iwoll

[iwoll]

kneel behind the pulpit

i have transgressed against God.

not by chance—

i defied His will with malice,

a heat like iron in my chest.

my sins are many,

layers upon layers of silk torn by desire—

but beneath them all

burns the unholy wish

to stop your heaven from dawning.

tell me then, what is my sin?

was it when i raised my tongue against Him

and let it linger on your name?

when i knelt, not in prayer

but before you, mouth parted,

seeking no redemption,

is that where it began?

or was it when i looked to the hills,

not for God,

but for the curve of your back

in the morning light?

for i lifted up my eyes to the hills

and there you were,

utterly divine in shadow and sweat.

my Lord,

if in Your infinite wisdom

You created everything—

then it was Your hand

that made the night redolent with trespass,

Your might that shaped me

in Your image for this fall.

You led me into temptation.

You made me a blasphemer.

You made me want.

disobedience does not become me.

but when you ask for forgiveness so pretty—

what’s a guy to do

but oblige?

and still—

i acknowledged my sin to You

and did not cover up my iniquity…

but i did. i covered it in kisses.

i dressed it in your noise.

i confessed nothing.

so kneel,

and you will be made whole.

not by God—

He can’t help us anymore—

but by this altar of flesh,

by the gospel of your breath,

say it.

say i forgive you.

and i’ll believe.

[iwoll]

Sick of It: Medicine, Margins, & the Struggle to Be Understood

Another zine?

Well, yes! Another zine! For me, they’ve been a constant source of fascination since my middle school emo days, when I first read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It felt like finding a secret language — a way to express myself outside the mainstream. Back then (and still now), I was obsessed with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and alternative music, and discovering that zines could blend both worlds was mind-blowing. Zines make complex, emotional, and nuanced topics easier to digest — especially in spaces like medicine, where the language can feel cold and clinical, and the stakes are deeply personal.

So why this topic, and why now? Well, the western world doesn’t usually think of medicine as a space for ambiguity, emotion, or cultural critique—but I believe we should. As someone going into the medical field, I’ve been grappling with how often care gets reduced to checklists, diagnoses, and prescriptions — especially when it comes to mental health. This topic is personal, too: as a queer person, I’ve seen how systems like the DSM have historically pathologized queerness and continue to enforce narrow ideas of what’s “normal.” Why are we so quick to label everyday human struggles as disorders? How did we end up treating things like loneliness, grief, or shyness with medication? And what happens when we bring in philosophy, queer theory, and other humanities to rethink what “health” even means?

By unpacking the history of the DSM, the medicalization of life, and our cultural discomfort with uncertainty, I aim to describe a future where medicine is less about control and more about care—where doctors are allowed to sit with the unknown, and where being human doesn’t have to mean being sick. This project is an homage to the queer and alternative voices that came before me—but it’s also for everyone. Everyone should have the right to timely, effective, and personal medical care.

Quick Disclaimer

Mental illnesses are real, valid, and can be incredibly debilitating—trust me, I know. This zine is in no way intended to delegitimize the reality of mental health struggles or the life-changing benefits that therapy, medication, and diagnosis can offer. For many people, these tools are essential, even lifesaving. This work is not a rejection of medicine, but a critique of how modern (and not-so-distant past) medical systems have sometimes failed to account for nuance, culture, and the full complexity of being human. My hope is to open up space for conversation, reflection, and alternative ways of thinking about care — not to close the door on any particular path to healing.

The History of the DSM

The American Psychiatric Association's DSM has been thought to be the science-informed, authoritative guide to diagnosing mental illness in the United States (and only in the United States) for decades. Yet its history is about more than simply an expanding knowledge base concerning mental health — it is about deeply ingrained cultural concerns about normativity, identity, and control. [x] From a queer theoretical perspective, the DSM is not merely a clinical instrument, but is equally an apparatus of regulation marking the limits of normative subjectivity. Presented for the first time in 1952, the DSM has been revised six times, ever more pathologizing increasingly wide swaths of human behavior. With the DSM-III (1980), widely regarded as a revolution in psychiatry, there was an effort made to standardize diagnoses by moving toward its biomedical and symptom-focused model. This shift was couched as scientific advancement, but it reaffrimed the authority of psychiatry at the moment it was losing its legitimacy in culture [DSM: A history of psychiatry’s Bible].

