ISSUE 1 | PHEMME

PHEMME

vol 1.

issue 1.

Welcome to the first issue of PHEMME zine, a print and online platform that publishes and promotes the work of marginalized authors, artists, and photographers.

The publishing industry is, by and large, still a white, straight, cisgender domain. PHEMME wants to change that. By prioritizing the work of women, femmes, POC, and queer/genderqueer individuals, we want to uplift talented creators who have historically been silenced.

Interested in appearing in Issue 2? Send submissions and queries to phemmezine@gmail.com. Hard copies of Issue 1 are available for purchase at request. And in the meantime, sit down with the zine and get comfortable. Or rather, get uncomfortable—the work you’ll find in this issue is visceral, provocative, colorful, angry, and queer. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay.

Maddie De Pree

Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief

PHEMME Zine

CONTENTS.

TEXT

“Every Woman,” Sandra de Helen

“1.3,” honey

“Part I: Secondhand Smoke,” Matilda Moore

“Eve’s Revenge,” Olivia Oliver

“The Real Donald Trump,” Mackenzie Smith

“I Re-Downloaded Tinder in the Bathroom of a Catholic Church,” Sarah Feingold

“On Becoming,” Crystal Stone

“Safety Sonnet,” Julia Knowlton

“us,” Sasha Larson

“Ash and Flame” (excerpt), Camiell Foulger

“Beyond Rage,” Uma Venkatraman

VISUAL

”Red Girl,” Nyleen Perez

“Sisterhood,” Jack Martin

“Honey,” Celina Odeh

“Madonna Behind the Wall,” Sarah Dusek

“Body,” Claire De Pree

“Speak From the Part,” Olivia Oliver

EVERY WOMAN

by Sandra de Helen (she/her/hers)

With one arm the woman holds

up her piece of the sky. With the

other arm she is fending off the

sexual advances of the man who

holds up his piece of the sky with

one hand and gropes female parts

with the other. Not every man, you

say. Let us be generous. Let’s say

fifty percent of the men are groping

one hundred percent of the women.

Some men are vicious and violent

and grab women by the pussy. Or

worse. They masturbate themselves

while making women watch. They

rape women. They rape children.

They are the bad apples who give

all men a bad name. They are the

men who ensure that women

never feel safe.

In this age of microagressions we

have come to see that women—

even women who have never been

harassed, molested, or raped— walk

to their cars looking over their

shoulders, keys sorted between their

fingers, fingers wrapped into a fist.

They lock their doors, they check

their surroundings, they quake in

fear when they walk into a darkened

parking garage.

Women do not walk into alleys, but

if they do, they know they are risking

their lives.

Women carry their cocktails into the

restroom, choosing germs over possible

roofies.

When women express joy over the

birth of a son, they have to ask themselves

why they prefer a boy over a girl. If they

look to their own lives, they see the

shadow of fear that accompanies the

lives of girls. Boys are easier, they say.

If the world is to change, if women are

to be safe from groping men, those men

who are not harassing, not molesting,

not raping, those men must help the

sky fall on the men who are.

Every woman deserves to live in

the same, safe world as every man.

1.3

by honey (he/she/they)

paint me bright white

paint me octagonal

keep me in your cup

take a sip and set me down

i’m not poison i’m something worse

i’m a medicine that doesn’t go down easily

paint me bright white like the walls scrawled with crayon

can you hear your own voice when you speak to me?

all you can hear is your rage for me.

lover, hit me, friend, betray me, you all, don’t believe me

paint me grey and then black with the acts of others?? — no

paint me rainbow. paint me green. paint me the pink you made me ashamed of, and the red you looked at in disgust.

paint me golden browns and the gums of your teeth and the colours leaving my body as i clung to my mother

take your bright white paint and keep it for clouds for your children, or sugar for your coffees, —

don’t paint me anymore.

