Foie Gras aka Iphigenia

Foie Gras aka Iphigenia

Aleina Pawluk x Sierra Kind

Marlena Mendoza

set 1. if i want to hurt i’ll hurt myelf

set 2. bodyshots

Beatrice Pool/ aei.pathy

set 3. blind consequences

Beatrice Pool/ aei.pathy

set 4. BLANK (robert anthony marino)This man got away with attacking me, punching me,

and choking me in the dirt. He is a manipulative psychopath. He spews lies and those who are naive and weak eat it up. I exposed him. He ran away, fled

the state to avoid being held accountable.But he can’t hide from my truth

Sierra Kind

Sierra Kind

The Poison and The AntidoteSierra Kind 2014

This is how we breathe nowBreathing to existHaving the right to exist It is unforgivableHow implicit is your justice“hey man, I am not a settler” It’s the seldom-unique struggleConfronted and close to youPeace is the privilege

Please don’t save meLove meIf ever thought to be too vulnerableDo not apologize

The word “savage” to colonistsIs like Your words of chaos to my dreams of tranquility

I stayed up with suffering all night Listened to all your storiesCrying until we couldn’t breath

It will all seem like a choicestepping to the side, letting others pass Bloody soil, poisoned in mass

Sapient culture binds usConstrained to entanglement Engaged with funding and debt

My heart is too soft and never calm so a shadow takes advantage of it

My secret heart told mewhisper around the shadow unless there thrives rosesthen I should scream

Rage and hope under siege.How can you deny the results?After the dry heaves.

Human rights development has been arrested. The oxygen is becoming poisonAn amulet as an antidote.Breathing to exist.

Sierra Kind

How Open Must I Be to HeartbreakBrooklyn Renee’

How open must I be to heartbreak?No, seriouslyHow many variations are there to a beating?Can it come in the form of silencing?ChangesChanges in rules roles and expectationsExpectationsCriminalizing what is unfamiliar

When my heart breaks, how will you put the pieces back together? That is what your asking right?I’m not sure that I can commit to mending your pieces. That is what you’re asking of me, right? I think that’s what I’m asking. I’m sorry I was so caught up with my own praxis, I didn’t even notice where your heart landed.

* sigh *

I won’t kill myself for your enlightenment

Maybe I’ve inherited an essence of selfishness instead of the selflessness that I have grown to admire. But someone must value and protect my existence. Even if that means that through that we both miss out on the intimacy that could have been waiting for us if we put our lives and expectations on the line.

I dream of intimacyI dream of a utopia where vulnerability has no limitationsWhere me, living, talking, walking, and laughing Owning every breath, cell, and switch in my hips wasn’t synonymous to assembling my own noose

Liberation. The freedom to be vulnerable with full ownership of our abundance and lack

How open must I be to heartbreak?Extremely. We must be willing to have our hearts broken everyday.Vulnerability that heals,Is consistently putting your life on the line. Knowing that either gain or loss, either will be monumental

Wow. * sigh *

My Utopia, My humanity, Our love, and Our Intimacy will have to wait.

Because I’m not prepared to break

I am not ready, or willing to die for it.

Brooklyn Renee’

The ApologyBrooklyn Renee’

I Am Sorry,For the times that I have bashed you, shamed you, hid youAnd in the desperation for the affection of others, forgot to love you.But you didn’t.

For within you I always had shelter & a place to store my pain. Damn, you took in my pain and made it your own. Continually fertilizing my soil, when I was lost, so that the seeds of my potential,The potential of my love,My heart, could blossom.

You cultivated my medicine, so when I was done with bullshit with bullwho, and willing And knowingMy duty to heal, I could.

Because of you, there was no such thing as too late.

But for true healing to take place I have to make amends.

I am sorry.

I am sorry for making you a victim of my ac-tions.I am sorry for being a participant in your abuseI am sorry for giving permission of foreign spirits and energy to probe your sacred walls,Our sacred wallsAnd yet, never have you abandoned me.Blinded in my quest for love, for it has al-ways rested within my skin, flowing through my veins, holding me up straight, and tin-gling right between my legs.

My love.

But for true healing to really take place, I have to make clear of this union & honor this relationship because my infidelity has left you alone,Separate from me.

So here, I declare.I am a sacred woman& Within the grips of my walls lies the power to heal myselfI am a medicine womanWithin the grips and drips of my walls lies the remedy to heal myselfTo heal my familyTo heal my communityTo heal nationsI am a sacred woman& Within the sway of my hips lies feminine energy that commands peace and love on this sacred earth.

For the sway of my hips is a reflection of divine goddesses that have possessed natures blueprint since the beginning of time.

