Un-President-Ed: The Trauma of Trump

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by Courtney Udischas

In the weeks that followed the election, I felt I had stepped into the Twilight Zone. All of the colorful assurance I held about living in a time in history when a woman could hold the highest executive office in our country completely drained away. The worst part wasn’t that an unapologetic narcissist was in charge of decisions that would soon affect my life. The worst part was sitting with the knowledge that we proved to ourselves, and to the world, that our priorities haven’t changed much. A television personality, who mirrors the worst aspects of our culture, was a reality more possible than Hillary. The outcry from my generation was considered an overreaction from Trump supporters. The country shifted into a fugue state as we decided to roll the dice with this deeply flawed, dangerous person over a qualified diplomat.

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On Dick: How Materialism Caught Up With My Queer Life

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by Eric Mueller

I love Dick. It’s more than just looking at Dick on others. With Dick wrapped around me, I feel complete. Dick is what I call any piece of clothing I’ve ever worn, owned, or coveted. It’s my materialism, because a love so deep deserves a name. I didn’t know I liked Dick until Ian, an actual person, entered the picture.

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No Time for Apathy: Processing the 2016 Election

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by Rose Heredia

Hearing “This can’t be happening” and “Is this a nightmare” as I walked with my classmates to the bar Pig & Whistle on election night while others, like myself, walked along in silence, breathing meditative breaths, I thought how racist this country is. How do I even begin to live in this country with this man as president? I didn’t know and still don’t know how to answer that question.

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Fall 2016 Issue

Poetry

Emma Erickson

Joy Ladin

Caitlin Scarano

Scherezade Siobhan

Essays

Modern Love and the Trouble with Soulmates, by Melissa Brooks

Why Audrie and Daisy is Required Viewing in a Age of Slut Shaming and “Locker Room Talk”, by Courtney Morgan

Bad Mommy–a Flash Memoir, by Diana Odasso

Fiction

Layover, by Colter Ruland

Interviews

“There Is No Normal”: A Chat with Couples Therapist Jane Ryan on Sexuality and Relationships, by Ansley Clark

Recipes

Pico de Gallo

Other

Call for Submissions for Spring

Poems by Scherezade Siobhan

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by Scherezade Siobhan

De Sade’s Leeches – II

my dear, there is no art – to how a horse breaks – all thresholds are contrived to corrupt –
make what you will of thunder – under the flashlight, we are all – a provocation of insects –
spry economies, stubborn facts – decimals changing places – between wriggle & release
once rifled, combed, aborted  – the body is a museum for curating  – the threadbare
indignities of biology – the annais i carnage – the plinth i mock, because – we are sitting
ducks for a seismic jailbreak – my name splits the difference – between a sin and a crime –
diamonds on a leather strap – my name kinks your neck – a collar of fur – all kinesis, all
nausea –  trauma makes a dactylogram of my arms – a pupil of forensics – tutelary  fucks –
proof so evident, it is invisible – therefore,  i unmarry my psychosis – between the person &
the pill –  i brush the gun – guzzle the barrel – hazard the trapdoor – charcoal blackmails my
skin –  my desire is oil on canvas – fervent with a polished musculature – i conceal its
etiology, slip out the seedling – from under the stone, a hand – because the children here
have turned – to stone – the stone has turned to god – god has turned – thats all – god has
turned – to where there are no exits – just the dead grin – of a bedouin horse – stilllife & all
that

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Why Audrie & Daisy is Required Watching in a Culture of Slut Shaming and “Locker Room Talk”

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by Courtney Morgan

 TW: Sexual assault, rape culture, suicide

Last Friday, October 7, 2016, was a big day in the media for sexual assault. President Obama signed the historic Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill into law. The same day, Access Hollywood released tapes of presidential candidate, Donald Trump, in 2005 bragging about his propensity toward, and ability and history of committing acts of sexual assault against women. And I, that evening, just happened to watch Audrie & Daisy—the documentary (which premiered at Sundance and released on Netflix September 23), about the sexual assault cases of two American teenage girls, Audrie Potts and Daisy Coleman. This imbroglio of mixed messages sort of felt like an average day in America—but it also painted a pretty clear picture of what needs to change.Continue Reading

A Poem to Multiple Men–Poems by Caitlin Scarano

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by Caitlin Scarano

A Poem to Multiple Men

Who made and mended my wrists
of wire. Copper conductors of heat
and electricity. Think of the synaptic
dance, jaw loose daze as you bend
me over and peer inside. I keep you
around to witness the holes in me
I can never see. In the morning we part
wordless, mired mouths, semen on my chest,
the sun rapping against my window
like a chipper neighbor in need of sugar.
I learned the price of loving
a place more than a person: that’s how
I lost one. Were we ever happy? I wrote
and then stomped through each creekbed
between our bodies with kneehigh
galoshes. Most days I take a girl
for a mask. I hide my teeth behind
my hair and pretend to love snow. Give me
the boy with the belly of an ox, give me
one like a child’s tower of blocks
that I can knock down and rebuild
until the game tires of us. I hope you find
someone who loves you. I was never the girl
next door, I was the one cackling beneath
the radiator, bruising herself behind
the eyes. Chasing the moonsure,
the white dog, the man who left me
with a tongue of coal dust.
He’s really no different than the boy
I made into jigsaw and kissed in the rain
until one of us bled.

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“There Is No Normal”: A Chat with Couples Therapist Jane Ryan on Sexuality and Relationships

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Jane Ryan is a couples and family therapist based out of Tacoma, Washington. She is also my mom. I was lucky enough to not only grow up learning from her wisdom, but to also chat with her recently about her work with relationships, the myths about sexuality and sex addictions, and the unique and vulnerable nature of each individual’s erotic template.

Ansley Clark: How did you get involved with sex therapy? When did you first discover that this was a field you were interested in and passionate about?Continue Reading

Poems by Joy Ladin

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by Joy Ladin

II:6

You don’t get why I beg you
To tie my hands to the bed
And stuff my mouth

With something warm and white
Ripped from the fabric of life
By fingers you tighten around my neck.

You think it has something to do with guilt and pleasure,
Or the origin of tragedy
In the human need

To act out what we suffer,
Or maybe the simple bitchiness
Of forcing you to savor

A capacity for pain
Almost as bottomless as your desire
To hear my cries

As pleasure. Omniscience
Oblivious
To the obvious: as long as I

Am free to flee, I can’t fulfill your fantasy
Of making love
Out of mortal terror.

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Modern Love and the Trouble with Soulmates

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by Melissa Brooks

I was once a love-forlorn little girl. I harbored a seething desperation to grow up just so I could find my soulmate. It seemed nothing in life could ever possibly match the ecstasy of falling in love that I witnessed in songs, books, movies. In Disney’s Cinderella, I was captivated when our heroine and the prince first locked eyes and gravitated to one another immediately. Without a word they begin dancing, enchanted with one another and oblivious to the world around them, sharing a harmonious, telepathic duet: “So this is love. So this is what makes life divine. The key to all heaven is mine.”Continue Reading