Dirt Club Zine

Love

Letter to

Life.

Love

Letter to

Life.

We are so excited to welcome you to the inaugural Spring edition of Dirt Club Zine. Spring sits on the edge of the fullness of summer, breathing life back into the earth, transforming the dead of winter into something fresh. Spring represents growth, unthawing and healing. So, too, do we experience this vernal force as we awaken ourselves to a new mode of living: leaving the past behind and stepping into a grater unknown. Through this collection of poems, images, and prose, we capture the Growing Pains of Spring. Enjoy the journey.

-Alexis Pearman & Malvika Jain

Moonshadow

Two golden bees left their hive

And flew straight to me from grandma’s house.

I tied a pink ribbon around their bellies

Fashioning a passage between

Earth and Heavens.

Gold plated emblems of pasts

Beget noxious nostalgia

Attesting I’ve been somewhere before.

I’m from Helen and Clytemnestra.

The women absconded from your stars.

Much like my mother and her mother

In the spring time I walk

Among the flowers in bloom.

Earth’s garden.

The tulips start first.

Always last to finish.

The ephemeral nature of my mothers nursery beguiles

The Scorpion Moon.

Softer than silk

I land where my feet have been placed.

My grandmothers wool warms me while I go.

My fathers nose as my line of sight.

Twin trees in bloom

Race to finish this cycle of immortality

I as their witness.

Dogwood blossoms on the green

Yearning for their cherry sister.

Concrete surrounds every golden pot

As a war is waged on Spring.

Forged from the same maker

As my own twin bees.

Buzzing to and fro

Earth and Heavens garden

On their pink satin coil.

Come Pollux,

Come Castor,

Fly back home to me.

I made a deal with that shark.

He has offered us protection and sustenance.

In exchange

A dogwood blossom

And a few blue tears.

Mars rears it’s familiar head

in this war of metals.

My tears turn to gold.

Just one drop and purity has fled.

A malleable stance lets

The wind take me

Away from my mother’s dogwood tree

Roots firmly planted.

Turning left, I cry blue tears

At the death of the cherry tree.

Whose blossoms waded along side me

in unburdened waters.

The same body where I narrowly

avoided shark attacks.

Although remora are not desired prey.

I snip branches from the hydrangea bush,

just enough for a bouquet.

I cut a section from the same

Spool of pink ribbon,

to hold my findings in place

for The Journey.

Now my tears have scattered about

Nourishing strange gardens.

I have gold on my fingers,

My neck

A piece of golden tinsel in my hair.

My friends have it too

I realized

As we sat in our own garden

Of concrete and leather.

I thank my pink ribbon,

June and Zeus alike,

That I am both Earth and Heavens.

For I get to experience

A moment like a memory

Within moonshines of being.

LOVE LIFE ART

I Keep My Flowers As They Whither

We mourn hope most of all.

A spark to set ablaze sputters

And you pull the duvet further over your head.

Fixed like a kid

I roll down the lush green hills

Of paved over paradise

To chase the sunset a bit longer.

Hope stirs in the gaps of our teeth

On a wave-lit path

In the eyes of a stranger.

Every indulgence becomes old news

Chasing the next dream-high

But I still much prefer peonies.

Fuss and blindness smother the spark

Of the magic-ridden ordinary.

The magic in two women walking

side by side.

Want-song comes on and everything swells.

Chocolate peanut butter on the tip of your tongue

Mitski-method ringing in rave through ears

Begging to never see you again.

We mourn hope most of all.

A spark to set ablaze sputters

And you pull the duvet further over your head.

Fixed like a kid

I roll down the lush green hills

Of paved over paradise

To chase the sunset a bit longer.

Hope stirs in the gaps of our teeth

On a wave-lit path

In the eyes of a stranger.

Isis embodied

Propped with Spring Ego

Discerning care leaves the glass dry.

My once fresh tulips have a whiskey

And a smoke at dusk

Walking alongside their bike

On the long way home.

I keep my flowers as they wither.

I sit with tender gaze.

A grim-storied longevity

Bare to waning witness

Existence stolen

An atmospheric pinch!

Isis embodied

Propped with Spring Ego

Discerning care leaves the glass dry.

