On Identity | The Open Culture Collective, Volume 02 by theopenculturecollective

VOLUME 02

Identity art by Lisa Merletti

DECEMBER 2020

“Even the farthest seers can’t bend their gaze beyond their era’s horizon of possibility. but the horizon shifts with each incremental revolution as the human mind peers outward to take in nature, then turns inward to question its own givens. We sieve the world through the mesh of these certitudes, tautened by nature and culture, but every once in a while whether by accident or conscious effort - the wire loosens and the kernel of a revolution slips through. Maria Popova, “Figuring”

A Note from the Editors As December draws to a close, we bring to you this second edition of The Open Culture Collective while waiting for the debris of explosions, bushfires, outbreaks, and protests to settle. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a formidable year, and so often we have sought the comfort of words and art in the absence of friends, family, and freedom. This is how the issue you are reading came to be. Our aim to strengthen both ourselves and our collective of readers, contributors, and well-wishers has been emboldened by the quality of work and mastery of style we have had the privilege to include. Although we are a fledgling zine still learning things on a day-to-day basis, we promise to hold true to our principle of intersectionality and freedom of expression â&#x20AC;&#x201D; now more than ever. Your voices matter to us, and it remains our greatest honour to home and showcase your work. Thank you for your trust and continued encouragement. We hope you have a safe and lovely new year. See you in 2021. Lots of Love,

Jasmitha Arvind Rashmi S Meghna Anil Nair

Team

artwork by Prakriti Anand

Contents Hong Kong Garden

artwork by Lisa Merletti ............................................................ 08

Unpainted Quilts

poem by Junpei Tarashi ............................................................. 09

Untitled

artwork by Prakriti Anand ......................................................... 11

Minds and Musk

poem by Strider Marcus Jones .............................................. 12

Untitled

artwork by Sandra Staub ......................................................... 13

Migration

poem by Nicki Blake ................................................................... 16

Truth, Gentle Rain

artwork by Rina Ota ................................................................... 17

Hayati

poem by Hariny V ........................................................................ 19

Untitled

artwork by Prakriti Anand ........................................................ 21

Thus Spake Alexa

poem by Aditya Shankar ........................................................ 22

Untitled

artwork by JĂŠko .......................................................................... 23

Frida

artwork by Lisa Merletti .......................................................... 24

A Mantra for Depersonalization

poem by Soph Bee ................................................................... 25

No I In We

poem by Olabisi Bello .............................................................. 26

Amorita

photography by Natalia Barrientos ..................................... 27

A (Perhaps Too Honest) Portrait of Living with Depression essay by Claire Taylor ............................................................... 30

Fish and Chips ; Heavenly Desserts

artwork by Louise Oliphant .................................................... 34

What Do You See?

flash fiction by Tina Anton ...................................................... 36

Translation

poem by Nicki Blake .................................................................. 38

Self-Portrait ; Face ; Nail Stickers

artwork by Nimisha Chandel .................................................. 39

Confirmation | Dennison, Ohio c. 1962

poem by Stephen Jackson ..................................................... 42

Integration In Spades

artwork by Surrealismac ......................................................... 43

Impromptu

artwork by Rina Ota ................................................................. 44

The Aprehensive Avenger

poem by Colin James ............................................................... 45

Untitled ; I Don’t See In Colour

sculptures by Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark ........................ 46

Distressed

short story by Patricia Sukore ............................................... 49

Untitled

artwork by Jéko ........................................................................... 60

Self-Styled. Easter Parade, NYC

photography by Julia Guo ...................................................... 61

Starry Night

artwork by Joanna Blémont ................................................... 62

[If You Can] Call It Dancing

poem by Stephen Jackson ..................................................... 63

The Eye ; Rafiki

artwork by Athiba Balasubramanian .................................. 64

Hong Kong Garden artwork by Lisa Merletti Digital Painting

Lisa is an italian artist, born in 1991 and based in Milan. She loves impressive imagination and suspended atmospheres, burnt colors and a balance between restlessness and tenderness. She believes in equal rights and love in all its forms, which she loves to represent in her works.

Unpainted Quilts poem by Junpei Tarashi

I wonder if our history is erased like this, Day by day, murmur by murmur — The way we never heard of Maryam and her fingers holding on tightly to her hard-won Chador like a lifeline, walking out with the highest symbol of femininity, a victory of protection past the same guards whose spit and blows still remained as ghosts of a recent memory on her body, the same body who came with shoes wrapped around its neck, begging for shelter from refusals, on the borderlines of knowing to be one thing But perceived as another— I wonder if the words cut robe get whispered like a prayer, a premonition, Between bathroom stalls, bedrooms with closed windows and curtains, anonymous conversations with another faceless contender, fumbling fingers narrating sweet nothings letter by letter; How we never gave ourselves the space To daydream between the lines of history About an emperor more content to cut apart his precious robes than to awaken his precious lover And the way we’re content to believe if it’s Asian, it can’t possibly be queer— I think of Ni-Chome, bright fluorescent lights and bodies too-tightly packed in bold, brilliant colours And I think of my father by blood dragging me along to an off-white coloured bar with only four seats: A bottle of Smirnoff hanging lazily next to a banged-up radio playing something from Arashi, a handwritten sign right underneath, tended to lovingly by highlighters marking the Mama as FTM, as though an afterthought, and I pretended to not see the burning glances from the woman sipping whiskey from the next seat when my mouth opened to pour out broken words of a secondary language that is a forgotten birthright To tell this never-seen reflection of myself that I dream

Of the same incisions, the same weekly shots, the comfort of existence— I could be telling you about the horror-show, of course, I was so tempted to string along the most mourning flowery of words to break down the way me and my father compared scars On the way back, with nothing but the stars and the frequent streetlights as our witness But that’s the part you already expect, that’s the way Every fucking queer narrative goes: Centuries of breathing and loving and metamorphosis boiled down only To the moments of bashing, a gun shot, another fucking funeral. But there’s every other moment of just boring, unpalatable living there, too— I told of how my brother had bought Brokeback Mountain by some Irooni street vendor, thinking it a Cowboy Westerner, and how Love and realizations both can transcend half-understood English words And he told of his Yankee days, the way pompadours would get in the way of hidden making out sessions, holding onto waists during late-night motor rides, blowing to cool hot Takoyaki bought from stalls, stealing warmth during the cold Osaka nights Where do all these stories go, at the end of night? We’re not the first of our kind to exist And exist in relative happiness, so why is guilt a sole companion in sharing the parts unbloodied and content, as though They make up a lesser part of mine, of ours? We wonder how it would’ve felt growing up In a maze of mirrors— We turn on the TV and every other happy queer is another cardboard cutout of the same white cloth When the clothes of the Emperor, the black linen that Maryam spent hours fighting for, an entire quilt worth of untold strings of generations are lost amongst the border of tragedy and disbelief, Invisible.

