Inhalation

INHAL

ATION

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFS

Mariyam Quaisar & Jonah Hodari

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Annabelle Adams

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Lida Everhart

VISUAL ART DIRECTOR

Mason Vaughan

DESIGN DIRECTOR Cherie Laroche

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Emily Malkan

ADVISOR Mary Kovaleski Byrnes

Editorial

Sasha Zirin

Mariyam Quaisar

Erin Norton

Arushi Jacob

Caraline Shaheen

Annabelle Adams

Ryan Yau

Steph Weathersby

Talia Vyardo

Maggie Kaprielian Zaineb Sharif

Photo

Jonah Hodari

Lex Jimenez

Paige Kaiser

Lilli Drescher

Naomi Ash

Ilana Grollman

Emma Cahill

Frances Markey

Esther Xiang

Visual Art

Sydney Grantham

Mason Vaughan

Ning Chen

Ella Fields

Ophelia Yang

Isabel Dantas

Olivia Flanz

Anna Brody

Avary Amaral

Design

Cherie Laroche

Emily Malkan

Maggie Kaprielian

Ugne Kavaliauskaite

Mckenna Smith

Lilian Holland

Mariyam Quaisar

Arushi Jacob The Lost Realm

Isabel Dantas Sublime

Ilana Grollman

Stephyne Weathersby American Sonnets Yearning

Ella Fields Communal Breath

Erin Norton If I Must Live Without My Dad

Esther Xiang Velvet

Lilli Drescher The World Around Me

Jonah Hodari & Paige Kaiser Give Way

Anna Brody The Essence of My Consumption

Olivia Flanz Expanse Within & Taking in Colors

Zaineb Sharif The City We Stay In

Sydney Grantham Encyclopedeia of the Post-Tropovoidic Biologie

Caraline Shaheen Intimacy

Maggie Kaprielian Like the Ocean, I Keep Coming Back To You

Ophelia Yang Asphyxia

Mariyam Quaisar Your Flashlight

Frances Markey Bask and Rapture

Ryan Yau The Chemical Sublime

Lex Jimenez Automaton

Emma Cahill Vortex

Sasha Zirin My girlfriend flows through me as I wait for life to get better

Avary Amaral Exhaling the Future Self 132

Zained Sharif Immortalized In The Summer Of Our Childhood

Ning Chen Anatomy of an Artist

Annabelle Adams Baptism

Letter From The Editors

We come together as unique individuals who, at our core, do the same thing everyday: inhale. We invite breath and air into our beings as we consume the world around us, then give back in our own beautiful ways. This is a natural relationship that’s necessary for our survival, and it’s this balance that must be maintained throughout both our personal and artistic lives.

This semester’s edition is based on a term that evokes critical thinking — inhalation. Is inhalation simply about oxygen going into our lungs? Or is it the defining practice of our lives; the act that motivates us to be who we are and do what we do? When exploring the idea

of Inhalation we found that it went far beyond the act of breathing. It encapsulated all of the subconscious actions that consume us and create our sense of self. Whether that’s art, love, a vice, or a hobby, inhalation speaks to the external entities that fill us. And in a world that has centered itself around content and consumption, how does it affect our creative process? We wanted our staff to push themselves and find a broad range of ways to bring this thought process to the page.

Our collective of creatives interpreted this word with photo, art, and words, all of which we now share with you. We came together to explore a practice that means

something drastically different to each of us, all the while creating a cohesive magazine that showcases the deepest of our desires and the most terrifying of tales. As you read this issue we ask that you not just receive the work, but actively pay attention to how it makes you feel and what it brings out of you. Are there feelings of relatability, remorse, memory, reassurance? What takes over your person as you flip through the pages?

With this awareness we ask that you take a deep breath, and allow this edition to guide you through your own journey of self discovery in what this simple act of acceptance means to you.

With Love,

Mariyam Quaisar and Jonah Hodari

GUIDING QUESTIONS

What do you walk with when you are alone?

What do you walkwithwhen you arealone? are alone? times?

How can we channel reception? Are we receivingatall times?Are we receiving at

How can we channel reception? How can we channel reception? lness?

How heavy is the weight of stillness?

all times? Are we receiving at alltimes? Are we rec on?

Howheavy is the weightofstillness? How heavy is breath?

Whendoes touchbleed intobreath?

When does touch bleed into breath? When does touchbleed int others? What

occupiesthe space between us and others?

Whatoccupiesthespace between us and ot h e r s ? What occupies the s a cns s nt inal

ceivin the to space arry us?

How do we trust our bodies to carryus?

What consumes us in the unconscious? What What unconsciously consumes you? Whatunconsciouslyconsumesyou?