This move may be understood as part of a larger biopolitics — a type of power which governs and specifies life through medicalizing so-called deviancy. Historically, queerness has itself been medicalized within the DSM: homosexuality was categorized as a disorder until 1973, and gender nonconformity is still couched in medical discourse through the diagnoses of "gender dysphoria.” [x] Despite the rewriting of language, the power relations remain. The DSM's categorizations do not merely categorize mental states — they create and impose norms about what sorts of lives are understandable, healthy, and valuable.

The Evolution of the DSM

The DSM's trajectory from its initial editions to the current DSM-5-TR illustrates a trend toward expanding diagnostic categories. This expansion has been both appreciated for increasing recognition of mental health issues and critiqued for potentially over-pathologizing normal variations in human behavior.

This broadening of diagnoses has significant implications. On one hand, it can lead to greater access to care for individuals experiencing distress. On the other, it risks labeling individuals unnecessarily, leading to stigma and the potential for overmedication. The DSM's influence extends beyond clinical settings, affecting insurance coverage, educational accommodations, and legal decisions, ultimately embedding its classifications deeply into societal structures.

Oddly enough, where there is queer theory, there is Marxist theory. The way the DSM deals with capitalist institutions — especially the pharmaceutical industry — has been the central target of such criticism (go figure!). The proliferation of diagnostic categories strongly correlates with the commercial development of many new drugs, leaving one to wonder about the motives of some of the inclusions in the manual. Critics say such a relationship can foster the medicalization of normality, in which natural experiences are recast as disorders that must be addressed with drugs.

I think Peter Conrad puts it very well: “The impact of medicine and medical concepts has expanded enormously in the past fifty years... the jurisdiction of medicine has grown to include new problems that previously were not deemed to fall within the medical sphere.” [The Medicalization of Society...] The money that pharmaceutical companies make off these substances is genuinely disgusting. Discovering new disorders open markets for medications, and the sanction of the DSM confers legitimacy on these conditions. It’s this dynamic that has led to favoring medication over other types of therapy, such as psychotherapy or community-based interventions, which may be more beneficial for some people (but don't make the big companies as much money).

The DSM has come under fire for conflicts of interest in the creation of diagnostic criteria and selection of disorders for inclusion. Research from Cosgrove et al. informs that a majority of members of DSM panels had money links to drug firms. [x] This is cause for serious concern about the role of profit motives in determining what gets designated as a mental illness—especially given that new diagnoses typically spur demand for new medications.

Think about the medicalization of the everyday: shyness as social anxiety disorder, bereavement as major depressive disorder, moodiness in adolescents as intermittent explosive disorder—and all these changes result in a new wave of prescriptions for SSRIs and other psychotropics. The financial incentives to pathologize behavior not only shape the approaches to treatment but also the definitions of illness itself.

This expanding scope of medical prerogative has redefined the limits of what was once thought to be “treatable," reinforcing the notion that all types of distress or deviation must be remedied through therapeutic channels. As was mentioned earlier, the DSM defined homosexuality as a mental illness—what gets pathologized usually mirrors not scientific agreement but social bias. Although that designation was rescinded more than 50 years ago, the taint of pathologization often still clings to non-normative identity in more insidious forms.

The DSM becomes a site in which capitalist and clinical interests intersect, producing “treatable” subjects and driving the commercialization of mental illness. According to Horwitz, diagnoses have not only evolved to serve as tools for treatment but also as tools for the construction of identity, access to treatment, and institutionalization [DSM: A history of psychiatry’s Bible]. For a few, diagnosis offers language for suffering and a path to support. However, queer theorists warn against the comfortable allure of legibility in a system that has historically pathologized and erased non-normative being. Thus, while diagnosis might provide solace in the form of legitimation, communality, and access, it also exacts a frame that threatens to reduce multifaceted lives to lists. For queer and raced communities, this might be a lifeline and a straitjacket—a means of being noticed but only within a frame that has exerted efforts to eliminate them.

Epistemology

So, here in a world in which queer lives tend to get misunderstood or overlooked, diagnosis of mental illness can provide a kind of epistemic acknowledgment. Epi-what-now?! In simple terms, epistemology is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin, boundaries, and value of knowledge. It deals with the core questions: What does it mean to understand something? How do we separate belief and truth? In medical and psychiatric fields, epistemology assists us in analyzing how a certain type of knowledge—such as diagnostic criteria or clinician expertise—is made, validated, and used, sometimes laying bare the cultural, political, and institutional power structures that determine what we think of as "capital ‘T’ truth" about the human body and mind. Being diagnosed can authenticate that a real process is occurring—when the cause of distress is structural in nature, e.g., homophobia, racism, family rejection. In cyberspace in particular, communities tend to congregate in respect to diagnosis—ADHD, BPD, autism, CPTSD. For queer people in some cases, these conditions may grant more cultural visibility than queerness does on its own, providing a legible cultural model through which to explain their difference. In his journal, Michel Foucault’s asserts that "medical language does not merely describe reality—it aids in the construction of reality."