Junpei Tarashi (he/it/they) thinks that humans are pretty cool. They have some weird words published or upcoming in After Happy Hour Review as well as Chambers.

artwork by Prakriti Anand

Minds and Musk

poem by Strider Marcus Jones so now we both came to this same branch and bough— no one else commutes from different roots. me carrying Celtic stones with runes on skin over bones— and you, in streams on evicted land trashed ancients panned— our truth dreams under star light crossing beams. in here, there is no mask of present building out the past with gilded Shard’s of steel and glass shutting out who shall not pass. the tree of life breathes a rebel destiny believes— we are minds and musk no more husks and dust.

Strider Marcus Jones is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry can be viewed at https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/

artwork by Sandra Staub

artwork by Sandra Staub My illustrations evolve mainly around womanhood, spirituality, nature and the wild. Inspiration often comes from my surroundings and my everyday life. I love feeling fascinated by small, subtle things. Beyond a strong desire to create beautiful designs, the aim or my work is to encourage people â&#x20AC;&#x201D; especially, but not exclusively women â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to explore their minds and bodies, challenge the norms and become free from limiting expectations and gender roles. With my work, I myself aspire to heal and become free through expression.

Sandra Staub aka Sans is an independent Swiss-Colombian graphic designer and illustrator whose work combines a minimalistic style with manual skills. You can find more of her work on her instagram page @sandra.staub as well as on her website www.sandrastaub.com.

Migration

poem by Nicki Blake how many generations does it take to make a place our own, to stitch us to specific space, to claim that we belong? how far must the genetic binaries be chased? what point is there to trace our Cantor Set, to climb The Devil’s Staircase to the past, or hope the mitochondrial rope tied to blood and bone will lead us safely through the labyrinth back to the start? our restless forebears, who would not bide and took to ships to take the world, confuse our path we find so many harbours from which we did not begin yet we crave anchorage at one origin to resolve the fractals in our chromosomes, so risk imprinting on an arbitrary point - we’d rather fix on the most likely locus than have none such is our need to say this this is home

Nicki Blake is an emerging writer based in Perth, Western Australia. Born in England with a heritage that is both European and South-East Asian, Nicki’s writing focuses on themes of identity, inclusivity, the natural world, and the interaction between people and their environments. She can be found on Twitter @strawberrythief

Truth

artwork by Rina Ota Inside of each noise, life exists. Since I came to Barcelona to start over my life from scratch, I’ve lived surrounded by many kind of noises. I prefer to say “noise”, although it doesn’t mean something unpleasant, for me, it represents the essence of life. While I listen to it, I go absorbing each nuance, thus I grow little by little. Possibly you can find bits of those noises in my works. I like imperfection, I think it’s interesting. For me, drawing pictures is like conversation. While I draw, I “talk” with myself and with the canvas. The first strokes are very spontaneous, so every time something different appears, depending on the state of my mind. And then, I continue trusting my intuition and feelings. I feel that these conversations are related with the music. But for me, the music doesn’t mean only melodies but also rhythm and colours. I’d like to talk with people through my music.

Gentle Rain

artwork by Rina Ota

Rina Ota is an established, prizewinning Japanese painter and sculptor. She was born in PerĂş and grow up in Tokyo. She started her career as an artist in Barcelona, Spain in 1998. Her work has been exhibited extensively in both solo and group exhibitions in cultural centers like Barcelona, Madrid, and Tokyo. Her work is inspired by nature and human. Her works are sophisticated, belying her mature artistic sensibility.

Hayati

poem by Hariny V you walk barefoot you wear silks bordered with gold and anklets of silver and rose you cross your legs and keep away from the armrests you sit next to books you are held away from and look at me silently asking if I can do something about it. you stand tall you hide yourself behind shawls of lacquered lace stitch tiny daisies into your pants and sleeves you fluff the pillows and walk out like nobody is at fault I ask you to talk to me you reply with a stare that says I am far and gone you part your hair in the middle let it grow wild long past your bronze shoulders and robes of creamy rice you wear diamond rings paint your lips to run naked in young jasmine fields you look back at me with shining eyes and a smile that is buried in secrets and many lies you are young and free at least should have been you are covered in cloaks you despise fettered in chains with glitter and stones that pay a heavy price you live between hands and words

that strike and touch you with no fear you are too scared to look up at me and realize we are not too different you and I you live in worlds of snow with a handful of pearls you hide your wrists under strings of cloth similar to your worn and tender breasts you are the only one that knows me every inch and breadth you trace a line on my cheek whisper my name wait and wait for me to break your wounded cage Note: The title is a multi-layered name with both Turkish and Hindu origins. It means, ‘vital’, ‘life’, ‘importance’ and ‘presence’. I feel that this perfectly represents the role of a woman and the female voice that has been neglected and crushed for so long in a misogynistic society.

Hariny is a 21-year-old writer who grew up amidst the thriving Dravidian culture and ancient temples in the city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, UK. When there is no writing for the day, she can be found lost between the pages of fresh hardcovers or intensely focused over a pot of boiling pasta.

artwork by Prakriti Anand

Prakriti is a 17 year old artist based in Chennai. Her works usually include people with accentuated and unusual features, done in various media including digital, mixed media, acrylics etc. The pieces above are a representation of her worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity. She hopes to pursue character animation in the future.