How does the body engage with what is in front of it?

scious? consumes us intheunconscious? What consumes usin sumesyou? What unconsciously consumes you? What How doesthebody engage with what i s i n f r ont ofit? How How does emotion influence inhalation? How does emotion When does breath become tangible?When does breathbecome of it? lation? angible?

Howdoesemotion influence inhalation? When does breath become tangible?

GUIDING QUESTIONS

My fingers grasp the cool grass, bright green blades peeking through the gaps. I’m pulling them towards me, not hard enough to rip them from the ground, but hard enough that I can feel them straining against the soil, all that coiled up tension. The sun is warm against my face and the sound of laughter surrounds me. I feel like I’m 7 again, lying in the park down the road from my house. My mom’s sitting on a bench somewhere nearby, brown hair in a ponytail, hunched forward on her elbows, leafing through a paperback. There’s a gray sling next to her, one that I know has Goldfish crackers in Ziploc bags and bottles of water. After this, we’ll walk home splitting a coconut water from a street, sweet and cloudy against my tongue, and then she’ll demand I take a shower, which I will do in record speed before I dive into whichever book about fairies or witches or mermaids I want.

And then a loud horn rips the image apart. I’m in the Boston Public Garden, the summer after my sophomore year of college. I have a job and an internship and a million other responsibilities. I’m not 7 years old but so often I want to be.

TheLostRealm

Age, to me, is like an oil spill after the rain. A shimmering kaleidoscope of color; blues and yellows and purples running wild, no clear beginning or end in sight. I feel all the versions of myself I have ever been coursing through my blood, bubbling up under my skin, pushing and demanding to be free. I am 5 and 13 and 21 all at once, untethered above all.

I flick through my life like glossy pictures encased in plastic inside a photo album. Childhood feels like a vague, hazy mesh of sunlight, laughter, and the color pink. A time where I didn’t know what pain was, or loss. I am constantly looking for that same peace everywhere I go, a warm sort of stability that says, “Come in and stay a while.” There’s a familiar comfort in reading the books I did as a kid, losing track of reality between the pages, the same way I always have. This is the only way I can revisit my childhood, pockets of time carved out in a busy schedule, but it has transportive powers all the same. The rest of the time, the pull sneaks up on me.

The minute I stepped into a music festival when I was 16, I took a deep breath and told my friend it smelled like home with a smile. The smell of secondhand smoke, as grotesque as it might be to a lot of people, will always make me feel more at ease. It’s the smell I associate with being at my grandmother’s house with my father’s family- scattered across the globe, rarely in the same place, unless for Christmas or a milestone birthday. A balcony and the warm Mumbai breeze. Jazz and reggae and loud chatter. Half full glasses of gin and tonic, condensation rings on a glass table. A shag carpet and the feeling of being loved.

WORDS Arushi Jacob

There’s an Indian restaurant 15 minutes away from campus my friends and I found sophomore year. Off to a corner is a freezer that contains what I consider to be summer in one item. India in the summer is no joke, the blazing heat the perfect excuse for my cousins and I to regard ice-cream as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A mango sorbet shell with a vanilla ice-cream center, sweet and sour at the same time, sitting on the front steps of my

you can’t stop by, rest against the doorframe and take a minute to soak it all in. It’s a nice reminder that it happened - that for a while life was perfect, and just because it’s not perfect now doesn’t mean it’s not good.

I have a voice recording of my mom telling me a bedtime story on my phone. She spun a web of characters for me as a child, picking up each night where she left off about a family of fairies who inhabited the woods. They had personalities and powers and little outfits I made up in my head. The voice recording I have was taken a month before I left for college, where I asked her on a whim if she remembered the worlds she had made for me. She did. And I did. And now I’ll always have proof it happened.

“Once upon a time, in a forest not too far from here, lived a family of fairies. They weren’t too different from you really, just girls who loved nature and each other.”

Playtime is Over

American Sonnets Yearning

Part One

A galaxy holds us and all the shit we don’t talk about. We tiptoe around our shared glances. Oh, how we tango between our laughs. We exist in the melody of music, the rhythm of words, the wind’s kisses, and the tree’s hugs. But in the Milky Way, I desperately try not to puzzle your heart to mine, sweet essence melts off my tongue flowing into a river; our currents will never meet.

Yet somewhere in this massive universe, I believe we are holding everything; we are a story just too good to finish. The stars are in agreement — our love is stored in their warmth. You say, I remind you of what love feels like.

Then you feed me a waning desire; never kissing. If I’m your queen thank me with your knees bowed, fold into my volta, make me cry, make us loud.

Part Two

I desperately want to collect our laughs like poems. Stuff them into a box. Maybe bake them into a cake and eat it. Allow you to stain your ink on my ribs so that mind & body can be one. It is not enough to breathe you in.

