From insanely elegant odes to mundane objects to incredibly descriptive reflections about life and acceptance, Light Spun has it all, and has quickly become a collection I return to read again and again. The book takes place over a three-year period and carries the reader through the poet’s experiences with xir mental health, body image, love, and xir gender and identity as a Black American. The verse details the many highs and lows of life in an extravagantly classic yet nuanced way. Anyone can tell that Kwame Sound Daniels, the brilliant poet responsible for the masterpiece, has put a great deal of time, thought, and soul into every piece within the collection. A poem titled “Cold parts” opens the collection, and is one of my personal favorites. Daniels writes, “Tight, like a muscle strained, like a knot far / beyond undoing. Tendons taut, snapping. / Achilles’ weakness speaks to me, tells me / all the ways in which I have failed. And yet, / I wake and breathe. I live in quiet strength.” Daniels brings such beauty to verse and encapsulates readers, immersing them in the poet’s emotions as they travel with xem on a journey to xir own strength. There are many moments in this collection that are subtle and simultaneously jarring. Some failures and thoughts haunt us in moments of both peace and pain. There are moments of agony that stick with us but at the end of the day, we are still breathing, and that is our strength. Following “Cold parts,” the collection is divided into several sub-sections, serving as chapters in both Daniels’ life and the book. The first is “Conversations,” a collection of conversations between the poet, friends, objects, and moments that exist in brilliant free verse in these pages. The poet personifies things, even emotions, giving them dialogue to tell a story of a personal journey. “Lineage,” to me, feels like a conversation between friends about past and acceptance. Daniels writes, “...I am finding new ways to be. I am / a million souls. I house spirits and visions in my bones.” The chapters each have their own topics—some are filled with love, and some with pain. Trauma and history are displayed through stories and odes. Although there are moments, like the poet’s childhood reflections, that are deeply personal, Light Spun has themes that will surely resonate with a variety of readers. My favorite thing about this entire collection is the small details included. Upon my first read, I did not notice the poet’s attention to capitalization and punctuation because xir subtle choices didn’t obstruct clarity. There are pieces left without traditional capitalization and some include unique punctuation. Some poems contain no punctuation at all. In my interpretation, the nuanced technique is stylistic and symbolic of the poet’s experience. For example, in an ode “To Home,” Daniels ends the poem with a short stanza: “inside I am safe / I am cold / I lie in bed” which lacks traditional punctuation and capitalization. Some of the poems, like “To Home” may represent moments of closure, which others may speak to the open, continuing moments of ambiguity. There is also attention to detail in terms of space. In the fourth section, titled “Sojourn,” Daniels uses visual space on a page to emphasize time. The chapter takes note of a week of xir life after a loss or abandonment. The first four pages of the section have verse, and the fifth and sixth have no words at all. The poem titled “Day Seven” has one word: “home.” Even without verse, the chapter is filled with emotion―the absence says everything. Every selection in the book holds so much emotion and power that can make every reader gasp, cry, and smile. Light Spun is a collection that every poetry-lover should read, because it is a deep, emotionally immersive experience that leaves the reader with insight about life and living. Ari Collins Staff Writer
0 Comments
On a calm, rainy day, I had the pleasure of engaging in merry banter with Spencer Fort of Mothé about their love for listening to CDs while road tripping on desolate roads, throwing ass amid doomed days, and creating an indie subtype that is less insufferably ‘cerebral’ and more danceable. Fort’s album “I Don’t Want You To Worry Anymore” was released on April 8th, and they will be touring with The Wrecks this summer. One of Spencer’s main goals in life is to become the role model they used to idolize on the big stage, and I know they will do just that. Listen to the full interview here: Emma: So, delving into the album, I have a few different segments that have similar themes to each other. Before delving into the nitty gritty, I wanted to ask you some more playful, conceptual questions. The first question I had in that realm is when you imagine the essence of your album, any visions and themes you've captured, I'm just curious, where do you most envision it being listened to? Is there a specific place that comes to mind, in your head, abstractly? When painting the scene? Spencer: I guess it's just meant for wherever people want to consume it, but I do listen to music mostly in the home…there's a very specific feeling when you're driving through the desert, or on a long road trip, and you finally have a chance to listen to a full record. Not to be in playlist mode and skip mode because you're driving for, you know, five plus hours. I like the idea of it being consumed in desolate areas, with not a lot of attention to be given to anything else. Emma: I do really like that idea because there is something there… especially when there's no service or any way to really even use a streaming site. It's so nice to just pull out a CD and listen to it all the way through. To really, really dedicate your energy to just that, knowing that you're going to experience it in its full nature. That's a really cool answer. So, delving into the cover as well, I really like it. I see that in it, the vinyl pressing at least, you're posing firmly in front of an ablaze painting, it looks like. There's also a lot of commonalities between the color palette in the actual album cover and in the singles - there are a lot of the same colors prevalent. I was wondering, would you consider all these panels to be part of a common series? How in your head do you think they interact if they do? Spencer: They definitely all interact because Celia Jacobs does all of our art direction for this album cycle. She and I sat down and started planning out visions for the feeling of the record. There was this impending doom that the record touches on, but it always touches on it in a sort of light-hearted way. It’s like, “hey, it's gonna be fine, you can't really control these things!” The impending doom is just out of your hands. That is kind of the theme of the record, where it's like, “the world's ending, holy shit!” All of this stuff is happening, and then, lo and behold, the world was gonna end a lot more after I wrote it. It has continued to get worse and worse! But you can't freak out about all this stuff forever because you don't have the capacity to, and you can't change these things, and you have to enjoy what you have, and accept that…doom is just gonna happen. It's on its way, so it's always gonna feel weird. So, when we were talking about that concept, we wanted to touch on a light-hearted approach to the apocalypse. [When she brought that really vibrant, stunning red in], it felt completely right. Then, the lighter blues to, sort of, soften it? It was always gonna have this really vibrant red, so we designed the color palette first after the concept. Then, she did all the illustrations for all the singles leading up to the ending where there's finally this giant painting of the fire behind me. She did draw it, it’s a really large painting in my house. Then, Kylie Shafter took the photo under that direction. That was the theme of the whole thing, the colors were supposed to bring in that mood of intensity, but you soften the blow. Emma: Hmm…yeah, I really like that, especially in the actual album cover. Just [you] being in front of it rather than next to it, not interacting with the painting as much, is much showing more of an acknowledgement that it's there but not really getting too enraptured by the doom itself. Knowing that there's some closure in the fact that it's going to come and it's inevitable, unfortunately. Spencer: Mhm. Emma: Yeah, I really like that. So then, I wanted to ask a few similar questions just going into which songs, or maybe one or two songs, specifically come to mind first when I ask each of these. In general, which song would you say on the album was the hardest for you to write, and that could be in any way - whether it’s just mentally difficult to write down, or the hardest for you in a personal way. Spencer: “Breathe the Air on the Moon” went through three or four renditions before we finally found something that felt right for it. The writing itself was not necessarily the hardest, but as somebody who co-produces their own work, I'm very involved in the arrangement as well. I just could not unlock that arrangement….could not unlock that arrangement. Robert Stevenson, who co-produces all my work with me - he and I work very closely together in general- he and I just sat there and tweaked and tweaked, and then scratched… got completely rid of everything, put everything back in, redesigned the drums. That song was just a nightmare. Whereas we both tend to be a little more committal…like when we're recording and writing and producing, it's kind of the first thing that feels good, that strikes an emotion, an “aha.” We tend to commit, to put it down, and not touch it after that, and it works most of the time. But, for some reason, “Breathe the Air on the Moon” was just this impossible song. Emma: Which song feels the most personal to you? Which one do you think strikes a chord the most, I guess? I'm sure they all do to an extent, but is there one that sticks out the most, do you think? Spencer: It's hard because they