Max was not a figment of my desires then. He wasn’t a class crush or a person who lingered in my life bordering between friend and lover. He was just there. He was someone who was a couple seats away from me, wore an X-Men jacket a lot, spoke only when it was obvious he had something valuable to say, and who has a bisexual looking bob—I obviously thought he was cute, his plain earnestness was very attractive. That being said, I’m the kind of girl who assigns a subway crush each time she rides—I wasn’t making a move just because I thought he was a decent guy.

I followed him on Instagram. I think Nietzsche suggested that in his last Teen Vogue column.

MH: “Hey, I really appreciate the notes you gave me in class yesterday!”

AM: “Yeah ofc! I really loved your script it was so fun to dissect and understand it”

MH: “I’m so glad! Also I loved reading your whole feature. You’re a really good writer and it’s crazy you put that together so quickly…I know you’ve talked about that you read a lot. What are some of your favorite books?”

I’m not an idiot, I can tell when a guy wants something. Question was, what exactly did he want? Why was he texting me when the semester was over? I’m an over thinker, and he’s a man, so of course an investigation was launched—“Just around every corner lay something curious and interesting, something I had never before seen or done or known.”1

Him and I texted back and forth. I, not having Instagram on my phone at the time, was overriding my screen time block on my computer every few hours to reply. I thought he was funny, I liked that he asked me questions that didn’t hide the fact he was into me, I liked that he bought I Who Have Never Known Men within 24 hours of me recommending it. I redownloaded Instagram on my phone, I couldn’t stand by my computer refreshing and refreshing no more. I offered my number.

Next thing I know, I was buzzed off an edible, playing Mario Kart with my brother and sending Max voice memos about my beef with Jesse Welles when he asked to FaceTime—and that we did (after I found out I was related to incestuous Irish nobles<3).

That call altered my curiosity. He wasn’t a passerby, a future hook-up; he wasn’t just someone fun to talk to—he was someone I’d metabolize—he became a person I missed despite not being connected to on campus. After an hour conversation with him I noted in my poetry Moleskin, “I never want to stop getting to know you.”

He’s watching my latest obsession, Blue Lights, I’ve been reading his favorite book series, His Dark Materials; I fire bit after bit with him and he tells the story about our professor embarrassing him in front of me again and again—I blush every time; I explain the differences between Socialism and Marxism and he lets me watch his dog, Rocket, spin through the screen, (I feel like a cat watching the pet channel while mom’s out). We’ve stayed on the phone from 10-3 five times over. We made a cake pop together.

I’ve never felt so comfortable talking to a man, maybe a person, in my entire life. There’s a feeling of danger, of uncertainty that makes the words I say quiver with others that come out confidently with Max. I think it’s because he’s told me time and time again that he thought I was cute and smart and just needed a reason to talk to me; I know he came to me first, so there won’t be an embarrassment if I say all I do and he ultimately leaves. He would reach and leave, I wouldn’t have reached and been abandoned.

It’s been a month of this. His family knows me by name, I come up in passing; I appreciate how passionate he is about comics and his silly songs that I don’t fully get, while he appreciates how I love his smile at my smile because of his smile.

I feel strange using the word “love” in regards to him. I’m not in love with him, that feels like a culturally potent statement, (also an inaccurate one), that I’ll cast out of my mind in time, but I do love him. I love this moment. I love being on my phone, for once in my life, because I know this makes me happy. He never stops talking, I never stop talking.

We live in a world where it’s embarrassing to care but he makes it not. He makes me feel safe to gush, to giggle, to pine. He gushes, giggles, and pines. He’s doing what he should, but not what’s common.

I screenshot the ultra-nice things he says, and sometimes send them to my friends; most I keep to myself. I don’t fully know why I do it, it’s not like the messages will disappear from my mind if they do from cyberspace. Maybe it’s me collecting evidence, proving to myself he is saying these things, he means these things. It’s not one big hallucination from the haze that is winter break. This is real.

It’s now January 30th 2026 and we’ve been dating a week. I stay the nights with him and sprint to my class the next day because we couldn’t stop snoozing the alarm, we plan to attend raves and see movies with his roomate and his girlfriend, my friends refer to him as our third—we make sure we’re both comfortable, safe, and committed—inside and out—to each other and to ourselves.

It’s hard when I’m looked at with love lorn eyes to not look behind them and try and see what they see. When I’m alone I like myself just fine. I can take a pout selfie, add some dubstep over it and feel hot, but when a single person looks at me a little to long, a little too wide, I think of all the trauma and people that have touched my skin—bruises, cuts, sexual assault—I think of my mom and stepmom telling me I am unlovable—and I think who would want to be with me? Who could see me as desirable? I forget the good parts of me when I fleetingly remember the bad times aren’t just an anecdote, but an experience. Who would want more than just skin to skin? I used to think my bad thoughts were a wall of sound2 actively closing in on my soul, but now I think someone, that Max, could think that. I’m terrified he could think that.3

Inside I know that wall of sound is actually me. I’m not fractured, the easy isn’t being closed in on by the hard—I’m layered; I am the crossroads between my past and who I actively am. I’m a frontier, I am total. I’m like a Roman in the 6th century moving about Europe bringing people and stories into my world, or a screenwriter connecting my story on a cork board, which sounds less like I’m a self-serving colonizer.

I still feel simple talking with Max now that we’re properly together and not split by the screen, but I ponder the day he could possibly see my experiences as a complete and total me—that I am bad. I’m nice, I’m funny, I’m cute, but I come from a dead family tree. I live now as if I never grew from my roots. I did a jailbreak but he may keep my wanted poster to remind himself who I am when I forget.

I worry one morning that wanted poster will burn under his pillow and my never-ending stories will spoil, my looks will molten, and my opinions will become egregious. I fear he will know my confidence has cracks in its foundation. That when I joke I’m wet at the idea of him in his starfish costume from the time he was in The Little Mermaid, my mind bobbles; That when I poke fun at him possibly a little too much, my mind bobbles. That the view of me that him and I share now will evaporate and be replaced with a muddied one.

I’m aware he accepts me and appreciates me, just like I’m aware I have plenty of history that I need to keep at bay but also accept—I am who I am. I am a wall of sound. I accept all of me and I need to comprehend others will too. I need to understand that when Max affirms that he likes me, loves the pieces of me he laments, he means it. When he says he accepts me, it’s because the visual of that wall of sound closing in is not in his mind, like it used to be in mine.

In my reading journal, I’ve been keeping track of my monthly favorites, but then I saw Eliza McLamb’s piece a week ago where she formatted the books she read into her own wrapped with fun names, brief discussions and introductions. So that’s what this is.

I love yapping about books to the void, but if 1 out of the 3 max people who will read this go pick up one of these stories, I’ve won in life.

Quick Stats

.In 2025, my reading goal was 15 stories because, truthfully, my reading journey began only in December 2024. I ended up reading 56 stories, and am currently reading 1 more for the year, Playworld by Adam Ross. 7 of which being short stories, 6 being plays, and 44 being books. Of such, 6 were nonfiction making the remaining 51 fiction.

.I read the most in May with 11 books and 1 short story, and the least in July where I read nothing (shoutout to my summer job).

.My longest book was Wellness by Nathan Hill, with 624 pages, and my shortest was, I believe, Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan, with 160 pages.

.I had to discard 6 books (mentioned at the end) and found 8 new favorites !

Now let’s get into the Nitty-Gritty1

Play Around the Play

I feel like this section is fairly self explanatory, so I’ll start with it.

.Love Loss & What I Wore by Nora Ephron (February 7-28). Not to start on a negative note but this was not for me. It didn’t leave much of an impression, it was just kind of there. I stumbled across it in the shops and I stumbled across its pages.

˚⟡˖ ࣪ The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler (March 5). I ate this the fuck up. I was laughing, I was crying, I was sleep deprived and staying up so late to read this even though I had an exam at 8 the next day, but it was so worth it. We follow women as they monologue stories about their lives, personifying their vagina to do so. It was very eye-opening and relatable and I think everyone should read this at some point in their lives.

˚⟡˖ ࣪ Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (September 15). I wanted a quick read and I remembered Carley Thorne discussing Jacobs-Jenkins plays in the past, so I headed to my favorite bookshop and picked this up. It explores how no mater a tragedy’s size or reason, the media will find a way to exploit, profit, and bury. The first act is the tragedy and the second act is the aftermath. I felt myself wanting to know more about the tragedy and the politics of the office where it took place, but that’s exactly what Jacobs-Jenkins wants.

˚⟡˖ ࣪ John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Bellflower (September 15-17). I had the pleasure of seeing this play on broadway in May and September and it’s genuinely the only live theater production, besides Sabine Woman from Bella Cvengros, that’s had an impact beyond tears on me. This play brings you right back to High School Lit class in the best way possible, then brings you to the chaos, (#metoo, relationships, friendships), inflicting the town and school, and thus the classroom. Reading this play made me feel connected, human, less alone—read it, you won’t regret it.

˚⟡˖ ࣪ The Secretaries by The Five Lesbian Brothers (November 23). My roommate was in our college’s production of this play and it was so unbelievably funny. It’s satire on lesbianism and womanhood was very fun to watch, especially against the backdrop of a Twin Peaks inspired saw mill, and I wanted to dig deeper. This was definitely better to watch than to read but both mediums translate the humor in such a great way, and no matter what’s happening you’re dropped in.

Brain-worm

I never thought I would be the kind of girl who would read a memoir, let alone choose to read a nonfiction book in my spare time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m subscribed to the New York and Irish Times, I’m knowledgable in current events and people, but the idea of reading a full on nonfiction book by choice freaked me out a bit. I didn’t want to ruin my passion for reading with non-works of fiction.

I did get over myself and I did enjoy myself for the most part.

.Elvis & Me by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (January 14-February 15). Like the rest of the world I watched Priscilla in 2023 and found myself wanting to read the memoir it was based on—except I got around to it two years later. I find Priscilla Bealieu very interesting as a person, her life is very unique, but I wish this book wasn’t edited with Elvis as the pull. Obviously his name is on the cover, that’s not my issue, it’s that it felt like, with some of her stories, they were edited as not to offend the Presley-heads. I could be wrong, but I said what I said. Regardless of such, the book is incredibly vulnerable and takes you behind the gates of Graceland in a fascinating manner.

.Being Jazz by Jazz Jennings (March 29-April 30). This book’s editing also struck me. I love Jazz Jennings, I think she is such an inspiration and role model—I remember being obsessed with her when I was in Elementary School—‘She’s trans like me!’ That being said, I felt that this book held back on her story, it felt like a teachers manual at some points, and taking into account it’s time of publishing that makes sense—being trans wasn’t a ‘mainstream norm,’ it still isn’t but thats a talk for another day. I wish I read this book when I was younger before I grew into my trans body. That being said, the experience of being a trans child is a unique one and I think everyone should be knowledgable about it.

˚⟡˖ ࣪You All Grow Up & Leave Me by Piper Weiss (February 5-April 8). Between having no time to read and just having a hard time getting through the first 25% of this book and it’s buy-in, I was scared I wouldn't finish this. The book is about Weiss reflecting on her time with Gary Wilensky, her high school private tennis coach, who ended up being a child predator and kidnapper. I was confused why a girl not physically attacked by Wilensky was telling the story of Wilensky and his victims, but then she started telling her own story, her own jealousies—how Wilensky didn’t abduct her, but he still traumatized her. How though she wasn’t raped by him, she was targeted, like every other teenage girl, by a city that fosters many men just like him. The book worried me at first, but this was truly a masterpiece.

.Just Kids by Patti Smith (May 7-15). I have nothing to say about this. I like Patti Smith’s music and I love reading about New York so it was a nice time.

.Cultish by Amanda Montell (August 31-September 5). Whatever you do, do not read this. My boss at my Summer job discussed this with me and other staff members during a training, I couldn’t tell you why, but the premise sounded interesting to me. Montell observes literal cults like Heavens Gate and compares and contrasts them to MLM marketing schemes and Fitness Gurus and their classes. The book stated the obvious to me. I felt Montell added nothing to the conversation of ‘the cult’ and their dialogue besides the origins of a few words, like, ‘Gaslighting;’ which originated from a British play of the same name from 1938 where a wife is convinced by her husband she’s going mad. In addition the book feels very uninspired, I couldn’t understand why Montell wrote this besides the fact her family has ties to a few cults—which to my memory she didn’t even explore properly. I remember reading this in a laundromat one day and turning to my friend Bobbie and telling her how the book was so, ‘here damn’ coded.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder & Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (December 10-17). This should be required reading in U.S. Schools I don’t even care. This book details Belfast’s history from the 1960’s-2014 ish and it dispelled all my negative connotations to reading nonfiction books. Though this was a mammoth to get through, this book told a purely objective history in the form of a mystery and I just couldn’t stop reading. I never was bored by the material, but I’m willing to put money on it that if one was, they wouldn’t be able to stop flipping the pages. Someone ask me about the North of Ireland, I have an answer.

Tá brón orm

There is sadness on me, there is sadness on these characters, on their lives. I have a deep affinity for Irish lit and I’m not too sure where it came from. I am Irish myself so maybe it’s my destiny to fall head over heels with these narratives. My friend Koji texted me the other day: ‘you know those [white] people who are obsessed with Japan I think you’re like that with Ireland.’

Now I must say, though I’m not about to hype up Sally Rooney’s work in this section, just wait until my biblical tier…

To Ireland we go…

.Normal People by Sally Rooney (May 3-6). Overhyped. I heavily enjoyed Connell, but Marianne was not a real person. The things that occurred and she thought about were relatable, but she’s just not a fully formed being in my opinion—which made me hate this book. Sorry Miss Rooney. That being said the exploration of class difference within a relationship was what kept me going in this one.

.The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue (May 17-19). This book is about a 20-something named Rachel and her gay co-worker who both have a crush on her married professor. This book reads so quick and is a nice turn off your brain book as you watch the drama between the friends and with the professor and his wife unfold. My favorite YouTuber, Sally Darr Griffin, loves this book and I’ll taker her recommendations on literally everything.

.Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney (May 26). I personally think I need to reread this Rooney. I read it over the course of a day and just couldn’t stop sobbing at how touching and human it was. Its topics on relationships aren’t light or read heavy, but they struck a deep cord within me. That being said I felt almost on the surface of the story, though I was sobbing I feel like that was partially because of me, not the story itself—hence why I want to reread this in the new year.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Dubliners James Joyce (August 29 - September 15). This is my first James Joyce I’ve ever read, but it won’t be my last. This is a collection of short stories that act as a composite of life in Dublin around the late 1800’s-early 1900’s. That being said, this isn’t a hard read, I found its language fairly accessible and sadly still relatable to our current world. My favorite story was The Dead and its film counterpart may just be my favorite Christmas movie now.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth (September 30-October 1). I LOVE THE GAYSSSS! I LOVE LESBIANSSSS!!! This book set my heart on fire and didn’t let me put it out—I don’t think it will ever go out. The book follows two teen girls in the 1990’s from Crossmore, and we follow from the perspective of anxious Lucy as she falls in love and into a secret relationship with Susannah—the pair grow up and reevaluate who they are to each other and within the context of their country/the world. I usually don’t gravitate towards first person stories but this was great. I send my formal apologies to my roommate Bruna, I wouldn’t shut the fuck up about this as I was reading. Love you girl.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan (October 10-14). This book has insane sentences. Truly criminal how hard they read me to filth. The story is about a 20-something in a relationship with an older man who doesn’t love her as much as she does him—story of my life I guess.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way by Elaine Feeney (December 5-8). This book you have to stick with. There are three timelines in this story—Claire in 2022, Claire as a child in the 1990’s, and Claire’s ancestors living through the 1920’s, under siege by the Black&Tans. We read about the traditional culture of the 1920’s, how it changed, but still oppressed everyone in the home, in the 90’s, as well as Claire’s newfound fascination with the Social Media perversion of ‘Trad-wives.’ I find the conversation around Trad-Wives so fascinating and that’s why I picked this up and I was very confused how the three timelines would physically connect, aside from their themes, but when it did I was shocked. Feeney does a fucking masterclass in writing with this one.

.Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan (December 18-21). Great bones, poorly executed; The third act just doesn’t work with the first two. Also, whoever formatted the book did the thing where words are cut off with an em dash to make the text uniform looking, which is just so fucking gross.

‘Goonz & zoomz in this bitch!’

Thats a quote from the atrocious Running Man film. That is also how I feel about 3/5 of these books. I love the idea of a thriller, of a mystery, but these were flops besides the two.

.A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall (January 2-4). This may be because this is the first thriller/mystery I read in a long time and I wasn’t familiar with the formula but I really liked this. It’s a Book of the Month book, (I fell for the scam)— gripes here— so it’s not extravagant writing but it was a very fun read.

.The Running Man by Stephen King as Richard Bachman (May 8-13). Stephen King…I don’t know how he’s so famous. He has great ideas sometimes but his casual misogyny and racism under the guise of ‘thats my writing peronna’ makes everything I read or attempt to read from him a miserable experience. You can make asshole characters who say horrific things without making your writing that surrounds such dialogue and actions like that too.

.Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister (May 28-30). Just so boring; horrible structure, boring characters—Book of the Month (derogatory)

.Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh (August 21-26). So gross, so weird, so lovely. I read My Year of Rest & Relaxation in High School and I loved Moshfegh then so no wonder I loved reading about a fucked up girl working in a boys prison forming inappropriate attachments to a ‘proper woman’ and random men. Also the third act plotwist was insane.

.Brat by Gabriel Smith (October 2-6). Who let this be published?

I’m a Woman of the People

This is very similar to my next category but these are books I found through direct people—influencers and book shop clerks to be specific. God forbid I consult the court of Public opinion.

.Big Swiss by Jen Beagin (Jan 2-4). I already shouted out Sally Darr when I talked about Irish books but I’m going to shout her again for this and another handful of books. Her and her reading vlogs put me on!! Big Swiss is such a great read; it follows Greta, a 45 year old sex therapy transcriber, living in a small town, who grows a bond with the sound of a client’s voice—whom she dubs ‘Big Swiss.’ She eventually runs into Big Swiss and starts dating her, keeping the fact she knows what she talks about in therapy hidden. This book is so fucked up, and so unashamedly horny and gay—it’s a riot. It’s the perfect book to read in bed and giggle to yourself.

.Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas (January 16-Feb 14). This book I found through Brooke Averick’s now-dead podcast—Obsessed—and I don’t remember much besides it was set at a Quaker school, took place during/around 9/11, and had transgender lesbians.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Come & Get It by Kiley Reid (April 8-11). This is a book of ambition. We follow RA Millie, and a Professor, Agatha’s, lives intertwine at the University of Arkansas, while we observe how their positions of power and class affect their opportunities and livelihoods. Despite that, I didn’t feel like the book wanted it’s themes of money to be the strongest element that was taken away but that may just be me being so invested in how Millie and Agatha interact with their environment. I read this book as a freshman in college so it was fun to read about dorm life while it was happening to me for the first time. It also reminded me of the episodes of Girls where Hanna goes to Iowa for the writers workshop—that’s all I could picture the campus setting as.

.Piglet by Lottie Hazell (April 20-21). Once again, thank you SDG. We follow Piglet, a cookbook editor who is about to marry her dream husband. This being said, a secret comes out that threatens the marriage and forces Piglet into a corner, a corner where her turbulent relationship with food is tested even harder than usual. The book has very interesting themes, and I do recommend it because my friend Sean thought it was great, but I remember feeling like the same insecurities—food and her fiancé—were written the same way over and over again. While the story naturally shouldn’t have been feeling the same, the story beats had the same effect which led to a less textured reading experience than I would’ve liked.

.The Other Profile by Eileen Grazziossi (June 2-10). We follow an influencer and her new social media manager, from the POV of the manager, and on paper this seems right up my ally. I love reading about social media and how we’ve turned suffering and consumerism into a job—an absurdity that people try to excuse by saying, ‘that’s just life.’ This was translated from Italian so I think the bits where I got hung up on were just lost in translation because Grazziossi knows what she wants to say, and she doesn’t hold back. I personally loved the imagery of the influencers bedroom—it’s childish, it’s a mausoleum—it’s who she was before fame froze her development. Shoutout McNally Jackson Seaport staff!!

.Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan (August 26-28). This is a collection of moods with the through line of a young girl living with her immature father in the French Riviera. When he begins dating a woman who wants to implement rules and form our protagonist into a woman of society, she retaliates by trying to break them up. It’s a simple read, with stunning summer imagery. I highly recommend reading about Francoise Sagan’s background before or after reading this because her why for writing Bonjour Tristesse only adds to the narrative—I love a diva who claps back at the media.

Hype Beast

Sometimes a girl can’t find all her books through Substack or poking around Three Lives or McNally Jackson—she’s going to find books from the best-sellers shelf. That’s how I found these reads.

.Cleopatra & Frankenstein by Coco Mellors (April 21-25). Juicy New York gossip involving a friend group and a romantic relationship could never be bad. These characters are fun to read and then forget about once you put the book back on the shelf. It’s a great palette cleanser that doesn’t make you think. Use your library card for this one.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Beach Read by Emily Henry (May 15). This was my second attempt at Emily Henry after hating Happy Place from the very first page, and this is by far my favorite Emily Henry. The first 70 pages to me was a different league than the rest of the book—in a bad way. I love these characters, Gus and January, as well as how they talk and are described. It just makes me happy. It gave me hope that I might like romance novels besides Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez.

.Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (June 10-12). This was my third stab at Emily Henry and I really liked her branching out with this read. She doesn’t just write a romance between two characters, it features the history of a woman the protagonists want to write a biography about. I feel like I could’ve done without the romance between the protagonists, I think the book would’ve been stronger if it just focused on them being fascinated with the woman they are interviewing. Anyways I read this when I broke my foot and had to leave my summer job for a few days and this was a lovely escape from my debilitating FOMO.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Funny Story by Emily Henry (September 19-23). We follow Daphne and Miles who are living together because both of their partners, who were childhood friends, just confessed their love to one another. The period when I read this was incredibly stressful for me academically and getting to read about this couple was such a breather at the end of the day. Like all of Henry’s work its simple but engrossing, it’s sweet not sappy.

.Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (October 20-November 3). This is such a haunting narrative. I’m not ashamed to admit I read this so I could see the movie guilt free. Both are so great and just kind of evil for how sad they are. For the first time ever I think I enjoyed the movie more than the book, story-execution-wise, but the prose here is inspiring, it’s a high every writer should try for.

.The Secret History by Donna Tartt (November 4-14). I think this may be the only good book Target sells—a modern classic too. The book is a perfect dark academia, involving a group of Greek-studies students at a New England College who try and enact a Bacchanal. The narration is first person but isn’t obviously unreliable, though it is. Camilla is such an interesting character to observe as well, there’s a line about how she remembers the first bacchanal that genuinely haunts me.

Almost Biblical

Not every book I read can be a new favorite, that isn’t possible, but these books were pretty darn close.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Severance by Ling Ma (April 30-May 7). This book came out pre-covid—keep that in mind as I tell you what it’s about. We follow Candace Chen who is working in NYC while a fungal virus, Shen Fever, consumes the world, and puts its victim in repetitive action loops. By paralleling her life before the outbreak, working at her job, and now after, as she treks across America with a cult-like leader, we see how consumerism and capitalism poisons our lives and relationships, before and after the world as we know it ends. My only gripe with this book as that it’s hardly long enough. I loved every minute in this world and understanding the intricacies of Candace, her lover, and the Shen survivors. The book has a similar tone to Pluribus as well, so if you like that show read this for sure.

.Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf (May 16). My friend Loralei and I attempted making a two person book club and this was our first book and gosh was it my shit when I read it. It’s so ahead of its time between its commentary and humor— even though it’s a book filled with dark, evocative imagery. I think I need to reread because when I was flipping through looking for my favorite quote I was giggling at the things I underlined. That being said I have not thought about this book until now so that’s why she’s going to reside here.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (November 15-27). The Emerald Fennell adaptation discourse made me dig this up from the depths of my TBR, I won’t lie. Through the narration of one of the servants of Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean, we learn the history of the manor. How Heathcliff came to join the Earnshaw family, may or may not have fallen in love with the daughter Cathy, how the pair married into the Linton family, in addition to how Heathcliff came to own the heights and abused his niece and nephew. The book is an odyssey over generational trauma that is done exceptionally well, and I wish I read this Brontë sister’s work in my High School lit class instead of Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. I love everything in Cathy and Heathcliff’s story in the first half of the book, but in the second half with the next generation I couldn’t get into it as much, despite loving it’s intention, despite what it was saying. No further comments your honor.

.In Tongues by Thomas Grattan (December 4). We follow a young gay guy who moves to New York in 2001 and falls into the art world because of his dog walking clients. This felt like reality TV, it was so juicy. It’s kind of another form of The Rachel Incident, but better, and, from the perspective of James if you’ve read that or want to. The book to me was drama, drama, drama, but I wanted a little more commentary on the class difference between our protagonist and his employers—they used him, they mocked his status indirectly, but that wasn’t a deeply analyzed topic—just a mention.

˚⟡˖ ࣪ Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous (December 9-10). This book I was so quick to add to my biblical tier, but I later read through some reviews and I was reminded how the book was a mystery—I completely forgot that fact. The book is a plethora of fictitious interviews from residents of Piazza Vittorio in Rome after the murder of a resident. Mostly all the characters, despite the detective, are immigrants and they each serve as a composite of that ethnic group entering Rome, in addition to how they’re perceived. I had such a great time with the witty POV’s and learning about the infrastructure of Rome, so when the resolution is tagged at the end I didn’t mind, the book never felt like a mystery, I wasn’t hooked for the whodunnit of it all. Despite such I can’t help but wonder: what if the mystery was as strong as its characters and tone…maybe then it would stay in the biblical tier. That being said I did purchase the indirect sequel, Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet.

At the End of the Day, It’s Biblical

I’ve heard the concept of a 6 star book thrown around and I guess these could qualify as such. These are books that are part of my DNA, I never will stop talking about them, and have become casual references for me. If you love me you will read these (threat), if you want to understand the way I like my books—read these.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney (April 26-30) Frances Flynn is my fucking girl till the day I fucking die. This is Rooneys debut and this was also the first book of hers I’ve read. I watched the show when it came out and I loved it then, but reading this and rewatching only makes me love it more. This is probably to blame for my Irish lit addiction. I think Rooney’s way of involving politics into her characters internal monologues and how they speak to each other is so genius, I love when writing is accurate to how people actually engage with one another. I don’t think every book needs to be political, but I also think nobody in real life engages in a non-political way. It’s impossible. I feel like people hype up her romance elements, but Rooney is a revelation in accurately translating every element of realism into a fictitious avenue.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Talking at Night by Claire Daverly (May 20-22). This is what all romance books should be. This book covers a decade in Will and Rosie’s lives, starting in Norfolk, England, falling in love as teenagers, but forced apart in adulthood due to intense grief. This is one of the best depictions of men and women, across the board, and I think about them so often. The way depression and grief is written in this is impeccable; the characters even when they aren’t vocal to one another about what they are observing from the others behavior, they still recognize and understand, which always makes me tear up when I revisit my tabbed pages.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (May 22-26). This is my favorite Rooney. We follow Peter and Ivan after the death of their father and view their sibling relationship but also their relationships with their lovers—who are significantly younger and older than them, respectively. I love what Rooney has to say about siblings who experience the same childhood characters just in different ways and how that either helps or strains a relationship. Additionally, how she portrays age-gap romance was very eye opening. She doesn’t praise or condemn them, since obviously nothing is black and white, but she lets the characters work out how they feel about the subject alongside the reader. This book is like a puzzle that I still haven’t fully cracked, and I will be rereading soon.