My once fresh tulips have a whiskey

And a smoke at dusk

Walking alongside their bike

On the long way home.

I keep my flowers as they wither.

I sit with tender gaze.

A grim-storied longevity

Bare to waning witness

Existence stolen

An atmospheric pinch!

Flora’s breath and its stillness

Flora’s essence embraces

seeps

stays

Stiff-waxed thrashing

Darkening each hour chime.

While I remain to revel

In sweaty palmed resolve.

For there’s beauty in petal-fallen dust.

And I love.

I love till its rotten,

dust,

fly-infested toss.

And then I love.

Flora’s breath and its stillness

Flora’s essence embraces

seeps

stays

Stiff-waxed thrashing

Darkening each hour chime.

While I remain to revel

In sweaty palmed resolve.

For there’s beauty in petal-fallen dust.

And I love.

I love till its rotten,

dust,

fly-infested toss.

And then I love.

Every indulgence becomes old news

Chasing the next dream-high

But I still much prefer peonies.

Fuss and blindness smother the spark

Of the magic-ridden ordinary.

The magic in two women walking

side by side.

Want-song comes on and everything swells.

Chocolate peanut butter on the tip of your tongue

Mitski-method ringing in rave through ears

Begging to never see you again.

I sometimes wonder what we owe others. Like what are the innate responsibilities we have by just being human. Like technically you dont have to do anything. You can lie or cheat or be mean, because you are in control of your limbs and words and thoughts.

I think one of the coolest things about the human experience is how similar it is for everyone. Life can feel so independent and alone, but in reality, so many people are living parallel experiences and finding their own way of making sense of it. Everyone feels hurt, loneliness, jealousy, or fear, but I think art is the only way you can make bold - sometimes messed up - claims about these things without seeming psycho. I think I always need to make art in order to make sense of a situation or let go. I revel in the process of making something, sitting down for hours, letting yourself think, and accepting the reality of a situation. Art makes any condition of being feel like it has a purpose and gives inspiration for something cool. I also think it's a healthy way to deal with life, as art can act as a tool for re-framing our experiences. Rather than blaming anyone, or being stuck in your hurt, you create an avenue for unbridled self-expression. Also, nothing makes me as happy as seeing someone wear or use something I've made. I don't like making things for myself. Making art in a way that is for others to consume takes a lot of self confidence and a deep sense of self. I think art ultimately makes you feel like nothing is that serious and shows you just how malleable who you want to be can be. This is what's cool about music. Someone writes a song about something so personal, and then millions of people listen to it and associate someone or some situation and get enveloped in a feeling. Without that personal meaning you attach to it, your art doesn't mean much to anyone. Unfortunately, I can not sing. I wish fashion and clothing had more of an opinion. The whole thing with creating a successful brand is that you need consistency, but the cool thing about art is that it reflects the inconsistency of life. Maybe fashion has gotten too far away from art, but I also think clothes have always been more about society rather than an individual. I think painting lets me do that, but realistically I do not think I'm gonna be a world renowned painter. I dont know, maybe - who knows? I also like performing and being the center of attention, so maybe I need to get into dance. Maybe photography. I dont know what it is, but I want to get really good at it.

MISSING

When you end a quasi-relationship, you still experience loss, but this loss is a bit different as a part of loss is about having-or no longer having. This relationship was never fully realized which blurs the line of that position. When you only partly enjoy a person, you only somewhat “have” them, whether that’s in time, intimacy or intention. So, when you lose that person, your morning becomes muddled between what you had and mainly, what you wanted to have. We shed our tears over the desires that can no longer come to fruition alongside those over losing the person. We miss the things we never got to explore or know about each other, the experiences we never got to have or the person they never became. But potential isn’t real. It’s fantasy. It’s not a tangible experience so this isn’t a tangible loss- it exists in the space between having and losing.

FANTASTIC

Now my tears have scattered about

Nourishing strange gardens.

I have gold on my fingers,

My neck

A piece of golden tinsel in my hair.

My friends have it too

I realized

As we sat in our own garden

Of concrete and leather.

I thank my pink ribbon,

June and Zeus alike,

That I am both Earth and Heavens.

