summer.
it sure has been a different summer than we all planned for. despite everything going on in the world, summer remains a feeling and state of mind - and so much more than a season. these submissions still capture that feeling effortlessly and i applaud those still making space in their mind and day to create. i hope this summer you’ve found time for yourself and you’ve been able to shift your energy towards positivity. remember to think big picture and remember to still move forward. xox, sophie
Cover By Stephanie Cardona / Vancouver Background Photo By Shayanne Gal / New York City
CDC My hands are calloused and numb as I write about the occupant of my daydreams The sweetest apple She was dancing, her hands scattered in all directions She jumped through the traces of green and sang a song with no melody And as she hummed her empty tune I couldn’t help but stare and turn a bright rose Oh, if we could live in reality I don’t think she knew I saw her Or how I looked at her The occupant of my daydreams walks through apple fields They tell me she is quite the fruit herself I know, she is the sweetest one - Kanzy Abdelkhalek / Kuwait
Manto Prestipino / Palermo
Jack Evstigneev / Sydney
Manto Prestipino / Palermo
Summer Bummer This summer is a bummer, Will it ever end? Sun rise, Sun set. An eternal cycle – It drags on, reminding us of all that is lost. Sunlight seeps through the cracks in my curtains, And laughter lingers in the empty streets. The lockdown generation are scared to emerge. Where has the life gone? Each cotton candy cloud in the hazy sky, Carrying memories of summers past; We used to stroll by the sea, disregarding all responsibilty. We used to dance in the fields, as day turned to dusk. This summer is a bummer, Bittersweet nostalgia pumping through our hearts. We will meet again in the soft summer sun, But, for now, we are longing for an escape. - Maddie Balcombe / London
Shahera Sam / Kuala Lumpur
upside down sometimes leaves look like haphazard butterflies tiny yellow wings flailing in the choke of air that pulls them downwards thin pale objects floating downstream allowing the drainage to swallow them like paint chips flaking on a furnished floor like words that lay vulnerable behind your teeth crimson petals flutter down joining the somber parade an indistinct fleeting mirage for the yellow fuzz of ducklings or the subtle blades of grass biding them onwards as they tumble helplessly to an unknown grave - Kari Trail / Menlo Park
Yasmine Mifdal Photo By Jake Joiner / Chicago Glam By Erica Marten
Josh Murray / Eugene
Angela Izzo / Los Angeles
A Sunday I like the streak of golden sun in parted dark hair, the susurrus of summer from cracks of rugged mountains, old men discussing spent Sundays over absinth and a box of open peanuts, languid lovers on bright Eurasian heather in wide moorlands, soft cat warm on my lap, asleep, oblivious of all existence and the television on, sleepy-eyed, falling on your shoulder. - Anannya Uberoi / Madrid
Rianne Akindele / Houston Phillip Soulliete / Los Angeles (Background)
Veronica Wolfgang / New York
NO ONE CAN BREAK MY VOICE Against all prejudice, against all forms of violence and abuse, against all types of discrimination. I exist. My feelings and emotions exist, my love exists, my happiness. My insecurities, fears, anxieties and sadness. My dignity, my integrity and my freedom exist. I am human and I deserve to be as happy as any person in the world without feeling wrong. I’m free to express myself and NO ONE CAN BREAK MY VOICE. This project represents a rebirth from malaise. It symbolizes freedom of expression, the strength to fight, a rematch from suffering. It’s a complaint against the pressures we’re forced to endure. It is a cry of anger against all forms of discrimination, violence, abuse and injustice. It is an act of liberation from every type of imposition and oppression. Unfortunately, life is full of pitfalls. We must fight against the judgments and wickedness of others, obstacles, failures and disappointments. Società tell us who we should be and what we should do. But who can define us? Nothing and no one can make us lose the desire and the joy of living. No one can make us feel wrong, no one can define our identity, make us doubt our abilities, our value and make us stop loving ourselves. The flower represents the voice. A voice that makes ideas reborn and bloom, a voice that needs to be heard again despite the difficulties. Red as anger for justice the injustices suffered and as passion and love, that make us feel alive and help us to fight again for what we believe. In my life, like everyone else. I have Too much importance to critical. People criticized my emotions, they told me I was weird and wrong. They even told me that, despite the sacrifices, I don’t deserved to achieve my goals. Always judged. I felt like a mistake, I was ashamed of my person and I hated myself. I was lost. I thought I was the problem then I realized that it wasn’t so and I said to myself NO ONE CAN BREAK MY VOICE. - Noemi Giovinazzo / Italy
The Summer Felt Like A far foot in the water connects my chin to the top of the river. I looked down to myself slightly blue before a blue sky. My tender heart feels like it’s soaked in the water. Do I conceded to the Loch Ness; I tumble my feet on river rocks as I head for the edge. The diary I lay waste to is mostly made of to-do lists. I know it’s meant for more but I only write in it when I’m happy. I’ve dribble on the sun through my window before six o’ clock; I couldn’t seem to move because I didn’t know what to do. Dreams float away with lightning bugs, whilst the mosquito moms stay and suck the fun out of me. Run with the light, step away through the grass, have your eyes blur with a deep blue green under setting trees; don’t let the mosquitos catch you my dear.
