When I do the dishes, my thighs touch.
Small shiver. I am wearing a sweater but no pants, hoping the warmth osmoses downward, also hoping that no one walks through this alleyway tonight. My oven light is on and my blinds are open, so anyone could see my bare legs and my day-two underwear. But I hate closing the blinds, and I like the possibility of being watched.
There is something perverted about coming home to do the dishes. The tomato soup coagulated on the pot, the shards of scrambled egg on the spatula. Twisting the sink’s knobs to get the water temperature just right, as if i am soothing it, shhhhh, soon you will be relieved. I love the look of a sponge when it's overused; breaking into crumbs of yellow and green, a symbol of laziness and poverty and maybe both. When I do the dishes I reconcile with a lifelong truth: I am gross.
I am not thorough when I scrub. I leave food bits on forks and coffee stains on mugs. The water accumulates in the basin, but when I try to slide the catch-all out I realize the catchall isn’t even in the sink, but instead it is the severed top of a chickpea can that has wedged itself down there snugly, and I cannot pry it out. So I leave the rest of the dishes in the soapy, soupy, food-filled water and I hope that tomorrow morning, the water will have slowly dripped through the crevice between the drain and the chickpea can barrier.
When I picture myself doing the dishes I am sexy. I have gorgeous thin legs and I wear a see-through white tank top. My hair is wavy and messy and falls over my face and when I push it out with the back of my hand maybe a couple suds float on top of it. If a man were here, he'd drag me away from the sink and put his hand down my underwear, but it is just me, and it's not the same when I do it, and when I do the dishes, my thighs touch.
There wouldn't be so many dishes if I didn't eat so much. There wouldn't be so many crumbs accumulating for weeks on my countertops. Perhaps all it takes is the willpower to stop, but I do not even have the willpower to sweep the salt rocks from my floor, so they end up stuck to the bottom of my barefeet and then caught in the sheets of my bed. I do not even have the willpower to hang up the pile of clothes sitting on my chair. My bathroom mirror has toothpaste splatters all over it. My bedroom floor still has patches of dried vomit. This might be true until I leave this apartment.
Maybe I'll never be beautiful, maybe I’ll always be gross, but I get aroused by touching the soggy food bits at the bottom of the sink, and when I come home I enjoy standing half naked in front of my window. There is nobody watching.
Weapons (no, not like that) 4/4
A
The whir of brushes on the skin and its circular motion transfixes me. This is my save point.
The stage lights are shining down on me in this concert hall, reflecting off my cymbal and into the back of my mind. The audience is so dark that I cannot even make out the faces in front of me, although I know who is there, I know where they are. I hope He is proud.
I wish I didn't care.
This competition has drained me and I know already that I do not win. I try my best but it just appears as if I am young and small, trying to play in the big leagues. Cute at best. I play alright. I choose a band of only women, a goal I set for myself in the last semester to feed the culture. My opposition sees it as a weapon; how can they say no to our batting eyelashes?
There is a lot of pressure on me tonight. Not necessarily to win, but to definitely not mess up. Playing poorly would reassure everything everyone has thought about me and it has become my life's mission recently to prove people wrong. But I haven’t practiced in the last two months. I've been listening to a lot of WestSide Gunn. I am a woman. None of these things make it clear to the audience that yes indeed, I am a jazz drummer. I am capable. I am even good, at times.
You’re a woman. Use it., I hear in the back of my mind.
But I have gained weight and I have bangs now. Men don’t like me the way they used to. They can’t see my eyelashes from out there.
We are playing “Black Narcissus”. The melody gives me chills and the way my band plays it makes my heart sputter like a faulty engine. It is so incredibly deep and important and I have never felt as if I have done a composition justice the way I am right now.
I think about His eyes in the crowd, glimmering, wet. I think about my best friend’s anxious face in the wings, he is playing next. I picture my father’s spirit in the rafters staring down at the crown of my head from a bird’s eye view. I do not know who I play for. I do not know who I play to.
Perhaps it is all me. Perhaps every person in the crowd is just myself in costumes, projecting fears and judgements, perhaps they will all melt into a puddle if I think hard enough.
I close my eyes as they begin to water. I am so scared, so scared of what I have become. I am hiding behind this giant instrument, praying nobody notices all of my ugly parts, all the bits of rot underneath the concealer. Through the years this music has deconstructed itself into its most evil parts. It is booze, sneers, and sexual advances. It is hangovers and adultery and so far from what beauty it used to be in my eyes. I have gotten so distant from it, in a way that concerns the people around me. But rest assured, I tell them. I am a woman, so the gig opportunities will never cease. And people like me.
Right?
It is the “head out”, the end of the song. I must focus. I come down in volume and leave space in my playing, letting the melody shine. It breaks my heart.
