issue 1
july 2018
welcome to the first issue of yell/shout/scream, a lit journal that serves as a platform for queer writers of color. this lit journal started off with a different name but re branding happened & here we are.
for this first issue i wanted to start off with an immensely powerful theme:silence. i want this issue to shake the ground, to connect to the queer people of color reading it, to bring on different perspectives of silence. i sincerely hope that you, as the reader, prepared for some explosive work from various voices. i also really hope that you continue to support those i publish & also support the lit journal as it moves forward.
i give a huge thanks to those that submitted because without any of them this issue wouldn't be happening. please indulge in this issue, read it til the end then read it again, tell the contributors how much you loved their work & tweet about it!
thank you readers & contributors & supporters.
interested in submitting? please visit the site's twitter for the link to the site:
- vanessa maki , founder/editor .
@shoutforus.
table of contents
introduction Live Out Loud
- John LaPine
I WANT TO FLOAT FOR A THOUSAND YEARS
- K.E. Bell
refusal to pledge - Ashley Elizabeth
BLOODY ALMIGHTY - Jenna Velez THE TRAGEDY OF EVE - Jenna Velez THE ROBBERY - Jenna Velez
Words That Fall Flat Might as Well Be a Lithopedion - Asdrubal Quintero
Dead is My First Name - Tobias J. Dean 14 MBG - Tobias J. Dean A STORM WAS BORN IN WINTER - Talia B
follow the contributors
LIVE OUT LOUD JOHN LAPINE
There exists, I have noticed, a certain kind of irreverence shared by ’queer black Americans, what I am coining as the triple consciousness, after W.E—.B. DuBois —double consciousness; it is the consciousness of being, at once, queer, black, and American, a particularly unabashed, brassy brand of sassiness, a vibrant ferocity fierceness! that comes with the territory of existing at this dangerous intersection. You may witness it first-hand when limey gin and tonic doubles get poured, a not-so-subtle nod that ’says I see you, sister, or when a man bursts into song at work, heart thumping hard in ’his throat, or on the drag show catwalk when girls are werking their six inch heels. There s a certain je ne sais quoi to the triple consciousness, which I believe translates to I don t take no shit, honey, go ahead try me. It is the product of a life lived without fear or shame, because’ we know we know we might lose this life during a routine traffic stop, or while dancing next to a beautiful boy ’in an Orlando nightclub. We’ do not have time’ to pretend, so we’ don t. We do not have the time. We are loud and unapologetic about it; we live and breathe each moment like we don t give a flying fuck, and that s because we don t. Because we can t. We leave no holds barred; we revel. We navigate the world with the knowledge that we are more likely to die from gun violence. That every interaction with the police is a brush against death, that we must not move too quickly or too’ slowly, because either could mean a bullet because the color of our skin. We have somehow survived these encounters. When you see us sitting in an airport, ’it is because we ve survived. When we stand in line at a ’restaurant, it is because we have survived’. We have been racially profiled, eyed by store’ owners and grandmas. We’ve been told to leave our backpacks at the front counter. We ve been told Go back to Africa, when we ve been here our whole damn natural lives. We ve been here as long as anyone s white ancestors; we know, because they came on the same ships. We have been called chimps and thugs. And we are tired. God, are we tired. We are tired of maneuvering in ways that might not play into these stereotypes, because we realize there is nothing we can do to change your mind once you decide we are chimps, or thugs, or suspicious, so we will act as we act because frankly, we no longer have the energy to give a damn, dearies.