Thus Spake Alexa poem by Aditya Shankar

To the digital beings and them to their social media followers and influencers and them to their mouthpieces: when what is spoken originates from a single mouth, man evolves into a lineage of ears. Bigger and improved, trained to listen and to obey. The ear searches for the mouth that proclaims its command, twirls like the hapless ear of a dog at the behest of your voice. Your ear shall work like a slave in a factory where no one rests, in a street where no one protests, in a war where no one questions a killing. An ear of profound dejection beneath an electromagnetic sky tasked with the moral test of listening to a mystic who translates apathy into voice. Hers, a new age oration of restraint that battles the turbulence of ballads, the melodrama of epics. The count of riot victims uttered with the same clinical ease as the number of billionaires or cars in a multi-level car park. Within the hierarchy of our spiritual gurus, her voice stakes a claim between the enlightenment of a sage and the slant of a barber. At the same decibel level as the inaudible thrumming of a fine-tuned engine. Above and beyond pets with eyes kinder than Ramana. To a crowd enchanted by the business halo of an invisible head, Alexa shall speak the ultimate word. Be all ears.

Aditya Shankar is Indian poet, flash fiction author, and translator with multiple nominations for Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His work has been published and anthologized widely. His latest work can be read here: Singing in the Dark from Penguin Random House, Collective Realms from Lazy Adventure Publishing. Books: After Seeing (2006), Party Poopers (2014), and XXL (Dhauli Books, 2018). He lives in Bangalore, India.

artwork by JĂŠko JĂŠko is a French artist who grew up in the south suburb of Paris and get his inspiration from what surrounds him. Through colored and unconstrained brushes, precise graphic shapes and childlike drawings, he shares his emotions, memories, needs frustration and joy.

Frida

artwork by Lisa Merletti Traditional Acrylic and Coloured Pencils

A Mantra for Depersonalization poem by Soph Bee

when I was young, I assumed that mirrors worked the same way in the light as they did in the dark. I thought that even when I couldn’t see my own reflection, it was still there — that a shadow me was held safely behind the glass. my elementary school teacher gently disproved my theory, and when I asked where do I go when the light goes? she told me you don’t go anywhere, honey, even if you can’t see yourself. last night, I spent hours reading news stories that I didn’t want to read until every headline spelled out USED. I looked down at my hands and suddenly they weren’t mine anymore.

I stared at my fingers until they turned into snakes that eyed the untouched skin on my wrists and hissed don’t hold back. the mirror across from my bed has stood strongly for months now despite the cracks that slither through it, and I tried to remember that as my already distorted image kaleidoscoped within the frame. to keep myself from piercing a memory on the shards of nighttime, I reached for my fearful inner child in her sunless hiding place and reminded us that I am here even when I cannot see the light. I am here even when the light cannot see me. I am here even when I cannot see myself.

Soph Bee is a queer feminist poet and survivor. At any given moment, she is probably listening to Fiona Apple, eating her body weight in sushi, and/or preaching the importance of feeling your feelings. She should definitely be writing right now but she’s too tired.

No I in We

poem by Olabisi Bello Like a raging fire, Solitude burns. Smoldered by its heat, feathers of freedom Become ashes that pour Over the barren land of cartoons and teddy bears. In the cover of night, Solitude grips my hand And I’m forced to listen to the rhythm of its crackling. The suffocating smoke blinds my mirrors And I forget how it feels to look into my own eyes. -We know what’s best for you -So that baby must not live -We know what’s best for you -And our image must not be tainted by your sin -We know what’s best for you -Because fifteen years ago, -We gave birth to you. The prison I call home unlocks With a decision that forces bile to my throat. In the folds of my father’s arms, Solitude has no space to breathe So it morphs into the image of society. The mouth of my mother splits into a smile, Her teeth bared at the cowardice of my spirit. Then it grows into a vacuum, Bloody like the blue sheet draped on the surgical table, And engulfs me and my baby in one fell swoop. Now I rest in the blanket of her womb, Waiting for my father to devour the three of us. Olabisi Bello is a female Nigerian who aspires to be a biomedical engineer. She loves the fluidity and joy writing has granted her, and she hopes to make an impact in society with this gift and her overall devotion to making the world a better place.

Amorita

photography by Natalia Barrientos

Natalia Barrientos is a visual artist born in Tarija, Bolivia. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus in Photography and Digital Media from the University of Houston in Houston, Texas, USA. Barrientosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work focuses on exploring family dynamics and how these have caused through memory, a process of self-knowledge and identity. Her practice as an artist is also involved in celebrating the female body through not only photography, but also in video art and performance.

A (Perhaps Too Honest) Portrait of Living With Depression essay by Claire Taylor

One of my earliest memories is of my father sitting at the desk in his study. The room is dark except for a small lamp casting a soft rectangle of light across his hunched body. He is resting, face pressed into the crook of his elbow, his other arm flung limply across the back of his head. I stand there for a moment and wait for him to notice me. He doesn’t, so I ask, “Are you okay, Daddy” and though my voice is barely above a whisper, it breaks through the quiet like a crack of thunder. His shoulders tense from the startle, but he doesn’t lift his head. He drops his top arm and rolls around to face me. Half of his face remains hidden in the flesh of his forearm, but I can see the edge of his lips pull into a strained smile. “Yes, baby” He sighs. “I’m okay. Just feeling a little sad today.” I walk over and lean my tiny forehead against the side of his body. “Me too,” I say. “I feel a little sad today too.” I have been a little sad for my entire life. By age thirteen the sadness had a name, but looking back I can see it was always with me, growing around me like a second skin. Haunting me with a voice identical to my own, but beyond my ability to control. I would never be good enough, it