I am miracle paraphernaliaI am a sacred womanI am a medicine woman& What lies between the grips and drips of my walls is the blueprint of all activity within this earthI sway with the hips of generations of StrengthPainLoveMedicine of millions of sacred women&I apologize for ever thinking I was anything but.

Brooklyn Renee’

Keenan McRae Hale

Keenan McRae Hale

Keenan McRae Hale

Keenan McRae Hale

Keenan McRae Hale

Keenan McRae Hale

Keenan McRae Hale

Side-PubeShame, as a tool of violence perpetrates societies’ normalized construct of naturally hairless women. Humans are social animals; our nature is to learn socialized ideas of natural and removing hair has become natural. The commodification and shame tied to natural grooming practices have become violent. A razor marketed for a woman that will be thrown away into the ocean or landfill, more expensive than a “man’s razor,” touches bare skin, this is violent. When I still have scars from being eight years old, holding a pink plastic razor against my untouched barely-there hairs, and the memory of blood running down the newly hairless row on my leg, this is violent. The shame attached to the reality of hairy areas on a woman originates from the idea of a natural woman—hairless; this shame is violent.

Text: Sierra KindCopper Etching: Rose Antaki

Rose Antaki x Sierra Kind

Mathew Norman

CORPSE ENERGY FARM

NOLAN REECE

(Speaking to the audience) Whenever my life seems unrealistic, I expose my body to cold, loud places in our absurd infrastructure. Fluorescent wind from a twelve-lane freeway blows urban problems into my eyes and mouth. Voices from architecture warn me that the debris will give me cancer, but it’s worth getting cancer to be as interesting as I am. Hi, I’m Pribst Fonton 23.

I remember when I was like you. Imagine my fear when the law rendered me for the first time. I said, “Officer, please try to understand my fear. Several people wearing clothes like you con-vinced me that I could use my drugs peacefully, and now you are going to end my life.”

Of course I didn’t really say anything to that character. This conversation is programmed for you. As long as you can hear me, you will never be private.

Now, I have been computer-modeling garbage for eleven years. I know the technology is increasing like Ray Kurzweil predicted. But since the socioeconomic collapse in 2013, no one is allowed to experience technological rapture. Electronics are only used in the civilian disci-pline justice system. For the price of extreme electronic comfort, we all sleep on graphically designed agitation surfaces.

Suddenly, a man—he is sort of like my father—appeared on top of a tall object. Why family, in this story?

Nellie Barber enters.

NELLIE BARBER

Have you seen the image of Bill Graham graphically rotating in Time Square? When I see Will Graham I start to have uncontrollable daydreams. When I try to talk to his image, just saliva comes. To say the least about my personality, my dreams are extremely violent. Once in a dry while I have an idea and if I don’t, I make a mistake that can be mistaken for an idea that can be mistaken for religion.

NOLAN

Thank you. I’m responsible for designing Bill Graham’s image—

Mathew Norman

NELLIE

—Son, I didn’t ask who is responsible. Laptops are designed to give you cancer, so don’t use them on your lap. Maybe this country would grow if everyone would stop falling asleep and pay attention to Bill Graham. I’m going to acculturate your entire family about compassion without your permission.

NOLAN

What?

NELLIE

All Americans can detect Will Graham and it gives them energy to embrace and exacerbate the problems in our socio-economy.

NOLAN

Okay.

NELLIE

Now say a perfect prayer with me:

Lord, stroke me.

NOLAN & NELLIE

L—Lord, please give me the endurance to ignore my medical problems and tolerate our car-cinogenic lifestyle. We give thanks to you oh Lord, who are responsible for our pleasurable accidents. We are your fault.

Hosanna!

NELLIE

Lord, you usually dominate our conversations with environmental noises. But please listen to me now. Stroke my bones and transform them into wine.

NOLAN & NELLIE

I believe in divine electronic rewards, infinite landscapes, Will Graham, the casino afterlife, the vibrating infant ghost, and corn everlasting. Amen.

Mathew Norman

NELLIE

Times Square is the most strategic center in the world. Its advertisements are so strong that they give tourists subtle medical problems. We can use Times Square as an electronic temple to broadcast evangelistic content and confuse governmental machinery everywhere. The videos offer religious opportunities to express on main issues and fan a flame of pure, vague, spiritual energy across the U-States. The public will be disabled by inspiration. With Bill Graham’s commercial, America will be compelled to start an intense new war. The human feedback conditioning cycle will ensure the infinity of our moral infrastructure, and frequent inspirational military strikes.

