Soliloquie Magazine Issue 002 by soliloquie magazine

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editor's letter

i’m sitting at my local library writing this, in the teen’s section, with the big windows and the endless light. i just saw one of my closest friends, i’ve known her for how long? for nearly 10 years, run up to a boy i didn’t know and yell happy birthday. i didn’t even recognize her, and from the back all i could see was messy hair and a beat up backpack. it took me a second, but then i realized, from the jumping up and down, from the happy energy, it was her. we haven’t talked in a while, and last summer, around this same time, we would have walked to the library together. now, my mom had driven me here, and she had come in with someone i didn’t even know. my heart started beating faster, and i frantically tried to cover my face with recently-cut hair, hair too short to competently disguise a nervous teenage girl. she didn’t see me anyway, and when i looked up again, they were all gone. it’s funny how i still think that she is my home. this library is my home. this summer is my home. no matter where i look, no matter what i feel, no matter how much has changed, home is everywhere in my small suburban town. home is not a place. it’s definitely something tangible, maybe not on this plane of existence but another, where emotions and memories and everything else that we cannot physically touch is more substantial than anything we’ve ever known. maybe i’ll text her tomorrow, tell her how much i appreciate her, how much i miss her, and we can walk to the library together like we did last summer. and that pull in my gut will emerge again, that familiarity that has been detailed in the writing and the art in this issue. from me and my staff, we truly hope you feel at home reading soliloquie issue 002, just as i feel sitting here and looking out these big windows with the endless light. founder & editor-in-chief

writers

the team

alexa baez alexandra anna beth strange bridgette camille sibel christy eleanor esther lee issy partridge jada joshua julianna poupard king layla mckane maham k mak kaoud riley sara schleede

artists

alex anika de jong bell bunni chico cindy nguyen dream jess leontine maddy may miguel rye stephanie h. swan trevor ykar

editors claire esther hailey jane leah lexi lily lulu maia mina von vang

cover art by maddy illustrations by amelia photography by miguel

designers char jennifer liu kaitlin nica goma pan

lead designer dani donnelly illustrator amelia

contents #8

nostalgia over moments that no longer exist jada

#13

what does home mean to you? stephanie h.

#14

hands and other oddities chico

#15

the whales hate you as much as i do king

#18

#26

3am tsunami maddy

#28

and i swear iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d burn the city down to show you the light issy partridge

#34

the clock is but a decoration riley

#35

treehouse suki & eleanor

#36

black isle beth strange

home is not a place trevor

#22

#38

sunbound jessica le

#24

liminal layla mckane

where the dust settles jada

#40

quiet peace ykar

#41

past tense pretense anna

#42

whenever iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m with you cindy nguyen

#43

on the shore alexa

#46

how to build a home julianna poupard

#48

home dream

#49

empty nest camille sibel

#50

when august looks like april christy

#52

a young adultâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide to saving the planet sara schleede

#55

wander may

#58

finding home swan

#60

jaded a vignette of stories alexandra

#73

where home is mak kaoud

#80

erased bunni

#82

potential homes anika

#83

love me julianna poupard

#84

home is where the heart is cecelia cooke

#86

he subtle aspects of home alex

#76

#88

this is home esther

splinters leontine & maham

#78

#90

pops suki & eleanor

dragon fire bridgette

#94

final note

nostalgia over moments that no longer exist by jada

moments that defined my life, from birth to 16 years on this earth, and the bitter realisation that i will never feel them again.

I THE GARDEN THAT SLEPT ON THE CLIFF an ode to a place breathing long ago that faded under many rotating suns. for her light can perish and whimper, but her crescendo reprieved, unsung. who drove tumultuous water through river, lake or sea. drove my blood a passive red; that coils the mouthing streams and left me a thirsty plea. who through the fusion of spring, rain and soil, drove the earth to settle in my teacup, and left me ripened, green with age and lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recoil. let me reminisce on what she once was, the way her voice cried with mine, those days when the earth unraveled herself to me lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most cruel antagonist - the tyranny of time. once blooming, now forlorn and asleep, that garden, perching herself upon the cliff. it is for she that i weep.

II AIR FROM THE ALPS the air is colored clear here, under the assumption that i might breathe. let me whisper to you, like the breeze did, of a moment that left my breath without the capacity to leave. for it was here that i conquered my first mountain, and dug my feet into its hide with rage. struggled my way until the very top.

welcome to my first coming of age. and i cried, and cried, clutching my father’s hand close to me. “you’ve made it to the top!” he said, “look at the sky, can’t you see? and when i peered from those alps, tears hazing the world before my eyes, seeing this world before me and for the first time realising that it was all mine.

III 3AM IN THE HAWAIIAN HEAT clouds, and mountains and the sea, looming cumulonimbus masses that shift across the hawaiian night so slowly that my breath settles, and the moon peers behind them to stream light upon us with a gaze that shifts oceans. a thick sense of summer emits from her stare, glazed by a window cracked open. the crickets trill and we lie so silenced, yet under hours of conversation and laughter no sleep will follow us into the night. the room is pressing in, suffocating and sticking to everything. the sheets lay deserted around us and i look at you to see that glint in your eyes from the moonlight and the transcendence of the humidity, summer, love and friendship that is us now and when the summer dies. i am freed from the enclosing world of its toils and pains when the heat sticks to you and to me, and after years apart to us in a humid paradise. to eachother. 10

IV FUJI’S COLD EMBRACE he is a cold blooded creature, with molten hot spurts of love and years of the earth born inside of him. a passionate being, but his touch mimics the ice of the arctic that could pierce my delicate skin. the cold earth may hibernate below us but still i feel him shift against the rocks, in the onsen’s water that fuses us together with my back against his chest, and whispers in the night that make the hair on my skin rise up as water streams between us. his eyelashes flutter against my shoulders as he clutches me to his frame. with his breath chilling up my neck and long fingers that roam across my bare legs, piercing the molten water as if his nails didn’t make me shiver. he is no gentleman. i forget warm clothes, and instead he offers me in his hand a small yellow flower and many closed restaurants. an abundance of hills, hunger and silence as he brushes my hair behind my ear and places the flower where his lips touched during the night. we dance upon hills and waves, upon the cold landscape of water and earth. the flower withers eventually, but my body never forgets fuji’s cold embrace.

author’s commentary i thought long and hard what home meant to me. but these memories kept flashing in my head like the afterthought of lightning, the flicker of light that disappears once i blink but leaves that warm feeling of nostalgia many, many years later. this is a small chronological anthology of moments that are now a faded photo in my mind. they are deeply personal, but i felt the need to share my exclusive experience of home, moments so fleeting that i wish i could grasp them and clutch them to me, but alas moments that i was only truly able to live once. my childhood home in auckland only left one remnant on me - the garden my mom and i tended to where i played in, painted in, napped in, read in, and was a child in. my younger self’s brain more than likely blew this place out of proportion, but the trees were so tall and the flowers so saturated, any child’s eyes would be mesmerised. the italian alps greeted me with a flourish of wide, green valleys and mountains in the spring. at the top of a specific hike my family and neighbours were greeted with a hearty pub once we reached the top, but the only thing i could remember was clutching a plush toy to me and sitting in the grass at the top crying in blind anger, and my dad comforting me. i have never seen water so clear as the oceans that i let wash over me in hawaii. but it was here that i took my first trip on my own, underage and desperately wanting to reunited with my best friend. it was on one particular night, lying in comfortable silence in the early hours of the morning with my soulmate that i realised that this friendship would last beyond my lifetime, and how truly grateful i was to come to that realisation. and finally, the last poem is of my most recent memory. a small, quiet town outside of tokyo was very different to the bustling city i had just spent one and a half weeks in. mount fuji was a comfortable shadow always looming over our heads, but this place was filled with the cold hiking us up many hills, across lakes, museums and gardens, even empty restaurants, until i felt the first touch of the onsen’s water that touched my skin. the two friends i spent this trip with truly touched my heart. these are my nostalgia. this is my home. love, jada -

what does home mean to you? by stephanie h.

"Home is where your happiness is! It doesn’t have to be a physical placeit can be friends or family too."

"In my opinion home is where you sleep and get to see your family whether you currently love or hate them."

"Where I sleep and eat… the site of happy memories."

"I felt at home during the Jacksepticeye tour, it really felt like so many fans were coming together."

"To me, home means where I have the best memories. It means my family room, the beach where I spend the summer, and my camp. It is where I feel the most myself."

"Hmm.. well, home is my house with my family. All the memories the house comes with, and the familiarity of it all." "Somewhere safe, somewhere warm, far away… in someone’s arms!"

"The smell of things stored away for a long time, a furry face to greet mine, artistic inspiration bittersweet comfort, finding lost toys and having all those good memories come back and finally, really cozy blankets and buttered bread." "I feel at home when I am wrapped in a blanket holding a mug of hot cocoa."

"What home means to me, hm? I think home to me is my town, because I’ve lived here all my life. Before you get to my town, you have to pass fields of corn, two lines of mountains- some part of the Appalachian chain. There are some clouds in the sky, and a weird restaurant, Kelly’s- with a giant bull on its top." 13

hands and

other oddities by chico

the whales hate you as much as i do

by king

Your parents are bigots Mary Sue. You grew up just like them - for a while. Then a boy with a ‘save the whales’ button pinned to his ugly plaid shirt changed your mind after he pinned you to a mattress, and becoming a liberal felt like that teenage rebellion you missed out on at sixteen. The ideas lasted longer than that relationship though, it’s just a shame you never felt like using them. You’ve seen less than you should have Mary Sue. You’ve read all the wrong books too. Walden isn’t really a classic, and holing up in a shack-cabin by a pond won’t help you escape the dried-violence generation you grew up in. You tried it anyway, but twenty-two wasn’t quite the right age for a mid-life crisis. Realizing things too late was better than not realizing them at all I guess. You’ve always had the world in your hands Mary Sue. You just went about exploring it the wrong way. Cigarettes in the back of bars and the avoidance of anything remotely adventurous did save you the trouble of having children, but I think me and that old boyfriend both agree it didn’t save any whales. _

black isle by beth strange

‘Couldn’t find it. Nice forest, bit ruined by the road so close by.’ The Birthing Stone, Teandore, 29/5/2014 www.scotlandtripreview.co.uk Across the bridge, along the road, a U-turn left at the sheep, and straight on to the gap in the wall and you’ll find a grove of vast, ancient looking oak trees. Hidden under the vaults of their branches are cavernous encampment circles lined with decades of fallen leaves, and hidden somewhere under the leaves is a stone scooped out with a shallow basin. Self-published books of local wisdom say this is the birthing stone, and that any woman wishing to be pregnant should squat over the stone to increase fertility. All around it, ecosystems tower up from the damp, wormy soil - beetles tumbling over rotten leaves, tiny furry creatures and streaky badgers burrowing in the fallen acorns, wandering, monarchical deer, squirrels darting in an upwards helter-skelter around the wide trunks, tiny birds flitting between the branches and hunting birds gliding overhead - and the arms of the oak trees hold them all like incubators. The trees are medieval, notched with Robin Hood arrow-wounds and gouged out graffiti of twisty lovers names and hippy runes; inside the growing wood, bound by the rings of the tree, the hollow spaces of ancient carvings might be hidden. The trees scratch at the sky, catch low clouds in their branches on misty mornings, and split and fracture the sunlight that peers down to the ground. They shelter their hundred dependent lives when the rain falls hard and the snow tries to freeze them out. They shed hundreds of acorns, tiny pockets of nutrients and life, and drag the secret underground water up into their roots and the bright light of the sun down into their leaves and always, hidden under their two canopies, the green and living, and the brown and decaying, is the Birthing Stone. Lives and generations split off and multiplied from here until the dark, thick tarmac sludge dripped into solid lines and hardened, slicing up the countryside and compartmentalising truth and myth. Cars and vans and crying ambulances flash past along the A9 and tiny insects crawl along the roots of the trees. The stone is unseen, buried under a drift of brown leaves or grown into the roots of one of the

trees, but the path to the stone is beaten down and trodden into hard mud like the road that carries sensible unbelieving people past and away to work and schools and doctor’s appointments. The fear that gathered women here lingers in hospitals and playgrounds and shallow glass dishes and hopes and prayers and the road that carries them past the oak trees that hold miniature lifecycles in their bowed arms.