The last time I rippled down onto my knees & prayed to God. I asked Him to send my love to you. Eyes glitching. Crying & Cold. Holding in my palms a poisoned prayer that will never become a gospel.

A choir will never sing our praises in any universe. This here is our little song may it forever be a little sound. Except on that one afternoon when we finally became loud. Legs cramped between the seats — your front, my back. This dance: tumultuous, waltzing, endless…

“It is no t enoug h to breathe you in.”

28/ EM Spring 24

THE WORLD ARUND ME

“I’m not obsessed with sex. I just can’t stop thinking about it.

The performance of it.

The drama of it. The moment you realize someone wants your body.”

-Fleabag, Phoebe Waller Bridge

There are very few moments where my body and mind are in tandem. Well, on a natural basis, yes, they work together. The mind tells the body to break down the molecules in food and transfer them into energy, lift a spoon to feed us that food, think about what we’d like to eat and grab it from the fridge! They’re in constant communication, that’s true. But in terms of consciousness, the mind, my mind specifically, is in the driver’s seat. My body is in the side car, shaking as the vehicle shuffles over rough terrain. They're both irrevocably intertwined but seemingly at battle with one another. Therefore, I often turn one off to make space for the other.

My body is impartial half the time, just a vessel to take me to and fro, show up when I need to, move about the world in the necessary manner. Most likely it’s the first thing people notice about me when I pass them on the sidewalk or sit next to them on a train. But I’m not proud of my body for whatever aesthetic it fits or doesn’t fit; I appreciate my body for its ability to serve its undying purpose. Or, I suppose, dying purpose because one day it will. More specifically, I appreciate its purpose to pleasure others. I appreciate its purpose to stun and attract others. I appreciate its purpose to be of purpose to someone else. And even though the action involves another, this is when my mind turns inward. No longer are the mind and

body opposing pieces. They collapse and are consumed with the entirety of me.

I drape myself across bed sheets and pose. I feel silly and beautiful when I do this. Almost like a caricature of a woman. Almost like my flesh is presentational. My body wakes up. Under a constant sheath, she waits patiently, forgetting what she looks like. Yet, I step into my body, suddenly conscious of its unshakeable reality.

I think and feel a lot of things in these moments. First, I consider myself a painting, a grand piece to be hung on a wall, a frame in a movie, a sculpture made of cold marble. Hanging up there like that, I might as well be a diagram of a woman. There may as well be a laser pointer, circling each piece of me till everyone understands my relative geography. Pelvis, kneecaps, neck, back…I’m cut in half to show what it’s inside of me. Tubes and sacks, blood and vessels. From the outside, you would never guess how much is contained within these walls. I’m inside myself, looking up at the outer walls of my skin. How it stretches and bends so beautifully. It’s almost grotesque, it's so amazing.

The thoughts disperse when I touch myself to find that I am real. I’m here. I’m inside! Come and find me! Diagrams and paintings can’t hurt or breath or speak, and I’m doing it all simultaneously. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed by all the mechanics. The opening and closing, the lifting and shifting, inhaling and exhaling. Even so, I try to sit in the chaos. I try to recognize it and love it for all that it is. There is so much time to think and I’ve spent so much of it pretending how to feel. I want to feel all of it. What a privilege it is to feel pain. What a privilege it is to be touched. What a pleasure it is to live inside something so glorious. How lucky we must be to be sharing it.

Your Flashlight

WORDS Mariyam Quaisar

Your diaphragm contracts and pulls downward, causing the muscles between your ribs to pull upward. Your thoracic cavity increases while the pressure inside decreases, allowing air to rush into your body. Several seconds later, your diaphragm relaxes, your thoracic cavity decreases, and the pressure within it increases. Your body forces out air. Then does it all again.

Now think of it in a different way: As your nostrils open up to the air around you, oxygen flows into a pair of spongy, pinkish organs—we may call lungs—and into your blood, followed by a release of carbon dioxide from that same blood and out into the atmosphere.

Now think of it this way: You place your left hand over your heart and your right hand over your belly. Take a deep breath in through your nose, then release it all through your mouth. And again. And again. And again. And again.

Then remove your hands and simply stay still—your body continues the process that is essential to life.

This necessity of breath: it is something so simple, yet so complex.

Day in and day out, every second of our existence, we are subject to a scientific process of simply? breathing in and out—that can make or break us. We are subject to an emphasized

ii innn n.

... a nd outttt

“ i ”

at yoga class, or when anxiety belittles our bodies. We are subject to whatever the air around us consists of.

We are filled up by our environment as we are pawns in earth’s systems, but you’d think the big blue and green machine that we inhabit gave all humans a fair chance. No?

