FALL 2024
Table of Contents
Dearest Reader,
I believe that the art that stirs the soul and makes the comfortable uncomfortable is the art worth sharing. The avant-garde is a portal into one’s consciousness; it is a piece of honesty and beauty, a piece of one’s truest self. With this first issue, I wanted the voices of the experimental creatives, whether animator or musician, collagist or writer, to exist together. Presented before you is a harmonious narrative divided into a beginning, middle, and ending, each part with its own overarching theme—which are left up to the reader’s interpretation.
I must note that this issue wouldn’t have been possible without everyone who was involved and their hard work. Firstly, I want to thank Professor Rebecca Goodman. Thank you for your trust and enthusiasm. The resources and opportunities you have given myself and the journal are deeply appreciated.
To my team, you all are the spark of this journal. Founding executive board—Tyler, Shelly, Emily, Alexis, and Samantha—I deeply thank you all for your support and bringing this journal to life. Tyler, your guidance has been foundational for everything to run smoothly. Thank you for your wisdom. Many thanks to Shelly for taking my visions and building a whole world in the website design. You have created something so special. Emily, I couldn't ask for a better publicist. Alexis and Samantha, your attention to detail never fails to amaze me. Founding editors—there’s no other group I’d rather spend a 10 PM meeting with. I’m infinitely grateful for everyone giving it their all during our discussions and for adjusting to the chaos along the way. Your passion is infectious. Your creativity is wondrous.
Lastly, to everyone who submitted to us, thank you for the time and energy you have put into your creations. It has been a privilege to be entrusted with your work. This first issue is a reality thanks to all of you. You have shared with the world a piece of yourself, and those who will read this first issue of The Underground will undoubtedly be inspired.
See you around in the universe, this is just the beginning.
With gratitude,
Zoë Edeskuty
Editor-in-Chief
The Underground Experimental Art and Literary Journal
Reality Becoming Unreality
by Anika Yip
B3 f+ t w+ c(--) d(+) g++ k! s- e++ r+ q
by Kade Stockbridge
B3f+tw+
c(--)d(+)g
#++k!se-e#
#++r+qB#
######
3###f+
tw+#c(--)
d(+)g++k!s-e+
+r+qB3f+tw+c(--)d
(+)g++k!s-e++r+qB3f+tw
+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e++r+qB
3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e++
r+qB3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e
++r+qB3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e++
r+qB3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e++r+
qB3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e++r+q
B3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e
++r+qB3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g
++k!s-e++r+qB3f+tw+c
(--)d(+)g++k!s-e++r+qB
3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e
++r+qB3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g
++k!s-e++r+qB3f+tw+c(
—)d(+)g++k!s-e++r+qB
3f+tw+c(--)d(+)g++k!s-e
damned-sel
by Mikayla Maeshiro
I.
what a shame
maybe if she was
faster
stronger
better
(perhaps it was her fault)
the world would not be ending
she could avoid her fate
(she is just some doomed girl, after all)
XXVIII.
mushrooms grow out of her eye sockets
all that is left is
craters
calcium
carnage
just a bunch of chocolate syrup on the forest floor
(that is all she is worth, anyways)
an offering to a nonexistent deity
(a filling meal for every animal)
LX.
she is a
circus freak
slaughtered lamb
spectacle for the perverted
(have you seen this?)
her smile is warped on every wall
putty transformed to feed an endless frenzy
(well she was wearing-)
damaged irrevocably and irreversibly
DCCXCIX.
merely a museum artifact
destined to be a
lesson
warning
urban legend
consuming her even in death
(can people die twice?)
her name is stitched with pollution
(hand her a seam ripper, for god’s sake)
How do you find Passion, Intimacy and Relationship in LA?????
by Kade Stockbridge
How do you find Passion, Intimacy and Relationship in LA?????
(1996)
Bootjock
6’, 175
Buzzed Cut Blond
37 y/o with a .sig that screams
“you’re stuck up,
Superficial.”
“How big’s your dick?”
===American Prelude===
Like Chinese food
(an hour then I’m hungry again)
Los Angeles, I’m HIV+:
From my sweaty boots to
Butthole to armpits.
No party, only play.
WOOF!
Contributors
Anika Yip (she/her) is a sophomore Creative Writing major. She loves writing poetry, playing the guitar, and creating experimental short films. Her work has been published in Papercut, Calliope, and Ouroboros. You can find more of her art, poetry, and music @theglassyworld on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Aubrey Crasnick (she/her) is a freshman Writing for Film & TV major from Western Massachusetts whose worldliness is impressive to all people. She can be found at the nearest library DVD section to you.