all kind of touch on personal concepts. I think that “dancing on an empty floor” is literally the most personal in the sense that it's about…the whole song is accounting for this really wild woman I'm chasing and following and seeing and watching and observing. I think she's beautiful, but she's very dangerous, and I can't get too close to her. After putting it down on paper, I realized that I was writing about my experience with my own gender - I was observing the woman that was too dangerous for me to become. So that one, for that reason, is obviously incredibly personal because about this relationship with feeling like a woman but not not feeling ready to do anything about it, you know what I’m saying? Emma: Mhm. Spencer: That one was extremely personal for that reason, though, it's quite hidden in metaphor. The other one that comes to mind would be “everyone is everything.” That song, to me, really sums up the sentiment of the album, and where I was coming from with the more vague concepts. There's concepts of gender, there's concepts of these impending doom, there's concepts of just waking up, struggling with depression. “Everyone is Everything” is the song where it's like, as a human race, we grieve collectively. I am a part of this experience, because we are a part of this experience, and tracing it back to the full concept of being alive as a species ends up feeling the most personal. I think, for me, that really summed up the sentiment I was really trying to get out for the record. That’s why it was the last song on it. Emma: Yeah, so it seems like there can't just be one [choice] because one [song] is more macro, and one is more micro, but they're both just as personal in very different ways. Different scopes, for sure. Going into doom and the catastrophic changes in our all of our lives in the last few years: I had seen [you mention] in prior interviews that you didn't get to perform a lot of the songs on the album live for a while because of COVID. [It seems there was] a time period of waiting, and then finally performing after a while of settling with the songs. Would you say that your perception of these songs have changed at all? Once you performed them in front of people? Have their reactions to the songs changed or opened your eyes to anything that you might have not experienced while creating and keeping it in your own personal space? Spencer: Oh, yeah, it's very different. It changes my relationship with the songs quite a bit. I've only gotten the chance to play, I think, three full band shows. I've done a few spur-of-the-moment solo sets where it’s just me. No, maybe two. I think I've only played two full dance shows. Emma: Oh, wow. Spencer: Which is really exciting. I used to play live all the time. I think my favorite part of music is playing live because there's this really wonderful tangible connection that you get with the other person that's in the room with you. You don't necessarily get it when you're just releasing music to the internet and it comes back to you in the form of numbers. I prefer it when it comes back to you in the form of people dancing, or people smiling or enjoying themselves. It's something I can actually understand. So, it definitely changes the meaning of the song for that reason; to see it interact with a real human. The other thing that happens, I’ve found, is that it makes me more self conscious of the song than I ever was while I was recording it because I'm like, “Oh, this song! Ooh, this one should have been a little faster” now that I'm standing here in front of these people [and I’m] like, “ooh, like, are they dancing enough?” It becomes this thing where I’m like, “is that line stupid?” I sort of get into this really weird headspace with it sometimes where it makes me second guess the song because I'm performing it in real time, live in a unique way every single night with no real ability to change anything that I committed to years ago when I wrote it, so it definitely changes the relationship. It feels like it digs up old bones a bit. Emma: That’s a super interesting way to compare the process of being alone with your music versus being with others with your music. I'm sure for you, there's always this small part of your brain that's always thinking, when you're creating this music, “what are other people gonna think of this?” “Do I want people to dance to this song? Do I want them to cry to this song?” A bunch of different ideas as to how people will perceive it. Once you actually experience it, [and] maybe it's dissonant what you initially thought it would be, it feels like what are you going to do about it, and maybe that’s a good thing. I think it's always great to be questioning outcomes and changing perceptions of your own music and your own, I guess, image and everything. But, that's the scariest thing about performing for me, just seeing how other people are reacting and even for smallest things [I think], “Oh! Was that what I wanted out of that?” Spencer: Right! Emma: Yeah, it makes it so much more real. It makes it feel more tangible as well - other people are listening, and like you've actually really, really done it. I think that definitely makes a lot of sense. Things are looking a little bit better now. There's another wave coming, but I'm excited to hear of any upcoming performances you have for this album because I feel like it's gonna be a real hit. I loved listening to it - I've listened to it a few times now, and I'm a huge fan. Emma: What would you say your inspirations for this album were, do you have specific styles and musicians you have been inspired by specifically in this album? As a second question, over time, do you think that your inspirations have changed? Spencer: Yes. I'm basically caught in this weird thing as a consumer. I listen to so much music, just anything, I love it. I found myself in this world where I just naturally write pop songs. I love Lorde, I love Charli xcx, I love a good pop record. I fucking love the people I just referenced, but a lot of pop music, for me, is very clean and stale. It has this emphasis on high fidelity that doesn't entirely interest me because I also listen to a lot of underground music and a lot of experimental music. My whole vision for this project is to take these extremely alternative genres that I do love and package them in a way where these alternative genres can reinforce a chorus that Lorde would have written. To just say we're going to use things from harsh noise music, we're going to use things from ambient music, we're going to throw this really weird pop beat on it, and we're going to do the Lorde thing. But we're [also] gonna have these textural elements that most pop artists don't have access to because they don't listen to these types of music. That was kind of the approach. The other thing is that Robert and I are both very big fans of analog recording, which is just expensive. Luckily, I have people who allow me to do that on the label. They will let me do an analog recording, and they prefer it that I do. I'm really, really appreciative of that. That is another thing. I'm just a lot more interested in capturing moments that actually happened because then making a record is a lot more like documenting a sound in a room than it is crafting something digitally within the computer - trying to feign a moment that never happened. I love all kinds of production, so it's not to throw any shade to that. I do also find myself doing those moves here and there, but I think that there's a thoughtfulness that we have to keep in mind when we choose to do these things. So having just a deep love for analog recording and underground music has been the kind of thing that has inspired me to be like, “what can we do?” “How far can we take pop, how dirty can we make it?” Also, between writing the album and now, there has been quite a shift because I'm not as interested anymore in being so ‘thinky’ or too profound in any messages or the music. I don't find myself wanting to go to indie shows anymore because I want to dance! I want to go to the gay bar, and I want to dance to some insane beat. I don't find it as fun to be listening to people with guitars, strumming them, singing songs anymore. So now, I'm trying to take the songs that I've already made and translate them into a live show where I can say “how do I make these indie songs make people want to dance?” Now I've already done the thoughtfulness at the front half. I would love to be like, “yeah, we're a band, but we're a party too.” You're not just coming here to see some fucking self-absorbed person play guitar, let's fucking dance, you know, let's do the whole thing. Find Mothé on Social Media:
CW: Discussion of depression, mental health, mention of suicide Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar has probably sat in my hands for days on end—days on end including my time reading it, reading it again, and then giving it to friends. I first read the book when I was trying to get out of a reading slump amidst lockdown. I rode my bike to the bookstore and spontaneously picked three novels: The Picture of Dorian Gray, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and then The Bell Jar. I didn’t know why I was so attracted to the book. I didn’t even know what it was about. Because of the uninformed nature of my choice, I had just given myself, by accident, the best gift. The Bell Jar quickly became my favorite book. It is a story that should be read and over-analyzed. It should be shared and discussed and lent to friends. It is a powerful story that deserves to be loved and bonded over. The novel opens with a setting descriptor. The narrator reports that “it was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” “I’m stupid about executions,” she notes. The honesty in the beginning of the novel sets an unlikely friendship between the narrator and the reader. She goes on to say that “the idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read about in the papers…It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.” ‘This is more depressing than I thought,’ I wrote in an annotation during my first read. At first the descriptions felt concerning, overwhelming my senses with their intensity. I’d had one warning that the novel was going to be depressing, but I’d taken it lightly. It’s no secret to any literature lover that this novel is supposed to be depressing. And it is, to an almost overwhelming extent. But it also shines a light of hope to those in recovery. The novel follows Esther Greenwood through so much. The reader gets to know Esther as she interns in New York, reflects upon college, and goes on bad dates. While Esther’s life becomes a bit of a chaotic whirlwind, a deep sadness develops within her—the novel then follows her journey to sanity. Esther’s recovery is inspiring and can teach every human a lesson, especially in terms of mental illness and suicide. The Bell Jar is different from most novels I’ve read. A fair amount of mental health novels begin with a perfectly happy character who has just experienced a life-altering event. Something interesting I’ve found in this novel is that Esther never seemed to be content; there was always a quiet voice that seemed to be crying for help. I didn’t even notice the obvious signs of Esther’s breakdown until I was halfway through the novel. In the beginning, it was subtle things like, “I was supposed to be having the time of my life,” and slowly progressed to become much more concerning—horrifying, even. Besides its vital, inspirational lessons, it is striking how poetic the novel is. Plath is a poet, so this makes sense. This sets the novel apart from others. It is, in terms of imagery specifically, a real masterpiece. Plath’s words bring Esther’s experiences to life in the most beautiful yet disturbing ways. Like when Esther lays in bed and watches the “faint outlines of an unfamiliar window. Every so often a beam of light appeared out of thin air, traversed the wall like a ghostly, exploratory finger, and slid off into nothing again.” Plath’s symbols in the novel leave readers closing their eyes and furrowing their brows in thought. Through Esther’s breakdown, Plath can connect a reader with the world and the story in such interesting ways. The novel itself is a symbol—the title is, anyway. The Bell Jar refers to the way Esther felt confined and stuck. Throughout the story, it seemed as if Esther was placed in a jar. As the lid slowly trapped her inside, the glass and tainted air distorted her mind. In the beginning of the novel, Esther had received a book of short stories as a get-well-soon gift. She read a story about a fig tree that she loved. Later, Esther thinks about it again and says, “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story…I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.” ‘Do the figs represent potential?’ I wrote in an annotation. This story pulled my deepest thoughts to the surface. It added hours to my attention span and forced me to only focus on it—scratch that, it added months to my attention span, because to this day, I still think about it. Every few days I pick it back up again to read my favorite passages, which have been, without a doubt, destroyed by pencil marks or water damage from my reads in the rain. I read this story again and again and I don’t think it will ever get old. Esther brought me to tears so many times in her journey. The most memorable passage follows. “The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life. Then, at the rim of vision, it gathered itself, and in one sweeping tide, rushed me to sleep.” I remember closing the book and then my eyes, longing for breath. Plath’s writing had brought me close to the character and then so far away from her. “The eyes and the faces all turned themselves toward me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room,” closes the novel, leaving room for interpretation. It also leaves readers longing for updates from the beloved character. What happens to Esther? Where does she go? Many tears, laughs, and frustrated groans were let out during my time reading The Bell Jar. Upon finishing it, I felt the need to express gratitude. The novel and its author are unique and inspiring; both, I am extremely grateful for. But, I also felt that I needed to thank the characters for their stories and their bravery. “I was perfectly free,” Esther says as the lid of the bell jar lifts from above her, later saying, “I am, I am, I am,” representing a beating heart, something so full of life. On my worst days, Esther’s words become an accidental mantra. I am, I am, I am. The story fuels and gives hope despite its initial tone. In a final annotation, I expressed gratitude again. I thanked Esther for holding on and being brave enough to do what so many people can’t do. She found the light switch in a dark room. Ari Collins Staff Writer
The first few moments were the closest to oblivion I’ve ever been in my life. It was cold, the type of cold that would make your skin burn, except I didn’t have any skin. I didn’t have a body, only a mind, and yet I was able to hear the sound of my own breathing— at least I told myself it was my own. The darkness began to fade out and I became aware of my physical body. I found myself in a room I did not recognize yet I knew it was my own, and while I could not see the rest of the house, I knew it was a big house. My room is painted a dark, muted blue with white trimming. There is a mid-sized mahogany dresser right next to the door across from me, while I sit on my full sized bed with the same muted colored sheets. Behind me is a window that I never look out of— all I know is the ocean is behind its glass seal and I should never look out. I don’t leave my room, mother doesn’t let me, but sometimes she’ll leave the door open for me while she’s away. Across from me my dark wood door is open and I see the same muted blue color with white trimming surrounding the house walls. The staircase is a few feet to the right of my door, and the wood is stained with the same kind of mahogany. The house is silent, there are no creaks, no steps, and no squeaking of the beds. I never leave my bed. Time passes and mother paces past my door, back and forth, back and forth. She’s tall with a cartoonishly slim upper body with wide hips and skinny legs. She wears a dark, victorian-like dress with a white frilly shirt peeking from under it. She is barefoot. I do not dare to look past her shoulders but I felt the urge to creep my eyes past her pale, frail neck only to feel my heart beat faster, harder. A faceless head with a straight, jet-black bob now has its attention on me, making it equivalent to eye contact. The silence grows thicker and all I am able to hear is the heavy breathing of my mother. - Mother looks different now— more human. Her face presently features small dark eyes, a narrow nose, and thin, pink lips. Her hair is deep brown, long and wet like her white dress. She sits on the right corner of my bed, soaking the sheets as she stares past me to the open window. The window was to never be opened. I notice her eyes are red from salty tears as she stares at me with quivering lips, making noiseless cries. Mother lifts her left hand to her face, placing first her index finger into her mouth, ripping it off her pale hands with her rotting teeth. The finger drops onto my muted sheets and I am paralyzed. My body is warm and shaky as I watch mother rip finger by finger off her left hand, leaving only the middle. Without a thought, my scratchy voice is the first sound to pierce the silence of the house. Mother, did you do it again?” Silence. Dead silence. My eyes are locked with my mother’s as her lips drip black liquid and her hands are held up. Slowly, she points past me to the open window with her singular finger, fear penetrating her gaze. Mother’s deafening scream fills the house, shaking the foundation of the silent home. She stands and runs to the dresser in my room and turns into the mother I’ve known before, faceless, tall, dark and reeks of mildew. Behind me are more screams from the waves, sounding like children. I am still until mother runs towards me. My body launches itself forward toward the door, dodging my mother's murderous embrace. For the first time I have left my room, having no thought but survival. I run for the stairs, making it halfway until mother appears before me. Her screams grow to sound more monstrous along with banging in the walls. My body stops and turns back up the stairs before my brain can comprehend what is going on. As I run back to my room, mother stops me in the doorway, attacking me with her fists sinking in what feels like claws. Staring at my now faceless mother, my arms are stretched out in front of me pointed at her, my body moving on its own. I see myself now, from the outside as if I’ve astral projected out of fear. I am only a consciousness now just like in the beginning and I watch my body chant words I do not know at her and her attacks grow weak, hurting less. I look into my eyes and see nothing but a whitecast over my once brown eyes. The noise starts to fade and the house grows silent again as one last scream echoes through the muted walls of the house. It is dead silent as I watch the scene crumble into nothing but darkness, leaving me in the void yet again. In the distance I hear a familiar motherly voice calling to me. “Wake up. Wake up,” whispers Mother. I wander through the icey darkness following the soft words but I can’t find my way to the echoing voice of my Mother. About the AuthorAriel Moscat Staff Writer Ariel (she/her) is a latinx second generation American writer. As a witchcraft practitioner and spiritualist she focuses on diving into the world of the occult and sharing their stories. Along with that, she enjoys writing personal essays and short story fiction. Ariel is a certified bookworm, tree-hugger, and anime lover.