We live with the knowledge that 1 in every 2 gay black men will contract HIV. That we are lucky to not be homeless, since 40% of homeless’ are LGBTQ. We’have had to come out to our parents. That boy there?’ He has said I prefer the company of men and his father chose to never speak to him again. And that girl? She s said Hey Mom, I ll be eating out women from now on.’ And there s a boldness that results from coming out, the je ne sais quoi. The triple consciousness. You’ cannot be shy when your parents can picture you licking and fucking. And we ve seen white queers write Sorry, no blacks in their dating profiles, and we have wondered how we ve got to this point when even the historically marginalized groups can marginalize within their group, how fellow queers can behave so exclusionary, when they themselves are still excluded. We try to pinpoint the moment when European standards of beauty became the norm, the default, despite knowing that we all came from Africa, even the whitest among us. We live in a country where basketball players call each other soft for offering to shake hands. In a country where gay is still understood to mean bad. A country where the vice president supports gay conversion camps, where people are zapped for loving. We live in a world where concert-goers in Egypt are photographed in a crowd with a rainbow flag, and subject to governmental anal probes. A world in which leaders of Chechnya and Iran claim We have no gay citizens, and encourage family members to
turn in their gay sons and daughters. Where the Chechen police operate sting operations to find queer men, inviting them on dates, recording the conversations, using the recordings as blackmail before rounding them up, and placing them in what’ human rights organizations are calling concentration camps. In this world, Russian pop singer Zelimkhan Bakaev disappeared mysteriously while en route to his sister s wedding in Chechnya, widely believed to be abducted, tortured, and murdered by the government.
We have a history of performing, of being commodified, our race turned to currency for the enjoyment of white America. We have seen success when we are entertaining on the stage or on the field, when we can prove ourselves non-threatening. We are told we may protest, No, not like that, like this, a silent protest, and when we silently protest, we have been told, Not like that either, and so we have given up being silent, in protest and in life. And so we sing at work and on the catwalk. But not for America: for ourselves. Not because a cultural history of entertaining, but in spite of it. And we have seen our culture appropriated, our lingo like Yasss queen and hunty and tea snatched’ by straight white women who package it for a Buzzfeed and Twitter audience. And we have given up being’ silent. We perform for no one but ourselves now, and maybe that s why we live out loud, why we refuse to be quiet for you, why we feel we must sing and shout and scream as if it s our last day on earth. Because, for many of us, it might be. We might fall in love tonight and wake to a positive test result tomorrow. We might walk out of a concert, or out of work, get stopped by a cop, and get choked to death on cold cement. We might have headphones in on our way to the store, and get smoked by neighborhood watch. So we will not be silent because we cannot be silent. Silence hasn’t worked, and we cannot afford things not to work in America any longer. They have been not working for us for so long. I feel it when unarmed black men are shot because they look like me, when my mother tells’me Be careful because the color of’my skin. And we feel it when straight… people say I don t mind the gays, but if they weren’t so in your face about it all the time but that is precisely why we are in your fucking face. Silence is not a solution, so instead,’ we live as ’ loudly as we can. We sashay and snap and’Mhmm, I heard that. We say We re brown, we re queer, and against all statistical odds, we re here. God damn it, here we are, we say. And we are not taking shit today, honey, go ahead and try us.
I WANT TO FLOAT FOR A THOUSAND YEARS K.E. Bell
There's a big field outside the library filled with snow and ice. When I don't want to be around you, I go and lay in it until the insides of my hands turn from pink to yellow. The night sky is so clear here. I'm getting real good at naming the constellations and stars. Some nights I go inside the library right before it closes and read about black holes; it seems as though I'm turning into one. I sit at the public computers and see what it would take for me to become an astronaut. My dad asks if I'd be lonely shut up in a space shuttle, and I don't think I would at all. My one aspiration is to get closer to space. I want to be up there and away from you. I read all about the different types of telescopes and how they're made. I read about graduate programs in astrophysics and make a spreadsheet of all the faraway places I can go. Night after night I'm outside, laying in the frozen grass, hoping you won't find me. I think about dying most nights, but so far I've only told the stars.
refusal to pledge Ashley Elizabeth
I
refuse
to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of amerikkka and to the corruption to which it bows one (divided) nation under a limited idea of God divisible by race gender orientation and sex with liberty and justice to well-bred, rich white men.