- [ honey. ]

RED GIRL

by Nyleen Perez (she/her/hers)

PART 1: SECONDHAND SMOKE

by Matilda Moore (she/her/hers)

everyone says that when boys hit you, it means they like you.

but they don’t mention that boys also choke you until you see spots

stab holes in your door with a screwdriver when you don’t let them in

chase you up the stairs, the sound of their feet pounding behind you the only thing louder than your heartbeat

they don’t tell you that someday when a man threatens to assault you in public,

you’ll remember this,

a feeling so visceral you’ll cry all the way home on the bus

that you won’t be able to close your eyes because he’s around every corner,

you’re 2,471 miles away and he’s behind bars,

it’s been years, but you still feel his

ghost hands, ghost hips

you will feel yourself becoming more dead than alive, more ghost than yourself,

slipping through walls

dissociating at red lights and almost crashing in the middle of the intersection.

the first time you felt desirable was also the first day you knew what it was like to hate yourself, and

they say that boys hit you if they like you, but they don’t warn you that they will cry afterwards because they “didn’t mean to hurt you”

everyone tells you boys will hit you.

but nobody tells you about the first night that you feel scared of him. when he’s had a few beers and his car won’t work and the way he speaks to you is deeply wrong.

it will feel so familiar, it’s almost comforting.

they don’t tell you about the fights that follow, the ones where he’s silent for hours at a time, where you feel his anger suffocating you, in your lungs like the smoke from his cigarette,

you’re wrong. you’re making it up. don’t you remember? you started this.

apologize.

you will forget what is real. he will ask you to repeat back exactly what he said word for word, or else it didn’t happen.

I guess it didn’t. I don’t know.

he will break your favorite coffee mug and he won’t say he’s sorry.

the feeling of betrayal after you leave him on the side of the road in the middle of the night because he refuses to get back in the car until you agree to give him another chance.

he calls you fucked up.

they don’t tell you about the roses he will buy you. the ones that are still sitting in the trunk of your car months later, dead, untouchable.

a sinister energy surrounding them as they disintegrate.

once yellow.

EVE'S REVENGE

by Olivia Oliver (she/her/hers)

The mountains roll

The snake, unknowing, winds

S-s-stalking

S-s-slithering

In a hot blue blaze

Violently it writhes

I grab the mouth and wrestle out

The thing that’s trapped inside

And grind the bones

Beneath my boot

Get out, Adam;

This garden is mine

SISTERHOOD

by Jack Martin (he/him/his)

BODY

by Claire De Pree (she/her/hers)

I RE-DOWNLOADED TINDER IN THE BATHROOM OF A CATHOLIC CHURCH

by Sarah Feingold (she/her/hers)

My mother wants grandchildren

She’s made that quite clear

Bouncing, bubbling, burping

Babies

Corkscrew curls and

pink plastic pacifiers

My mother wants grandchildren

I’m in my college dorm room

A girl in my lap

Brown corkscrew curls

Lips soft as a

Baby’s bottom

Our bras hang around our waists

Clothes tossed aside in the nervous shuffle of a hookup

tongues dancing

hands sliding and

My mother wants grandchildren

I know the basic biology

But our bodies curve perfectly

around each other

and our hearts beat louder

than my mother’s petitions

echoing off of the walls of a catholic church

praying for babies

I just want this night to last forever

Amen

ON BECOMING

by Crystal Stone (she/her/hers)

I prayed for boobs every day until I got them. Men stopped looking

at my eyes. They are too small and brown.

Some men tell me they like brown eyes, they just don’t love me.

If smell was sonic, whiskey skin could cello deep sighs.

Morning sobers shock a hangover.

My eyes are broken levees, but the tears are not destruction.

The tears might be destruction.

The bigger the mess, the more satisfying the clean.

My mind is a coal field stripped bare.

The lavender it grows is the love I think I can still give.

My heart fancies itself a dandelion and blows wishes.

The seeds spam the landfill. I am not the landfill. I am always

the trash.

I am an earthy mosaic of dried and seeds, the sweaty ground.

If I was a cup of tea, the leaves would be unclothed and float.

SAFETY SONNET

by Julia Knowlton (she/her/hers)

know exactly where you parked/carry car keys in your hand

walk confidently staring straight ahead/don’t walk alone at night

if you drink order your own /don’t leave your drink out of sight

only exercise indoors /only meet new date in public

text friends at beginning & end of new date/carry pepper spray or mace

make assertive eye contact (don’t look scared)/park close to exits in parking decks

carry bag close to your body/wear shoes that will allow you to run

if you are followed cross the street/if you wear a short skirt

if you wear heels/if you wear a low-cut blouse/if you ever wear red

take a self-defense class/stay in your car doors locked while pumping gas

don’t give out your number/don’t leave your windows open

be aware of your surroundings at all times/do you know what you are doing

but above all don’t look scared (don’t look scared) (don’t look scared)