It was quite the scene, the day the posters came out. There were only two— two unboasting little fliers, on regular eight by eleven printer paper, incredibly slight in comparison to the huge laminated pieces of posterboard advertising cheer tryouts or student council elections. I’d been thrown off guard walking into the crowded sixth-grade hallway that morning, finding my classmates gathered in one big clump by a wall, snickering and whispering amongst themselves, pointing at whatever was hung up that had caused such a commotion. I shoved through the wall of students, craning my neck until I finally saw what all the fuss was about— the paper, posted with scotch tape, reading Gay Straight Alliance, Wednesdays, Room 215, 2:00-3:15 PM. Underneath was a small icon of a rainbow flag. By second period, both posters were torn down. By that point, I’d started to understand how things worked. Kids like me were different, and there are a lot of people who don’t like that. I’d seen conservative billboards along interstates demanding people like me repent. I’d heard the talk of not supporting such “alternative lifestyles.” I caught some of what the politicians said about us in the news, and some of it was really, really nasty. Whoever made those billboards didn’t like us, those politicians didn’t like us, and God knows my parents didn’t like us. My classmates’ reactions aligned with what I’d seen in the world, though it disappointed me. They mocked and scorned us, laughed when the club was announced over the intercom, tore down and shredded the fliers. But the club’s existence— even though it was off to a rocky start— had planted within me a fresh seed of optimism. My entire life, the word “gay” had been treated with such hush and taboo that I didn’t know it was the kind of thing you could talk about at school. To see it displayed, out for everyone, to know that kind of club had been allowed to start, was a breath of fresh air. I came to the first meeting that Wednesday while my parents thought I was at “Craft Club.”It was held in an abandoned, cramped little classroom, one that had once been home to History of Pop Music or something of the sort. The room, though once barren, came alive that day. The turnout was wonderful; there had to have been over thirty of us bustling little preteens there for the very first time. All around me, desks and tables were covered by different pride flags of every color. The people around me all dressed like I did, all in flannels and short hair, regardless of gender identity. I was welcomed with grins and handshakes and pointing to pronoun pins. Sure, we were awkward, naive, sheltered, but we were with our community. For the first time, I felt whole and completely at home with who I was. I bonded quickly with the group. That little middle school GSA swooped in to fill the hole that had been left in my life when church stopped meaning family to me. We stuck together, even if numbers dwindled at times. We were brought even closer (forced to be, really) by the fact that the adversity never stopped. Our classmates, I hate to say, never let up. The very first meeting, in the midst of introductions and club mission statements, a group of boys opened the door to sneer a few colorful words (see: slurs) at us before running away. They’d repeat this throughout the year, our regular reminder that though we’d gotten away with the creation of the club, they’d never make things easy for us. Every Wednesday, when our club announced itself over the Student News, my first-period class would erupt into mocking laughter. I kept my head down during these times and just listened. I learned what people were safe, learned how to gauge who in my generation would learn to accept us and who would be clinging to the beliefs of our traditional-oriented parents. As I became a more core member of the group, I took to coming to school early every morning to print out a sizable stack of posters in the library. I made my rounds through each hallway before the first bell rang, disappointed every time to see the ripped scraps of the one I’d put up yesterday. I put up a new poster, prayed it survived through that day, rinse and repeat. I had to grow accustomed to seeing groups of people gathered around to point and laugh at each new addition. Nobody knew I was the one putting the posters up; in the club, I was out and proud, but the regular world was a different story. Nobody would know I was part of GSA except for my GSA friends themselves. Then came time for club pictures. When the sign up sheet came around to me, I froze. Was I willing to give up my anonymity here? I thought about what it would entail, thought about the day yearbooks would come out and everyone I knew would see me there, clear as day, surrounded by my friends with Gay Straight Alliance printed below. Once that photo was released, the secret would be out. I don’t know, really, what convinced me, what random surge of courage or streak of strength made itself known that day. All I know is I signed the sheet, passed it along, and was committed. I arrived dutifully on picture day, and though my heart was racing, and I could hear roaring in my ears, I sat in the front row and held the flag. Click— we were through. My fate was sealed. And when yearbooks finally were released, when confused peers walked up to me with their books opened to the picture and demanded, “Is this you?,” I glowed with pride. I’d done it: I’d bitten the bullet. With the help of my friends, with the help of a tiny middle school GSA, I’d made the first step in my long journey to total self-acceptance. So even though they narrowed their eyes and recoiled a bit, I was happy to point myself out in the front row of that photo. Our little club had endured a lot, and still we’d fought to exist, to hang our heads in shame. In that moment, more than the cross or the American flag ever had, that symbol— that rainbow cloth— felt like me. Me, circa 2016 About the AuthorSamantha Reagan
Staff Writer Samantha is a Filipino-American high school student writing from Las Vegas, Nevada. Her work focuses on feminist and queer issues, social media, and pop culture. An avid reader, her favorite authors include Mary Shelley, E.M. Forster, Gillian Flynn, and Sylvia Plath. She hopes to one day attend Vassar College to study political science. In her spare time, she finds joy in drawing, writing letters, and cooking vegetarian cuisine. TW: ASSAULT, R*PE CULTURE, GRAPHIC CONTENT, TRAUMA, PATRIARCHY, VIOLENCE “If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men, unless they are robots.” — PM Khan At the beginning of July, Pakistan’s domestic violence bill was opposed after several right-wing fundamentalists raised objections and demanded that the bill be sent for a review by the Council of Islamic Ideology. According to the CII, the bill interferes with the Islamic way of life. The proposed bill had punishments and fines for domestic violence and extends the definition of domestic violence to cover emotional, psychological and verbal abuse which is in direct opposition to the CII’s views of domestic violence, according to which a husband should be allowed to beat his wife ‘lightly’ and what constitutes psychological abuse is necessary for disciplining children. There has been a brutal wave of patriarchal violence that seems to only rise with every passing day ever since the domestic violence bill faced resistance. As if the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t worsened the domestic violence epidemic enough, victim blaming rhetoric preached by key government figures and officials has only served to encourage the perpetrators of these crimes. Femicide is the deep-set rot emerging from rape culture paired with a patriarchal mindset which is taking away precious lives from us everyday. Our mourning is declared vulgar because voyeuristic men can’t stop staring at our bodies when we protest. They deface murals of our dead sisters, and won’t stop treating murderers like champions of masculinity. Around a week ago, I woke up with a bad taste in my mouth, sweating and scared because I dreamt a man with more social capital and power harassed me and I couldn’t do anything about it; I felt like helpless prey. I logged onto Twitter to find another Pakistani woman’s tweet about waking up disoriented from a dream with sexual assault symbolism, and several others affirmed they were having similar nightmares. Someone in the U.S dreamt of their friend back home and had to call them in the middle of the night to check up on them. This is in the aftermath of yet another woman murdered by patriarchy. 27-year-old Noor Mukadam was found beheaded by Zahir Jaffer on 20 July. Noor, Quratulain, Naseem, Kanwal, Maham, and Andaleeb are some of the names who became “Justice For” hashtags in July. These were just the cases that got reported and picked up by news outlets, and there were countless others who suffered the same fate. In the wake of oppression, the internet has a tendency of becoming an echo chamber of trauma, where the voices of victims get amplified, and many more come out to talk about their similar experiences. Like #metoo, as much as these social media trends spread awareness and expose the extent to which such aggressions permeate our lives, it is important to remember the toll constant exposure and activism can take on our mental health. We feel responsible to stay in the loop, informed and updated about every new development. Such a thing is necessary but so is the need to take breaks and indulge in activities that build community and hope. The revelation that symptoms such as nightmares, anger, dissociation, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, paranoia, hypervigilance, disturbed sleep, feeling unsafe, lethargy, fear, and uncommon body aches were being experienced collectively by women who are aware of the the femicide led me to research a little about collective trauma and patriarchal trauma. Patriarchy Stress Disorder (PSD) is a term coined by Dr. Valerie Rein. Based on her research of intergenerational transmission of trauma and her experience providing therapy to women, she came to define PSD as “intergenerational, collective, and personal trauma of oppression, the invisible inner barrier to women’s happiness and fulfilment”. Call it PSD, collective trauma, or intergenerational trauma, most women will affirm that they experience stress and trauma on a daily that their cishet male counterparts live oblivious to. “When I was studying transgenerational trauma as a PhD candidate, people inevitably asked what my thesis was about, and as I answered eyes often glazed over; the idea of trauma transmitting threw them. But the big picture that came to view through