Tuesday Magazine Fall Semester 2016 Edition

Title AUTHOR ARTIST | MEDIUM

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Erik Owen, President Bridget Irvine, President Managing Editors Qing Qing Miao Jenny Ng Editorial Board Matthew Aguirre, Editor-in-Chief Deirdre Carney, Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Leong Bridget Irvine Erik Owen Theo Lebryk Leyla Brittan Ellen Zhang Victoria Sanchez Katie Berry Una Choi Siqi Liu Anna Gibbs Jon Galla Emily Zhao Megan Sims Social Media & Publicity Deirdre Carney Business Board Qing Qing Miao Bridget Irvine Jacqueline Leong Directors of Staff Development Ellen Zhang Erik Owen

Staff Writers Bridget Irvine, Co-Director Victoria Sanchez, Co-Director Leyla Brittan Anna Gibbs Cleo Harrington Theo Lebryk Grace Li Emily Oliveira Erik Owen Emily Zhao dArt Board (Design+Art) Melinda Li, Co-Director Hannah Byrne, Co-Director Jacqueline Leong Jeremiah Blacklow Megan Sims Carmella Verrastro Ruben Reyes Grace Li Jenny Ng Bridget Irvine Qing Qing Miao Sam Wattrus Faculty Advisor Daniel Donoghue With Special Thanks To: The Office for the Arts at Harvard The Undergraduate Council The Harvard COOP

Tuesday Magazine is a publication that engages in and furthers Harvard College’s artistic dialogue. In our biannual magazine, we seek to present a cross-section of Harvard’s intellectual life and amplify the arts, showcasing student voices by publishing their creations. We accept applications to join our staff at the beginning of each semester. Submissions from the Harvard community are accepted for publication on a rolling basis throughout the school year. Please visit tuesdaymagazine.com for more information about applications or submissions.

Copyright © 2016 by Tuesday Magazine. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.Tuesday Magazine is a publication of a Harvard College student-run organization. The Harvard name and/or VERITAS shield are trademarks of the President and Fellows of Harvard College and are used by permission of Harvard University. This product was printed in China.

Table of Contents | Volume 13, Issue 2 Cover Buildings

Dennis Zhang . Graphite (Oil on Bristol)

4 Models in Milan

Yehong Zhu

5 Toka

Sophia Yanis . Photography

6 For Erik

Devon Black

Classroom Valentine 7 Alice Hu . Photography Maquette

8 Michelle Long . Sculpture 10 First Day of School

Harriet Kariuki . Photography

11 Highway at Sunrise

Romana Pilepich

12 The Death of Cleopatra

Megan Sims

13 Uncontacted, a hoax

Michelle Long . Painting

14 Afternoon Alley

Alice Hu . Photography

15 Prison

Tiffani Driscoll . Drawing

16 XOXO Cherub

Annie Harvieux

29 Punctus Contra Punctum

Erik Owen

19 Dean Khurana & the

Whipped Cream 30 Where There’s Music and Harriet Kariuki . Photography There’s People Ramon Galvan

20 Threads

Zoe Onion

20 Tunda

Sophia Yanis . Photography

21 Shoebox

Michelle Long . Painting

22 At the Pfojo

Aisha Bhoori . Installation

23 Kaka

Sophia Yanis . Photography

24 Sharp Feathers Emily Zhao 26 On Asphalt

Una Choi . Silver Gelatin Print

32 Planes

Sophia Yanis . Photography

32 Die through Submersion in

and Inhalation of Water Sophia Yanis . Photography

33 September Strands

Alice Hu . Photography

34 That’s What She Said

Cherline Bazile

34 Off-Kilter

Una Choi. Silver Gelatin Print

35 Cultural Artifacts

Michelle Long . Sculpture

36 quiet time for grandfathers

Matthew Aguirre

27 Eric in the Tea Farm

Harriet Kariuki . Photography 37 Faucet Dennis Zhang . Painting

27 Ogelea

Sophia Yanis . Photography

28 Vwave

Sophia Yanis . Photography

38 Ukaidi

Sophia Yanis . Photography

39 One Does Not Swing at

Dragons Megan Sims

Models in Milan YEHONG ZHU

Upon moving into the sleepy complex of Residence Pola, I kept running into angels in the elevator. That’s how they appeared, at least, to me. Normal people are not beautiful enough to walk into a room and briefly stop all conversation. I began to think that all Italian women looked like supermodels, that attractiveness was hereditary to being Italian. It was only later that I found out that a modeling agency regularly sent girls to stay in Pola, due to its proximity to downtown Milan.

It’s funny how life works out sometimes. Growing up, I’d painstakingly papered the walls of my bedroom with pages from Vogue. Every morning I’d wake up surrounded by girls blessed by genetics and Photoshop, clothes more expensive than my family could afford, exotic locales I had never seen. It was an impressive collection of hundreds of moments framed in the most flattering possible light, each captured in DSLR clarity by photographers whose job it was to deify beauty.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, modeling became my pipe dream. Maybe if I were prettier—maybe if I were three inches taller and twenty pounds lighter, maybe then I, too, could walk on a runway.

Maybe all those Gucci ads played into my motivation behind studying abroad in Italy, into choosing Milan as my destination for the summer. Here I was now in the fashion capital of the world, living with the models that had once adorned my walls.

Brazilian, she had something effervescently sexy about her that radiated from within.

I was particularly impressed by her bilingualism: she was extremely talkative and fluent enough in English to converse easily with me. Yet her native Portuguese touched her every word liltingly—hints of the Brazil that she missed, that she carried with her every day.

modeling career. As soon as your looks fade, your career is over. Then what?”

One evening I was lounging on her bed, flipping through her portfolio. I saw that it was filled with tear-outs of magazines she’d been in back in Brazil. In one, she was dressed in a sleek outfit, arm dangling suggestively between her legs. In another, she had pulled the collar of the luxury jacket up to her cheekbones, the better to play with the angles. What poise.

One of the best days of my life was when, at three a.m. in the morning, she invited me to go to the beach with her friends. They had spent the night drinking in front of the Duomo—the gorgeous gothic cathedral in the heart of Milan—and planned to go train-hopping to the coast of Italy in a mere three hours. Did I want to come with them? she asked. We have all these male models here who want to meet you…

I turned the page, stopped at a headshot.

Her stare was direct and entrancing, her hair was blown back by a breeze, and the warmth of her dimpled smile shown through as softly and purely as molten gold. She looked over my shoulder and grinned. “That photo is one of my favorites. My friend took it on an iPhone when I was only wearing mascara.”

