What The F Issue 22

WHAT THE F

Your Irregular Periodical Issue 22

Staff

Sophia Jacobs

Cielle Waters-Umfleet

Elya Kaplan

Melissa Dash

Natalia Szura

Michelle Wu

Elizabeth Schriner

Huda Shulaiba

Jacob Flaherty

Maria Wuerker

Ruchita Coomar

Jessica Burkle

Hayleigh Proskin

Ariana Shaw

Adriana Alcala

Calin Firlit

Cammie Treiber

Hanna Smith

Regina Egan

Kendall Lauber

Livvy Hintz

Jill Graham

Lily Jankowiak

Emily Bedolis

Nia Saxon

Olivia Arguello

Jess Yaffa

Claire Bletsas

Ella Kotcher

Isabel Clayter

Sydney Bauer

JJ Wright

Angie Knight

Lena Schramm

Lindsey Smiles

Makena Torrey

President Editor-In-Chief Assistant Editor Assistant Editor Assistant Editor Assistant Editor Staff Writer Staff Writer

Staff Writer Staff Writer Staff Writer

Art Director Assistant Art Director Assistant Art Director Staff Artist Staff Artist Staff Artist Staff Artist Staff Artist

Design Manager Designer Designer Designer

Social Media Director, Photographer

Social Media Staff

Social Media Staff

Social Media Staff

Blog Editor Blog Staff Blog Staff Blog Staff

Events Director Events Staff Events Staff

Marketing Director Marketing Staff

What the F is a non-partisan, non-profit publication operated by students at the University of Michigan. What the F’s purpose is to encourage discussion on significant issues of campus, national, and world interest. The magazine, the executive board, and our sponsors do not endorse the ideas presented by the writers. We do, however, support and encourage different ideas in our community and in campus discussion.

funny, fresh, fierce, feminist, fuck!

Letter

from the Editor

Welcome to What The F, your feminist periodical!

Dear Reader,

You know that feeling when you’re deep underwater and the pressure on your ears builds and your lungs beg for air? And you know the joyous relief of breaking the surface, taking a deep breath, and feeling the summer sun on your face again? That’s what this issue is all about. The world has piled a lot of sh*t on us recently, and it’s time to punch through and release in order to keep our heads above water.

Considering all that’s happened since we last met, reader, it’s no wonder we’re in need of letting go of what’s keeping us down. Deadly political insurrections and an alarming spike in anti-Asian attacks have been rocking the nation the last few months. A committed group of Redditors and one sideways boat launched the global economy into turmoil. And, of course, this is on top of the continued threat posed by the virus and its gang of variants.

But in some ways, things are looking up. Vaccine distribution and administration mean that the pandemic may be nearing its end in some countries. The transition between U.S. Presidents went about as smoothly as one could hope for, following the terse election cycle. George Floyd’s family and memory may yet receive justice as the officers who ended his life face trial. For all of the terrors that the powers-that-be impose on us, there are a hundredfold more individuals fighting back and demanding a better existence.

Represented in these pages are an empowered sample of these voices, tackling topics ranging from bad relationships to self-discovery to coping with adversity and beyond. Even in the absence of a spring break this semester, our writers and artists have found myriad ways to step back from the craziness of life and release what’s been weighing them down. On behalf of everyone at What The F, I invite you to take a moment to exhale and let go. Then soak up every bit of what this issue has to offer and let it propel you to the surface.

Sincerely,

Feeling Feminine: Flustered, Fretful, Fantastic

A calendar year has gone by in sweatpants and messy buns, and I’ve fundamentally changed because of it. The routine I had maintained for eighteen years of my life disappeared within a few months. No longer did I have to change into a plaid uniform skirt in the driver’s seat of my car in between the gym and school. There was no eyeliner applied in between stop-and-go traffic on the highway, no hair hastily braided to hide oily roots, none of it. For the first several months, it drove me insane. I lost myself, and everything I had known was gone. I was frightened because I didn’t know who I was. And I was also upset at myself for being upset in general. Why was my identity so tied to these little things I did every day? Was I not more than blush and a hair tie? That answer was no. At that point, back in May, I chalked it up to regular quarantine depression.

But summer was rough, too. Summer has always been hard for me, as it is for too many women. The pressure to look Instagram-ready, tanned and toned, the sweat, the bikini shopping, all of it exacerbated by the fact that gyms hadn’t been open for months. Stretch marks and scars were all on display, albeit blurred by six feet of distance. Without the support system of other women confiding their insecurities to me, I lost comfort in my own body. Not that I necessarily ever had it—eight years of eating disorders made sure that I would never again recognize my body in the mirror—but it was worse than it had ever been before.

The camaraderie of women comes from collective suffering. That is what I realized. Being catcalled at twelve years old, sobbing in department store dressing rooms trying on jeans, being spoken over at meetings— all of these are, unfortunately, universal feminine experiences. There is almost nothing inherently positive about being a woman. Sure, we can find power in our oppression, reclaiming our bodies and minds as more than an accessory to a man, but Pussy Power means nothing without what once was Pussy Weakness.

I sat alone on my bed this summer, a bikini under my sweatpants and curlers in my hair, wondering why I felt the need to dress for a red carpet when my destination was my couch. Underneath falsies and eyeliner, I began to cry. I cried because I thought, at the core of my being, all I was, was a set of tits and long hair. I needed to flaunt my cleavage and hoop earrings because, in my mind’s eye, as a woman, that is all I had to offer. Even though I knew that I was smart and funny and all the other adjectives used among friends, none of that mattered unless I was pretty, too. I was only a good woman if I was fuckable in addition to (or in spite of) everything else.

First semester of college started. I laughed, I danced, I fucked. The man I was seeing was the only person I have ever met who made me feel desired as a woman. He was nice enough, although a bit bland. What he lacked in personality he made up for in politics—he talked a big game for someone under 5’7”. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still friends and I liked him—he’s just a little closer to Timothée Chalamet than to Timothy Olyphant. He did make out with me to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a rite of passage for every indie chick. Clearly, the tits and big innocent doe eyes were working. I really felt like a woman. Everything went as well as it possibly could have.

The man went home. A week later, I went home. Opposite sides of the country. We ended things. I became depressed. I initially believed that this was because I had caught feelings. Was I in love with this strange, strange man? No, I absolutely was not. Great guy, but he was not my Prince Charming. Was I missing Ann Arbor? Possibly, but the weather where I live is infinitely better. I had gone back to life in sweatpants. My nail polish was chipped, and I had not put on a bra in two weeks. I reveled in the way I didn’t need to care. But I was missing something, and I could not figure out for the life of me what it could be.

I don’t remember exactly what triggered it, but I was able to identify this feeling of emptiness as the lack of womanhood. Without someone physically expressing their sexual desire for me, I did not feel like a woman.

If my tits were out, maybe someone would see them and want to fuck me, thereby validating my existence as a woman. Same thing with my Farrah Fawcett hair, Kylie Jenner lips, and my ass that I can only describe as “aspiring.”

This was an “oh fuck” moment for me. My “womanhood” is not real, nor has it ever been — it was only an elaborate costume I put on. Womanhood is a performance for me, but is a performance that I love to do. I sit in the mirror and line my eyes and my lips, all the while picking out personality traits I want for that day. I am a woman, but in the way that Meryl Streep is Donna from Mamma Mia. Some days, I allow the dark circles to remain under my eyes and decide that the performance is too much for me. And those days have been more frequent as of late. I’m okay with that now. Whereas at the beginning of quarantine, a year ago now, the hiatus from the feminine performance was depressing me in a way I could not comprehend, I now understand what that void was. Now, when I choose to be a “woman,” I do it because I want to, not because I feel obligated to. On the days I chose not to perform,

I am no less of a woman than I am in heels and a miniskirt.

Deciding to view being a woman as something that I do instead of something that I am is the most liberating choice I have ever made. I choose to be a woman, and I am a woman for no one but me. It is something I do, not who I am.

It feels primal, like I’m in a rainforest with dirt beneath my feet and birds squawking in the dense foliage above me, except I’m just standing here leaving water stains on my mirror. As someone who is constantly planning out every move, the upended nature of pandemic life showed me the importance of accepting that I have nothing guaranteed in my grasp. Washing my face became a sacred ritual for me during the pandemic because I realized that to stay sane, I had to release the confusion and banality of every single day and night. The news wasn’t always good (and usually was awful), sometimes mac and cheese was all I ate in a day, and occasionally the most productive thing I did was use up the rest of my yogurt to keep it from going bad. Everything is constantly changing, and as a result, we only have each moment as it is. More importantly, every action we do helps us to grow, even if it is as simple as making our bed. Sometimes I want my face-washing ritual to be more than it is. Molding each action and thought I have into something perfectly productive still has me in its grasp. But I try to let myself just do things for the sake of doing them now. Growing up is hard when you’re trying to make sense of your life indoors and alone. Making breakfast and running the dishwasher, once odious chores, are now therapeutic exercises.

The reality of the pandemic is that I was at first extremely excited to finally watch all of those movies I’d been wanting to for years. On the first day of lockdown, I wrote down almost 100 films that I planned to conquer during what I assumed would be a two-week free-for-all where life was disrupted, every day felt like a snow day, and all we had to eat were frozen Trader Joe’s meals and months-old Funfetti cake mix packs. Nothing happened quickly during the pandemic, but I gradually eased into newness over the last year, even if it felt like I was just doing daily life. After ten years of eating peanut butter banana toast for breakfast, I switched to oatmeal. I started doing barre workouts and cardio kickboxing at home for the first time. I tried going on walks every day. I took care of my house, decorating it for the seasons and tackling new projects between coursework. I didn’t see my friends and I spent all of my nights at home with my boyfriend. Doing all of this care work truly did feel fruitful. But it

didn’t feel like how I should be spending my college years. I suddenly felt like I was 30 years old.