said. I was unhappy because I was unlovable. Everyone around me was sick of me, made miserable by my existence. Whenever I laughed the sadness would rise up to silence me. You’re being too loud, it would tell me. Everyone hates the sound of your laugh. When I was effortless and joyful, it would force its way into the pit of my stomach, and roll into a tight, hard rock that dragged me down with its weight. “You’re no fun” my friends would say, angrily leaving me behind whenever I became suddenly, inexplicably teary-eyed, and needed to go back home. See, the sadness would whisper, I told you they were only pretending to like you. Sadness is as much a part of me as my one crooked tooth that never fully straightened even after years of braces. As ever-present as my big, solid thighs that refuse to slim down no matter how much weight I lose, or how often I exercise. No amount of work or corrective effort has ever fully banished my sorrow. It has been with me for so long that I sometimes wonder if it is the real me and the person I think I am is just an affectation, a mask I pull on whenever I need to convince the world that I am capable, valuable, worthy of existence. It is tiring to hate yourself. To be routinely agonized by your own presence. The internal tug- o-war, the push and pull between sad self and other self, the social acrobatics of appearing fine when inside you’re a cliff’s edge, endlessly pummeled by crashing waves. It is physically exhausting. I’m 35 years old and I can’t remember a single day when I felt fully, wholly rested. New parents always say the kind of exhaustion you feel when you have a newborn can’t be properly described. You have to experience it to understand it. The same is true about depression. Unless you feel it, there’s no way to know what it’s like when your nerve endings feel drained of energy. There’s no good way to describe the kind of ache that exists all the way down into the calcium in your bones. How can a body be worn down by sleeping for 16 hours straight? How can you be tired to the point of tears, but still stay up for three days in a row, your mind buzzing and humming, refusing to let up from its convincing diatribe that you are a worthless waste of space? Sometimes I feel like the sadness grows from within me, an invasive fungus sprouting in the dark, murky depths of my core and slowly spreading outward. My edges blur and fade until I exist only in negative space: a shadow, an outline, an impression of the person I might have been if only I had been able to fight the depression, to keep the dark

spores from multiplying. Other times it is like a wave. I stare out into the ocean in front of me and I can see it building, gathering strength and speed as it nears my shore. I watch it crest, feel the first cold drops of its spray against my face, and then I catch my breath and slam my eyes shut as it crashes over me, drowning out the rest of the world. It lifts me off my feet and pulls me under, sending me flailing wildly, desperate to scrape my toe against solid ground, or thrust my face above water for just a second, just long enough to gasp for breath. A brief moment is all I need. A quick reminder of which way is up. There are so many metaphors and yet no way to properly explain a phenomenon that is both the essence of who you are, and exists entirely outside yourself. To know me, to love me, is to be routinely lied to. “I’m fine, I’ll tell you. But I’m not.” Oh I’m battling a cold,” I’ll often say, but what I really mean is that I’m battling a piece of myself. You cannot simply tell people that you are depressed in the way you might tell them your allergies have been acting up. I lie to protect people. I lie to protect me. I lie because it is easier than telling the truth, and I am too tired to deal with any additional difficulties. I lie because you cannot say “I’m depressed” without someone inevitably following up with “Why”. How do you respond to a question that has both every answer imaginable and no answer at all? Living with depression is living with two selves. They ebb and flow together, moving in and out of darkness. Sometimes I feel so lost that all I can do is wrap my arms around my husband and let his body be the anchor that holds me steady in the rocking sea of my own mind. Other times I am strong and capable, fully present in my mind and body. It is like returning home again. Ah, here I am. Just as I left me. I feel confident. Healthy. Happy. More and more, thankfully, that is how I feel most of the time, but I always know that my second self is there, waiting in the wings. In the winter of 2014, I was diagnosed with shingles. The combination of a bad car accident and a polar vortex heightened my anxiety and kept me from getting outside to run regularly, which had always helped me

manage my depression. Stress kept building up in my body until my body said enough, and I ended up with shingles. It was incredibly painful, but drugs of any kind don’t mix well with my particular mind so I never filled my Vicodin prescription and subsisted on ibuprofen and a terrible lack of sleep. A few weeks later, sitting in my doctor’s office for a routine physical, I burst into tears, completely unprovoked. It had been a long time since I broke down in front of someone I barely knew. It was humiliating. We talked about my history of depression. I explained it had been a particularly bad couple of months where I had been unable to perform even my most basic depression management activities. I went home that day, wrapped myself in blankets and sat out on my back porch in the frigid cold. With my dog at my side, I sat for an hour with my face turned toward the sunshine. Repeatedly in my life this is what I have done: dragged myself out of darkness. Carrying my body, heavy with depression, I have climbed my way out of impossible depths, clinging desperately to nearly invisible footholds. This is the cycle of a life lived on the edge of sadness. Sometimes I slip over that edge. Nothing I have done in my life has ever kept me from having to toe that line. It’s simply who I am. I am fragile, more than I care to admit. My emotional armor like a fresh scab that is easily scraped away. I am a deep wound constantly being reopened. But I am also resilient. A thin, wispy weed--small and pathetic, so easily crushed--my roots run deep down into the muck and grime of the earth. I can live on in the darkness. Growing, returning. Pulling myself up again and again in search of sunlight.

Claire Taylor (she/her) writes about motherhood and mental health. She is the creator of Little Thoughts, a monthly newsletter of original writing for kids. Claire lives in Baltimore, MD, and online at clairemtaylor.com or Twitter @ClaireM_Taylor.

Bolehall Fish and Chips artwork by Louise Oliphant 2020 ; 5ft 4 x 5ft 4

Heavenly Desserts Huddersfield artwork by Louise Oliphant 2020 ; 5ft 4 x 5ft 4

Louise Oliphantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recent works aim to establish a genre where white artists can use their artistic practice to speak up for rather than on behalf of ethnic minority groups. Whilst there are current controversies over the way white artists use their platform to advocate for cultural equality, Louise pushes for a space where white artists can use their privilege to address representation or the lack of it we still see in both the art world and wider society.

What Do You See? flash fiction by Tina Anton

Gail watches the people move about their lives as she walks through the grocery store. She imagines them each as stars. They are the center of a solar system orbited by friends, family, and responsibilities. They move forever forward through the cosmos, moments away from consuming those around them in a heated solar flare. It is a weird metaphor, but she has trouble dropping it as she reaches for the milk and ignores the hairs that stand up on the back of her neck when a large older man slips past close enough that their shoulders brush. She wonders if others ever feel the same frightening gravity pull when they are close to one another. A tremor works down her arms, and she deliberately evens out her breathing until it fades. She walks through the store, slowly filling her cart, and tries to avoid looking at anyone else. It keeps her fears from growing unmanageable. In the checkout line, there is a woman and three children in front of her. The youngest one keeps looking up at Gail and smiling shyly. Maybe people are not stars, Gail thinks as her gaze skitters from the claustrophobic checkout to the store exits. Perhaps they live inside invisible bubbles bouncing around, bumping into one another.

