fall.
hi! welcome to our fall zine. as always thank you to those that submitted and for even giving us your time of day to read this right now. to be honest i don’t have a lot to say. the fall puts me in a quiet and introspective mood which i think is great. i’ve been thinking a lot and doing a lot - hope you have been too. xox, sophie
Cover Photo By Jonathan Roensch
Photo By Sophie Gragg / Los Angeles
warm sun glowing softly colors hazily sweeping across the sky as dusk falls bitter cold wind biting into my skin wrapping my jacket tighter around myself shivering but grinning staring at fallen leaves red yellow orange that crunch under my boots carving pumpkins feeling the goopy insides slide over my hands listening to the radio on road trips and not having to talk because we’re enjoying the comfortable quiet while looking out the windows smiling at Halloween decorations my God ! I am in love with the world this time of year - Lillian Pricer / Sterling Heights
Adam Sputh / Los Angeles
Adam Sputh / Los Angeles
Adam Sputh / Los Angeles
Foreign Enchantment I love the slightly spiced air, The leather coat, a little worse for wear. I relax into the embrace That foreign coverings make. As if my body isn’t used to such splendor. It’s fall again, Pleasing to the eye, Colors erupting at every sight, I wonder if I might, Take a red leaf and taste it Just to feel if it is real. Cinnamon and Pumpkin spice, The scenery is lush and nice. I feel a chill run down my spine, Maybe the feeling will stay this time. Happy to live in an autumn haze, May this enchantment stay for the rest of my days.
-Isabella Vega / Orlando
Carolina Davalos / Gualajara
To healing cuts and lukewarm thoughts I’d like to control The way my eyes start and stopLooking, closing, and Spitting tears. I bring my pen into the bathroom, And I set it down on the counter With my brushes and gels, As if it could dry the wetness on my face. I draw lines and letters, In through pores and out Through breath, That spell out something heartrending. And it takes the shape of your name, Though backwards in the mirror. And the lamp flickers against the autumn-bitten countertop, And the shadows it makes almost look like your silhouette. -Olivia Milan / Randolph
Adam Sputh / Los Angeles
Nile Marucci-Campbell / Toronto
the trees are on fire and so is my head we’re baking in the 12 minutes that sunset lasts shriveling from tones of red and orange into something resembling a burnt and light brown crisp. i could write a thousand words about how much i hate myself. about how sadness seeps into my scalp the way the bleach burns the hairs on my 19-year-old head. crunchy leaves on the trees seen from the window crunchy strands of hair it’s fall i’m falling—parallel ironies.
-Joslin Keim / Seattle
Samantha Arambula / El Centro
Kristina Maria / OsnabrĂźck
Fall is out there and i also feel like i am falling. University is starting. A new city a new life. Like the leaves are falling its time for letting go. I cried a lot but the warm colours outside are helping. This is why i painted my wall yellow. Ready for the winter to come. Closing the green chapter. This little series i collected some photos from a ongoing series i am making how the room and me changes through this process of starting new.
falling the sun rolled over on her side i lost my grip you started the engine and everything went black i wanted to run through you and your meadows for a moment someone screamed there was a song and the last page of a book turned desire was the handle to a wrong cup of coffee i knew it right then when the bird also began to sing i never had to ask the universe for anything ever again but then i did and your ever knowing smile grew wide. -Sara Sturek / Syosset
Ari Joss by Matty Mcculloch / Sydney
Arielle Gray / Tuscaloosa
of veins the scents they scope out the blistering horizon in front of me leaves fluttering they peel and wane swaying to match the curves of hips and the blisters that form on toes like crayons to paper or tongue to teeth they press down deep against skin let their veins dissipate softly sinking lower and lower into my bloodstream until it is not just leaves that fall to the ground bodies scattered the gentle hum reminds us of the tree’s bare limbs - Kari Trail / Menlo Park
The fall, into and out of, happened much like how the seasons come and go, all at once and in one fell swoop. I met him in the summer. From day one, I was drawn, intoxicated by his shiny allure. Much like summer, the chase was fun, hot, heavy, and too short. Swept up like the fallen leaves that huddled in brown piles around the parks we walked through, I couldn’t find my footing nor my breath. I let myself go with the flow of the brisk wind and let myself fall for, into, and under him. Deeper and deeper until the weather left patches of white throughout our city. The bitter cold made it easy to find and crave the warmth of him as we passed the short days and long nights beneath the sheets. I let my guard down as I pulled my scarf up, those three little words fell out of my mouth as we stumbled out of the bar. Soon enough, the days stretched while the nights shrank. Temperatures rose while we grew cold, resentful of the iciness that we couldn’t seem to shake.