BLOODY ALMIGHTY Jenna Velez
Righteousness pulls out my teeth one by one And wonders why I’m choking on blood DNA like mine will ruin tradition With struggling tongues holding English In foreign mouths like a sour lemon Juice spilling on old glory and crisp linen sheets
The fabric of society is sewn with two eye holes To keep the blinders on For bloody almighty
Tiki torch bearers and next-door neighbors Hold my throat red-handed Until the brownness of my hated skin Turns purple with strain As they ask why I can’t speak
THE TRAGEDY OF EVE Jenna Velez
I am a puppet of my own creation Just to feel the rope tied around my body Thrashing like a worm in Golden delicious surprise Still I dance as if I won’t Die by your hand Squeezed / So tightly I can no longer impress with The red lust of my body / it seems I have nothing alive to offer you There is no salvation by the skin / only final silence Hanging here / I wonder Have I bitten off more of the forbidden Fruit than I could chew? Will you love me choking on the seeds? I am the apple / Gloss and gluttony / Suspended between Your dripping teeth Unbeliever / Spit out My rotting flesh from your hungry mouth Before I blow away in my own wind Or drown in my own rain Let me fall from this tree / Thud / Dead bodies like cicada shells Orchard graveyard / American funeral
THE ROBBERY JENNA VELEZ
Stitched up my lips When white hands ripped Off my clothes Like a child tearing through Christmas gifts
Pulled the knife from my back and cut out my tongue When white ears Relished in the sound of Anguished crickets Until the sacrifice was complete
Hid quietly inside my skin Cowered from pleasure and cringed At the din of bed creaks
Asked my grandmother to come as a robin and free me When white teeth colonized my flesh Like they did to her years before
Prayed to gods foreign to my dry mouth For the robbery to end When white hips continued to mine Between my thighs for gold To pay forward A legacy of tanned hides for white lies And white lives alike
Words That Fall Flat Might as Well Be a Lithopedion Asdrubal Quintero
What were words? I am or you. Paraphrasal. Before these phrases. Fire & the like. Gurgling and suffocations that lead to a lithopedion. The idea of just. Cupping water between your hands. The glacial lake outburst flood. People trying to make a living on farmland. What are words? Involuntary contractions of the mouth. An eager metaphorist or similist. Gilded temples. Their open fields. School Number Four, or the Road Taken Back By the Sea. The collusion of a beachside bum and his Tinder date. The Tinder date itself. An imaginary seashack. The Museum’s culinary art exhibit. Trees filled with dead walkie-talkies. A boy alone on stage. l be words? Boroughs. Untended oak trees. A café that’s gotten excessively popular when you work under the assumption that you discovered it. A special type of bed bug that lives in the Deep South and only bites the ankles of stressed out millennials. Millennials themselves. Newsweek. “Party ‘cross America” / “bachata in the back” Marriage and then living in your parent’s shack. A series of moving frames depicting what happens if paint were organic and moved with the mind of the artist so that you were able to directly signify all the daily micromoods the mind travels through
along with anxiety-inducing recollections & when the artist dies the painting doesn’t end but simply shuffles through all the previous paintings like some greatest hits records until it hits the final frame and does the whole thing over again from beginning to end and repeats ad infinitum making it really hard to know where exactly the painting ended or where it’ll go next.
Dead is My First Name Tobias J. Dean
I want to show you alive in my poems, your dead bodies have been paraded around enough and we are starting to believe dead is what you are meant to be.
You were born dead, been dead all your black life, dead again and again until witnessing on screens when and how you died for the last time, your death then alive.
For your sake, I do not know if I want there to be an after-life, unless, of course, the gods of that life are as black as you are, as alive as you’ve never been.
14 MBG Tobias J. Dean
I don’t know if it is insane
or an incredible strength of hope
to be able to desire bringing
black children into this world
knowing their black bodies
black laughter
black childhood
black minds
black existence
black beauty
black organs
black lives
are seen as worthless
disposable to the world around them
non-existent even
A STORM WAS BORN IN WINTER Talia B
I promise what I’m about to say is true. It’s so true it’ll sting and there is a way to make this ONE BETTER. have you ever considered that maybe – he was just the accident after the storm ? when all the houses have fallen / all the poetry has come to pieces & we have no coping / mechanisms. just the dust, the grump / the bump, the grind. just the rhythm / some endless monotony. this is the way we go: summer winter autumn spring. round and round in circles.
consider that HE WAS THE ACCIDENT THE LANDSPILL THE HURTING.