Diagnoses do not merely name disorder; instead, they aid in the formation of the way individuals perceive themselves and are perceived by others. Neurodivergent conceptualizations appeal to many queer individuals because they upend normative timelines, ways of expressing themselves, and modes of relationship. In this sense, requesting a diagnosis isn't always a matter of fixing the self but rather a matter of resisting assimilation into cishetero-normative and neurotypical forms. It is a survival and articulation tactic in a hostile world. This holds particularly for the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which it’s possible to reclaim as a means of negotiating healthcare systems while resisting their normative enforcement.

At the same time, we need to make space for paradox. Medical gaslighting—where women, queer individuals, and people of color have their symptoms disregarded—is an ongoing and damaging practice that exists. [x] But so does the pathologization of marginalized identity. A queer patient may be invalidated when complaining about pain but also rapidly diagnosed with a psychiatric condition that locates their distress within personal pathology instead of as a reaction to structural violence.

Embracing Uncertainty

In The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick critiques the rigid binaries that dominate Western thought—healthy or sick, treatable or untreatable, known or unknown—and reveals how those dichotomies oversimplify the richness of human experience. Her metaphor of “the closet” is not limited to sexuality; it serves as an epistemological structure that organizes what is speakable and unspeakable, what is acknowledged and what is disavowed. Sedgwick observes that “the relations of the closet—the relations of the known and the unknown, the explicit and the inexplicit… have the potential for being peculiarly revealing, even paradigmatic, for the understanding of other kinds of epistemological structures.” This insight resonates deeply within psychiatry, a field where uncertainty is often met not with curiosity but with suspicion—and all too often, with diagnosis [The Epistemology of the Closet]. The DSM's relentless push to label and classify emotional distress speaks volumes about a larger cultural tendency to sidestep the discomfort of the unknown. Increasingly, medical practitioners—especially physicians—are expected to respond not only to physical illness but also to deeper, less tangible forms of suffering: loneliness, grief, disconnection, and the weight of systemic harm. When care becomes a process of regulation—when every ache must be labeled, coded, and treated—we risk erasing the profoundly human potential that lies within what medicine can’t yet name.

This call for a more humane approach echoes in modern critiques of clinical practice. Hilty et al. argues for a reimagining of medical education—one grounded in interdisciplinary learning and human-focused care. [x] Similarly, Amsterlaw et al. point out a troubling gap between reality and expectation: while patients often crave certainty and doctors strive to deliver it, certainty rarely captures the messy, fluid truth of human health. [x] That mismatch—between lived experience and rigid diagnostic structures—can lead to overmedication, fractured trust, and a sense of alienation that no prescription can fix.

So, in short, the DSM is not a neutral document. It is shaped by political, cultural, and economic forces—which, in turn, shapes us. So I offer this: what if naming is not always liberating? What if diagnosis sometimes deepens the exclusions it aims to heal?

Moving Toward a New Philosophy of Care

So, what can be done? It is not just practice but also philosophy that must change in medicine. We need systems that reward relationships, not solely diagnosis: longer visits, integrative teams, community-based care. Physicians should be taught to hear stories, not just checklists. The humanities in general, and queer theory in particular, supply critical tools: We challenge the binaries, derive worth from the inarticulate, and practice compassion for what can’t be cured.

What if practitioners were trained to say, “I don’t know — but I’m here with you”? What if healing was about more than just an absence of symptoms? This isn’t naive—it’s a demand for structural and cultural change. The medicine of the future is one that is permeated with slowness, multiplicity and uncertainty; not because these are failings, but because they are constitutive of caring itself.

Rethinking caring is not just a matter of philosophy—it is a matter of action. Are the reform efforts centered on access? Without the line to the doctor, the person who is listening and the shoulder to lean on, the vision stays silhouetted. Broad-case providers — PAs, NPs, DOs, MDs — are lifelines in low-access areas. But they are frequently overwhelmed, underpaid and asked to not only heal illness, but also grief, poverty and alienation. This is where reform needs to start. Increase access through mobile clinics, multilingual care and community-centered services. Invest in primary care as the foundation of health — not just as a gateway to specialists, but as a milieu for relational healing as well. Include humanities and critical theory in medical education. Dismantle silos between fields. Fund time, not efficiency. And restructure our pharmaceutical systems to prioritize ethics over profit (I’m so done with these drug ads!).