‘Lovely walk. The dog was exhausted!’ The Fairy Glen, Rosemarkie, 10/10/2012 www.walkontheblackisle.co.uk Thin, shivering waterfalls lattice the rock face and wooden bridges criss-cross over the stream all the way up the narrow glen where little children carried flowers for the fairies. With brightly coloured bunches they would walk up the mossy path that weaves over and along the water, up to where the spray of the falls dazzles with broken rainbows in the sun and leave the flowers as gifts of friendship and thanks to the fairies for keeping the water clean and pure and sparkling. The duplicitous fairies who would turn the river to sludge and the rain to mud over the wrong coloured flowers. Who snap at you with sharp icy teeth and scream in hurricanes. Their ten plagues vengeance could wipe out villages and clans; they steal away husbands and first-borns to dances in other worlds and leave families destitute, crops decimated, towns desolate. The Fairy Glen is half natural, half constructed. A wooden path winding through the wonderland of stoney precipices and low pools. Drooping grasses and prehistoric ferns cling to the sides of the glen and the forest leans down from above. The foot of the falls is a tumble of mossy rocks, and in the wide pool below is a fallen tree, studded with with hundreds of coins like malignant growths. Another gift for the fairies. The punishing fairies who would smash the waterfall to rubble and divert the river to flow through the houses and drown the people in their beds. Who have wildfires in their eyes and storm clouds crackling electric at the roots of their hair, who whip the waves into tsunamis with their songs and draw up lava from the mountains like snake-

charmers. Their thrashing anger summons flurries of snow and bullets of hail, bolts of lightning and dark rumbles of thunder. Sometimes the prettiness of the Fairy Glen is the deceit of a chasm hidden by a snow drift, the sudden ending of a coral reef and a plunge into the abyss. Other times it has no deceit, no prettiness, just grass and rocks and water and sunlight and watchful human eyes, probing the slimy undergrowth for meaning. Is that a falling leaf or a creature taking flight, a glint of sunlight on the water or a sparkling pair of eyes? Is the spellbinding heaviness of the air a charm to holding you there in a fairy dance or did centuries and generations, desperate to explain the cruelty of nature, conjure up the fairies from their own fear and the shadows in the flickering firelight? The water of the Fairy Glen spills into the firth, tinged with salt; and swirls around the pillars of the oil rigs that light up the coast. A sign reads ‘Anyone walking in the glen does so at their own risk’ and the risk of the lives of thousands. Don’t drop litter; don’t let the paths crumble underfoot; don’t trample the wildflowers; don’t kill the bees; don’t shatter the ground to dig up coal; don’t dredge the sea to scrape up fish; don’t burn the forests and plunder the oil and and melt the ice. The fairies might still be watching.

‘Eerie experience, but kind of looked like the aftermath of a hurricane.’ The Clootie Well, Munlochy, 1/5/2011 www.weirdscotland.co.uk The smell of rotting cloth is heavy, heady and death-like. Rags, old clothes, cloths, tea towels, bath towels, hand towels, handkerchiefs, blankets, socks, tapestries, national flags, prayer flags, crossstitching, scarves, ties, and a dark blue boiler suit all hang from the branches like mutilated bunting. The low mound of the hill bristles with trees, each laden down with hundreds of strung up garments, disintegrating away, weakened by humidity and age. A bumpy path curls around the hill, up and down, to a tiny spring hidden behind sodden rags; the Clootie Well. Myths and religion clash and battle and twine together. Bring clothes from your sick loved one, dip it in the water and tye it to a tree 20

and the fairies will heal them as it rots. Or maybe you’ll get a wish granted, or a prayer answered. Take a cloth away and you will be struck with the sickness it cured. Contagion hangs thickly over the branches that sag under the weight of supplications. It is a place of healing surrounded by the sickening smell of decay. The air is toxic fog. The fear of infection, injection with some deadly incurable disease draws people here and sends them reeling back. The road beside it leads like a blackened artery to the cardiovascular clump of the Tore roundabout, where it splits apart like a frayed nerve, attaching to the hospital, the graveyard, the crematorium. Far away from the ragged trees, blankets straitjacket the sick to their beds. The fear of illness loiters in white corridors as much as damp forests, and panicking families have migrated to sterile waiting rooms. Disease is quarantined in neat white rooms and isolation wards, hidden behind masks and glass doors. The Clootie Well is almost hidden behind layers of cloth, the original meaning obscured by centuries of pilgrims. Midsummer and midwinter, solstice and Mayday celebrations have wrapped a shimmering shroud of mystery round the hill and the grove of trees, ordaining it with saints dedications and wholesome stories of fairy wishes granted and wild pagan rituals of psychedelic rebirth and 70’s music, a wickerman mythology of ancient customs warped into modern trends. Tourists climb the hill and brush their fingers fearlessly along the branches of the trees and string up fresh new ribbons as synthetic lucky charms; locals ignore it, or call it a blight. The school buses pass it every morning and every night and a few gardens encroach on the land. But the smell pervades everything, an involuntary invocation of malady and pestilence that the stories and the picnic benches and the dog walking paths cannot hide. Every rag is a person, an illness, a hundred thousand suffering bodies, wracked with coughing and agony and blood. Every scrap is the healing that was prayed for, the faithful hopeless hope that there was an end to the suffering and a future for the body.

‘Awkward to get there, nothing much to see.’ The Devil’s Stone, Arpafeelie, 2/11/2008 www.visitthehighlands.co.uk Across the bridge, along the road, turn right at the sheep, and straight on to the locked gate and you’ll find a long stone wall round the edge of a garden. Halfway along, set in on its side, is a stone carved out with a deep basin. Tattered books of local wisdom call this the devil’s stone, and say that any human or animal who drinks from it will die. No matter how many times the stone is given away, it always turns up again, in the same garden, chained to the house by some forgotten curse whilst the movers are tortured by fear, haunted by crashes and screams and furious voices commanding them to return it. It is a trough for feeding animals, a satanic baptismal font, and a basin for grinding wheat all at the same time, in stories that twist around and stumble over one another. It’s an excuse, a reason, a desperate rationalisation of irrational death, of the inhuman shape under the sheet, the monster before the electric shock, the random jumble of limbs and bones, shapes and angles that used to be alive.

cracks. It is the foundation stone of all the stories, the magic, the witchcraft, the fairies, the horror, the fear, and the darkness, and it lies turned upside down behind a shed, or shoved under a pile of old slates. At the root of every legend, demythologized and laid bare, torn from under the metaphors, scraped from the basin of the stone is the banal fear of death. At the top of a winding and bumpy track, overgrown and stoney, that splits open car tyres and twists ankles, the deepest terror of the human soul overlooks a power plant, a bungalow, a grey ribbon of dual carriageway. -

Immured like a plague victim, a murdered lover, a skeleton, the stone is turned so that no water can ever collect in it, on the boundary of the house’s garden but not removed from the land. It lurks in the wall like dry rot in a ceiling beam that constantly threatens collapse. No-one believes in these things anymore, they just don’t like to touch the stone. Everything can be explained by science, even the thrill of giddy fear that rackets through narrow veins at the thought of drinking brackish rainwater from the basin. They say they aren’t scared of it and then brick it up in a wall, like a holy relic or a cursed Raggedy Anne doll, encased within glass, to keep things out, to keep things in. The stone is just a stone, but in the darkness of a farm campfire, or a Victorian candlelit night, or a wartime blackout, it is something diabolical. Death fills it, condenses in the air above it, rains back down into it from dark storm-wracked skies, and spirals down in deceptively peaceful snow drifts that leave a skin of white over the grainy granite. Death is in the frost that shards down into the

sunbound

by jessica le

liminal by layla mckane

I’m not supposed to be here, I think, my heart pounding in my ears a lot louder than it probably should. The soft click of the door falling shut echoes like a gunshot through the room and I freeze, listening. But there’s just my breath and my heartbeat. And the tiny clicks and sounds you only notice when it’s quiet. They emerge from the darkness like their own little orchestra, a symphony of stillness. Waiting. “What are you doing here this early?”, she smiles, as I walk through the door and stop in front of her. She asks me how my weekend was, I tell her and ask her the same. She tells me about her kids, I tell her about the book I read and we both smile because we both care. “See you later!”

The carpet muffles my steps as I walk, it is soft under my shoes. I place each step carefully, deliberately, as if a wrong one could shatter this into millions of pieces, smithereens of a moment. I’m out of breath as I reach the top of the stairs, forever wondering what the paintings on the wall mean and who decided to hang them there. It takes two attempts to open the door.

Descending the stairs, counting each step. The office is a mess, as usual. I can’t imagine it has ever been another way, not cluttered with books and paper and boxes and flyers. “It’s like Las Vegas”, we joke, “what happens here, stays here.” And it’s true, it’s the office where gossip is shared and secrets are told and they stay, hanging in the air like they can’t find their way out the door.

And then I can feel the wood, all the world at my feet. 24

“Did you know that beer is older than the wheel?” I didn’t but now I do and he tells me about how the first cave paintings were done by women and I sit back and listen. There are few things better than listening to someone talk about something they care about, see their eyes light up with excitement.

These are sacred grounds I’m stepping on. The first time I walked down the hallway, I was surprised how normal it was. Grey carpet, white walls, doors. It’s an office hallway, just normal, no magic. Except there is. There is magic in the air when classic music wafts out of the door next to mine or when two doors down I can hear laughter. There is magic in the people, you can’t see it, but you can feel it.

What from afar looks flawless and pristine is battered with marks. The paint is peeling where the layers of tape have lifted it, the wood is splintered where screws have been drilled into it and I can trace the lines where countless walls and pieces of furniture have left their impression. She’s caring. She cares so much that it’s written all over her. Even if the days are long and she wanted to have left hours ago, she cares. Even when she jokes that everything is a mess, she cares. No matter how hard a day was, she cares. And that makes me care. It reminds me why this can exist. Because people care. And only because they care, art can survive.

It’s a strange place and a wonderful one. As I’m standing here, there’s nothing. By tomorrow there’ll be a giant ball pit and then the living room of a shabby apartment and then a magical forest. But now, there is nothing but the possibilities of stories hanging in the air, waiting.

“The studio is haunted and I have proof!”. Lights turning off on their own, props changing places, voices in the dark. Everyone has a story of their own about the ghost that may or may not haunt the studio stage. It seems to be an accepted truth around the theatre, there’s possibly a ghost and if you can avoid it, you don’t go down there alone. I wonder who the ghost was. I’m sure there’s a story to be told.