CJ Prat (they/them) is a junior Guitar Performance major with minors in Leadership Studies and Film Music. They love to write music for film, guitar, and fun! They recently got into writing experimentally and are looking forward to pushing the boundaries of tonality further. You can follow their musical journey on Instagram: @cj.guitarr
Kade Stockbridge (he/him) is a Creative Writing major at Chapman University. Growing up queer in a rural enclave in Fresno, California, his work often contemplates the intersection of queerness, religiosity, and internet connectivity.
Lourdes Duque (she/her) is a senior Communication Studies major, English minor from Los Angeles. She has a love for writing and fiction, making this work a first publish. She wants people to know that there is no limit to what you can do, only the limits you place on yourself.
Margaret Elysia Garcia (she/her) is a first year student in Chapman University's MFA program.
Martin Nakell (he/him) is a poet/fictionlist/essayist; author of 18 (soon to be 20) books; he is Professor of Creative Writing at Chapman University.
Mikayla Maeshiro (she/her) is a junior creative writing student from Kaneohe, Oahu. Since childhood, she has always found joy in fiction writing. In summer of 2024, her poetry was published in Hawaii Pacific Review, which can be viewed at https://hawaiipacificreview.org/tag/mikayla-maeshiro/. Besides writing, she enjoys baking and playing Animal Crossing.
Sabrina ValldeRuten (she/her) is a Senior studying Business Management and minors in English from the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California. Her writing style tends to emulate be prose as she explores her artistic voice. Based in the Redwood Forest, Sabrina has always enjoyed the relationship between the fragility and complexity of life through nature.
Sage McCarty (she/her) is a junior at Chapman University who is pursuing a double major in Peace Studies and Political Science. She is a member of the University Honors Program, and she likes to write poetry. Her website for her writing and projects is smm-academic.neocities.org
Sanjay Shetty (he/him) is a senior Screenwriting major from San Diego. You can see more of his music at https://snaj.bandcamp.com
Selah Sanchez (she/her) is a sophomore Creative Writing major, and is a woman of few spoken words but far too many written ones. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Chapman's Speculative Fiction magazine, Ouroboros, and when she is not writing, she enjoys sleeping, reading, walking and contemplating rats.
Shelby Baldock is an award-winning filmmaker and editor living in Los Angeles, working for over 16 years in documentaries, music videos, film, and virtual reality. You can learn more at www.shelbybaldock.com
Sophia Vernon is an 19 year old student obsessed with the lived human experience and desperate to make just one more person feel seen. Her work explores what it means to be alive and centers around the complexities but necessities of growth and healing. She attempts to capture all of the poetic beauty of life into a limited language. She will fail.
Sydney Boone (they/them) is an MFA student in Creative Writing from North Mississippi. While chiefly a poet and essayist, they also enjoy experimenting with visual art. For more of their work, visit www.sydneyeboone.wordpress.com.
Tyler Edwards (he/him) is a writer from San Jose, California. He dreamed of being an author in elementary school and is now looking to actualize that dream. When he isn’t writing, he likes rock climbing, learning to cook new foods, and listening to audio dramas.
Xavier Peng (he/she) is a first-year Film & TV Production Major from southern China. She is a queer filmmaker, writer, photographer, and stylist of color. Influenced by literature, music, and directors like Xavier Dolan, Xavier employs visual metaphor, foreshadowing, and body language to covey emotions. His works focus on underrepresented groups and rebel against social norms.
Zoë Edeskuty (she/her) is a Creative Writing BFA student at Chapman University. She became the Editor-in-Chief of The Underground after a crow had looked into her soul and winked, instantly bestowing her the position. She is enraptured by the unusual and beautiful that is life, translating these inspirations into her writing. Previous publications include Calliope Fall '23 and Ouroborus Spring '24.