my years of research revealed socially structured cyclical traumata founded in patriarchy.” --Patriarchy Perpetuates Trauma by Meera Atkinson, The Guardian A few months ago, a male cousin of mine told me how sometimes women will doubt his intentions and treat him unfairly even though he is a nice guy. He relayed an incident of him offering help to a group of women in a parking lot, as they seemed to be having trouble with their car and he volunteered to look. He tells me how bothered he was by their immediate mistrust, so I asked him to evaluate what he has to risk versus what they have to risk. He feared being considered a creep, someone making fun of him, or rejecting his sincere help, whereas for women, talking to and asking help from a strange man risks their safety, their lives, and/or being abducted. At this point he realised the stark difference between our worldviews and went quiet. I think about this often, how the things we learn to fear every moment of our lives don’t even occur to most straight men. More often than not, it is not just a matter of them not being observant or considerate. Women grow up with this unspoken trauma and from the beginning learn that this fear of unprovoked violence against them is normal and to be expected. To a lot of us, it occurs too late in our lives that there is something deeply upsetting and wrong with this version of social reality. By the time we understand it, we’ve already learned to adapt and navigate, since it is our unspoken normal that we don’t talk to the men in our lives about these experiences. I see elder male relatives in family gatherings discussing everything from national politics to international sports, but I have never seen them talk once about femicide, rape culture, misogyny, domestic violence, or workplace sexism as social ills or as the national crisis it has become. Why do they not acknowledge these issues? Surely one reason is because they protect other men. Being friends with a man of social capital is more important than calling him out for his behaviour towards a woman you don’t even know. But what about the “good” men? They do not experience the collective trauma women around them do, but also because these issues are impersonal to them. Women who are gaslighted about their trauma their entire lives, who learn to accept these occurrences of harassment and violence as normal, who dissociate and minimise these issues to continue carrying on in a patriarchal society, culture and family, don’t talk to their fathers, brothers, sons, and male relatives about their collective experiences, which leads men to develop impersonal attitudes about these problems. “Internalized oppression is likely to consist of self-hatred, self concealment, fear of violence and feelings of inferiority, resignation, isolation, powerlessness, and gratefulness for being allowed to survive.” --Understanding Internalized Oppression by Teeomm K. Williams As we’re talking of male obliviousness, internalised oppression in women as a means of survival under patriarchy is also worth touching upon. As much as feminists dislike women who pander to sexist men and uphold patriarchal structures, I believe it is important to understand how these behaviours form. Owing it to their personal circumstance, different women develop different coping mechanisms and survival instincts. We mustn’t shun our sisters who suffer from internalised oppression, as it only further alienates them. In a system that already seeks to alienate women, keeping them from developing effective support systems that may help them heal and overcome, it is in no way moral or productive to reject them. Some are in a position to self-educate and oppose systems of oppression without directly endangering their lives, while some of us have to play by the rules and use these systems to our own benefit. Others face the threat of violence even at a familial level and have to conform in order to just survive. Building a strong femme-centric support environment based on the principles of empathy and with aims to educate and help women heal from the inside out should be one of our prime goals. “On a macro scale, internalized oppression (also known as self-directed oppression) is when a marginalised or oppressed population begins to accept and act on stereotypes and other inaccurate beliefs related to it. On a personal level, internalized oppression happens when we impose limits on ourselves in pursuit of safety.” –Internalized Oppression: Living Safe Means Living Stuck by Jeremy McAllister, GoodTherapy.org We can observe that as the international online communities for and by women grow stronger and increase in numbers, as more and more women who previously wouldn’t have thought of sharing their trauma or taking firm stands against sexism now feel safer, seen, and emboldened in doing so; this is the power of online safe spaces. In the Pakistani drama industry, rife with misogyny and problematic sexist tropes, we see actresses who in their personal lives enjoy the rights afforded to them by feminism. They get on TV and play insensitive stereotypes of womanhood for a male audience in serials like ‘Meray Paas Tum Ho’, ‘Jhooti’, ‘Durr-e-shahwar ’, ‘Zid’, ‘Laapata’, ‘Dunk’, ‘Jalan’ and ‘Zara Yaad Kar’. With being a woman, there comes a sense of alienation; men who want to sleep with you do not stand by you when you’re under fire, and most women’s platforms or movements aren’t louder than angry religious mobs that uphold patriarchal standards. I do not say this to take the blame away from women who choose to remain ignorant due to class privilege, but to bring to light the deep isolation women face which we must remedy. This sense of isolation is the obstacle in the path of self-actualisation for many, as survival instincts do not care for morality. If you speak up, you will lose your freedom and nobody will save you and you can die. That is how simple the thought process is, and we cannot force people out of such learned behaviours. I hope that with time women succeed in cultivating empathetic support circles and powerful movements that can really protect us and urge other sisters to be a part of. Until the required cultural revolution takes place, we have to make sure that we establish networks of support for victims of the patriarchy, and find strength in sisterhood while channeling our trauma into effective politics of change. We also must take the necessary steps towards collective healing. With the grief, rage, and survival instincts we have inherited, we have also gotten from our mothers perseverance and tactics to fool a system rigged against us, and above all the will to carry on. It falls largely upon the creative community to nurture safe spaces for women, where they can mourn, have access to group therapy, make art, volunteer, educate, heal, and connect. I believe that when we are overwhelmed by the injustices of oppressive systems working against us, it helps to collectively envision the beautiful future we are aiming for. About the Author Mashaal Sajid Staff Writer ![]() Mashaal (she/her) is a Pakistani poet, writer and artist from Rawalpindi. Her poetry is centered around themes of lived experiences under capitalist patriarchy and women exploring identity, love and desire when their existence is highly politicized and their bodies policed. Most days you can find her writing poetry, reading for The Walled City Journal, volunteering art, admiring Mina Loy's 'Parturition' and listening to Sylvia Plath's audio recordings. She adores succulents, flowers and lepidoptera hence the recurring floral references in her Poems. Her work is forthcoming and published in Fahmidan, The Sutterville Review, Rigorous & The RIC Journal among others. It was a random Thursday morning when I walked into the back office of the school library that I worked at. The library assistants were running away from the office, talking about how the school was probably going to close down due to the virus. Student aides like me were wondering if we were going to be getting paid during what we thought then was going to be a two week break. During my dystopian literature class, students talked about how colleges in Chicago were already closing down because of the virus. In psychology, we talked about how it may affect our class projects. I was lucky enough to be doing my class project on the last day of school, so I didn’t have to write an essay at home. When I got done with my classes, my boss told me to write my timesheet for the next two pay periods. At the end of the day, I sat at a table in the back of the library with the rest of the student aides. All of us were talking about throwing a party, and what everyone was going to do with their new free time. I joked around with them, but all I could think about was how I was going to survive in the motel room my mom and I just moved into. Moving to the motel was like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Our last apartment wouldn’t renew the lease, and we couldn’t find a new place in time. We moved to a hotel first. When the hotel became too expensive, we moved to the motel. The day school closed down made me realize how scary our situation was. I knew I had to come up with a plan because now I was relying solely on my credit card. Everything felt like it was falling apart and begging for me to fix it. My mom’s license expired. She kept getting pulled over for driving too slow or driving all over the road. On the last day of school, I came to the motel to find her with the police. They kept telling me that she needed help and that she seemed like she was drunk. My mom didn’t want to go to the hospital because it would be another bill we would have to pay. We now know that these were signs of how bad my mom’s health was. At the time, it felt like I was losing my mother when I needed her the most. I didn’t want to face the reality of my situation, but I knew I had to get out of that crappy motel. I started calling all of my friends and family. No one would let me stay with them. The friends who did have room said that their parents wouldn’t allow it because of the virus. Most of my friends didn’t have the room, however. One of my friends said I could sleep on her couch for a couple of days, and another friend of mine said that I could stay at his place, but he had 6 people living with him at the time. I was scared to go there because of the virus going around. I cried so much that day; I felt so disgusted that all of my friends were witnessing how desperate I was. We had nowhere to go in Illinois. I started to reach out to people who lived out of the state. I called my grandmother earlier that day to get some advice. She told my aunt everything that was going on, and