My old teacher is in front of me all of a sudden, laughing his big laugh between yawns.
My friends/strangers are in front of me all of a sudden, loving with big hearts destined for failure.
He is in the crowd. His face and expression is obscured by the lights. I could never read Him anyways.
Who is this person holding the brushes?
“I wanted to take the time to thank all the professors at Concordia, who nurtured me into the musician I am today. I want to thank my family and friends, everyone who ever came out to a show or a jam night. Lastly,I want to take the time to thank three musicians in particular, who were there at the start of my journey and saw something in me I didn't know was there. I love you.”
After the show I do the rounds, smiling at professors and sort-of friends who congratulate me sincerely. I feel great. I have always loved performing, and this was the first time I have ever performed under my name, with a band that I lead. Everyone tells me I am a great speaker, a great leader. This feels good.
I do not care about winning. I just wanted to give a good show.
I see Him, the man who gave me my love for jazz, at the top of the stairs. He says “yeah, man” and then smiles. He shakes when He raises His hands and does not play jazz anymore. He is ill and had to forsake His passion for health. Thinking about it too much makes me cry so I try not to think about Him at all.
I see the friends I thanked in my closing speech and they tear up when they hug me. I want to revert back to who I was in my first semester so badly that my ______ ___________. I mourn the me that loved Him. I mourn the me that loved the path I chose . I am lost for words and I *******************../
𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔𐆔
𝇉CODA
I do not care about winning and so I lose, but I gave a good show.
There is no such thing as winning in, standing in this moss.
I write about it time and time again, hoping for some revelation.
I sit at every cafe I can find and order pour over coffee that costs me $7.
I write down “who will want to see me play if i am bigger” and I burst into tears.
No, not in public, now.
I am more depressed the further I look in:
A sisyphean passion, one in which we will never be satisfied in ourselves.
The further I get from it the more my femininity returns to me, like a dog responding to its name. I will be here forever, I realize.
The push and the pull, it is everywhere.
So, I must tie down my little cries and my weapons as if I am bracing for a storm.
I am simply stockpiling for the winters to come.
Weapons (no, not like that) 3/4
B
Today is a bad day to live in my skin. I sit at BAR X twiddling my thumbs and trying to cover myself as best as possible. I have been gaining weight steadily, my hips growing wider and causing the zippers to break off my favorite pairs of jeans. I eat the same lunch every day. I go to the gym (almost) everyday. All that has happened is that my clothes fit worse on my body. Everything is tight and uncomfortable and oh god, everyone can tell cant they? Who will care about me if I’m bigger? Who wants to see a female jazz drummer if no one wants to fuck her?
This bar used to mean a lot to me. It gave me so much when I began attending a year ago: gigs, connections, love. Now it is just a chore. It is a chore to stuff everyone into the same corner booth, crane my neck to see the band, make conversation with someone I don't have the energy nor the room in my heart to meet. My sister is here with her social friends. They laugh loudly and all I want is to hear the band. I haven’t felt so disconnected from other women since I was 12.
To survive this long as a woman in jazz you must assimilate and act like you belong, so I act like a man. I am cool, casual about things and unemotional. It’s about the music. Just listen to the changes. Yeah, man. To be an attractive woman that acts like a man must be irresistible to guys, I think to myself. a lot of the men here repulse me, honestly, but if even they don’t want me then I might as well not exist.
My sister wears a pink slip dress she bought from a thrift store three hours ago. She must have found it in the kid’s section, but it fits her perfectly. Her hair is white (she's been using her toner) and she puts glitter underneath her eyes so it looks like she's always crying. All of her friends are women and they love each other genuinely and when I see them interact I feel like a roach wearing girl-skin. All my friends are men and make weird comments about girls in our program. I betray my gender day after day, as I descend deeper into ridding myself of my femininity.
My best friend uses the fact that I am a woman to get us gigs. I guess I don't mind. A gig is a gig, right? He tells me that I have it easier than him: I won’t have to practice as hard because I can wear a low-necked shirt instead. He sits with us in this booth and I am angry at him for not paying attention to the music like I am. He is talking and laughing loudly with my sister and I want to rip his hair out one by one; you made me like this and now you abandon. I know deep down he is lying to me about sleeping with her but I do not have the energy to process this.
The next day a picture is posted to social media of every woman there except for me in the bathroom together, captioned “girls”. I am barely a woman to the people I care about most. I am only a woman in sex and when I cry, but I otherwise go undetected on their radars.
I am effective at assimilation. I feel so unflattered in everything I put on my body and so unimpressive with everything that comes out of my mouth. I load in drum kits only to be asked if I am the singer. I am ogled at and patronized by my male peers. I will never truly be able to tell if “good job” is because I did a good job or because they are picturing me on my knees. No one sees my little cries, not even my mom. This was always part of the game. Sometimes love feels wrong.