For I get to experience

A moment like a memory

Within moonshines of being.

Come Pollux,

Come Castor,

Fly back home to me.

I made a deal with that shark.

He has offered us protection and sustenance.

In exchange

A dogwood blossom

And a few blue tears.

Mars rears it’s familiar head

in this war of metals.

My tears turn to gold.

Just one drop and purity has fled.

A malleable stance lets

The wind take me

Away from my mother’s dogwood tree

Roots firmly planted.

Softer than silk

I land where my feet have been placed.

My grandmothers wool warms me while I go.

My fathers nose as my line of sight.

Twin trees in bloom

Race to finish this cycle of immortality

I as their witness.

Dogwood blossoms on the green

Yearning for their cherry sister.

Concrete surrounds every golden pot

As a war is waged on Spring.

Forged from the same maker

As my own twin bees.

Buzzing to and fro

Earth and Heavens garden

On their pink satin coil.

Turning left, I cry blue tears

At the death of the cherry tree.

Whose blossoms waded along side me

in unburdened waters.

The same body where I narrowly

avoided shark attacks.

Although remora are not desired prey.

I snip branches from the hydrangea bush,

just enough for a bouquet.

I cut a section from the same

Spool of pink ribbon,

to hold my findings in place

for The Journey.

Two golden bees left their hive

And flew straight to me from grandma’s house.

I tied a pink ribbon around their bellies

Fashioning a passage between

Earth and Heavens.

Gold plated emblems of pasts

Beget noxious nostalgia

Attesting I’ve been somewhere before.

I’m from Helen and Clytemnestra.

The women absconded from your stars.

Much like my mother and her mother

In the spring time I walk

Among the flowers in bloom.

Earth’s garden.

The tulips start first.

Always last to finish.

The ephemeral nature of my mothers nursery beguiles

The Scorpion Moon.

Fantasyland is good for forcing you to focus on yourself, your desires and paths forward. In fantasy land, I didn’t get a raise, I’m the fucking CEO. In my chimera I’m not dreaming of a text back, I’m dreaming of souls merging. This dream state reminds you that your possibilities are endless, distracting you from the frivolous bullshit you think you should want or have. Fantasyland is manifesting, Fantasyland is enthusiastic delusion. It is taking up brain space in resistance to our anxieties. I think fantasy land makes us attractors as it broadens the horizons of what we believe is possible for ourselves. Being delusional can just mean putting the energy out into the world you want back, even if it’s not where you are just yet.

FANTASYLAND 101:

MANIFESTING MY DELUSIONS

When you experience loss, you have to grieve. You must embody all the hurt from that loss, in whatever form that it takes. And loss hurts. The deprivation of something, or someone you loved and cherished, is gut wrenching. It cuts, and it stings....

My Sorry

Would we still be talking if I wasn’t so scared about being hurt or not being cared for and got mad? What if I asked what was going on and tried to understand before assuming things were about us? That’s not what good friends do. I guess I just wanted to say sorry. But good friends also forgive, respond, communicate and care about how I am feeling. A good friend wouldn’t make me so anxious. I guess you weren’t a good friend either. I guess we liked each other but we’re never actually friends. I guess special things are supposed to last and we did end up where we started as people that don’t like each other.

WHAT DO WE OWE OTHERS?

FANTASYLAND 101:

MANIFESTING MY DELUSIONS

MAYBELAND

How can you miss someone you are yet to know?

The space between reality and fantasy world. Maybeland is the world that envelopes you when you first start seeing someone. No real foundation has been laid and there are a few relevant data point suggesting if you will or will not work out, so you can invent any possibility for how things play out. Who is to say you won’t get married and go on vacation in the Maldives and stay at one of those hunts on the beach. Life in fantasy land is electric. Limitless. You can say or do whatever you want, live out any desire from the safety of make believe. There’s comfort in this reverie.

Reality is where there’s commitment intention and action. This is where a person can practically fit in your life, where sustained true love is. In Maybeland, you have enough feelings for someone to care, but instead of solid foundations of trust, the world rest on hope and possibility. Pretend dating- but you’re too scared to enter reality. Never will I ever stay in Maybeland again.