˚⟡˖ ࣪I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (August) I read this over the course of a week, I couldn’t tell you which, in August. I was working at my summer job so I literally had no time to read this, but with the 9 year olds that I was working with, they were so obsessed with me reading this. We had so many great chats on feminism and how it wouldn’t even be a thing without men, but without men there would be other problems that would arise—inevitably how pure, total meritocracy isn’t possible since we have the experience of men baked into our history. This book is masterly crafted, led to such a great moment with me and today’s youth, so how could I not love this. I have made this required reading for every man I come into contact with and it did lead to me being screamed at in a car about how I was too vocal about my politics—and that’s just beautiful really.

˚⟡˖ ࣪ Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh (September 6-10). As all of Moshfegh’s work, it’s so fucked up. We follow a year in the fictional eastern European fiefdom, Lapvona, in the 15th century which is under rule of a greedy landlord on the hill. We experience the story through basically every character in the town and manor and see how they enact or experience greed, corruption, general human depravity, famine, etc. This may be my favorite Moshfegh, just because of how provocative and boundary pushing it is. It’s a very inspiring read due to its ambition alone.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Wellness by Nathan Hill (September 23-30). This isn’t just a romance, it’s a life story, and it was built for me. We follow Jack and Elizabeth’s childhoods, them falling in love in the 90’s, and then as adults with a kid in 2015 trying to understand how they fell in love and why they still are. I’m a psych major and in Elizabeths chapters, since she works for a company that tests the placebo effect, her mind is psych oriented, she references case studies and books through her train of thought, especially when trying to raise her son ‘correctly.’ I felt so seen by her and learned a lot. Jack is a great character but Elizabeth tore my heart out. My copy is currently with my friend Ella in New Jersey and I hope she’s loving it as much as I did. Side note- shoutout Sally Darr once more.

˚⟡˖ ࣪Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Platt (November 23-December 3). This story is just so heartwarming. When I worked at a Dunkin, last fall, my favorite customer, a lady in her 70’s, had this book in her hand and the gorgeous cover of the octopus struck me and I was like, ‘hey girl what’s that book about,’ and she was like, ‘it’s about a woman in her 80’s working in an aquarium being friends with an octopus who knows something about her dead son.’ Naturally, I bought it—I did read it over a year later but this book works so well so unexpectedly. 30-ish pages in you’re introduced to a new character, Cameron, and we obviously know how he’s connected to the main character, Tova, but I was so hooked on how a damn Octopus that couldn’t talk would help the two get the answers not even the cops could. The book reads like a movie script, it was all I wanted to do after my classes which was really annoying for finals was around the corner and I had to study. Read. This. Book. It’s so fun, and joy-inducing.

Short but Sweet

I really don’t have much to say on these short stories. They were all required for my College Writing class in the spring and my Screenwriting class in the fall, excluding the Sally Rooney’s.

I will say though Mr. Salary is one of my favorite things I have ever read and I ended up writing an entire film feature adaption for it, so Miss Rooney and her team, if you want to read, hit my line. I’ll send it across the pond and to your desk.

.Bog Girl by Karen Russell (Jan 20)

.The Enigma of Amigara Fault by Junji Ito (sometime in February)

.I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison (March 12)

˚⟡˖ ࣪Mr. Salary by Sally Rooney (April 25, reread October 8)

.Colour & Light Sally Rooney (May 26)

.The Birds Daphne Du Maurier (September 18)

.The Black Cat Edgar Allen Poe (November 6)

The Graveyard

I am not the kind of reader who abandons a book after it’s been started but some books are just not it. Whether it’s come to me at the wrong time, is genuinely insufferable, or just plain-ol’ not for me, I had to put these books down. Though they could be your next favorite, do be warned.

.We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Berry (April)

.Seven Summers by Paige Toon (May)

.Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll (June)

.The Other Side of Beauty by Garett Rittenberg (June)

.Uzumaki by Junji Ito (July)

.F**gots by Larry Kramer (September)

And with that, that’s all I read this year. ‘Till next year.

For the most part, everything I read on here, where I feel that I’m taking something away from it, is put in said journal. Let that be an interesting view, a historic moment from the past or currently underway, or someone’s story that adds to what I know and believe, is amusing, or takes me down a new path of learning. If someone’s words affected me, trust it’s in there—neatly coded with my Le Pen Pens.

I’m working on my 2025 ‘reading wrapped,’ but I read a lot on Substack this year. Some was just another thing I read, but a lot changed me, added to me. Those are the articles I’m introducing and recommending today.

Happy Reading!

Substack Pieces that Changed Me…

-The Mainstreaming of Loserdom from Tell the Bees

Though its title is provocative I really enjoyed this piece. I feel like the world, more specifically people in my orbit—not necessarily my friends—exist within this world of neutrality, posting they want to ‘live,’ to go out, yet express this untapped desire through TikTok reposts and Pinterest Boards.

I freed myself from the shackles of TikTok this year, not only because it was scientifically proven to be damaging my brain, but also because it was genuinely a miserable experience. I love reading and dancing and going to unexplored stores in New York, and seeing mood boards romanticizing the experiences I live everyday is cute in theory, but viewing comments where people say their hobby is actually rotting in bed and doomscrolling reminded me the mood board was as far as people got with their aspirations.

Obviously not everyone has the accessibility or mental stability to enact their desires, but some do, yet they don’t experience those dreams or experience anything tangible at all.

The article points out and discusses the authors own personal experience and view of the rising overly excited attachment to introversion, relates it to moments in Pop Culture (like Brat Summer), but it never feels hostile. I’ll be saying this a lot but I loved this piece.

⋆˚꩜. ⋆˚꩜.

-The Final Lap, or What It’s Like to Be 89 from Live from California with Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn has such an interesting profile and story. He’s a man from California, at peace, but also gaining comfort, with the fact he’s nearing his end—he’s heading towards 90.

It’s been a minute since I read this, but I remember being struck by the casual vulnerability Kahn has, how wholistic he is. He loves the life he’s lived, is continuing to live, and wants everyone to know. Not in the manner where he’s ‘flexing,’ but in the way where he wants people to know him as a person—to not be afraid of aging.

This is more of an undertone of his writing but I deeply enjoy reading his perspectives, his insight, his interests. I’m easily scared by the idea of aging— not for vanity reasons, but by fear of losing my autonomy in the world, and most importantly within myself, physically or mentally. Kahn makes me feel less afraid. The dude recently picked up skateboarding so I can do anything. I’m nowhere near the end, but if I make it to 70, 80, 90 I’ll be revisiting this comforting quilt of words.

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-Why We Never Hear About the Countries Where Socialism Works from Amie Boakye

In theory I like the main idea of Socialism, I think everyone does. Production for need, wealth redistribution, social ownership overriding corporate needs, and true democracy sounds great, but living in a ‘developed western country,’ I only ever hear horror stories of socialism bleeding into or being mistaken for perverted communist politics.

This piece was a breath of fresh air and found itself, in my opinion, neatly balanced between observing the positives of how socialism has been practiced, but also its shortcomings and negative repercussions.

Boakye, a PHD candidate who studied at University of North Carolina, examines the Nordic Nations, Cuba, Vietnam, and Kerala in India. She also answers her leading question of ‘why don’t we hear these stories?’ I’m not going to get into those answers, read it for yourself :)

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-Boyfriendland from Molly Kate

“We lie in bed and I make him watch Liza Minelli turn on a lamp, Ann-Margaret throw away a piece of paper, and Marnie Michaels perform the worst music video ever created. I feel like a little kid holding up a worm from the dirt.”

This piece is just undeniably heartwarming. Kate takes us through her internal dialogue of what it is she loves about her boyfriend, why she loves him, what they do, the guilt she has because of him, guilt that relates to him. The piece is fairly simple but its tenderness did make me sob upon reading back in April. I may have just been in a weak state.

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-What Happens When You Wake Up the Day After the World Was Meant to End – from Hannah is Spiraling

I was spiraling after reading this. It broke my brain. Cynicism is on the rise and while some fight the good fight to remove themselves, and environment, from this state, others throw their hands up and call it a day. Cynicism has led to them believing the world will end, metaphorically, with the flip of a switch.

Hannah Glenn describes this mentality with a story about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and how, most likely, the world will not end with the flip of a switch. Climate Change, unless we kill ourselves first, is what will be our end—a slow one at that. We are actively living within the end, but we still have to live our lives, we have to contribute to society so others don’t suffer.

Glenn details how pessimism can be self preservation, a detriment, in addition to arguably being selfish act.

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-The realities of being a pop star from Charli’s Substack

There’s no doubt Charli XCX is one of the greatest of all time—she’s been making hits since Moments In Love and True Romance; Now, she’s making a stab at Substack and I like her writing a lot. I think she has an insider perspective to stardom that so many outside of that world write about, but can never truly understand—can people inside it even understand it?

I honestly don’t want to spoil just how immersive this read is by labeling its elements, instead I’ll quote her talking about a Lou Reed interview: “Is it performance? Is it truth? Is it lies? Who fucking cares? It’s funny and cool.”

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-Kneecap and Guiness: Why Ireland Understand Palestine Better Than Most from Eman Mohammed

I read this waiting for the bus with a diaper-load of rain falling from the heavens on my screen, but it was quite fascinating. The answer is seemingly obvious—they’re both occupied countries.

Mohammed details his experience emigrating from Gaza, and thus being an immigrant, to the U.S. and then Dublin. His personal experience is a long stretch of the piece, but the parallel between his and Irelands hardships come together with this quote at the end, which I attached to my Letterboxd review of the Kneecap film: “Kneecap does not sell Ireland. They expose it. They remind it of itself.” That is exactly what Mohammed does by detailing each granular detail of his struggles—he leaves no room for doubt to creep in the periphery, he lets the truth speak for itself. He doesn’t want his life to be a passive moment you flick through on the New York Times app, but one you take the time to sit with.

⋆˚꩜. ⋆˚꩜.

-Easiest Thing from Words from Eliza

This story comes from Eliza (McLambs)’ time away from the world in September where she moved into a converted RV on a farm with her friend Kate. She lived in the outdoors, miles away from an indoor toilet, tending to a farm, living a life with no phone service (the dream), in the hopes to refresh herself—to shake up her life as her co-host says in their podcast.

She had been toying with the concepts of ‘the true and false’ qualities of life, easy vs hard—Yoga, true; Stocks, false; Living your life in your phone is easy, while living in the world is hard. McLamb further found herself taking care of chickens despite eating them—though the chicken to the slaughter image was always present in her mind with each bite. McLamb muses on Veganism, this off-grid experience, and seeing a cow fattened for profit attempt to run away.

She wonders if this change and growth will ultimately stick with her, but that doesn’t make all that she discusses any less interesting. I’m a big fan of McLamb, having been listening to music and podcast since 2021, so I may just find anything she says at some point interesting, but this world she describes that lives off the beaten path is a world I deeply enjoyed visiting. I also found her takes on veganism important, though I am not vegan myself. I don’t know if I can/would be able to switch to veganism at this point in my life (bad shit=cheap shit), but it’s something I’ve pocketed to mull over at a later date.1

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-You Should Date a Soup Guy from Sithara’s Small Plates

This piece is from a Column called My Tipsy Friends, where Sithara Ranasinghe writes an entry relaying drunk chats between them and their friends.

This entry follows Ranasinghe and their friends Ella and Julia. This conversation was laugh out loud funny. It starts with a recollection our narrator has about their witch roommate who predicted everything down to the penis size of their boyfriend. This later bleeds into the realization that all of the trio’s boyfriends are ‘Soup Guys.’ An invented sentiment from Ranasinghe where they say a Soup Guy may be someone comfortable with provision, (ex. buying your smoothie), but they are also someone who gives time—they make the soup, tasting and tending to it as they do to you.

This concept is such a great analogy and I sent it to my friend Ella and she loved it too, it’s what I suspect will get her to make a Substack account in the near future.

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-I Protest His Protest Songs, or Why Jesse Welles Is Bad—And Bad for Us from Out + Back

To my surprise, this piece brought much controversy when I reshared it on my Instagram story. I had peaceful discussions, like with my friend Kate who thought the piece was too antagonistic and republican leaning, while I had another threaten to beat me—so that was sweet.

I do not like Jesse Welles. He came across my desk about a month ago when he released No Kings with Joan Baez and left barely an impression. I liked the song so I (shamefully) went to his Spotify profile and combed through his songs. Despite me just not vibing with his voice, his music, from what I’ve heard, was just lamenting and mocking the state and people of America. I agree with Welles’ political criticisms, but he does not make protest songs like he’s been famously decreed. His songs don’t make me think further than blanket, headline grabbing statements, they don’t tell me how to make change or even look forward to a brighter future like his so-called seniors song’s do. He isn’t required to do such, but his way of giving commentary is not how I choose to engage with politics at this time.

This article, from Grayson Haver Currin, let me into a whole different side of the internet, and led to me combing through way more Jesse Welles content than I will publicly admit. That being said, I find this nuanced take from Currin slightly lost in the sauce at times, but I agree whole-heartedly that Welles is not a trailblazing prophet, but more so a peddler of the strays skimmed from the top of ‘the truth’—just a man of satire—a man sharing a trench coat with 3 other men.

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-Between Plath and Didion: the Most Important Lesson I Learned in my 20’s from Fairy Tales by Caroline

I was just about to publish this list when I found this piece from Caroline Beuley. It’s been in my saved-for-later folder for about a month now, but it got pushed to me again and I naturally took it as a sign to read. Since then, I sent this post to about 20 people.

Beuley, (beautiful last name), discusses, as she approaches 30, how she approached her 20’s—she went from a Plath to a Didion. She compares her post-grad mindset to being aligned with The Bell Jar’s famous fig tree metaphor. Every choice she made felt permanent, that with each choice, each fruit she plucked from the tree, the rest turned to rot. She later compares a major lesson she learned was that permanency is a figment of imagination, it’s bullshit, life is always changing, “nothing was irrevocable, everything was in reach;” she could turn a corner and meet a fork in the road that led to yet another—a quote and idea expressed in Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

This piece was a great reminder of this truth. I know this, but I don’t apply it; I’m grateful to Beuley for reminding me; I’m grateful for such beautiful prose and references.

⋆˚꩜. ⋆˚꩜.

‘In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love.’

East of Eden, John Steinbeck.