I looked at it again, amazed that anyone could be so photogenic.

She was the ring leader, the selfie queen.

It wasn’t long before I befriended Yana, the 19-year-old model who liked to hang out in the tiny lobby of our little hotel.

Being friends with her was intimidating as hell, but ultimately I was grateful that she took me under her wing.

She was the ring leader, the selfie queen. Lanky, swanky, and unapologetically

“What’s it like,” I asked her, “— modeling?”

It was something I’d always wondered.

She gazed at me steadily, eyes deep brown and delicious.

“All your friends are more beautiful and successful than you. Clients are never happy with the way you look. You’re either too skinny or you’re not skinny enough, and you don’t have the right hair color, the right height, the right skin. Your long-distance boyfriend is jealous that you’re constantly surrounded by male models and it breaks your heart that he can’t be with you. You want to be successful, but so few make it in this industry…the odds are stacked against you. But what else can you do? You already gave up your college education for your

4 | Tuesday Magazine | Yehong Zhu | Models in Milan

“Then what?” I echoed softly. She paused, vulnerable, fretting over her insecurities. Eventually she shrugged, “oh, it’s not so bad,” and put her apprehensions behind her. Within minutes we were talking about something else.

As promised, I got to meet her male model friends. Each was a sex symbol in his own right. Celso had dark red curls, auburn freckles sprinkled across a Grecian nose, and a body seemingly carved by Michelangelo himself. His lack of pretension was refreshing, especially for someone so conventionally attractive. Dante was the easy-going Brazilian doppelganger of a ‘90’s-era Johnny Depp. The slight gap between his front teeth showed when he grinned, and he grinned often, creasing the laughter lines at the corners of his eyes.

Thiago, on the other hand, was standoffish and self-possessed. It wasn’t until we got to the beach—when he took off his aviators, removed his fedora, peeled off his wife-beater, and stood there, slowly flexing his shoulders in the warmth of the sun—that I realized he was the hottest guy I’d ever seen. Bad boy and undeniably alpha, he rarely spoke and never smiled, radiated sexual energy, and wore his arrogance like an Emporio Armani suit: it flattered him like a second skin, made him look expensive. Indeed, he had modeled for Emporio Armani—and Versace, and Vogue, and Dolce and Gabbana and all the rest.

Rumor had it that he had a couple of kids running around in Brazil.

Impressively enough, their looks weren’t the only marketable skill that they possessed. Models being notoriously cheap, they had mastered the art of illegally sneaking onto public transportation without getting caught. After a few hours of train-induced apprehension (during which the only language spoken was Portuguese), I was astounded when we arrived in one piece at our destination—a tiny tropical town on the coast of Italy.

The setting was surreal. Palm trees greeted us at the train station. The houses, painted in fading shades of rainbow pastel, were built high up in the mountains.

Waves alternating between teal and lapis lazuli lapped lazily against the shore, where the beaches were filled to overflowing

with polished stones. We spent an idyllic afternoon together swimming, kayaking, and sunbathing on the rocks. Lunch was pasta with mussel-infused marinara sauce at a seaside restaurant; dessert was honeydewflavored Italian ice at a beachside gelateria. I knew that I was spoiled, that every vacation from now on would be measured against this casual paradise. For Yana, it was just another weekend.

Spending the summer with Yana made me realize that her world was as intoxicating as it was fragile. My entire life I was taught to look at the big picture, while she was taught to notice the details. A cheekbone, a stray hair, the sun on the water, a picture-perfect moment. Like beauty and youth, the details in life exist only in the present. There was

Toka

certainly value in maintaining appearances or chasing after pleasure, in living from day to day. But I couldn’t help but wonder how Yana would fare in the future. What she would do when her first wrinkle ended her career?

At the end, Yana bade me farewell, promising vaguely to keep in touch. Her gaze was wistful, lonely. Her hair fell around her shoulders in a silken cascade; she ran her fingers through them, tucked a lock behind her ear. I don’t remember if she disappeared into Residence Pola or stayed to watch me go. When I looked back from the taxi window, I couldn’t distinguish her silhouette from the fading evening skyline.

SOPHIA YANIS | PHOTOGRAPHY

Toka | Sophia Yanis | Tuesday Magazine | 5

For Erik

Based on “Litany” by Billy Collins DEVON BLACK

You are the hospital corners and the warmth of the sunshine, the raspberry jam with a tarnished silver spoon.

You are the dinner jacket strewn over the chair and the flour on the baker’s apron.

You are the shine on the black dress shoes and the sax solo in the song.

However, you are not the leaf blowing in the wind, the loudly ticking clock, or the cobblestone street.

It is possible that you are the coffee at the bottom of the pot, maybe even the velvety red carpet leading up to the altar, but you are not even close to being the orange rind.

And a quick look in the mirror will show that you are neither the arch in the dancer’s back nor the shredded Converse.

It might interest you to know, speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world, that I am the cool winds of April.

I also happen to be the froth on top of my latte, the tableful of binders, and the yellowed, dog-eared book with a broken spine.

I am also a freshly sharpened pencil and the paint on the palette.

But don’t worry, I’m not the hospital corners and the warmth of sunshine.

I could never be the hospital corners and the warmth of sunshine.

You are still and will always be the hospital corners and the warmth of sunshine, not to mention the raspberry jam with a tarnished silver spoon.

6 | Tuesday Magazine | Devon Black | For Erik

Classroom Valentine

ALICE HU | PHOTOGRAPHY

Classroom Valentine | Alice Hu | Tuesday Magazine | 7

8 | Tuesday Magazine | Michelle Long | Maquette

Maquette

MICHELLE LONG | SCULPTURE

Maquette | Michelle Long | Tuesday Magazine | 9

First Day of School

10 | Tuesday Magazine | Harriet Kariuki | First Day of School

HARRIET KARIUKI | PHOTOGRAPHY

Highway at Sunrise ROMANA PILEPICH | POETRY

I have seen the dawn from A moving yellow school bus with Cold cracked vinyl seats –

A miracle outside my shoebox windowpane Smudging the horizon red-pink And illuminating the guardrail softly gray.

We rattled along And the sun was risen.

I turned my head and slept again.

Highway at Sunrise | Romana Pilepich | Tuesday Magazine | 11

The Death of Cleopatra MEGAN SIMS

The other day I scoured the Internet for my Renaissance nude body double.