This thing we call breath was meant to be a simple part of life, but turned complex when peoples’ pinkish organs are compromised because of where they are born; some are inhaling particles of dirt and atoms of harmful chemicals. Others are inhaling luxury. Those who travel to parts of the world, where the air isn’t as fresh, long for their home—then return to it because they can. Others are stuck in clouds that aren’t so fluffy, but rather detrimental in their composition: full of fog and smoke that forces itself into our being, whether we want it or not.

We are subject to something so simple, yet so complex.

We are filled up by our environment as we are pawns in earth’s systems

With every inhale, you create a mind-body connection to openly invite a gust of oxygen. Your soul stretches out its arms to welcome newness. You look down and see your chest expand, almost picturing the light that’s flowing through you. And you feel grateful.

You thank whoever and whatever created this body of yours as a smile creeps across your face. Because this effortless invitation gives you opportunities. It gives you the chance to make that tough decision, and take that necessary step for a better next second, next hour, next day, next life.

Which begs the questions: who are we without our breath? Yes, we’re not alive, but how are we who we embody? How does our breath shape our individuality?

As a collective, we use breath to calm ourselves down, we use breath to keep going, we use breath to sigh in happiness or angst. We use breath as a means for survival.

But how do you use breath? How is your person subject to something so simple, yet so complex?

Do you take control of it, or does it take control of you? Have you mastered it, or do you let it lightly rap on your door then leave into the darkness?

We bend over and clutch our tummies when that simple breath is struggling to flow. We close our eyes and focus so hard to effectively do the one, tiny thing that dictates our next blink, our next word, our next move- ment. We put our hands above our heads to ease the shoot- ing pain in our abdomen, and to simply accept a gust of air that will allow us to take the next step.

What is your breath without you—or, really, who are you without your breath?

Is the open- ing of your nostril and the contraction of your diaphragm the driving force of your existence? Or is it the build- ing block? You can’t deny the flush of oxy- gen through your blood, but then do you remain a pawn of the process?

If you tell your body to stop breathing, will it?

BASK AND RAPTURE

If I Must Live Without My Dad WORDS

Erin Norton

If my dad were to be known for anything, it would be for his caring demeanor, his booming voice, and round tortoise shell glasses. For living in rural Vermont, his presence is so large. I’m not just talking about his round belly, which bounces delightfully with the

boisterous laugh I’ve inherited for him. Even more, it’s perfect for a bear hug after a long day. His days are the longest out of everyone I know. When the sun first comes up, one of our black labs, Delilah, wakes him up with a deafening howl and a scratch at

the bedpost. He lets Delilah and the other three dogs outside to stretch their sleepy legs out. He goes into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of orange juice and makes himself an English muffin with a side of the fruit he cut the night before. Papaya, mango, can-

taloupe. He doesn’t shave anymore and has decided to let his hair grow long. Soon enough, he and my mom will be retired on a boat, probably following me to whatever part of the world I end up. He thinks that the long hair would suit the role of sailor quite nicely.

The scraggly beard and mustache with the thick long hair fit him well. Something I won’t tell him is that I secretly miss the smell of Gillette shaving cream when I kiss his cheek. When he gets into his car, his hands reach for the dials to turn on bluetooth. His drive to work would not be complete without music in between. He chooses the genre that he is feeling that day. Bossa Nova, Blues, Classic Rock, Electronica. He taught me how to worship music. In my childhood, we’d listen to any number of the CDs he hoarded in his car. Now, with his phone, he can listen to anything. With the volume up high, he drives to work in his Mazda, colored midnight cherry. Upon arrival, his job as the co-owner of a restaurant means that he could be doing anything. The tasks could be endless. First, he handles financial matters, revises the calendar, really any number of managerial tasks. But the lively and needy service industry waits for no one. He’s always been known to jump in wherever help is needed. Some nights, he sweats through polos as he cooks behind the line. Others, he steps in at the front podium to be a charming host.