You can see the dust in the light, swirling around like stars in a distant galaxy. Sometimes I think that each tiny speck of dust might be a story that could be told. And they’re all here, waiting for someone to see them, notice them and take them on an adventure. I look up and see the lights, waiting to light up and illuminate whatever story is taking place way below them. And then I step up and I can almost touch the invisible fourth wall. It’s there, spanning across the stage, thin and fleeting as all of these moments are. I’m sure if I reached just a bit, I could touch it. It is a window, the audience can look through it and watch, but I’m here, on the other side, and all I see is darkness. Her confidence is quiet. It doesn’t need attention or approval. She’s good at what she does, everyone knows it, but she’s not making a big deal about it. Quietly, calmly, she does what she does best, with ease, with creativity and most importantly, with kindness. There’s never a hard word or a reason to raise her voice. Her presence is calming and I can feel her when I look on stage. It’s in the lighting she created and the screws to hold scenery together. A quiet confidence that makes me believe.

It’s huge and scary and makes you feel incredibly small, but in the way that also makes you feel utterly alive. “Are you sad your year here is almost over?” Yes, yes I am. I don’t know what everyone who asked me that question expected me to say. Maybe some day, after long years, the magic wears of and the glow fades for some people. I don’t think it will for me. Yes, it’s not perfect, yes, it’s hard work and long hours, yes, it’s an illusion. But at the core of the illusion is something incredibly real: humanity.

It is strange to see a theatre in a form it’s not meant to be in: empty. There should be an audience, there should be lights, there should be scenery and there should be the people telling the stories. But it’s just me so I have the urge to be all of it and nothing at all. “What are you going to do after this?” I don’t know yet. But it’s never going to be far from here. I’ll take it with me, the glow of the lights, the stories, the people.

I’m not supposed to be here, I think, but it’s home. It is a place of possibilities, a magic box that makes dreams come to life each night anew. It is a space that exists only once exactly like this and then never again. I belong. _

It’s like a black hole, swallowing all the light, everything. It makes me wonder how bright you have to shine to get to the other side. If you stare long enough, you can see the darkness starting to swirl. You can imagine the stars at its outer corners, all tumbling to the center, being sucked away, forever. 25

3am tsunami by maddy

and i swear iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d burn the city down to show you the light by issy partridge

Pull. Click. Roll. Focus. Push the camera of your mind in and watch the photo bleed into colour. Let the photo rest in your hands, and let me tell you what you can see. I need you to picture it—picture a quaint little seaside town on the English coast. I need you to taste the sea salt air and tilt your head back toward the sun. I need you to hear the 2.5 children and run your fingers across the white picket fence. Can you see it?

And can you feel every mistake pressing against your skin as they watch, arms folded? You made the mistake, fix it. You spoke up; it’s your job to carry the hatred of anyone who didn’t want to listen. Let it bow your shoulders and push you down small. Crumble under disapproving stares tipped with icy hatred. We dare you to speak again. Talk! We dare you, they cry. We Dare You. High definition, we can see every crevice of your face as it crumples with nerves. Turn up the brightness, the anxious sweat is rolling across your face. Can you hear the whispers of gossip in the playground? Every mother knows every mother and mine wasn’t in the crowd—denied a backstage pass to the world she didn’t understand. She worked a nine to five and made me feel like the most special person alive. She is the home I fear leaving. I will miss her every second she is not there to be my second half. She’s my laughter and my punchline. She’s every ear that has listened to me and I am so helpless to thank her, no gift repays the solution to every problem I’ve ever had. Steady the camera. Take a portrait and call it ‘the kindest woman alive’. Snap. Click. Blink. Flash.

Mutter your truths into your pillows and then beg to cram it back into your mouth in the morning. Nothing is a secret and so everything must be. Force your secrets into your throat and choke on them, gag and cry and hope that no one hears. There are benefits to it all. There’s a mastery, a skill to be learned in biting your tongue and smiling to hide the pain. It’s cinematic, the ways eyes follow me down the street. Darting. Cautious. Although they’ll act like I’m the predator, a threat to their safe streets, it seems it’s me who will be hunted and watched like prey. It’s as if I’m too big for this town; too loud, too passionate. Am I the threat because I won’t be quiet? I’m the one who will breach those forbidden dinner table topics, and I’m willing to blow up the foundations upon which I’ve built my life, just to make them listen. I fear the hive mind mentality, the daring glances at the unfamiliar and the hateful you can’t sit with us personality of an entire community. It’s all so embarrassingly trite, it’s like I’m desperate to embody every small town cliché. But it’s so impossible to explain how hideously painful it is to feel that I’m taking up too much space in a place I’m supposed to call home.

They do so love people who are pleasant at tea parties. They do so love people who are quiet and agreeable. Is that what you’ll be? We’ve all lived here an awful long time, they murmur. Would you like a little guidance on how things work? It’s patronizing but you’re gagging for acceptance, collapsing to your knees at the thought of some relief. That part of the film where it all starts making sense; that’s what you want, right? Firstly, if you have opinions. Well, we wouldn’t want to upset anyone, keeping them to yourself would be greatly appreciated. We would also love it if you didn’t boast about anything, it isn’t proper to be proud of yourself out in the open, it’s far better if you subtly mention it so everyone knows but no one can comment. After all, what kind of sane person talks openly? Appearances are everything when there’s nothing behind them. 29

Sometimes, when I’m alone, I think maybe I could find peace here. And then I imagine having to come back here after university. I would never meet a single new person, never learn a single new thing. What if I never see any other part of the world? What if I become so complacent that I couldn’t care less that I’ve never been outside my own postcode? Is that someone I could become? A nice young lady who works just down the road and would love to have you over for dinner some time? Watch the camera pan out on a film that’ll never get made because nothing ever happened. It’s like I’ll never tell a story because the spark of an idea was snuffed out before I could fan the flames. The condensing pressure of this town is the smug fingertips pinching the wick before I can let it burn. I want to grow and learn and mould the world under eager fingertips, it’s as if they’re restraining me before I can even attempt to get started. I’m not saying I’ll change the world, I’m just saying I wish they would give me the chance to try.

Are you sure you want to study politics, love? It’s just—-well—it’s not the nicest career for an agreeable young lady such as yourself. And what if you were to find a nice husband, and he wasn’t keen on your choices? Are you going to let a nice, stable marriage slip through your fingertips for a silly, pipe dream of a career? Really, it’s best you teach English or History, if you really have to be interested in the academics. Although it would be even better if you considered finding a rich man to settle down with, then you could dedicate the time to two lovely children, and a white picket fence. Let the camera zoom out as I stand in the street, hunch my shoulders, clench my fists.

Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me here. Please dear God don’t leave me here. -

slumber by rye

the clock is but a decoration by riley

6 AM darkness gives way to light at last. stars still twinkle above, but even they can sense that they are fading. the sun rises in brilliant colors splattered across the sky, and cool air caresses my face while the lavender sprigs hang to dry. it still feels like night, but softer, perhaps. comforted am i by the knowledge that dawn has finally arrived, that the darkness was never eternal. the birds begin to sing, scattered still, but sounding like hope nonetheless. 8 AM the walls are decorated with slices of sunlight. spring is in the air, romantic and young; she is a maiden dressed in white. there is a delicate fragrance of citrus, of crisp sheets. the day is still fresh with birdsong and dewy grass, and i find myself eased by the solitude. for now, at least, i need nothing more than to lie underneath the endless sky. it’s not idyllic, but it will do. 1 PM time feels lazy and slow. dogs bark on occasion, and the train passes, always sounding distant. it is the moment between being awake and being asleep; both and neither at once. white, puffy clouds move above, and a gentle breeze stirs the otherwise dead air. lemonade glasses sweat on the counter. everything is muted and faded, but the fully saturated sky is harsh in contrast. i’m a bit detached, tossing and turning in a dreamlike melancholy. 6 PM glasses clink. the lights are warm and forgiving, painting everyone golden. they are anything but. laughter tinkles like bells, floating and carefree. 34

honeysuckles wind their way up the wall, up the trellis. the strawberries are fresh, and oh, how brown eyes glow underneath the dying sun. the buzz of wine gives the illusion of an endless summer, so i join them in leaving any mourning of its end for my future self. 9 PM at long last, everyone has dispersed. any personas put forth are fading with the light, but there is a solidarity in the individual solitudes. the train whistles; it’s a warning. all the windows are open wide, of their own accord, to let the spirits escape. the dusk isn’t quiet just yet, but it will be soon. these sickly sweet roses only bloom after the sun sets. 11 PM floorboards settle with familiar creaks. the train is leaving again, rattling the overhead lights. rumbling, then still. slitted moonlight and passing cars soothe my aching heart. and it’s peaceful, certainly, but all the corners i try to smooth down are sharper in the dark. the mirrors no longer hold back, my reflection cold to the touch. the night feels neverending, but i refuse to be afraid. mother raised a soldier. 12 AM midnight comes and goes with an eerie silence, swift and decisive. she is the tipping point and nothing more. there are no chimes to signal her arrival, nor were there ever; the clock is but a decoration. a full moon hangs heavy in the sky, weary with the weight of the night. but, as always, the moment passes, the point tips, and the world sighs in relief. –

treehouse art by suki | words by eleanor

ice running over your skin like electric words and flame in your eyes Sweater Weather The Neighbourhood acoustic guitars candlelight on the water the strings of a heart In My Blood - Shawn Mendes the crisp autumn air coaxes smiles behind knitted scarves in our treehouse Where You Lead - Carole King my yellow ceiling holds me together and knows my most secret tears When - Dodie Clark our slurred favourite songs i won’t let go of your hand dancing in purple Stolen Dance - Milky Chance summer in our lungs we’re speeding down the golden coast from east to west Waterfall - The Stone Roses fingers intertwined willow’s roots woven through soil your pulse becomes home Green Eyes - Coldplay our house is made of petals and constellations tea and fairytales Catch and Release (Deepend Remix) - Matt Simons _

home is not a place by trevor

where the dust settles a plea to those who feel they are displaced by jada

My soul is notorious for wandering. If it were up to me, I would endlessly wander across the face of this earth until I had touched every single crevice of this ripe, thriving and enriching planet. But a rather interesting thought I’ve had is that this century of travel and exploration has also uprooted the fantastic in the ordinary rather than to domesticate the “wild places”. There has been a familiarity and downright necessity for home. The yearning for that feeling you felt when you opened a photograph from the boxes in the depths of your closet ? That is, in fact, a source of immortality. We find immortality in this “spiritual renewal”, the undoing of ourselves after a long day at school or work and the comforting feeling of family and friends embracing our tired souls. We cling on to these moments as if the idea of home could be taken from us just as our fickle lives could. The more I wander, however, the ever more immortal my soul becomes. It enriches on picking pieces up from every single time I’ve felt renewed, loved, or I’ve felt the humanity of my existence stir within me. To me, home is as if you’re brushing your fingers across an old mantle piece and the buildup of dust eventually erodes the moment you blink. You can try not to blink, but the dust will settle and fall apart, and your eyes will begin to sting, and it’s in this very same manner my home too has crumbled. It’s been whisked away by the kiss of a breath and the flutter of my eyelashes, and before my very eyes, it has vanished. But the memories, the stories and feelings that my humanity has picked from so many different places has made my rendition of home absolutely immortal. 38

Realistically, the ideology adopted to home is antagonistic. Time is our greatest foe, and those small pieces of dust will never be recaptured, will never bundle and clump in the same way it used to upon my finger no matter how hard I cried and attempted to grasp at it. It was a bittersweet moment in my youth that I realised that the dust will always settle into nothing. The house you grew up in will eventually be sold or bulldozed over, or you will never see it again. This is the harsh truth that makes me remember my first childhood home in the rainforests of New Zealand with a blooming garden, and the small apartment my family shared on the edge of a cliff in the alps of Italy, and even now the seaside holiday house we are occupying in an unimportant corner of Australia. When you pack up your things and go so rigorously just as I have, there is no time to watch the dust settle. While those around me became immortal with the fulfillment of their home, many times I watched mine disappear from the back of a car window, before I never saw it again as I boarded a plane out of the country the very next day. There was not one place I could call my “forever home” - instead I was always holding my mother’s hand tight and asking her, “where next? These experiences influenced what home meant to me dramatically. I arrived to the conclusion many years later that I would never truly settle, and I would never truly fit in. I would just have to accept that I couldn’t have a home.And yet, despite it all, that have been gratifying moments where I have felt immortality crawl at my spine, my humanity rub at my shoulders and kiss my cheeks like the sun peeking in through the small dent in my blinds every morning. I realised that just because of my circumstances, this doesn’t mean I don’t deserve

to have a home. My idea of home is incredibly unstable, and most certainly fleeting. It lies where I am sitting this very moment laughing with my grandmother, yet also east, and very much north. If you labelled a compass “home” and gave it to me, it would point in almost every single direction. Across the seas, the embodiment of my home has split so many times I cannot recall, because there have been so many moments in the timeline of my occupation on this earth that I have felt immortal, happy and human, that these have formulated my own unique home. I have lived in three different countries. I have left moments of my humanity in the dust of so many places, past moments, and across many different languages, and I do not regret one bit of it.