Finally, it’s not only a matter of fixing what’s broken. It’s about redefining what we mean by health—and who gets to define it.

[iwoll]

Holding Space for the Unknown: Humanities, Identity, and Healing in Healthcare

As a healthcare worker and future medical professional, I’m learning to accept that sometimes, we just don’t know. And I hate that. The anxiety of the unknown—Are these benign? Did I cause this? Am I stuck with this forever?—can be just as debilitating as the physical symptoms. Living with uncertainty, especially in a body shaped by both chronic illness and gender-affirming hormone therapy, has forced me to grapple with more than medical unknowns. It’s a confrontation of what it means to live in a body that defies neat clinical categories.

What I (might) have—PCOS, or technically just a polycystic ovarian morphology—isn’t deadly. But that doesn’t mean it’s painless. It’s a chronic condition that fluctuates day to day. Some days, it’s manageable. Other days, I’m doubled over in pain, for no good reason. The unpredictability keeps me in a state of constant stress. And it can be exhausting.

My experience on testosterone has added some serious complexity. While it’s been lifesaving for my mental health and gender affirmation, it introduced new and unexplained symptoms. Severe abdominal pain (among other things) has led me from doctor to specialist and back again, with no clear answers. PCOS is a possibility—it tends to manifest in early adulthood, and I’m twenty—but the overlap with hormone therapy makes it harder to understand “why.” Stopping testosterone is not an option for me. It’s integral to my wellbeing. Yet, I think the healthcare system often lacks the tools—or the will—to hold space for bodies like mine.

I remember the ultrasound appointment vividly. The procedure was invasive and incredibly dysphoric. I asked the tech if she could interpret the images. She shook her head. Legally, she couldn’t tell me anything unless it was definitively normal. Her silence was so loud in my head, I knew she saw something abnormal. But hey, I kind of already knew something wasn’t right.

When I finally circled back to my primary care provider, she was able to interpret the ultrasound results. I had a 4.3 cm benign cyst on my left ovary, along with more than 40 total follicles in both ovaries, when the “normal” max is around 24 total. Even more alarming, my left ovarian volume measured 59cc—an incredibly enlarged size, considering the average volume sits around 7cc. The pain I’d been feeling for the past eighteen months wasn’t mysterious anymore; it was the result of these cysts constantly swelling, obstructing, and occasionally rupturing against my internal organs. The ruptures brought a wave of intense, sharp pain that often triggered debilitating migraines, the kind that none of my over-the-counter remedy would touch. The constant pressure in my abdomen also wreaked havoc on my gastrointestinal and genitourinary systems. It’s not something that can be fixed—it’s something I have to ride out. And I think that’s the hardest part for me. It’s frustrating and demoralizing, since the common treatment is estrogen!

Getting diagnosed with polycystic ovaries while on testosterone wasn’t just confusing—it kind of felt like a betrayal. I had done everything I thought was “right”: maintained a healthy routine, took my meds, stayed informed, you name it. But the pain did not care. Neither did the healthcare system, which didn’t quite know what to do with someone like me. It felt like medicine shoves bodies in boxes, and mine didn’t fit.

The diagnosis wasn’t only a medical label. It was an identity shock. PCOS is usually framed around cisgender women’s health—periods, fertility, “feminine” hormone imbalances. And while I find women’s health incredibly important, none of that aligned with how I experience my body. And still, the diagnosis was mine. It forced me to sit with the discomfort of a body that defies expectations both medically and socially. And that dissonance was almost funny in a tragic way: a trans man with ovaries producing too many androgens. How poetic!

Before spring break, I attended the art therapy session. I went in skeptical, I won’t lie. I’ve always been more of a science-and-structure kind of person, even though I knew how beneficial therapy can be. But the experience was surprisingly cathartic. The instructor emphasized that art could communicate when words fail. The pain I feel is often hard to localize. But I can draw it, I can map it, and I can give form to something otherwise formless. These drawings aren’t diagnostic tools; they’re emotional compasses. Sometimes they tell me I need ibuprofen. Other times, they remind me I need rest, or quiet, or leafy greens. In translating pain into something tangible, I reclaim some control.