Zoe Luczaj (she/her) is a sophomore Film Production major from Orange County. She likes to use various mediums to capture the beauty within the weird and unusual. @mulberrygirlfriend on instagram
Special thank you to our teams of editors for helping curate and refine works:
Visual:
Shelly Netz
Veronica Lentz
Zoe Poyeton-Wolff
Nicola Rodriguez
Zoe Luczaj
Beck Schultheis
Written:
Zoë Edeskuty
Tyler Edwards
Anika Yip
Nicola Rodriguez
Hannah Van Der Kamp
Angie Barrios-Makepeace
Sophia Vernon
Britney Henderson
Sarah Hart
Taylor Love
Audio:
Zoë Edeskuty
CJ Prat
Taylor Love
Margin Intrusion
by Aubrey Crasnick
A Narcissistic-Consciousness Says Life Flies Before Your Eyes
by Tyler Edwards
our child
by Sydney Boone
Persistence of Indecision
by Shelby Baldock
"Persistence of Indecision" was created at the Toy Film Museum in Kyoto, where the history of rare Japanese 70-frame films is preserved. The film was hand-drawn and projected for the museum with a story of a loop of ideas and indecisiveness, buoyed by the never-ending clanking of the 100-year old hand cranked projector. The title is play on the phrase "persistence of vision," which is what makes us perceive motion in film. To take that idea just one step further, inspiration always feels like a neverending cycle of starts and stops, momentum and frustration.
recollections
by Anika Yip
i’m asking you now if you recall the creases
valleys in between your heart and mine
where you said let us drain the earth before it drains us
a need to last beyond our limit
defossilized in phantom passions
a legacy of aching
and if i spurned you when you leaned in halfway
and i didn’t close the distance
trapped in liquified walls of latenight earlymorning
stargazing from within
watching the hazy glow gather
in the sharp corners of the city
listening to the dull hum of cars led adrift
as they wander through the lifeless streets
a fabricated emulation of ghosts trapped in motion
staring up at stars
staying up at night wondering if it keeps you up knowing
you can never take back all the words you penned me
The Queen's Jubilee
by Xavier Peng
Bug Bite Gel
by Sophia Vernon
A half-empty tube of bug bite gel lays on my nightstand table. White bottle with glaring orange stripes, not much bigger than the palm of my hand. The cap opens quietly, I squeeze out a generous amount and shut it again with a defiant snap. Inside the liquid is clear, smelling vaguely of soap, or cleanness, or maybe laundry detergent. The tube itself is decorated with paragraph after paragraph, violently crammed and clashing into one another. Every fading word is printed in gray ink, Spanish sentences that read off measurements and ingredients. I cannot decipher them no matter how long I stare. I’ve never been that fluent anyway.
And I’ve never cared much what was in my medicine, so long as it keeps me better. Today I am particularly peeved, however, because the Mexican itch relief that my mother swore would restore my skin to peak condition is not working. I am itching all over. My skin is uncomfortably swelled, flea bites from head to toe, pulsating, taunting to be scratched at. Scratch them I do, they are bulging off my skin, with pink fleshy bodies and white pus-filled heads, my nails claw into them like I could catch the grinding itch and burst it between my fingers. I can feel and place every bite in my mind, like a map of tempting and ticking landmines, each marked with a dripping scarlet “x”. I wish I was better at controlling my urges. Modern medicine has nothing on human fixation, I only know what would make me feel better right now. Scratching. Ripping into my skin with the bare instincts of an animal, wild and free and destructive.
My aunt's house is infected, and the fleas, as well as her elderly cat, are the only creatures still living in it. The welts were acquired when I first visited, and made a glaring appearance about a day later. My left arm is more swollen than my right, after all, that was the arm I pet the cat with, she was bitter and annoyed at me, this is perhaps the karma she craved. Maybe these bites are a manifestation for a grief I cannot feel, following me home, blaring in my mind like they do upon my skin. Can it be a metaphor if it’s a real experience? I don’t remember the last conversation I had with my aunt, or if we ever had one in a language we both understood. That stings too. The medicine goes on top of the bites, wet and cold, slightly jarring at first and not at all comfortable. After a minute or ten it dries down to a flexible film, like an invisible bandaid. I could not tell you if it is the delicate film, being far less satisfying to destroy than my own skin, or the mysterious ingredients that makes me pause my rampage. Something about it makes me feel like I have some power. I have to accept that the experience is uncomfortable. I can only heal once I know that my scratching and my aching and frustration doesn’t fix the problem. I have to itch and choose not to scratch.
If I cannot do it by myself, then I can apply the liquid bandaid. I can do my best to rush a long and ancient process. Or I can take a long breath, taking my time and gathering all my willpower, and choose not to scratch.
gender
by CJ Prat
We invite you to play the music through the next section.
The Ocean and An Open Wound
by Sophia Vernon
We sit on the warmed sand
He hates it, I love the stuff.