Hinge is like those catalogs I would get during Christmas time as a kid. I’d circle the items I’d like, knowing they wouldn't be under my tree come the 25th, but have a ball highlighting away anyway.

I personally prefer meeting a person face-to-face and finding a connection naturally. Hinge leaves too much room for self-marketing and idealism, where being upfront seemingly gives you everything all at once—you get to see automatic personality and character. This preference doesn’t match with others actions most of the time, so that leads me back to redownloading Hinge every few months. This time around, I went into it with an open mind. I would let whatever happen, happen. Que sera, sera.

I ended up hitting it off with a military school rugby-dude, Luke. He read classic literature, loved hiking, and liked film in a cutely pretentious way, leaving serious toned reviews for Hitchcock to his then one Letterboxd follower—me.

Luke and me’s history took place over a month and a half, moving from Hinge to Instagram DM, then to regular text. (Thank fuck.) He was really into my nerve-producing height, (6 ft 3 in to his maximum 5 ft 10 in), and having someone listen to him; and I was into his interests and how he fit my prophecy.1

Somehow we had the world’s two most incompatible schedules, so we never got the chance to meet up for a while. When we did finally get a window, he promptly pitched we go to the Whitney Museum. He bought the tickets, he said he was excited to meet me, and that ‘I was the only one he was talking to from Hinge.’

At the time I started writing this, we were supposed to go the next day, but after leaving my roommates production of The Secretaries, I found my number blocked, despite us just confirming the date.

I reread our text thread to make sure I didn’t black out and send a monstrous paragraph, but to no surprise my record was clean. I can only assume he wasn't interested anymore, got nervous and fled, or some secret third thing occurred. All in all I dodged a U.S. Government provided bullet. (Thank fuck.)

*

Now when I say, ‘I don’t give a shit about the Male Loneliness Epidemic,’ I’m joking. I do have empathy for men, I’m just frustrated; I’m being witty; I honestly don’t care about the loss of Luke himself, but rather the pattern. With this recent interaction and other similar failed infatuations from my past, it makes me wonder: If men want to be in relationships so bad why don’t they try? Why don’t they commit to the action of commitment?

*

I am very much up artist Joachim Trier’s ass, and since the release of his latest feature, Sentimental Value, I’ve only gone up further.

Recently, I watched his Cannes 2025 press conference, where he and an ensemble of cast and crew discussed the film. In response to a question he didn’t really have an answer to, (27:04), he brought up when originally creating this film with co-writer Eskil Vogt, they didn’t want a sappy story, but one still tender and close to the heart that examined psychology in all genders: ‘The world is a tough place, and maybe we need to be vulnerable. We came to the conclusion that kindness is the new punk rock. It’s what’s needed right now.’

This idea of kindness, vulnerability, being present isn’t a new wish per se, but I believe it has been popping up more proudly, whilst associated with the word ‘cool’ or ‘punk,’ throughout the course of 2025. (Thanks Superman.) Despite the aforementioned, I haven’t actually seen a true physical move towards this newfound state. Obviously, I haven’t talked to every man Earth has on her crust, but by living I have met some.

*

I have a friend, Martin, who in one of our classes was quite loquacious about the power in the Superman final monologue on ‘humanity’ and even swore it as his 2025 mantra.

A month ago, we got coffee and Martin started telling me about this girl he’s been seeing. He said she was great, but he felt nothing. He didn’t feel an incline to be with her and that her every move made him upset because he couldn’t give himself mentally to her; he didn’t decathect, he was never with her, even when they were physically side by side. Even when they slept together.

I replied: ‘it’s understandable that you feel this way, but if you want to care about her like you say, tell her you can’t be with her in this way.’

He liked what I said and responded; the rest of our conversation carried out.

Last week we got coffee again and I asked about the girl. He told me another story about how laborious she was to his psyche, and he was hoping by fielding her texts she would ‘leave him be.’ Naturally, I brought up our previous discussion and asked why he didn’t cut it off. He said that it would be unkind, and additionally that he already committed to her.

I replied: ‘If you’re so committed to this girl you wouldn’t want to ignore her; you wouldn’t be stringing her along with your ‘courteousness.’’

I have found myself on the receiving end of such a treatment and when I called that lover of mine out on his actions he said the same thing. He thought it would be more harmful to ‘burst my bubble’ than to tell the truth, to actively find someone he could mentally, joyfully, commit to.

I’ve heard of the Cab Light Theory, but it saddens me to think commitment is just a box to tick off and not a true state of being to some men. I even look at my own father and why he remarried his first wife. I wonder why a sense of duty overshadowed actual wants; I wonder if he thought his ‘duty’ was his want. I wonder when the politics of emotion tipped the scale of action more so than emotions itself.

The pair knew of one another. Aerik Dahlsen, having just published his sophomore novel, Junkette, and Tiana Gold, recently deemed ‘Stevie Nicks’ protege’ by Rolling Stone following her fifth studio album, Dive. While Junkette is a story about a pharmaceutical companies CEO dating a prostitute in 1979—a novel that everyone in the literary community was eagerly waiting to Tweet about—Dive details Gold’s latest open-then-closed fling that appealed to her 100 million Spotify listeners. Both have dominated their industry; both dare to have an unfiltered opinion.

Tonight, the May sky is clear and ready for June. A portion of the street has been blocked off for an event at Hunnie’s: Brooklyn, celebrating the launch of Nightcrawler, a novel interviewing the top musicians of the decade from an unknown author. Aerik is fulfilling the job one does in Bushwick—smoking a cigarette—blowing the exhaust between romance novelist, Johnson, and his biographer husband, Hunter. A taxi stops, dropping off a tattooed woman, the cabs ad displaying Tiana promoting her new tour.

‘Do we have eyes on the woman of the hour,’ Hunter asks, spotting the ad, as he swats away smoke with his own cigarette, thus only adding more smoke to the cloud.

‘Tiana doesn’t cross the bridge,’ interjects Johnson. ‘She couldn’t be the author.’

‘Well,’ Hunter begins, emphasizing the l’s.‘She was here after her cameo at the VS show.’

‘That was before Hunnie’s got grabbed by the press,’ Aerik chimes in. ‘But I also think it’s a little dismissive of who she is. Like, she’s been doing so much for Clinton in terms of campaigning all over the city. A little grunge won’t kill her.’

‘Sure,’ reply the lovers.

Aerik’s eyes shift; ‘also how do we know the author is a woman?”

Dahlsen moved to the city, into his Chelsea brownstone, a couple months prior to this May, at the request of his agent Helena. She claimed being seen around the East Coast would make him more accessible with the ‘American Market.’ Aerik didn’t mind the move out of Oslo, but he did mind losing his Friday night dinners with his mother in favor of standing on the street with authors who aim to only sell well on Kindle, (and don’t get him started on the hellstorm that’s Kindle.)

He didn’t see himself as a great author, but he did see himself better than those who write for consumption, not passion. Johnson and Hunter were the first authors he met in the city whose work he actually liked and also mattered past blurbs. Though he can’t seem to agree with their opinions, like ever, he assumes this is the type of personality who inhibits his industry.

‘Did youse read the book,’ asks Johnson, his British accent sounding more American than usual.

‘I got an ARC, but I never got around to it,’ replied his husband. ‘Did you, Aerik?’

‘I did.’

‘Did you like it?’

‘I thought our author lacked a male perspective.

‘And I know we should be focusing more on women’s voices and perspectives, in an honest way of course, but men are prominent figures in the music industry like it or not. Yet this book only assessed how women are in the industry with a few sprinkles of men. It’s a false truth in a sense, but I still liked it. I liked how she talks about the present like it’s the future she wants. It’s nicely idealist.’

The romantic and realist are silently shocked by their cohort’s honesty but don’t show it.

Hunter chimes in, grazing his husband’s forearm, ‘I guess we didn’t read it that deep,’ despite just admitting he didn’t read it at all.

*

Aerik is standing at the bar attempting to wave down the tattooed woman from the taxi who's now behind the bar pouring shots for a group of models discussing the electoral candidates.

Aerik thinks he hears one of the model who looks like she just turned eighteen say: ‘My father wasn’t in the Marines when Clinton was secretary of state but his 'brothers in arms’ lost many men when she withheld troops during- shit I forgot which one- but some battle. I think he has resentment for her, but also, I think he knows Trump will destroy us. He’ll probably shut down the government and try and go over two terms or some shit.’

The bar is bustling with people in suits, dresses, sweaters, perpetuating the idea nobody, or their stylists, knew what they were dressing for—rather whom. There’s a small stage holding a banner of Nightcrawler’s cover: an image of a dressing room filled with notebooks, wigs, and gemstone bodysuits, that though filled to the brim appears empty.

That cover struck Aerik upon opening his ARC’s parcel. The cover showed loneliness masked with purpose. The room holds objects containing or perpetuating meaning, (the journals holding emotions, the bodysuit donning the body presumably singing said emotions), yet the room being stale beige and placed on the cover of a book filled with gripes and views of the music industry show’s it all amounts to nothing.

A woman with oil black, waist deep hair, who Aerik recognized as producer Diana Martinez, makes her way onto the stage and taps the mic. The outside crowd trickles into the room, shutting the door, locking the stiff air inside with the guests.

‘Hi all,’ Diana begins. ‘I just want to say thank you for being here tonight. I know for our author friends your publishers requested, probably with a match to your next manuscript, to be here, but for those who came on their own volition we thank you more.

‘I, if you read the novel know, was interviewed for Nightcrawler. It is an incredibly vulnerable experience bearing your heart out to a colleague, and that’s why I find the work our author did with Nightcrawler so beautiful. She turned mine and others emotion into gold and made our experience accessible and relatable to literally everyone.

‘I’ve been in the industry since I was 17—I’m now 30—and not much until recently has changed. We’ve had few people speak out about prejudice generally, but mainly the prejudice against women and gone mainstream. Lady Gaga has been speaking on gun violence, Beyoncé on Black Lives Matter, Green Day at the AMAs, while others like Taylor Swift have stayed silent despite their mass audiences.

‘As you’ve probably seen in the news, I was assaulted by my co-producer Rocket Grahm, and the trial was leaning towards siding with him until Tiana Gold, who was still a new artist at the time, spoke out against the lunacy of the subjects being brought up in court; like my ‘sultry haircut’ or the types of songs I was producing and mixing on ‘encouraged deviant moves.’ Since then, Tiana has been somehow more vocal than our own politicians, while creating hit albums.

She’s been lobbying for safe work environments, trials, and donating major chunks of her profits off her latest, Drive, to various charities aiding victims of sex crimes.

‘Thank you again for coming out and I’d like to encourage a warm welcome to our mystery author.

‘Tiana Gold, come to the stage! My friend. Our author. The future of the industry.’

Hunter, appearing from somewhere, knocks Aerik on the elbow as the room blares with applause, gasps, cheers. Aerik wishes the cracked open skylight would leak the noise into the street.

Tiana steps onto the stage hugging Diana, the light creating a shimmer barrier over the sadness Aerik knows is on her tour runner. Tiana’s orange strapless dress embraces the light, while not washing her out, as her blank nails graze the microphone to adjust its height.

*

Aerik is drinking his coffee while on the phone with his mother discussing the previous night’s events. He had gone with Tiana back to her studio on Christopher Street, and he can’t stop thinking about it; that he touched another’s body, and someone touched his—he won’t even touch his own even on the loneliest peak of every night. Though he doesn’t tell his Ma this.

Norwegian dialogue fills his gray-stone kitchen as Nora speaks; ‘Will you take her out properly?’

‘I don’t think I could ask her on a date, Ma. I don’t think I’m even in her orbit.’

‘You were at her book launch!’

‘But-’

‘You are a smart man, Aerik. You write what matters, and it sounds like she does too with this dialogue you say she spins in the text. You have that in common. Just because she’s a singer doesn’t make her unworthy of you-’

‘Ma, I think I’m unworthy for her. She’s huge, larger than life.’

Nora hears her son inhale.

‘Is that scary,’ she asks.

‘What?’

‘That you don’t have control over what happens after you say how you feel—like with your stories.’

Aerik knows he wants Tiana. He’s been wanting to understand her, and know that image of the dressing room. He thinks it’s horrific leaving his own apartment, let alone being perceived by the sun of the scene. He thinks he saw himself in her when it was just the two of them laughing on her green couch, and he doesn’t want to be wrong about her.

**

On November 9^th, within the midst of a rainstorm, I found myself in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art—The MET. Within the Grecian art exhibit’s sea of statue forms, the Marble Statue of a Wounded Amazon caught my eye. The marble statue dates to the 1st-2^nd century CE, (1-200 CE), specifically crafted amid the Roman Empire’s Golden Era. While researchers don’t have a specific year of origin, we do know the statue in question is a copy of a bronze statue of C. 450-420 BCE. Minimal modern restorations have been done to the sculpture, by only being present in the legs and feet thanks to copies located in Berlin and Copenhagen. Marble Statue of a Wounded Amazon displays an ideal female figure, and in turn how the art of Roman sculpture aligns with Grecian and Egyptian stylistic reference. (Davies, Figure 1, Figure 4).

Objectively, the piece is visibly anatomically correct, minus the lack of ears. The statue portrays a carved figure with, on each pair, five toes, toenails, fingers, fingernails, two arms, legs, and breasts. There are also two eyes, eyebrows, and a pair of lips. There is a type of sandal on the foot, a mid-thigh length cloth garment cinched at the waist, via cord, that exposes a detailed full right breast and slightly covered left; additionally, the hair is kept neat and contained in a crown shape around the base of the hairline. Its body is leaning against a post to its right; the right arm atop its hand is missing, interrupting the lines of the arm; the left arm sits across the subject’s forehead. (Figure 1).