It was incredibly cathartic when I realised that I have so many homes. There are so many instances in my privileged life that I have felt immortal and human. I am only young, and far into the future I will not be searching anymore, I will be consciously feeling. My soul, my mind and my existence still wanders, not because I am lost or searching, but because I know there will always be a surplus of dust surrounding me, and I know that I find homage in the past, present, and the future. Something truly immortal. This is all absolutely ironic, however, because I am highly allergic to dust. _

And I continue to look for more places where the dust settles. Places and moments of my life that absolutely enrich me. For those of you that feel displaced, unwelcome or uncomfortable with wherever you are, or don’t know what home truly is, I want you to understand that home can be wherever on this planet you want. Home is where you leave the dust behind, but always remember: your circumstances now do not define you no matter where in the world you are. You are not tied to where you are in life, your age, or where you live. You can thrive in the moments where you feel joy, and you are allowed to find homage in your memories. I struggled. A lot. Living in different countries meant becoming accustomed to so many different things at once, and I realised that in these places I knew that it wasn’t my “home”. For so many years I kept searching for the physical place that was my home, or the company of my family that made me “feel at home”.

quiet peace by ykar

past tense pretense by anna

february heat wave half tanned skin i composed an epitaph for muddied snow and pinned each word to its own star prayed she’d make angels that night back cold her eyes would fall on verses well travelled and well intentioned avion wings scraped orion from silk woke with stars in my teeth floss burned on contact swallow ash months pass and the feeling fades from passion to nostalgia develop a phobia of forget-me-not flower crowns and plagiarize/patronize her heartbeat into poetry.

prétexte passé

par anna

mois d’hivers chauds m’ont moitié bronzé j’ai composé une épitaphe pour la neige boueuse et j’ai cloué chaque mot à une étoile, priant qu’elle fasse des anges cette nuit son dos froid, ses yeux tomberaient sur des versets, bien voyagé et bien intentionné ailes d’avion ont gratté orion de voile réveillé avec étoiles dans les dents la soie a brûlé au contact avale cendres les mois passent et le sentiment change de la passion à la nostalgie développe une phobie des fleurs forget-menot et plagie son rythme cardiaque en poésie -

whenever iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m with you by cindy nguyen

on the shore by alexa

the sand was trapped between our toes and your cheeks had captured sun beams in the way only they could. back then i used to count your freckles when we slept side by side for what seemed like ages in our summer homes. we were only children then, as we are still children now in many aspects of ourselves. the two block walk to the beach seemed an unconquerable feat, each step in the stinging sand immersing us in our saharan fantasy. you must’ve been 14 at the time, wearing your purple bathing suit, capturing everybody’s attention with your sense of humor, unknowingly molding my being with your mere existence eventually you grew out of your purple bathing suit & got a grey one. we were older now & with my growing up came endless nights of philosophical wondering, laughs that destroyed the slumber of anyone three blocks each side along the coast of the summer home. you’ve never been one to show your affection but every time you saw me our own dad flushed with jealousy at how careless our interactions were, each hug followed by the reassurance that there would be millions more. you must understand this is why that day, when i was floating alongside my mother, water too deep for me to stand & she told me her & our dad were no longer in love i dove down & drowned my tears so no one could see how vulnerable i was. it wasn’t because of them, it was because of you. i spent the next couple of weeks unpacking your boxes so you wouldn’t move, plotting what i believed to be a sly plan to sabotage the end of our perfect little world in which I depended on you for oxygen but of course the summers didn’t end & the sorrow didn’t last forever. every year June would come back to greet us again & with it came the endless volleyball games which you loved & i despised, the sunburns, the novels, the hit songs, whichever boyfriend you decided to take with us that summer, the cheese omelets, the movies, all of it strung together, embroidering the perfect depiction of heaven which we called our life. there have been fluttering hearts, connected lips in cold nights, friends that made me choke on my own words and traced my laugh but none of it compares to your warmth. there have been fluttering hearts, connected lips in cold nights, friends that made me choke on my own words and traced my laugh but none of it compares to your warmth. _

how to build a home by julianna poupard

As a girl about to finish her first year at college hundreds of miles from the place and people she has called her home for the first 18 years of her life, I have some tips I’ve learned about making whatever space you are living in a home. Use one of these, use all of them, use them however you like! Start now! Whether you’re ready to live on your own or not, it is never too early to start preparing. Save up money so that you have a better budget and don’t end up living in a rundown shoebox. Buy necessities slowly over time with each paycheck. Be safe! Buy a baseball bat, change the locks, reinforce the screws, put a spare key in a safe place in case you get locked out, do whatever you need to feel more settled in your home. And please, under any circumstances, do not watch scary movies, at night, by yourself. Get some company! Being alone has its moments, but it ultimately isn’t something you want long term. You will get scared, you will get lonely, you might even end up talking to inanimate objects and expecting an actual answer. Before things gets that far, get a pet (if your landlord allows). Even if it’s just a fish, or something as high maintenance as a dog, you’ll be glad to have someone to talk to that you know is at least alive to listen. In the most desperate of cases, get a plant. They’re alive, right? Meal prep is amazing! When you’re low on funds, it is very easy to just go out and buy a ton of instant noodles. Yes, I know, instant noodles are awesome. But they are also incredibly unhealthy, and you will never learn what all those knobs on the stove and buttons on the oven mean by solely using the microwave. So, buy groceries in bulk with each paycheck, cook a whole bunch of food, and store it for the week. You might learn a thing or two, and your body will definitely thank you profusely.

GYST Days! Pick one day out of every week where you have a whole day to yourself. Dedicate it as your G.Y.S.T. day: Get Your Shit Together. Personally, I use Sunday as my GYST day, because it just makes Monday so much easier to survive. Plus, it sets the tone for the rest of the week. Do your laundry, wash dishes, vacuum your floors, workout, meal prep, run errands, do those tedious little tasks you push to the side throughout the week. In the end, you’ll feel exhausted but proud. Being productive always makes me feel good! Introduce some character! You are building a home, not just existing in a space. Are you a painter? Don’t cover up those paint splatters, own them! Do you love knitting? Cover your space with your creations and have your knitting needles be a centerpiece in your home. Whatever your niche is, whatever things you love, let your home be a shrine to them! Keep every reason to smile! I dabbled in the idea of minimalism for a while, and while I can’t (and neither can my incredibly cluttered room) say I’ve mastered it, one piece of advice stuck out to me. If something brings you joy, it has value. And you should keep all things of value to you. So keep that silly-looking shirt your friend always tells you to throw away even though you love it. Keep the gawdy blanket with all the wrong colors because it always makes you feel better when you are sad. I have a Midsummer Night’s Dream poster up on my wall that completely diverges from the aesthetic I’m going for because it always makes me smile when I look at it. So, I made an executive decision to keep it! Feel it! No matter what you put into a place, it won’t ever feel like home if you don’t embrace it as such. When I first went to college, I insisted on calling my dorm room just that, my “dorm room”. The only thing that this sentiment was able to achieve was making me miss my family and my old home even more. Even though college is a transient space, it is a significant part of many people’s lives. So, once I changed my tune a bit and accepted where I was, I found myself saying “I have to go home” rather than “I have to go back to my dorm room”. Once I started saying it, over time I realized I truly believed it. In the end, this room I live in doesn’t feel like a space I simply exist inside of. This entire campus feels like home. So take your space and accept it in all its perfectly flawed glory, and relish in the home you have made for yourself! -

home by dream

empty nest by camille sibel

I wish I knew how to speak. I wish I could force some sound through my beak, other than the dry croak of a half-dead thing. maybe it’s better not to breathe. that way I can starve my cells and live without thought, without care, without sense the desert is more forgiving than this house. picture yourself: spread out, facedown on the ground. liquefy and relieve the drought; the canals have been parched for too long. close your ears to the terrible songs of love lost and again won. dirges for a burnt-up nest echo endlessly around in my head. absence fails to make the heart grow stronger. I waste away in the dark recesses of a cave, with nothing more than the drips from an unseen lake somewhere far away to sustain me. I can only guess at what it looks like, what plants adorn its shore, what I’ll find in those waters. how many lives does it provide for, other than my own shadow? I cling to my scraps, weakened, but with freshly-sharpened blades. my birdsong is lilting, and hauntingly fake. light blinds worse than dark. it planted an itch under my skin that endlessly grows. I press myself against the ground, as if I can stretch it out like soreness. how can you chase your mother’s car down the street while sunsickness and shame coat your teeth? dig your heels into the dirt and untie your mind. there is no blame to assign or wound to pick at if you smooth out the gyri that know every method of easeful death by name and address. miles and miles of farmland are all that separate us from the colder earth beneath. If I could find a place in this that was under a different sun, maybe I could find a softer nest to rest and preen my clipped wings. -

when august looks like april by christy

my mother taught me how to rain like a stuffy april night; i have seen many a birthday of hers, wrought and wrung in her hands on that day in april, she entered this world soon to be a teacher on empty pockets and stuffed breath an august afternoon, waning into fall – this is what i inhabit. my mother’s stomach, full of belly laughs and food and me she screams her creation out into the world, does not yet know that her miracle will be just as destroyed as she is that her baby will grow up too quickly that belly laughs won’t be abundant for either of us (neither will the food) and she still holds me. hoping for less work. less crying. less divorce. more money. more honesty. more happiness.

my family says i look like her more and more but i am taller. bigger. and just as insecure. on many annual afternoons i have wanted to carve myself, starve myself into her tiny figure but when i do i see her turning side-to-side in the mirror; i remember cheap cereal and crying down to the bone, her voice saying don’t go there, don’t work like me, don’t hate yourself like me. so instead i picture those sweaty, ground-bone hours, two jobs and penny paychecks the we might have to move summers of being home alone while she worked nights at the dirty liquor store across the street and the dry cleaner’s in burning daytime heat dirty but diligent, dawn to dusk and i watched as she disintegrated. a flower withering willingly for a seed. starvation was sacrifice and i want to pay her back somehow, so i eat and love and breathe and pray. we both do. (it is not those summers anymore). i like to think we were trees, leaning and intertwined embedded in dirt with erosion at our toes but embedded, still.

but one of anything always has to have shallower roots, fresher eyes; and eventually, like a bird, i flew (sometimes too high or too low). but she knows. she has done it all, and more, too. she has taken a risk and found everything to be wrong. she has spoken without listening. fed one beak but not her own. she has flown into every glass ceiling and hellfire, burned and bruised but staying to see if, one day, it might just be worth it. and when i do all that and more, there is a nest built that is never quite empty. there are roots reaching out, a reminder that intertwined isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t limited to touch. because i always return to where i am recognized by my breath / cry / breath where we feel it together. with her stomach and our roots came that i have her eyelashes that can make a heart flutter, her snark and struggle and muscle. and i look like her more, i do. and i am lucky for it. _

a young adult’s guide to saving the planet by sara schleede

The universe is incomprehensibly infinite, yet, as far as we know, this planet is the only one which can support life. That’s pretty special, don’t you think? This is our only home, so we need to help it thrive. With all of the scary climate change statistics, that task can seem daunting, but there are many habits you can easily incorporate into your life to take care of dear Mother Earth.