I wonder if I slowed down in the mirror that I’d see something beautiful. A beautiful dresser, a vibrant poster, mood ring lightbulbs-I’ll tell you when their colors changea pendant from a friend, a motivational discussion playing on $394 laptop with recommendations of animes on crack; blue. All in all, I don’t see people much. I’m not sure if I’ve forgotten to reply after hearing so many one sided screens, watching “adventurous” lives as a fly on the beach. I coat myself over the bed I madeto keep my rhythmic sanitycombating the exaggerated AC with fuzzy socks, and I reach out more than I, the introvert, have ever had. This was an okay summer, 5 out of 10.
-Wittney / Atlanta
Eye Garden / Portland
Giada Caprani / Dublin
Danika Karolinski / Los Angeles
Alexa Arrant / Chicago
Nesreen Galal / Montreal
Sara Cronin / Pittsburgh
Britt Jacobson / Tarzana
Secrets We’re driving down a dirt road, the trees in the forest displaying uncanny shapes illuminated by the glow of the full moon. Like a coward, you steal your father’s car while he experiences nightmares of soldiers disposing the bodies of four virgins in a polluted river, their souls forever haunting fishermen and sorrowful mothers who refuse to provide milk for their infants. Your fingers caress the loose buttons carelessly sewed to my dress while we observe a Polaroid of an unknown woman taped to the dashboard; she is dressed like a bride, hunched over, her face shielded by hands, compelling me to question whether she is crying or laughing. The road grows darker. The smell of wet grass lingers in the summer air. In the distance, I perceive blinding headlights buried deep in the forest, a stranger’s shadow running between the spaces of the tall trees. Wherever you are taking me, I hope I will lie next to you, with candied hearts dissolving on my tongue. - Chimen Kouri / Cliffwood Beach
Armaan M / Calgary
Aoife Cawley / Limerick
Addisyn Hibdon / Austin
Emmeline Daveau for Taipeizoo
Claudia Marin
Claudia Grebner
Golden Hour Soaked in sunshine, I look at your face, glimmering in the golden hour. In the apartment we’ve barely left since May, You turn your head to look my way. Flecks of emerald and amber set your irises alight, And I know in that moment, Caked in coconut perfume, drinking wine on the floor with you, That everything’s going to be alright. - Lauren Burns / Glasgow
Jonathan Roensch / Portland
Jonathan Roensch / Portland Background Photo Alessandra Salviani / Melbourne
younger do you wish you were younger? wide-eyed and lacking clues? sometimes, sometimes. but innocent comes with a price, right, a heart made out of bluebells a mind a boat at sea so easily swayed so easily crushed would you go back, erase the lessons you have brushed upon, like firs beneath your knees? or would you choose to stay atop the hardest and highest point yet and stay free? - Kaisa Sherwood / Sammamish
Brecht Lanfossi
Alessandra Salviani / Melbourne
spine my spine is curved and weighted from hours of sitting, and dreaming. my spine is a tree branch, could easily snap I could avoid that but I'm not very apt. my spine is decaying like the rest of me young, but sorry trapped, but free. - Kaisa Sherwood / Sammamish
The rose-hued wash which has long pooled in the corners of my vision is gone. Abruptly. It once oiled my blindspots, An ever-generous flow. Instinctively hydrating—rehydrating when necessary. Measuring emotional fuel with a mathematical precision. Just enough to continue. Even this wellspring will reach capacity. Seeping and flooding and trickling and rotting. Now rotten. For the source is now dry and the water has thickened. Apricot Plasma. Stale. Congealed. Microwaved one too many times. Reheating a feeling. Have you ever run on empty for too long. Or tried to emanate frequencies with mis-wired circuitry. Desiring supple fruit but left only with brittle onion skin. A waxiness I can still feel beneath my fingernails. The smell remains. Best enjoyed in the faint afterlight of a long evening. It encircles me whilst I unlace my boots and braid my hair. Indeed, hands are limbs with stories to tell. Navigating the pile of corduroy and denim. Crawling under the sheets to meet your shoulders and back with outstretched fingers. Curiously, yours seem unable to stretch back. - Julianna Ritzu / Chicago
Oisin O’Reilly / Tipperary
Maya Umemoto Gorman / Los Angeles
Vi Bui / Annandale
Emeline Daveau / Brazil
biking home thoughts recently i started working at the food co-op where it’s rumored ocean vuong shops. from my registerial perch i peer among the isles when i’m not ringing up the person who couldn’t find the topo chico… looking for a face i’ve seen only pixelated a person i’ve met in only words and loved; although maybe its rumored he doesn’t shop at all and i haven’t read a thing of his: maybe words are just that. biking home at night this is what i think about
- Matthew Abraham Woodard / South Hadley
Claire Lin / Palo Alto
James Bowles / Westport
Le Quyen Nguyen / Berlin
A Fruit for Two Under her lip was a freshly picked strawberry The fruit in her fingers so fragile and wary A bite of pureness, but the lips stained red As the juices overflow like a sweet jelly spread He spat out the seed of a red, van cherry A sharing of fruit with the girl he wants to marry Hearts of tenderness, bellies of fullness and fed Everyday’s like summer for the soon to be wed
Melissa Rose Miller / Long Beach
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