All this time at home forced me to experience time so much more intimately than ever before. I felt responsible for ushering in the changing of the days, months, and seasons. While I did try many new things, doing so wasn’t without hesitance. It’s sometimes scary for me to tackle new things because I want to be the best at everything I do as soon as I start it. It’s taken me a while to realize this, but I believe this fear is at the core of how I lived before and partially during the pandemic. I have an innate need for everything to be purposeful and excellent, even though I simultaneously view the credo with skepticism. The reality is that each day in quarantine was essentially the same. I’d wake up, wash my face, go for a run or do a virtual workout, do my homework, work on some random projects, figure out dinner with my boyfriend, and then watch a movie or show before journaling in bed. It seems so mundane and monotonous, writing it out now. And sometimes you do just have to get through the day. But I slowly realized that it’s all so beautiful, feeling yourself be alive and doing literally anything, no matter how skilled or unskilled— that is powerful. Because no matter what it is you do, it’s building your sense of you. Even if it just feels like you’re barely getting by. Because when I look back on my year indoors, it seems rich and eventful. Through all of the sameness, I grew and changed and became a better version of myself.

When I started my last semester of college a few months ago, I did not feel the release and exhale that I had long anticipated since I planned out this seven-credit semester for myself three years ago. At times, the day felt like a race to complete all my self-care tasks. Suddenly, selfcare became a productive activity in a time that upended our normal

routines of productivity. I had to meditate, try new recipes, read for pleasure, exercise, keep up on my shows, maintain relationships in school, write grad school applications, contribute to student organizations, and endure the reality of a raging global pandemic. The worldwide alarm had, at first, given us permission to slow down, but when did it become a time for me to suddenly need to do all those things I’d never done before but wanted to? Why was I feeling mounting pressure, more than I did during normal years? Why were completing a puzzle and trying candle-bending on my goddamn to-do list? The activities that we are supposed to enjoy became things I just needed to do for the sake of doing.

But it’s a reframing. A reframing of what creativity is. Of what self-care is. A release of this ingrained notion of productivity. Because there is something beautiful about unloading the dishwasher and putting every dish back in its place. There is something beautiful about rearranging your pantry and filling your fridge up with all the foods you know you and your family love. There is something beautiful about buying new Tide Pods and garbage bags and multivitamins. There is something beautiful about eating Culver’s while sitting on your floor watching Michigan basketball games. There is something beautiful about using a hammer for the first time and trying to make souffles. There is something beautiful about eating your morning oatmeal and preparing some for the next day. There is something beautiful about washing your face every morning. Productivity should mean personal growth and being gentle with ourselves. We grow through the simple daily routines and spontaneous choices that make up the rhythm of our lives.

Looking back on the past year, I am proud of what I accomplished. I didn’t learn how to nurse a sourdough starter, and I didn’t make that short film I’ve been fantasizing about for years. I didn’t make a zine or learn to sew or even finish every project I started. But I became a trained birth doula. I finished a puzzle. I planned a baby shower. I became closer with my family. I fully embraced my love of cinema and watched hundreds of movies. I baked tiramisu, tres leches cake, chocolate lava cakes, lemon bars, and cheesecake, all from scratch. I laughed so hard I cried with my sister and drunkenly DoorDashed myself a Thai salad at 10PM. I got into graduate school. I supported new local restaurants. I hiked in new states and appreciated seeing the world from a different perspective. This is growth through compassion and acceptance.

But it’s not just these big things. Everyone always says it’s the little things, and I suppose they’re right. Deep down, I’ve always known that all we have is each day— the random moments of life weaving themselves together as the very quilt of our life. The pandemic has forced a lot of us to slow down and revel in the present. But in a world that still demands productivity and growth, we can feel a mounting pressure to make sense of our lives through the completion of tasks that seem marketed as self-care. Unloading the dishwasher is self-care, and so is making sure you have enough toilet paper in the house and opening the blinds in the morning. Self-care is doing nothing and doing something. It is writing a letter, taking a shower, sending a text, washing your face. When we view our daily activities as empowering rather than limiting, we open ourselves up to a whole new way of existing.

The shame and guilt I often feel from not doing an art project or fulfilling an idea I had a long while ago still tug at my brain from time to time. But my shifting perspective has allowed me to much better appreciate myself just as I am. I see the power and excitement in what I do, even if it’s just the same old, same old. Growing as a person and trying new things doesn’t have to be a momentous occasion. You’ll never feel ready to try that new thing—you just have to do it. Letting your mind and soul guide your actions and reframing one’s understanding of self and existence allows us to live more peacefully and authentically. Needless to say, my outlook on my personal identity and on the world has undergone a major shift during the pandemic. No longer do I focus on what I’m not, but what I am. We never have anything under control, so we might as well enjoy each thing we do. Change has been happening all around us forever, even before the pandemic.

At the core of finding beauty in this world, especially in the simple things, is hope. Imagining a world that you love and want to be in is possible. Envisioning your favorite people happy and seeing every choice as a decision that can be packed with potential for magic is powerful. It might all sound a little too fantastical, but a paradigm shift can help us see that our rituals are what make us glow. Our toothbrushing and our breakfast-making. Our movie-watching and our candle-lighting. There is purpose in the day to day. We just have to let ourselves see it.

“Mommy by

Issues”

I find it really difficult to criticize my mom. Having no children of my own, having never experienced what she’s experienced, having lived only 20 years of a fairly privileged life, it doesn’t seem like my place to point out all of the ways in which she could have done a better job. She objectively could have, though. (Couldn’t we all?) But I hate judging her parenting style with my western-informed perceptions of what a good parent should be because I know that she shouldn’t have called me a slut at nineyears-old when I wore a short-sleeved shirt to school behind her back, but I also know that she would do absolutely anything in the world to protect me.

Nearly every culture takes its sweet time crafting its rigid expectations for how women are to behave. We rewrite the rules and limitations of womanhood with every lived experience, every daughter inheriting their mother’s definition of womanhood and inevitably, at times, breaking off from the path set for them.

The definition that I inherited from my mother is already broad in itself. All that it demands is sacrifice—the sacrifice of my own desires and selfish longings in exchange for the betterment of my family. I remember my mother once telling me that she never wanted a daughter, just because she didn’t want to inflict on her child the most difficult existence: that of a woman. I didn’t understand this because my life was pretty non-demanding. I couldn’t really perceive the suffocating burdens of my gender as a seven-year-old living in suburban Michigan. But she didn’t mean that it was an inherently difficult existence—which in hindsight, it is, as we still live in a world where being assigned female at birth is followed by a ripple effect of disadvantages, varying from barely perceptible to fatally dangerous—she meant that it should be. She believed womanhood should be defined by selflessness at one’s own expense, from revolving one’s existence around being a dutiful daughter and sister to a nurturing wife and mother.

I couldn’t understand why we inflicted this pain on ourselves; it didn’t seem as if there was an authority on femininity enforcing these patriarchal chokeholds on our lives, and yet my mother was the latest in a long line of women who chose to recreate the same restrictive conditions of their childhoods for their daughters. Of course, all of these women stemming up my family tree were victims themselves, victims to a society that only wanted to suppress their personhood. I cannot resent them for being victims, and in the same way, I cannot resent my very Pakistani mother for wanting to raise her very Pakistani daughter using the same framework that her very Pakistani mother used to raise her.

My family and I immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan when I was 6 years old, so I spent the majority of my childhood absorbing every bit of individualist American propaganda that I could. I developed the audacity to put myself first: a privilege that had only been afforded to me after countless women did the opposite for centuries, as my mother often reminds me. And here lies the

great strain in my relationship with my mother, a strain felt in some capacity within all immigrant mother-daughter relationships: that of independence vs interdependence.

Since our mothers often sought only survival and security throughout their lives, they had little time to develop the “selfish” desires and ambitions that privilege nurtures. But as their daughters, we have the luxury of our assured survival, leaving plenty of energy to act upon our self-indulgent dream. My mother, as the second youngest of nine, spent the bulk of her childhood raising her older brothers and working as a live-in housekeeper to a family with kids her age. She lived and worked and survived; she didn’t have time for hobbies, or to consume enough music or television to have favorites when she was making 30 rotis a day and hand-washing someone else’s clothes. Fifteen years later, she went on to raise a daughter who would only ever know financial and physical security and had oodles of time to decide that her favorite show was Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. Understandably, we would have trouble understanding each other. As the daughters of immigrant women, living in countries and eras that afford us significantly more opportunities and amenities, we’re not here to survive—we are here to excel. And in this pursuit, a lot of supposed selfishness is required, something that goes against the socially inflicted pressure to serve others that Pakistani women, along with women of countless other nationalities, are put under.

This paradigm shift from the need to survive to the ability and ambition to thrive is a well-documented immigrant experience. In Hasan Minhaj’s comedy special Homecoming King, he tells the story of his father’s defeated acceptance of a post9/11 islamophobic attack on their family’s car, a moment in which he realized a fundamental difference in his father’s and his own worldview. While his father was simply grateful to be in this country and felt that violent racism was only a small price to pay, Hasan didn’t see why he should have to pay a price at all.

My first day of ninth grade, one of my friend’s mothers made a Facebook post about how she felt uncomfortable with my wearing a bracelet that said “Death to America” in Arabic on it when it simply said my name. The post circulated around our city until it finally reached my mother, and her passive reaction angered me beyond belief. She wanted me to go to my school administrators and clear up that it only said my name and that I indeed loved America. She wanted the situation to go away as quickly as possible, and me bearing the burden of moving on without an apology was the sacrifice she expected me to make.

As first-generation Americans, we are once-removed from the hardships of our parents, we expect equality as the bare minimum. We see no reason that we should sacrifice any respect or dignity simply because our parents weren’t born here. Their experiences, of course, are a part of us, and we know in the backs of our minds that our lives are the way they are as a result of their sacrifices, but we also can’t help but want to make the most of their triumphs and live the most excellent lives we can, selfishly.

In my mother’s case, she spent too much of her life fulfilling duties others had placed on her, trying to take care of her family as a child herself and trying to escape poverty. Which she ultimately did. She achieved this through carefully calculated selflessness, and through countless personal sacrifices, she was able to raise her kids under incomparably better circumstances. She had known the depths of desperation and poverty, and she knew that there was so little

that had separated her from the hundreds of millions of women globally who continued to live in hardship. And my mother credited the comfort she was able to provide her kids as the result of her selflessness. She believed that she had fulfilled her womanly duty by taking impeccable care of those around her. Now it was my turn.