Fingers not touching, only centimeters apart.
The air; humid and sweet, our bodies slick with it.
Smells like dirty seawater and uncomfortable silence.
He’s watching the water. He will not look at me.
I am hunching over a dry paper journal,
Writing with the hunger of a riled, wild creature,
Wearing a sunny-yellow striped bikini, I’m optimistic,
He always used to say that I’m the better half.
There's a scar down the length of my torso, branching to the bottom of my hip.
My Love is wearing a heavy sweater and long swim trunks,
His matching scar is hidden on the figure beneath.
The dark waves crash down with desperation, creeping closer and closer.
A lukewarm and mediocre breakup, if you could call it that.
As if we could ever.
It creeps out of him like a compulsion, a nauseous dream:
He asks me was the writing what you wanted?
I say, it was nice, and I tell him he looks godly in the sunlight.
He still won’t look at me.
I ask him, are we okay?
He says we should break up.
Okay.
The sting of saltiness is filling my lungs,
I am drowning on the sand.
Bikini still dry but there's fluid flooding my chest,
The scar on my side is aching,
And leaking ruddy secrets.
It is something of a frightening and delicate dream;
I know that I am bleeding, now,
And I cannot disguise it from him.
And underneath his clothes, stitches are ripping,
They never seal quite right.
We’re bleeding, Lover.
Bodies once fused together,
Split now and all untangled .
We stink of rust and sweat.
I’m worried this is what we will always be,
Scars that will not heal.
Enamored and infected.
Dissected and doomed.
Tearing at the seams.
Always together,
But not like before.
The ocean pounds in my head, the rays of the sun shrivel my skin,
We are decaying like shells on the beach,
Snapping, crushing, splitting, grinding, broken and breaking up.
The moment is quiet, the undertow is screaming.
My breath goes shallow, my Love’s clothes begin to soak,
We cannot hide from each other anymore. So we bridge the gap.
Stoic eyes finally meet mine, unapologetic,
Blue like the angry sea.
Blood pools beneath us, conjoining its union one final time:
We are not who, we are not what we once were.
And our body returns to the sand.
Gvrm
by Sanjay Shetty
We invite you to play the music through the next section.
This piece is a response to the emotion and content of James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room.
Unnamed
by Sabrina ValldeRuten
A dimension. Scattered across the plane of infinity is your essence. It is sprinkled about in an order I have yet to decipher. Like dust particles seen under the light as they escape my attempts to sweep them under the rug. On the days I am brave enough to attempt to understand them, I find I spend hours on end in your abyss. I float amongst them, and this imbalance sidetracks my desires.
You dance all around me and mock me as I writhe in your environment, your specs of enchantment just mere inches from my hands, my hips, my lips, and yet I cannot grasp it. And once I finally acquaint myself within these anti-gravity surroundings, your pull is nonexistent. Searching is futile, and yet I sink deeper.
I outstretch my arms and jerk them in towards myself in rapid motions in an attempt to guide some glittering essence towards me.
No touch, yet I am able to inspect further with my magnifying glass, ignorant of any resistance. I strain my neck till it twists in knots to see what lies beneath the surface.
Yes, I knew it; there’s more to it than what’s seen with the naked eye, as dust specks magnify into sparkling bright blue crystals. I feel myself ache, and yet I peer at you as many moments longer as you will allow, floating in an environment that not suits me, and proceed to find depth within the little crystals that have been floating beside me.
What’s that? A gravitational pull suddenly reveals itself, and I find myself falling through an abyss at a velocity I am too blinded and disoriented to determine. I wrap my arms around myself and cover my face from the pelting crystals. My hair whips at my face and air cuts into my skin; sharp blades of essence tear apart every part of me exposed in this universe.
And I am gone.
My skin is scratched, and my coat is ripped, but I am more or less unaffected. And I have gained nothing of value to show for my adventures apart from my torn-up outsides. I am more or less uninspected. You
have seen none of me, and I, all of you.