MADONNA BEHIND THE WALL

by Sarah Dusek (she/her/hers)

by Sasha Larson (she/her/hers)

sometimes i hate this country it kills dandelions it kills children it pushes drugs and peddles empty promise it carves out empty stomachs and empties blood buckets, it throws band-aids at crisis and throws away leftovers, it cuts the tails off dogs and the life from bitches, it insists safety and smothers those who need saving, it stole from my mother and stole from her mother and stole from her mother and never gave back, it locks grid-iron walls and fills the inside technicolor, it hovers shiny objects, it dangles carats, it curtains production, just force-feeds product (all we know is finished), it loves corn it hates deer it is indifferent to theater it spits up what’s not red meat it fingers throats with magazines, it aches and pains and cries but it’s FINE, it takes its pill it’ll try again it killed another teenage boy with pigeons feeding on his carcass. its carcass. it rises from the dead it cocks its semi next to its semi-cock it didn’t read her resume it pissed on a burial ground (but it’s all right it doesn’t believe in ghosts), it doesn’t really believe your story, it doesn’t ever listen just like it doesn’t ever sing, its cereal gets soggy, it’s got this under control, it swoops down on metal wings, it wants us to feel bad about it, cry about it, and scrape our food off the plate, saying there’s nothing else to do,

your hug is more asphyxiation/but better to die than face alienation?

HONEY

by Celina Odeh (she/her/highness)

ASH AND FLAME (excerpt)

by Camiell Foulger (she/her/hers)

It goes left, it goes right, over counters and over heads,

Swill of sweat on arms and under ears,

Stretching me until I pop,

Traveling at a velocity unknown to you,

I’ve combusted and splintered and collapsed,

I was a firecracker girl, with a revenge to seek out,

I would die young and insipid,

Spilling guts to human error and the last judgment of your man stalked over a lifeless body,

Does this mean anything but shame?

I wanted to die unwrinkled,

Plan before 30, quick in the dark, slip of the knife

in all of its power and press,

Crunching paper clips beneath my teeth

and asked to chew some glass,

Marveling at and feeling the scream I wanted to speak to you,

Will you tell me goodbye before you go?

Let me absolve my sin of mistake,

I cannot fathom a world around just you,

In a moment of loveliness we will smoke a cigarette,

Our heads planted in old novels and our hearts still trembling,

Silver touched the knight at your hand and asserted my own hopelessness,

I cry to be refreshed,

I cry to lose nothing or maybe to lose the edge.

To know nothing of who you are to me,

Summer grass crackled and the air sparked to heal,

The threatening movement of the breeze biting at my heels,

I am at the doorway, looking at someone I knew,

This falls under losing sense of self to the oblique knowledge of right and wrong,

This eats me,

I am:

Twisted, maternal, seasick on the copse of deadened trees,

There are no tears from you,

I only feel the iceberg lettuce in between my teeth.

BEYOND RAGE

by Uma Venkatraman (she/her/hers)

I am beyond angry

I have become rage

and you mock me

with your oh-so-cool eyes

In the red glow of dusk

I am an incendiary word

away from combustible

You always knew

indifference was the fuel

to send me up in flames

and you toss it towards me

in a steady stream as if

you wish to see me burn

Sometimes I think

your inflammatory smile

has been perfected

to set me to simmer

heating my molten core

and I wonder why

I constantly feel like an inferno

I remember, dimly, a time when

I was an oasis of calm

a placid Bull slow to rage

But even the long-suffering earth

becomes parched when

rain refuses to fall

and the drought of emotion

left me cracked

a tinderbox needing only a flicker

to turn incandescent

So I seethe and bubble

and stew and fume

while the wildfire you stoked

gathers speed, ready

to raze your world

SPEAK FROM THE PART

by Olivia Oliver (she/her/hers)

THE REAL DONALD TRUMP

by Mackenzie Smith (she/her/hers)

Women,

you have to treat ‘em like shit.

That’s how you get them to do what you want.

Because treating women with respect is unheard of.

I start kissing them.

I don’t even wait.

You can do anything.

Because a woman’s consent is unheard of.

Grab ‘em by the pussy,

you can do anything.

I mean look at her,

she’s a

bimbo.

Excuse me, did I just say that?

But let’s be real.

Look at her,

you’d fuck her, wouldn’t you?

I’d fuck her.

C’mon, wouldn't you?

Look at her.

I heard she wants to make a decision

for herself,

because she claims to suffer

from back pain

due to her large breasts.