my aunt told me she would take care of me, and that she would help me pay for rent if I could find a friend to say yes. I told her that I couldn’t find anyone and asked if I could stay with her. She told me no because she had a roommate living with her at the time. It was heartbreaking to hear her say no, because I thought that she would instantly say yes to my question. I had only one person left to call. I’m going to call her “Gloria.” I knew her my whole life. She had a son around my age that I grew up with. She was funny and felt like a second mother to me, and knew how to do my hair and make me laugh. When I called her to see if I could stay with her, she immediately said yes, even though she was taking care of her mother and we were going through the start of a pandemic. She said yes, which is something my own flesh and blood wouldn’t do. When I arrived, I was full of nerves and excitement. When we got into Gloria’s car, my mom was so excited to see her old friend. However, I could tell from the expression on Gloria’s face that she wasn’t happy about us being there. Something felt off. I blamed it on how quickly everything was happening. I tried to ignore it and focus on how I could help Gloria. The second day was the first time I pissed her off, the first time I heard how loud she could scream, and the first time I felt the fear she could put in someone. As I write this, I try to think about what it was like, but all of the moments of her being angry at me have blended together. When the fight was over (or, more like when she was tired of yelling), she expected me to be over it as soon as she was. She wanted me to shake off her abuse like it was water when it felt like every fight was a step closer to me drowning. As I tried to figure out how to keep my head above water level, the world was turning into something I had never seen before. The news started to talk about a lockdown and how we were in a global pandemic. At that time, lockdown felt like it could be forever or two weeks. Nothing was for certain. Gloria was the same way. Some mornings she could be so kind and helpful, while other mornings she woke me up by screaming at me and telling me how much she regrets letting me come to stay with her. No one would believe me about her because she would change the way she talked when she addressed them. Gloria and my mom didn’t have as much of a friendship as I thought they did. Gloria had a lot of anger about the decisions my mom made in the past and hated that my mom wasn’t there for her when she was homeless. She thought my mom didn’t have enough sympathy for her. She screamed at my mom more than she did at me some days. You could see the effect it was having on my mom; she slept whenever she could and hid in the bedroom whenever she could. One time, my mother told Gloria how she was feeling depressed, and Gloria just laughed in her face. I tried to help them go back to the way they were when I was a kid. Gloria and my mom were one of the first models I had of female friendship. However, Gloria couldn’t let go of her anger over the past. My mom could never remember Gloria’s rules. I wanted to survive, and it felt impossible if I kept trying to protect my mom. The only way I could survive was if I pretended that Gloria was my mother and leave as soon as my aunt would allow me to come over to her house. My aunt wouldn’t let my mother come with me due to my dad’s side of the family’s dislike for my mother. When I left Gloria’s, it only got worse between she and my mom. It even got physical at some points. My mom decided to run away one night. With the help of nurses and social workers and a bus driver, my mom was able to get to Chicago to stay with her sister. When my mom moved back to Illinois, she learned that she had early onset dementia. She called me that night after her doctor's appointments. I remember crying to my aunt as she held me. Days later, I felt relieved that we had a name for it. I also felt guilty for not noticing it sooner. It helped her get disability income, which meant that she no longer had to work. Shortly after, I moved back to Chicago to help us get our own place. I now work as her home assistant. Things aren’t perfect, but we are fully independent. I no longer rely on abusive people like Gloria or for family members to come to save me. During the pandemic, many people had to move back to toxic homes or live with toxic people. Homes that took a lot of us emotionally and changed the way we act, and homes that didn’t let us feel safe or loved in. We were locked in these homes while we watched the world go mad. Some of us survived it, and some of us are still going through it. When I was living with Gloria, my safety depended on knowing how she would react and what would make her happy. I had to watch her face when she talked closely. I had to think over and over about what I would say before I would say it out loud. I had to be ready for anything I’d say to have the wrong effect on her. You can’t just turn this off once you exist in that situation, you bring this habit into the relationships you build after you exit that situation. When you are trying to predict what someone is going to say or trying to predict how they react, it makes communicating hard. I stopped replying to friends’ text messages because it took too much time and anxiety to figure out what to say back to them. I ghosted so many people because I thought I was getting on their nerves, even though most people don’t talk to people who get on their nerves. I don’t want to make people angry at me, however, I know now that my safety doesn’t depend on them liking me or being happy with me. I don’t have to please everyone. If they react badly, I can now protect myself and distance myself from those people. I am not a punching bag that anyone can use. I am a human being who can stand up for myself. I remember this when I need that extra boost of confidence in myself. I remind myself of how much control I have over my life. I am thankful that I had a place to stay, but I do not believe I stayed there for free. I didn’t pay with a monthly check. Instead, I paid with my love and my pain. I paid in emotional labor. During the pandemic, many of us were accepted into homes of people who didn’t know how to properly welcome someone into their homes. It could be extended family members, parents, old college friends, or romantic partners. They allowed us into their homes when we needed a place to stay. We stayed with them when they were scared about the world closing down and when they could no longer run away from their emotions. We sat next to them when they needed someone to talk to. I did that for Gloria. I sat next to her as she cried about her dead loved ones. I sat down looking at her as she yelled at me. I stood there next to her as she screamed, yelled, and cried, as she held the knife in her right hand. I sat across the table as I took slow bites of food as she kept looking over at me. Her face told me that she thought my fear of her made me a coward. The value of emotional labor isn’t understood in our society. We value money and power over emotions. We weren’t taught to realize how rare it is when someone listens to you cry or scream. We ignore how taxing it can be when you are giving a part of yourself to a person who doesn’t value your feelings. I wish I could cuss at Gloria over the phone and tell her how much I hate her. I wish I could tell her how much she took away from me. I wish I could call her and tell her how she hurt me, how much fear she made me live in. I imagine her telling me that I am in control of my emotions and that it isn't her fault I feel that way. She actually told me that one time. Gloria is a hurt person. Her life is filled with people who loved her while abusing her. People who were supposed to love her, but instead chose to take from her or run away from her. A lot of people say “hurt people hurt people.” I would like to add something to that iconic kinda-cheesy line: “people who don’t recognize their own hurt can’t recognize the ways they have hurt you”. So the phone call I wish I could have with her could never help me heal my scars because she doesn’t know how to aid her own. If someone can’t reflect on the pain they've caused, they will think you are insane when you open up to them about your pain that was caused by them. That’s why Gloria believes that only I am in control of how I let people make me feel. In some situations, what she said could be correct. However, if someone was kicking me in my stomach, it wouldn’t be my fault that my stomach hurts. It would be theirs. The same applies for emotional abuse. She reached out to me once to talk about some of my mail that came to her address. I felt like she was trying to see if I could accept her back into my life. She didn’t want to apologize for what she did, but I think she missed me. She missed the good moments. When I saw things from her side, there were good moments. From her side, it looked like we were forming some type of mother-daughter relationship. For me, I was just surviving. I was using words like “I love you,” and “thank you,” to avoid the terror and pain she could throw on me. I made sure to keep the conversation polite and didn’t send her my new address. We will most likely never speak again. My aunt once joked that Gloria and I will reconnect someday when I am older. People who weren’t in the situation may have a hard time understanding the way you may respond. I have decided that Gloria will not get anything out of me for the rest of my life. I don’t give any parts of myself to people who have abused me. Not even my anger. I can’t say that a part of me doesn’t want revenge, or that I haven’t imagined myself winning a Nobel Peace Prize and Gloria having to read about it on her iPad as she eats eggs that she knows will never be as good as mine. I think all of us want the people that hurt us to know what they did was wrong. You may even want them to miss you or be jealous of the life you are living. However these days, I am ready to leave Gloria and her pain behind me. I am working on bettering myself and properly healing and closing the wounds she caused. About the Author
Carla (she/her) is a Harper Community College student who loves fashion, reading, and writing. She is just starting to explore her spiritual side with tarot cards and crystals. She believes writing is one of the powerful tools we have in this world and can be used to tell the stories they are often hidden. She loves fashion and trying to learn to show her love in a way that doesn't hurt Mother Earth. Her main goal is to leave the world a safer place than when she came into it. Taurus Sun. Aquarius Moon. Sagittarius Rising.