Marble Statue of a Wounded Amazon finds itself in the context of Roman art physiognomy—a spectrum of realism-idealism. Visually, the sculpture has arguably idealist and realistic characteristics. The body is muscularly toned, with lines and curves carved into the arms and legs of the figure with teardrop shaped abrasions under the exposed armpit, relating to the sculptures’ title. Continuing, the wounded Amazon’s midriff is presumably perfectly symmetrical with the breasts not only being seemingly even, but nearly identical with no obvious flaw. The chest is also of smaller proportions and polished smoothly, like the rest of the body, creating a perfected being. Additionally, the breast being exposed at all is notable. The exposed breasts mimics classical Greek tendencies toward drapery that reveals form beneath it. One knows a woman may have breasts underneath her clothing, but the art didn’t given hint or allude to a sexual nature. Athena Nike adjusting her Sandal, (C. 420 BCE), whose nipples are pointing through her garment, notably paved a divergent way of portraying the female form, and aligns with the exposed form seen here, (Davies, Figure 1, 2).

To further portray the realist or ideal physiognomy, Marble Statue of a Wounded Amazon is seemingly a life-like size. Due to such, one can see the figure is subject to possible collapse. One can see the sculpture is attached to the base at three points: the feet and post. Additionally, the post is what appears to be holding the sculpture upright. The left foot is flat, the right foot has a block under the heel, the cloth on the hip extends to the post, and the right arm’s forearm is along the top of the post. The form the sculpture takes to support its integral system is the Contrapposto Stance, a technique seen previously with the Greeks. The Contrapposto Stance calls for the sculptor to make the subject’s hips asymmetrical as a means to offset weight—seen in the left hip being more raised than the right. Moreover, the Contrapposto Stance is used to show movement; note the statue’s left leg is forward and straight while the back leg is sickled—the front foot carries weight while the back foot seemingly trails behind, (Davies, Figure 1, 2).

While Greek artisans coined the phrase ‘Contrapposto Stance,’ this position dates to the Egyptians. To the Egyptians, circa the Artistic Period, (C. 1500-1200 BCE), the legs spread apart with shoulders straight acrossrigidly was for support. This practice is seen in the piece Menkaure and his Wife Queen Khamerernebty II’s, (C. 2515 BCE). Menkaure’s posture is upright and built into stone and has his left foot forward, just like in MarbleStatue of a Wounded Amazon. While the Amazon and Menkaure’s shoulders are rounded and flat and they both have the left foot forward, Menkaure and his wife are rigid and frontal, whereas the Amazon sculpture is more dynamic because of the Contrapposto Stance, (Davies, Figure 1, 3).

With Marble Statue of a Wounded Amazon’s primarily anatomically precision, polished and demure appearance, and line and weight coordination, thanks to the Contrapposto Stance for a stable body of work, the statue conveys a myriad of structural and visual understanding. Marble Statue of a Wounded Amazon’s totality exemplifies an ideal female figure, and in turn how the art of Roman sculpture lent itself to Grecian and Egyptian stylistic reference and tradition.

OTHER SOURCES (MLA):

Figure 4: Museum Label, Marble Statue of a Marble Amazon, Greek Art Exhibit, The MET, 9 Nov. 2025.

Davies, Penelope J.E. et al, Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition, Reissued Edition, Volume 1, 8th edition. Pearson, 15 August. 2021.

In the 2003 released book, Galician and Merskin critique and analyze the ways romance is portrayed through books, movies, images, etc. People consume, and detail 12 not-so-hidden myths surrounding the subject. While the pairs myths are the backbone of most Romcom tropes, like the will-they-wont-they, enemies to lovers, or the Pygmalion Esque fake dating, When Harry Met Sally mainly demonstrates three: ‘your perfect partner is cosmically pre-destined, so nobody/nothing can separate you,’ (myth one); ‘all you really need is love, so it doesn’t matter if you and your lover have very different values,’ (myth nine); in addition to how ‘bickering and fighting a lot means that a man and woman really love each other passionately,’ (myth eight (Galician, Merskin).

When Harry Met Sally tells the story of Harry Burns and Sally Albright over the course of twelve years. The pair meets post-grad when Sally drives Harry, who is dating a friend of hers, to New York City. At the beginning of the film, while Sally is buttoned-up, idealistic, and structured, Harry is cynical, sex-oriented, and argumentative to the point where he comes off as emotionally detached. Thanks to Harry declaring so, the pair believes they couldn’t truly be friends because sex will get in the way, and if the act doesn’t the thought of the act will; thus as soon as he’s dropped off at Washington Square Park, the pair go their separate ways. Harry and Sally eventually become close friends, confiding in one another about their partners and jobs, but to their friends, they are obviously in love with one another. At the end of the second act, the pair do have sex, which at first cuts off all their contact, but by the end they get married to the tune of ‘they lived happily ever after,’ (Reiner).

The film leans into the belief that you cannot escape your true love—myth one. The myth proclaims there is a cosmic predestination for oneself; no matter where one goes or thinks they’re in love with, their soulmate will ultimately be revealed to them repeatedly, even if rejected. Nothing can stop fate, not time, not people—nothing (Galician, Merskin). In the film, Harry and Sally’s connection is cut off and postponed not once, but thrice, and still results in them getting married—they’re destination of love is inevitable.

On the ride to New York from Chicago, Harry and Sally do not get along. She finds him crass; he finds her annoyingly particular—they immediately want to be rid of the other and argue back and forth the entire night. While the pair find each other nauseating, it’s clear to audiences there is a spark present. When they do encounter each other down the line at the airport terminal, then neighboring plane seats, Harry doesn’t immediatelyrecognize Sally, which upsets her, for his nature left quite the mark on her, then reveal to one another that they are both in relationships, Harry even being married. The pair have made it so-to-speak. The third time they findeach other is in a bookstore. Harry recognizes Sally finally, so she gives him the time of day, and genuinely enjoys the noticeably mellow conversation. Harry has gotten a divorce, and Sally has broken up with her boyfriend, for he didn’t want kids—the pair feel like they are at their lowest, that they’re broken. This broken nature is what finally pushes them to being friends, staying in touch with one another.

Also, around the film’s midpoint, Harry and Sally have fallen into a domestic routine, often meeting up to walk, talk and calling each other before bed. To abstain from sex, in hopes of preserving their friendship, they attempt setting their friends up with the other. The quad goes to dinner, Sally next to Harry’s friend Jess, and Sally’s friend Marie next to Harry. Harry and Marie as well as Sally and Jess can barely say anything to the other. Marie, attempting to break the tension in the room, mentions how ‘resteraunts are to people in the 80’s what theaters were to people in the 60’s,’ which is unbeknownst to her a quote from one of Jess’s articles. Instead of taking a liking to Sally, Jess, feeling seen by her knowledge of his work, takes a liking to Marie. By fate, Jess and Marie’s commonality leads them to getting married. By fate, despite Harry and Sally trying to remove any romantic spark between them, they end up in each other’s company. At three distinct times in their lives, Harry and Sally cannot rid themselves of each other, proving cosmic destiny trumps their actions.

At the end of the film, they attempt to ignore fate one final time. The pair had sex, but Harry left ‘too quickly’ which prompts Sally to slap him and curse him out, claiming they are ‘done.’ This tiff resolves itself quicklywith Harry running into Sally as she was leaving an event. The pair finally give into fate, realizing this relationship is the one they want to hold forever (Reiner).

According to the Nora Ephron and Reiner penned film, Galician, as well as Merskin, ‘all you need is love, so it doesn’t matter if you and your lover have very different values.’ Myth nine details that when faced with any issue, big or small, a couple that’s truly ‘in love’ will be able to get through and stay together, even if they butt heads. Examples of said differing values would be the ‘bad boy’ causing trouble vs the ‘good girl’ who plays it by the book, like Sandy and Danny from Grease (1978), or being openly gay vs ‘closeted,’ like Amy and Lucy in D.E.B.S. (2005). Both couples put their differences aside to be together because all they really needed was their love (Galician, Merskin, Reiner, D.E.B.S., Grease).

Sally throughout the film is portrayed as high maintenance. When she is at any meal, she orders everything that could be on the side of a dish for the side and provides alternative dishes in case her original requests cannot be fulfilled—additionally carrying this practice into her romantic relations. She wants storybook romance but wants it to unfold naturally and by a certain timeline—preferably before 40 because, ‘it’s just sitting there, like [a] big dead end.’ Harry is the antithesis of this; he goes through life saying whatever comes to mind, including his projections of how bleak and doomed dating and friendship is.

As the film progresses, Harry and Sally spend the majority of their time together, and their surface-level incompatibilities are what keeps them bonded. The pair enjoy hearing an unfamiliar perspective on life. Sallyengages with Harry’s cynicism when her ex-boyfriend calls her to say he’s getting married, and Harry attempts to engage in optimism when the pair run into his ex-wife. The pair tease each other and give each other the space to feel their feelings but not until the end of the film does Harry finally tell Sally how he feels about their differences: ‘I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love that you get a little crinkle above you nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts...it’s not because I’m lonely. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible’ (Billy).

Jealousy, desire, anger, joy, and every other emotion connect and overlap; you cannot feel one without feeling another. Myth eight says that bickering is a sign of fierce love, and this myth is the basis of Sally and Harry’s undeniable chemistry. (Merskin, Galician).

In their first scene, Sally scoffs at Harry passionately making out with his girlfriend at the time beside her car. The car ride continues down this route, as I visited in my previous statements, but they never let each other go unchallenged. Sally brings a counterargument to Harry’s comments on woman and men, claiming she has male friends where there is no sexual charge, which he brings an additional argument too, claiming she simply does not know what men are thinking. There’s reasonable doubt in both parties’ thoughts, but there is a guaranteed pulse to their deliveries. Their fiery tone and flirty, prolonged looks tease the romantic underbelly to their debate.

Even years later, their quips aren’t cruel or antagonistic; they consider all they say and laugh at as fair play. This safe space allows them to get to know each other better; they peel back the layers of unfamiliarity. On the airplane they spit back and forth on how preposterous it is that Harry cannot remember the girl that he was withs name when he and Sally first met, and how if it was worth it that Sally didn’t stay in contact with Harry because she’s not even friends with the girl herself. How incredibly unbelievable it is that Harry is getting married despite being cynical, and that Harry picked up how recent Sally’s current relationship is.

Not all of their fights were positive though. After Harry walks out post-sex Sally is hurt and tells him so: ‘You think you can say great, it happened, now let’s get on with it like what happened didn’t mean anything because it does. You should know that better than anyone because the minute it happens you walk right out the door.’ Sally continues their streak of raw honestly and doesn’t filter out her anger or fears. She worries he just took pity on her sadness and that’s why they had sex, and Harry responds with his own confusion, resulting in a slap to the face. An act of violence that doesn’t bring a kneejerk reaction. He stays still, dazed by his wrongness and eventually comes back groveling, instead of cutting her off.

In their ultimate moments, Sally and Harry are being interviewed for an unknown reason about their ‘how they met story’ and what their wedding was like. Sally is jubilant to a degree that Harry cannot help but roll his eyes at and gives a smirk at the woman he will love forever (Reiner).

In Mary-Lou Galician and Debra Merskin’s book, ‘Critical Thinking About Sex, Love, and Romance in the Mass Media,’ the pair discuss the myths and tropes surrounding love seen in books, advertisements, and movies that allow consumers to hold a mirror to media like When Harry Met Sally, which has myths one, eight, and nine predominantly present.

SOURCES

“Billy Crystal: Harry Burns.” IMDB, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098635/characters/nm0000345/?item=qt0221806&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

D.E.B.S. Dir. Robinson, Angela, performances by Brewster, Jordana and Foster, Amy, Screen Gems, 2004.

Galician, Mary-Lou and Merskin, Debra L., eds. Critical Thinking About Sex, Love and Romance in the Mass Media. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007

Grease. Dir. Kleiser, Randal, performances by Newton-John, Olivia and Travolta, John, Paramount Pictures, 1978.

When Harry Met Sally. Dir. Reiner, Rob, performances by Crystal, Billy and Ryan, Meg, Castle Rock Entertainment, 1989.

Is this type of sensuality the cornerstone of your culture,

or just a rarity in mine?

Last night you held my hand at your head, in that way that tranquilizes the bitch in me—

does this way act nondescriptly back in your home?

*

There’s a crushingly casual beauty in the way our shoulders meet under the purple shop lights,

as you trace your fingers over a map,

scheming a forever space for me

on those streets that would bleed your personal history.

*

I like the way our names sound together,

the way it’s called out across the lawn,

the way passerby’s lips curl when we dismount.

*

I love the way we instinctually pull back from the crowd,

how your voice goes low when your eyes roll,

how you take me back to days of pre-stolen youth—

Do you also want to cross that barely-there boundary?

To claim that sprit-brought revival?

Do you also know this love could never grow?

You/me - a poem by me

Spoiler alert that love, shockingly, did not grow.

★

I spend my June-August clocked in at a summer camp where most of the time it feels as though there’s a cord forcibly fed through one’s ears relaying information back and forth in this fucked up game of telephone. Even when you yourself aren’t sharing or receiving any information, or rather gossip, someone has decided you're in the game anyways.

Each year with a new crop of international staff is the returning staff. The folk who have been at this camp since their formative years, the folk like me, who just want everyone to love this place as much as we do.

This summer I met a guy, Jackie. Jackie defines the word charm. With a smile like the sun, an accent from my dream country, and this down-to-earth genius— which may just me surprised that a man was up to date on the affairs of the world. Regardless the man didn’t physically reject the proposition of going to a Lake Street bookshop and even ended up walking out with ‘1984.’

Jackie also had a very tender aura; he had a sense of comfort. I am the kind of girl who doesn’t open up, even on non-personal matters, to men—a lifetime of shitty dudes coming and going as they please will do that to you—but with him I felt I could. Walking on the side of the road discussing Pangea and the bi-continental politics of our respective countries sounds like we're admitting how large the world is, but it genuinely felt like just the two of us in those moments.

★

Immediately, I found myself always with him at the top of the season. Like, literally upon impact of him being on the campground, he was by my side, whether or not we were in conversation. There was a banter, hair-playing, planned visits, and burning retinas tattooed on my spine— interactions that not only had me curious if he was interested in me but also had various others become, mostly unprompted, salacious Hercule Poirot’s and coming to me like a dog with roadkill.

The consensus the Bureau of Avalon’s Love Life declared that he understood how he came across to the public, but we were just mates—though he never really thought about it. May I restate this is day six of knowing this man.

