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The Mannequin Ideal

by Ben Togut

You look at the picture from your junior recital and wonder what people found so captivating about you; your body no longer lithe, your feet no longer the image of crooked, bleeding perfection. You are a ballerina, the untainted picture of pre-pubescent prodigy, or at least you were. You can still hear the voice of Madame Fondant, “Pas de bourrée, rond de jambe, point the foot, plié,” over and over again. When you were not quite a teenager you would wake up at dawn every morning just so you could have an hour at the ballet barre, discipline and confidence personified.

But that future as the prima ballerina started to feel like a pipe dream. When you were thirteen your body began to betray you, first slowly and then all at once, a native invader. You had heard this was possible but never realized this was something that could happen to you. Every day you had a new routine. Pirouettes and pliés were soon compromised by whole days without eating, and when you did you were overcome by a type of rancid guilt that culminated in trips to the bathroom. You stopped being able to glide across the floor with effortless grace, for your body was running on borrowed fuel.

Your teacher just thought that this was a stage that all great dancers went through before they could truly blossom. Sallow skin, oxygen-deprived nails, hair falling out in clumps: these were the things your parents noticed, but you shrugged them off. To dance was to paint elegant lines, delicate brushstrokes against the white of the canvas, and you thought this could only be achieved if you were flawlessly waif-like. A choreographer you admired sat in on one of your classes, and you had a fantasy that she would take you under her wing, make you brilliant, legendary. But you faltered, unable to keep up with the others, those who could better veil their trauma as tiny broken things. Looking at them, you realized that your sanity was a far better prize than the mannequin ideal. You bent the sole of a slipper until it yielded. How easy, you thought, it is to break, to destroy; how easy to suffer. But you are not a thing to be broken.

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Tunnel Vision

Sela Marin

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And suddenly, it seems so suddenly that a room full of dreams becomes a room full of unanswered questions. A room of other peoples problems, a room of everything you never wanted mixed in with a dash of pleasure to wash it down. And if you’re like me? If you’re like me, you feel like a little kid. A little, tiny, short kid in the middle of the crowded room of adults, clutching on to your ballon for dear life. Holding on to your dreams for dear life. You feel tiny, but that balloon you’re holding? It’s the only bright thing in the room.

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Mango 

by Sela Marin

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Scattered Worship

by Sela Marin

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Hurt

By Joy Motz

It doesn’t just ‘hurt good.’

It takes scabs from wound past

And melts them and time

Down to their bloody beginning.

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Whisper to the Trees

By Joy Motz

I recommend,

You walk the streets

Like you could whisper to the trees

And they’d do your bidding.

Like the world is crashing down around you

And you are the cause of it.

Like the ocean is a drop of your sweat,

An avalanche is your rage,

And the sky is the blue of your iris,

Staring down at the world day after day.

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Untitled #1

By Josh Lawrence

It could make men go to war Power nations for generations I take some, not enough I need more The sight of a smile is a profound declaration The sound of a laugher fills the Cold with joy Warms their hearts, brightens the day, we enjoy

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Latent Memory

By Ben Togut

The ballerina in the box pirouettes to the soundtrack of latent memory; that is, the music of nothing at all or the hush of everything that was, you choose. There had never been anyone so perfectly plastic, elegantly unalive. Every day, from behind the store window, passersby would covet her privileges. One, to dance ignorantly unaware of being observed. Two, to be able to dance for hours on end without her face flush or mascara staining her cheeks. She is the object that teenage girls aspire to-- thin, pristine, and sparkling. No wonder they turned to juice cleanses and Soul Cycle; no wonder they craved better skin, perfect noses, and flawless stick figure limbs, and would go to extremes to achieve the unattainable. But the ballerina in the box dances on with her cheap parts-- fake hair, fake legs, fake smile-- into the recesses of latent memory, pulled taut like a rubber band and slingshot into oblivion.

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Pulp Taken by Sela Marin

Black and White film 

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How To Mourn Your Freedom

By Ben Togut

I. Start out with white rose petals

In cupped hands

Steep them in ink for a quarter of an hour

Drown them in the nearest stream

II. Stand by the edge of a cliff

Survey the distance below you

Recognize that there is freedom in flight

In downward spiral

Keep this freedom stitched

In the palm of your hand for when you have none

III. Shut your eyes

Lie down and try to float your conscious

Into a dreamlike state

Will your body to shut down

To become as still as a lifeless crow

Realize this is futile

Realize there is more hope in light than in darkness

IV. Stand feet planted in  the middle of the room

Look straight ahead to a spot on the wall

A ballerina before a pirouette

Think of what Plath said

I am, I am, I am

Recognize that this is all you will have left

When they strip you of everything

And nothing at all

Mourn the silence

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My Joker Moment

By Sela Marin

When I look back on it, I’m actually very proud of myself. I saw an excellent opportunity, seized it with all my childish might and made it my own. That’s what they teach us right? The They that no one ever seems to name but yet everyone seems to know. Be ambitious, show resolve, don’t miss your shot. Actually, I would even consider it a real high point in my life, I don’t think anyone will ever see me as such a legendary rebel as my second grade class did that day. It’s the closest I will be to the Joker, with my principal being Batman, or maybe the hard cold hard bench I had to sit on. No, the bench would be Batman, it was my real foe.

