Zanele Muholi

by Katie Sheppard

“Invisibilize one another without thinking twice about it.”

Sylvia

by Phoebe

title: gallery 5

i met you in the daylight, but i knew you at night

i met you on a grassy hill, graffiti and crumbling brick and rusted iron behind you, and we walked and you called it ‘so beautiful’. it was dark, holes in the ceiling streaming light onto the concrete like god through a raincloud.

gentrification is a bitch, and you mourned a building that was still standing, that saw life in the paint and the broken bottles and cigarette butts we kicked out of the way while singing “double-cross the vacant and boblack”

i knew you lying in a bed, with my legs and arms around you, and we fucked and you called me ‘so beautiful’. on a bare mattress on a floor i couldn’t see felt like floating above the mariana trench, and my hands shook, but scary things are more scablack of you than you are of them. there was life and an unmistakable sadness to your eyes when you woke up in the morning, and we went for a drive and a donut and a smoke, and i told you “i couldn’t think of a better way to spend a sunday”

you’re beautifully androgynous, and i say that with the hope that it’s what you want to hear cos i have the total intention of keeping you around. you’ll say it doesnt matter, that we dont have to think about it, but i cherish even the moments where our arms touch, where our knees brush while we sit side by side watching shitty tv that we cant keep up with we’re so high and im trying not to panic, im trying not to panic but what’s gonna happen to the house we built and four kids we adopted in my head

Hannah, Sophie, Imane, Daniela, Hardeep

by Cécile

“my heart aches for sisters more than anything it aches for women helping women like flowers ache for spring”

  — Rupi Kaur

Héloïse

by Garance

“Chere garance, ton clavier Bluetooth ne marche pas

Adieu

H

PS trop cool je suis”

Elisabeth

by Sophie

Woman 1: You are… I’m not gonna cry,

Woman 2: You’re gonna make me cry

Woman 1: The woman that you are today… is just beautiful. Your love… is amazing. The way you love people is inspirational. You are the definition of unconditional love. And I’m very, very proud of your strength.. your strength, your grace and… your knowledge. The knowledge that you… spit everyday

Woman 2: Spit!

Woman 1: Tryna be cool for you! The knowledge that you spit everyday on The Real is amazing ‘cause you have grown, you’ve grown into a beautiful grown woman you’re like grown up!

Woman 2: I love you so much

  — Girl Chat on The Real

Manon

by Anaïs

“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”

  — Virginia Woolf

Jantana

by Garance

That girl thinks she’s the queen of the neighborhood

She’s got the hottest trike in town

That girl she holds her head up so high

I think I want to be her best friend, yeah

Rebel girl rebel girl

Rebel girl you are the queen of my world

Rebel girl rebel girl

I think I want to take you home

I want to try on your clothes

When she talks, I hear the revolution

In her hips, there’s revolutions

When she walks, the revolution’s coming

In her kiss, I taste the revolution!

Rebel girl rebel girl

Rebel girl you are the queen of my world

Rebel girl rebel girl

I know I want to take you home

I want to try on your clothes

That girl thinks she’s the queen of the neighborhood

I got news for you, she is!

They say she’s a dyke but I know

She is my best friend yeah

Rebel girl rebel girl

Rebel girl you are the queen of my world

Rebel girl rebel girl

I know I want to take you home

I want to try on your clothes

Love you like a sister, always

Soul sister, blood sister

Come and be my best friend, really

Rebel girl

I really like you, I really want to be your best friend

Be my rebel girl

  — Bikini Kill

Marjo Leo

by Anaïs

“Qui donc devant l'amour ose parler d'enfer ?”