Jackie and I had a conversation one night about his feelings towards me, for the bureau then announced he was claiming we were together when we obviously were not. He said he didn’t say those things—why believe a group of people whom I also just met— and that he wasn’t truly into me in a romantic context in this awkward, stumble-y, manner that was so hard to follow. Naturally, I was upset about being led on, intentionally or unintentionally, but I knew that it is what is, burying whatever gripes I had to keep on a friendship.

The remaining 8 weeks of the season got swept up by the tide, and by the day I left our dynamic went from hot and never-ending to barely speaking, but the months with all my other new friends felt like one for the picture-books, a summer of true joy.

★

It is now the end of September at the time of writing this, and I’ve just learned that this summer of joy was just a product of obliviousness. My friends from camp were recently in NYC and in their suitcases, beside undies and toiletries, they brought revelations.

• Apparently, I am the “camp-slag,” having flirted with “every single man,” to the point where said men actively thought if they said the word I would drop everything and give them a whirl, despite being interested in only two, (2.), individuals.

• I made up rumors of secret make-out sessions with Jackie, despite us barely even speaking the majority of the summer.

• Multiple conversations, by my friends, were had with Jackie and another fella about our non-existent romantic standing.

Amongst other insane, hurtful words thrown my way unknowingly, I feel there must have been another version of me who lived this summer as an emotional-terrorist, running around causing havoc— if you see her call 911 because having to send a text to Jackie trying to make sure he doesn't see me as deranged was truly a grand time.

★

The purpose of writing this isn’t to bash or to rage, more so to laugh at the insanity of the life, and its shadow, I lived this summer. It’s also put me in a place of being interested in gossip. Not in knowing the ‘Hot Goss’, like the rumor-mill claims, but in the why do people give a flying fuck way. Why does the world, why do ‘my’ people, gossip?

★

Gossip is ubiquitous, it’s inescapable, and it’s unfortunately never going away. I find it a cop out to take the health-class, simple-pilled answer for why we gossip as plain envy or low self-esteem. I think gossip forms innocently. Gossip allows you to figure out the social fabric of any situation, new or old, and it also gives you the power to secure a spot in the ‘in-group,’ whilst giving you the power to control the ‘out-group’, a particularly golden prize for those who may feel like they’re in the out-group in their other social groupings.

Gossip also allows you to stay informed about yourself or others. With me, I would’ve had an abundantly smaller pile of collateral by summers end had I been in the loop of my reputation, but with others, it allows one to know who to avoid, or who to seek out. Who’s good craic, and who’s not so-to-speak.

It all boils down to control. Gossip is a tool, and I could easily say, ‘get a life [redacted],” but that just tosses the reins to the bureau, and additionally neglects the truth that I do gossip—I found out the rumors regarding me THROUGH gossip after all.

If I publish this, I’ll probably get some flack in my personal life, but truly, gossip all you want—you already were.

It has those popping packaging bubbles too. I can feel it through the jacket. Package bubbles were something Cordelia and her brother always liked—the crackle snap bang—the power in their weak fingers. Cordelia.

Theres a bleeding, crimson ‘urgent’ stamp across the seal.

Marlena Don/1912 Floyd St./Pittsford NY 14534—does the government make these things hard to open on purpose? My pricked finger meets the first sentence:

Dear Marlena Don,

May this letter serve as notification of your results...

Like it's a prognosis.

...of the recently completed investigation, via Child Protective Services, in regards to a situation involving your child(ren), Cordelia Sage Don & Oliver Percy Don.

From the kitchen bar, the living room shines like the fourth of July—though it’s December. Are those sirens for me? I cannot help but close my eyes. If I cannot see it, it is not there. I can believe it’s just the new neighbors from across the way blasting SVU from their garage. But the bloops aren’t coming from the garage. It’s reverberating through Pittsford's ridiculous amount of sewer access, the fresh new builds behind mine, my empty stomach.

I’ll just give in. It’s less humiliating if the cops break down the door and see a strong woman, and not one clutching a bottle of wine, trying to become a song, (Blind, Dumb, Deaf). It is humiliating sitting here on the leather stool, that Jefferson was supposed to take in the divorce, gripping a bottle of Family Dollar wine, trying to sweep the incoming under the rug—which Jefferson also should have kept.

The case against you for child neglect and physical abuse has been dismissed.

The sirens quit. Were they even there?

While you have been found innocent, we just thought you should know you are a stupid cunt who should feel awful that she made her daughter hate her enough to request an investigation on her own mother. Burn in hell xx

Wishing you well,

Alyssa Priestly

Child Protective services

I wonder if Jefferson also got a manilla flat today. It wouldn’t bleed ‘urgent,’ but it would say the case was dropped. Insinuating that there was a case in the first place. Was Cordelia naive enough to alert her father that his ex-wife was allegedly abusive? Probably. She always will be a Daddy’s girl; they both have that spine to neck curvature that makes you look like a crooked zoo animal. She should be the one under investigation, not me.

I don't believe in God, but in the spirit of upcoming Christmas I can humor the idea. Thank God this country is falling apart. 45.5% of CPS screeners fall apart due to ‘insufficient evidence’ and ‘weak reports,’ according to a half-hazard talk I with ChatGPT. Granted, this case was blown out of proportion, and it obviously had to be dropped. Regardless, I can't help but ponder, what if the man who came to my house to investigate—the smoker looking at me in the nipple, never the eye—thought I could fulfill a cheap lie? What if he decided to try and get a ticket up the system by declaring the case involving a knockoff Pamela Voorhees, chasing her 13-year-old daughter up and down the stairs with a serrated kitchen knife as valid?

What if?

I can’t help but mutter: Thank baby Jesus the government is filled with lazy republicans.

I check my phone. Two o’clock, on the dot/Friday, December 19/ one notification: update on Cordelia’s student portal. I click on it as I rise from the stool. A block of sleet falls from the gutter, splitting onto the bushes.

Cordelia Don has one new update: 98% on Advanced Global History exam- Unit 4

Cordelia was the one thing Jefferson, and I could agree on when we were married—she was a brat. She lays in her bed all day watching movies, I grew up with, calling herself a higher intellect just because she knows the film, not movie, Double Indemnity. She is fifteen, and every mother to teens knows they’re biologically programmed to be temperamental and invigorating. But if living in the same lifetime as Cordelia was invigorating, then Hell would be a cakewalk. Burning in piss down in Hell would be better than continuing having her in my orbit till the day I drop dead, (and possibly go to Hell otherwise).

I remember Jefferson and her going on their little trips to the store, park, city, and coming back with grins that read like betrayal. For him infidelity—loving our daughter and giving her more respect than his wife—and for her basking in it. She ate up the painstakingly genuine love he gifted her, and spat it in my face: Look what Daddy bought me Mommy...Daddy and I rode the seesaw...Daddy bought me the DVD I wanted; can we watch it tonight? Of course I don’t want to watch the movie he bought for you to flaunt in my face, is what I wanted to say, but mothers scribble out the word ‘no’ in their dictionary as they bleed out on the Dula.

Even before she imprinted herself on her father, she was a hassle. It was Christmas eve 2009 and I passed out, tumbling into the tinseled tree. Jefferson and his sister, Tracy, shoved me in the Honda and rushed me to the hospital. I fainted due to low iron as well as a million other things, according to the doctor, which made my head spin more. All I really gathered was that I was pregnant, and the only person excited in the room was Tracy, who funny enough hasn't seen Cordelia, or Oliver I guess, in 3 years.

As the trimesters groaned by, every organ felt like it was going into failure; and there was no way I was going to eat triple just to help a thing that only cares for itself. When she crawled out of me, I could've sworn there was a triangular tipped tail pressing into the swaddle. I know there was.

The miscreant tried to eat my nipple that day and wept when I cried stop. I still have that crescent shaped scar on my breast. I can see it today as I try to shower this shame off my skin. I'm ruined. I'm innocent and ruined. I'm innocent, ruined, and wailing in the shower dreading that my kids are about to veg out in the house from four pm today to seven am January third. God, if you’re real, kill Cordelia tonight so I don’t have to breath the same air as her these coming weeks. I'm ruined. I'm innocent. I'm exhausted.

The water is getting cold, and the clock is three ticks shy of four. I can feel their presence rolling up the sidewalk, or maybe that's just the school bus crawling up the hill; the foundation of these new houses are sadly shotty for being so pricey.

I bring my robed body down the carpet steps, and I can hear the exhaust spew as the bus bumps down the way, children shrieking out the window. Goodbye! See you next year! that joke still isn’t funny.

The Ring chimes. They're here. It never gets easier.

Oliver is the first body in the doorframe. Sweet souled Oliver. Where's your sister? High school buses come later Mommy.

Oh right. I respond: how was school, Sweetpea?

The Ring chimes again—fucking holiday early dismissal.

Converse strut in the door, followed by Blue Jinko dupes, (put on Jefferson’s credit card no doubt), and a forever inappropriate crop top and flannel combo. I physically cannot look at her face, but I know it's angled high like a canine; but with more pimples, naturally.

I scoop the bleeding, undamaged, mentally heavy, popping-bubble-lined manilla flat off the kitchen counter.

Happy Holidays Cordelia! You should be upset, Mommy's not going to prison.

The practice of taking away from a species to benefit one’s own has been represented in media since the Middle Ages. Seven tapestries, estimated to have been made within 1495-1505, depict the hunting then slaying of a wild Unicorn. In the first of the seven tapestries, a group of noblemen are prowling with their hunting dogs in a lush, Edenic forest when their page, who’s in a tree, signals that the Unicorn has been spotted. In the second tapestry, while the noblemen gawk from all corners, the tantalizing target dips their horn into a fountain of water as to purify it for the area’s seven or so non-mythical dwellers. In this tapestry we see how integral the Unicorn is to its ecosystem—the animals around it wouldn't be able to hydrate, therefore live, without it. In the third and fourth, the Unicorn spots the hunters and tries to fight them off by kicking its hind legs and thrashing its horn while the hunters sling their pikes into its side. The fifth tapestries, while having pieces lost to time, come together to reveal how the hunters used a beguiling, but fair maiden to calm the creature so they could murder and bring the body to the King’s castle, which is seen in the sixth. Finally, in the seventh, we see the Unicorn kept in a pen, just in reach of the fauna it once called home, with a leash around its neck—the target has been tamed, used, and discarded by the king (MET Cloisters, The Public Domain Review).

While royalty was portrayed to brutally hunt the Unicorn in the past, the same “hunt” for resources continues to this day on a much larger and real scale. Earth, while not being Eden-like, was a beautiful place with dense green forests, clean air, and fertile ground until humanity began taking from it in extreme quantities for their own consumption. For the manufacturing industry, (cattle ranching, plantations, paper-production, etc.), the greatest amount of environmental decline occurs in tropical rainforests. To have areas to build, developers tear out trees to make areas accessible, and if that land isn't fertile enough for the magnitude “needed,” the developers will enact the slash and burn technique (National Geographic Society). The technique entails burning the land to shave off the infertility to reveal potentially usable land; regardless, even if the technique is successful the land will only stay fertile for a few years before permanently spoiling. No matter the outcome, the slash and burn technique is guaranteed to result in soil erosion as well—which makes the land susceptible to forest fires. Setting intentional or unintentional fire to forests, or even chopping down mass amounts of trees, adds the excess CO2 that was harbored in the bark to the atmosphere, which in turn raises the globe's temperature because there are no trees to re-absorb said CO2 (Denchak, Mackenzie, National Geographic). If production is killing the planet, one would think manufacturers would stop or change their ways, but they don’t, and humanity's “needs” get in the way of change. Every day folk use paper, live in buildings once on uncleared land, eat farm produced fruit, and/or use at least one item made in a factory—corporations keep making money from the damage they do, so why would they stop? In addition, other “sustainable” means aren't truly sustainable. Wind energy uses manufactured parts, wood pellets use chopped wood, and biomass energy pelts lead to the production of greenhouse gases (Denchak, Mackenzie). Corporations prove to be more than willing to harm the natural world for their own monetary gain.

In the Middle Ages, a time of widespread famine, a new low risk high reward money-making method involving Unicorns had become popularized among the merchant class. In this time, ‘“[b]efore chemistry was a thing, people believed that many objects and foodstuffs had magical ‘virtues or properties,'" according to Eleanor Herman, author of Royal Art of Poison, which is what led to the popularization in the belief that Unicorn horn’s, when grinded up, would cure poisonous liquids. This belief led European Monarchs, like Elizabeth I and James I, to desperately want the horns—for they were targets of poison—which then created a new market for merchants—poaching horns. On their arctic travels, Vikings came across the Narwhal, a seal-like creature with a spiraling white horn in its forehead, a creature neither the general population nor elite had seen or known of. At the market, merchants would pass off the Narwhal horns as Unicorn horns to make bouts of money off the rich Kings to support their families in this historical period of transition (Meares, Pester). While the merchants were spinning a lie that they were poaching Unicorns, the poaching of real animals for money is still present in our modern times.

Poaching and animal trafficking is a multibillion-dollar industry that threatens to extinguish Africa and Asia’s exotic wildlife. In 2014 alone, 1000 Rhino were killed illegally in South Africa—a 9000% uptick since 2007. Additionally, since 2005, two subspecies of African, as well as one Asian Rhino, have disappeared with several others not far behind (Coons, Flake). While the practice is abundantly clear to be illegal, like the charade of selling “Unicorn Horns,” the practice is low risk high reward. From a study conducted in Serengeti, Tanzania, the majority of hunters came from impoverish backgrounds, and the money helps them escape—they can put themself and/or their family into better schooling as well as cover their crop and livestock profit loss—and they only risk 0.007% chance of arrest per-hunt and two months jailtime. To put this into perspective, if these hunters worked in livestock, agriculture, and ran their own small business they would only bring in around $258 USD per year, but by being a hunter-for-hire they make upwards $425 USD per year (Knapp)—more than enough to pull them out of poverty, like the Middle Age merchants.