I found her in The Death of Cleopatra, hip swung out, breasts high and round looking longingly just beyond the frame.

Three years ago I began to write ekphrastic poetry— for paintings, for walls for my own arms— I do not know how to define art when it stops being beautiful, when I start to see the cracks in works of Bosch or the sculpture in the cracks of cinderblocks.

I do not write in praise of art if I can help it, but with Cleopatra I suppose I am writing in praise of myself— or disdain, perhaps— she holds the fated asp as it bites, maybe, sucks, from the fullest breasts I could find in the 16th century to match mine.

Cleopatra took her life at the place it came from, swollen, sweet, already riddled with bite marks and bruises.

Perhaps this wasn’t suicide.

Perhaps she loved the snake.

When I feel the lips of a woman, her sharp teeth at my breasts, I wonder if this sort of wayward sex served as the model for Giampetrino.

If, in my sleep, I have sat naked for a portrait with snakes because they could not find a body like mine.

Or perhaps I was in Alexandria, rolled in carpet, curled around my own body as women like me are supposed to be— Did I die with dignity?

When the snake bit me, did I bleed?

12 | Tuesday Magazine | Megan Sims | The Death of Cleopatra

Uncontacted, a hoax

MICHELLE LONG | PAINTING

Uncontacted, a hoax | Michelle Long | Tuesday Magazine | 13

Afternoon Alley

ALICE HU | PHOTOGRAPHY

14 | Tuesday Magazine | Alice Hu | Afternoon Alley

Prison

TIFFANI DRISCOLL | PENCIL

Prison | Tiffani Driscoll | Tuesday Magazine | 15

XOXO Cherub ANNIE HARVIEUX

“So he was just right there? At the grocery store? The universe hates you, Kennie,” Mel commiserated while slicing peppers.

“Ah, yeah, I mean, it could have been a lot worse, it’s just whenever we see each other in public or anything it’s gonna be awkward for a while, I think,” Kendra mused, spraying the frying pan with nonstick while holding it over the sink.

“Hey, my office is having a party this weekend, wanna be my plus one?”

Mel asked. “Help you take your mind off things?”

“Yeah, can I wear my Tigger costume?” Kendra asked, not looking up.

“No orange fleece bags,” Mel whacked the onion in half with a large knife. “It’s not a costume party. I’m gonna make you wear something nice that covers up your bad attitude.”

From Mel’s perspective, and with Kendra’s best-friend acquiescence, it took only a sleeveless black dress to cover a bad attitude. “You look great,” Mel said warmly, standing in front of the mirror as Kendra sat on her bed. “Wait, why are you putting on socks?”

“I’m gonna wear comfortable shoes.”

“No, no, no, you’re on such a good roll,” groaned Mel. “Nope. Dude. It is my human right to have comfortable feet while standing and walking,” Kendra said. Her socks were covered in pictures of small goldfish.

Mel faced her with a hand on her hip and scowled. “You’re gonna wear those gross, nasty slip-ons that you always wear. The ones that let everyone see that you’re an emo twelve-year-old.”

“Ahem,” Kendra corrected, “Those are the shoes of legends. Do I have to remind you of the concerts I’ve been to in those shoes? The number of buses and

planes I’ve caught just in time because I was wearing those shoes instead of bad flats? Excuse me, ma’am, do you have a moment to talk about arch support?”

Twenty minutes later, the pointed toe of Mel’s heel was pressing the gas pedal of the Civic while the rubber of Kendra’s slip-on was tapping along to the radio in the passenger seat. Mel had grown up in the city, but Kendra’s parents had been middle-school teachers in a mining town up North, and Kendra still got awestruck when she stared up at the tall buildings at night. To Kendra, the reverb of the yellowing streetlights off the glass-plated sides of the buildings looked like a weird, smudged version of the stars that she could almost touch.

They parked in an industrial-looking cul-de-sac instead of in a metered spot and walked two blocks to get to the office party.

Taking the elevator to accommodate for Mel’s heels, the two girls checked their phones. Both needed to be sure they had enough battery life to contact the other and get rescued in the event of an awkward, overly long conversation or an unwanted, uhh, admirer.

“You can’t hear the music yet. This is a bad sign,” Kendra said as the elevator door opened and the pair stepped out.

“Kendra, seriously, we’re adults now. Please don’t hold the stem of your wineglass in your fist or anything,” Mel sighed.

When they arrived in the coworker’s apartment, Kendra gave a subtle point to the pile of red plastic cups on the coffee table as she took off her jacket, raising her eyebrows and grinning. Mel scowled.

Kendra wandered towards the

16 | Tuesday Magazine | Annie Harvieux | XOXO Cherub

kitchen, letting Mel immediately drift into a laughing group of her coworkers.

In the social world, Kendra was a kitchen-talker. She liked sitting on a counter with her cup in both hands, listening to irreverent jokes and avoiding the whispers skirting the main floor.

I’m bound to know a few people besides Mel, she thought, entering the kitchen. Unfortunately, at the time being, it held only two couples. One kissing. Adults these days, she thought, taking a cup from the counter and filling it at the sink.

“Hey, nice shoes,” she heard from over her shoulder. It was his voice.

Startled, she set down the cup, turning around with a hand resting on the counter. “Thanks. How’s it going?”

She looked at him. Not cute not cute not cute.

“It’s good,” he said, a hand in his pocket and the other wrapped around a beer. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted BATHROOM to Mel. “Hey, um, Mel just texted me, but I’ll catch you later?” She said, trying to act especially uninterested in his reply as she bustled out.

Mel was already waiting in the apartment bathroom.

“Hey, thanks, I really hate doing this to you, your friends looked fun,” said Kendra.

“Eh, it’s fine,” Mel said, sipping from her cup. “Are you alright?”

Kendra shed her sense of decorum like whipping off a bathrobe. “HE’S HERE,” she said, grabbing Mel by the shoulders. She let go with one arm, swiped Mel’s drink, and took a chug.

“Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, first of all, you’re unzipping,” Mel said, backing Kendra away and tugging up the zipper

In the social world, Kendra was a kitchentalker.

Hall of Environments

on the front of her dress. “Secondly, you’re DDing. But, for real, you said you don’t care, so prove it. Talk to him, don’t talk to him, but show him you’re not gonna cling. Show you that you’re not gonna cling.”

“Wow, harsh,” said Kendra, believing Mel to be completely correct and not harsh at all. After a pause, she conceded and added, “Sounds good.”

