#beaboutitzine

There are mountains. Mountains and darkness. I was lost there. I lived there for a very long time. 

When you live like that you forget about humans. You forget about society. You become strange. I became that without noticing. 

The first year I was the same. I still was normal. The second year I began to get strange. I developed weird habits. I noticed that they were weird because they were not normal to me. If I saw someone I knew acting like how I acted I would have thought they were strange. But I was me and I am not going to think I am strange. Nobody thinks that they themselves are strange.

But I was, I guess. I did not care. I still do not. That is not what concerns me—how strange or not strange I am. I honestly never cared about that kind of thing. 

There was a time maybe that I cared but that time is long gone. Now my concerns are surviving the night without losing myself to the night.

I used to think I cared about being there. But now that I have been there I am glad I am not. The art world is a soul eating machine. I was the meat. They ate me. They ate me up. But I survived because I got cloned.

I know you know about the Mona Lisa. I was the model. I fucked Leonardo DaVinci. I know you would like to think it was something a lot more romantic but that is basically what it was. He was really good in bed. He had a great cock. Not that that means anything. There are so many guys who have great cocks who are shit in bed. But he did his time, with the oral, with the foreplay. He really knew how to make a woman feel wanted. And that is what I wanted more than anything—to feel wanted.

But this story is not about him and his skills in bed. Like I said, I was the model for that famous painting. 

I thought I was safe. I thought I was good. But I was not. I was not safe. Slow but fast. It happened.

It started as love. It ended with a trap in oils.

It’s hard. It hurts. To just go on. Like a lie about truth. Liars deceive liars. Its dark. Why do it but they do.

But the darkness takes the roads it takes. You lack the vision. I have it but I am in abundance of the heartbreak.

It feels fine until it’s not, until you see you have destroyed yourself for someone else. For nothing. For male ego. For art. For history. 

For legacy.

I never got to die properly because I am living still in that painting. He did this to me. He captured that part he liked. That part he feared. Through alchemy he cloned my essence in his painting before disposing of my body in the Seine. 

But I never sleep. I watch people watching me in the Louvre every single goddamn day. Looking at me looking at you. I see you. What do you see? I am the dark mirror, but you are the reflection.

Leza Cantoral is the Editor in Chief of CLASH Books. She is the author of Trash Panda and Cartoons in the Suicide Forest. She is the host of Get Lit With Leza, a podcast where she talks to cool ass writers. Find her oversharing on Twitter, IG & FB @lezacantoral​

What’s your favorite Britney Spears track? “Unusually You”

getting stoked for the special edition of BE ABOUT IT ZINE: BRITNEY SPEARS BLACKOUT

https://www.scribd.com/document/409622746/Be-About-It-zine-14-the-internet

Check out be about it zine #14 the "internet" issue, featuring work by: Alexandra Naughton, Adam “A.j.” Binash, Andrea Coates, anna avery, catch business, Cassandra, Colin Kelly Sumption aka EmoDad666, Luis Neer, Joe Carrow, Nooks Krannie, Perry Davis, Rachel Olson, Shannon Runka, and Vincenzo Balistreri. Published July 2017.

Be About It zine number 16: "experiment" 👩‍🔬✂️🌗get it today

The long-awaited “experiment” themed issue! Cover art by @gremlins_3_official, work inside by M; Margo, Kimberly Kim, June Gehringer, Jennifer Blowdryer, Sam Albala, Nancy Patrice Davenport, Paul Murufas, Abe Becker, Tim Xonnelly, Lauren Suchenski, Tom Snarky, J de Salvo, D.S. Black, and Alexandra Naughton. 

CULT CLASSIC

when we were serpents, 

we became witches:

in the summer

a rite of passage began 

with britney spears’ heaven on earth

whispered sacred words, 

we transformed to statues

followed by sticky crystals initiations:

 black hair dye left over in the sink

no ceremonial wine

pink lady apple lemon seltzer

our toes chipped in brown lacquer

your fingers ink-smeared with sigils

my lips painted horror movie queen red ♕ 

we were something,

we burned.

PORTRAIT AS A VSCO GIRL

the world is burning

i am oceans and beaches and salt

i am perfect lover spells

i am crystals and higher selves

i am your manifest destiny

money is no object

money is everything

i am honey blonde

quick smirks, bedroom smize

i am a long caption on

a panic attack in the bathroom stall

i am naked skin, freckles

i am hidden universes

full of scratchy filtered secrets

i am unknowing

i am knowing

i am: you can’t always get what you want

i am: gimme more

i am young, or 

a silver fox,

always beautiful

i’ll be your mirror:

whoever you want me to be.

Italicized lines borrowed from lyrics: Rolling Stones Britney Spears

Velvet Underground

Stephanie Maria Athena Valente lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her published works include Hotel Ghost, waiting for the end of the world, and Little Fang (Bottlecap Press, 2015-2019). She has work included in Reality Hands, TL;DR, and Cosmonauts Avenue. She is the associate editor at Yes, Poetry. stephanievalente.com / @stephanie.athena

{It's the 90's : It's tang. It's 792-1234, at the dial tone the time is.}

{Kill Me. 

i feel so incredibly sad. no one understands me. sees me. the only things that care about me are burdens i never asked for. a life i never asked for; forever reminding me of this irony, driving me mad. isolated by my conscious ability to see this folly. crafting a concise art in balanced rituals, routines and escape routes in a labyrinth existing through biological idiosyncratic fashion pronounced by depressive flair. i am a mad house no one wants to come near, used, neglected, infamous and feared, a curious waste. kill me.}

{Speed. just like we can’t speed without avoiding turmoil, we can’t relinquish the control we can maintain over our emotions thrills and whims lest we find out their true canon power; a universe a reflection of their collisions}

{                        .being here today is like having a knife up to my throat in what i thought would be a different situation entirely,   

                        one i paid for with money i earned, only to be stuck bleeding to earn more for the pleasure of pain.                           }

Cuhsandra is a writer based in SF and her favorite Britney Spears track is “Hot as Ice”

As Britney Spears reached some metaphysical height

and shaved her head in a California hair salon,

I was drunk in a gleaming black Chevrolet Tahoe

listening to her voice in surround sound,

coming of age in America.

Zoe Contros Kearl (b. 1992) is a writer born in Cedar Lake, New Jersey and raised in Texas. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and is a graduate of New York University's Gallatin School. Her writing has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Hobart Pulp, American Chordata, and elsewhere.

What’s your favorite Britney Spears track? My favorite is Toxic but my favorite off of Blackout is Piece of Me.