What goes around comes around: Unicorns in modern media display the repercussions of poaching and the general cruelty expressed upon the species that leave humanity defenseless—like in the 2025 film, Death of a Unicorn. The film follows a father daughter duo who kill a Unicorn with their car on their way to sign on the father's possible billion-dollar pharmaceutical client. They take the body to the meeting, and as time passes, they come to realize the Unicorn blood from the accident heals the father's visual impairment, and the daughter's acne. Upon seeing these miracles, the client then proceeds to call a team of scientists to harness the Unicorn’s healing properties. The films protagonist, the pure-hearted daughter played by Jenna Ortega, feeling guilty about killing the Unicorn finds the real-world Unicorn Tapestries and then an 8^th one, which is purely fiction, where the Unicorns fight back and slaughter the king and his soldiers as revenge. When the scientists start chopping and sawing the horn off the body, they trigger the creature's parents to attack and pick off the ill-hearted. When the Unicorn’s parents kill, we see them rip open torsos, stab with their horn, stomp heads, and disembowel all while being giant brute stallions with a set of razor-sharp teeth. They would be invincible but because Ortega’s character being rarely pure hearted, she tames the Unicorns by submitting—just like the tapestries illustrate. While her kind heart did save her and her father's life, if she wasn’t there or wasn't of pure heart they would've been slashed until they were all gone; with no hope of survival the Unicorn would be all powerful (Death of...).

Climate change, humanity’s repercussions for destroying ecosystems, is a consequence most Americans agree exists, according to new studies. Jessica Eise, a researcher and journalist, as of August 2024 was conducting an unpublished multi-year study on 275 U.S. adults to evaluate their, “morals, ethics and spirituality to create enduring behavioral shifts [that could stop Earth’s environmental decline].” Through her research, while the how to make change is undisclosed, she realized many adults see climate change as a threat but feel too powerless, exhausted, and defeated to do anything about it. One participant in the study went on to say that they try their best to respect the environment, but they know they could do better; while another participant said they didn't make any large gestures to help the environment despite feeling love, guilt, and worry when thinking about the state of the planet. It's not just adults who feel this way either, it's the youth as well. For Earth Day 2024, CBC interviewed students on how they felt about Earth’s ecological decline. Student, Isabella Gascoigne pointed out that, “teens have less power than large corporations and the government.” Not everyone has the means to fight to their fullest monetary extent, no matter how much they want to, yet the people who protest corporations and not use single use plastic, feel like their efforts don't amount to a tangible change (Aitken, Chapman, McClure).

Unicorns and planet Earth have proven to be symbols of purity, power, and self-sustaining beauty, but have suffered under humanity’s drive for profit and control. From medieval tapestries to modern media, the Unicorn has served as a metaphor for how humanity exploits innocence—capturing, killing, and commercializing a creature that once thrived freely in nature. This mirrors the way we treat Earth itself: disregarding the long-term consequences for short-term gain via destructive practices like slash-and-burn land-clearing or by participating in the poaching industry. Just as the Unicorns retaliate against their oppressors physically, Earth is beginning to respond by shifting its climate in an irreversible manner. Unicorns and planet Earth provide self-sustaining properties and money-making opportunities that trigger humanity's cruelty; a cruelty that sparks the adulteration of the natural world's innocence and henceforth, its consequences.

Work Cited

Aitken, Christopher. Chapman, Ralph. McClure, John. "Climate change, powerlessness, and the commons dilemma: Assessing New Zealander's’ preparedness to act.” Science Direct, May 2011. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378011000033

Brooks, Libby. “‘Beautiful and resilient’: exhibition explores cultural history of unicorns.” The Guardian, 24 March 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/mar/24/beautiful-and-resilient-exhibition-explores-cultural-history-of-unicorns?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Coons, Chris. Flake, Jeff. “Wildlife poaching a threat to national security.” CNN, 16 December 2015. https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/16/opinions/coons-flake-wildlife- poaching/index.html

Denchak, Melissa. Mackenzie, Jillian. “Deforestation and Forest Degradation: The Causes, Effects, and Solutions.” NRDC, 9 April 2025. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/deforestation- forest-degradation-causes-effects-solutions

Eise, Jessica. “Americans love nature but don’t feel empowered to protect it, new research shows.” New Hampshire Bulletin, 29 August 2024. h t t p s ://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/08/29/americans-love-nature- but-dont-feel-empowered-to-protect-it-new-research-shows/

Knapp, Eli J. “Why Poaching Pays: A Summary of Risks and Benefits Illegal Hunters Face in Western Serengeti, Tanzania.” Sage Journals, 1 December 2012. h ttps://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/194008291200500403

Meares, Hadley. “How ‘Unicorn Horns’ became the Poison Antidote of Choice for Paranoid Royals.” History, 15 April 2019. https://www.history.com/articles/unicorn-horns-royal- protection-poison-antidote

National Geographic Society. “Deforestation.” National Geographic, 26 February 2025.

deforestation

Pester, Patrick. “Where did the Unicorn myth come from?” Livescience, 9 April 2022.

origins-of-unicorns

“Unicorn.” Brittanica, 14 March 2025. unicorn

“They say climate change has them feeling powerless—and it’s frustrating.” CBC, 22 April

2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/teens-climate-change-powerless- 1.7181130

“The Unicorn Tapestries (1495-1505).” The Public Domain Review, 29 July 2019. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-unicorn-tapestries-1495-1505/#p-0-1

“The Unicorn Tapestries.” 1495-1505, Tapestry, Met Cloisters, NY, NY.

https://www.metmuseum.org/plan-your-visit/met-cloisters

Death of a Unicorn. Directed by Alex Scharfman, performances by Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega, distributed by A24, 2025.

The word “cool” in its nature is rooted in opinion, but to 12/13-year-old me it was a concrete label. I held The Twins on a pedestal for those as mentioned earlier, in combination with their genuineness. Every word they said, every action they took, all of it was true. They loved hanging out on their grey L-couch with my younger brother, Nathan, and me; playing The Scrambled States of America Game on the cold wood floor, monologuing about films and celebrities I had never heard of during a round of Headbanz, as well as retaining and engaging with my most likely slurred speech.

Lily and Harper also never gave a fuck. They never put up those childproof walls whenever I was around and discussed whatever their hearts pleased. I remember them being at my house, with the rest of that side of our family, in the sunroom debating whether Pete Davidson has a big dick or not (duh). I’m not positive one could confidently call The Twins when I knew them at least, perfect role models, but I can confidently say they were everything I wanted to be—free.

⋆

I saw my mom’s side of the family during December for Christmas and Nathans's birthday, my birthday in June, and sometimes here and there during the rest of the year. I was a profoundly insecure child who didn't feel loved. I remember my mother whispering in my 8-year-old ear that my father would never love me for being transgender and my friendships consistently being turbulent. Between school and my mother's abusive nature, nothing about me or my life felt natural, but those few times a year I saw The Twins it was a breath of fresh air. They provided a few hours where my mother couldn't hit me or scream at me, and I couldn't be alone with my thoughts. In those few hours, it felt easy to be the me I wanted to be, the me that would ideally be entwined with them for the rest of my life.

⋆

I always knew as soon as I got the chance, I would never speak to my mother again, so to preemptively sublimate her care, I built a pipe dream. A dream where The Twins became that comforting quilt a mother should be once I left "home." A dream that cast us as best friends for life who would go to the Irish Bars and drunkenly dance, work creative jobs, and live in charming townhouses but would always meet at the ones—As Lily would say, we would be Buffalo’s very own HAIM. I didn't cling to them or the dream I concocted, nor did it consume my every thought, I saw it as something to look forward to that would happen without exceptions.

⋆

Like every other 13-year-old, I didn't acknowledge my youth until naivety pinned me down and beat me straight—in 2020 COVID came and blew my dreams to smithereens. The few times I saw them were axed, and I assumed I would see them again once the pandemic passed, but that was just another naivety. I haven’t seen anyone on my mom's side since 2019, a blow that only added to the resentment that lived under my skin.

During this blackout, the only updates I got about them were through my mother or via Instagram posts. I gathered The Twins weren’t speaking to their mother, their mother wasn’t speaking to her and my mother’s other sister, and that other sister wasn’t talking to her daughter. I also heard to great lengths how much everyone, especially The Twins, detested my brother and me, and because of that, my mother "couldn’t see any of the family.” All “facts” I couldn't and can't begin to comprehend.

I was 14, in the middle of the end times, being told the people I saw as comfort saw me as scum; then 15 and 16 hearing only more and more of the same. I couldn't help but wonder what happened to eliminate the already limited communication. Was I too much of a child for them? Was I that rotten of a human? Was I truly unlovable?

Also, during the blackout, I unintentionally emulated Lily and Harper. I joined a radio program like them, cut 10 inches off my hair during a mental breakdown, and in my Senior year, I considered attending SUNY Fredonia for Digital Film Production— paths The Twins blazed when they were 17. By stepping onto their path so to speak, Lily reached out, then Harper, breaking the silence. I got asked why I was choosing Fredonia and what I wanted to do there, and they told me they would take me on a tour if I wanted (I did want that, but I had no means of getting to them). There was no “OMG how have you been??” text or a, “I'm gonna be in Rochester soon we should hang out,” invite like part of me yearned for. After that week of exchanges, the silence resumed. The pipe dream came and left with just a whisper of “hello” and I couldn't help but think, “if were so similar why don't they want me with them?”

⋆

It's been well over a year since I last spoke to The Twins. I've moved out, haven’t spoken to my mother in 8 months, dropped out of Fredonia, applied for SUNY Purchase, and had my life ripped apart and then had put it back together alone repeatedly. It's hard not to resent those who seemingly abandon you, for your inner child could be “bruised” as those self-help, self-published guru books I see on TikTok claim, but I think my pain is me subconsciously mourning my hope of what never was/got the chance to be's death.

It hurts to admit but I couldn’t tell you one absolute fact about them (could I ever?). When they dart across my mind, I see people who hurt me, ditched their blood, and don't owe me anything—I only see the "cool" image I wanted as a child but none of the substance below that I briefly enjoyed. I do understand that we all have our own lives, and I was only a brief 13 years of theirs, but I don't know them so I cannot truly believe that.

⋆

I wish I knew why they never reached out during Covid, or why they haven’t reached out now; If I did something, if they said the things my mother claimed. I've been told I could simply text them and express the mess that occupies my flesh, but I don’t have that in me. I cannot face yet another rejection reality brings—I must get comfortable in this blackout...

The DJ’s spirit barrels out her booth 
as her subjects primal practices thud through The Market. 
Rolled medicine swirls ‘round my gut
while the rave's screams fog up Brooklyn. 
Community sleaze doles out our roles,
its feral backmask threading itself with my spine.

Ive moved the party atop a table, 
my body thrashing with the beat,
as desire tugs my eyes,
exhilaration tryies to override my have-to-be-closed lips. 

Were drunk,
back to back,
a cold sweat tether pushing us about;
I just want to feel your hands on my face,
I just want this rhythm to transcend tonight. 

---

I don't recall much from when my father lived with my mother, younger brother, and I; but I recall everything thereafter. I remember the fear of my mother, that cannibalized my soul, as my toes curled into the carpeted stairs. I remember our collective yelling, my mother's manipulative tactics, the stabbing that could've claimed my life—the sobbing in my closet for another life.

Growing up I craved comfort, but my mother is an atheist so she wouldn't let me believe in a god or belong to a denomination. Following her orders, I grew to think anyone who prayed or attended church just wanted to atone; they wanted to be pure for selfish reasons. Repeating the words “help me”, in the corner of my closet, and hoping some farther figure could help is all I could do. My extended family didn't notice or care I’d gone quiet, CPS didn't believe the pain, and my friends couldn't do anything but console my woes. This routine went on for years to no avail—my world only grew bleaker, my anger rose, and my will to live dwindled to non-existence.

I wouldn't beg to God—more so the “Universe.” I didn’t understand what the “change” I was crying to her for would entail—Let that be some cosmic being swooping me out of her house or a semi plowing her over, (the only way I would get my father more than every other weekend). I needed someone powerful. The material beings in my life weren't saving me so I felt the immaterial could; Mommy hadn't forbidden her too.

---

Since I was seven, for two weeks each summer, on scholarship, I attended Camp Cory: a sleepaway camp on Keuka Lake that grew salvatory upon my father's exit. That property held miracles on her shore; I was adequately fed, truly happy, and had counselors who acted more like adults than my own parents—I had died and gone to a temporary heaven. Once my father left, camp gave me a belief I think others were born with; hope was real—And like Lana Del Rey sings, “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have/Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman with my past...”

Camp’s bliss turned to ice once my two weeks per summer were up, but when I was 15, the Universe decided to give me a holdover treat—Johnny. I had my home friends, but nobody ever felt permanent and relatable; their issues were temporary and futile. Johnny was a dorky aphrodisiac who had a cracked smile. Johnny is like me, severely tormented at home, and he became an anchor that stopped me from floating towards insanity. I was understood and loved unconditionally in a way that truly made me believe in the Universe’s power; there was no other explanation for a person so pure, so in love with me, to willingly entwine himself into my hellscape. She finally answered my closet calls.

---

My mother never let me be happy so I should've anticipated my other mother, the Universe, would be the same. The summer of ‘22, the Universe decided, out of the blue, to revoke my camp scholarship, which took my guaranteed opportunity to see Johnny again—the Universe took away my slice of heaven after not even a year. That summer she also decided to add to my torment—She gave my father cancer; and if he died, I would never get away from my mother. I was on a paddleboard, desperate for bliss, or at least something close, but I couldn't quell the pulsating rage towards my life that filled my body. I had spent 16 years speaking up to the Universe only for her to only once answer with positivity. I could not tell you why in that moment I thought God could fix these problems, I didn’t even actually believe in him, but compulsion took over. That July morning I sent my first message to God—signed sealed delivered by my chapped lips: “God in your name we pray, please bring Johnny back to me; please don’t kill my father. Thank you, Amen.”