  — Charles Baudelaire

Laura

by Anaïs

“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”

  — Raymond Carver

Pauline

by Fallon

My friend Jo interviewed composer Pauline Oliveros earlier this year in May. A few days ago, on November 24th, Pauline passed away. For this submission I selected a paragraph from the interview:

“Listening is a mysterious process still. There’s more known about hearing because you can measure it scientifically, but listening you can’t measure that in the same way.” We can talk about auditory waves that our ears receive and transmit to the brain, but Oliveros feels, “what is less spoken about are the vibrations that are picked up by the body, the skin.” The latter, she suggests is also important in terms of hearing. “It’s not just the ears. Then when we talk about ear training, well, I don’t think you can train the ear. The ear is just doing its job. It’s a sensor for our mentality, our body, our physicality.”

“Not only that,” she continues, “listening is a compilation of many delays because we have comparisons happen, experiences and memories being drawn upon. The memory is very important when it comes to listening,” Oliveros feels. “Listening is a time-based art. There’s a practice that is very helpful – to listen to your listening.”

  — Pauline Oliveros – Listening +

A

by Elana

“A Letter to Her”

the corners of my eyes are swollen and crusty with tears, i hear your voice telling me bad things

“you’re selfish” you say, i cry

for a week i am not myself, i do not smile big, my laugh does not reach my eyes,

you did this to me, yet i am the bad guy you say, i cry

i try to fix this, i come to you and become vulnerable once again,

you don’t care, you sit there as i plead, silent and unforgiving

“i don’t think we can be friends” you say, i feel like i am the bad guy, because you said i was and my feelings are raw and easily manipulated

“i’m sorry” i say, your face is stone like and unresponsive and you say nothing as you leave the car, i watch your back as you go, realizing what just happened, and i weep

Callista

by Anaïs

“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

  — Karl Marx

L./C.

by Cornelia

“et là je ne sais plus quoi faire pour la première fois que tu es une femme qui se passe dans les années à la fin du monde”

Me

by Anaïs

“I am so afraid of disappointing the people I love, I often forget that I am someone I love too. And I need kindness just as much as I believe the people I love do.”

  — Nikita Gill

My mom

by Alexis

“hey mama i’m ok out here

i’ve seen how hard the world can be

my step is sure and i know my name

i’m strong just like you prayed i’d be”

  — "Mama, I'm alright" by Miranda Lambert

Tina

by Anonymous

“You’re everything I never knew I always wanted”. She posted it one day on her SM profile and I immediately knew that was how I felt about her.

Unnamed

by Anna

Something in the way she moves

Attracts me like no other lover

Something in the way she woos me

I don’t want to leave her now

You know I believe and how

Somewhere in her smile she knows

That I don’t need no other lover

Something in her style that shows me

Don’t want to leave her now

You know I believe and how

You’re asking me will my love grow

I don’t know, I don’t know

You stick around now it may show

I don’t know, I don’t know

Something in the way she knows

And all I have to do is think of her

Something in the things she shows me

Don’t want to leave her now

You know I believe and how

  — The Beatles - Something

Sophie

by Fanny

#you’re always gonna be the prettiest #and my favourite humain being on this earth

#i know i said it too much already but you look so incredibly beautiful #my ipod is playing fleetwood mac and i am dying on the inside on the ouside on every side possible of me #the living representation of soft

#the most beautiful precious human being :’) #i miss you so

#you’re so extra you’re the most everything

#i dropped my phone on my face and my nose started bleeding #can you believe i’m quite literally #bleeding love

Alejandra

by City

alejandra alejandra

debajo estoy yo

alejandra

  — Sólo un nombre by Alejandra Pizarnik

Tamara

by City

the first girl i kissed wrote me this poem

Y aquellos ojos, que entre sueños embriagué, Osadas mareas que a orillas me llevó Aquel susurro del deseo que azucé; Testigo fue la noche del aroma que abracé. Era su aroma; mi inerte demencia, mi impaciencia, Era débil su cuello; mi respiración, mi insistencia. Falaz compostura sumisa a sus engaños, Ignota ciudad que tentaba a los encantos. Sabios los momentos; comprendían sus manos, Aspirando la voz; su sentido delirando, El lecho tejido de asperezas y suspiros, Pérfida esencia, su pasado y mis vagidos. Arrullaba mis anhelos, en mis palabras se perdían, Inconsciente atracción, la vanidad huía, Mi sentimiento, su universo; sus caricias, mi sosiego. Ahogaba la razón, mis límites y mi ego.