I AM THE STORM AND I AM ALWAYS COMING, BREAKING, ENTERING WHERE YOU WOULD SHUTTER YOURSELVES / ALWAYS GATHERING, AND WAITING FOR DAYBREAK. ALWAYS HUNTING THE EDGES OF NIGHT TO EAT WHAT YOU THOUGHT KEPT YOU SAFE
I SAY YOUR NAME, AND
I KNOW / NOW. HOW
NOT TO HOLD MY SILENCE.
THIS IS THE STORM, SPEAKING. I BID YOU LISTEN.
one: summer,
someone spread / neon fingers over what i had left. bit at my cheeks. something on the air. a grime, a gripping dust, that constricts
i love you, i love you like this.
they never said that. maybe they said it and i missed it.
i come out of their arms like blanks from the bullet, from the barrel of a gun,
on two fingers, i choke. digging round the back of my throat like they’re building something. a walkway. a railroad for everything that’s to come. this is just the start, the end and it’s the middle, too, of the end.
( i once loved. i once upon a time felt like i knew what love was and then, when it was done and there was nothing much left to be understood, i thought stupid fuck, you stupid fucking fuck, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. it’s done. it’s done, and you have to wake up. it’s time to realise what he did and how it’ll never leave and you’ll always be telling this story, this story, in your gut, in the gaps he left, in the places he fucked, in the ruins of your mutt mouth, of your horrid little
fuck-up. where your legs once met and there was meat there is your one mistake, made and ripped and r-ped. in winter.
this is how we speak to ourselves, now. the silent and the burnt. in gaps and gashes of light.)
winter
somehow, i know to make you hurt me. how to let you. i know about pain / i know how to make em snarl / get up in his face like a swarm, like the rip of a motorbike across the way, all mouth. and with a kiss / i kiss him with a spitfire slip of my knuckles / i spit quickfire, quiet fire, riots and wild eyes. All-Fire, All-Star, a no-good bastard – all this, in his mouth, and he doesn’t even taste it. call it a gift that nobody asked for, a stormfront in your garden. nobody likes my red mouth, my red cheeks. nobody knows how to love my fire, and all i did was burn.
autumn THE DAYS DO NOTHING BUT CIRCLE, – your hands when you don’t know how to make them stop shaking / old shame. – your hands, when they look like his.
don’t worry, don’t – oh, baby. oh, come, now. stop crying, honey. we all carry a secret.
you: in you: the silence of that room, and the thing that screams – how he opened it up and ate it, skin and fruits and all. looked at me, maybe. held me, after. i’ll give you my secret – adam always knew the way back to eden, and he took it. so. do you understand / now? what they’ll do? when they see your face at the gates of heaven and know there is no guilt, no trial, only the bullet teeth? THE GUN GLARE SMILE?
Autumn, again. be calm. (the neon fingers – blinding riots.) (in my heart. oh, my heart. how i hurt you. with you. you.)
i’m so sorry. i always say what i know should when i know i shouldn’t. you don’t need reminding.
spring. i write to you, now, about the angels at 3am. they come tell me – they say, they say that they know what the boy wanted – my fire, if it pleased him, and quietly done. and a c–nt that made some ominous racket when he entered. he was not oblivious. he, too. knew the path to Eden. sorry. i know you hate the word cunt. so do i. we don’t always get what we want. except for the gazes of strangers in the passenger seats, always with one hand out the window. as if they see me and decided to go on , indifferent. as if salvation came and went. (this thing in me, dark as a dream. i dare to call it nightmare. it laughs and i – i welcome her in,)
and i’m crying for winter
again. again. oh, howl, howl, winds. how i am, now, crying and crying for winter – do you know what happened, then? in winter? what was done behind closed doors and bricked-up windows and empty bedrooms? i do. i heard myself screaming and panting and pleading and weeping and bleeding and the stars shut themselves up like window-doors, forever. waiting, with heavy breath, watching, with hands of glistening sweat,
AMONG BEDSHEETS AND BROKEN FINALES FOR A STORM.
HERE, NOW. HERE I COME.
follows the contributors
John LaPine @ johnlapine
Ashley Elizabeth @ ae_thepoet
Jenna Velez @ northernbruja
Asdrubal Quintero @ asdrubalaq
Tobias J. Dean @ TobiasJDean
Talia B @ corpsehearts