Sometimes he simply needs to bus a few tables to keep the momentum going for the waitstaff. Occasionally, he does everything. At the end of the night, he pours a glass of scotch on the rocks to ease the pain in his arthritic knees and heads home for the night. If he’s home early, he’ll cook dinner for my mom and I. It could be baked sliced potatoes, Amish chicken, artichokes, king crab. Just like my dad, my mom will have something delicious made for afterwards. Cream puffs, banana bread, Welsh cookies. When I used to live at home, I’d convince my parents to watch Jeopardy while we ate. We’d yell answers at the TV with our mouths full of homemade food. In the midnight hours, my dad sits in the crater he’s made in the couch and watches trash TV with my mom until he inevitably falls asleep before he can make it to the bed. From my childhood bedroom, I used to be able to hear them laugh. Their cackles sound better together, like a harmony. When I was little, I would go to work with him every single day. Sometimes I would help out around the restaurant. Other times, I would sit in the back room reading. But most of the time, I spent time with my dad. I would sit in his office and doodle with him when he had a moment to breathe. We would draw lobsters, hands, flowers, fountains, bugs. He still has these drawings hung up on his cabinet. When he was home for a day off, we would often paint together, creating a single, chaotic picture. My dad dropped out of art school, but I plan on finishing my creative degree. Not a day goes by where I haven’t considered dropping out of college. But my dad is who keeps me going every day. I want to finish my degree for him. Born in 1955, he’s getting older now. All my life I’ve had nightmares about losing my father. Now they’re becoming more and more frequent. Without my father, food would lose its taste, music and art would simply lose their meanings. In my twenties, I’ve come to obsess over the stories he’s told me throughout my childhood, feverishly committing them to memory. feverishly committing them to memory.

of I am

the of the human brain.

I

want to my forever. keep father

In Sheila Heti’s novel, Pure Colour, the main character follows her dead father onto another plane of existence. If only I could. He’s still on this earth, living and breathing, but I’d follow my father into every existence, every universe. Once again, the futility of human existence wins again and his absence is lurking like a void, waiting to take away the Gillette shaving cream, the baked

sliced potatoes, the charcoal pencils, the restaurant menus, the CDs, the papayas, the polos, every single thing that’s made my dad my dad. I may not know how to live without him and I don’t have to yet, but he’s perpetually with me. As his daughter, I have his eyes. They’re pretty and green like my mothers, but I see the beauty of life through his.

VELVET

THEESSENCEOFMYC ITPMUSNO NO

Like the Ocean, I Keep Coming Back to You

I’m writing to you from the Massachusetts shore. I find myself here often, inclined to stay forever every time I’m cradled by the edge of the universe. It’s only February, and all my sun-kissed freckles dissipated months ago. My friends don’t see the value in taking the train here in the midst of a New England winter. But the sun is glistening out on the water, and I’ve never known such a solitude. The tide goes in and out, like it always does. I inhale, with salt water lungs, and exhale into the briny air. And between saline breaths, I swear I can hear whispers of your verses.

In another time, Emily, you sat just miles from me, writing infinite poems with the same fingertips that touched the gentle waters. I’m thinking of you as I walk along the open surfline, and I know two things to be true. One, the ocean is grounded, it will always be here no matter how many times the tide goes in and out. And two, what is poetry if not grounding ourselves to this Earth?

You are still a vessel full of cascading light, alive with every line you captured. You are a sign of life, telling the world that you were here and you loved the star-stuff that makes us all human. You are still here, you are forever grounded.

And maybe this means I should stop fearing death. If I can soak in all the laughter and battle cries, memorialize every person I’ve ever known, preserve my footsteps on this sand — I shall never worry about waking up one day and finding the edge of the universe gone. Humans have a funny way of waving farewell but never meaning it entirely, don’t we? We perish and the world keeps turning, fragments of our innermost selves flying across the clear horizon.

Years ago, you wished for a kinder sea. I think I’ve finally found it, Emily. Here, the tide goes in and out, and your poems drift ashore for me to find. I take a deep breath — Inhale, exhale, all of your words.

My girlfriend flows through me as I

WORDS Sasha Zirin

The post-nasal drip makes me nostalgic for being eight years old and swallowing Tylenol in an inexplicably incorrect way and feeling its chemical taste cloud my mouth. I told her this passively

The crumbs in my nose never seem to leave. My snot tastes like rubbing alcohol, my fingers taste like bleach, my lungs hurt, it’s easy to zero in on such sensations for brief moments before getting to bask in the high, never is there time for thoughts of reality to seep into my brain. Never is there the time to think about what he wanted besides saving me from the drugs. Saving me from what he thought i was, who i decided to be, wanting me to turn into what i could’ve been (which was, to him, a wife for him to fuck until he gets bored).

Her coked up veins ache for clean blood, her eyes look more cavernous and pushed into her skull than when we first got lunch together last year. Her beauty is worn, but the glimmering and fighting sparks in her irises melt my heart. Her hot vanilla coffee wafts steam that causes a plane to exist between us.

her apartment

My miniskirt hugs my hips and i have a dead cigarette on my lips and i have the cocaine shits! and so many girls of so many ages have done all of this before and will continue to do it long after i am gone!