The blanket advice my mother had given me to tackle any difficult situation I came across was to put myself last. If it was a matter of sharing my food, I should pretend I was never hungry in the first place so that the other person feels no shame in taking however much they want. If someone asked for a favor, being of service to them should become your number-one priority because there is nothing more inhumane than denying another person help, even when the help in question is answers to the homework. And most importantly, if your wants are in conflict with those around you, it is your responsibility to bend, to accommodate, and to ensure that the only person you ever burden is yourself. She credited surviving a tremendously demanding childhood and adolescence to this sacrificial nature, so it would make sense that she would stress it in the skillset she passed on to me, her only daughter. I adopted this tendency for selflessness for most of my childhood, which inevitably led me to giving up my lunch an unhealthy number of times and having a very underdeveloped sense of self for most of my life. While selflessness is a good attribute to implement into anyone’s life, basing one’s entire life around other people’s needs is torture, especially as a child. Living the life I do, there is no need for constant martyrdom. Eventually the American ideals of selfishness and living for oneself permeated my upbringing, and I realized the joy that standing up for yourself and being a healthy amount of mean could bring.

Our relationship became clear when I stated in no uncertain terms that moving away for my undergraduate education was non-negotiable for me even though in her eyes, every decision I made was negotiable. Moving outside of my family home, unmarried, even for educational purposes, was a direct breach of the unspoken promise that I made at birth. My mother took this very ordinary coming-of-age tradition as a rejection of all the love and nurturing my family and culture had provided me, simply in the pursuit of “whiteness”. I am not white or even white-passing, and nothing could erase my racial and ethnic identity. Yet, my mother had so closely tied her unbending definition of womanhood to our cultural identity that disobeying her meant disavowing our culture. So when I did move not too far from my family home, it was an intense physical manifestation of me leaving my mother and her path of womanhood behind.

I wish I could say we have come to accept each other’s perspectives wholeheartedly, but that will be a forever ongoing process. It’s so difficult to differ so drastically from someone you love, on almost every single topic, and know that to most extents, you will never change each other’s minds. I’ve wasted too much of my life resenting my mother for these disagreements, for feeling like she was holding me back when all she was doing was trying to ensure my survival, practicing her sacrificial nature, even if it meant impairing our relationship. Releasing that resentment that has plagued my ability to appreciate and understand and forgive my immigrant mother has definitely been my favorite part of growing up.

Bestest Boy Bestest Boy

if I thought that you could hear it I would tell you who’s a good boy you can’t see it either I will show you who’s a good boy

if eyes are the window to the soul, then your soul lives in a squalid haze is that why you whine, then to free your soul from decay

I will show you who’s a good boy do you know already?

I will rub his ears and nuzzle his head until his forehead wrinkles relax. don’t whine. be still. I will coddle him until he’s no longer willing come here so I can kiss you

I’ll make a noise if you promise to find your way oh, your nose has found me, the blind’s recklessly sighted leader I know your eyes once sparkled, boy with the brilliance of adventure what do you smell, old boy is it fear is it mine

privilege is missing what a dog sniffs up it is fear it is mine

it is the blood on the walls in the shape of your face it is the platoon of eye drops deployed on the counter it is the fluid you ooze when the symptoms flare up it is mom’s fretful tears when she thinks we don’t know don’t whine, old boy, you’ll see soon why do you see who it is? the good boy? it’s not you

I bear the ache of your age-scarred eyes the fog that won’t lift, the pressure that won’t loosen its grip.

it’s not you, old boy you’re better than good gooder than best

hush, it’s time to rest draw the curtains, close your eyes no one sails through life unscathed but the best keep on going and the bestest go on living. old boy, if you don’t see it yet—

don’t whine, old boy, you’ll just look asleep. you won’t even notice they’re gone

Author’s note: This poem is dedicated to Duke, a dog who lost his eyes due to glaucoma. He passed away on April 3, 2021, at the age of 15. His spunk, curiosity, and fire for life inspired everyone who knew him to treat each day as a gift, no matter the circumstances.

call waiting

when I brush, I always pay extra attention to one tooth. second from the middle, it hides just behind the teeth beside it, shying away from even the most determined of bristles as if to say, “dental neglect is ok, really, because I’m asking for it.” dental neglect is never ok. once your teeth go bad, everything else follows. I would know, my cousin’s a dentist.

you don’t read poetry, I probably have to spell it out: I’m the tooth you never decided to brush.

everyone gives love in different ways is what I told myself when I didn’t feel yours. it’s hard to recognize a deer caught in the headlights when all you have is a mirror glinting back at you. I think I wanted you to suffocate me.

it took someone else’s words for me to reach my own. they pried my plastered eyes open, making me realize you had burned us to a crisp. my two allies, they took my hands in theirs, heart to heart, hurt to hurt, and dialed your number before my eyes could close again.

because we were teenage girls and proud of our title, loving the savory taste of drama and wringing it out for all it was worth, we decided upon a confrontation. I can’t believe we were allowed to label our phone call that.

we sat in the sunken square early April, biting wind, huddled around the device in our chapped hands. three girls, two coats, and a phone.

see, I thought that we were the same, approaching communication with unyielding love, enthusiasm. I thought the sun lived inside you, mistaking burns for beams.

we both gave. you gifted me fresh cookies (smile for the camera!) took me to the beach (photoshoot time!) invited me on a road trip (come on, I’ll bring my polaroid!)

I gave without thought. I would’ve offered you the sun if I didn’t think you’d already swallowed it.

your generosity spoke to your love for us, tainted as it was, all strings attached. mine may have whispered, but at least it was free of lines held taut.

we spoke. upset, frustrated, patient. you cried. red-faced, guilty, victim. if everyone was like you, I think, the world would be swimming in crocodile tears.

I wonder, which is sharper: your apathy or the wind? or your fake tooth. I should’ve known. nothing real shines like that. not with your regimen.

months later, thank you for ignoring my texts. I don’t check your feed, but I know what it would tell me. next time you love, I hope it’s all the way through.

for their sake, not yours–you can go fuck yourself.

SLEEPING IN YOUR GARDEN A FALL INTO INTIMACY IN THE HEAT OF THE SPRING

I. passion: the SEEDS

Love was born in the fall. It was born racing through dimly lit streets, the blur of the fading leaves setting fire to the world and matching my soul in hue. The rush of the air and the rush of the cold left her cheeks blazing, warm shades of wild hair matched by even warmer skin. She told me later that I had been staring. I believe her.

I brought her to a bookstore when the sky was dark, pushing open the intricate door as the golden street lights illuminated the streaks of auburn in her hair. Watching her eyes and fingers drift across books I had never read, I understood what it was like to be touched that way. They were the same gentle brushes one reserves for fallen leaves. Not out of fear of damaging them, but just to remember how they looked. I had never been in a relationship like this before, where she laughed against my lips and dragged me through old bookstores by the hand. My lips were reddened in the alleyway, my back pressed against brick that built its way into my bones alongside the stark autumn air.

In a city like this, we didn’t have to worry about being different. In a city like this, love was a roughness. It was something to be breathed in like the crispness of fall air and let go of in breaths made shaky by being wanted. Leaves twisted in the wind as hands twisted into the sheets, their redness leaking into the flush of my chest. She drew the wildness of us into my skin, scratching affection in dark red lines and kissing their sting away afterwards. Us and our love were buried there together, in the darkness, brimming with all that we could become. Love was born in the fall, falling in love like us into bed.

II. intimacy: the BLOSSOMS

Love grew up in the spring. It grew up traipsing into the depths of the forest, brushing color into the petals of flowers and the breeze across my shoulders. The barren Midwestern landscape that had frozen itself in my memory was slowly beginning to melt away, unfurling into the green of something fresh. Something new.

I brought her to a field of flowers when the sky was blue, sliding golden dandelions behind her ears. With her back pressed against the earth below, her smile was the flower that bloomed the brightest. Rays of sunlight broke apart on her skin, tracing the lines of her face just seconds before my fingers did the same. She tilted her head to look at me better. To see my eyes shine in the light, she said. The sunlight fell into her eyes, and her eyelids fluttered closed with the gentleness of rain. My hands moved in the soft spring air to cover her eyes from the light, and she relaxed into my touch the way sage reaches out for the sun. She is luckier than the sage. So am I.

In a field like this, we knew we were different. We were something people had to warm up to, stumbling over themselves to bury the sight of us away in the dimmest corners of the earth. As if we were pieces of the world that could be washed away by the rain, or swept away by sideways glances carried by the city breeze. Here, love was still. Here, we were free.

In a field like this, love was a softness. It was a distance to be closed from my lips to hers and the warmth of a promise born anew. The grass

bent beneath her and up towards the light. I know how it feels to bow before the sun. Leaves twirled in the wisps of the wind as my hands twirled into strands of wild hair, their greenness leaking into the irises of her eyes. I drew the gentleness of us onto her temples, tracing adoration in spirals and kissing the glow of them afterwards. The love that we planted all those months ago in darkness had grown into the light, everything we could have become sprouted into all that we are. Love was born in the fall, but it grew up in the spring.

an Imperfect person’s guide to setting boundaries

“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be.”

I don’t know about you, but I would say that up until a year ago I struggled with setting boundaries. I felt uncomfortable with the vulnerability of allowing someone to know how their actions impacted me. As someone who can be very conflict-averse, I would often push aside my own emotions rather than dealing with them, feeling that it was better for me to avoid upsetting someone by letting them know that they had upset me. It felt inevitable that any communication of upset would lead to a fight or anger on the other person’s part. However, looking back it is clear to me that repressing these feelings only led to difficulties within my relationships.

At the beginning of quarantine, I experienced some major shifts that led me to redefine my relationships with some of the most central people in my life. Two awful things happened in relatively quick succession: My parents separated, and I fell out with my best friend of 7 years. All of a sudden, the foundation of my life had seemingly fallen out from under me. The relationships that I had considered to be permanent fixtures were now shifting in ways that I found terrifying.