Bring reusable bags to the grocery store.

Change your laundry habits.

This one is pretty much a no-brainer, but it can be easy to forget. While choosing paper over plastic seems like a good option because paper is recyclable, the production of paper bags creates more pollution and requires more energy than plastic production, and they take just as long to break down in landfills, according to a 2011 study for the Northern Ireland Assembly. People tend to focus too much on the last part of “reduce, reuse, and recycle” and forget that reducing and reusing are just as, if not more, helpful. This means cloth bags are definitely your best option. Place some next to your car keys or wallet so that you remember to grab them on your way to the grocery store.

Like your hair-washing habits, doing laundry contributes to bottle after bottle of plastic waste. To fix this, try powder detergent. It comes in cardboard boxes which are more environmentally friendly than bulky plastic containers of liquid detergent. You can cut down on water by washing your clothes when they’re dirty, not just after one use. Don’t worry; it’s not as gross as it seems. Buy a laundry drying rack so you can avoid using dryers whenever possible to reduce electricity.

Start a small compost bin. Managing a small compost bin, even in an apartment with no lawn or outdoor space, is actually pretty simple. All you need is a large bin with small holes in the top and bottom; line the bottom with wet strips of paper, and add worms and soil. (But don’t start ripping up your garden beds; worms are relatively easy to find at the store or online). Then add more strips of wet paper each time you add food waste—vegetables, fruit peels, tea bags, eggshells, or coffee grounds. Composting food scraps instead of sending them to landfills can reduce methane emissions, and you end up with soil you can use for your houseplants or donate to a community garden. Use shampoo bars. According to the World Bank, the world’s cities produce 1.3 billion tons of waste per year, as of 2012, and that number is expected to double by 2025. Buying shampoo bars rather than liquid in plastic bottles is just one way you can avoid contributing to packaging waste. They’re good for the environment, but also your hair, as shampoo bars typically include less harmful chemicals. Additionally, they get your hair cleaner in a single wash. LUSH sells some great shampoo bars, but they also might be on the same shelf as your normal shampoo at cheaper stores like Target or Ulta Beauty.

Promote sustainable fashion. Did you know it requires 7,000 liters of water to make a pair of blue jeans? Or that 80% of textile workers are women, ages 18-24, who often receive less than $3 a day? The statistics from Greenpeace International and Forbes reveal that the poor practices among the textile industry are staggering. Buying clothes from “fast fashion” lines such as Zara or H&M promote environmental injustice. If you are financially able, instead of buying $5 shirts that match the latest trends, invest in a $50 shirt that you can wear for multiple seasons. If you’re on a tighter budget, you can find cheap clothes from secondhand stores, or on resale apps such as Etsy or Depop. Buying secondhand avoids increased demand for the textile industry. Eat less meat. According to Vox, livestock accounts for 14% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, the same amount as transportation. But don’t worry; going completely vegan or vegetarian isn’t necessary. Eating chicken, fish or pork once or twice a week and red meat about once a month is enough to significantly reduce carbon emissions from your diet. A more colorful, vegetable-based diet will also make you feel more energetic and fit, too!

Fix; don’t throw away.

Support Food Not Bombs.

Instead of tossing out clothes with small holes or ripped seams, embrace the tears and turn them into something new. But if t-shirts-turned-croptops or ripped jeans aren’t for you, it’s easy to learn some simple sewing skills to repair them. The same goes for electrical appliances or furniture. Fixing a broken blender or bicycle rather than purchasing a new one reduces overconsumption and overproduction, therefore reducing nonrenewable resources extracted. If you don’t know how to fix something, you can find or start a local repair cafe: free meeting places where people can offer their skills to help their community.

Food Not Bombs is a set of independent collectives across the globe. Local chapters collect food that cannot be sold at grocery stores and uses it to make free vegan and vegetarian meals to pass out in their communities. It’s a low maintenance and welcoming volunteer opportunity that fights for nonviolent social change and against inequality due capitalism and environmental degradation. Their other programs include Food Not Lawns community gardens and Homes Not Jails housing for the homeless.

While all of these things are well and good, well-meaning young adults can’t save the planet all by themselves. After all, multinational energy companies are the biggest culprits causing climate change—90 companies worldwide produce 2/3 of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2014 study published in “Climatic Change” journal. In order to make a real impact, we have to encourage the people in power to change. So most importantly, support businesses who practice environmentalism rather than those who use it as a marketing tactic. Always research a company before you buy from them. Don’t just buy a shampoo bar; call your representatives and demand change in the approval processes that allow harmful chemicals in cosmetics. Take the $20 you might spend on a meal at a farm-to-table restaurant and donate to an organization that fights food deserts. Luckily, all revolutions begin with a single action, so that could be enough to save the planet. -

wander by may

finding home by swan

jaded a vignette of stories

by alexandra

it’s morning in syria

It’s Morning in Syria The night is darkest just before dawn, when the sun has not yet woken, and the stars still dance with light. I sit on the roof of my house, or what was the third floor before the roof was blown off. The night sky is patchy, wispy cirrus clouds covering sections of the starlit void. The moon is a crescent, the perfect form for the Dreamworks fisher to sit on. Before the war started, the light from my city outshined the stars above. Now they are visible, and serve as my only guide at night. The sun’s arrival is announced before the sun shows its face. The eastern portion of the sky streaks with brilliant oranges, yellows, and pinks, and the cirrus clouds become orange paint brush strokes on a nocturnal blue canvas. The air kisses my skin with the moisture of the morning and the light refracts through the dew on mother’s jasmine flowers. The sun finally shows its golden face and blesses the city with light.

The city is not beautiful. Once smooth sandstone walls are now rough and punctured by a thousand bullets. Flat rooftops give way to jagged edges, rusted rebar shooting up into the sky - naked support where there was once concrete clothing. Houses with windows cracked into a million pieces and their insides stripped of life. Splintered wood, torn carpets, and burned curtains are the only decorations left. And yet the buildings stand in defiance with the people who inhabit them. In the basements, away from the prying eyes of a murderous dictator, families live. Below the surface of the city, life survives. Among the streets, life finds a way to live. Yes, the sun blessed my city with light, but my city is not beautiful. My city is strong, my city is cunning, my city is a survivor. And so are my people. -

choppy waters There are one hundred fifty two of us on a boat fit for fifty. The deck and the lower compartment are stuffed with humans, packed as though we are sardines. The stars above are blocked by low-lying clouds that rain on us; the ocean does not take kindly to being pelted by the sky. Waves roll the boat, washing over the deck, down into the lower compartment and soaking my ripped, three-sizestoo-large jeans in an itchy brine. Below deck, the water level rises ever higher, parents having to pick up their young ones for fear of drowning. Hassan, my five year old brother, grips his life jacket and stands on his tippy toes to breathe above the water. Another wave washes in and another wave of earpiercing screams echoes off the compartment walls. The water is freezing and tears my breath from my body. The smuggler captain pokes his head down the hatch to the cargo area where we stand and waves his hand, gesturing to the entry. It’s too loud to hear what he is saying, but his rapid movements and scrunched face convey importance. People begin rushing the exit, crawling over one another to get out. A child is trampled, his face shoved into the water, while his mother desperately grabs at his life jacket straps. Another wave crashes over the boat, pushing a few down the ladder. Mother grabs Hassan’s wrist and shoves her body between others, leaving me behind; I struggle to follow the path she made, a single tall shoulder slamming into my right eye as I push my way forward. Hassan and Mother climb out, both turning around to haul me above. The sea is angry, and swallows many people who haven’t already sacrificed themselves to it. Each wave sweeps more off the deck, a few losing their life jackets in the process. Uncle Abbas and my

pregnant cousin Haifa are above deck and barely holding on. Mother yells at the pair, catching their attention, and the five of us jump into the turbulent waters below. Haifa struggles, being seven months pregnant, with battling the waves. Uncle Abbas removes his life jacket and places it around her midsection. The waves are high, and as we get farther away from the boat, we lose track of a direction to swim. Uncle Abbas’ strokes are getting sloppier, his kicks less frequent. Another high wave turns to a white cap and splashes our faces. Haifa is dunked by the wave, too heavy to float over it. I hand her a third life jacket. My life jacket. Uncle Abbas floats on his back for a few moments. A few moments turns to a few minutes. The waves are taking him away from us. Mother is shouting in between waves. The clouds block all light and we cannot see where he has gone. Hassan is scared. My strokes are getting sloppier, my kicks less frequent. The waves are too high. I have swallowed too much salt water. My eyes burn. My lungs burn. A searchlight finds us first, and then a boat arrives. They find us and they save us. They never find Uncle Abbas. They never save him. -

swimming lessons The locker room is rambunctious, filled with laughs and pieces of gossip flying from mouth to ear. English largely floats over my head; lessons in Syria can’t prepare you. I lower my gym bag onto the bench and open it lethargically. I loathe gym class with a passion. My hijab is still wound around my head, though it has slouched as the school day lengthened. My shaky fingers reach to remove the silky blue material, taking it off in one fell swoop and placing it in the gym bag. “We’ll be swimming next class,” the gym teacher had said, “so you can’t wear your hijab.” My one-piece black swimsuit fits well enough, though I feel the need to constantly adjust it to cover more of my body than it can. Our feet slap the floor as we make our way over to the teacher. The room smells of chlorine, a stale bleach odor that reminds me of home. It’s not a good memory. Voices echo off the walls, making it difficult for whispers to be kept quiet. I can hear them talking about me, jokingly marvelling at the sight of the Syrian girl without her hijab. No, not the Syrian girl. The Arab girl, without a home, whose sole identity is encompassed in a scarf around her head and the religion she practices. The Arab girl, whose sole intent is to destroy the western world with her poisonous preachings. The Arab girl, who isn’t human. 63

“We’ll start out by testing you all in the shallow end,” the gym teacher begins. The pool is large, olympic-sized. Lakeside High School can afford expensive sports facilities since the town has deep pockets. Twenty four students hop into the chlorinated blue pool water; I hesitate, being the twenty fifth student. The gym teacher sighs. “Get in the pool, Isra.” He didn’t pronounce my name right. He didn’t roll the ‘r.’ The ‘i’ wasn’t a long vowel. The water sloshes at the steps to enter the pool. My toes touch the water and I recoil before remembering my audience. My hands are clasped together in front of me, knuckles white with tension, to stop them from trembling. My heart pounds in my chest, struggling to keep up with the fear that courses through my veins. It’s a pool, not an ocean, I repeat to myself. The water is cold - not freezing - but cold. The water reaches my chest now, but that is as far as it goes. The rest of the class stares at me, some with indifference and others with careful curiosity. “Right then. We’ll just be practicing some strokes back and forth from each side. This is to test how strong of a swimmer you are.” I push off the wall with the others and break into a survival dash. The water is too familiar, I can hear Mother’s screams for Uncle Abbas. My legs are tired, but I must swim to catch Uncle before he floats away. My hand slams into the pool wall and I wince in pain. Reality sets in. Someone is clapping. It’s the teacher. The others haven’t reached the wall yet. “That was incredibly fast, Isra! Have you considered joining the swim team?” He pronounced my name wrong again. The class is divided into two groups. One for basic improvement and the other for advanced techniques. My brief relief after exiting the pool

is dwarfed by the realization of the deep end. The water is a darker blue, more closely resembling the black waters of that night. The chlorine smell is stronger here. I can smell salt. We’ve been standing outside the water for too long and my body shivers from the cold. I do not want to get back in the water. “Alright, everyone hop in the water.” A chorus of splashes follows the command. I hear desperate cries of help, I taste the salt water in my mouth. But I don’t. I don’t hear cries of help. I don’t taste salt. “Get in the pool, Isra.” He pronounces my name wrong again. His pen is tapping on the clipboard and his Adidas running shoes squeak from his shifting weight. “Just jump in, you don’t have to dive like David did. No need to show off,” the teacher sends David a pointed look, but it’s followed by a friendly smile. An inside joke, maybe. David. He’s on the swim team. My eyes search for David’s and they’re a sharp green. Uncle Abbas’ eyes were green. They are green. The boat never saved him, so I have to. My feet touch the water’s surface before I realize what I’ve done. They seek purchase on solid pool floor, but there is nothing to support my weight. My mouth goes under, and I take a breath in. My eyes goes under, but I fail to close them. I go under, but I fail to find reality.