The restaurant i work at 5:42pm 11:17pm i’m high in her bed 11:17pm i wish i was high in her bed

She isnt like those before she understands my need to have fun from what won’t chase me too hard. All she wants to do is shoot smoke into the back of my throat and let the music play while we cough and exhale together 5:42pm

nd ru n away

I’m drunk and trying to convey my guilt for the ways i hurt my body. I keep rambling about how stupid i am and when someone asks what im talking about i cant say anything real. Will they look down on me for thinking cocaine is a less deadly poison than whatever he put in me? Admitting this feels stupid. How could i love myself when my life is defined by the drugs? When my life is defined by the disappointment i cause in those i love? ?

She woke up with a sore throat and knew it was from the cocaine and had a feeling of humiliation so great one only experiences it occasionally. She told me she felt sick and hated herself for letting it get this way. She told me her ex-boyfriend hates her but would still cry if he saw what she’s become. She feels as if she’s hollowed herself out, and i try to kiss it better but nothing can stop her from looking in the mirror and seeing a shell

It’s been four months since i had to yell and push every evil thing away and its been four months since i failed and they continue to haunt me and its been four months since i started trying to shower their sins away and its been three months since i considered that it might be my fault and its been three months since i started repenting and its been three months since i started confessing and its been two months since i started confessing to you and its been two months since you told me i did nothing wrong and i cried and i cried and every piece of guilt tried to leave me and its been two months since i found salvation in the drugs and its been one month since you became my girlfriend and its been one month since the last time i went a day without snorting it and its been one month since i finally entered heaven and cocaine forgave me for everything and i stopped experiencing any of the pain they left in me

I used to read about love and how it affects the feelings in your heart and your mind and your blood. Your body is supposed to feel beautiful when your life is full of love. Your life is supposed to feel good once you have achieved the one thing considered infinite, considered intrinsic to being, the one thing humanity is always supposed to have left. Girls romanticize love intensely. It’s supposed to heal you. It’s supposed to make you treasure the body you’re in, the way the air flows through you, because someone else treasures it more than you thought possible. But the air flowing through me feels secondary to the smoke. And i think the girl i love agrees and i think it might be my fault that she agrees

You cant romanticize partaking in filth if you choose it.

I could have wiped my tears away by treating my body kindly. I wish my mom would let me go places growing up. I wish i didnt blame everything on everyone else I wish i didnt hate myself but how can i not when i am the cruelest person in my life. How can i not resent the one that constantly makes me inhale ashes rife with toxins. Even describing it like that is stupid. Maybe if i challenge my every thought hard enough i will feel okay

M a y b e i t s fi ne maybe her body is fine mayb e mybody is fine maybe everything we share will push us throu gh t h e d a r k i tsuj rehtnaw ot leef ekil ehs si hguone ot ekam em .retteb

Maybe its fine maybe h er b o d y si enfi ebyam ym obyd is fine maybe everything we share will push us thro u g h eht krad i just want her to feellike she is enough t

I inhale her inhale inhale

than she is cleaner and smoother

e r .

VORTEX

EXVORT TROVX

VISUALS Ella Fields WORDS Ella Fields

Communual Breath

On the 25th of February 2024 some pals came to my home on the hill to celebrate The Waning Moon - just one day after the full, where many of us had spent our evenings giggling with a drink in hand.

Now it was Sunday and we went about our days on the lookout for offerings to give to The Waning Moon.

We sit in a circle on the black and white blanket, holding hands as our breaths begin to sync.

In…1…2..3 The moon’s light has illuminated our shadows, and as we exhale this communal breath, we send our offerings to wish her well on her journey back to darkness.

May we speak & share & learn & search for Fresh Air

Together

a paper crane gifted by a dear friend. a Florida-beached seashell,

large and small leaves resembling mothers and daughters,

rocks having journeyed in pockets through malls and on buses,

flowers dried in window sills waiting weeks for a new place to call home, an acorn and a bell who speak the same language,

an angel having spent her days in a childhood bedroom,

and a stick and leaf waiting right outside this front door - come on in.

ASHING

WORDS Talia Vyadro VISUALS Rawpixel Artify

More often than not my only sense of love was taste. The taste of milk duds, lollipops, anything from the candy aisle. Imagine how easy it is to purchase love for 1.99. This isn’t an elegy for an eating disorder although I am not far enough removed from my tendency to self-soothe with sugar. Instead, this is an acknowledgment of the fact that my mouth isn’t the only evaluator of my desires.

I’m always surprised when I change my mind. I used to hate the smell of cigarettes; I would be so sensitive to nicotine that I would get nauseous from the smell even if it wasn’t coming from the same room. I tried a cigarette for the first time in Scotland when the girl I had a crush on asked me to take a smoke break outside of a pub. Lighting that cigarette was me bending the rules in favor of a potential. Back at that point I existed solely because of rules: rules of how many calories I could eat, rules of how I could hide my body, rules how I could perform being miserable in ways to solicit empathy but not actually reveal why I was so depressed. When I lit that cigarette I made a choice to abandon shame for however long it would take to ash. Since then, I’ve made many more choices (small but consistent) to seek happiness outside of the aisles of CVS. I didn’t recognize how much of my senses had been blunted until I sat down to write this piece.