The loss of such an important friend was overwhelmingly saddening to me. Quarantine was a type of alone that I had never felt before, and it was in many ways compounded by the loss of the person to whom I talked the most. However, this period of intense isolation and self reflection led to me beginning to grow into a version of myself that is much closer to the person I hope to be. I’m sure that many of you had a similar experience—when there’s nowhere to go and no one to distract you, all of a sudden you have almost no choice but to sit down and really get to know yourself.

What I found in sitting down with myself was that I needed to restructure the ways in which I thought of relationships. I saw that the way that I had viewed relationships was in itself too stagnant. I had felt that I did not have the agency to address flaws within my own relationships, and that however a relationship was going to be was a given, and there wasn’t much that could change the dynamic between two people. In short, my worldview didn’t have enough gray in it; everything was black and white with little room for discretion. If you were close to someone, it meant accepting everything exactly as it was; there was no possibility of setting boundaries because why would you need that with someone so close to you? Now I know that I wasn’t enforcing the boundaries I needed in order to feel fulfilled in my life.

There is comfort in a best friend—someone who can be there for everything, someone who acts as a human safety blanket. It’s reassuring to know that no matter what, you are at least one person’s favorite person. Or at least, that’s how it was for me. While I still believe in the importance of these friendships, I now know that the way we approach them is important. If we are too intent on keeping a friendship, holding onto it so tightly, so close to our chest, we can fail to allow it the room to grow. In the case of me and my friend, we held on too tight for too long, not allowing each other room to be different from how we had always been. There was an expectation that we had to play the same role in each other’s life forever, which eventually became stifling for both of us. By refusing each other the room to grow and change within our friendship, we lost sight of who the other person was until there was too great of a gap between us to reconcile, a

toxic dynamic that had slowly but surely taken over our friendship.

This mindset is so obviously unhealthy, in retrospect, and what’s interesting is that it did not impact every single one of my friendships. But at the time I didn’t have an understanding of how to effectively put boundaries into place, let alone recognize a lack of them. I have many friendships that have lasted from when I was younger, but the common thread among all of them is this: They changed as we did. That flexibility was distinctly lacking within this relationship, and it caused us to feel cramped within it. Now I realize that just like a plant needs room to grow, so do we. If we’re too constrained by our relationships it can hinder us from becoming who we want to be. I’ve learned to allow the people in my life the space to develop and change. There is no final form; we are always shifting and (hopefully) bettering ourselves, and we need to expect and celebrate that.

Now, I recognize that relationships might not stay the same, and while that can be sad, there is an inherent beauty in being able to let go while still valuing the time that you had together. I’ve also recognized that I can actively foster better and more lasting dynamics with people by creating and respecting boundaries with them, at the same time recognizing that you are allowed to move on from people when you feel it is necessary. We can ebb and flow from each other’s lives, and we can’t expect an external relationship (whether platonic or romantic) alone to provide us with a sense of fulfillment.

I am finding that I can hold space for people in my heart without needing them to be a large part of my life. I have come to understand that appreciating or loving someone doesn’t always mean wanting them to be a major part of your life. Being purposeful about who we spend time with and who we put energy towards is an incredibly important step in keeping ourselves, and consequently those around us, happy. We don’t have to feel that we have failed just because a relationship isn’t what we pictured it would be, we can instead appreciate it for what it is, or determine that there is something that needs to change.

And I Carry Back Home My Parents’ Dreams

“We could’ve been rich in Korea,”

Dad says wistfully at the dinner table. Mom pensively stays quiet but nods her head. We could’ve been rich in Korea, but my parents immigrated to America and started anew. This is a story my brother and I have heard a thousand times. It is our family folklore. To my dad, it is a lighthearted tale of trivial what-ifs. To me, it is a reminder to work hard to compensate for that loss of wealth and dreams. I used to laugh at that story when I was younger. Now it piles on another weight. Generational burdens. A parent slips their coat off, a child puts it on.

When I was younger, I used to always question why we were even here in America, then. I couldn’t understand why they would pass up money and tenderly pack their few belongings and board a plane to a country whose language they couldn’t speak. My questions about their motives stemmed from youthful curiosity until they gradually became jabs and taunts, darts carefully dipped in poison. I spoke about how I would never make the same mistakes they did, how I would never choose the option of giving up my dreams. I was smug, too, hitting the bullseye every single time, until eventu-

ally, that hostility faded into understanding, regret, and gratitude. America was never for them; it was for me and for my brothers. It only took the span of my adolescence to understand that.

“I am so happy to live here,” I reply.

I try to appease and appreciate my parents. I could not imagine growing up anywhere else. My happiness here is different. The freedom here is different. And by freedom, I don’t mean the Bill of Rights or anything given to me by a Founding Father. I mean the freedom I have been given by my own father. There is more choice for me here than in Korea. I can choose what I want to study or pursue without the burdens that my parents had. While this freedom might seem like a given to many, I treat it like a gift. In Korea, kids spend most of their after-school hours at learning centers called hagwons where they get tutored in math, science, history, art, and beyond. They are enrolled in these rigorous classes, and their parents prepare them to excel. Children do this not only for their future but for their parents, as well. East Asian culture is fascinating to me. It is primarily centered around respect, typically respect for family and elders. This idea of respect often morphs into a strong

sense of filial piety and responsibility that can feel more like a burden. The freedom that my parents have given me is an alleviation of this feeling that many East Asians carry without question. But at the same time, it also enables me to make the choice to embrace this virtue of respect for my parents.

My father loves physics. When he was an undergraduate student at Seoul National University, he majored in nuclear fusion physics. In his classes, he learned about the energy from the Sun, the way two atomic nuclei combine to form new subatomic particles, and like subjects that I can’t begin to comprehend. Physics was his passion, and he loved abstract applications like the complex systems underlying relations, randomness, and quantum dots. After graduating, he earned a master’s degree in statistical physics and moved to the Midwest with my mother so that he could attend graduate school at the University of Minnesota. It is there where he realized that physics would not lead him to a job where he could comfortably provide for his family and that meanwhile, he was developing an interest in statistics. He transferred departments and earned a machine learning statistics doctoral degree. My father is a very academic person. He enjoys research and always wanted to pursue a career in academia. But he never complains as he returns home every evening from his corporate job in the city instead of an afternoon teaching at a university, and he views it as a privilege that he has made it so far.

I wonder if this interest in physics is genetically inherited. While I prefer more abstract physics, my curiosity of the sciences is one that parallels my father’s. I spent my youth in the company of science documentaries and NOVA series about astrophysics. But it works the opposite way, too. These days, my fascination with economics carries over to my father. He speaks equally animatedly about game theory and complex systems within economics. He dreams of returning to the academic world and exploring once again.

My mother studied computer science in college. When I asked her why she replied that it was practical and seemed useful for the future. In Korea, she was a lecturer at a university, teaching computer science to undergraduates. She was saving up, planning on going to graduate school, even though she loved her job. But that was before my father wanted to move to America. So as a traditionally “good” wife and “good” mother, she followed him across the globe to a new country. Looking to the future for the opportunities laid out for my father and for me, she neatly boxed her dreams of attending graduate school and placed them in the attic of her other forgotten dreams. She’s never opened that box again. “You can’t push back education,” she tells me all the time.

My mother dreams of Jane Austen, trains crisscrossing the English countryside, returning to Korea to see her mother and younger sister, returning to a place where she doesn’t have to order Panera to avoid the poor imitation of authentic Korean meals at restaurants. She no longer dreams of computer science, her teaching career, youthful skin, a day without household chores.

She’s never had another job since her short teaching career. She is a stay-at-home mom by choice and by obligation. My mother took the backseat for a while so that my father would be able to focus all his time on furthering his education and bringing our family up to a respectable level of financial stability. During my childhood, she spent the day taking care of me and my younger brother, making sure that we were growing up to be healthy, happy, successful, and loved. She spent the late nights helping my father study and work on his English. Staying up to eat late meals with him, staying up to

make sure he didn’t lose focus, staying up to support him. My mother is the most resilient person I know. It is painful because it is a silent resilience, one in which actions fill the void where words should exist. And because she has given me the freedom to choose, I choose to respect and cherish her.

Out of everyone in my family, I think the only one who could have been happier in Korea is my mother. Her family is closeknit, and she is the oldest of four children. She adores her younger siblings and misses her own mother. Although I know she is happy with the life she has here and loves us unconditionally, sometimes I wonder what she would have, could have, done if she did not move here. I do it because she is too selfless to ponder these thoughts, herself.

I can’t return her youth or offer her an opportunity for the education she missed. But I want to give back in ways that show my appreciation and gratitude for her sacrifices. Instead of scheduling the philosophy class that I imagined I would take, I grit my teeth and backpack the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science course. I wedge another math course into my schedule, even though I already met the requirements. My parents would be proud. I don’t replace classes for my intended majors and minors for theirs, but I fill my remaining credit hours with dreams they left behind. Dreams that America has taken as payment for new opportunities.

There are times when the desire to make my parents proud interferes with my own dreams. I remember when I told my parents that I would rather take more English classes to pursue a minor in Creative Writing than math or computer science. Despite it being such a simple thing, I still had to spend a few days mustering up the courage to tell them. While my parents remain my biggest supporters and they took the news with grace, I still saw the doubt wavering in their eyes and hesitation on their faces. Their expressions haunted me for the next week. Was I making the right decision? If so, why did it feel so wrong to pursue my own dream? I think the last time I enjoyed learning math was in seventh grade, but there I was, still considering penciling it into my schedule.

During the first quarantine of the COVID-19 pandemic, I spent a lot of time watching movies. I am not generally a “movie person” and find it extremely difficult to stay focused on the screen as my mind wanders in search of something more stimulating to do. But the monotonous days drove me to revisit childhood classics that I had loved so many years ago: Disney princesses. Starting with my favorite, Cinderella, I watched one or sometimes even two Disney movies a day to keep myself entertained. I laughed during Aladdin, envied the library in Beauty and the Beast, and even cried a little during Tangled. But nothing compared to the rush of emotions I felt when revisiting Mulan. The whole concept of a daughter volunteering to fight in a war to protect her parents felt eerily parallel to how I aimed to save my parents’ dreams by involving myself in activities that they would’ve loved but never got to do.