We chose togetherness over loneliness until it broke us back into me and him. We unraveled, bit by bit, tethered to each other by our own selfishness, our pain, our hurt. As snow turned to water, and flowers started to bloom, so did the cracks in the unit of us. The fights came as often as the rain, as did the tears that fell from my face. If only I could have used them to nurture the connection we had back to what it was, what I knew it could be. That day never came, instead the tears overflowed and created a pool of animosity that ebbed and flowed between us. Standing on opposite shores, we stared. We waited for the other to make a move that neither dared. We completed our first and only journey around the sun. No longer a part of something, just apart.
- Anisa Young / Brooklyn
Le Quyen Nguyen / Berlin
Jonathan Roensch / Eugene
Jonathan Roensch / Eugene
Jonathan Roensch / Eugene
There’s a distance between what I’m seeing and my eyes. Something is disconnected, weaving my tires down the canyon road. The cleavage of the rock wall coming down around me, tumbling and graining into Cobble Creek. I am getting away for the afternoon. I listen serenely to The Lumineers tell me about dysfunctional mothers and other fictional women they cling to. Strings inside me are frayed and have mostly fell apart from one another. With each strum, twist and tie. With each mile, build and braid upon each other until thick roots have taken off once more. My eyes are still adjusting to the picture. I pull onto gravel by the lone swing set. I face the mountain in front of me: a dark green against cold blue. Trees turning give a yellow glow to the face of the mountain. I grip the steel chain and put in my headphones. Take off. Close my eyes. The Lumineers tell me to leave for Denver / you’ll be home in spring / one day I’ll be more than my father’s son / this blood this blood this blood. I tip my head back into the sun. The air is cold and I am warmed. This is a cry against Winter. A rage against this dying and I would hold this Earth in place forever just to stay in this moment. In this slight chill and clear sky. In this dry skin and reconnection. I would rage.
- Grace Sullivan / Cedar City
Loss of Life / Loss of Leaves Dead is the color of the season: Dryness is spacious. Cracking and flaking—leaves and skin Crunch and sour—cider and cinder Life drains away so beautifully, wistful and chilled. The sky is empty in preparation for heavy set clouds of Winter, we do not live. Freeze and shiver, ache in the small of my back.
-Grace Sullivan / Cedar City
Andressa Mensch / Rio de Janeiro
Photo by Ciele Beau + Model Maryse Bernard / Vancouver
Kimberly Maltez / Sunland
riding in cars with loved ones we’re headed up to Harrison to visit my great grandparents’ graves an endless stream of music flows from the speakers and my brother is cracking jokes the trees are golden and the air is cold it stopped raining just before we left so the sky is grey and the earth is damp I love this kind of day I love riding in cars and I love good music I love the way towns look up north and I love October I may not have many good days but I can have okay days and that’s enough for now
-Lillian Pricer / Sterling Heights
Kimberly Maltez / Sunland
the chills that come with the wind when i was born no one told me the summer Sun would outshine me Novemberborn: i had to find out for myself. November, neverending evening the Sun goes down and a mess of browned leaves crowds in the pit of my stomach: dread collects with nothing to do but rot. i used to run after the Sunset and try to hold the light in my hands (it disappeared every time) i once ran down the stairs of my ancestral home, slipping splitting open my chin letting the blood seep into the dead wood. now i know better than to give chase: there is a stone in my throat but i know August comes before November. and so i reflect on a park bench, slumped back: withdrawal of Sun watching my breath fog up and disappear, a false sign of life. continuity stops making sense without the Sun sat in one spot, i only know the passage of time through my nails, grown long and gnarled with the days. when this park empties by Sundown and the ducks follow the Sun south (how i envy them) i start to see myself in the third person hungry, starving for company, i feed myself the illusion of seeing another living being. watching from beyond the body, a specter, a spectator nothing stops that mass from walking into the empty lake and sinking to the bottom draped in dirty white, waiting for November to die, for the surface to freeze over and seal away the corpse ‘til the Sun thaws it out.
-Ambika Nuggihalli / Pacifica
Melisa Ulkumen / Los Angeles
Michaela Perau / New York City
Oh How I Wonder Oh how I wonder, If you see yourself, How I see you. The way you smile, Like a crescent moon, As your lips faintly peak. The way you laugh, Like a swaying oak, As you bristle under your breath. The way you look, Like a night sky, As your eyes twinkle in a blink. The way you touch, Like a gentle breeze, As your hands caress with tenderness. Oh how I wonder, If you know, As season to season passes by, My love for you grows; for it will never die.
Melissa Rose Miller / Long Beach
We escaped the stocking heat of summer and won’t last for the icy hands of winter. Our belongs here, in fall. The middle of it all. -Xitllali Sunshine / Los Angeles
Ursula Bowling / Los Angeles
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