Mortal Coil
by Zoë Edeskuty
I see the rain fall and stain the serious buildings and
the pages on my red leather-bound notebook
The ink bleeds through the lined paper and
smudges my ideas and myself
I look up to see the pedestrians cross the street with their umbrellas,
safe from Heaven’s tears
The gutters flood with
dirty water and newspapers
I feel the melancholy of the faces passing by,
their glasses fogged by the rain
Working for sirens, plagued with illusion,
they stare at the ground
Brainwashed echos warping by, they are
Idiotic aliens, they are
I hear some laugh like the gutters
as they jump in the playgrounds of puddles downtown
They scowl at their reflections
Then stomp on their futures
The city is alive
I am alive
You are alive
Close your extraterrestrial umbrella and
feel the water drown your face
Stop walking and
see your reflection in the pooled cracks of the sidewalk
Turn your stupid papers into sailboats and voyage to
the naked truth
Throw to the winds your eyes and
listen to life’s crescendos poco a poco
Drink up the universe’s cosmic wine
Feel the antidote settle in and
become the frenzy you’ve only dreamed of
A gentle flower
by Sabrina ValldeRuten
The conception of life alone is specious | Tolerance for filth cannot exist spacious
In a garden Box, magnificent softened soil lays in its bed.
Fertilized and clean, dirt breaks in Gardner's hands which belongs to Box’s barren wasteland. For too long, Sun has cycled around and around Box,
watching, as Insects wiggle underneath to shelter themselves and build lives of their own. Welcomed, though not the life Box desires.
It waits, still, every afternoon as Sun has had its fun, setting to moments just like today, craving plantations, lives of it's own.
Cream-colored seeds smooth to the touch between delicate thumb and forefinger are individually placed with painstaking care, so each may lay correctly within its bed. “Lay there,”
Gardener sends to seed as thought travels with purpose
all the way down neck and length of arm.
From the purest wishes of mind
as Gardner tucks them away in the hearth of life.
Every pat onto the soil, a silent prayer they might be safe enough to grow one day. And then of course, one of the few consistencies of a twisted existence, Spring, brings their blossom.
Everyone is overjoyed. Box cradles that blossom, and Gardener waters her, and the insects, how they adore her.
How does one define purity?
Is it when the first sprout blindly peeks its way through the protective soil? Is it the way she first tastes that Sun on her vibrant photosynthetic stem and reaches for it more? Or perhaps, the way her fresh petals slowly uncurl from herself after learning about a new world she yearns to be a part of?
She peaks through Soil anyway, despite Insect's wishes-please stay underground where it is safe with them.
She tastes Sun anyway, though Box has warned her many times of how it taunted Box on lonely days before.
She uncurls from herself anyway, when Gardner encourages her so.
You are so beautiful.
You are so pretty.
You would look nice in a vase in my home.
You would smell wonderful stuck under my nose.
I would pick you right now if Sun wasn't always looking.
How dare they utter the association of his actions with such purity?
How dare they take it among themselves to massage soft petals between their fingers? How dare the oils from their hands taint and take and leave her petals battered? How dare I taint us all, separate Flower from Box from Sun from Insects from Gardner from Home from Story from Poem with that filthy existence?
Shots of pity are hurled at her by them and failed attempts at reassurance. Benefits and sympathy. “But you are still so beautiful."
"That never mattered."
Or maybe once it did.
But it certainly does not now.
Rage, injustice, a beauty lost only claims at someone's touch.
Can fingers alike not see that she is battered?
Is it not visible as every other flower looks the same?
She is ruined, she is broken, she is no more, and she never will be.
Why do you not believe me?
The Cave (English) - La Kaverno (Esperanto)
by Sage McCarty
Look down at the hallway,
See pitch-black and hear rumbling—
Find familiarity in its bright-red wires.
Don’t trail your eyes away
From icy, humid soil, in your fingers, crumbling—
How does it not reflect you, except it never tires?
Your toes twisting into its soil, singing, drilling,
You spun into its mouth, agape—
It formed around you, and you formed around it, but neither of you admires
The other. Mi havas espero,
Ke vi komprenos, ke vi kaj gxi ne
Devus acxeti kredojn, ke parolas la vortojn de Dio, kaj la vortojn nur de Dio:
“Mi estas unika.” Ne, vi kaj gxi ne estas unika, cxar vi kaj gxi estas unu; unu, de
La mondo, kaj kun la mondo: vi kaj gxi kaj mi estas la grundo sur viaj verspiedoj—
la tero, la sola tero.
English Translation:
Look down at the hallway,
See pitch-black and hear rumbling—
Find familiarity in its bright-red wires.
Don’t trail your eyes away
From icy, humid soil, in your fingers, crumbling—
How does it not reflect you, except it never tires?