Weapons (no, not like that) 2/4
A
The whir of brushes on the skin and its circular motion transfixes me. This is my save point.
No one can see my piercings behind this mask although it is almost inferred by the rest of me: blonde streaks in my hair, aggressive tattoos, strange glasses. I have gotten used to relying on my eyes to get me everywhere, as knowing what the bottom of my face looks like has become a privilege in recent years.
It kind of defeats the purpose of having the piercings then, I huff to myself.
I sit after class behind the drum kit, something I never thought I would do, “jamming” with strangers, regardless of what they can or cannot see. New friends, I correct myself. This time, see, I am older and I will make friends easily. I will be loud and obnoxious, speak eloquently and a lot, and everyone will love me the way God intended them to. I will not make the same mistakes.
The music program here inhabits the business building, all the way at the top. So when we rush to class we have to stop at every floor and squeeze in with marketing students, all dressed as if they are going to job interviews. The classrooms have gigantic windows opening onto downtown, letting us see the traffic jams up the street and the police making arrests at the metro station below.
The strangers/new friends call “All Blues”. I don't really know what “calling” is. I don’t really know what “shedding” is either but they're talking about it a lot. I tell them sheepishly that I’m not familiar with the song. The bassist looks at me and says:
“It's a blues in 3. Listen to the Miles version.”
He taps his foot, 123-223, and we go. I’ve never played jazz in ¾ but I’m feeling it out. I let my ears listen for the melody, the harmony, and my heart is beating so loud that I let it guide my rhythms. I believe I am faking it well enough. They are not exchanging those looks my old bandmates used to give each other. I soon learn that that is called a “vibe”, and it is not good, my god, no, it is bad.
We decide to do this after every class. They like me! A win for God, a win for me. I am speaking confidently, I am playing louder. I feel a buzz coming from deep in my stomach and I can’t stop crying of happiness. I get to campus early before class and I stay until it is dark out.
A week later I am seated at a jazz bar waiting for a professor to take the stage and blow me away. A big group of us are all seated in a series of four smaller tables smushed together. I order a pina colada for $14. A boy from our class joins us at the last minute and slides seamlessly into the seat in front of me, as if He was always there. He smiles at me and His teeth are remarkably perfect. He knows everything about this music, He tells me, “it’s the love of my life”. I say “I don't really listen to that much jazz” flippantly, expecting him to say what most guys say to me (that “it's overrated anyways”), but instead He scolds me. He points to the dozens of records framed on the wall and says:
“You’re in jazz school. You should know all these records by heart.”
A month later I am lying on His chest as He plays me record after record. He doesn’t see or hear my little cries. This music is so beautiful and unique and interesting and deep, so moving and dizzying. As Jaco Pastorius sings through his bass on “Midwestern Night’s Dream”, I accept my fate loving this man who will never feel towards me what I desperately need. I accept my fate in this community of musicians all striving to revitalize something so clearly left behind in the mud.
So I learn the records on the wall. I practice in the same room everyday, running the same drills and transcribing the usual solos. I am paying my dues the way I should've been for years. When I leave the practice room to rest on the singular couch near the windows, I am greeted and joined by my best friends. This is everything, I realize. This is what it is all for. All of my anxiety and worries and embarrassments happened to get me to these moments. Of course, I know the disillusionment will come soon. I can feel myself getting tired of the chaos, I can feel my eyes wander for something new and shiny. But for now it is everything, and my best friend and I walk down to the Korean grocery store and buy salmon onigiri. It costs $2.50.
Weapons (no, not like that) 1/4
A
The whir of brushes on the skin and its circular motion transfixes me. This is my save point.
I am 17 and my hair is too long. It sits, mostly straight, mostly brown, and reaches my mid back, getting caught in my coats and in my glasses. The music building, named D, is the only one not connected to the rest of the CEGEP. We must walk in the blizzards and in the rain then, soaking ourselves and our instrument cases. I heard a rumor once that there used to be an underground passageway connecting the gymnasium to this pavilion, but they shut it down in the 90s after too many women were assaulted in its dim corridors. My teacher sits in front of me, lulled to sleep by the brushes as well. The lights are off and the gray sky does a poor job at illuminating the drum room. He is my only friend here.
In my second lesson with him I express my concern about the language barrier here, how I feel stupid when really, I swear, I am smart and well spoken. He tells me he felt the same when he went to an English university and so he tells me our lessons will be in English, and it will be our secret. He becomes the only person here who really knows me then, who really hears me speak. He is nice to me, to the point that he doesn’t seem angry or even disappointed when I so clearly did not even look at my homework. He lets me off the hook easily and so I do not feel pressure to excel at all. I do not understand how the practice rooms work so I barely try to book any. I walk through the basement corridors and peek through the narrow windows at the older drummers. I gasp in awe at what they sound like: so much better than I ever even wanted to be.