I’ve worked at [a hospital] long enough to know its rhythms. I’ve transported patients, handled specimens, navigated sterile hallways. But nothing prepared me for the shift when I became the patient. Suddenly, the same art-filled corridors that I passed without thought became anchors. A landscape painting calmed my spiraling thoughts. The stained glass donor wall in the atrium gave me pause.

Judy Rollins, in Purpose-Built: Art in Hospitals: Art with Intent, highlights that the integration of art into healthcare spaces is not merely aesthetic—it’s deeply intentional. She argues that when art is thoughtfully selected and situated, it has the potential to provide a healing environment that can offer comfort, distraction, and “sense of agency” to patients and families (Rollins, 2021). I experienced this firsthand. In my most vulnerable moments, it wasn’t just clinical care I needed. It was humanity. And while I know my condition isn’t critical, I can only imagine how much more vital these visual moments of peace must be for families in critical care, or for patients facing terminal diagnoses. Art doesn't erase fear—but it can definitely help soften its edges.

What ultimately helped me begin to accept the uncertainty of my condition wasn’t just seeing specialists—it was turning to narrative medicine and the humanities. In Graphic Medicine Manifesto, Charon et al. emphasize that narrative medicine offers tools to articulate experiences that resist straightforward diagnosis. My pain doesn’t always show up on scans. But in words and images, it becomes visible and valid.

I’ve started journaling again, sketching when the pain comes, writing down what I notice in my body. These aren’t necessarily clinical, but they’re honest and they help me hold the parts of my story that medicine can’t really fix. Living with health uncertainty is not something I’ve mastered. Some days, I still spiral. But I’ve learned that not knowing doesn’t mean I’m broken. It means I’m alive—complicated, shifting, and human. Experiences like art therapy, music therapy, and readings like Purpose-Built and Graphic Medicine Manifesto, have helped me see illness not just as a problem to solve but as a narrative to honor. Healing, I’ve come to understand, isn’t always clinical. It’s multifaceted. Sometimes it’s creative, sometimes it’s just showing up, and sometimes, it’s learning to live fully in the in-between.

[iwoll]

Creating Primary Sources: Documenting Experiences of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic

My name is James, and I’m a 20-year-old college student who lived through the COVID-19 pandemic. I was a freshman in high school when it was officially declared a pandemic. I first heard about the outbreak in January 2020 during winter break. My mother, who was a psychiatric nurse at the time, reassured me it was "just the flu." At 15, I believed her. I spent my break without a second thought, but when I returned to school, there was a noticeable shift—I noticed fear creeping into hallway conversations. My girlfriend at the time was especially worried. I repeated what my mother had told me, "It’s just the flu." She didn’t buy it, not even for a second. She told me that people were starting to die from it in New York.

By March, everything unraveled. Confirmed cases and death tolls surged. Even my small central Minnesotan town wasn’t spared from infection. On Friday the 13th of March 2020, I sat in my first-year Spanish class as my maestra warned us this might be our last in-person class for the month. We were teenagers—so of course we thought, Sweet… an extra-long spring break.

By March 20th, I was back at school—but only to drop off textbooks, pick up my oboe, and say goodbye to my teachers. My band instructor stood six feet away, both of us in N95 masks. He told me this might be the last time we saw each other that year. I remember the fear and the confusion he and I shared. High school as I had dreamed was gone. Friends didn’t get their graduations. No one really knew what came next.

School shut down for three weeks as the administration scrambled. Classes were moved online—including the performance arts! Everyone struggled, so much so that failing a class became impossible, thanks to our administration. Still, grades suffered. My GPA tumbled from a 4.0 to barely a 3.0. I remember the feeling of isolation was suffocating. I was getting fed up with my parents and the tenacity of this virus. No friends, no normal teenage life, no more loitering in the mall just for the sake of it!

The next school year, my sophomore year, brought hybrid learning. Half of us attended in-person Monday and Tuesday, the other half Thursday and Friday, with online classes in between. By then, I had started working as a cashier and stocker at a local grocery store. My job included the normal responsibilities plus reminding people to wear masks, which didn't always go over well. Some adults lashed out at 15-year-old me for enforcing our store policies. Every public space had plexiglass shields, boxes of masks at the doors, and the worst-smelling hand sanitizer known to man. Speaking of sanitizer—there was a shortage, and alcohol distilleries stepped in to make alcohol-based hand sanitizers! Everything was disrupted and it kind of felt like the world was falling apart. Schools scrambled, healthcare buckled, construction stalled, and stores had shortages on many essentials. Everyone just had to “do their part” and wait it out.