Your toes twisting into its soil, singing, drilling,
You spun into its mouth, agape—
It formed around you, and you formed around it, but neither of you admires
The other. I have hope
That you will understand that you and it should not
Buy beliefs that speak the words of God, and the words only of God:
“I am unique.” No, you and it are not unique, because you and it are one; one, of
The world, and with the world: you and it and I are the soil on top of your feet—
the earth, the only earth.
Inferno of Impatience
by Mikayla Maeshiro
The front yard never looked so beautiful before.
I hear the floorboards cracking under the pressure of the flame's heat.
Every blade of grass is tucked into bed under a soft quilt of ice, so delicate.
The flames have not touched me yet in my bedroom.
Every animal is sleeping under a beautiful blanket of night.
I presume they are still burning what remains of the library upstairs.
What a beautiful sight to see, so calm, so preserved.
Those old books lit up a little too easily, not how I expected.
What a coincidence, the moon is the same shade as the snow.
It seems the flames have reached my father, I've never heard him scream before.
How many times I've woken up to snow as a child and never noticed before?
Was it a surprise for my mother to wake up surrounded by the screaming flames?
This is a type of beauty only heard about in fairy tales.
This is always our destiny, to burn together.
What a honor to witness true perfection.
My parents drowned me in gasoline, how could I not light a match?
It’s starting to snow again.
No, it’s my ash.
It disintegrates the fragility of the ice.
The joy I feel of finally making the prison called home look as awful as it felt consumes me whole.
Funeral Ribs
by Zoe Luczaj
Letter from Bunker
by Martin Nakell
Rorschach
by Selah Sanchez
This Fat City
by Margaret Elysia Garcia
This Fat City: A Memoir
My city is full of fat ghosts with thin dreams. This is not the land of once upon a time. This is the land of always and now.
My city sets its alarm to get up early enough to go lap swimming with elderly wrinkled men who talk up silent Adonis lifeguards at the Y. If my city swims for thirty minutes every other morning it can labor in a cubicle for four hours till a lunch time. Brown green smoothie; the algae of lunches. My city walks around the block; then sits for six more hours and can feel its ass expanding in the office chair.
My city is a library full of how to change your life in 10 easy steps .The pounds will shed away like tears. Books are covered under the weight of dust. Dust is made out of dead skin. Measure our loss in millimeters.
I got lost in this city.
I got lost in this city.
I got lost in this city.
In this city all things are counted. Calories. Glasses of water. Good girls drink all their water. Good girls suck it in. Good girls watched as their grandmothers got dressed for work. Grandma girdles. Ugh, she says. Beautiful and unable to bend over now. She is as smooth as a skyscraper. She draws eyebrows on. Absolutely glamorous. I drank in her rituals like glasses of water. Cut her out of that binding cloth. Free her. Relax her. No. She never wants to leave.
You can be too much for this city. There are all kinds of policing of this city. Self-policing. Mission: protect and serve. Though you’ve never been protected but you have been served up on platters of dishes you cannot eat in public. Someone somewhere whispers why is she eating that? Doesn’t she know she’s fat? In this city, only the thin can eat cheeseburgers and ice cream in public. The rest of us metaphors for what’s wrong with America. America: the fattest city of them all.
In this city I once heard that my hips are child-bearing, shelves for children to sit. Push all those doors wide open with wide ass hips.
Women write about these cities all the time. There’s nothing new in these cities. My city has the same chain stores as yours. You can see my story all the way up Broadway. Broad. Way. Only there are parkways here. They’re even wider and you don’t have to know how to parallel park. There’s no need to squeeze in here. You can hide behind stucco castle walls.
My city makes it uncomfortable to lie down, like pigeon spikes atop buildings. There are no squatters here, just squats. Use the back of the couch as a ballet barre. Hear our knees pop. Doctors disembodied voices in early morning ears. Wanna end up like your mother? Like your ex-love, flat and seizured on the floor? You are a preventable disease and they have prevented me from so much. Eat that carb and see what happens to you. I dare you.
I have been found in this city.
Found and tormented in this city.
In this city a friend drank wine lay blacked out on the floor; someone called the ambulance and the paramedics heave ho, heave ho count of one-two-three dumped her on the gurney, dislocated shoulder. She had wasted their resources, being fat like that. She awoke in that hospital bed with no feeling in her shoulder, elbow, hands, fingers. The fat chick feels no pain.
In this city, a friend died. I stood in her kitchen, taking the vitamix to green juice a future to save her, to save myself. She laughed and ate mint chip ice cream from a cereal bowl. She finally lost the 60 pounds which had clung to her all these years. Cancer to get her socially acceptable thin.