What I’m still figuring out is what to ask of myself and what to ask of others. Sometimes I think I expect entirely too much of myself, alternatively I think I expect entirely too much of others. Inhaling doesn’t always mean consuming it can mean recognizing that you feel empty and allowing yourself to be filled with something. When I get down to the bottom of it, I want to trust myself. I want to trust that my decisions are in pursuit of peace. I want to trust that my choices amount to something and that what I have lost doesn’t outweigh what I have gained. Inhaling is the first step.

Give Way

THE CHEMICAL SUBLIME

WORDS Ryan Yau

1. Love is a breathalyzer

To breathe someone’s air is to understand everything that’s ever been part of them.

A scene from First Reformed, the movie that informs my entire worldview, recurs in my mind. Reverend Toller, an alcoholic small church minister, gets in touch with an environmental activist and his wife—the activist dies and he and the widow find themselves reliant on one another. The two are alone one night and she proposes they do an exercise she had done with her late husband: they lie face to face and breathe, silently. She calls it a magical mystery tour. In their shared breath they enter a transcendental state, and the connection is so potent the reality of the film starts to break apart.

The moment resonates so strongly because I’ve always felt that the deepest form of connection is silence. It’s trust in the other that a relationship is past the need for evidence: if you can sit still without further attempt to connect a bond is irrefutable. Nothingness is depicted as a supernatural experience.

The movie’s resounding philosophy—and therefore my own—is that modern existence is to live with contradictions. Faith and despair are not mutually exclusive; despair is a total faith in nothingness.

2. Oxygen suicide

Air is a medium of infinite contradictions. It’s the most intimate medium to share, yet it’s the one that connects all living things. We need it to function but we’re all working towards longhaul oxygen suicide.

I’ve been thinking about the role of chemicals in my head. There’s no truer spiritual experience than altering the chemicals in your brain, to attempt to break the finite limit of human computing power.

The rational conclusion on the debate of free will, as I’ve seen it since as far back as I can remember, is that everything has been determined by a eons-long chain reaction, a chemical Rube Goldberg contraption set off at Genesis. The notion of free will, however, may exist in the uncertainties—quantum processes may be our souls trying to take the reins.

3. The Chemical Sublime

The title of this essay was borrowed from a research paper about airborne formaldehyde that struck me as uncommonly poetic: it claims, in summary, that the chemicals in the wood of American homes have had subtle effects of human physiology on a generational timescale, to such an extent that it approaches something sublime.

The chemical sublime: “minute changes to body and atmosphere across time and space.” It’s a helpful term, one that can describe many of the impacts of modernity on the human spirit. The world is hyperconnected to an extent that Edmund Burke could not even conceptualize. Pollution, the world wide web, global politics, universal monoculture, it’s all everything.

4. Dogsmell

A dog’s heartbeat is the best antidote to fear. When I can’t sleep I’d reach down and put my hand to his lung, and I’m reminded that I exist in a sphere of everything living, except maybe He’s a step closer to nirvana.

A dog’s shitty, sweaty smell is the cure to a long day. Dog odor is the sum total of its experiences: dirt, grass, puddles, floor, other humans, other dogs, the occasional cat or bird. To smell a dog is to sympathize with an experience completely unknown.

One day when I reach over and find nothing there I hope I’ll have a phantom scent to remember.

5. Sin

Man’s greatest crime wasn’t the bomb, it was creating an indestructible material and putting it in single-use goods.

So much of the rhetoric around climate change revolves around “saving the planet,” as if humans are too ashamed to admit their own self-centeredness, even in desperation. The planet will recover; humans will pay the brunt of the price, and rarely the ones responsible.

The way most people interact with climate change, certainly in the developed world, is through a series of minor inconveniences—paper straws, paper bags, recycling. People are conditioned to conflate the two. Climate change in our lives is so removed from the alarmism we hear all the time that it itself becomes a minor inconvenience.

I hate talking about climate change because I feel like a broken record. I hate thinking about it because my thoughts scratch and rewind towards the same obvious conclusions.

In a world where air is broken, living to alleviate thought may be the most ethical way to function.