And I would. I would go to war for my parents. But this is what America has given me—the ability and duty to dream infinitely more than they could. I dream my dreams, my mother’s dreams, my father’s dreams, and their forgotten dreams, too. There I am on the empty battlefield bearing the wounds of my parents, protected by their love, collecting their discarded dreams to return back home.

Manifesting My Future

Whether to write in my fuzzy Hannah Montana diary or glitter-coated High School Musical journal was the most pressing decision that plagued my eight-year-old mind. As far back as my memories go, my notebooks go–proof that my thoughts and my writing have always gone hand-in-hand. Due to this combination, I have a physical record of everything, which, while fun in theory, is painfully embarrassing to read. Preserved within my notebooks are long rants scribbled in block lettering about elementary school drama and an excessive number of pages that are home to alarmingly dark song lyrics, clearly written by a tone-deaf little girl.

Twelve years later, I would like to think my writing skills have improved at least slightly from petty gossip and pitiful attempts at becoming the next Taylor Swift. Yet while the content that fills my pages has changed, the process of jotting down my emotions has remained a constant in my life. So when I came across the concept of manifestations during my two-hour nightly time slot allotted to TikTok scrolling, my interest was immediately piqued. I double-tapped the screen, adding the content to my long list of liked videos and promised to revisit “manifesting” again in the morning.

Not long after, my countless Google searches about manifestations took over my browser history, as I was eager to know the ins and outs of yet another quarantine trend. From my research, however, I learned that manifesting is by no means a new concept, even though TikTok branded the word as its own. The term actually dates back to the 19th century, when it referred to a spiritual process developed during the New Thought movement. Manifestation is essentially asking the universe for what you want by putting what it is you want out in the universe. The most common technique when manifesting is to write down your desires in positive sentences called affirmations. While Google taught me the history behind manifesting, TikTok

influencers taught me my preferred methods. The method of choice for self-proclaimed manifestation gurus is the “3-6-9 Method.” The instructions are simple: For 33 days write your affirmation three times in the morning, six times in the afternoon, and nine times at night. Conversely, the “33x3 Method” has you write down your affirmation 33 consecutive times a day for only three days (sounds like a massive hand cramp to me). Some influencers swear by writing a letter to the universe, others by creating a story, a few by visualizing your goals, and a handful more by writing affirmations on a piece of paper and sticking them under your pillow tooth fairy-style while you sleep. There are such a wide variety of tactics out there that it seems nearly impossible to narrow it down to the best way to achieve your goals. But just about everyone on the app who preaches about the effectiveness of manifestations agrees on including two key features in your affirmations: using specific language and incorporating an aspect of gratitude when writing. In other words, be as detailed as possible in your affirmations and note how grateful you would be to have your desires come to life. Incorporating phrases such as I am thankful, I am grateful, I realize how fortunate I am to, etc., is a necessary component to any successful manifestation. In the same vein, TikTok influencers also stress the importance of utilizing strictly positive language when writing.

I also learned that just hoping something will happen in the future doesn’t cut it. In order to properly manifest, you have to write in present tense, as if you already have what you desire. For example, it wouldn’t be enough to write, I want my way-too-old-for-me oceanography GSI to be into me, but rather, I am so grateful that my way-too-old-forme oceanography GSI is into me. (Ryan, if you are seeing this, let me know if it worked.) According to TikTok experts, writing your desires as if they are already the truth is key

to an effective manifestation. After doubling my daily screen time by watching hundreds of success stories, I knew it was time for me to revamp my typical journaling routine into one that could do me some good.

And so, I began manifesting–for the cute hockey player in my sociology discussion to Zoom private-message me, for the recovery of my best family friend’s battle with cancer, for Joe Biden to win the 2020 presidential election (you’re welcome)–and soon, writing down my desires became routine. I scheduled the act into my day, just the same as brushing my teeth or yelling at my roommate to talk quieter in her breakout room while I’m sleeping. Manifestations filled a line in my personal planner, and I crossed off the task with the same satisfaction as completing a physics lab or turning in an English essay.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that consistency was the key to real results. So after manifesting on and off for a few months, I decided to go full steam ahead and try the “3-6-9 Method.” Currently, I am more than a month into my personal journey to living a life that resembles true happiness.

While I have enjoyed this process, there is one question I must ask as my experience manifesting nears its end: Does it work? And to this, I still have no clear answer. I would bet my life on the validity of a Ouija board and find it no coincidence that I randomly get a whiff of my late grandpa’s Ralph Lauren cologne whenever I’m feeling down, so maybe I am too much of a believer to tackle this question. I will say, however, that the deliberate act of contemplating and writing down a singular desire for over a month is an interesting one. I have been forced to think through an introspective lens, separating trivial whims from my innermost aspirations. While journaling has always acted as my personal form of free therapy, manifesting aims for the core of desire.

Writing down affirmations functions not only as a safe space for my thoughts, but it also helps me decide which of those thoughts I truly value. What I’ve determined is that this act–sharing our desires with the universe in hopes of receiving them–may generate real results, but perhaps not

in its literal sense. The pure experience of purposeful and reflective writing has brought what I truly need to the forefront, and as a result, I think I have gained a sense of control over my thoughts and actions. This, then, led to some of the changes I was hoping to see from the very beginning. So, while I cannot sit here and claim that I am a 20-year-old Supreme Court Justice or that the entire world population has received the COVID vaccine, I can say that I am on my way to creating my ideal life.

Although my Zoom crush and I are not dating and Joe Biden’s victory likely had little to do with the scribbles in my notebook, I can acknowledge that manifesting these events changed how I interacted with them. For example, my breakout room confidence soared the next time the hockey boy and I were placed alone together, and when it came time to campaign for Team Biden on campus, I was the first to sign up. Manifesting these events put them at the forefront of my mind, and my subsequent actions began to reflect that.

I don’t discredit the TikTok content creators who have heavily emphasized manifestations throughout quarantine. Like so many of the app’s previous trends–creating extravagant charcuterie boards, DIY bedroom renovations, or even writing and choreographing Ratatouille the Musical–manifesting acts as a way to manage control during a time when we all feel a little helpless. COVID makes Gen Z crave a sense of normalcy in a world in which we are too young to know anything but. As a result, manifestations have arisen as a form of comfort, as made evident by its widespread usage across social media. This comfort lies in putting the actions of your future in someone’s hands, whether you see it as the release of control by leaving your actions up to the universe, or conversely as the gaining of control by having a means to dictate those same actions.

As I end this journey, I remain uncertain of whether or not I believe in the power of the universe, but I can find comfort in knowing that I can release just a little of my responsibility into the idea of the aforementioned manifestation gods. And for now, in a world full of masks, social distancing, and a deadly pandemic, that’s just enough to keep me going.

SHAME

The first disappointment, first shame stings me like a wasp and I wait and wait for the discomfort to fade. It isn’t until much much later, I realize that wasps are not bees: they can sting me as many times as they please. Shame is sticky and I become an insect trapped in amber. Time unmoving. Or time moving but I am still tethered to it, growing up, growing old, but never growing out of it.

Suddenly my mind is a broken film reel, a record player in need of repair, playing the same moment over and over again as it yields to the cacophony. Suddenly my heart is a cassette with the tapes pulled out and an unraveling mess that my mother has to patiently untangle and begrudgingly twist back in. Suddenly my stomach is the Mariana Trench, deep and dark and bottomless with a cephalopod’s ink running into my bloodstream. The ink stains my blood black and spreads throughout my body, until it reaches my fingertips and it bleeds out under my nails.

Shame is when my insides shrivel up and dry and suddenly I am a petal of a dead peony, caught between the thin, crisp pages of my mother’s favorite novel.

The first time I saw my mother cry, the only time I saw my mother cry, I loomed over her, plump and juicy and spoiled at the overripe age of eight. My own wrongdoing, my own mistakes that she took as her own failure as a mother. And when her tears fell, so did I, striking down

on her and watching the powerful image of her crumbling down, falling beneath my feet, six

feet under.

Shame is a secret that I take to the grave, a cold hand wrapped around my neck, invisible to the world.

I comforted myself in my own room, shut the door, turned the lights off. No one sees me cry. The first shame never leaves, branded into my skin, a scarring of the soul, and neither does the only memory of my mother’s tears and I become the cephalopod in the deep sea, salt water against saltwater, weeping in the dark.

I don’t speak my shame and wait for a higher power to lift the burden and breathe it into the morning until it scatters into nothingness in the wind. I whisper my shame at night. Inhale in the memories and exhale it out.

Hoping for a current to embrace it and drift it far far away.

Hoping that the wave will not beat me against the jagged rocks anymore. If it cannot carry out my shame, maybe it will carry me out one day. Maybe that is atonement. Maybe that is release.

My Grandmother and Grief

“I love you, Grandma.”

“I love you too. Buh-bye, baby.”

I called my grandmother the night of Monday, November 9th, 2020, and these were the last words we shared. The next morning, her nurse set up a Zoom meeting. My parents, sister, and I were on for a few minutes when the call unexpectedly dropped at 11:47 AM.

At the time, I didn’t understand what had happened. I sent a spur of texts in the group chat shared between my parents and siblings, asking what was going on and whether the nurse would start the video again. My sister, a nurse herself, said that our grandma’s oxygen saturation levels were not looking good. At 12:12 PM, I received the text that my grandma had passed away. Grief is powerful and disorienting. By grief, I mean the deep sorrow or distress that follows a loss or change. While grief is different for every person, for me, the grief that resulted from losing my grandmother reflected the end of something familiar and someone I loved. Grief, with its symptoms of fear, shock, and disbelief, forces me to confront and adapt to a new reality without her. My biggest fear is losing my loved ones, and grief toys with this insecurity, reminding me of how painful and present my concerns are.

In the weeks leading up to losing my grandmother, my family and I suffered anxiety over the possibility she had contracted the coronavirus. My family had been cautious about COVID-19, limiting close contact with others, wearing masks, and practicing good hygiene. For my grandma, these measures included putting a pause on going to friends’ houses, the grocery store, and religious services when church attendees weren’t being safe. It wasn’t enough, however. After an unrelated health emergency, my grandma ended up taking care of another relative who had been exposed to the virus and retroactively tested positive when brought to the hospital. The next few days brimmed with worry and phone calls, but my grandmother’s COVID-19 test came back negative. I was

relieved, and life went back to fretting over the current election, schoolwork, and finding housing for next year.