LOVE LIFE ART

In a raging river I am a pebble- sightly smaller than my fist,

rough and a generic grey.

The powerful ribbons of water in a gentle dance

with the fallen branches and boulders rooted deep in the dirt.

An unpredictable dance by the predictable river bank.

I bounce off of stones, some sedentary, others tumbling in parallel.

I get trapped in an eddy for a few moments

Turn and pivot and rush down stream

Occasionally, I rest in a little oasis of dirt and rocks for a few weeks or months.

Hands that feel like they care hold me against the current until fatigue builds and one by one the fingers peal off and free me back into the raging stream.

The sorrow and pain that consume me quickly wash away as I try to stay afloat, hand-picking fresh dreams from the river's electric current. Submitting to the stream, I experience the unknown. The job, the boy I dated, the boy I didn't date, the failed painting, the failed company. Slowly the rough edges smooth out until a collision leaves a sharp gash. But the river keeps rushing and I keep tumbling on. Being 23 is fun.

MAYBELAND

In a raging river I am a pebble- sightly smaller than my fist, rough and a generic grey.

The powerful ribbons of water in a gentle dance with the fallen branches and boulders rooted deep in the dirt. An unpredictable dance by the predictable river bank.

I bounce off of stones, some sedentary, others tumbling in parallel.

I get trapped in an eddy for a few moments

Turn and pivot and rush down stream

Occasionally, I rest in a little oasis of dirt and rocks for a few weeks or months.

Hands that feel like they care hold me against the current until fatigue builds and one by one the fingers peal off and free me back into the raging stream.

The sorrow and pain that consume me quickly wash away as I try to stay afloat,

hand-picking fresh dreams from the river's electric current. Submitting to the stream,

I experience the unknown. The job, the boy I dated, the boy I didn't date, the failed painting, the failed company. Slowly the rough edges smooth out until a collision leaves a sharp gash. But the river keeps rushing and I keep tumbling on. Being 23 is fun.

MY LIP GLOSS STILL TASTES LIKE THE CLUB

Photography: Calleigh Smith

We Broke Up At Joyface

Impeccable casting and a lackluster script

Purvey the coming of summer.

Armed with everything and a beer

A secret affinity for intrigue returns to a place

Where one woman meets another.

Improv’s ‘yes and’ possesses inaction

And we all play on cue.

My South American Alliance

Helps me half and add seven

While my Irishman puts the pieces together

Of the nights two drink minimum.

For the third time we pile into a taxi

Careful not to ruin mom’s Missoni

Put all our pieces together

Just to leave the whole at a bar on 14th.

We win last place

Champions Edition

When the Irish sinks the 8-ball

On the first try.

The wager lost

You are left with no choice

but to lie in the face of a beautiful stranger

“No, I’m not famous”

And call downtown for backup.

Impeccable casting and a lackluster script

Purvey the coming of summer.

Armed with everything and a beer

A secret affinity for intrigue returns to a place

Where one woman meets another.

Improv’s ‘yes and’ possesses inaction

And we all play on cue.

My South American Alliance

Helps me half and add seven

While my Irishman puts the pieces together

Of the nights two drink minimum.

For the third time we pile into a taxi

Careful not to ruin mom’s Missoni

Put all our pieces together

Just to leave the whole at a bar on 14th.

We win last place

Champions Edition

When the Irish sinks the 8-ball

On the first try.

The wager lost

You are left with no choice

but to lie in the face of a beautiful stranger

“No, I’m not famous”

And call downtown for backup.

The lesson learned is to always ask the cute girl at the bar to dance.

Stingers out

And the show goes on

Partygoers playing unknowing understudies.

We wear our pride like dancing shoes

Stomp, shimmy, jive

East and backwards

Through treasure chests of more-than-friends.

The mise en scène of out and mini skirts

Soothes a disco itch

As four totals to entirety on the dance floor.

Submitting to the rhythm

Diggin’ The Planets

We moved further-closer to

Maximum design.

The lights turn on

Friday eyes open

And we spin home facing north.

In yet another cab

We find ourselves asking

If New York City still exists

When our eyes are closed.

The memoir keeps writing itself.

Sláinte.