By the middle of my sophomore year, COVID fatigue had set in. People were exhausted. The pandemic became political. Some claimed it was over, but it really wasn’t. New variants kept emerging; alpha, beta, delta, omicron, et cetera. The mRNA vaccine brought relief to some, but extreme distrust to others. Up until 2024, experts still classified the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic.

I chose to present my, and others’, experience through oral history because I believe personal narratives capture the emotional and social impacts of the pandemic in ways that statistics and news reports cannot. Oral histories preserve the raw feelings of fear, confusion, and resilience that defined this period. By sharing my story, I hope to provide future researchers and students with a firsthand account of how everyday life changed for young people navigating school, work, and social interactions in a world that felt utterly unrecognizable. These stories tell not just the logistical disruptions—such as school closures and job changes—but also the emotional toll of prolonged isolation and uncertainty. The pandemic affected every aspect of life, from education to healthcare to the economy, forcing people to adapt in ways they never imagined. The exasperation I felt wasn’t just mine—it was everywhere. The country, and the entire globe, was drained; stuck in a loop of fear, frustration, and division.

This feeling wasn’t limited to healthcare workers—it was everyone. It was students struggling to focus on online classes, grocery workers dealing with angry customers, families terrified to see their loved ones, and exhausted doctors running on empty. The virus didn’t just infect bodies; it wore down minds. People feared each cough, every interaction. The world felt unsafe, and no one knew when it would end. Looking back, I realize how much we all struggled to make sense of an unprecedented situation, and I hope that by documenting these experiences, we can better prepare for similar crises in the future.

To read an oral history from a custodian, college professor, and a physician assistant, click here (x)

[iwoll]

Detail shot from Roberto Ferri’s “The Last Judgement”

[iwoll]

falling ins, falling outs, and other hard to describe feelings...

... like knowing you were wrong in an instant, but still gripping your pride like a bruised apple, annoyed at the person you did dirty, because how dare they make you feel like this?

into your eyes is where summer comes to die, where the warmth lingers just long enough to make the cold hurt more. maybe that’s why i feel like i’m always waiting for winter, for something colder, sharper, something that doesn’t remind me of you. a sunset that never quite finishes setting.

i can’t even drive through my home state without you slipping into the passenger seat, silent, smirking, filling up the spaces between road signs and radio static.

and still— i knew i was wrong, felt it bloom like a bitter root the moment i said it, the moment i did it, but something in me still wanted to be mad at you, wanted to hold onto the heat of my own mistakes, as if letting go would mean admitting i was never the protagonist, just another person in a hard-to-describe feeling, caught somewhere between love and leaving.

apparently, i take the humanity out of people. it’s ironic, really, because now that phrase is a joke among friends, but some nights, when i can’t sleep, it doesn’t feel like a joke at all.

i put myself into stressful situations so my anxiety feels justified, but is it really bad if i’m saving lives? if chaos makes me useful, then let me drown in it. i would rather make myself the villain before someone else gets the chance. i wonder if the price is worth the purpose.

the older i get, the angrier i get. frustration sinks into my bones, spreads like ink in water— even at the people who hold me up. what if one day i wake up and there’s no one left who can stand me?

i am a terrible teacher, but all i crave is to teach— to explain, to be understood, to be the reason someone learns something new, but all i do is frustrate myself, and then i turn that frustration outward. why can’t i just act normal? be normal? be nice and consistent? why do my emotions feel like a tangle of wires that i will never have the patience to untangle?

i see you in everything. i compare everyone to you. i try to escape you, but you have fingers in my breath, roots in my thoughts. your absence is suffocating, and your presence was fleeting, but i cannot seem to shake you loose. so why do you get to take up so much space in my head?

i want to talk to you, but i know you don’t like me. and honestly, i think i’m starting to not like myself. and i know i’m the problem, but i hate that you were right— not right for me— just right in the long run.

some things are easier left undefined, but that doesn’t make them hurt any less.

[iwoll]

Aphrodite by Briton Rivière (1902)

[iwoll]

the epistle of saint james

have you ever noticed that dead eyes don’t reflect light in the same way? hollow, like pews on an odd monday, like prayers prayed too late to save what was already lost.

i’m glad god forgave me— because i haven’t forgiven myself. they say change cannot come without disturbance, without violence, but what kind of god demands blood for redemption?

when wilt thou save the people, oh, god of mercy, when? when will you unchain the faithful from their fear? jesus shouldn’t have to beg for his people to be saved from the wrath of his father.

sometimes i get so sad, it feels like paralysis creeping through my muscles, as if the weight of every hymn, every bowed head, every “amen” has turned my body to stone.

and yet, the church windows glimmer, their stained-glass saints casting fractured light, mocking the dead eyes of those who still wait for salvation.