Someone once said we hold the universe within us. If we have the capacity to hold an entire universe within, then imagine the different galaxies we can create. There are very few people on this Earth that I’ve loved, and many I’m no longer in communication with. This is my message to them. While we were guided in the direction of separation, I pray there is a reality in which we both exist together, in happiness and in love. I will never regret loving you, I will never regret the time we’ve spent, the gifts we shared, the vulnerability we held. I do not wish to hate the people I once loved because the truth is, that love still lingers in my bloodstream. I find myself caught up in the “what-ifs” but I am released of this pain as I create a galaxy just for us and the future that could never manifest. We were meant to meet for a divine reason, and it was in meeting these people that I was able to become the woman I am today; the woman writing this essay confessing my undying love for those I was once in contact with. I refuse to cut these cords, and I know they cling to these memories as well because I feel them guiding me everyday. Subconsciously, we are all still helping each other prosper and grow into the people we talked about being in the comfort of our warm sheets. We just never imagined we’d be those people without each other. Still, I smile at the fact that they’ve become the person they wished to be. I have an abundance of love. I am love. I have once loved, I am in love, and I will love again. I cherish these relationships I’ve made, platonic and romantic, because how lucky are we to have found each other in a world full of chaos to provide even a second of peace. Isn’t that divine? There are many things we will never understand as human beings. I will not stress over the ways we went wrong when the majority of our time was good. These people saved me; we saved each other, and we learned how to save ourselves. Together we rose and together we fell. I have a galaxy dedicated to our stories, ones I will share with my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I want to show them how beautiful both the storm clouds and the roses can be. I will always remember my capability to love, even when I’ve been burned so badly by the intensity of it all. About the Author
Ariel (she/her) is a latinx second generation American writer. As a witchcraft practitioner and spiritualist she focuses on diving into the world of the occult and sharing their stories. Along with that, she enjoys writing personal essays and short story fiction. Ariel is a certified bookworm, tree-hugger, and anime lover.
Characters: ARI- As we know. Current. 2021. DETECTIVE- Ari, Summer 2020. CLUELESS- Ari in eighth grade. JAMS- 80s Phase Ari. BALLERINA- Explanatory. HAIR PHASE- Pink haired Ari. Our scene sets itself. A dim light. A long table, seats for the most recent six, stands out in the middle of the room. The night was cold, air whistling through the cracked window. The snowflakes outside fell softly, creating the perfect enclosure for our characters to meet again. ARI turned on the fireplace. She picked at her nails. The nerve was a bit surprising, even for herself. The clones would arrive soon. A knock at the door. JAMS arrived first. A green and pink striped ribbon belted her baggy jeans, her hair in a fresh chop. She shook the hand of the girl in front of her. It was almost as if they hadn’t met. JAMS: Ayo! You got a speaker? She wasn’t the worst. She did have nice taste in music. CLUELESS rang the doorbell, her leg bouncing, combat boot thumping against the floor. She feared she was late, as someone else had arrived already. CLUELESS: Why, hello there. ARI: Hey. JAMS just arrived-- CLUELESS: Am I late? ARI: *shakes head no* CLUELESS: Great. CLUELESS smells like old books and rose petals and dried orange garlands. BALLERINA squeezed through the open door, spinning through the hallway. BALLERINA: *shrugs* She hadn’t been the weirdest of the guests. Though, the confidence that radiated from her was surprising, as we considered her one of the shyest ones. DETECTIVE entered unannounced and unnoticed. She made her way to the table as HAIR PHASE made her entrance. HAIR PHASE: C’mon dude. Was my entrance music not queued up? ARI: It wasn’t. Everyone else is inside. As it seemed all had arrived, ARI led the five clones to the table in the dining room. ARI: So. How have you guys all been? Not a word. ARI seemed to forget that these people were not her friends. They were practically strangers. And she knew that they didn’t care to speak to strangers. ARI: DETECTIVE? DETECTIVE hadn’t looked up from the table since she had arrived. It’s not so surprising. The dark circles painted themselves under her eyes, her hair hanging quite short after another impulsive trim. DETECTIVE had been the one to discover and conclude. That’s all she had existed for. A few months. DETECTIVE: I’m doing okay. It came out as a mumble, and it was quite hard to believe. But it did make sense. Her existence was during the Summer of Bummer. ARI: What have you all been up to? BALLERINA: Same old stuff. Dance. JAMS: Writing. CLUELESS: Same. DETECTIVE: Been listening to Elton John on repeat. ARI: Nice! JAMS: Good music choice. After a while, like clockwork, the clones began to warm up to each other. But that wasn’t always the greatest thing. DETECTIVE: *sits back in chair* I think you’re the one that caused that. CLUELESS: No, that was you. *furrows brows* DETECTIVE: Highly doubt it. CLUELESS: You’re the one who lost all of our friends. DETECTIVE: You’re the one who didn’t-- The anxiety that had consumed part of our life was now the topic of discussion. The argument was passive, for all the right reasons. Both of them were right. DETECTIVE was too quick. She made too many moves on impulse. She had, as CLUELESS stated, lost all of our friends. But it was only because CLUELESS hadn’t done that. Her name stands as a descriptor, for all the things she couldn’t see and couldn’t hear. ARI: Neither of you caused it. It was always there. You guys just made it worse. ARI was on edge. Way to be honest. It was getting a bit stressful, to say the least. ARI was trying to keep it under control, but the arguments between the clones were getting too intense. It was impossible to argue with them. All were so similar, yet so different. They had all seen different things. JAMS: I don’t know what you guys are talking about. And that was the worst bit. Each clone only knew of their own existence, and those before them. They knew nothing of the future. ARI: Good old mental health. JAMS: That’ll get you. ARI: Tell me about it. *sighs* CLUELESS: You put her through the ringer. *points at JAMS* JAMS: I thought it was a good decision. ARI: It was-- CLUELESS: You quit dance. BALLERINA: You what?! *shoots out of her seat* JAMS: Don’t be so surprised. You wanted to. *folds arms* BALLERINA: Only a little. But what about the benefits? What about the confidence that it gave you? JAMS: Not a problem-- ARI: I’m often told I should tone it down a little. Defeat. Somebody was wrong. The banter continues. BALLERINA: So, without dance, what are you doing now? ARI: Writing stuff, for the most part. CLUELESS: Yeah, remember the poem you wrote? BALLERINA: Yeah? We’re doing that now? DETECTIVE: I hope. Great passive expression. ARI: It’s not just for that. BALLERINA: So what about college? DETECTIVE: Poet-- BALLERINA: I was under the impression that we would be majoring in dance but I now understand that that’s not the case-- CLUELESS: You know that’s a lie. We want to be a teacher-- ARI: Yeah. We’re still confused about that, obviously. Probably journalism. JAMS: So we’re Andrea Zuckerman? ARI: Yes. JAMS: Very cool. BALLERINA: Who’s that? CLUELESS: Catch up on your television. And something as simple as that turned quickly into an argument. The clones, now arguing about which show was the best, began to turn against each other. Chaos. Could they agree on one thing? Never had ARI realized how different the group had been from each other. ARI: I didn’t bring us here to fight, really. JAMS: What are we here for? ARI: I guess I don’t know. Discussion? CLUELESS: Of what? ARI: I don’t know. Life. JAMS: We are the same person. ARI: Each of us rose to face some kind of challenge. CLUELESS: I think it is important to note that that challenge was likely caused by whoever we evolved from. JAMS: Way to be direct. ARI: Dude. ARI had taken quite enough of this. This whole night had been passive. ARI: It’s not about being better than someone before you, because you aren’t. BALLERINA: I’d like to say that I disagree with that statement. ARI: I’m not better than you, well. I might be better looking than you-- BALLERINA: That’s fair. ARI: You might be more attractive than the person before you. You might be nicer, you might have better jokes or better friends. But we’re still the same being. The same DNA. We branched from the same thing. The clones were finally starting to get it, or maybe ARI was. ARI truly didn’t know why she had invited the clones over. Was it actually for discussion, or was there something that was missing? Did they all need a realization? ARI: We’re all trying to get to the same thing. And we help build the path for each other. There shouldn’t be a reason to fight. Every one of us has a right to find new things and new people. JAMS: And we each knew it was right about the things that we left behind. DETECTIVE: Ditto to that. CLUELESS: It’s about the evolution of our person? ARI: Exactly. *pauses* So, we’ve fought. JAMS: Sure. ARI: We can now eat this bad pizza in peace. CLUELESS: I’m really glad I wasn’t the first person to say that this food sucks. And it was done. They’ve agreed. They won’t fight with each other—they will no longer fight themself. They’ve seen and they’ve heard. The evolution was recognizable, even to the stages. Now working in somewhat harmony, the clones felt the contentment that they secretly had wished for upon entry. But what they didn’t wish for, as it usually occurs, they received as well. Fresh mind, a glimpse into the future, a new look at the forgotten past. The clones began to understand each other. They understood themselves. The clones finally understood her—the body that they all had occupied. About the AuthorAri Collins