“Alright, so, planning to leave at one, but let me know if things go down in flames?” asked Mel. “Sounds perfect,” said Kendra,

MICHELLE LONG | PAINTING

wrapping her roommate in a hug. “I’m gonna squish you. Sober squish alert, it’s ya numba one DD.” “Ugh, Kennie, get off,” Mel said, “I gotta go be a popular kid.” She gently separated herself from Kendra and left with a last warm smile.

Kendra fidgeted with some of the wisps of hair that curled around her ears before leaving the bathroom. She returned to the kitchen and decided not to pick up her old cup. Helping herself to a new one, she filled it, and made her way to the edge of the living room.

“Nice shoes,” she heard from behind again, but this time the voice was deeper. She turned around to find the voice’s owner to be squat and fairhaired. “What’s your name?” the voice’s owner asked.

“I’m Kendra,” said Kendra, mashing her toe into carpet nervously.

She looked out to the rest of the living room. She saw him. He was slipping his hand around the waist of a girl with thick, black hair and leading her towards the window.

“So, do you work for Geotag?” the

Hall of Environments | Michelle Long | XOXO Cherub | Annie Harvieux | Tuesday Magazine | 17

squat man asked.

“No, um, I’m Melanie’s roommate.”

“Are you, uh,” the man began uncomfortably.

“We’re friends, saving on rent,” Kendra said, laughing awkwardly, before realizing he was probably wondering if she was single rather than straight. She felt rude for not having asked the man’s name. “Uh, what’s your name?”

The man’s name led into an avalanche of talking, one that Kendra could easily pretend to be engaged in without actually having to listen. Kendra looked back out over the room. He was still with the black-haired girl. The girl was laughing. He pulled the girl back into the room, and they started to sway in circles to the droopy background music that few other people were dancing to.

“Hey, listen, I gotta go, but it was nice to meet you,” said Kendra. Aiming for the bathroom, she found herself instead grabbing her jacket, ducking out of the apartment, and careening down the stairwell. Once she reached the sidewalk, she wandered slowly, staring at the coils of her breath and trying to feel somehow artistic or heroic or a solitary kind of romantic, out in the night alone, until she stumbled upon a commercial coffee shop. Inside, she ordered a hot chocolate, running her fingers over the plasticky, overly-finished fake wood of the counter.

She sat down at the counter facing the street with her drink, pulled a pen from her jacket pocket, and started doodling tiny circles and triangles on a brown napkin that was partially stuck to the counter. When she looked up, she saw him and the black-haired girl walking towards the car parked in front of the coffee shop. It was his car. I didn’t even think, she thought, as if she should

have known to be on constant lookout for new blue Corollas. To her horror, he looked up at the shop window as he fished for his keys in his pocket, looked down at the key, and looked back up, at her. He then faced the girl, obviously saying something to her, and then paced to the coffee shop door and opened it briskly, ringing the bell.

“Kendra, you alright?” He said loudly as he made his way over, taking the seat next to her.

“Yeah,” she said. Pausing, she

sitting in the backseat, with him and the black-haired girl.

“Okay,” he said, standing up and leaving without another word. She couldn’t muster a feeble goodbye, and didn’t know if she should. Instead, she picked apart the napkin at the tender seams created by her pen lines. Once she’d swept the bits into a neat pile, she stared moodily out the window. Snow sparkled on the sidewalk under the streetlights. She wanted to run.

Kendra swept the napkin bits into her cup and disposed of both as she exited. She wiggled her feet in her slip-ons and checked her watch. 12:15. I can run it off for a couple blocks. She spaced out her feet in a mock track start and took off. Her dress fluttered as she ran, and her hair blew over her face and stuck to her lip balm. She could feel sweat start to bud in her armpits beneath her down coat. Her throat felt tight and itchy from the cold air, and she loved it. She had run out of the kitschy new apartment area and into the kind of neighborhood with old, big houses with iron fences. The hard sidewalk was starting to hurt her feet, and she loved that too.

12:50. Text from Mel. Where are you?

I’m on the corner of 15th and 1st.

I’m coming back. And I’m free.

Instead, she picked apart

the napkin at the tender seams created by her pen lines.

figured she should probably have a rationale for having left. “As much as I love DDing, and having random weird guys make a move, I needed a break.”

This wasn’t entirely true. He had made a pre-move move. Not desired, but still not a negative affront.

“Whoa, do I need to go back up there and talk to someone?” he said.

Kendra was surprised by his reaction, and tried to cover it up. “No, it’s fine, I had it under control, I just needed some air.”

He nodded, still not quite seeming to agree.

“Do you need a ride home?” he asked.

“Can’t, I’m driving Mel,” she answered. There were few things she had less desire to do than be driven home,

18 | Tuesday Magazine | Annie Harvieux | XOXO Cherub

Dean Khurana and the Whipped Cream

HARRIET KARIUKI | PHOTOGRAPHY

Dean Khurana and the Whipped Cream | Harriet Kariuki | Tuesday Magazine | 19

Threads ZOE ONION

You will be mine one day.

You will fill the pages of one of my books and your history, your thoughts, your loves, will sit on my beloved shelves.

I’m a bit of a collector, you see.

It’s easy to be when humans are so careless.

You forget each other: one day there will be no one left who remembers your name, but don’t worry. I’ll be here for you. Your atoms will slow, stop their movement, and you will lift into the air, a floating cloud of dusty memories, blowing

inconspicuously.

I spend most of my days weaving golden threads between buildings, across subway tunnels. They’re quite beautiful, really. You will stick to my web, and I will feel you, I will come find you, an empty book in my hand.

I will place my pen to the paper, taste your dust, and you will speak.

Sometimes, it’s only a word, or a name. Sometimes I have to return with more and more books. I’ll know when you are finished. I will clutch your binding and return to my home, place you on my shelves.

Tunda

SOPHIA YANIS | PHOTOGRAPHY

20 | Tuesday Magazine | Zoe Onion | Threads | Sophia Yanis | Tunda

It’s saddest, really, when I find live people stuck in my web. Most of the time I find their dust in the subways; for some reason, forgotten people always find their way into the ground, slowly becoming more and more transparent until they disintegrate and blow away. Their books tell of eyes glazing over them, of their voice falling on closed ears, of abandonment.

You see? Humans are careless.

But don’t worry.

I will remember you.

