insertlit mag here

INVISIBLE WARSissue six//november 2014

from your guest editor

When Julia asked me to come up with the theme, I immediate-ly thought of “Invisible Wars”. In my government class, we were talking about how the media tends to cover stories with the big-gest “shock value”, the ones with violence, fear, and deaths. They don’t always talk about the the lives lost to depression, eating disorders, addictions, or the souls lost to internal struggles. Every day, we fight against society’s expectations, and we fight internal battles within ourselves. I wanted to capture the battles we don’t hear about as often, the ones that don’t make it in the news or our history textbooks.

It was such a pleasure working with Julia and being able to read poetry from such wonderful poets.

-Van Nguyen (http://angryasianfeminist.tumblr.com/)

this issue is full of work on the

theme of invisible wars. it's work that

shares personal struggle and inner

confLict.

Do you love this magazine? help keep

us going and listen to us speak by

downloading our compilation album at

chippedtoothpress.bandcamp.com

the cover art of this issue is by

garrett brickell.

Our Literary editor is Julia Alexander

Our Art Editor is Kayla Savage

when i imagined what i would be like when i grew up i thought ofthe sea. i wanted to be gigantic--i wanted to be everything. i wanted toconsume whatever i was poured into and i wanted to ingest everyonewho told me ‘no’. i wanted to be the ocean blue. but things don’t alwaysturn out like you imagine them when you’re small, ya know? tell me whereit hurts he said and i tore off the skin around my chest to show my woundedbeating heart. here. it hurts here. he took my heart, furrowing his brows and quicklydropped it on his desk. looks like you’ve got a case of bipolar disorder. sinking. all i remember is sinking--sinking into a deep pit of quicksand and nevercoming out to see the sun or the clouds or the sky or the moon. nothing.everything turned into nothing soon after that. you’re onthe wrong medication for bipolar disorder. ok. you’re not livingthe right life for bipolar disorder--ok, like, look, can you stop saying itlike cancer? like it’s gonna ruin my life? it’s not. i will get through thiscloud. i will dig myself out of this hole i’ve fallen in. i will not drown inthe sea i wanted to be. like, look, sometimes i’m gonna erode the landaround me and sometimes there’s gonna be a drought and maybe evenan oil spill but i will not let myself be any less than what i’m meant to be.i will devour you in a riptide if you tell me that bipolar disorder will hindermy chances of being loved, of being successful. yes, it will be tough, butwhoever said that the ocean lived an easy life anyway?

i am not doomed

Andrea McEntire

Andrea McEntire is a 19 year old living in a horrid town in Washington state. She fills the void in her life with words. She would love to move to Seattle or somewhere big someday with the one who holds her heart and a corgi. Andrea also has a writing blog, and posts when she feels like it (which is often): thesaltwithinyourskin.tumblr.com.

We rip East across the dirty face of townLike muddy raindrops hurtling across a rainy windshield.Speeding to our crack-of-dawn-jobs Sleepy eyed, and the first ones to arrive early.We repeat the same dayTo the point of exhaustion Deliberate and delusional While the whole town dreams We swerve and nearly collide Into each other every morning,Risking our legs and arms Before we ricochet into flaming ropesDriving back home across town Speeding under the blanketing darkness licking at our heels.

Road Warriors

Sonia Lopez is a 7th grade English Teacher in Houston,Texas. Born and raised in Houston, Sonia lives with her two rescue dogs Charlie and Little Peach.

Sonia Lopez

I’ve downed a bottlein less than halfa minute, thinking thatif I get to the bottomof it I will find my answersas quickly as I swallowedmy inhibitions and pridebut while drowningmy sadness in alcohol,I’ve drowned myself first.

I woke up with a headachesplitting as schizophreniameets multiple personality,shot glasses still lined uplike elliptical ellipsesrunning on run-on sentencesglass stains from lipspronounced with questionsand half-empty answers toWhy? and What now?

But I am still thirstingso I drank like a fishout of fresh water,never gasping for air,and each of my tentacles

Thirstingmark dimaisip

reached for a solutionpoured them over my head,my neck and my shoulderswhere gills came trueslugging the make-believe.

Mark, 29, is from the Philippines. He is an HR Professional and a graduate of Ateneo de Manila University. When he is not conducting workshop, managing organizational change or designing communication plans, he scribbles what he calls poetry.