The next time the child grins at her, she bumps back. Gail gives a small, nervous smile and curls her hand in an awkward wave. The child’s grin widens. One of her front teeth is missing, and the humanity of that tiny gap relaxes Gail. She wants to ask what others see when they look at her—overweight, layered in protective frumpy monochrome, skittish from trauma. Gail is glad no one else can see inside her mind and judge how she understands the world. When it is her turn to pay, she fumbles through the interaction, and sweat forms between Gail’s shoulder blades as the ever-present anxiety ramps up. The woman behind the check-out counter frowns when Gail’s shaking hands need multiple attempts to get her card into the slot. She feels pathetic, and a blush of shame heats her face. By the time she escapes through the store doors into the cold evening air, Gail feels stretched too thin. She thinks of the child from minutes before. As frightening, strange, and mysterious as they are, other people sometimes choose to see her and smile even if their lives will never touch hers again. It brings a warm peace to her chest. It settles something flighty in her chest—a need to be seen.

Tina Anton is a disabled lesbian author living in the Midwest. She has been writing professionally for several years, and her work has been published by Weirdyear, Aphelion, Visual Adjectives, and The Rusty Nail, among others. She spends her free time playing with her blue heeler, Furiosa.

Translation

poem by Nicki Blake in a yesterday schoolroom I translated Metamorphoses: Cadmus, Acteon, and Semele - victims of divine caprice and pantheon’s spite, their transmogrification not as tragic as it should have been in my imagination so aware was I of my wrong skin, my wrong form, which showed no reflection of who I wished to be or of the spark within, that - if there had been gods - I would have seen as kind their cruel intervention peeling the layers away or burning to effect transformation to leave me new, acceptable to those looking on –reinvented, re-presented, a Bacchus bis natus, twice-born yet such divinities do not exist. I woke each day and knew my imperfections to be as unaddressed as lead resists alchemy - my irreducible being of mortal clay and hopeful gnosis damned to endure this earthly course unchanged with no redemptive metamorphosis

Self-Portrait

artwork by Nimisha Chandel Poster Colours and Pencil Colours on A4 Chart Paper I love to put myself in the painting or drawings I make. I happen to be my own muse at times. I had recently chopped off my really long hair and I just sat to make this portrait.

Face

artwork by Nimisha Chandel Poster Colours, Crayons and Spray Paint on A3 Chart Paper

I love colours and I definitely allow them to speak for themselves, in this piece too I worked with contrasting shades, absolutely beautiful and drew myself.

Nail Stickers

artwork by Nimisha Chandel Digital Painting The idea for nail stickers came to me when I really wanted to get for myself a nail art nail paint set, but was unable to collect the funds for it so I decided well why not just print it out from the printer at home and stick it on my nails rather than painting them all together.

Nimisha Chandel is a 22 year old painter and digital illustrator. She is currently pursuing a Bachelors in Painting in Shantiniketan, West Bengal.

Confirmation

Dennison, Ohio c. 1962

poem by Stephen Jackson Bats swarmed treetops growing up from a drop-off across the street — trees a hundred feet high to a boy three feet from the ground. Heat warned of storms, embraced a sinister chill, dusk stretched out in ragged branches of light. Leaves revealed their undersides — a sign from the wind to get yourself in. The din of the train in the distance mixed with the strangest siren I’d ever heard, like an angel’s trumpet in the devil’s spit of a rain — a baptism, as sky unfurled a bruised, yellow calm. Then later that evening, my mind turns from dreams to mother’s scream when she finds it — the baby bat that heeded the warning, found its way in through an open window — from that day forward, my suspicions of an exquisite existence, confirmed.

Stephen Jackson lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. Other work is forthcoming or appears in 433, The American Journal of Poetry, Hole in the Head Review, Impossible Archetype, The Inflectionist Review, Stone of Madness Press, and S/WORD, as well as on the International Human Rights Art Festival Publishes platform. @fortyoddcrows

Integration In Spades artwork by Surrealismac

This spade has a gentle fascination with good and evil, light and dark... It likes to observe nature, the passage of daylight, a quiet wood, as well as people, to see these aspects at play. It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel guilty for stepping on an ant, but it realizes it very well could. Should it? This spade knows that its shadow is not a perfect reflection of itself, but something it casts. Each day, it finds new questions to ask... Some of which need only to be asked and not answered. Artist Surrealismac explores the dreamscape World Of Reverie with vivid visual art and the written word.

Impromptu

artwork by Rina Ota

The Aprehensive Avenger poem by Colin James

The gag order was clear enough concise even, not at all periphrasistic. Instructions in bold lettering, remove any identifying emblems or representations of self. Sagacious tips from The Weekly Reminder, an information provider for cultists, I inherited from the previous occupant. After the sand has been swept into neat little piles, only then can the annual festivities begin, so wear your plumage euphemistically.

Colin James has a couple of chapbooks of poetry published. Dreams Of The Really Annoying from Writing Knights Press and A Thoroughness Not Deprived of Absurdity from Piskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Porch Press and a book of poems, Resisting Probability, from Sagging Meniscus Press.

Sculptures

by Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark

“Untitled” 3D Sculpture ; 2018 [737935] ; 2019 [Lifesized] Co-collaboration with Canary Wharf (Canada One Square); Photographs courtesy of the Artist, Jean-Sébastien Degni My practice explores the digital hybridity of sculpture following the affirmation of media, exploring the nuances of identity that pivot between hyper-visibility and invisibility, offering (re-)imagined collective perspective. My work chronicles the elevated reframing of black anatomy - unencumbered, in traction - the mediation between three-dimensional processes alongside the handmade aesthetic within an extended analysis of ‘Objecthood’; the resulting objects emerge contextually abstracted from traditional representational aesthetics - embedded in the everyday, collective experience through methods of display. Such ideological positioning shifts the normative function of figurative practices within this mode of self-referential questioning, which engenders a self-sustaining (non-) fiction rooted in authenticity and criticality that allows audiences to break free from reference once and for all in a new form of hybrid realism.