Shoebox

MICHELLE LONG | PAINTING

Shoebox | Michelle Long | Tuesday Magazine | 21

22 | Tuesday Magazine | Aisha Bhoori | At the Pfojo

At the Pfojo

AISHA BHOORI | INSTALLATION

Kaka

SOPHIA YANIS | PHOTOGRAPHY

Kaka | Sophia Yanis | Tuesday Magazine | 23

Sharp Feathers EMILY ZHAO

On the ferry ride out to Daufuskie, I tell Mary about my decision to switch to a flip phone. “Space,” I explain, borrowing Charlie’s word. I’m still very good about responding to emails, but Charlie hasn’t sent any. My mom calls every other night just to make sure I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, though being on the island gets pretty close. Mary’s mom refuses to call unless it’s the good news. That was part of the deal.

She nods, understanding. “Space,” she says, and it’s a curse.

There’s not much space on Daufuskie. Not because it’s small, not because there are too many people—how many can afford an island house off Hilton Head?—but because even the air swells thick with green, with water and sun, with the smell of soil and marsh and ocean. You could stand in the middle of an empty golf course and feel crowded. It should be good for us. *** Most residents navigate Daufuskie in golf carts, zipping down corridors of fresh black asphalt. Mary won’t touch a steering wheel. When she says she feels like swimming, I drive her to the chlorinated pool at the Resort. She walks into the women’s locker room to change into her pink bikini and walks out thirty seconds later, neon polyester still bunched in her hand. “Can we leave?” she asks. I go in to use the toilet and see a little girl, biceps swallowed by blue inner tubes, sitting on the bench, peeling off her water shoes. The mother is beside her in an orange cover-up, tapping at her iPhone.

When I turn on the water to wash my hands, she glances up at me. She looks like Lisa. *** We sit on the beach, our toes stuck in the mud of low tide, and watch dolphins’ backs slide sleek and languid, crescent shadows surging between the white knives of cresting waves. Last time we were there was senior year of high school, during spring break. The mud and reeds smell the same—

hot, crushed pungent under the noon air.

“Remember when your hair was neon pink that one Halloween?” I ask.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” she says, tugging her sleeve down to cover the raw skin on her forearm. The deal was that she wouldn’t be like this, but I just snap my phone open and close, playing castanet to the seagulls’ screams.

back of the house looks over half a mile of marsh, flickering and oily, that somehow looks damper than the ocean beyond.

I stay in a guest bedroom downstairs, and Mary sleeps in the master bedroom where, when I go for water in the middle of the night, I can see her watching TV through the missing wall.

She wakes me up by sitting on my arm.

“Tell me about Charlie,” she says. That’s not *** a fair question, I insist. She already knows everything about Charlie. Tell me about The first Englishmen came to Daufuskie Lisa, I want to say, but her face in the marsharound 1664. Their original settlements were reflected moonlight looks so much worse first supplanted by antebellum mansions than I feel. Charlie puts Nutella on his and stone-and-concrete slave quarters, then PB&J’s. Charlie wants to become rich then modern housing, the window trims still save the world. Charlie’s favorite dress shirt painted blue: the African custom of warding is pink. I say was pink, then get confused off evil spirits. about what I was mistakenly past-tensing.

There are still people on the island who “Charlie’s favorite dress shirt is pink,” I speak Gullah, a close relative or descendant repeat. “Is pink.” of creole and pidgin slaveship English.

“Did you ever iron it for him?” Mary Across the channel on the mainland, Gullah asks. has flown away down the gullet of culture “Is it 1950?” and the constant, forwarddraining tunnel of I feel her shrug through the thin sheet time. It rocks and jives on the sun-touched between her thigh and my arm. “I don’t back of human catastrophe, with that fire know. If I really loved a guy I think I’d probably iron all shirts for Around us, the island breathes very, his him.”

I nod. very still, tongue-less.

She sits a little longer before unique to life highlighted in death. leaving the room, her phone in her hand, But the Gullah people do not live where and doesn’t close the door behind her when Mary and I would encounter them. Some she leaves. It’s what she needs me there for. days Mary just sits at the mahogany dining table, her phone set silently in front of her, *** one edge lined up to the table’s biggest crack.

Around us, the island breathes very, very Daufuskie means sharp feather in still, tongue-less.

Muscogee. That’s the shape of the island, a sharp feather. There’s solid evidence of *** people having lived here since 9,000 years ago, according to the website. While miniMary’s parents are renovating the house, golfing, we meet a couple in complementary so the staircases have cord for railings, the Hawaiian shirts who look 9,000 years old. porch bristles with splinters and nails, and The woman’s hair writhes in the wind like a the master bedroom is missing a wall. If del Torro animation, and the skin of her neck you’re not careful, you walk right out of it droops like torn putty. Her husband used and fall into the first-floor living room. The to be big in the printer cartridge business

24 | Tuesday Magazine | Emily Zhao | Sharp Feathers

before retiring to the island to brew rum.

“White people,” says Mary, swinging her club in tight vertical circles, “sending each other off to die. Would your parents ever do this to you? Or each other?”

“I mean, I’m here.”

“That’s my fault,” she says, “I’m your crazy white friend.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I hate my mom,” she says.

***

island. She stops at the apex, looking down into the water. Greenbrown with a broken Time moves in spirals on Daufuskie. film of lime green moss, like a bounce-worn When you walk alone across the island, marble or the liquid of an iris. past oncoming trucks and golf carts, the “Why haven’t we seen a crocodile yet?” primordial reign of crocodiles and giant she asks, kicking at the unfinished wood squirrels and flightless birds hovers just railing. behind your shoulder. The island’s memory When we reach the beach, obsidian lurking, biding. It’s patience I need to learn, water drives and leaps against its uppermost that Mary wishes she could unlearn. We are stretches, spraying the matted thickets only supposed to be here a week, but Mary of reeds and flotsam. The sun is probably *** would wait a beginning to set hundred years, behind the sky.

The island’s memory I don’t know how Mary knew to call a hundred There are three lurking, biding. It’s patience me. Maybe because I was the only person c e n t u r i e s , inches of blanched who’d been to Daufuskie with whom she’d until her arm I need to learn, that Mary wishes sand for us to kept in touch, for whom she wouldn’t need looked as good walk on. Mary she could unlearn. to pretend like the island was anything as new and immediately more than a cage. Probably because tragedy, Charlie called begins crunching with its godlike sight, had flown from my me and time looped back on itself to the forward on top of the reed bed, the brown shoulder to hers, rustling its sharp feathers moment before it happened. Or maybe to a stalks crackling but not breaking under the in her ear. moment in which she’d never existed at all. creased pink flesh of her foot. She has a knot Birds are on my mind all the time, She’s already waited forever in that hospital of dress in each hand and does not look at though Mary never looks up at the sky. room, and even to me all the noises here— where her feet fall. I hate the pricks of plant Flying. That’s how Mary’s mother described the hum of wind passing through fern and and trash beneath my soles, against my it to me when I showed up in St. Louis frond, the chug of passing ferries, the white ankles—but Mary will walk the full mile, with my suitcase, waiting until Mary went static of cicadas—begin to sound like the so I follow. to the cafeteria to tell me how they’d found ventilator.