“the chlorine smell is stronger here”

Someone is screaming. Uncle Abbas is floating away. Haifa is drowning with every wave. Hassan is crying. My eyes sting and my lung screams for air. My hands flail for a pool wall, but there are no pool walls in an ocean. My legs thrash in the pool, but the ocean current is too strong. Someone’s hands loop around my arms. Their eyes are green. It’s Uncle Abbas and he has saved me. I’m supposed to save him. But the color of his hair is wrong; he’s a brunet not a blond. He looks too young, where are the laugh lines and forehead wrinkles? Uncle’s eyes have brown specks, not golden ones. My mouth tastes of chlorine, not of salt. There is no screaming, but there is yelling. I see no orange life jackets, but I see blue and black swimsuits. My legs don’t itch from soaked jeans, they are cold and exposed to the air. The gym teacher leans into my vision, and I remember where I am. “Isra, are you alright?” He pronounces my name wrong again. -

“my hands flail for a pool

wall, but there are no pool walls in an ocean”

“you fight the good fight at home”

jade circles

There are children splashing in murky puddles as I pass by them. The water pipe had been damaged by a barrel bomb, but the water was momentarily purified by the chlorine the bomb contained. My throat constricts remembering the burning in my eyes and lungs and the fluid in my chest that almost killed me. I remember drowning without water. I remember the smell; it was a clean, bleach odor. I remember the mustard yellow air and then the stark white hospital tiles. They weren’t stark white. They were red with blood. The children’s laughter is infectious and I find a smile evoked from me. Their faces are bright, almost like the stars at night. In my hand I carry a few rations from the small market: fours loaves of bread and a separate bag of canned vegetables. My city ran out of canned strawberry jam two weeks ago. Hunger is the price my city pays for freedom. Death is the debt collector. The dirt crunches beneath my feet, dried by the summer sun. There are hardly any shadows as the sun lines up directly above my city. Today I’m supposed to go over and babysit my cousins while the men go off to the frontlines. I had asked to join them, to fight for my country, but my proposal was immediately shot down. “You fight the good fight at home, Isra. Keep everyone safe and stay strong when they are weak.”

The house where my extended family stays is up the hill and has a much better view of the city from the third floor. My family and I visit often, mostly to assure each other we are alive and well, and to find out who has died in the night. The homes up the hill are more intact, since the heart of the city has more people per block. Some of the homes have windows. If you’re smart, you break the window by yourself and sweep away the glass before a bomb makes them lethal. There are more shadows as I approach the climb to my family’s abode. There is one shadow that inspires true fear, that every citizen of my city knows too well, and that many fall victim to. Sometimes you can hear the shadow before you see it. The buffeting of air above forces my eyes to the sky and lands them on the shape of a helicopter. Its shadow covers the sun, and I can feel the lack of warmth immediately. My feet pause, watching as it hovers there for an indefinite amount of time. Something drops from the underside, a long gray canister, and cuts through the air. The helicopter hovers near me, but not close enough for an explosion to reach me. My family is too close. But the canister doesn’t explode. It’s...quiet, almost, in a way only someone who’s heard an explosion would describe. It’s as though a finger tapped on the desk of the Earth; there is minimal dust kicked up. A few more canisters fall; more taps on the desk. The shadow moves away and I am once again bathed in sunlit warmth. There is no yellow gas, there is no explosion. The Assad regime does not drop care packages. My legs carry me up the hill, the bag of vegetables ripping in the process and my rations rolling back down the road. The air tastes clear, feels clear, until it doesn’t. It feels heavy. My eyes become irritated, and then sting, and then there’s a searing burn at the back of my eye sockets. I try to scream, or shriek, or say something; my voice does not allow it. I surge onward, knowing my family is in the basement. Something has poisoned the air. My leg muscles twitch as though they ignore my command and

my hands can no longer hold onto the bag holding bread. I surge onward still. There are bodies on the street, some spasming and some motionless. A morbid symphony of gasps and desperate attempts at life fill the street with noise. A waterfall of white froth lines faces, and soon the gasps turn to gurgles and gags. If not white froth, then vomit; most often, both. I can see the front door of my family’s home and stumble over to the door handle. I twist, but it does not open. I twist again, and it does not open. My grip is not strong enough to turn the handle and I sink the ground, unable to support my own weight. A young boy, no older than five, lays beside me, his eyes managing to find mine. He looks familiar - familiar enough to draw attention. The air blocks my memory. I am not sure if he can see me or not. His pupils are the size of needle points. His eyes are a brilliant jade, but complete circles with a pinpoint black dot in the middle. Jade circles. His arm waves frantically, but not by his own will. His tiny hand is frozen with his palm out, as though he tried to protect himself from the canister. His chest heaves and his mouth froths; his gurgling signals the froth has reached his throat. His face is light blue. The ground surrounding his head is soaked in orange vomit, mostly liquid, no chunks. There’s not much to the contents of his stomach; we’re all starving. I find myself following suit, my body unable to save itself. My own chest convulses and I both breathe in the tainted air and cannot get enough of it. My cheek becomes wet with the same froth the young boy has. My mind submits to a thoughtless void. It is later in the hospital that I find out that young boy was Azad. He is martyred His family is, too.

the

bloody

tile

floor.

free from war “He will grow to be strong and healthy, I can tell.” Uncle Hadid is sure of himself as he breaks off some bread and dips it into his soup. The family sits around a table. It’s early in the war, so we still have furniture. Wrapped in a light blue blanket is a small boy, a baby, the son of my cousin Rajiyah and her husband Aziz. The boy is passed to Mother, who bounces him gently and pokes his nose. “What is his name, have you decided?” Rajiyah and Aziz share a single look and smile back at her, then around the table. “We’ve decided on Azad. It means ‘free’ and all we hope for is for him to be free of this war.” We all nod, though some with a more distant look in their eyes. As babies do, he vomits up onto Mother’s shirt. Father takes his napkin and wipes up the white vomit, a soft smile on his face. Father would be a casualty of the war; Azad, too. Azad grows up knowing nothing but war. He dies knowing nothing but war. -

“he dies knowing nothing but war”

“Can you describe the gassing incident to us?” I do. My lungs burn with phantom feeling. “Can you describe the man who tried to rape you in Turkey?” I struggle. His eyes haunt me. “Can you describe Abbas Khouri?” My eyes threaten tears, but the interviewer watches me closely. “Have you come here with ill intent, to spread extremism, or to practice it?” I am offended. They don’t care. “How many hours were you aboard the smuggler boat?” Too many. Too many hours. And yet, not enough. Not enough for safety. “Who is the father of Haifa’s child?” A dead man, and a man not worthy of naming. Yet I say his name. “Is Haifa at all indoctrinated into ISIS or follows the will of the child’s father?” She is not indoctrinated. She is impregnated, unwilling. After too many questions and too many memories: “Welcome to America.” -

trojan horse 69

assimilation Syria is not welcome in America. I begin my life in America as a foreigner, and I remain a foreigner for life. No matter how I try, they know I’m not them. I no longer wear my hijab; I no longer speak Arabic in public; I no longer roll the ‘r’ in my name; I no longer make the ‘i’ long; I no longer eat a Syrian breakfast; I no longer practice Islam. I no longer feel like me. A few weeks after arriving in the United States, we are finally given an duplex for ourselves. Haifa has her baby a few weeks later. Her baby has something wrong with it. It freezes three times a day, white foam gurgling in its mouth, muscles twitching. Haifa blames it on the sarin. I don’t like to look at the baby, it reminds me too much of Azad. The elderly couple who shares our duplex invites us over for dinner. There is a tenderness in the way they handle Haifa’s baby. The wife says she can relate, her granddaughter has epilepsy, too. “What a tough life your baby has ahead of her,” they would frown as they helped clean the mess around the baby’s face. They’re a kind couple. I hear them talking of banning refugees. -

it’s morning in america “There was a chemical attack in Syria today.”

“Well, we should take him out.”

“Where?”

“Here’s the CNN article on the attack.”

“Syria, you know, the whole ISIS slash Assad thing?”

“Oh, look at that little boy on the ground, he’s spasming. That’s disturbing.”

“Oh right, that mess. What happened, I didn’t hear you the first time.” “There was a chemical attack. Sarin, the news said.”

“Watch the video, that girl with the bread bag runs up to the door and tries to open it, then she falls unconscious at the door.”

“Oh, that’s horrible. What’s sarin?”

“Is she alive?”

“Illegal nerve agent or something.”

“I think so, not sure.”

“So how many are dead?”

“Well this is all very sad.”

“At least 20 children.”

“Yeah, I hope they’re all alive.”

“Oh, we should do something, that’s horrific. Who could do such a thing?”

“Me too. What’s for breakfast?”