My city is both her ghost and mine. You look great. What’s your secret? That time I was thin haunts me.
I got lost in that city.
I got lost in that city.
I got—
In that city the secrets to my success were: death and divorce; delirium and derision: a diet plan. Connect the dots calorie count. It could be argued that my city fell apart. Walls come tumbling down. Sacked. Sieged. And now you want to reward me for my thinness. Put your hands where I can see them. Hand over the reward .
My city is branded, spanx’d and spandexed.
Does this city make me look fat?
Does this mirror? Can we talk about anything else? Something else? Something free like a bird. Fat free. Gluten free. My city is full of gluttons and hedonists being hunted down by an emaciated dominatrix who will not relent and will show no mercy.
My safety words are ‘air’ and ‘water.’ They are but small comfort to me now.
My city doesn’t need your redemption. My city did not learn its lesson. My city does not love itself. My city isn’t a feel good story and it doesn’t feel very good at this size but is quiet about it because body positive warriors will hear my city’s lone wail and turn on her. My city is grand theft auto, and all of her is jumping out at the screen.
There is always more of my city to love. My city’s champions love curves they say, love them. Her benefactors can only see her flesh and they ignore her heart and soul.
My city has such a beautiful face. It’s such a shame.
My city has always been unfaithful to me.
Tourists say I don’t mind a bigger city, but you know, not everyone wouldn’t.
My city dreams of being a hamlet with no buildings to compare herself to.
My city will be eminent domained. She cannot stop the bulldozers. She should have thought of that before she let herself go. They will remake this city. It’s sitting on a potential gold mine. The gentrification can only get them so far. You can fix her teeth and buy her new furnishings.
My city has a goal skirt on that top closet shelf. My city would never have guessed she’d become so big. My city has zoning issues. My city is the cornerstone. The back break. My city cracks its sidewalks.
My city goes to its grave.
I have been found in this city over and over again. Despite all the rain,
My city will drink all its rivers dry –
and piss away its progress.
bang, boom
by Lourdes Duque
BANG
The walls tumble down and,
BANG
The society we tried so hard to build is trembling away with the debris.
BOOM
Life is lost.
BOOM
Humanity is grave.
BANG
Machines, terrible machines from the technical gods have forsaken this Earth, BANG
And what is the point of living on? Of continuing within this dystopia?
BAM
Another wall collapses.
CRACK
Another bulldozer of death has steamrolled its way into this humble abode.
silence
For the first time since the war began, there is silence. Something we have hoped for, begged on our hands and knees for. And yet, there is no victory within this silence. Sounds of destruction were what we became used to, but before there were sounds of life.
SPLASH
The sound of children playing in the water. Now contaminated water.
JINGLE
Numerous wind chimes, locally made by our people. Now shattered along the floor. BUZZ
If it were people mingling, vehicles moving by, there was always a buzz. Was. Life. Such a foreign taste on my tongue. Because as I watch the too still bodies I once knew strewn all over the floor, life truly is foreign.
The land reeks of waste.
The land reeks of evil.
A weapon of destruction lies near a soldier. It whispers its siren song to me — deadly and swift, thoughts that scrape at my beliefs. There is a
CREAK
in the distance. Just ahead of me. The familiar gray uniform, the one that spikes my blood to a boil, sharpens my sight. With a trembling hand, I fall for the siren’s call. Its heaviness weighs in my arms and I can feel the blood forming onto my hands. As if a transfer of the guilt has been bestowed onto my own conscience.
GROAN
A whisper on my lips, afraid to spook my target. He’s dipped down now, a peek to the fallen comrade in front of him. He kneels and the scope is aimed for his head. The quake of my body makes the steadiness the hardest part. So I kneel.
CRUNCH
I kneel into the decaying parts of my fallen brothers and sisters. But now, I am perfectly in sight. Hesitancy. That’s this feeling. I fight back my sob — the noise that would signal regret. There is no regret here. There never will be. He takes off his ribbon of loyalty to a cause that wiped away my people and lays it on his fallen comrade.
CLICK
His broken gaze slowly moves to stare me dead in the eye through the scope. And there are tears.
BANG
The shot was heard around the world. The sound of my humanity dying.
THUD
The sound of his lifeless body falling to the floor. Then…
silence
That empty feeling washes over me and there is no victory in this silence once again.