The tide has come so high that, unless her sitting in the windowsill. “Like she was I make a point of turning my head inland, about to fly,” she said. *** I can only see the oppressively familiar They paid for my plane tickets and texture of waves. The dusk batters our hair offered to reimburse the cost of food. “We We decide to walk to Melrose on the away from our necks and shoulders, and really appreciate your coming,” they said. Beach for an expensive dinner. Mary wears flattens our dresses against our ribcages.

I told them it was no problem, missing a printed maxi dress we bought on Hilton Stray droplets, frontrunners of a storm, wet the week of class just before spring break. Head while waiting for the ferry. It’s two my nose and collarbone.

I’d notified my professors of a family miles from door to door—the first on “How much further?” I ask over the emergency; my mom, who loved Mary, asphalt paths, the second along the beach. wind and ocean. Salt water seeps between agreed to write in as long as I turned in all The sky drifts down through the trees like my foot and the bottom of my sandal. A my papers on time. I’d been sounding a little the outskirts of the loneliest ocean, misty and beer can cracks beneath Mary. She keeps tired on the phone, she said. I should get off unhurried. Our toenails above our sandal- walking. campus, get out of my biology textbooks. straps look glazed in the light as we slap flatly “I should’ve looked up the tide I’m trying to be a doctor, and I don’t tell her along the road. In the intention-less shifts schedule,” I say. about the sick irony; I don’t tell her about of air that aren’t quite wind, Mary’s dress The rain lets loose when we are within the accident. It ducks between sight of the restaurant and its butter-yellow seems like a her knees. We glass facade. It’s almost better than the Birds are on my mind trauma she pass the old cruelty of waiting for it all to come crashing all the time, though Mary would try to p l a n t a t i o n down on us, the blustery cinematic buildup sympathize with homes by the that still gets you every time. Mary’s skin never looks up at the sky. but wouldn’t wharf, whose turns patchy copper, her scalp peeking gray be able to porch steps still through hair thinned by wetness. Everything understand—like why I wanted an IUD, blink dusty, despite the spring renters. Their underexposed: shadowy, inverted, halfall my existential rich friends, the appeal of windows reflect opaque ghosts. developed. Mary stomps off the beach, onto literary fiction, the problem with Charlie. I “The menu looks amazing,” I tell Mary. a wooden walkway, over another bridge spare her.

We cross a bridge that spans yet another across another swamp-moat, onto the of the swampy channels crisscrossing the restaurant’s patio, under the sentinel of an Sharp Feathers | Emily Zhao | Tuesday Magazine | 25

On Asphalt orange lamp. I can see the white-uniformed waiters milling around inside like pale, aquarium sharks.

“This one’s on me,” I say.

“Why the fuck does it matter?” Mary pushes a lock of hair off her cheek. A waitress spots us through the glass wall and turns halfway, uncertain. I walk in, and Mary, to my relief, does too. They sit us down and give us ice waters; our waitress passes us hand towels from the restroom so we can dab our heads and chests. Mary keeps hers balled in her fist through the description of the specials, until her hair stops dripping and the waitress plucks it away.

When the waitress comes back to take our orders, Mary orders a Caesar and Greek salad. She orders crab cake and shrimp ravioli. She orders the Catch of the Day and the grilled halibut.

“Is that for both of you?” the waitress asks. It’s a meal for two.

“No,” says Mary, inclining her hand at me, palm-up, flat.

UNA CHOI | SILVER GELATIN PRINT

“I’ll have the gumbo,” I say. Outside, the night’s turned angry, and I wonder aloud how we’ll get back.

Mary stands up. “Let’s go, then.” She leaves her purse hooked around the back of her chair and pushes the restaurant door open. I trail her outside.

“Mary,” I say. “Please.” She keeps her back to me, looking out through the ambercast, watery dark.

“What fuck is the point?” she asks.

“Thirty-five dollar fish. Dessert.”

“If it’s about the—” “How come I’m here, doing this?”

She scratches at her burnt forearm. “Why this? I’m not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be here. You know what, stop being a little bitch and just call Charlie before it’s too fucking late.”

I reach out to touch her shoulder, and she breaks for it, thudding across the patio. She turns off the wood pathway, and I see that she’ll splash through the swamp, across that mud and murk, treacherous and

26 | Tuesday Magazine | Emily Zhao | Sharp Feathers | Una Choi | Untitled

turbulent with the ridges of crocodile backs and the sinuous undulation of stinging things. But she moves like she’s never heard of stopping, like the ocean is her only gravity, like she never crashed a car with her friend Lisa sitting in the passenger seat and suddenly a fire-shaped scream where her body used to be, and eventually a machine where her heart and lungs used to be. She moves like someone will flip the world’s off-switch once she’s in the water. Like it’s everything everyone’s ever wanted, and missed.

I jam 911 into my phone, press it to my ear, and take off after her. But she is flying, and I am running, and I already know that it won’t be enough.

Eric in the Tea Farm HARRIET KARIUKI | PHOTOGRAPHY

Ogelea

SOPHIA YANIS | PHOTOGRAPHY

Eric in the Tea Farm | Harriet Kariuki | Ogelea | Sophia Yanis | Tuesday Magazine | 27

Vwave

SOPHIA YANIS | PHOTOGRAPHY

28 | Tuesday Magazine | Sophia Yanis | Vwave

Punctus Contra Punctum ERIK OWEN

or Words written in 12-tone serialism in response to Psalm 91 Forty Cubic Centimeters snake venom Twelve pints of fluid erring on the positive.

Sin type, symphonies flow.

Break Brain Burn blood blow barrier Seven seconds of necrosis having found the dharma.

Sans serif, sands of the shore.

A staccato series of songs falter, as la Guerra, la Guernica approaches.

The Woodworker, the Stoneshaper molds, melds the earth with the sky.