1-200 milesThe last time you kissed me,sunshine was honey and milk on our necks.You told me you loved me more thantiger lilies and lemon water and August breeze.The last time you kissed me,we did not cry.201-400 milesWhen I think of you, I imagine my head against your chest,records spinning softly betweenforehead kisses and the coos of midnight doves.The songs are getting softer,but I remember the dull thumpingof your heartbeat.401-600 milesBetween sheets, you told memy forest fire eyesset you howling at the moon.24 nights of new moon,and you told me that what you miss mostis the feel of my skin.601-800 milesWhen I look to the stars for their solace,I am reminded that their lightis only a memory from a silent time.When I told you you had stars in your eyes,I didn’t mean I wanted you gone.

A poem for every 200 miles

between my chest and yoursKeely M. Shinners

801-1,000 milesSometimes I feel waves in my belly,twenty-foot thrusts of waterthat shock me into silence.I always think of you, then.You never let me drown.1,001-1,200 milesIt is 4:08 am and I am drunkin longing for your touch.Would Eve have swallowedthe forbidden fruitif she had to drive 31 hoursto taste it?1,201-1,400 milesI am holding my own handand trying to remember the feel of yours.My bones are breakingsearching for where you used to be.1,401-1,600 milesThere are bruises on the placeswhere your hands used to fall.When will you return to heal me?1,601-1,800 milesI am growing tired of these sad love songs.1,801-2,000 milesWhere is home?2,000-2,018 milesThe last time you kissed me,we did not cry,but there is no rainthat can calma shattering.Keely Shinners is a writer/poet based in Claremont, California. Her work can be found in [in]Visible Magazine and Insert Lit Mag Here. Contact keelyshinners@gmail.com for more information.

Double VIsion

Ellen Hao

moon-dust shudders under pillowed feetand they are swimming in a sea of starspale blue dot behind themgalaxies in frontnever looking backenveloped in a universe unknown

my mom sits at the couchand dad walks the dogs every three hourssuburbia slinking into the slopes of loose shouldersbit by bit, the sun takes back its mortgaged lightuntil they are just two shadows sittingin the rays of another sunday afternoon

the truth is that space is full of soundblasting symphonies and bone-thrumming rhythmsthe hurtling screams of forgotten shuttles plungingthrough a black nightthe glitter of tinkling asteroidslike raindrops hitting windowpanesand the howling of bereft planetsabandoned by lost suns

my dad forgets how to say the word astronautthe english tangles his tongue, hides behind his teethI can see the words peeling off of himand leaving for the sky

Ellen Hao is currently studying her last year of high school in Hong Kong. She’s not that into long walks on the beach but can understand why other people dig it.

the secret is that you can learn how to hear spacethe catch is that once you leave, it’s gone,left, in the hollow cavern of a soundless space

my mother has vertigoswears that sometimes the room tilts, drops, latches onto the horizon and lets her free-fallI can see her now:weightlessplunging through cold metal shellsthrusting past glittering dialspale fires in twin eyes

the carpet sleeps under slippered feetand the air settles as the sun sinksbut sometimeswhen the wind blows just soand the light catches just rightI can see the dustin their smilesand the starsin their eyes

I got my heels and Jesus and no one elseI breathe flecking fire and bruised dragon pelts,Under she stands, she is I, Under the mosaics crass glass, Cutand sharpened like rainbow dyeNon Earthy delights, my Lord! I standI stand under this shine of montage,Of medley, of mixture, of muse, Of man-tage, Of mating lightIn the silvered walls of this holy buildings blight, The mosaics on me and over me and in me, The fuchsia, the mulberry, the tyrian castLike a dream on me from the sun of the pastIn that divine and achy assortment, the nine ashesOf Kulshedra threw a thunderstorm into the SpringSky, a helluva bling up to the bulls eye, up Lost in Hollywood, The Opera hood, I’d withstoodIn Santa Monica, In Victoria, awaiting the fall of I,And now here I, I stand in the holy wait, waiting for age and wrinklesWith little to amuse and move me but the twinklesOf the soul candles and Western sunset souvenirsThat shout, “come on Cowboy and light the fire”Just gotta light a fire against my Hollywood Boulevard and the loomy loneliness will leave me.I stand, alone, like a juggernaut in heels losing oxygen Dressed as a nun from lesbian and gun pornography

Heels and Jesus

rachael McGowan

Like a film noir flick flicking at something not the film,Well the mosaics over me asserts meOf sin and washes me, tooI stand on the pulpit with nothing to do, Hopingfor a bulky bullet so I can start a newThis handsome heaven within Kulshedra’s wingIs glamorous, the most gorgeous thing, but,My crimes have me alone in this podium, butI have my heels and Jesus and surely that’s all I need.