When I returned to the shore, I checked my phone, and Johnny had left me a voicemail suggesting we go on our first proper date—God was quick with the miraculous return. Also, that week, my father started the treatment that cured his first bout of cancer; bringing back the only chance for escape. I now see my pivot from speaking to the “Universe” to God was actually a defense against my mother. She stole a childhood from me, she abused me, but theoretically she wouldn't be able to dismantle a faith she’ll never see as real.

Since that miraculous day on the shore, God became my closest confidant. That fall I got a cross from Amazon and wore it every day and every night—I had become an addict to His heroism. He knew all my worries, and according to the priest on my TikTok for-you-page, would provide “remedies” if I prayed. Every time my mother hit me, I got on my knees and prayed; when my father got cancer again, I prayed; every time I contemplated suicide, I prayed. God gave me a remedy that July day, so he was bound to do it again...eventually — A sentiment that beat against my skull day in and day out.

“Eventually" was two years later on my High School graduation day. I packed up my bedroom and moved out, blocked my mother's contact, and hopped in an Uber to camp to work the entire summer; after summer, I moved into my fathers' guest room, worked full-time, and operated independently until January, when I moved out for college. I was praying for freedom, and I got it. I thought God finally bestowed his promised remedy—but then I got the pamphlet.

---

I was back on campus; I had a pamphlet from God' henchmen making itself at home in my jacket pocket and I was writing an essay on how a pair of miracles saved me. I was sat across a Starbucks table, from Plato's protege, my friend, Patrick, going over how my essay would detail my “come-to-Jesus" tale as well as how it was indeed “simple to be saved." But then, he innocently dropped a bomb: “Avalon you did all those things.” My perception imploded.

---

For 6 days shy of 18 years I willed, begged, and prayed for a better life. I was weak and angry, feral for an escape. When I finally could safely get out, I had sprung for it—I made the choice, and I did the action—not some god. My prayer was answered at 15, in means I can't do, (I can't cure cancer, and I can't grant myself a scholarship), but my escape at 17 had nothing to do with a “miracle.” Rather, everything to do with just me.

In my godly years, I conditioned myself into believing God would come back, that he would save me again. I see now I was meek and traumatized, so that was all I could do. Like every child, I wanted my parent to tell me I wasn't doomed to live in an earthly hell, but I didn't have that, so I clung to God—the maternal/paternal eye in the sky.

According to my pamphlet being saved, is “as simple as entering a door...as getting help...as believing in God.” I disagree. It's not simple to enter a door knowing a monster is on the other side; it's not simple to get help for you would have to unveil every visible and nonvisible scar; It's not simple to let God into your heart forever and always because when Patrick questioned my belief with six hefty words my beliefs fell off their axis. It's not simple to be saved.

Something in me now knows, God is out there, and He sticks His hand in the pot every now and then, but while I cite him as my savior in those godly years, I believe the idea of him helped me more than anything. God was a cosmic coping mechanism that let me feel shreds of hope and love for brief periods in my, seemingly forever, damnation.

I could easily fall into blind faith, and leave my autonomy in His hands, but that would be too simple—I've never known simple.

Lady Bird follows the mother/daughter dynamic between Lady Bird and her mother, Marion. Their relationship fluctuated repeatedly from emotionally manipulative and argumentative, to one of attempted coexistence. In my relationship with my mother, at the time, had that same surface but with a different core- Lady Bird and Marion had love at their core, (shown in the opening shot, with them in bed facing each other, and at the end, with them driving individually), where as my mother and I had innate resentment in ours. Due to such, I had a one panned view of M/D dynamics, you either loved each other or it was World War III under your roof. I felt Gerwig's depiction of the pair was weak, flat and incomprehensible; how could two people who seemingly loathed each other for so long attempt to truly unite? Marion was the villain, and Lady Bird was a lost in her mind protagonist.

September 25, 2023, I granted the film 5/5 stars and wrote in my Letterboxd, “This is the type of film you can only understand as a 17-year-old girl;” a statement I still hold to be true today.

At 17 I still felt like my mother was the villain in my life, but I could see that in Sacramento 2002 the antagonist was the beast that is adolescence and not Marion in her entirety. To Lady Bird, Marion acts as the wall blocking the stairs to a higher way of life. One of zero debts (emotional and literal), big houses, growing love, freedom, and a happy family- the desires that drive her.

Lady Bird until the final act fails to comprehend her mother was let down as a child too; she was abused by an alcoholic mother who didn't give her maternal tools or comfort, a practice reflected in Marions own parenting style. On the flipside Marion does implement verbally abusive techniques, i.e. communication cut off, pulling of love, and various degrees of shaming (not calling her the preferred name in bouts of anger and insulting Lady Birds character/interests). Marion is the films antagonist, in the eyes of Lady Bird for the first ¾, and in my mind a little less or maybe a little more, give or take, but she is just a product of her childhood circumstance.

As a teenager being yourself is your greatest obstacle, a lesson I also was coming to realize. Lady Bird hates everything about herself. From her body to her mind, she wants to change it all and exist outside of her “child-like" self, as an other, or in her words, a Jenna Walton.

Lying about who she is, is a form of escapism. She can live in her dream 3 story blue house with the white shutters and American Flag out front, smoke hand rolled cigarettes (never the cloved), not participate in the economy, have flawless grades, and fuck the “cool boy.” All she must do is ditch her best friend, her theater passion, and her honor- a seemingly valid trade to Lady Bird, (or any teenager). Lady Bird doesn't realize owning yourself, as well as your past is what actually matures you.

I am now 18, in college, and like Christine, understanding who I am and what my life has been. While naturally she is the film's protagonist, due to the story holding her emotions at the epicenter, Christine never felt like she was good; she fell under her mothers disapproval, until arriving in NYC.

In the new beginning that is NY, Christine reflects on her life. She realizes she wanted the control of her image, since God and her mother both took them away from her, (hence the name changes), and she realizes why she was so anti-Sacramento. Sacramento to her, and to the films first ¾, held a theme of drought (financial and love), which bestows the inability to choose, but now that she has chosen NYC in the 4^th quarter, she’s grown to appreciate it and it’s contents- she can choose to come back to it, she can choose what home is.

February 9^th, 2025, I reaffirmed those 5/5 stars and wrote on my Letterboxd, that the film was, in Kyles words, “Hella Tight.”

The film in its whole is short but holistic memories- feeding into the theme of growing up and its reflective state. From using short scenes with blunt cuts and shifts in dialogue, the film displays how you can only remember the key moments of the past, the dramatic ones that leave a crater in the mind. Gerwig also crafted the film to feel like it was fading and fleeting in time. By crafting a “plain and Lucious” and photographic feel, the film dates itself, it makes the past nostalgic. Gerwig’s team could've easily slapped an Adobe film filter over the raw footage to make it camcorder-like, but she wanted the film to feel like the hand distressed images she made as a child at Kinkos. With the Alexa mini camera, adapted with resolutions and lenses, they stripped away a layer that would be captured with high-res digital, to give the look of a memory losing its potency over time. (1,2)

September 1^st, 2017, Greta Gerwig released the prophetic film, Lady Bird. A film that acts as an augury for those in their Lady Bird state, or as a looking glass for the soul, for those who've evolved to be Christine.

WORKS CITED

1. Houchin, Nick. “Lady Bird l A Filmmakers analysis.”Youtube. Uploaded by Nick Houchin, 18 Sept 2018, watch, accessed 8 February 2025.

2. O’Falt, Chris. “How Greta Gerwig’s Brilliant Use of Colors Turned ‘Lady Bird’ Into an Emotional Nostalgia Trip.” Indiewire, 13 December 2017, accessed 9 February 2025.

Our sky was a Keuka blue, our hearts black and bruised; resuscitating with each affirmation of respect and appreciation that reverberated through the beach's soft white shells and the lake's safari mussels.

He was a nesting doll of genuinity and hope, express-shipped from his home country to my lap. Everywhere I went, everywhere I dreamt, his freckled face and jaded teeth lingered right beside mine. Nobody had ever understood my sadness, how it had been looming for 14 years, how “home” was just a word people put on their doormat to take the edge off visitors, how I could be a visitor at my mother's 616 Leo Avenue.

For 2 years I came back from the lake drowning in tearful desire. Unable to comprehend my descent to accidental nunnery- the world was gone; he was my savior.

Alex once said our love was supernatural, and I was the greatest thing that happened in his lifetime. There had been nobody like me- nobody who thought, laughed, empathized like me- I was my own operation. Something he enjoyed calling his, only in our summer house, never to the spectating eye.

One night when the rest of the world's couples laid their heads to rest, he tumbled out of our bed and down the rabbit hole. One of funny fumes and liquids, conniving friends and foe, one that made the angel of my dreams a carbon copy of manmade trash. A nice young man became a boy, clumping with other boys, shoving their pain and self-proclaimed disadvantages down the throats of those they could inhibit.

Let the light in, the radio pleaded, each weekend of the following long year. All I ever did in his summer house was pray he would smell the salty twang of my tears, the smell of yearning for what once was. Alas, a boy making himself blind to what manhood should be is unable to do a damn thing.

Back in May, I purged- God busted me out of Alex’s Bay window with a foreign thought trailing slowly, then rapidly, behind. Was this really the end of him and I? (Could I really keep committing to a life, without him?)

I don't open the summer house gates no more, and he doesn't request me to come “home”. The house's water lapses over me when I visit his neighbors, yet my heart maintains its blackened drought. Grape pressed stones, leading around the isle, reflect off my sunglasses, but instead of becoming a zombie returning to the last place she knew, I just keep on walking; acknowledging that the path is just some limestone and not his calling card.

I’ll return to the lake this summer, and then the rest. My sky will still probably be a summer blue, I'll still be drowning in some shade of sorrow. I’ll have nothing to do with a summer son, but I’ll silently hope a childhood pipedream could come back for an adult rerun. Maybe not with the same face, but a summer love is all I've ever known.

*everything said is purely fictitious, an y resemblance to people/places is purely coincidence.

During the Summer Solstice I used to watch, from the tire swing, twenty or so Fawn gather on the dew-pearled property line, unbeknownst to the fact "Albion’s boys" had their arrows already aimed at the Buck's broadside. I remember admiring the Fawns’ unhuman effortless elegance—skinny while strong, captivating maple brown eyes, and an ability to always be with the earth, no matter the climate. I always found them divine. I still find them divine.

I never could comprehend why the hunt was a daily occasion. Yes, we lived in the boonies, but the men weren't knocking arrows so our village could beat the perpetually winter cold, or to have pelts to trade at the market for medicine. Our survival wasn't dependent on the deer, so why did we shoot then feast? Father insisted he and the men did things the ethical way, the humane way—but I still couldn't make it past why?

"Hunting isn't selfish, you don't buy a gun from Vintage Arms and let it rip into the twiggy haze. You source a stick from the ground, your fishing twine from that summer you came with us to Eerie and take your arrow from Vintage Arms—shhh—and correct the balance," claimed my father.

Hunting is to help our mother contain her powerful creatures, not to strip them away with a small metal dome that injects anxiety into the prey spared from that day's hunt.

Today, I am 18. I walk out into their now-summer Playground—which I guess is now mine too—hoping my footsteps are just loud enough for the deer to run, and "the boys" to not call me out. But they aren't. Two maple brown eyes flutter into mine as my father hands me the gun, its manufactured date etched into the side: 2012.

I always did abide by the men's law to never set foot in the Playground, but now I wish I hadn’t. Maybe I could've gotten caught up in the crosshairs of the hunt, their bullets splitting my 9-year-old cortex; fractions of my skull burrowing into Mother’s snow-covered arms—my life instead of the Does. It's all about balance and containment, an anecdote the father I once knew declared over a regrettable feast.

As Interns, our mission is to convince our community that Clark Tinsley will fiercely blaze a new path for Arkline. One away from Southern desolation (confederacy), and towards modern prosperity. Which none of these old fucks want.

Rajul, our manager, made that very clear in my interview back in July, but my “post-grad high” must've blocked my better judgment. In what world is a 22-year-old graphic design major, with zero political experience & interest, supposed to change the infrastructure of a town that’s had the same mayor since 1970?

Two Saturdays ago, my roommate Anne & I were in the corner of Bucks Barstool, scheming for ways I could stand out in the program. We went through every napkin on our table, and then the neighboring ones, putting my desperation for success into chicken scratch. I determined that Camille wasn’t going to be offered a permanent position (for, she’s sleeping with Rajul, & if that got out, he’d be fired), Dan has been everything but remarkable, and Kate is mute in every meeting, so unless she's a mastermind only through email, she isn't getting it. The only person even worth entertaining is Rose.

Bleach blonde, 5’4’’, proud-to-be-a-nepotism-hire, Rose. She was hammered at the bar with her girlfriend when she got the call. Anne & I, through Rose’s insistent shrieks calling for celebratory champagne, translated that conversation: her pitch she made about a call-in television broadcast, reminiscent of the 60’s, with Tinsley answering unfiltered questions would be set up for the 17^{th &} she would be working with Rajul, alone.

Why does the princess hire deserve the position that everyone but her could actually use? The position that guarantees almost one hundred thousand dollars in a bank account by years end? The position that guarantees promotions, full-coverage insurance, loan forgiveness, social security a non-government job could never supply. The position that would get Anne and I out of our one bedroom apartment that matches the temperature of the Arizonian earth.

Thats when Anne had the idea.

I emailed Rajul in the drunken depths of that weekend, asking if I could bring him a campaign proposal-

Robert Hope’s whole campaign, to keep him in office, is rooted in holding out hope that America will follow suit with Arkline’s familial values. So, what if you show the town, he himself doesn’t uphold them, but Tinsley does?

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My Apple watch's alarm is buzzing on my wrist, reminding me to head to Rajul's office; as if I could forget, my cubicle is next to his door; Sorry for the inconvenience, I'm trying to change the world reads his out-of-office sign.

Is that what I am if I do this? A world changer? Or the very thing I loathe?

It's not too late to create something new that's not an illegal smear campaign. Rajul always likes what I do. Granted doctoring pictures of the mayor in relations with porn star-bodied women, rather than his anemic wife, is more of a lawsuit than a prison sentence. Still, those ethics don't make an airtight defense.

The sign flips with the force of Arkline’s once-worshipped God- I must be here next term.