035

R E FA E L S A L E M R O Z E N Magazine Title

Rhiannon

Marinna Shareef

This desire heavy heaven, This smoldering Amber flame in which there is Warmth for our hands I look to mine and realize all the empty spaces are for you Where you fit so perfectly like you were carved from me Your sculptured vessel a prism where my white light Transforms into colors (and you are) varied and Brilliant And I like to think of your eyes as the beginning of sight Your voice the beginning of speech Your ample lips the beginning of words Your chiseled hands the beginning of touch Your bubblegum tongue the beginning of taste Your being the genesis of my life

amber milller

-037

ITS EXACTLY W H AT YO U THINK (RED) LAURA REYES AND TRENT DOYLE

L.I.REINOSO

I will tend to the vegetable garden/out back/ you tend the flowers/out front/ like your parents taught you/ we can have a home/ you can have me every night/ all the shakes and moans/ Brown skin we caress/ Brown skin growing old/ there will be music/ there will be counts and new rhythms/ also, there will be stories and children/ but there won’t be love/ and that’s the cue/I tell you/ that’s a new destiny come a knocking/ before this existence/ before the mistakes/a new one forming/a muse calls me away/ and five back another hymn/ who knows when it’ll end/ calling new life/a response definite/ to you a knocking/ to me a good one/ that needs me to pay/ this is my destiny/ my feet they go trotting/ to the sound of a new horn/ they don’t want to stay Magazine Title

Erika Reyes

Marinna Shareef

-039

Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

-041

Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

-043

Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

ART BY EVI PINESCHI

WHO IS HERE AND WHAT IS COMING -045

there is crystalline sound in the ringing sky, i am afraid to listen in too closely what if i can’t stop dreaming once it is heart? it could resound forever in the halls of a spacious chamber until all other sound within me is sourceless save for a name the fragility of what swirls within will upend me, like a postulant acting on instinct calling with grace, and a pearl in their throat, a whisper of “what if i’m destroyed” hinging on every moment like a siren’s song i can’t say if we’re ready or not, but time is thin and tenuous with its fingers on the edge and winter feels close enough to touch change out the color of the cloth, let the candles burn late on the altar, cover your mirrors in faith, woven or felted as you dress the wound in your heart with a poultice of lavender, and rub the eyelids with dust of yarrow. nettles drained and drunk with honey-flavored soma may soothe the nightmares leaking in your head as libation to the many-faced gods long last, sour memories fade to sweetness the queen anne’s lace are such eyes on a stem, flowering in white and purple crowns, where it attracts the curious loiter, reaching in with emptiness in spaces not meant to be replaced your heart dilates as a flaming star, collapses in oscillation on the window your sight traces rain like a river until you feel you’ve cried enough dig in deep, be drenched earth and take time accepting how heavy such love can be Magazine Title

CASEY FRANCIS

(35 lines)

STEPHANIE NGO

Marinna Shareef

-047

Magazine Title

Marinna Shareef

sirens zine ISSUE THREE

MEILANI MANDERY