Now hear the gospel of Michael:

First Michael came and punched the computer, and then he went back upstairs. Then, Michael came back down and struck the computer with a knife, and then he went away. Mike came back and poured hot milk on the computer and went upstairs. He came back down and cussed all while thrusting the computer. Michael left.He came and pushed the computer onto the ground where it already was. Then the computer was not damaged. So he macerated it, but it was still there. Then Michal went. Michael shot the computer with his family’s favorite gun, which broke after forty shots. The computer was taped to dry wall and remained there for about forty days and sixty nights. It was okay. Mi-chael was not—

NOLAN

—Please don’t talk about my childhood—

NELLIE

—No, you are responsible for your former mind, which is responsible for your future. Yester-day, the Internet reported this description about you written by you in 2004:

NOLAN

Imagine a red map of the United States that is saturated with blue icons that completely cover the red background. Those blue icons represent the culture farms of the American future, a true story based on the American past. This is my story, and you should comply with it. Hi, I’m Paul Lantorn. I’m a forlorn science man prone man all patriot boner. I have aesthetic integrity. I’m a proud guesser, and I promise that your future property will be nostalgic if you want me to force you to let me design the national landscape. I have been thinking about be-coming a landscaper for twelve hours straight. Imagine a significant, placid creek adjacent to several flaccid trees in the exact middle of an infinite green lawn—Stop! That paragraph does not exist.

Mathew Norman

NELLIE

I already predicted you would say that ballistic paragraph even twelve years ago. The Internet is sort of like an illegal time machine. It’s a networking machine that we can use to talk with people continuously about everything. Now put this equipment on and listen to what you are about to hear:

(Simultaneously)

NELLIE

Muttering

Solid force, oh prison calendar. Forlorn my cone, come placerate all animal peace, all child peaceful stone. Regret implement. Con-front my blant biss. Garbage drinking fortune. Landmark explosion sast. Corporate brine bone. Societal biplanes tack pastern. Cyber peptic portal banal. Pagan brain. Rage entitle-ment pest. Lucky stain tunnel. Fragile secret provoker. Magic cadaver. Carnal mitigation. Transportation lord, tremble me ponastic reality dancer. Carnage excel powder dish. Threatal blesing …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

NOLAN

Putting the bag on his head

In garden town, a man put explosives in a salt trough for dinner. He ate the sea jerky until he fell asleep. Later, he professionally yelled at an unhealthy group of young adults. Because of him, they accomplished a public oppression monument to ensure equality. The livestock audience made proud, quiet sounds that could be felt from the distant circus. Everyone was interested and suddenly the monument melted. Someone unconsciously recorded the temperature of the mild air. Now rockets could be seen depositing vegetables in the extremely stable atmosphere. Now he began to worry, thinking about dangerous special events happening to his brain. Now you think it was the poisonous fish he ate that made him sick enough for you to hear this. How are you?

Shanley Lazas

The resilient womansees herself in the canyons under rocks in the covesShe embraces her body ensnared and bound naked adornedarmored asleepThe resilient woman is grinning

moaning rememberingShe has not forgotten.She is the cycle and she erupts the cycle.Time passesAnd passesAnd passesAnd the resilient women fights transforms celebratesagain and again and again

-Luz

Luz

WHAT’LL IT BE

first published in The Normal School

Woman Warrior walks into a bar, sits downsays You’re welcomesays Hard rocksays So what, I know De La Soul is Dead.Woman Warrior orders whiskey sans ice, says Want to watch me drink it, says Down it I will in one to six seconds with no one watching. From the forests crossing the rocksabove Woman Warrior’s home townsixteen hundred men strapped with guns took the territory in one to six and rested on the seventh.She knew God liked rituals done in his steadand so it was good. Tethered as always to moonlight—the high kind—Woman Warrior fled the burnt town, arrived in the metropolisfound love, lost it, lost it again. Now in the bar bracing herself for the eye-full onslaught of broken loversWoman Warrior waits—her head draped over her neck her neck pouring down her backher back like a poised metal sword.

Brynn Saito

Brynn Saito

POEM FOR THE SHADOW OF AN AMERICAN BOY

first published in Connotation Press: An Online Artifact

Never tell a woman you’ve got murder inside you, never let the bass overwhelm the treble, remember how your voice

has a history. Never write the coda before you find the hook, that is be as good as you can when standing

by a burning car with a girl inside it and a boy on the roadside making wishes. Be good to the doves cooing nocturnes

through your window, though I know you’ll want to kill them, I’ve seen that kind of rage, it makes my mouth

fill with ash. One day you’ll wake wondering where your mind went, what it held to when the body shook, why the body

betrays the spirit’s quest over and over. Swaths of time like cut ribbons of seawater to thrash around in. Silent sky at dawn.

The muscle in your chest beating 2/4 time against the breath’s 4/4. On such mornings if you’re lucky

the one beside you will be breathing in half-notes, composing with her shoulders or composing with his shoulders

the prelude to your redemption.