In my rehearsals my bandmates are all closer with each other than they are with me. They say words I only kind of understand, and when they try to form bonds with me I shy away, like a stray cat. When I play, the teacher always tells me to give more, be more, take up more space. I cannot, I want to say, I can barely speak with my mouth.
Let this be your words then, I muse to myself.
But it doesn't work, and I drag the tempo, play the wrong hits, and my bandmates look at each other briefly. I do not understand what this look means yet, but I feel its impact nonetheless.
I try to disappear into the crowds but I am inherently begging for attention by existing. A female drummer is hard to come by in these parts, and as I say “je joue la batterie”, accented, I hear faint whispers in the back. The Etiennes and the Maximes are making comments, staring proudly at this feat of nature. I am so embarrassed all the time here. I cannot fathom staying in these halls longer than absolutely necessary. I am failing gym class. I am failing philosophy. I am failing myself in every way.
I feel different here. I am watched for being a woman, heard for biting my tongue, clunky, like a puppy with its paws too big. My piano teacher has known me for 4 months, and he asks me:
“You’re a singer right?”.
My ensemble instructor is a bulky bald man with square glasses who speaks perfect quebecois. The way he accents and draws out certain words is beautiful, like he is singing all the time. When he watches my band rehearse, he only criticizes me. It is so obvious that even my bandmates start pointing out the injustice. Surely it is not only me. I can not be the only issue. I’m not that bad of a drummer, right? I shake nervously after class and try to get home as fast as possible. Still, I believe I love it here. Sometimes love just feels wrong.
When I leave my jazz improvisation class that I barely understood, a boy from my class gets in the same metro car as me. He is attractive and I blush when he is around. I know him from camp. We met there months ago and we even spoke once or twice, but for some reason, we have not spoken since discovering each other at school, in the same program, in the same class. We have not addressed that we went to the same camp. We do not address that we know each other at all. We don’t even smile or wave. It is so awkward I want my blood to bubble over and boil out of my skin like an unwatched pot of water.
He sits next to me in the metro without realizing. He meets my eyes and I instinctively look away and I've sealed my fate. We avoid each other's eyes silently on the train for half an hour. I want to die! Why can I not speak? Even worse, why won't he speak to me? I blame myself for being shy, but I blame others more for not attempting to make contact. I am resentful of these people. I am resentful of this boy with long blonde hair for being as awkward as I, as stubborn and as stupid.
When I get up to leave (thank god he is not leaving at the same station) I decide to smile at him. But he looks away, anything else but her please, and I realize that the door to leave is actually on the other side and now I look even more stupid.
When I see him a year later, after the Great Pause, he has shaved his blonde hair and I cannot see if he smiles back at me through his mask.
I have eaten all the cocktail limes…
By Inuya Schultz
I have eaten all the cocktail limes
off the rims of other people’s glasses (again).
The band’s playing Misty and the bar crowd
looks kind of lovely in this low light.
I told myself that I would hold myself from
squeezing the oils from their peels–
I told myself that I would not gnaw on its
spongey albedo, its teardrop stone pulp–
I told myself that I would refrain from chewing
and chewing until my enamel is curdled–
I told myself that I would not swallow the sour
glob that descends my throat like a plunging gannet.
My stomach cannot take another night of bright burning
and so, I swear that next week I will sit on my hands if it means
it will prevent me from filling my glass with green ribbons.
I lean in and out of other people’s conversations,
I cannot see the pianist soloing just out of sight,
I wane, like the flame of the exhausted tea candle
that sits by my glass stuffed with lime peels.
Poetry Night
Written by Kat Mulligan
With the sun interred by the moon
and a black sheet cast over its body in decomposition,
poets rise in great numbers like eyelashes at the notice of morning.
The door snaps its fingers, a good and musical segue to silence,
then the epiphany comes: the room is prolapsed,
and the host is unobserved.
Ensnared by the spiderwebs that crease my quiet avenue
like reassembled porcelain,
the poets shake themselves loose from the yellow clamor of soirées
and crawl into the metro.
The rusty park swing set,
which howls from ecstasy in couplings with the ecstasy of others,
tonight has no company and no vigor.
No one remains—the young darkness has riddled its night with holes,
and sorrow is a lonely fluid.
I am too pretty to go dancing with ten o’clock
and no handsomer beaus.
My cheek arranges itself in pouting on the shoulder,
my fingers wrap around that miserable clock hand.
The jolt of the door has tied off all music,
so in the memory of noise we mimic a lousy waltz.
The best thing to do now is disengage and wash the dirty cups,
their stale water rippling with the echoes of poetry.