Just to be clear, I was a serial bunny ear offender. This wasn’t my first time giving one of my fellow unsuspecting humans the middle and pointer finger. To this day I can’t explain why I liked doing it, it’s actually super annoying. I think it had something to do with my vast height difference compared to my peers, I was arms and legs and there just happened to be a head attached. In class we were doing multiplication exercises, the kind with those little colored plastic circles that you set into rows. I happened to be standing right beside my second grade teacher while she was telling us that you shouldn’t put the circles in your mouth. Ms. Monacha was young, with ridiculously shiny black hair, she had a proper tool belt around her waist which she filled with more markers, crayons, and pencils then she ever actually used. The belt was heavy and frequently fell off her thin waist and she would have to pull it back up all exasperated. As she stood beside me with that heavy marker tool belt I felt my fingers tickle. I didn’t even think before I did it, I just did, up when my arm and boom Ms. Monacha was the victim of a wave of giggles. When she realized what I was doing she was way more offended than I think was necessary, like borderline outraged. I wasn’t expecting her to be so hurt:I’m a lanky 2nd grader what do you want from me? Needless to say, I got sent to the cold wooden bench outside the grossly lit principal’s office.

I never even saw the principal. I just sat out the office on the bench in the harshest light of any building I’d ever had the misfortune to be inside. It would’ve been better if I saw the principal, it would’ve saved me all that suffering. In my head I went through every punishment awaiting me: I will be expelled, my teacher will make me sit in the corner every single day, I won’t get to free write anymore, no one will sit next to me. My teacher called me back to classroom after 5 whole hours, I’m just kidding, it was 15 minutes, but it may as well had been that long. She gave me note to give to my mom, who reacted to the letter with a sort of forced disappointment. When I look back on it, she really wasn’t that angry with me but at the time I thought she was going to hang me upside down by my long legs. The next morning Ms. Monacha asked if I gave my mom her note… I responded by holding up my middle and pointer finger.

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Solivagant

By Ben Togut

Here I am Wandering alone Through the heart of this city Solivagant Without a friend or a hand to hold But it’s better this way The last I heard of you Three kids, a wife A cup of coffee A meaningful life But flipping through the Times I see You have cut off a branch of your family tree Killed by a beast of your own creation That cradled your brain in the palm of its hand I imagine you there Wandering alone in some unholy land Solivagant And I wish that you had served some bigger part In my life So with your end I could craft something beautiful From the depths of my despair to further my art How selfish of me Dreaming of success from bereavement That somehow the damage would be so splendid That I could find beauty in your unbeating heart So I stand by your grave And wonder how the pain drove you to this Hours of worthless reflection No pill, no antidote Could pull you from that high place Could save you from your fall from grace And I think to where you have fled To the land of the clouds Or the depths of the rotting dead And when they wonder who must atone Who must repent Somewhere, you will wander alone Solivagant

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Cerulean Taken by Sela Marin

Bosphorus Strait Istanbul, Turkey Digital

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Beneath the Brine

By Tatiana Mills

Brine upon the rocks of old, Lapping sands both bleached and shoaled, Rime does settle silently, Laid by some divinity.

Fearsome might rolls thunder by, Salted grief of sailors’ eyes – What majestic arcs designed Dashed against the souls maligned!

What invents a chill so deep That into bones the waves do seep? Who or what spawns such distress? A thousand men sink dead, compressed.

And beneath the poison drink What cruel joke do fish bethink? Feasting creatures lungs consume, Scavenging a watery tomb.

And if spun to form a hymn, What sick humor blesses Him? Seamen, drowning siren chum, Hear sweet voices croon and hum.

Brine upon the rocks of old, Lapping lives lost to the cold, Rime does settle silently, Laid by no divinity.

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I Don’t Write Poetry

By Sela Marin

I didn’t realize when I started this poem, That’d I’d be launched into a sticky prison of language. The words that trap me are trapped themselves Senile and gray from lack of use. They could help me pick the lock, And make this poem a work of art. But the poor old words can’t remember How they were held captive, In the first place.

It’s an inky, snug cell inside my mind Right behind my eyes. It makes me see yellow and taste strawberries. Whenever I try to write a poem, The wrinkled words blur my vision again. It’s hard to work when everything looks like the mango flesh Of a soulless rubber duck. So whoever reads this poem I want you to imagine my suffering. And my unbelievable craving for a strawberry.

I still can’t get to the words behind my eyes. If you can help me. Come find me. But until then, I don’t write poetry.

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Sultan Ahmed Taken by Sela Marin

Sultan Ahmed Mosque Istanbul, Turkey Film