A few days later my world shifted. The negative test result had lulled us into a false sense of security. COVID-19 symptoms emerged and intensified suddenly, and in less than a week from their onset, my grandmother required hospitalization. I couldn’t return home because my parents were in quarantine, as my dad was the one caring for my grandma. He ultimately contracted the virus, too. After hearing the news that my grandmother tested positive for the virus, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. My grandmother was no stranger to hospitals; she fought and beat cancer three (!) times, frightening everyone with frequent hospitalizations throughout one of her cancer-fighting journeys during my sophomore year of high school. Throughout those battles, I had felt hopeful. I was confident she would be okay. But in my room in Ann Arbor, I experienced the opposite, and I felt isolated in my pain.

Grief is bizarre. In one moment, everything is calm. In the next, it all comes flooding back, and I remember what I’ve lost. My chest tightens, my stomach heaves. The realization hits me like a giant wave, and I wade in the water for a few hours until the tide recedes. I despise feeling immobilized, but I’m afraid that if I don’t allow myself to feel the anguish that accompanies my grandmother’s palpable absence, I might drown. Grief is a heavy weight on the heart, one that gets heavier the longer it is ignored. It’s been months since she’s been gone, and I still hear the wave’s persistent rumble and brace myself for suffocation.

What should a person do when confronted with such a predicament? Should they reject reality? Should they be angry and vengeful? Disheartened? Pessimistic? Bereaved?

I don’t think my grandma would be any of those things. When I was six, I told my grandfather on his deathbed that he’d be okay, fully believing so due to the incessant

optimism and naïveté that comes with childhood. I believed that he’d be happy in heaven. I think that’s what my grandma would tell me now, only about herself. My parents told me that she was relatively calm throughout the chaos of everything. She maintained her routine as much as possible leading up to her hospitalization and death less than two days later. She fed the cats, watched television, and put wood in the stove to heat the living room. When I visited her house for the first time after her death, she had left her magazines strewn across the coffee table, just as she always did.

My grandma was my biggest cheerleader at piano recitals, at choir concerts, and throughout life in general. Some of my fondest memories include berry picking, making cookies, and watching Family Feud or Hallmark movies together. We enjoyed going out to eat at local diners and walking in the woods behind her house. We were always welcome at one another’s houses for impromptu visits. Before I left for college, she came over several times a week, often wanting me to play a song for her on the piano.

Even to this day, it is difficult to comprehend that I’m not going to be able to do those things with her again. To see her in the audience at recitals and concerts, of course, but mostly enjoy the mundane events together. Last Mother’s Day, I gave her a book that featured all the things I loved about her, and one of them was a memory of baking a pie together. Visions of spilled flour and splotches of purple blueberry stains come to mind, as do the little moments of going on walks or noticing her dozing off on the couch.

It is these moments that I dream of the most. Halfway through the dream, when she stands to hug me goodbye, I realize it’s not real. I know what happens next. I hug tighter, digging my fingers into her soft sweater and melting into her warmth. I tell myself to imprint the moment into memory until she slips away, and I wake up with teary eyes and sticky cheeks.

Was she afraid? Did she feel any pain? My grandma was one of the funniest, most generous, most compassionate people I know. But she was also a fighter. “All the old people dying from the coronavirus were going to die soon, anyway!” skeptics wail. Who knows what would have happened? After all, my grandmother’s 87th birthday was the day of her hospitalization, the Sunday before she passed away. Grief doesn’t always respond to logic, but my sister believes we were robbed, and I agree. The fact is, we’ll never know how long my grandmother would have lived naturally because she wasn’t given the opportunity.

It’s been over four months now that she’s been gone. After countless emotional breakdowns and a few trips to Grandma’s house later, it seems over. People have stopped talking about what happened. They’ve moved on with their lives—but I haven’t. The distance from family, the suddenness of the situation, and the lack of closure exacerbated my heartbreak at the time, and perhaps the circumstances surrounding the coronavirus interrupted my healing. Even my family members have stopped talking about it, though I know they grieve, too. I understand why it all seems to fade out of existence for everyone else. It wasn’t their loved one. It was just another statistic, another death in a tally we’ve become numb to. Everyone is tired of the inconvenience the pandemic has caused us, insisting that they’re careful while simultaneously warning that we can’t continue living in fear. It’s easy to say such things, to insist we are being careful, until someone slips through the backdoor who wasn’t.

Grief is something that still holds me – and probably always will – in its grasp. At the same time, I’m learning how to cope and understand why I feel grief. For one, I grieve for myself. My grandmother played an integral role in my life, and I treasured her presence. It feels strange not to see her sitting on the couch when I visit home or to be able to call her out of the blue. Grief, as laborious as it can be, is necessary for transitioning between the period of life I experienced with her in it and the new life I’ll continue without her. While I still feel angry and sad at times, I’m moving towards acceptance. I’ve found solace in art and music. I’ve learned to trust in, rather than turn away, my support system of friends and family members. And of course, I’ve been writing. Whenever I feel inconsolable, I can rely on my journal to jot down my incoherent stream of thoughts and confide my feelings. In a period of internal conflict and compromise, I feel better knowing that even if I take two steps back sometimes, overall I am still moving forward.

Most notably, I grieve because I’ve loved. It takes courage to grieve, but even more so to love, as there is always the risk of loss. What would life be like without knowing the type of love that precedes such profound grief? These days, I feel a pang of sadness whenever I bake one of my grandma’s recipes or see a cardinal, her favorite bird. But I also think of her fondly. I listen to her voicemails, let myself cry, and feel thankful for having had such a loving relationship with her. I consider the vulnerability I feel and the willingness to live and the love that accompanies it. The fragility of life as we know it is terrifying, but it makes me appreciate the loved ones and memories I’ve been blessed with. I miss my grandmother, but at the same time, I grieve because I’ve experienced great love, and that’s something to be thankful for.

a quick stream-of-consciousness admission

For a long time, I struggled with how to write this out. I thought perhaps a journal entry of sorts, just get all my thoughts out on the page and leave it bound between two leather covers, to be perused once the pain isn’t quite as fresh, would suffice. I thought, perhaps a poem, but I don’t feel that I could begin to consolidate the turmoil of these past months into a structured, purposeful form. This doesn’t feel like something that can be confined to a single genre, though I have been attempting to for so long. It’s something that fills me to bursting and makes me question the strength of my boundaries. Something that makes me worry that I might explode into a million pieces of confusion, joy, exhilaration, and shame if I go about it the wrong way. But then what is the right way to come out to your friends? Your family? Everyone in your life who has known you one way for so long and by whom you are still constantly surrounded, confined to the same space for months by COVID? There hasn’t been an opportunity to go out and explore how I present myself… I feel ready to spread my wings and show off my new colors but I’m stuck in the same COVID cocoon . I’ve done it, though… come out to them. Most of them, anyway. Even after months of pushing it away and being convinced that I was somehow lying to myself about it all. Each conversation released some of the tension, the pressure keeping me taut. But somehow, despite the lessening of the tension and the relative ease with which I

have been accepted by those around me, there is still more, more pressure that cannot be released into the world until I can shout it from the rooftops and grab strangers by the hand to tell them the news. Not that I could ever be that bold. But maybe I could. With this swelling in my heart and the tingle of possibilities in my fingertips, perhaps this new me could do it… A new me, despite which, I am not a different person. That is something I have come to understand; at first, I felt that this was the most monumental and impossibly overpowering truth about me. A change in how I thought about the world, how I thought about myself. I thought there was one way to do it all and that if I couldn’t master it in a way that allowed me both to feel safe and unapologetically myself, I wouldn’t be doing it “right.” I spent so long trying to prove it to myself, that my feelings weren’t a “phase”–no matter how cliché–that I wasn’t lying to myself, that I wasn’t trying to be a part of a community to which I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t “enough” or “legitimate” because I hadn’t experienced it “in real life” yet. Unlike many of my friends, I had never kissed a girl at a party, never hooked up with anyone whose identity wasn’t cishet male. But since when is that a requirement for coming into your own sexuality and recognizing it as yours? I am not a different person—I am still me, more me, if anything. And through all of that, I didn’t even realize I was gaslighting myself. I was so worried that it would be queerbait-

ing, that I was somehow lying to the world and to myself and being insensitive and performative. But I was stuck indoors with the same people I’d been with for months, so for whom could I possibly be performing? This is part of what I feel COVID has done for me and for others who feel that their identities have shifted, stretched to include a new and blossoming part of them that was previously locked in a nugget somewhere inside us. I don’t know what brought it to the surface; what was the quote, unquote “awakening” of this dormant piece of who I am? It wasn’t a physical experience with another human being, not during quarantine. It wasn’t even someone I saw in passing whose presence hit me with a bolt of understanding and self-awareness. Was it any one thing (hmm, TikTok… beauti ful, beautiful TikTok)? Has this been inside me all along? Is it quantifiable? Qualifiable? Does it have to be? Every word for it feels wrong, like it couldn’t apply to me. Does that make it false? If I can’t put a name to it, how can I prove myself? And there I go again, feeling like I’m faking it, performing for others, instead of just allowing myself to grow and morph and ac cept this new part of me that I should want to, and be able to celebrate. It’s like I have an extra limb; something that I understand conceptually but that feels awkward and new and foreign and that I can’t quite account for as mine yet. I’ve spent these past few months poking and prodding it, trying to rationalize it and recognize it as mine. I’ve tried on new clothes to see if they better fit, new styles and walks and music. Do these things make me an impostor? If I didn’t recognize them as mine before this, are they any less my own? I’d like to think not. I’d like to think that no one would judge me for trying things on for size, adopting and disposing of new ways to be me; the words that kept coming to mind when I wrote this last clause, the things I was “adopting” and “disposing” of, were: “masks,” “facades,” “personas.”