[iwoll]

Imperialism in Latin America: Complied Research on the U.S. Coup in Guatemala, 1954

The 1954 U.S.-backed overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically elected president was not about freedom, democracy, or even communism—it was about fruit. Specifically, it was about the United Fruit Company, a corporate juggernaut that managed to turn Cold War paranoia into a business strategy. What followed was less "land of opportunity" and more "land of opportunists," as economic interests in banana exports reshaped Guatemala’s fate, leaving a bitter aftertaste that lingers to this day. The 1954 U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala epitomizes this principle, as it irreversibly altered the nation’s trajectory. The United States justified its actions as a defense against communism, but in reality, economic interests, particularly those of the United Fruit Company, dictated this intervention (x). The overthrow of democratically elected President, Jacobo Árbenz, not only protected U.S. corporate assets but also cemented a legacy of destabilization and violence. The 1954 Guatemalan coup demonstrates the United States' imperialistic entitlement to control Latin American nations, driven by Cold War paranoia and corporate greed. This intervention set a dangerous precedent, leaving behind enduring political and economic instability.

The roots of the Guatemalan coup lie in both Guatemala’s internal struggles and the United States’ Cold War strategies. After a 1944 revolution ousted the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico, Guatemala transitioned toward democracy, culminating in the election of President Jacobo Árbenz in 1951. Árbenz’s administration sought to modernize the nation through progressive reforms, including labor protections, universal suffrage, and, most controversially, land redistribution. His government aimed to address Guatemala’s extreme economic inequality, where 2% of landowners controlled 70% of arable land (x).

The United Fruit Company (UFCO), a powerful American corporation, owned vast tracts of unused land in Guatemala. Árbenz’s land reform policies expropriated this idle land and compensated UFCO based on its tax-declared value, which the company had previously undervalued to reduce its tax burden. Outraged by these reforms, UFCO leveraged its significant political influence in the U.S. government. High-ranking officials like Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles, who had financial ties to UFCO, framed Árbenz as a communist threat (x).

Amid Cold War tensions, the U.S. feared Soviet influence in the Western Hemisphere. Despite scant evidence connecting Árbenz to communism, the Eisenhower administration launched Operation PBSUCCESS in 1954. This covert CIA operation orchestrated a propaganda campaign, psychological warfare, and the support of a small rebel force led by Carlos Castillo Armas. Árbenz resigned under mounting pressure, and Castillo Armas assumed power, marking the beginning of decades of political instability.

The United States’ primary motivation for intervention was economic, not ideological. The United Fruit Company’s monopoly in Guatemala symbolized American corporate dominance in Latin America. UFCO controlled extensive infrastructure, including railroads, ports, and telecommunications, granting it immense power over Guatemala’s economy. Árbenz’s land reforms directly challenged this dominance, threatening UFCO’s profitability and broader U.S. business interests in the region.

Evidence reveals that the Dulles brothers, who played pivotal roles in the U.S. government, had personal and professional ties to UFCO. Their law firm had represented the company, and they held significant financial stakes. This conflict of interest transformed Guatemala’s internal reform efforts into an existential threat to U.S. corporate hegemony. Historian Richard J. Barnet notes that such interventions were imperialistic, advancing neither democratic ideals nor national security but rather serving corporate agendas (x).

The Guatemalan coup was not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. As Gonzalez notes, “wherever social democratic or radical leftist regimes came to power and threatened the business climate for U.S. companies, Washington responded by backing right-wing opponents to overthrow them. In 1954, the CIA helped oust the liberal reform government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. In 1961, the agency organized the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Four years later, the marines invaded the Dominican Republic again” (Gonzalez, 77). This reveals how the U.S. routinely prioritized corporate interests over the sovereignty and democratic aspirations of Latin American nations.

The Eisenhower administration rationalized its actions in Guatemala by invoking Cold War fears of communism. However, Árbenz’s policies were primarily nationalist, not communist. Scholar Nick Cullather highlights that U.S. intelligence reports found little evidence of Soviet involvement in Guatemala, yet the administration exaggerated the threat to garner public and Congressional support (x). This pattern of overstating communist influence justified U.S. interventions in numerous Latin American countries during the Cold War, from Chile to Nicaragua, perpetuating a cycle of destabilization.