And the Silversmith, the Goldsmith coats, gilds, the seventh day’s work.

Set carbon networks of filaments ablaze with catalytic cross-coupling.

Embers to ashes to Ashes to dust.

Providing the amalgamated body of Elements, alchemy incarnate.

For The kingdom The power The glory are yours now and for Ever.

Ever entering the glass house, Wills, Wants, Vices, permeating as a fine mist. Pooling the ether External for the abattoir.

The cerebral fluid leaking legato Drips onto a stained wall Delivering the varnish of Belief.

Punctus Contra Punctum | Erik Owen | Tuesday Magazine | 29

Where There’s Music and There’s People RAMON GALVAN

The sun scorched ants like a troubled teenager with a magnifying glass.

I’d moved to Los Angeles mere months ago but time metamorphosed incessantly in the west coast concrete circus.

Everyone has a reason. L.A. thrives on the many reasons that send suckers like me packing the family sedan with everything they got. Leave the Corelle Set for your ‘rents; you don’t need more than a script and a dream to abandon your roots and head dead west on I-10. California Dreamin’ lights your every existence like sun to panels.

See the BMWs down Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the Art Deco one-roomers in Los Feliz, the haughty artisan cheeses of Echo Park. Money as Lifestyle. What more do you need than money to conquer the glitz of gentrification? Art, perhaps—to change the world with moving images.

What’s more artistic than that? Directing talent and light to expose some essence of Man—no! lose the gender normativity!—wait, who cares? This is Hollywood. A conclave built on normativity, of abusing the plight of those below-the-line. Only Cinema can produce art from rushing pressed juice (signature Brazil Nut, obvi) to the actress puffing American Spirits. God exists to punish the defenseless.

Sweat sticks to my boxers. Nothing tells you to flee your air-conditionless Gilded Age rental like soaked cotton congealing to your thighs. Early September, but the sun cares less than the coke-fueled Audi racing to Marina Del Rey to satiate the weekend buzz; weekends require a level of success befitting the hydraulic ambition of the West. Drugs, Danger, and Lays.

Option the would-be book into a would-be movie and maybe stumble upon a wouldbe franchise. Don’t you know someone at

VICE? Heat served with flabby hunger shoots me out the front door into the offensive midday scorcher. I schlep my toasted skin to the driver’s seat of my pop’s ‘94 Buick LeSabre. L.A.’s hottest new station for Hip Hop and R&B pings on (as it has for the past decade). In no mood for anything hot, I plug in my dated iPhone to the anachronistic JVC stereo receiver and wait an incendiary amount of time for Spotify to load up. Morrissey’s late 80’s wails eventually ripple on. I crank the lever to Drive.

Take me out tonight. Where there’s music and there’s people.

sweltering bloodstream. Or maybe the malty I.B.U.’s will numb me enough to forget it’s just me, the beer, and the reclaimed wood stool surrounded by a mushrooming misplaced football commune. Generous sips before I order a fifteen dollar burger and fries (Whataburger, where you at?). Five Line calls its burger “the Manifest”: 8 oz. patty, american cheddar, mushrooms, barbeque sauce, and avocado (this story’s about Los Angeles, isn’t it?). For an additional three bucks they toss in “Destiny Fries.”

Foamy glass number four shows up three quarters into the early games. The dozen liquid crystal displays whirl my neck to and fro as I indulge in the N.F.L.’s opening Sunday. The Packers play the Bears at historic Lambeau. Jets and Browns, a stubby stinker. My glorious Texans on the road pitted against the Chiefs.

The Redskins line up on 4th down against a surprisingly staunch Dolphins defensive line. I whip to see the Super Bowl Seahawks, projected behemoth, struggling at the horns of the woeful Rams.

Munches of grass-fed cattle in between potato gnaws, and I’m damn near cloud-nined. Mix in the beers and inebriated itis approaches with a muggy fury. And enough televised football to salivate a southerner. This tavern houses four forty-two inch LCDs hanging across the bar; two fifty-eight inch Sonys tacked to the perimeter walls; trips thirty-two inchers in the patio; and a twenty-two Westinghouse above the Men’s Room mirror. A few more brews and I’d think I was at Best Buy. Would you like twelve months financing for your tab? I scour the beer menu for rewards options.

Drunkenness truncates my patience like a scientist slicing insignificant figures from her notation. In this state, my head

Directing talent and light to expose some essence of Man—no! lose the gender normativity!—wait, who cares?

This is Hollywood.

I cruise on the Yuppie Eagle Rock strip past kale salads, coffee shops, and taco trucks with a plastered ‘B’ for Boy, get better! A health-commissioned reminder of gentrification via laminated paper. Don’t fret. We’ll call it Street Art. BMPP @ FIVE LINE promises a collage of beer, pizza, and the National Football League at an air conditioned seventy degrees. I ignore the imported pack of Bengals fans crowding the entrance and seat myself at the bar.

I order a local stout, community service served a pint at a time. Maybe the blackness of the brew will cool my

30 | Tuesday Magazine | Ramon Galvan | Where There’s Music and There’s People

whizzes and whirs like HALO with only one thumbstick. First down pass here, tipped ball incomplete there, Texans shittiness everywhere. God surely exists to punish the defenseless. The frenetic head rocking from TV to TV leaves me blissfully brainless. My lobes spill out my ears with the cheer of “Hehe...boogers”.

My eyelids seesaw during the shaky walk to the Men’s Room. In those elongated blinks, I imagine the moments between the huddle and the Hut, Hut, Hike. Synapses must go apeshit during the playclock’s no man’s land. The only thing comparable to the pressure of snapping a ball in front of a hundred-thousand drunk football buffs is the looming embarrassment of a bumbling walk to the bathroom’s porcelain, an American Standard. Maybe God exists for the unbalanced.

Piss the color of Mazola.

My head pulls itself away from the outpour of alcoholic urine to see a total broskie with a Falcons New Era Snapback.

His body dispenses a foot away from me, wobbling while his thumb processes the photos of local Jewish women like a conveyor belt. He settles on “Dani”. Two mutual friends.

That’s more than enough for Falcons Snapback. He swipes right. Smooth brunette hair drops down her svelte neck to obscure a Star of David inked onto her right shoulder. Kelly green Dash Hammett Maltese Falcon tee holds back the B cup duo. Secular and nonkosher from Pasadena with the tagline “Jewish til’ midnight.”

JSwipe: where the Jewish west coast cinderella awaits.