None of which are particularly loving or accepting of myself. I’d like to think no one would judge me for this, myself included, but they have. At a time when I’ve spent so much energy—mental, emotional, and physical—on working out how I feel about this, how I see myself, and how I present myself to the world, and at this time of turmoil and tension, I hoped those around me would validate, legitimize, and support this process, not add to the confusion, gaslighting, and self-doubt. For the most part, I’ve been incredibly lucky, and I’m so grateful that I have had the “coming out” experience(s) I have had (hello reader, I guess this is me coming out to you, too… welcome to the club). I acknowledge that this is not many people’s experience. So maybe this is for you; maybe this rambling, stream-of-consciousness, word-dump is a way for me to validate you: anyone unsure if you’re lying—to yourself or to others—if you’re feeling stuck in your identity because those around you see you one way and one way only… Release those constraints, even if it’s only within your perception of yourself. Shake off your self-doubt and self-invalidation. Release it to the universe; it can take it. The universe has seen this so many times, and I feel sure that it can handle it. And I’ll do it, too, right here and now, in writing whatever this turns out to be—I release my expectations of myself, my assumptions of myself, and my perception of myself as an immutable person. I will always be changing and growing and adding countless new limbs, and I will figure out how to work with them. They will not change who I am but rather make me a more complex and myriapodous person (try that one on for size). So when I can shout it from the rooftops and grab a stranger by the hand to tell them the news, I won’t be afraid that I’m lying. I’ll know it’s true because I’m still me.

Why you should ask out your crush now

One Sunday in my senior year of high school, I decided I would ask out an attractive girl from my English class, Alice. Unfortunately, Alice and I had barely ever spoken.

This raised a complication. Would anyone ever date someone who they barely knew? If someone attractive asked me out without prior introduction, would I say yes?

Duh. Unless they gave off weird vibes, I would have nothing to lose. Dating ≠ marriage. Really, people date to find out more about each other, or in other words, what’s truly behind their pretty faces. If I was attracted to the person, I’d say yes. This raised a new question. Was I attractive enough for Alice? After all, no girl yet had seemed to notice my supermodel dimples or pulsing pecs. I eventually reached the conclusion that I had to ask this girl out, even if she said no. Didn’t matter if my face looked like Tom Brady or the top of the pizza slice. (Unrelated, but face masks cover up acne, woohoo!)

I’d feel weird asking out some random girl on the street, but this was different: Alice was at least aware of me. However, it would be a challenge approaching her for the first time. The game plan was that I would ask her out as soon as I saw her alone.

Another challenge was that Alice had friends. She was never swarmed, but she always had someone close by. Perhaps I should’ve just done it in front of her friends. Monday through Thursday flew by, with each day ending more disappointing than the last. While asking Alice out scared me, I repeatedly went to bed dejected knowing that I could’ve taken the chance and hadn’t. It came to the point where she could’ve called me “Gargoyle face” and I wouldn’t have cared. I had to ask her out.

Friday. English class was now over, and finally, Alice was walking alone. Here goes nothing.

“Hey, Alice?”

The exact moment she turned to me, my confidence crumbled. Even before I had said a word, she looked completely dumbstruck, as if I had asked how often she shaves her legs.

I continued. “I know we don’t really know each other… but would you want to go out sometime?”

Besides, the “really,” I was right on script. Pretty impressive.

“Maybe,” she responded.

“Alright, cool.” And I ran off, too eager to flee to ask for her number.

Suddenly, euphoria exploded within my body. It was the equivalent of eating after a week without food, peeing after a day of holding it in, resting after sprinting an entire marathon. I had just caught a Hail Mary and won the Super Bowl. I could’ve lost my wallet and remained happy. (Well, maybe not.)

For the next few days, I mulled over her one word: “Maybe.” Now what? I tried my hardest to tell myself it was her polite way of saying no, but maybe ≠ no. It was hard to ignore that her maybe might just turn into a yes.

But by the next week, it was apparent that it was a no. She hadn’t followed up, and we continued to live separate worlds when in class together. I wonder if things would’ve been easier had she said no. We would’ve reached the same conclusion, but the Band-Aid would’ve been ripped off instead of being slowly ripped over the next week.

I don’t blame Alice for not responding definitively, of course. She didn’t even know me. “Maybe” could’ve been the only word that came to her mind in the moment.

So you have a crush on some guy or some non-guy? My advice: ask them out.

Do it.

If you want to date someone, then ask them out. After you ask someone out, they can respond in many ways: Sure, no thanks, go die, etc. Every response can be placed into one of three categories: Yes, no, maybe. If you get no response, that’s a no, or they didn’t hear you because you yelled it across the hall since you’re scared of them.

What happens when your crush says no? Is your life a failure? Are you doomed to spend the rest of your life alone? No. It simply means that one person out of seven billion is not interested in dating you at the moment. With that many people, the odds that you’ll find someone are pretty good.

Changing your mindset helps, too. Look at your accomplishments and the amount of people you’ve made happy. You’re a super cool person. You don’t need an awesome significant other when you’re already awesome. Also, if you want more confidence, go accomplish something awesome. If you’ve been trying to write a novel but can’t seem to find motivation, imagine bragging to your crush about it.

One of the greatest things about being rejected is that it’s way easier to move on. Fun fact: Your crush already didn’t like you before you asked them out, but now at least you

know for certain. While hearing “no” isn’t as exciting as hearing “yes,” that “no” frees you and makes it easier to like other people.

By contrast, your crush might say yes. There’s something attractive about someone finding you attractive. You’re not asking for their hand in marriage; you’re asking for them to test you out. Think of it as a free lottery ticket: Even if there’s a low chance, there’s still a chance if you end up cashing in the ticket.

Another benefit to asking someone out is that it forces action. If you find the upcoming week to be uneventful, asking out your crush can spice things up. No matter what happens, it will be interesting. It’s something to be scared of, to look forward to, to cherish. It’s like adding spicy powder to some bland chicken: even if it gets too hot, it’s more fun than if there was no spice.

The one caveat is if you’re friends with your crush. If asking them out could make things awkward for the future, then you need to make the call.

Getting rejected by Alice was disappointing, but it didn’t hurt. Alice and I weren’t talking before I asked her out, so nothing changed. Despite the less-than-stellar response, asking her out was a huge confidence boost, and it made asking out the next person much easier. Asking out Alice was also super engaging; it turned an otherwise average high school week into a quest. Sure, I was disappointed to hear no, but that’s okay. I remember the time I caught my first fish, aced that one Calculus test, or even the time my friend Jason was feeling down and we hung out for the night so he felt better. I’m already an awesome person, even without a significant other.

This doesn’t mean Alice was lame to not recognize my awesomeness. Everyone has different dating preferences. Alice wasn’t calling me stupid or unimpressive by saying “no”; it just meant she wasn’t interested in going out, and that’s cool. There are billions of other people out there. In fact, I don’t want to attempt a date with Alice if she wouldn’t enjoy it.

Relationships are a lot like colleges. It’s not about selecting the right person—it’s what you make of them. If a college rejects you, it’s not an excuse to insult them. Respect their decision; they have their reasons. Besides, there are so many other great colleges out there. You’ll still be badass and change the world, just not with that one college. That’s okay.

So ask out your crush. As Wayne Gretzky famously said, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. I highly recommend doing it in person, even if all the cool kids are doing it over text these days. Asking someone out in person is a million times scarier, but then it’s a million times more satisfying. Of course, respect whatever your crush says, but either way, you got this!

Bold Little Sun

oh but she is two years old everything and ever more rolled into one bold little sun

oh but she is four years old singing songs while she skips living life etched on Death’s blacklist Circe’s magic flows through her fingertips

oh but she is six years old

Shakespeare with a crayon, she can write riveting stories that awe her missives go straight to God

oh but she is eight years old

Cinderella with a choice, a capella she conducts life with a soprano voice Hell makes less noise

oh but she is ten years old smells of a fisherman’s world the world is her oyster but she’s busy mapping the way to the pearl

oh but she is twelve years old like a city at night with all the twinkling lights she effortlessly glows thinking about what color to paint her toes

oh but she is fourteen years old

Alice out of the rabbit hole, she patches the holes gathers her tells and tells them to go

oh but she is sixteen years old good like a daughter, somebody ought to have caught her at least by now she wonders why but mostly wonders how

oh but she is eighteen years old grieves what lies beyond her spirit stored in pictures, where she grins, all teeth but she thinks the little girl is gone

oh but she is many many years old she looks up the sky and knows in Winter the sun is farther but it’s not one bit less bold

STORIES

SCARY

FROM MY DIARY

I got out of bed today. It was my first time doing that this week. I don’t know what was special about today. It honestly felt like every other day to me; I could hear the same birds chirping outside of my window and see the same sun shining in. So why today?

Maybe

that’s a good sign, I tell myself.

That thing. The source of the pain in my chest that seemingly never leaves. The reason I feel the way I do now: like an empty shell. It’s not always like this though; sometimes I feel like the bright happy human I’m supposed to be. But when it gets bad, that weight comes crashing down on me and I lose my ability to breathe once again. Google told me I was dealing with a “traumatic” event. What an odd word. What an odd feeling. It sounds silly to Google your feelings, but the way I grew up, feelings weren’t a priority. It was always “get over it” or “stop

it’s a sign i’M getting closer to overcoMing “it.”

being sensitive.” As I grew older, I learned how to switch them off. It’s not the best coping mechanism, but it’s all I know. To me, dealing with emotions is another chore I desperately want to avoid. So naturally, I don’t enjoy feeling too much. Especially when it’s like this.

I asked Google how I could get rid of that feeling, the one that makes me feel like nothing else matters. The one that was forced onto me without permission. The big monster hiding under my bed in the dark. If I looked down there, what would I see?

Would he attack Me or just stare back?,

asking the same question I ask myself in the mirror. Why me? I question a lot of things that have happened since January, but it never quite seems to add up. I hate to take on the role of a victim, but the fact is I am. The predator was so close, but I didn’t realize it until it was too late. Now, my whole world has shifted. There’s nowhere for me to run to besides inside of my own head, nobody I can call because no one else will ever know. I didn’t do anything. I was just living. And yet, here I am, left to wonder why I was the unlucky one. Every time I try to find the answer, that feeling in my chest comes back. It starts to suffocate me and cloud my vision. In those moments, the only thing I want to do is run away and forget. Google told me that it was a panic attack. It’s funny how one moment can cause so much pain. It’s always different when you experience something instead of just hearing about it. It’s an odd

feeling to be battling your mind and the rest of the world at the same time. It’s even harder to try and call for help when your sense of trust has been broken. So for now, my notebook can be my companion because words can’t hurt me if they’re my own.