Rachael is an aspiring writer from England, when she is trying to not make ends meet or is on a couch crawl she often sits down to write.

Behind hastily locked doors (we are the)shedding useless fluids (strongest souls)beneath tangled bedsheets (bearing the)suffocating in security (weakest hearts)

Quietly

Garrett Brickell is a budding artist from Montana. He listens to a lot of music and makes a lot of things. Sometimes he posts these things here: boringecstasy.tumblr.com

Garrett Brickell

Three shots were fired.

The world was interrupted

as it turned.

In downtown Dallas.

Roses of crimson red

were pushed aside

to make room

for pieces

that

would

shatter.

More details have just arrived...

Explosion.Commotion.Emotion.

FlashMiranda Roehler

The wounds...could be fatal.

Bloodstains on pink Chanel.

The flash...

a man

At 1 PM...

became a legend.

Miranda Roehler is a senior undergraduate student studying Creative Writing and History at The University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio. At The University of Findlay Mi-randa serves as the prose editor for the university’s national literary magazine Slip-pery Elm. Miranda’s poetry has been published in print in The University of Findlay’s campus-wide literary magazine From the Writers’ Kitchen.

Sunday July 28th 2013 1:41am

"I Am a Cancerous Nothing"

brian StraussI am Nothing Have done nothing Love nothingThat’s a lie,

Because I’ve been in love all my life.

I am infectiousnessLingering about the soleSpiritual sores adorning the soulSorely missing the pointNever feigning so,Only mellowing in barrels brimmed with ignorance.

Annoying ignoranceChildlike temperament.

Ohgod, how I would kill to

That’s not right is it,So why do it?

It’s not as if

All I ever wanted was to be aStop talking.

You must really like to hear yourself speak.Stop talking,

You club meStalking top.

I am a foolish man,To have thought otherwise.

But she a foolish woman,

For some reason I can’t think of,

I am dead.

Brian Strauss is a poet interested in exploring the emotional spatiality of poetry through the use of aesthetic narrative and metamodernist tendencies. His poetry is steeped in sincerity and detachment, oscillating wildly between the notion of self and implied author.

Because your cuntcompels uswe will spillrivers of blood and spunkto paint your image in sickness and spasm

Because your cuntcompels uswe will bendourselves into a sculptureof meat and defeatas a concrete panegyric

Because your cuntcompels uswe will composegreat songs and storiesof hunger and frenzyto beseech your blessing

We have the powerAll the powerExcept over thismomentous cuntandthis one imperfectionis driving us mad

limits of the patriarchyMax Mundan

Max Mundan is the alter ego of poet/provocateur David Rutter . Or is it the other way around? Max Mundan is far from certain. He has been published in a slew of magazines and literary journals, including The Metric, Vagabonds, Dressing Room Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review, the Stone Path Review, Agave, Typehouse Magazine and the Los Angeles Times, to name but a few. He operates popular websites at maxmundan.com and maxmundan.tumblr.com.

Because your cuntcompels uswe will browbeatyou into submissionand subjugate youto our inadequacy

Keep regrets in your pockets. (Mouth is numb.)Finally forgive the stars.(Heart is full.)Never roll down your sleeves.(Breathe it in.)

Forgiveness

Garrett Brickell is a budding artist from Montana. He listens to a lot of music and makes a lot of things. Sometimes he posts these things here: boringecstasy.tumblr.com

Garrett Brickell

My eyes search the stars for answers to questions I never asked,Yet I grasped with reflexes in this, a moment,Filled in blinding arrays of unfamiliar sights and sounds,In an all too familiar place and time I had waved goodbye to.Not a tear shed in the absence of days now past, yet the lingering silence of an empty day, grows staleIn the face of millions too far to reach but close enough to see,Coming and going,Waiting for an arrival, of reason to grace my presence.Its embrace I welcomed,Welcomed that which I now realize I had searched for with sight but naught thought,As I forgot in a lapse of movement, when stopped by, in truth,Nothing but the cell I left myself within.Keyless and clueless of where I stood, when where I stand is ex-actly where I should,When and while I am here, existing.