“Bashar Al-Assad, apparently.”

fin

where home is by mak kaoud

Michigan We’ve got overcast galore, good enough to bottle and sell as melatonin to kids who don’t know any better than to take it Watch our teenagers get drunk every summer at bonfires. There’s nothing else to do in this state but burn down It’s home, isn’t it? Brazil Once a year on São João we throw a party With sparklers, fireworks, fire, fire, fire I go to bed that night, with brigadero on my lips and ash in my hair And I felt like the sun: never-ending and warm England In the garden where I’d eat mint leaves like some kids eat candy, My sister and I would have tea parties with plastic toy cups, blue and yellow We’d roast marshmallows in the fireplace and watch them char My grandmother would bake cakes and sit me on the counter to watch Italy Where the sun washed over me like butter on a pastry I taught myself to swing in the park across the street from where I lived It was nighttime and I looked up to see the stars dotting the sky like paint stains on my dad’s jacket Germany We all slept in one bedroom And when I got sick and had a seizure in my bed, We all took one ambulance to the hospital and i burned up like a bonfire, like roasted marshmallows, like a sparkler But we walked home after And my mother carried me to bed Canada My grandmother taught me to feed the ducks on Ontario Lake To give the cats plates to eat off of To bake butter cookies and dust them with powdered sugar I’d go to her bed to sleep, to cry, to burn -

“Heavy with desperation and stories spun of tears and gold”

this is home

by esther

Pale yellow walls Act as a plaster skeleton of sorts. If I think too much my dreams bubble in complacent air, Hit the popcorn ceiling and dissipate. On days where the ‘Meta’ and ‘physical’ in ‘metaphysical’ are interchangeable and I’m left strangled in a makeshift reality And on days where the sky lowers, Heavy with desperation and stories spun of tears and gold I sit in the attic Ponder the Number of inches of dust on old magazines and Admire glossy Christmas cards never sent The lights are too dim in this room but Sometimes I do not want to see everything. Or on days when everything that I breathe in is as vivid and violent as a blood orange I sift through the dust bunnies underneath my bedroom floorboards for a compass Shake it in my hands so that the needle will stay Permanently north. And then I sit on my mattress, hidden in the comfort of Cotton sheets and dreams that have delineated to the point of Nonexistence, Looking for sunlight between the slats of my window blinds. Sometimes it’s bittersweet Surging in and out of horizons, Looking for the daytime at night my walls are painted powder blue like the sky And being surrounded by stagnant oxygen and furniture. It may be sad But it is home. –

pops

art by suki | words by eleanor

You should never kill a bee, bluebells should always point down, and never leave your garden without roses. Those are the first three lessons you taught me only then could I graduate from picking blackberries to gathering apples, from gathering apples to the greenhouse, weaving my fingers through soil like roots to find the spare key under the plant pot. The key to the home that I flourished from. Orchids are your favourite. In the kitchen we press their petals into frames to make pictures, something you taught me how to do just once, but still a process that stuck. You teach in ways that your knowledge can thrive beyond textbooks and test scores from the school where you used to teach. These stories of your past are the words by which I want to grow, these days in March, the stem of my imagination. The snapshot of our garden settles into the gallery in the dining room. We’ve built a wall of frames with a few dozen photographs, a sort of family tree, each memory coaxing its own familiar smile. I can see a certain sparkle in your eye when you talk about them, or the posters you used to paint for the cinema a short walk away, the place where you met my nan. In the world, there are things meant for learning. There are things that are meant to be made into art. And there are things meant to be like this home, a treehouse which took 77 years to complete from photo frames and painted papiermache. But art isn’t a home. Art is a tribute. Not like this same old chair, where you sip your same old glass of cider from the apple tree and sing songs you learned in the army. You remember your fuselier number, you remember that you were the best shot who fired from the wrong side. You don’t remember that these are the same stories you told 78

me yesterday. Stories about fighting for the world that you love, and creating beautiful things from the soil, and reminding the generations ahead of you to appreciate it. Everyday you’re another step further away. Another step towards the landing, head in the clouds, never remembering the date or the time or the present you’re existing in. In the bedroom, there’s a clock set two minutes forward and half an hour back. Somehow there I can unpick different lessons to the ones you repeatedly teach me: that somebody can die before they’ve really stopped breathing, and start living through the character they were in their past. Each new page eats away at another flower in the garden, at another ounce of the oxygen that you have left. You wither after sunrise, head turned down and towards the greenhouse. Bricks melt into tears and smiles fade from the photo frames, as one by one, details of your stories crumble and fracture my own memory. It’s like I yearn to fill the cracks you left in the trunk of our family tree, yet I barely remember who you were before you were dying. There’s nothing to learn, nothing to paint, nothing to fight for. Nothing to say at your funeral. Nothing living that would be willing to give me oxygen to breathe. If only I could remember how, I’d fill this place with bumblebees and bluebells and my nan’s favourite flowers. There’d be apple trees, fountains running through the pond, blackberries, raspberries, growing in the greenhouse. I’d bury the key with an orchid on the doorstep in case you ever decided to visit. Maybe one day you will, though I wish I could remember where you’d gone. _

erased by bunni

Alone. Alone on the very soil that I was birthed upon. Outcasted. Outcasted by the very people that claim freedom for all. Labeled. Labeled with words that are anything but my own. I am nothing. I am told that my worth is that of a landfill. Taking up space, corrupting the environment. I am told that ever since my small lungs developed, that the air I breathe would be better used, if breathed by someone else. I am told that I take up too much space. That my laughter that strikes the atmosphere like thunder, is unwanted. That my hair that defies gravity is too noticeable. That the language that rolls off of my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tongue is moronic. That the pure existence of life that my ancestors wove for me is barbaric. That my skin that absorbs the essence of light may one day be the undeserving cause of my death. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been years since the first time I have awoken on this piece of land. Years of being alone. Years of being outcasted. Years of being labeled. Years of being raised into dystopia. Years of being abused by this land that I am forced to call home. A land where I am erased. _

together, locked safely

all up the seething coast

the sound of settling

teeth in the grass

neighborhood #2 (laika)

all the voices

how to embrace a swamp creature

thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nothing in the water we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fight

talons

by anika

potential homes

love me by julianna poupard

Before you love me, you must hold my shaking hands as they squeeze your bones like a lifeline; don’t forget to teach me how to breathe. Before you love me, you must watch the light in my eyes dim, my smile disappear. I won’t eat, won’t shower, won’t speak. Watch me decay. Before you love me, you must feel me flinch as you place your hands on me, feel me curl away from you without the cover of clothing, feel me fear you. Before you love me, you must learn that you deserve to be loved by a heart that isn’t broken. Before you love me, you must choose me, now as I am, as I will always be. You’ll kill me if you go. Before you love me, you must promise not to hurt me. Please don’t hurt me. Hurt me all you want. Before you love me, you must know, I’ll love you too. Before you love me, don’t. -

Our minds and our bodies are our home. Therefore, when there is something wrong with out mind or our body, this can become a source of turmoil and strife. I have struggled with mental illness for the majority of my life, and this has always made me feel “less than”. How can I be proud of the body and mind within which I exist, proud of the home I dwell inside, when it is broken? This sentiment has hindered my ability to fall in love. More specifically, it has become increasingly difficult to trust in the love of another. I always feel the need to give new people who enter into my life a disclaimer before getting close to me, as if my mental illness is a ticking time bomb within the shattering walls of my fragile mind, one that could go off and take anyone else down with me. So I have decided, before someone chooses to love me, they must see me at my worst, exist inside of my darkest moments. They must see how I tremble with the earthquakes of anxiety attacks, how my entire being decays during my depressive episodes, how my body flinches away as a result of PTSD. The very temple that I exist inside of is broken, and therefore I have no comforting home to offer to someone else. I warn anyone who might come to love me of all the reasons I believe they shouldn’t. Falling in love has become a dangerous and treacherous thing for me. I place my heart in the eager hands of a lover, outlining exactly how to destroy it, and yet I’m supposed to trust them not to do so. Before letting anyone into my heart, into my home, I must let them see the ugliest parts of myself. My parting words are this: let them see you. Let them see you lost, scared, hurt… let them see you break. Then, see if they stay to help you put yourself back together. -

Home by definition is the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household, but it can also be a prison for many people suffering with Social Anxiety Disorder. People with Social Anxiety Disorder are often afraid of meeting or talking to people, even their own friends, because of the irrational anxiety, fear, selfconsciousness and embarrassment that follows. For some people who live with this stigmatised disorder, like myself, home is a safe haven where the amount of irrational and negative thoughts they have are limited. Like many mental disorders, various types of anxiety have been reduced to a joke, romanticised in books or in reality, ‘swept underneath the rug’ and are barely recognized in today’s society. For example, many people in my school constantly use Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as a punchline, commenting: “you’re so OCD”. They laugh because they think that this is funny, but it’s not. People who make jokes about mental disorders don’t realise how it can affect someone - those three words do not just affect one person but millions of people who live with the stigmas against their mental disorders. Thus, due to these stigmas, those with mental health disorders shy away from seeking help or talking to their friends, family and people they trust about how their mental disorders impact their lives.

situations such as someone shouting at me and being quite shy. Because of these vulnerabilities, I was forced to climb what seemed to be a never ending mountain for friendship and acceptance. But as I climbed higher up, the mountain has obstacles such as exclusion that dragged me back down. I described myself as a ghost — someone who drifted from one friendship to another, trying to find a way up the mountain. I never succeeded, and I was being dragged further down by insecurities, a lack of self acceptance and self worth. I was pushing myself out of my comfort zone to fit in, to be accepted by my peers, but the number of incidences of exclusion was increasing rapidly and I was losing hope. As I recalled the frequencies of these incidences, I realised that it wasn’t just one experience but rather an experience that happened countless of times. I remembered my teacher talking to our class about the difference between bullying and teasing — how teasing was just making fun of someone whereas bullying was more than one incidence. So, I fought against my fears and went to my teacher to report the bullying that I was dealt with but she didn’t believe me. She thought that I was making it up because my bullies were ‘perfect little angels’. So, I informed my parents about my situation but they were to busy with their work to listen to me.

One of the very common experiences that can develop Social Anxiety is bullying, whether it may be frequent criticism from peers, parents, teachers or the bullying that leaves scars beneath your skin and within your head. This means that when the bullying stops, the person is free from the physical torment but still has memories of these events beneath their skin and within their head. From a young age, I was prone to crying at unnecessary

I was never really an athletic person either, and this attribute would lead to teasing from my classmates. I have Mild Cerebral Palsy which indicates that the severity of brain damage suffered from birth was only significant enough to cause slight impairments such as physical and mental limitations such as taking a while to process information. I never shared this secret with my classmates and I was too scared to tell anyone

home is where the heart is by cecelia cooke

because of my fear of being bullied again. Since my peers didn’t know about my condition, they would often tease me about how I couldn’t catch a ball properly, do anything in gym class or had trouble with lifting heavy objects. As I have grown, matured and started to feel comfortable in my own skin, I have learned to accept my condition without reminding myself of the discrimination that comes with it. These two main experiences shaped and developed my Social Anxiety. As I graduated primary school, I saw high school as a glimmer of hope — a new chance at fitting in and reaching the top of the mountain. High school has been an emotional rollercoaster for me: I made new friends (one of them was my newly found friend in primary school), I strived to be the best I could be and I attempted to ride the roller coasters that I feared.

my mind increased and I became more scared to talk to him. My thoughts often made up scenarios and the most significant scenario was once where he would call me a ‘f —ing retard’ while I was standing outside the door, waiting for him to help me with a mathematics problem. However, my problem of a simple maths equation turned into something more complex. Whenever I saw him in the hallways, I would always have a freeze or flight response. I ultimately avoided him due to my belief of him hating me, but I no longer want to live with this guilt for the rest of my life. I want to have the ability to explain what’s going on inside my head to him one small step at a time. I would like to explain everything to him but my negative thoughts make it hard for me to do so. -

I had a teacher once who accepted me for who I was — he was the reason why I was motivated to come to school and learn. He often told the class maths jokes which would make the whole class, except for me, look at him in confusion. He made me laugh, made me feel like I was accepted, made social interactions easier by letting me email him instead of talking to him but most importantly, he helped me escape my bubble of insecurities. He may not realise it, but he is one of the reasons why I am still here today and I would like to thank him for that. He was a great teacher, a friend and a role model. Like me, he also suffers from an anxiety disorder — Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but no matter how much it affects him emotionally, he always has a smile on his face. Yet, my Social Anxiety took a turn for the worst. The amount of negative thoughts that roamed 85

the subtle aspects of home by alex

splinters

photography by leontine | words by maham

childhood swallows its tail. the light is warm on my chewed knees. mother wants a daisy, a little golden bee. as a child, i learn to contort. i hold my breath. the tap water runs red. i’m looking for love under a crocodile’s tongue; i’m looking for love in everything. i hold my breath. i eat light, salt, dust. i eat my hands. mother wants her money’s worth. i learn how rage is fluid, how it swells to fill a room. how you raise your hand & i forget to breathe.

ii.

children will splinter thumbs, forgive no venom. at home, the stomach crawls up the throat. sometimes mother is the leg you gnaw off. children will coil up, pythons, electric & glittering & waiting for impact: five-fingered, red & warm. children will pocket stones, pull teeth, guilt stuck to their shoes. look: how blue light stains the photo, how she loves you in a space you can’t reach anymore, or even want to. sometimes mother eats the heart she made. children will morph into barren fields, hated by rain & gold & god. children will yearn into the dust, drink saltwater until they can’t anymore. children will try to forgive, try & try & try & try -

iii.

you slam the door like god. loud, & i mean LOUD. the air convulses, my soul stretches thin. you drink from the black pool of my youth. i’ll never get those years back, so i break my own wrist i’d rather break my own wrist WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? my knees wove into the carpet. i swallowed a hot sun of shame. all I do is scratch off my skin to make you cry & it never works. i did nothing / i’m still going to hell. you slam the door like you’re god.

iv.