I’m not familiar with taking care of myself, mentally, at least. I’m not even sure why I’m writing this. I think I just wanted to know if it would help. Maybe typing it is the way I can call out to the monster. Maybe the monster isn’t as scary as he seems. Maybe, just maybe, the monster will hear this and come out. I want to tell him I’m not afraid anymore. To tell him that despite everything, I’m still here. I’m still a person. The monster can never take that away from me. If I tell myself this enough, I’ll start to believe it. I don’t want him around anymore. I don’t want that feeling in my chest. Maybe the monster isn’t even a monster at all. Perhaps, he’s not just one “thing”. He’s all of the emotions I hid away when I was too scared to dig deeper. Too scared to answer the question, “Are you okay?” because I didn’t want to know if I actually wasn’t. All of the things I desperately avoided. But in the end, nothing can stay hidden for too long. When I thought about him before, I used to think about my fear, and not wanting to be consumed by him. Now, the monster gives me hope. Hope that I’ll face him one day. Hope that in time, I’ll be able to breathe again. I’m still learning how. Did you know?

i got out of bed today.

A Fable for Yesterday

I. Quick Poison

There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example–where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. In the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

Spring came in September that year. I had gathered my mere sum of belongings and traveled to the Southern Hemisphere for a few months to New Zealand. Fields of rolling green hills and melting mountaintops were nearly an everyday sight. They call it the land of the long, white cloud.

It was true. What was supposed to feel like a short escape from my responsibilities at home turned into a series of prolonged conversations with the earth and the sea, all floating above my head in a cloud of unadulterated bliss. Of course, there were some days when the rain would fall and I wouldn’t stop to stare at the ripples within the puddles, but those were few and far between. I embarked on this journey to explore my alter ego, the scientist from within. I sought out nature as my teacher and planned to spend my days observing leaves and fish and bird nests. I had fallen in love with ecology from an early age, making

dirt pies and flower crowns until dusk. I felt drawn to dig my feet in the grass. Oh, the cool, slippery grass. It felt like butter between my toes.

On a brisk afternoon halfway through the spring season, my fellow budding ecologists and I traversed through a vast park of birch trees, which lay at the foot of the country’s southern mountain range. I was instructed to find a seat in the forest and simply observe the surrounding landscape. And so I did. I breathed in the cool forest air, stroked the mossy log at my feet, and exchanged greetings with the mountains peeking out from behind the gangly trees. While scribbling down a few notes, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a white object poking out from under a young sapling. Looking closer, I determined it was the skull of a stoat—one of the most despised creatures in New Zealand. This invasive weasel has a reputation of preying upon New Zealand’s beloved native birds, and by my reckoning, this little fella died from a pest trap sinking one clear bullet into its brain.

I brought the skull back to camp. It sat on the classroom windowsill for the remainder of our trip. Death is interesting, you see; it is quite peculiar that us humans intentionally kill to let other beings live. To pull the weeds of nature’s beasts and dispose of their remains as fertilizer for new life. That day, my mind grappled with the implications of these paradoxes. In bed, I stared into the bunk above me, silent and waiting for answers to appear.

II. Slow Death

Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death.

It was July, just over a year before my trans-Pacific voyage. And it was hot. Even for someone who has spent the majority of her lifetime under the California sun, Ann Arbor heat puts up a fight. That night’s Cheshire Cat moon cast a distorted array of reflected slivered smiles along the deepest parts of the Huron River. Little hiccups of moonbeams glimmered along the riparian vegetation and tickled my cheeks and forehead, which bobbed just above the water line. I wore a floral swimsuit, but my friends decided to submerge their bare bodies—seeking a deeper, purer connection with Mother Earth. The gentle waves felt refreshing on my overheated body. My neck ached from a fresh sunburn, and with every wading limb pushing farther from the docks, my body felt more at ease.

I had abstained from the psychedelic mushrooms my friends had eagerly consumed, and I listened in awe as they spoke of bright colors and synesthetic sensations. They jabbered on as I absorbed the night’s bold surroundings. Sneaking into parks after hours wasn’t a hallmark of mine, but it certainly felt invigorating.

During the day, I volunteered at the local watershed council. Wading through creeks and collecting water samples was tedious yet serene. I was warned of the dangerous chemicals and pathogens that brewed beneath my waist and scolded for not washing my hands after work. But the murky waters here didn’t scare me. Of course, there were still crayfish and smallmouth bass that startled me when they brushed my legs. And runoff and E. coli were only major issues after heavy storms..

Perhaps my passive demeanor was the true poison. Here I was, eager enough to devote my summer to water quality assessments, and yet I could not confront the fact that my body was just as suscep-

tible to the toxic substances that harmed countless species of flora and fauna. For someone who had sworn off the consumption of hard drugs, I was quick to agree to submerging myself in pools of perfluorooctanoic acid and algal blooms.

In high school, I learned of bioaccumulation and the alarming quantity of mercury amassing within fish. I immediately cut fish from my diet, as if that would get to the root of the issue. Even with the most granola of approaches I could find, the poison remained. Still in the degrading pipes of rustbelt cities, still in the breastmilk of new mothers, and still between the two halves of my lips. As someone who claims to be one with nature, I often think my own body is impermeable to the woes of our modern-day environmental catastrophe. My body may be a temple, but it’s slowly dying, and all I can do is wait.

III. Baby Killer

On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs – the litters were small and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit.

It was another July night. July 3rd, to be exact. The U.S. capital was illuminated by flashes of red, white, and blue. Rectangular swaths of patriotic fabric waved outside every other window. I was lying on my back when the condom broke.

His arm shook, pulling a piece of slippery latex out from inside me. He looked at my face with wide eyes. I felt glued to the bed, as if to move would somehow make the situation worse. Silence filled the room.

Twenty minutes later, we were at CVS. What do you call the morning-after pill when it’s only 10 PM and you’re not hungover and the sex was not a mistake? “I just need to call my mom,” I said, walking toward the motion-sensor sliding doors

as he paid for the magical pill and two pregnancy tests. He nodded. I could feel his concern bubbling underneath his worn plain tee.

I swallowed a hefty dose of hormones later that night and contemplated every inch of my body. I had just consumed death, eradicated what could have been. I had terminated a major question mark that continued to leave me wondering what my body was truly meant for. You see, I never wanted my own children, but I felt the primal urge to protect my progeny. I wanted to know my question mark child, even if in 48 hours it would be dead.*

I got my period two weeks later. Numb but relieved, I felt guilty that the poison was still inside me. Perhaps a large part of it is that I’m a firm believer in the idea that we hold all experiences within our flesh—past, present, and future. Like the scar from the time I slipped on pavement, the emergency contraception that battled my sex cells so my body would not perform the way it’s supposed to, and any other trauma I’ve yet to experience. All of it is inside me. I like the way my body carries things, but sometimes I feel heavy.

IV. Yesterday, and Other Odes

No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

The Beatles got it right: yesterday came suddenly. There was once a time when it seemed all life lived in harmony with its surroundings. Now toxins rise from beneath the soil and into the air that shrieks of neglect and unwanted particulate matter. 350 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide used to be the cutoff, but as of yesterday, we hold 417. Mother, oh, she cries. She weeps and howls, and we do nothing. Well, actually we do everything to hurt her, to let her suffer. And in return, we only add the gaping wound that torments our lives, too.

Mercy, mercy me. What was once abundant is

now stricken with lack. Floods and superstorms terrorize the seaboards, bulldozing street signs and picket fences until there is nothing left of ourselves. Yesterday is absent. Yesterday is bareboned.

Yesterday, but really several months ago, I looked up at the sky to see a pink moon. I saw it written and I saw it say, pink moon is on its way. It was fiery, almost scarlet, and it illuminated a ring of sky with softer raspberry clouds. From a country over and hundreds of miles of ocean away, I could see the reflections of Australian bushfires within the man in the moon. The moon, too, consumed the terror. The poison.

This year, spring came in March. I feel more poisoned than ever. Not simply by the broad-spectrum pesticides that still roam our earth, but by our own willingness to destroy. These lyrics that haunt my mind speak of grim tall tales that have become a reality. I am sorry, Rachel, that we did not listen. You spoke the truth of our twisted nation, and we have since only accelerated down the spiral. I put up a fight, but the woes of our world silence me some days. I lay in bed too tired to move. I face my impending doom, feeling more victimized than ever. Your silent spring speaks volumes, but are we really listening?

*Editor’s note: Emergency contraception does not terminate existing pregnancies but rather prevents fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus in the first place.

COVER

Art by Hayleigh Proskin

Bathroom Confessional

Art by Regina Egan

Feeling Feminine: flustered, fretful, fantastic

Art by Ariana Shaw

the magical solace of unloading the dishwasher

Art by Molly Gaffey

“Mommy Issues”

Art by Camden Treiber

Bestest Boy

Art by Calin Firlit

call waiting

Art by Jessica Burkle

Sleeping in your garden

Art by Regina Egan

an imperfect person’s guide to setting boundaries

Art by Jessica Burkle and i carry back home my parents’ dreams

Art by Jessica Burkle

Keep the conversation going!

whatthefmagazine.com

WhatTheFMagazine

WhatTheFMag

WhatTheFMag

manifesting my future

Art by Hayleigh Proskin

shame

Art by Feriel Presswalla

my grandmother and grief

Art by Jessica Burkle

a quick stream-of-consciousness admission

Art by Ariana Shaw

Why You Should Ask Out Your Crush Now

Art by Jessica Burkle

Bold Little Sun

Art by Hanna Smith

Scary Stories From My Diary

Art by Ariana Shaw

A Fable For Yesterday

Art by Jessica Burkle

Sponsored by:

funny fresh fierce feminist fuck!