Falcons Snapback zips up with one hand, Dani grasped tightly with the other. Shaking away the hallucinatory daze, I return to my urinal but not before glimpsing an affirming green check on his screen. He disappears through the door, and I’m left wondering about the date those two will share and the eternal companionship that breeds from

mutual admiration of the Falco and Old Testament.

I’ve been pissing for the better part of an afternoon, too drunk to untether myself from the experience of human discharge.

The football telecast plays on mute. I’m alone save the groans of Alice in Chains’ “Them Bones” from an overhead speaker.

I’m struck with a phantasmagorical longing for Dani. Melancholy creeps in like red to a southern sky. Maybe it’s just the musty milieu or that the Texans suck this season

Green Bay leads the Bears late in the 4th— Eagles fumble the leather— Rams lead— Jets’ Fitzpatrick finds his receiver—Buffalo scores— Chiefs take a knee—Texans lose—my heart cracks.

or the lengthy tab of seven dollar beers.

Maybe it’s the meaningless of every second that I continue to stand with my penis out and my eyes anesthetized by the emptiness around me.

Soapy splashes of water to stiff skin rattles my face back online as refresh does to Google Chrome. Staley’s insoluble cries follow me to my table, receding a line at a time before I notice Falcons Snapback two tables over gargling a massive pitcher of Coors.

Dust rise right on over my time. Empty fossil of the new scene.

5.2% A.B.V. Hefeweizen to smooth the afternoon buzz. A lot of football to catch up on after my bathroom sojourn and before tomorrow’s 5:30 A.M. call time back to P.A. Nation. The thought of tomorrow’s canasta of boredom, confusion, and stress slits my soul, like paper to skin.

“I’m with the A.D.’s”, a fancy schmancy way of saying I’m a production assistant. My conciliatory way of concealing my bottom dwelling reason.

Everyone has a reason. A lot of football to catch up on before that.

Green Bay leads the Bears late in the 4th—Eagles fumble the leather—Rams lead— Jets’ Fitzpatrick finds his receiver—Buffalo scores— Chiefs take a knee—Texans lose—my heart cracks. God surely exists to punish us Texans. I sink into the last drops of beer. I stare at the morsels of meat and potato squandering heat. I download JSwipe.

Above me, a slim, bearded man in a gaudy toga interrupts the game with a commercial about full-coverage on my brand new auto.

“Car insurance coverage that makes the most sense for you,” the local Van Nuys insurer boasts. His biblically blue eyes pierce my boozed-up frailty.

I scoop crumbs to end my Manifest Destiny meal and shove my way out through black and orange jerseys.

I start up ol’ 94 while Spotify cues up “I Wanna Be Adored” by The Stone Roses.

Before dialing to U.S.B. playback, a sliver of 710 A.M. postgame coverage reminds me that the Texans can’t run away from their issues. I crank the lever to Drive.

Colorado Boulevard on a Sunday afternoon.

I don’t have to sell my soul. He’s already in me.

Where There’s Music and There’s People | Ramon Galvan | Tuesday Magazine | 31

Planes

SOPHIA YANIS | PHOTOGRAPHY

Die through Submersion in and Inhalation of Water SOPHIA YANIS | PHOTOGRAPHY 32 | Tuesday Magazine | Sophia Yanis | Planes | Sophia Yanis | Die through Submersion in and Inhalation of Water

September Strands

ALICE HU | PHOTOGRAPHY

September Strands | Alice Hu | Tuesday Magazine | 33

That’s What She Said CHERLINE BAZILE

Why a guy like me, he said.

In love with your mind, she said.

But I’m the loneliest in the world, he said.

So am I, she said.

Well, all right, he said.

Well, okay, she said.

Can I, he said.

Yeah, she said.

Off-Kilter

UNA CHOI | SILVER GELATIN PRINT

34 | Tuesday Magazine | Cherline Bazile | That’s What She Said | Una Choi | Off-Kilter

Cultural Artifacts MICHELLE LONG | SCULPTURE

Cultural Artifacts | Michelle Long | Tuesday Magazine | 35

quiet time for grandfathers MATTHEW AGUIRRE

knocking firmly on the door after trying the bell package man leaves a note on the mailbox: so sorry to have missed you – will return tomorrow you must sign for this box – it cannot be left alone overnight *** inside in the den cat sprawls out on the rug following a pillar of sunlight when night falls he will nap in front of the fireplace piano sits gathering up dust in the corner next to record player and presses deeper marks in the carpet longing for some hammer to stray from home and maybe strike a chord spider hangs patiently on her butt-made nest awaiting suitors to entangle and devour but it is cold outside and the windows are closed so she hangs and hangs and hangs in the kitchen cat paces on the linoleum – now it is dinnertime: fridge hums for lack of words cookbook has them but is stuck on the high shelf electric can opener is powerless on the counter today there are no legs to rub up against so cat goes off meowing into empty rooms and clawing at the doors *** bird floats softly above nest to airdrop food supplies to needy children ants march to and from work both ways up hill in the snow tree grows up tall and straight on a farm hoping to someday be as great as his father and forty years later this house still has no children – just tenants – and they can’t even make the rent.

36 | Tuesday Magazine | Matthew Aguirre | quiet time for grandfathers

Faucet DENNIS ZHANG | ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

Faucet | Dennis Zhang | Tuesday Magazine | 37

Ukaidi SOPHIA YANIS | PHOTOGRAPHY

38 | Tuesday Magazine | Sophia Yanis | Ukaidi

One Does Not Swing At Dragons

MEGAN SIMS

I, heavy, with the sharp tongue, I twirling black pens between my fingers— I can never seem to get the motion right— I, with a clicking of my arm bones sliding past one another (radius, ulna) and a shaking jaw, I made off with the treasures of a dragon.

Immortalized, they say these epics are not true enough to tell the tales of tale-tellers and Ocean-swellers.

They say I drowned in the reeds by the river bank.

They say I mistranslated their holy texts.

They do not read from holy texts anymore. There are trees in the desert now.

I do not make promises to languages anymore. I pulled out my teeth one by one and ground them into poison for the monsters that came up from the bottom of the Ocean where the bad people live. They say the bad people are just people we forgot about and we don’t know what they look like anymore and this is why we are afraid. But I, slippery, with the curious toes, I curling wood shavings with my fingernails— they bleed every time, I swear— I, with an ashy breath and the sound of rain when there is none, I took a swing at a dragon, and won.

One Does Not Swing At Dragons | Megan SIms | Tuesday Magazine | 39