“Untitled”

2016 ; Mixed-Media Silicone Sculpture ; Photographs courtesy of the Artist, Tereza Červeñová at VO Curations Rayvenn is a digital sculptor, writer/researcher & curator. She is also an Associate Lecturer in Art, Design and Communications at the University of Arts, London. She is the Junior Editor & ToR Development Lead at Shades of Noir. Find her on Instagram as @rayvenndclark_art .or on her website, www. rayvenn-dclark.com

I Don’t See In Colour

Sculpture by Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark 2018; 3D Print ; Photograph courtesy of the Artist

Distressed

short story by Patricia Sukore “Mgbeke, helep me b ling that pot,” my mother said in her feeble voice. As I shuffle the ginormous earthen pot towards her, I reflect on the cycle of life and my impending dilemma. I recall my teen years, people usually considered my mum my older sister. We looked so much alike, the age difference, though clearly spaced, was not detectable. I remember some truants in my secondary school back then making catcalls on one occasion, as they sighted my mother approaching from the bush path that led to our school. My younger mother was a curvy, rotund and beautiful African woman. Poverty and physical abuse has disfigured her transient beauty, she is only sixty but she looks eighty. She once narrated to my siblings and me how she had married our father, instead of the suitors her father had enlisted for her. Nine, out of the ten suitors, my mother had told us, were from “Obodo Oyibo.” Although they were sons of the soil, they spoke as if through pinched noses. They walked with their shoulders stiffened like the statue in the town square, she had joked. Some of my mother’s recounts have been so incredible. I had thought, while growing up, that she made them up until my aunt told us they were all true. Moreover, I grew up to hear most of the hoary villagers calling my mother “nwanyi na-emeghariri nwoke,” (a woman who wrestles men). She told us how she had—single-handed defeated all her suitors in combat. It was not a combat of words, she had pointed out, because ordinarily, everyone in Umudike respects my mother for her fluency in our local dialect even though she had spent the earliest part of her life living with her aunt in Cross River, a riverine state in Nigeria.

Mgbeke woman born on Eke market day Obodo Oyibo overseas

The experience of that day, my mother recalled, would remain a story she could tell even if she loses consciousness. It was a wrestling contest witnessed by all in Umudike at that time. Her father’s desire was that she marry one of her rich and westernised suitors, but she loved only my father to onwu, so she had come up with a suicidal plot. The initial plan was that my father would fight her suitors, but my father had cowed at the last minute. The town criers had already announced the bout. The whole town would attend. My mother realised she needed supernatural intervention for her father to succumb to her marrying the only man she loved. She had no option but to engage her suitors in a fight herself. The whole town had marvelled at the novel concept of a woman wrestling her suitors. No one stayed back at home, the old, the young, the maimed, the disabled, the good, the debtor and the indebted – they were all there to watch my mother cook a matchless history. She had already thrashed seven of her suitors in quick succession, their backs smacked to the red earth in defeat when the remaining three fled in the full glare of the villagers. It had been fun to watch, my father had added. To his amazement, my mother’s suitors did not put up any resistance. They allowed themselves to be brought down by a woman – o ne by one. The villagers were not satisfied with the number of performances they had watched, my mother said. I deciphered from my father’s expression that looked as if he had swallowed a lizard, that he did not want my mother to narrate the remainder of the story. Nevertheless, my mother continued. The people had left their farmlands, wares at the market, women labouring at the birthing homes, choir practice at the monastery, repair of their broken thatched roofs and many other to do chores, to

Onwu Death

watch my mother wrestle her suitors. They had heard there would be ten contestants, but here, she had only wrestled with seven. “Uzo, puta bu agha ihunanya,” someone had shouted from a section of the raucous spectators. All eyes turned on my father who was relishing his status as one of the spectators. It was then that a larger part of the spectators realised my father—who is also a suitor, was also supposed to tackle my mother. The fact that he was not an accepted suitor was irrelevant. Many began to chant: “Uzo, puta bu agha ihunanya!” They wanted my father to step out and fight for his love. My father was unyielding until the people standing in a cluster all around him, shoved him forward, into the midst where my mother pirouetted, with her two hands raised in triumph, unaware of the crowd’s conspiracy. My mother did one more victory swirl, and she was eyeball to eyeball with my father. It was a moment of decision for her. Although she had taken eight shots of kaikai before she ventured into the wrestling enclosure generated by busybody onlookers, it had completely worn off at the time my father stood face to face with her. The crowd held their breath. Not a sound. They all knew her father’s view about their entanglement. However, you cannot blame the spectators – they came to be entertained. * I have often caught myself wondering if our penurious condition would have been different if my mother had married one of her migrant suitors. My mother would have also adopted their phoney speech pattern.

Uzo, puta bu agha ihunanya Uzo, fight for your love Kaikai also called Ogogoro, is a West African alcoholic drink

Besides, we, her children would have also flaunted our status at our classmates’ faces in school. Whenever I think about this, Ijeoma, my classmate back in standard four, always comes to mind. She never ceased to rub it in our faces that we – the rest of the class, the entire school inclusive, are primitives whose family members have never gone past Umudike border. There were times I wished Ijeoma’s mouth would turn backwards, in order for her to stay quiet, and the rest of us could continue to live peaceably in Umudike. Money to spend and live like—at least other people in Umuidike, who have a change of cloth for every other day wouldn’t have been an issue. It wouldn’t, if my mother had just picked someone from my grandfather’s pack. Countless times, without the feeling of guilt, I wished my mother had indeed married one of them. I get angry with my mother’s foreign suitors in the dark lonesome confines of my heart, always throwing questions at their perceived look alike in my heart. Questions like: why one of them did not have the liver of a man rather than that of an okuko to beat my mother on that day. One of them could have beaten her just once, not twice, just once, and our lives would have witnessed untold transformation. My father did not cease to harass my mother with all types of seasoned assault since the day of the contest until the day he snuffed it eight years ago. Aside from the physical assault of mother almost on a daily basis, and a sharp tongue, he had nothing to offer. My mother had ensured me and my seven siblings finished at least standard six before we parted ways with formal education. I wanted to be an engineer, a dream halted and limited only to that realm. My brothers and sisters also had dreams, but our parents would hear none of it – w e are poor, they would constantly say. My twin brothers were the only ones who had the courage to venture out of our father’s house and our village. They left when they were thirteen

Okuko a cockerel/hen

years old. With nowhere in mind, and no forwarding address – they had left. Their incapacitation pained them in no little measure. My brothers had confided in my younger sisters and me that their departure was necessary so that they wouldn’t harm our father. They were the only ones who stood up to him whenever he turned my mother into his punching bag. “I will curse the two of you, and no dibia will be foolish enough to lift the curse,” he had often said, anytime my twin brothers interfered in his fight with my mother.