Any woman who has a breast reduction is insane.

Look at them,

women,

nasty women.

They’re only good for one thing.

They’ll walk up,

and they’ll flip their top,

and they’ll flip their panties.

I hate it when she’s menstruating,

blood coming out of her wherever...

that doesn’t mean I have to wait.

Look at her,

a beautiful piece of ass.

Now, let’s look at

her.

Tall,

5’9,

long legs,

uh, yeah, those legs,

all I can see is the legs.

Thin,

dirty blonde hair,

tan,

oval shaped face,

hazel eyes,

20 years old.

She’s not beautiful,

she’s

flat chested.

Very hard to be a 10.

BIOS.

Sandra de Helen’s work appears in Artemis Journal, The Dandelion Review, The Medical Journal of Australia, Mom Egg,Lavender Review: Night Issue, The Dramatist magazine and other journals. Her collections of poetry are published by Launch Point Press. Desire Returns for a Visit was released November 9, 2018.

honey is an artisté and a plant lover whose roots are slowly growing in; the painful process of rebirth. their emphasis in art is the communication of the true, the beautiful, and the human.

Nyleen Perez was born in Miami, FL and raised in Greenville, SC. Her passion is storytelling in different mediums to connect people closer to each other and tear down the walls of hatred that society has built with politics. She enjoys drinking coffee with people, exploring new cities, and listening to songs that make her feel like she’s in a movie.

Matilda Moore is a college student and barista. She lives in Oakland, California with her cat and dog.

Olivia Oliver is a senior English Major at Furman. Born and raised in Greenville, the majority of her writing is semi-autobiographical, focusing on the joys and pains of growing up as a girl in the American South. She has been published in The Echo and in the Sigma Tau Delta annual journal. She hopes that her lyrical yet unapologetic voice will inspire other young women to speak up and create.

Mackenzie Smith is the Campus Correspondent and Editor-in-Chief of Her Campus at Furman University. She is a junior majoring in Public Health with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Mackenzie has a passion for making sure women feel empowered and important throughout all stages of life. She is also an avid Nicolas Cage fan, her favorite food is pesto pasta, she has a slight obsession with Sex and the City, and if she could live anywhere in the world it would be in New York City.

Jack Martin is a thinker and an artist who believes in the power of listening, and the beauty of loving. His artwork explores his appreciation of the human experience and his own melancholy.

Claire De Pree is a queer artist based in Austin, TX. Her personal art draws upon her background in biology and her experience as a queer woman by exploring the interactions between human anatomy, sexuality, and nature. You can see more of Claire’s work at depreedesign.squarespace.com.

Sarah Feingold is a sophomore biology major at Furman University. She was raised by two amazing parents and five crazy siblings, and is constantly overwhelmed by the support she receives from her incredible friends. She is a runner, reader, writer, scientist, horse and dog lover, catholic, and a proud bisexual.

Crystal Stone’s poetry has appeared in various international journals. She’s currently pursuing her MFA in poetry at Iowa State University, where she serves as one of the poetry editors for Flyway: Journal of Environmental Writing. She gave a TEDx talk called “The Transformative Power of Poetry” in the spring. In her free time, you can find her traveling long distances on her roller skates. Find her online at Twitter with the handle @justlikeastone8 or on instagram @stone.flowering or at her website: www.crystalbstone.com

Julia Caroline Knowlton holds an MFA from Antioch University and a PhD in French Literature from UNC-Chapel Hill. A Professor at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, she is a Pushcart nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize. Her chapbook of poems, Café of Unintelligible Desire, was published by Alice Greene & Co. in 2018.

Sarah Dusek is a Junior at Furman University where she majors in Studio Art and English. She loves working with kids and hopes to help children tap into their creative potential through art.

Sasha Larson is a junior studying English and Film at the University of Georgia. She plans to pursue a career in screenwriting.

Celina Odeh is a visual artist based in the Carolinas. Her work is centered around the bending of light when she’s not busy bending fire.

Camiell Foulger is a junior at Furman University. She hates humanity and wishes she happened to be a horse.

Living in Singapore, Indian-born Uma Venkatraman is a journalist with a passion for poetry. She has been published in print anthologies such as Good Morning Justice, Along The Shore and Beyond The Hill, and online in Pink Panther Magazine, The Rising Phoenix Review, L’Ephemere Review and Plath Poetry Project.