I get it, I get it. We can’t all suffer gracefully. _

dragon fire by bridgette

i am 8 years old. hungry for lunch i pull out my hello kitty thermos filled with rice porridge and open my ziploc bag of dried pork sung. suddenly my crush, the boy with blonde hair and blue eyes looks up from his corndog laughing, asking, “are you eating hair?” he puts a pinch in his mouth and when he spits it out the whole table erupts into laughter, making me want to spit out my culture. two years later and I am ten. i’m sitting in the backseat of momma’s car listening to KPCC when I tell her I wish I wasn’t asian. “momma,” I say. “don’t you think blonde hair is prettier than black?” “don’t you think europeans are prettier than asians?” she asks me why I think this way. i tell her, “that’s what all the magazines say.” at least, that’s what I thought. because while other girls looked at models since they were skinny I looked at them because they were white bright, blinding pictures of these porcelain skinned, blue eyed angels“beautiful” america said. “plaster them across every media platform available.”

“to be white was to be beautiful” I told myself. to be white was to have the stage and the job and the award and the world so to have the wrong skin meant you were never going to win. So i glued my mouth shut. my chinese was a dragon with too much fire so I english extinguished the flame. tried to whitewash down the ashes of a language i swore to never speak, tried to bleed out the history of my immigrant parents flowing in me like calligraphy ink, but soon my body felt sick. how could I forget the culture that has rooted herself in me?

taiwan tattooed her sunrises on the backs of my eyelids, gave me fresh soymilk for a voice shine of her tallest building for a smile and i will not forget the culture that has shaped me into everything i have and will become. america, can’t you see? you’ve got a crime on your hands. stole the dreams and confidence of asian americans nationwide, taught them that they will only be the sidekick and never the main character, said they need double eyelid surgery and white canvas skin to be a work of art but we cherry blossom into color, are here for each other, stronger than jadewe are a gem if you just dig deep enough.

所以我不要躲了. 我的中文不奇怪﹐ 而是音樂. My chinese will water gardens grown for my ancestors, carry me into a new world, and glue my two cultures together. i am 16 years old. i ask my friend if i should get bangs and she tells me that i will “look too asian.” so i cut my hair. i talk to my parents in chinese in public even though they are fluent in english. you can’t erase race, and i wish i knew this sooner. i wish i knew how beautiful my small eyes, my black hair, my chinese, is. because they are all a part of who i am and who I am is a proud taiwanese american. a whirlwind of poetry and song, the dragon fire girl with a bilingual tongue, standing strong, rooted. beautiful. _

final note our homes:

busselton, western australia (maddy) karachi, pakistan (maham k)

jakarta, indonesia (jennifer liu) sydney, australia (lily)

inland empire southern california (claire) china (dream)

chicago, il usa (bunni) thailand (may)

sydney, australia (anika de jong) it’s home ! coast of south east england (issy) very small. very quiet. lots of gossip because everyone is pretending to be someone they’re not. kentucky (king) Rural, impoverished, I wouldn’t trade it but it’s not the dream. tasmania, australia (dani donnelly) The scenery is gorgeous, you can drive 20 minutes and be in a completely different landscape. Everyone is super friendly, even if the unemployment rate is super high and the cities are a mess... massachusetts, us (stephanie h) The people that live here are very nice! It’s a calm place with lots of awesome locations (such 94

as restaurants, cafes, etc.) What I love most is the abundance of animals and nature! In my neighborhood you can constantly see these extremely fluffy mourning doves, somehow capable of precariously balancing on roof tops and electrical wires despite their astounding fluffiness. the black isle in scotland (beth strange) I live in a hamlet (smaller than a village, bigger than an isolated house) which has three houses a church and a graveyard. It criss-crosses the line between tranquil and stifling, peaceful and lonely, serene and spooky. A lot of the time you can hear the main road half a mile away but around 4am the delivery lorries stop and the cars are still at home and it gets so quiet that you can hear the trees creaking in the forest. The darkness makes the stars especially bright. fresno, california (camille sibel) A little depressing, because everyone you meet wants to leave it. Fresno is in the San Joaquin Valley of California and is pretty much surrounded by agriculture. I definitely like it a lot more than I did a few years ago, but still not enough to want to spend the rest of my life here.

germany (layla mckane) A village populated by families who never made it out and those who seek peacefulness amongst the green of the forest. It’s a quiet place and even though I never felt like I belonged I have left my traces in the woods, I know every street and the cats that live there. michigan (mak kaoud) I live in the quiet suburbs of detroit in a Bible thumping town. There’s an overcast for 3/4s of the year and it’s a bit depressing. There’s potholes on every road and road construction on every other road. I’m not a big fan of where I live. There’s nothing much to do but wander around downtown with too little money to buy anything nice. The teenagers here all keep to themselves and smoke weed or vape in each other’s basements. fort lauderdale, florida, usa (alex) tropical, hot, busy. I like it here because I live a few minutes from the beach and can go whenever I want. I absolutely love the beach! utah (amelia) quiet, mountains, lots and lots of sun and snow. a pretty good place to live! irvine, california (esther lee) Irvine is overwhelmingly suburban. Some sections of it are eerily perfect, like The Community in The Giver. The people who live here come from many backgrounds and cultures, and are usually ambitious, hardworking, and goal-oriented. It’s also always soaked in Californian sun and usually always hot/warm. I like it, but many people refer to it as “The Bubble” since at times it feels like we’re sectioned off from reality. I definitely agree with this, and feel that the aspirations placed on students and young adults by our parents and the city”society” can be suffocating. perth, western australia (jada) pretty sunsets and stormy nights

arkansas, united states (miguel) The town in which I live in is calm and nothing exciting every happens here and to some that might be a bad thing but if you’re like me it’s perfect. A quiet town filled with unique characters and big ambitions. We are dubbed as “The Natural State” and for good reason too, i’ve traveled to other states in the U.S. and I’ve got to say that I haven’t been as submerged into nature as I have living here. norcal, california bay area (cindy nguyen) i love where i live! theres always something going on, you’re always bound to find a new story or experience just by being out on the streets :) central valley area, california (von vang) Most conservative part of California. Very traditional in the sense that we are “homey” or “old-fashioned.” Very, very agriculturally-based. Lots of migrant farmers. Consists of mostly Latino/Hispanic + white people. Few scattered East-Asian/ Pacific-Islander groups. mg, brazil (bell) It’s not a hot-like-hell place, we don’t have beaches here and Carnival isn’t our principal cultural festivity, contradicting basically everything people thing Brazil is. I can sum up the place I live in: fields, horses, alcohol and cheese. And we do freaking have the fucking best accent from this country, truth need to be told my friend. california, usa (esther) I live in a suburban city close to some of the biggest well known cities in the U.S. (including San Francisco), so there’s always a place to come visit and have fun. It’s a pretty small and quiet place despite being classified as a “city”. There is only one high school in the whole city which is great since you get to see people you’ve known your whole life, but due to a growing population, it’s getting heavily crowded and that adds a sense of impatience and recklessness in the student body. However, the most prominent aspect of where I live is the diversity of races living in the city. I’ve 95

always grown up seeing different skin colors and ethnicity and I honestly believe that has shaped me as a person for the better. los angeles, california, united states (mina) oof as you prob know there’s a lot of vanity because ~hollywood~ and there’s a lot of pressure to be famous, as an end in itself!! also not as much intellectual-ness and everyone’s obsessed w being pretty (esp. girls). it starts young, like you have to show up to school always dressed perfectly and ugh i think u can tell i dont like it connecticut (jane) imagine a tree and times it by 10000 california (maia) four words: boba and the bay singapore (char) i kinda like it and not, its super hot and i feel like melting 24/7 austin, tx, usa (sara schleede) I’ve only lived in Austin for less than a year so far, so it’s still becoming home to me. But I’m already in love with the blend of so many different aesthetics. I love being in Central Texas, because even though I’m in a city surrounded by skyscrapers and a new booming tech industry, I always feel in touch with the land. The roads curve to match the hills, and wildflowers grow at every corner. I know if I ever end up writing a screenplay, I would probably write something similar to Ladybird, and Texas would be my Sacramento. In Austin, everyone cares about the environment and spending time outdoors, and there are so many different types of lives so close to you that you can get a glimpse of and learn about. d.c., maryland, virginia (hailey) everyone’s confused whether they’re a DC or Baltimore kid.

brooklyn, new york (swan) Lots of noise and busy. I live next to the train so there’s literally never any quiet. There’s a lot of stray cats in my area eastern pennsylvania, usa (rye) The cities are older than the country itself, and the houses of colonial times that are shown off on main street somehow manage to fit nicely with the newer modern buildings. I’ve never seen a cozier place. pennsylvania (trevor) it is the perfect blend of nature and modernism. i feel like i’m home wherever i go. australia (lulu) I live in a political state. It’s a purely parliament and university based city. huntsville, tx (kaitlin) It’s a college town, it’s small and there’s not much to do. There aren’t many people that live here but it’s nice and so are the people. miami, fl (alexa baez) it feels like a nomad’s city, lots of tourists and seasonal migrants. i used to hate it but now it’s grown on me quite a lot. i’ve traveled a lot and i can promise you that no place has the sunsets miami has france (ykar) We like to complain a lot but feel like only us can mock France. We like to fight over “chocolatine” VS “pain au chocolat”, or “sac” VS “poche”. I don’t know if I really like where I live now, but I glad to be alive so I might as well enjoy it, even though I’m surrounded by a forest of buildings and moody people :) ontario, canada! (jess) where i’m from you can get away with talking to anyone on the street and come away from it feeling better. it’s really, really cold but people make up for it with their warmth.

new albany, indiana, us (christy) indiana; a place that doesn’t always get a good rap (understandable) but has its charm. wild weather, lots of farms and animals, very close to two great cities, and the place i’ve come to know some of the greatest people. this said, it gets boring & frustrating, ngl. but it will always be home to me even when i’m far away. tustin, ca (chico) it’s a mexican community living in the apartments in front of a zoo; it gets pretty crazy sometimes (throwback to the time my family’s three cars got robbed) but it’s usually pretty quiet and everyone who lives in the apartments knows my grandma somehow.

pacific northwest, usa (riley) i really like living here! the people are generally kind and open-minded, and the vibe mostly reflects that. there’s a lot of creativity and freedom of expression which is great for people that are creative (like me)! washington state (joshua) I love Washington! The environment is beautiful and really great for hiking, trail running, etc. I live west of the Cascade Mountains, where we have lots of ferns, mosses, and evergreens, but further east it’s far more arid and dry. manila, philippines (nica goma) The Pearl of the Orient Flooding and Heat Waves _

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