AUTOMATON

Immortalized in the Summer of Our Childhood

WORDS Zaineb Sharif

I don’t wake up and it will always be Sunday, In the split evenings of summer, The balcony door slightly ajar, Sipping strawberry kiwi lemonade, Sitting side by side, you tell me you have found peace

Immortalized as my favorite corner piece, Watering a flame you lit me, We lay in myth and memory, You laugh at me“for your sanity, let things be”

In the midst of your laughter, Coloring the outline of me, We hear the universe orchestrate, A final sermon to our vision, your testament of my existence

In a preserved state of suspension, I am yellow as the school bus you found me on, Parked down your street, Frozen at a quarter-past five, My heart’s chamber without you as my muse, And I slowly begin to realize, the world was and still is very lovely

As life punctures our fate, time again and again stops in May, In the deserts of our childhood and through the glimpses of our final goodbye, We joke as the kids we would always remain, As the grand symphony echoes one last time, I let you go,

meant to meet but not meant to be.

The City We Stay In

WORDS Zaineb Sharif

They tell me how lucky am I, To have lived out some form of my childhood dreams, Blessed and cursed I sayto see the past around me

I meet my second lover at the corner restaurant in Boston, The half-finished love still remains untouched, You linger at my eyes, Sharing pieces of your plate, in the garden of innocence we played

We grew up together, You taught me life through cotton-candy skies, Seeing the world in shades of purple, In the same city we stay, our destinies were always tied

Never a stranger, Fate’s grip we forever defy, knowing I cannot bring you along

anchoring myself in a series of unsaid goodbyes.

BAPTISM

WORDS Annabelle Adams

My legs throb; my knee has a heartbeat. Pain has manifested and grown into limbs. Soft sand snakes around my ankle as my feet sink deep into the Earth, and I offer my pulse, my coursing blood. I am given a kiss from a crashing wave in return. It washes up and foam encompasses the aching bottoms of my feet and I lose my breath for a single minute when the cold from the depths of the world steals it from my chest.

My cocked head stares out, watching the sea strive upwards to meet the horizon. It reminds me of my pulse when it quickens. Underneath me, my blood rushes upwards and pushes against my skin. My own body has lifted my arms without my permission and wrapped them around you so many times. I stare out and watch the sky kiss the sea. It occurs to me how everything before me becomes within me, and I wonder if the sky and the sea have ever been in love.

The Earth accepts me in moments where I cannot accept myself; cradling me from the inside out. I carry, I float, I feel, I am receiving at all times. My palms vibrate with everything they have held and all that is meant to meet their touch. Still within me is the blood I shed ages ago, broken bones that shattered years ago; No bed will ever feel like my sister’s. My perfume still smells the same as September. The sun sets, with no permission, once a day.

I make a wish to the water for the bricks tied to my wrists to melt with the sun before it falls into the Earth. I wish for all of it to leave me, pouring out of my mouth like honey from a jar. For all of the past that clouds my body, my bloodstream, tainting my tongue to retch out. My jaw would throb, my stomach would have a heartbeat. For something to end, to cease to stop, to be finished for once, before anything else can start within me. For a key to lock all that can open and then for it to be lost in one wave, swallowed up by another. Maybe then light could come in.

In my time here, it occurs to me how some things need more than a breath to leave your body. Everything I put behind me ends up in front of me again, hardly moved by the shallow air that I blow out. Water moves my waist further into the current, my skin expects nothing but accepts everything. With the cold breath of the Earth wrapping around my hip bone, I think of the times where I filled the mile long gaps between us with and imagined that it was your touch. You came with the truth and took me out so far, it took me ages to crawl back into my body. I receive you without permission, even where you are not, you push and pull within me. Wind rolls my head back and I surrender my shoulders for a single minute.

Your finger on the heartbeat of the Earth. Close your eyes a

nd feel me on your face in a bit of saltwater. My hands, stars. It all comes so soon, it all comes at once. I lose my breath for a single minute and break through the surface of the Earth. I lose track of where the skin ends, where water begins, where you exit, where you entered. I move you and make room for the light to come in.

“The Earth accepts me in moments where I cannot accept myself; cradling me from the inside out.

I carry, I float, I feel, I am receiving at all times.”

Copyright @2024 EM Mag.

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used in any manner whatsoever without permission from EM Mag except in the case of crediting both EM Mag and the artists. Should you have any questions pertaining to the reproduction of any content in this book, please contact emmagonline@gmail.com.

Cover photo by Jonah Hodari and Paige Kaiser.

Book design by Cherie Laroche, Emily Malkan, Lillian Holland, Mckenna Smith, Ugne Kavaliauskaite, Maggie Kaprielian, and Mariyam Quaisar.

First edition printed by Flagship Press in North Andover, MA. 2024

Typeset in Chandler 42 by Steve Mehallo and Eckmannpsych by James Edmondson.

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Issuu: EM Magazine