Como el deleite de un libro inconcluso y entreabierto, Como páginas exhaustas, leídas, amarteladas. Melodía inalcanzable en descenso hacia sus besos, Me interrogaba el idilio, la pasión y el lamento. ¿Por qué mi -yo- empirista fue devoto de su néctar?, Recitaba mi faz el consuelo de su calma, La anarquía imperante y dueña de mi alma, Desvelaba persuasiva, perfecta amante dama.

  — El primer poema de siempre, by Tamara P.

Mathilde

by Anaïs

“Every once in a while you meet these people that make you think that just maybe you’ve been doing something right after all to deserve them in your life.”

Solange

by Anaïs

“As I look back at the past together with her, suddenly she starts to disappear. Maybe she never really existed.”

  — Halsey

Mélanie

by Anaïs

“And the gentleness that comes,

not from the absence of violence, but despite

the abundance of it."

  — Richard Siken

Marjo Leo, Svetlana, Rachel, Carla, Clara, Inès, Aïa and Pauline

by Anaïs

“i am so glad

we were born

during the same

lifetime

- i may not believe in fate, but i believe in you”

  — Amanda Lovelace

Anaïs

by Persecate

“I’ll make you poppy crowns and together we’ll rule the world.”

Lexa

by Anaïs

“the love some girls have for other girls is so gentle & so soft & so fucking beautiful, & these girls deserve to have better stories than the ones where they are murdered because they love with too much of their hearts.

- love is never a weakness.”

  — Amanda Lovelace

Servane

by Anaïs

“don't touch me

i said

because i can't

handle

someone being

good to me.”

  — David Levithan

Unnamed

by Laura

“God knows where I would be if you hadn’t found me sitting all alone in the dark.”

  — Dodie Clark - Sick Of Losing Soulmates

Phoebe

by Miranda

And, I guess all that’s to say, the miles that span between us don’t seem as long knowing I’d walk through stars to hold your hand.

Sophie

by Élodie Loan

Sophie, en dernière année de BTS, je t'avais parlé de mon projet de diplôme sur la refonte graphique du site d'une parfumerie artisanale. J'avais eu des retours des profs assez négatifs et eu la critique “ce n'est pas assez féminin”. C'est ce jour là, que tu m'as ouvert les yeux sur énormément de chose, autant sur le féminisme, beyoncé, le graphisme et one direction.

Croire en soi, en son travail, se sentir légitime dans tout ce que l'on entreprend. Toi, Jantana, Garance, Héloïse, j'ai découvert grâce à vous being supportive with each other.

Anaïs

by Persecate

“Lipstick-stained cigarette butts and soft Fall hair cascading down.”

Ophelia, whose voice is too often forgotten.

by Persecate

“Give them flowers and wish them hell.

I think I frightened them.

Sweet, sweet Ophelia singing songs in a shocking state of undress.”

Sophie

by Fanny

“if the moon smiled she would ressemble you”

the girls that i am sometimes jealous of. the girls that i am learning to find beauty in, letting down walls for

by d.o.

an angel

i saw her

she wears green stan smiths

and flies through space

in perfect arcs

Mélanie

by Anaïs

“So much of her time spent like this: dreaming up things to say and never quite saying them.”

  — Calum McCann

Christine (mom)

by Anaïs

“It was terrible. All of the things we couldn’t share. The room was filled with conversations we weren’t having."

  — Jonathan Safran Foer

Héloïse

by Jantana

“Gros mais sympa”

Unnamed

by Sarah

she’s slowed to leave me, to not want me in her life anymore, to find someone new. I’ll be ok.