Staff Writer Ari Collins (she/her) is a small-town teen writer and poet who loves soup, skirts, and sonnets. Her mind is swimming in a pool of poetry, journalism, art, Emily Dickinson, feminism, fashion, Edgar Allan Poe, and disposable cameras. She loves writing to inspire and express, but the majority of her published work has been more news related. Her work can be found on her school’s online news publication- eSomethin.com- or on her social media. When not writing, she can be found listening to Bikini Kill, re-reading Percy Shelley’s “The Daemon of the World,” or riding her bike in the wrong shoes. She thinks everyone should: read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, own a leather jacket, and wake up early to watch the sun rise. I have a love-hate relationship with the gym. I love to exercise, and I love the feeling of accomplishment when I reach a goal or have a great workout. But there’s one thing I hate about gyms: men. Their intimidation— although unintentional, I hope— can be overwhelming for me. Being surrounded by constant grunting and masculine energy and muscles bigger than my head makes me never want to go to the gym again. I find this ironic because I usually go to Planet Fitness, where they boast about being a welcoming, not at all intimidating environment. Walking in to see muscle tees and an uncomfortable amount of skin and veins makes me want to hide and give up. I really like Planet Fitness, so this is not intended to be a harsh critique. Their equipment and prices are better than the other gyms I looked into, but I just don’t like constantly being surrounded by such discouraging, masculine energy. The adrenaline and gratification after completing a set or pushing myself to a heavier weight makes it feel worth it, yet I catch myself questioning my belonging regardless. I know that many people can agree that being a woman or feminine person in a gym setting is uncomfortable because I have heard stories firsthand about constant harassment at the gym., such as women being recorded and gawked at while exercising, being asked out, or approached for other reasons, such as for unsolicited advice. I cautiously watched a woman get chatted up by a man at the gym just the other day to make sure they didn’t appear uncomfortable in any way. It turned out that the man was a trainer working with them, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. The guilt I would feel if I was unable to see the discomfort in them would be crushing, especially given that this discomfort is all too common for me as well. Being followed around, called out to, and harassed is a heavy burden to carry each day at the gym. The obstacles women face in fitness spaces range further than the expectations and goals they walk in with. My current gym experience parallels where I started. I was introduced to weight lifting in my senior year of high school, when I was placed in the strength training class for my physical education requirement. Being only one of three girls, I was mortified. The boys in my class all thought they were Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 70s and it was annoying and uncomfortable. I was insecure lifting ten pound dumbbells as they grunted and yelled while benching over 100. Despite this, I learned to enjoy weight lifting. I wouldn’t consider myself to be an expert by any means, as it’s just a hobby, but having a physical outlet to work on myself has made my life feel more whole. Having a sense of control is important to me, and being able to work my way up with dumbbells and adding intensity to various workouts overtime fulfills me. I can see my strength growing with however much work I put in to try. In terms of my body, I don’t have any goals for what I want to look like; I just want to get stronger. I have issues with feeling small and insignificant, so exercising to build strength gratifies me. The way I look at it is this: I’m only 5’0, and while I can’t control my height, I can control my strength and how I present myself. I just want to feel good, and exercise fulfills me in many ways, so I am on this journey to get stronger and feel better about myself. I think that’s just as valid as people who want to body build, but it feels intimidating to be surrounded by this crowd when I’m committing to this as a hobby and for my own goodwill. Something that actually guided me to focus on myself and not so much on other people’s fitness journeys was the pandemic. I didn’t have a gym membership pre-covid– at that time, I was still a senior in high school, so I used my school’s resources-- but it was still weird to suddenly stop weight training since I didn’t have equipment at home. For months, I didn’t exercise at all, which I think is understandable given the circumstances, and I just didn’t care about fitness to be honest. There was, and still is, a lot going on, so what does my body specifically mean relative to the rest of the world and current events? Somehow this mindset of realizing I don’t really matter that much in the grand scheme of things motivated me to start exercising again because, well, who cares? No self-righteous, puberty-ridden boys were in my room, so it was my space to claim. YouTube really helped me learn to strength build on my own time without any equipment, so I wouldn’t be where I am without some of these channels. I got really into yoga for a while, and I followed Yoga with Adriene’s videos. She’s the best, in my humble opinion, and her videos range from 5 minute beginner flows to hour-long, intense, full-body yoga workouts. It’s very flexible (no pun intended) regardless of what you may need for a workout. I realized I wanted more than yoga in my exercise routine, so I started looking toward other YouTubers for that sort of content. I really like Chloe Ting’s videos. I know she became really popular during the pandemic as well, and I understand the hype. I also used Mish Choi’s videos, particularly her pilates routines, and overall I had a lot of fun using video guides to exercise as opposed to using a physical gym space. Before I continue, I just want to give a content warning for the mention of weight loss and other potential triggers related to eating disorders. Skip three paragraphs if you are sensitive to these topics. One drawback to YouTube though is that when you subscribe to fitness channels, a lot of the recommended content you’ll get is about weight loss and getting skinny and lots of provocative content that is potentially triggering to people. Personally, it upset me to see this type of content constantly advertised to me in bold fonts because that just wasn’t what I wanted. Like I said before, I am on this journey just for fun and to feel good and confident. It distresses me to see that content aimed for women always contributes to becoming the patriarchy’s ideal woman: skinny, food-conscious, and conventionally attractive. I hate that exercise often has the association with “getting skinny,” particularly for women who want to “get in shape.” It makes me feel like my path is wrong, that I should also aspire to lose just a few pounds to better conform. Maybe just a bit of fat off my stomach could help? No. I have to remind myself to stay on my own course and try to avoid the perilous diet culture. Some people do exercise for the purpose of losing weight and that’s fine, as everyone is on their own path to whatever feels right for them. I just don’t think the assumption should be made that all people, especially women, who want to exercise do it for the sole purpose of weight loss or conformity to beauty standards. That’s a whole other can of worms, so I’ll just finish that thought with this: it made me really uncomfortable personally, so I ended up unsubscribing from most of the fitness pages I followed. Once things began to open up earlier this year with the vaccine rollout, I started to think about getting a gym membership. Working out from home was great and worked for me for a while, but I was considering upgrading to a gym for the purpose of having equipment and more space. My semester ended in May, so I decided to invest in a membership to Planet Fitness to keep during the summer before I leave for college in August. I try to get to the gym two to three times a week, which I find is a great schedule considering that I work part-time, and it feels like enough. I spend the majority of my gym time using the squat rack and the bench press, although I also enjoy smaller workouts like bicep curls and weighted sit ups. I go at a pace that feels comfortable while simultaneously pushing myself to use heavier weights or do just one more rep. I feel satisfied with this, and I’m excited to see what my college’s gym looks like this fall. It still feels discouraging, though, when I notice men scanning my body as I walk from machine to machine or when men stare at me while I squat down with a hundred plus pounds sitting on my shoulders. I tune everything out by listening to the pop-rap music the gym has blasting on the speakers, but sometimes this is not enough to ignore the unpleasant looks and the shrinking feeling I have. Fitness is an important part of my life, and I feel like being a woman who goes to the gym, especially a small woman, is an experience that’s not really talked about. I’m not trying to get into Chris-Hemsworth-as-Thor shape, but it would be nice to put on some muscle. Most of all, gym culture needs to be less intimidating and oppressive to women, both in online communities where weight loss is the coveted goal, and in person where men are more dominant in this area of interest. For more reading about the impact of fitness, and other topical ideas like athleisure and diet culture, on women, I recommend reading Jia Tolentino’s book Trick Mirror, particularly the chapter, “Always be Optimizing.” About the AuthorLola is a Latin American student based in New York City attending Smith College who loves to write about a variety of subjects. You can find their work in The Sophian, which is Smith’s newspaper, and Citrus, Smith’s fashion magazine. She loves to read as well, and currently loves memoirs like Broken by Jenny Lawson and Hunger by Roxane Gay. They are passionate about art history too, and are pursuing a bachelor’s degree double majoring in english and art history. She loves hugs, early mornings, YouTube binges, and fruit salads. Someday they want to publish their own book and you can always find them wandering around a museum in the city.
|
|