WanderingMichael J. Duross

This writer lives in America. He enjoys short walks and the snow. If you’d like to read more of his work, visit: mike-writer.tumblr.com

remember the night that i drank three bottlesof cheap white wine all by myselfduring the floodsthat ravaged brisbane for a week

you tried to call me like ten timesstuck on the other side of the riverwhile i had passed outoblivious to everything

and when i woke up the next morningsore and sorryi saw your messagesand for the first time realised

that you loved me

Bianca Martin is a writer and musician living in Melbourne, Australia. She plays in a feminist punk band and curates Miniatures Zine. She tweets @beeeeonka and blogs at oldcarsdontgoveryfast.tumblr.com

Bianca MartinChardonnay

A woman knows the color redbetter than an astronomer knows Orion’s belt.Red is the first color a woman knows—her first glimpse of life is the crimson shelter of her mother’s womb.Red is the last color a woman sees—her heartstrings unravel in glorious shades of scarlet behind her tired eyes.There is red cascading from a woman’s thighs,red in a ring of fire around a woman’s eye,red in the roses blooming on a woman’s cheeksas she works her bronzing hands in the hot sun.There is red on the naked woman’s typewriterand red in the sand between the artist woman’s toes.Whether in acrylic paint or in warrior’s blood,red gleams triumphantly on a woman’s fingernails.Still, after thousands of years ofa woman’s savage war, a woman’s ferocious disease,men with no faces tried to soften the woman’s legs.They gave her corsets to tighten, gave her casseroles to cook,and, worst of all, tried to paint her red hands over with white.They splattered carnation all over her crimson heartand wrapped her daughter’s blood-soaked body in rosy satin.The painted her walls and her lips and the curve of her hipswith the softness they expected from underneath her tongue.Centuries of strong women drenched in pomegranate juiceand they told woman that her color was pink.Women, reclaim the red pulsing through your veins—

redKeely M. Shinners

wear it proudly beneath your knowing eyes,paint it in blood over your doorways,smear it across your loud lips,pour it unashamedly from between your legs,howl its words to the full, orange face of the harvest moon.Paint the sunset with the sanguine nectar of your arteries.Never let them forget the color of your blood.

Keely Shinners is a writer/poet based in Claremont, California. Her work can be found in [in]Visible Magazine and Insert Lit Mag Here. Contact keelyshinners@gmail.com for more information.

Garrett Brickell drawing

feeling

Driveways, tire swingsdead trees, fresh paintsmoke rings & skinny jeansash marks & bleach stainspoor talk, poor thoughtslong faces, long yearsthe people & placesthe fears & the shitthat clogs up your throat.

nostalgia-ingGarrett Brickell

Garrett Brickell is a budding artist from Montana. He listens to a lot of music and makes a lot of things. Sometimes he posts these things here: boringecstasy.tumblr.com

If you hold me,I will sift throughyour fingers.

If you let me be,I will drift awayto the sun.

I am falling.I am falling.But not for you.

h2omark dimaisip

Mark, 29, is from the Philippines. He is an HR Professional and a graduate of Ateneo de Manila University. When he is not conducting workshop, managing organizational change or designing communication plans, he scribbles what he calls poetry.

ScaredGrace Tallmadge

The scariest thing about anorexiaIs not the look.It is not shoulder blades jutting out, knivesthat could slice meatIt is not xylophone ribs, doorknob elbowsIt is not teeth going softLips cracked like a wine glass and skinAwash-and-pockmarked with self-hatredIt is not rosy scars on reedy wristsOr flower-stem thighs, growing so far apartYou can see the galaxies in between them;It is not empty eyes, deer in dim headlightsWatching the life in the mirror fadeAnd wishing it would just go faster.

The scariest thing about anorexiaIs not the feel, The aching cold that permeates your hipsAnd dances on your flesh,It is not the wrathful tears That pour from every orificeAt midnight or noonOr when the sun refuses to rise again –It is not the voice That sometimes sings, sometimes whispers,Always screamsYOU’RE NOTHINGIt is not the fear, the shaking, bone-crunching rocks in your mouthI’ll have an iced water, pleaseThe way your friends blink at you,

“You gonna eat that?”It is not the absence of hungerThat sits like lead in your stomach,It is not the absence of colorThat filters through your every word You’re nothingIt is not the crippling, gasping, head-over-porcelain panicThat someone knows you’re uglyWhen nobody thinks to tell you

That the person is yourself —

You’re nothing —

It is not the lossOf your bloodstains, your white-knuckle fight, your brokenness and hopeSo you just smile, I’m fineBut you’re nothingIt is not the shivering in your own bedroomOr the sink overflowing with all thoughts you can’t hold backOr the hair detaching itself from you,Escaping from the body that you can’t andSwimming down the shower drain,It is not the words cut into your skin and written on your cheek-bonesNothing — and that’s all you want to be,Disappear when you turn sidewaysNothingIt is not the way your mother’s voice slipsAs she flings cans of pasta sauce at youAnd cries after you slam the door;It is not the way your father never laughs,Or the way your sister edges around you, fingertip-to-fingertipLike if she touches you, you’ll breakIt is not feeling like you are already breaking every damn second