The aftermath of the coup was catastrophic for Guatemala. Castillo Armas dismantled Árbenz’s reforms, returning land to UFCO and suppressing political opposition. His assassination in 1957 initiated a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes that plunged Guatemala into a 36-year civil war. This conflict, marked by systematic violence against Indigenous communities and political dissidents, resulted in over 200,000 deaths and disappearances. The United States’ role in training and funding Guatemalan military forces exacerbated these atrocities.

The long-term impact of the coup extended beyond human rights abuses. Political instability, economic underdevelopment, and deep societal divisions continue to plague Guatemala. By placing corporate profits above national sovereignty, the U.S. intervention severely damaged Guatemala’s democratic ambitions and hindered its economic potential.

Some argue that the United States’ actions in Guatemala were necessary to prevent the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere. At the time, the domino theory—a belief that one country’s fall to communism would trigger a chain reaction—dominated U.S. foreign policy. Advocates of the coup maintain that Árbenz’s ties to the Guatemalan Communist Party posed a genuine threat. However, these claims are largely unfounded. Árbenz’s reforms were consistent with nationalist efforts to modernize Guatemala, not Soviet-aligned communism. As historian Max Getchell explains, U.S. intelligence inflated the communist threat to justify intervention (x). Furthermore, the consequences of the coup—decades of violence and instability—far outweighed any perceived short-term benefit of countering communism. The coup’s primary beneficiaries were American corporations, not the Guatemalan people or global democracy.

The 1954 Guatemalan coup stands as a chilling testament to the destructive consequences of U.S. imperialism, where Cold War paranoia and corporate greed eclipsed the democratic aspirations of an entire nation. By overthrowing Jacobo Árbenz’s government under the guise of combating communism, the United States safeguarded the economic interests of the United Fruit Company while destabilizing Guatemala for generations. This intervention not only dismantled progressive reforms but also plunged the nation into decades of authoritarianism, civil war, and human rights atrocities. The long-term impact—a legacy of political instability, economic underdevelopment, and societal divisions—reveals the costs of prioritizing profit over sovereignty. As Ann Van Wynen Thomas observed in her 1969 book review (x), such interventions rarely advance democratic ideals, serving instead as tools of corporate imperialism. Reflecting on Guatemala’s tragedy, we are reminded of the enduring need to challenge exploitative foreign policies and prioritize the autonomy and well-being of nations over corporate interests.

extra source: (x)

[iwoll]

Illustration from A. Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar by Virgil Finlay (1949)

[iwoll]

Spirit, George Roux (1885)

[iwoll]

monkey see, monkey do

does it make you feel good

to lie to those who don’t care?

does it ease your sleep, knowing

you killed something pure?

they don’t give a shit about you,

or the person you paint me to be.

let it go.

it’s been years—

leave them alone.

you’re weird.

you’re obsessive.

you need help.

you can lead a horse to water,

but you can’t make it drink.

however, you can shoot it in the back of the skull.

you write. you complain.

you preach advice

you don’t even follow.

do as i say,

not as i do.

i hope i ruined all your favorite songs.

i want back my missed opportunities,

you bastard.

and heads up,

coping isn’t suicidal ideation

[iwoll]

queerer than a two dollar bill

an arrow through the eardrums, and a handful of needles. oh, how i’ve missed this jolt of life-and-impending-death.

pathetic, isn’t it? asking for help. it’s healthy. it’s human. it’s the worst fucking thing i’ve ever done.

stumbling through words, choking on spit, the air thick and traitorous.

god— is the room closing in for you too?

[iwoll]

Sardine! 1903. Source.

[iwoll]

Stigmata, oil on linen by Agostino Arrivabene

[iwoll]

Dead Christ (details) by Philippe de Champaigne

[iwoll]

goetia

drive an hour in any direction and you will find something of value. that was our motto in high school. i carried it into my adult years, though the roads grew lonlier.

my love for being someone who i'm not just might end me some day. it's like the scene where logan lempar stares at the knife on the counter and we are only left to assume. except everyone else is logan and i'm the knife.

what does it mean to be held, to be used, to reflect the weight of someone else's intention? the thing is, i have the desire to fix myself through fixing people. but what if i’m not cut out for this career of salvation. what if-- just maybe-- you were right? ask me how i am, i'll say i'm living the life! but i think you spelled lie wrong.

i'm a wreck of roses and seas. but so are you, my wretched. maybe i am doomed to be star-crossed.

romantically yours,

_____ xo