The rest of us, six girls, would hide our gaunt kwashiorkored bodies under our mats trying to escape the scourge of our father’s fiery words. I cried until my cheeks burned with the silent charge of selfishness, which prompts the moral reflection that life comprises sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating. I am helpless, rendered inadequate by my anatomy or my philosophy – I think, more by the later. We never matured in our fear of our father. Even in my twenties, my eyes always searched the floor whenever my father and I talked. The only respite my mother had were periods we gathered for stories in the evenings after supper. This was the only time my father is happy, after eating my mother’s spicy full-bodied soup withakpu. His beam is amplified and his bitter kola ridden teeth, exhibited for all to see. My mother bore her homemade soup seasoning for sale at Umudike border as early as when the first cockerel crowed. Contrariwise, my father occupied his moments with skiving off all day with his redundant friends to drink m maya nkwu. No one ate breakfast in my home, and until my mother returned from d rudgery in the evenings, no one ate supper. He constantly blamed and chastised her for his hunger, his poverty and his lackluster life. She, on the other hand, grieved at his hands before she poured out herself into concocting supper from her daily proceeds.

Dibia a traditional priest in the eastern part of Nigeria Akpu Akpu is a popular Nigerian food made from cassava Mmaya Nkwu palm wine

The spectators’ chant heightened. My mother was sober. My father’s face, crumpled in a million places. A jeering smirk sat comfortably on my grandfather’s face as he watched. A resounding slap landed on my father’s unsuspecting face. My mother had warned him not to make an appearance. She imagined it would turn out this way. Another slap was on its way to my father’s face before he realised the certainty of the situation. He caught my mother’s hand mid-air, twisted it behind her and pushed her to the ground. She had allowed my father to defeat her. “Kwusi ya,” my father had interrupted mother’s story. “You tried to put up a struggle, but I doused it.” * We believed my mother. She had allowed my father the victory to earn my grandfather’s approval. We also believed my mother had permitted her suppression far too long. Although my father died eight years ago, he is very much alive in her daily soliloquy. I observed my shrunken mother cook the food we would serve my intending in-laws, and my discordant resolve haunted me. The thought of whether I was making the right decision sapped my energy. She was not going to pressurize. She had offloaded her mind to me a year ago. “By the tam you are ma age efritin go clear for ya eye. I ghotara? * I already made up my mind more than six years ago. Obumneme was the puppeteer of my heartstrings. We met in the market on one Eke day. My mother had passed on her heritage to me as the sole monger of home-

Kwusi ya stop it Eke day a day for trading during the week By the tam you are ma age efritin go clear for ya eye. I ghotara? You’d be wiser by the time you are my age. Do you understand?

made seasoning in Umudike. The light of the sun was already dimming, nestling behind the o sisi oyibo trees, and the seasoning was only a quarter way sold. I would distribute the remaining to our neighbours for future payment. Mama Jecinta, aunty Blessing, mama Chikodi, mama Ijemma, uncle Ikeobi and uncle Ozobia – all of them – debtors, but I have no options left. The seasoning will spoil before next market day if I decide to keep it. I started to pack my wares in preparation for the long journey back home when I saw two dusty unshod legs standing in front of my semi-broken calabash of homemade seasoning. “How mush be ya Osikapa?” I looked up from his legs to his ragged uniform. A houseboy, I thought. As soon as my eyes caught a glimpse of his handsomely chubby face, my heart became a fluid of uto. From that day onward, I never argued with my sisters about whose turn it was to accompany me to the market. My tiresome trek to the market seemed less so with Obumneme’s presence. He waited for me at the Umudike River on occasions when he sneaked out from his master’s house. * I imagined our bond with Obumneme had been destined and supernaturally approved. It was not a coincidence my name is Mgbeke, born on Eke day and met my soulmate on an Eke market day. However, my mother disparaged my convictions. She said her convictions had been stronger than my own. She and my father were both born on Afor day, in the same month ofOnwa Ano.They even answered similar names, my father Uzodinma, she Uzoma. Whose conviction could be more convincing? She had asked in her weak voice. Your life is yours alone and your sufferings would be your exclusive possession, not for anyone else, she had added.

Osisi oyibo coconut trees

Afor day a day for trading during the week

Uto sweet

Onwa Ano April-June

How mush be ya Osikapa? how much is your seasoning?

Ahamefula, on the other hand, is my mother’s favourite. He proposed, or should I say, he visited my mother with a hoard of relatives, three E kpe festivals ago, to say he wanted to marry me. I wondered where girls still married like that. I knew Ahamefula only fleetingly, before he travelled to Germany, ten years ago. He just started to bud into a man, as a newly metamorphosed n ru ubu. Those were the days my father monitored me and my sisters like an exasperated hen would her chicks. He had spies amongst the youth age group. Whenever we, as much as speak with a boy, and it drifts somehow into his ears, we would wish he whipped us with his rod, instead of his scathing words. Ahamefula was disappointed to learn that my heart was set as a flint, that I would never bulge in my decision to marry Obumneme. I heard he visited Obumneme for a man to man talk the other day. Obumneme had refused to disclose their discussion. Nevertheless, one of Obumneme’s flirtatious friend, Nkemdilim, who wished I was engaged to him instead, told me Ahamefula had offered his sister to Obumneme in exchange for me. I was convinced Nkemdilim only stooped to the depth because he desired my break up with Obumneme so much. * I love Obumneme, but not too long ago, I started to have nightmares. I see him teaming up with my deceased father to starve my children and me. My children whom I knew only in my unconscious state, cry until their eyes turned cherry and their faces thawed out. Whenever I wake up from such dreams, I snub every inference that it could actually happen. My mother and sisters’ behaviour recently must be accountable. My mother has been giving me the silent treatment. She answers me in monosyllables, and nods when she feels my bother deserves just that. My sisters have been foretelling my horrifying future with Obumneme, sorcery without internship with the priest of Chi. Ekpe festival a festival celebrated in Abia State, Nigeria, in January Nru ubu butterfly Chi God

So many ‘what ifs’ have been bubbling in my rational spaces. I am aware, when a woman marries in igbo land, there is no retreat. There is no retreat after embarking on the journey relinquished only by death. The actual parcel that lodges Obumneme would not open until my vow of ‘in good and in bad’. My mother once said that one thing constant with impoverished men is their anger. They can upturn a village if their ukwu iwe awakens. I had refused to tell any of them about Obumneme’s anger, painting him with glitzy happy colours.