And just holding yourself togetherWith a gorgeous fucking lieYou’re nothingIt is not losing everythingThat used to make your life yours,The boy who listened to you sing and kissed your forehead at promThe friends who trusted you with eyelash wishesThe family who never had a reason not to trust you –Now it is only the strangers who tell youThey wish they were as thin as youAnd you just bang your head against the shower doorScreaming “no, no, no, I take it backI take it back”But you can’t go backBecause you’re lovely now, it’s better nowYou’re nothingYOU’RE NOTHING

YOU’RE NOTHING

No.

The scariest thing about anorexiaIs standing in the kitchen,Two years cleanTwo years freeWith an orange in your hand,Thinking,It would be so easyTo do it all again.

Grace Tallmadge is a seventeen-year-old aspiring writer from Milwaukee, WI. She likes long baths, caramel lattes, and gender equality.

Ellen Hao is currently studying her last year of high school in Hong Kong. She’s not that into long walks on the beach but can understand why other people dig it.

it is 10:31pm and i am ready for bedsomewhere in central a girl is washingtear gas out of her friend’s eyes andkenneth hasn’t moved for 4 hourshe is stuck where the gas first bloomedand the tears first choked but thereis the silence of a photo balancedbetween bun the cutest dog anda beluga smiling behind the glassscreen someone has been shotthey have been shot the rubberleaves scars its signature itsmark a circle of police around a circle of students around a treeeyes balanced on blue collarswatching a girl take a pissthe road is rumbling andclouds are bursting from theground billowing out into nightskies swarming through menand encircling lovers she is justtrying to see his face tryingto get him to look her in the eyes‘look at me’ she says ‘stare medown before you shoot me down’and then — red, red, redit is 10:31pm and i am ready for bed

someone has placed tears in their eyesEllen hao

You are a statistic. Everybody is. Exactly.How many days have you lived? 10,332 days.Of those, how many have you truly lived?

How many times have you loved?Including family and friends? 20? 50? I never counted.How could you not count the people you love?

How big is your world? What do you mean?Same as yours. We live in the same universe.I meant your world. How big is it?

A soul weighs 21 grams. That was discredited.A soul should weigh more than that.In that case, what is the weight of your soul?

What is your number? I don’t understand.Everybody has one. I don’t want to be quantified.You are a statistic. Everybody is. Exactly.

Conversations with a

Mathematicianmark dimaisip

Mark, 29, is from the Philippines. He is an HR Professional and a graduate of Ateneo de Manila University. When he is not conducting workshop, managing organizational change or designing communication plans, he scribbles what he calls poetry.

You are fifteen and the world has never lied to you. Your body is filled with blooming promises and you expect the sun to rise every morning whether he is tired or not.

When your older cousin asks you to come to Montauk for the weekend, you say, “Yes.”

When the New Jersey woman at the cash register asks if you real-ly want a dress so short, you say, “Yes.”

When a tall man with an Ares bicep tattoo asks if you are twenty-one, you say, “Yes.”

When the bartender asks if you would like another round of Schlitz, you say, “Yes.”

When a businessman with fighter hands and hurricane eyes asks you if you would like to dance, you say, “Yes.”

When the night is wrinkling and the driver asks if you would like to go home, you say, “Yes.”

When crisp, moonlit bedsheets whisper their dreamy oaths to your headaching ears, you say, “Yes.”

But fighter hands and hurricane grab you by the hair like pulling tiger lilies from their flower beds.He says, “You came here to see me.” You try to say no.He says, “You wore that short dress for me.” You try to say no.He says, “You lied about your age to impress me.” You try to say no.

N.Keely M. Shinners

He says, “You got drunk for me.” You try to say no.He says, “You danced with me, you came home to me, you slept in my bed. You owe me.” You try to say no, no, no, I owe you nothing,

but you are fifteen and the world has, in fact, lied to you over and over since the day you were born, cutting the tendons of your tongue since they wrapped your dirty, crying body in rose and satin.

No one ever taught you how to say no.

Keely Shinners is a writer/poet based in Claremont, California. Her work can be found in [in]Visible Magazine and Insert Lit Mag Here. Contact keelyshinners@gmail.com for more information.