new body; new college #1

New Body; New College

a body positive zine

Volume I, Issue #1 September, 2013

TW: body shaming, eating disordersCW: body image, nudity, profanity

Table of ConTenTs

Letter from the editorI’m just perfectI once had to fartTwo ShadowsHomage to My HipsThe mirror meHow to tell someone to fuck off kindlyWatercolor Collection

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Letter from the editor

Hey New!

I am so pleased to present you with the very first New Body; New College Zine. I have been planning this zine for over 6 months and it has finally come into fruition! I am so thankful to all the students, illustrators, writers, and other contributors that have made my dream a reality. I have received an overwhelming amount of support and enthusiasm for this project, and I hope many will feel inspired to share their own stories and art in the future.

The reason I wanted to start this project was mostly for my own quest to find self-affirmation and con-fort in the shared experiences of people with sim-ilar body image issues. Body shaming is generally not talked about, but rather internalized and com-partementalized by many. I believe that one way to combat this issue is to simply talk about it and let other people know that their struggle is valid.

Please join me in my efforts to make New College a more body-positive place.

- Anna Rodriguez

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im just perfect(break)incredibly flattened feet with chewed nails and peeling solesmeet boney scarred ankles with thick hair encir-cling them(break)joined by round calves where streaks startup reach shiny purple streaks from knee to thighstretching towards to a belly sagging overthat connects to more shiny bright stripes(break)plump, large breasts sport matching shiny lineseach one traveling from peak upwardsreaching towards hidden collar bones and rounded shouldersframing a lean neck spotted with orion’s beltextending upwards a head emergescut by feminine, soft featurestopped with soft, dark sweeping bangs and inch long hair

- Rowan Holop, 1st year

page 4

i once had to fartbut all my peers would judge meit’s time for a change

- Anonymous

page 5

http://femmesolezine.tumblr.com/

Two ShadowsI think I realized that something was wrong when the woman I’d just had coffee with took one step out of the Corner Bookstore and got hit by a bus. She never got to make a sound, and the last thing I saw of her was the bounce of her black curls before the sound of an incoming horn filled up the world, and then she was painting the tarmac.

Something about it was funny to me. Call me sick all you want, because the truth is I am sick. There’s something wrong with me. And that was when I realized it, in the split seconds before this woman’s death was known to the universe and it was just me and her, and the bus. My first thought, when it happened, was to recall what she had told me only a minute before.

“Be careful. You have a parasite.” I know what she was talking about now. That was why she died — not from some strange accident, but because the parasite didn’t want me to know it was there. But by the time it killed her it was too late. I had already seen the second shadow branching from my foot. Watching me. Eating me, slowly. I don’t know where it came from. Hell, probably. I can’t shake it off; it’s there in sunlight, matching my every move, and it grows huge in darkness, surrounding me. I can feel it chewing on my thoughts, twisting my intentions.

r

(c) Christina Bruce, 2nd year

Yesterday, it spoke. Not so anyone else could hear, only me. A thin, sharp voice like a hollow needle. You’re the shadow now. It sees through my eyes. It’s filling up my limbs and smiling with my mouth. There are others like it, I can see that now, walking in human-shaped bodies, black-haired and white-eyed. Are they demons? Ghosts? Watchers from some other universe? The second shadow is carrying on my life, going to work where it cavorts with other white-eyed beings, to the library, to the Corner Bookstore on Monday afternoons. But I am growing stronger. I walk in the shadow of who I used to be. I can move things, influence objects. I have my own mind. They can’t make me disappear. Someone in his world leans in close to what used to be my ear.

Be careful, she says to my second shadow. You have a parasite.

- Alyssa Motylinski, first year

page 7

Homage to My Hips

these hips are big hips.they need space to move around in.they don’t fit into littlepetty places. these hipsare free hips.they don’t like to be held back.these hips have never been enslaved,they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips.these hips are magic hips.i have known themto put a spell on a man and spin him like a top

- Lucille Clifton

The mirror mefluctuates,with every day, changes,taking in new everythings,and dressing up in them,trying on ideas like pants,and paradigms like glasses.

It wears its memories in the hollows of its eyes,and they leak from its ears,like wax to burn,like aromas wafting away.

The mirror me has iron filesgrowing from its chin,as they point in too many directions,as if the earth is losing its poles.

My chest is like a textbook,and my stomach’s like a globe,unread and unexplored,deemed uninteresting,unworthy,in the current state of things.

But even those fleeting pictures stay faster than this:my beauty.It soars across my facein a brilliant leaplike a dancing Nymph,performing only a wondrous flash,and then exiting the stage in tears,because the beautiful Narcissus just drowned.

- Brad Baker, 2nd year

page 9

a how-to guide“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.”

- Sylvia Plath

page 10

Part I: How to deal with negative body comments

When somone says: don’t eat that, it will ruin your figure; you would look so much better if you lost 10 pounds, etc

Don’t eat that cake, you’ll gain weight. I only have 70 years, give or take, on this earth and while not eating this piece of cake may save me from about a temporary 0.4 inch growth in my stomach, the risk does not outweigh the joy that this delicious pastry will give me. If the 0.4 inch growth deters people from talking to me, then I certainly do not want to talk to them in the first place.

You would look so much better if you lost 10 pounds.Thank you for your subjective and unnecessary criticism. I would take that into account, but I don’t value my self-worth by your or anyone else’s standards.

You should exercise.The fact that you have obviously been following my every move, clearly demonstrated by your assumed knowledge of my exercise routine or lack thereof, is not only disturbing but presumptive. My body behaves in ways your body could not dream of, and I would appreciate full control over what it does and when.

Anna Rodriguez, 2nd year

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I love this body today...

(this page is left blank in order for you to write/draw why you love your body today)

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new body; new college #1

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