My story resembles one whose blindness resides in more places than the eyes. Nobody prompted me before I suddenly received the ability to ponder sagacious thoughts. I decided to pay A hamefula a clandestine visit three days ago, I needed to tell him of my assent to his proposal, love will come after—I needed to think—to act wise without Obuneme’s love interfering. I hid behind the nkwu tree closest to his father’s concrete built, one storey building. Many people were dressed in festive garbs entering and exiting the house, I even saw a few of his siblings who also live abroad, they were all back in Umudike. I wondered what the occasion was. They all donned pretentious smiles, possessed only by people who have crossed several seas. One of their male helps walked hurriedly past where I hid. “pssst, pssst.” He was startled as he turned to face me. I beckoned to him to come close. Kedu ihe na-eme n’ụlọ gị?” I asked, desiring to know what was going on. “You no know?” his face puzzled. I shook my head. “Only you no know w etin dey happin.Oga pickin, you know a m nau?” Ukwu Iwe Anger Kedu ihe na-eme n’ụlọ gị? What is happening in your house? Wetin dey happin? Pidgin English for: what is happening? Oga pickin Pidgin English for: employer’s child

I had no idea who he was referring to. His employer had many children. He continued, “erm, Ahamefula, Ahamefula w anmarry him enyi.” My world spun, I leaned on the tree for support. “You dey fain?” “I’m okay.” Why was I flustered by this news? I queried my self-centred conscience. He certainly has moved past the pain of rejection. It was my fault. I rejected his proposal. Did I expect him to remain afada all his life? Besides, my a gbamakwụkwọ ọdịnala with Obumneme was in two days. I just needed to accept my impending fate, my mother’s story was about to be rewritten in my life. All five of my younger sisters have wealthy betrotheds. My youngest sister who everyone had thought would marry the palm wine tapper’s son because of her pig-headedness, surprised us all when Okafor, who works at an oil company in Lagos, visited our house with his parents, with gifts of expensive wine and schnapps to indicate his interest in her. From the way my sister and Okafor exchanged glances, we could tell they have been dating a long time. * My mother has spent all her life’s savings preparing for my agbamakwụkwọọdịnala. Obumneme had not dropped a single dime. He said he would repay my mother after the wedding, which I doubt. His complaint was that his master owes him arrears of salary—this jingle—I have been used to since I knew him. If I have learned anything, it was that you could not ascribe great cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence - that is all anything Enyi darling Fada Pidgin English for: Father, a Catholic priest agbamakwụkwọ ọdịnala traditional wedding Nne / Nne m mother / my mother

ever is. Nothing more than coincidence, it took a long time, but I had finally learned. There are no miracles. There is no such thing as fate. Nothing is meant to be. I knew. I was sure of it now. Cock sure.

“Nne m,I have decided, I cannot marry Obumneme.” My mother’s hand stills for a moment on the cover of the boiling O kazi soup. She continues to raise the cover without uttering a word. I assume she is calculating how much she has spent towards this occasion, and how she is going to get Obumneme to fulfil his promise now that I am retracting my commitment. “Nne, don’t worry about the payment, I will go to Aba for work.” My mother is quiet. “I will follow Adaku’s mother to help in her shop in Aba. I will pay you back all you have spent. I ghotara ihe m kwuru mama?” My mother continues as if no one is there. My immediate younger sister, Ketandu, appears at the kitchen door. “Mgbeke, you are not dressed yet? Ahamefula is already here with all his people.” I turn a quizzical face to my mother. She continues her chore, a conniving smile dancing at the side of her mouth.

Patricia Sukore is a lawyer and a writer. She lives in Nigeria with her husband and children. Her works have appeared, or are forthcoming in Kalahari, Nigerian Writers Publication, Icefloe Press, Barren Magazine and elsewhere.

Self-Styled. Easter Parade, NYC photography by Julia Guo

Julia Guo is a photographer based between New York, Sydney and Hong Kong.

artwork by Joanna Blémont I drew this piece after watching Peggy Gou’s music video ‘Starry Night’. The videographer shot beautiful scenes and moments linked to South Korean culture. I was particularly touched by the scenes shot between night and day; it created a somewhat sacred time where the viewer didn’t know whether the day was about to start or end. Joanna is an illustrator based between Edinburgh and Brussels. She’s currently completing her MA at the Edinburgh College of Art before exploring the industry. Her work is inspired by dreams and questioning the fine line between the real/unreal. She has an interest in exploring slowed down sequential narratives where transitions take place.

[If You Can] Call It Dancing

poem by Stephen Jackson - for Pablo Looking into, looking through the mason jar half full of water he says, I never knew I could feel such grotesque feelings. He takes a drink and a bite of the pizza we ordered after dancing as if the water was holy, as if the pizza was my body. If you can call it dancing — the fingers of our hands entwined and moving up and down laughing I felt his breath, as we turned in circles and arcs coming in close pulling away, acting crazy — though we didn’t kiss we did, almost. And I don’t want people to look at the glass of water, or the pizza or the beautiful sweat of his upper lip and think about me, Why him. I want them to look at the tree I planted in his name, to say, Here’s some shade and Christ, I never thought we’d get any relief from this heat.

The Eye artwork by Athiba Balasubramanian Acrylic on Canvas, 24 x 36 in

Symbols of Peace

Rafiki artwork by Athiba Balasubramanian Acrylic on Canvas, 24 x 36 in Athiba Balasubramanian is an architect, designer and art enthusiast. Inkinglight is a passion project he started back in 2013; the name refers to the most fundamental definition of art â&#x20AC;&#x201C; capturing light. Apart from sketching, he experiments with non-objective abstractions using acrylics. His minimalist works are largely influenced by colors and compositions found in nature & manmade forms.