So Long
Pardo, C.
ISSUE NO. 3 • GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT
to the tune of Helena by My Chemical Romance
“Goodnight starsGoodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere”
-Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon
Long ago
Can I take a step back? Before I say goodbye. Just allow me this last reverie.
Just like the hearse, you die to get in again
Death and birth. Stagnation and Growth. Growing up and getting older. It's all the same thing, isn’t it?
Changing is dying.
We are so far from you
We aren’t who we used to be. There are so many years between you and me the space is hazy with all the time that’s fermented. I’m barely recognizable.
You’re not here anymore and all I can tell is that I’m here instead.
Burning on
I-
Just like a match, you strike to incinerate
Is this what living is?
The lives of everyone you know
No wait
And what's the worst you take
No no this isn’t what I wanted
(Worst you take)
No wait, please
From every heart you break
I can’t take it, don’t do this to me
(Heart you break)
I’m not ready
And like a blade you stain
I don’t know how yet
(Blade you stain)
Please please I’m not ready
Well, I've been holding on tonight
I’m not ready to grow up.
What's the worst that I could say?
Let me be a kid again.
Things are better if I stay
What if I promised to be good? What if I had the cutest laugh and the brightest smile? And chubby little arms that were open wide as I could stretch them? That couldn’t wrap themselves all the way around my father’s chest but could hold all the love in the world.
I promise I wouldn’t be any trouble. I would always listen and put my toys away. I might not always remember but if you reminded me I would - I promise, I promise I would.
So long and goodnight
I guess it doesn’t matter.
So long and goodnight
There’s no use believing in childish fantasies anyway.
Came a time
I can’t remember
When every star fall
The last time I was simply and plainly happy.
Brought you to tears again
Can you?
We are the very hurt you sold
I didn’t think so.
That’s the danger of nostalgia, isn’t it?
Can you hear me?
No not anymore. My memory is fading.
Are you near me?
I still wish I was.
Can we pretend?
Haven’t we been playing this whole time?
To leave and then
It’s hard to pretend we’ve been left farther apart than we already are.
We'll meet again
If I smile tightly while I say this it’s not because I’m lying.
When both our cars collide
It’s because I know that’s why I’m crying.
We can’t keep meeting like this.
What's the worst that I could say?
I want you to stay.
Things are better if I stay
It would all be so much easier this way.
So long and goodnight
But you were never here, were you?
You’re just me.
And I’m alone.
So long and goodnight
Goodbye.
Well, if you carry on this way
I can do nothing but move forward.
Things are better if I stay
All I have is this moment.
So long and goodnight
There is no going back.
So long and goodnight
But I’ll tuck you in gently, my childish fantasy
before I turn off the light.
Travel is Uncomfortable and I Don’t Like it
Pardo, C.
ISSUE NO. 2 • ARE WE THERE YET?
This magazine counts down the hours to the beginning of the rest of my life. As I stare into the chasm from the brink of adulthood, I wonder what awaits me at the bottom.The concept of wanderlust is foreign to me.
I never wanted to leave where I was. The idea that it’s interesting to see other places when I could just lie at home and watch anime is atrocious. What are you people doing? Why are you spending so much money to leave the comfort of your everyday dwellings? I don’t understand. The discomfort of airplanes, of 12 hour car rides, of airports and unfamiliar gas stations, it just doesn’t seem worth it. I like the security of my place of residence. Unfamiliar places are scary! Who knows how uncomfortable it will be?
I know I sound like an asshole complaining about the mild discomfort of modern travel. I know how lucky we have it now - I’ve played the Oregon Trail. So looking back historically, the fact that I don’t risk shitting my brains out when I go to visit my friends in Arizona is actually an astounding technological feat that I should take advantage of. And for my friends? I will risk the discomfort and thank God that we have better road infrastructure and literal flying with sanitary toilets that I can make my journey upon. For my grandparents, I’ll spend a few days gazing out the car window while we cruise down the coast to the tip of the Floridian peninsula, occasionally rolling in to rest stops that have clean running water I don’t have to pay for. It’s quite a modern luxury.
So though I grouse, I kind of feel ungrateful complaining about how hard I find it to travel. I have so much going for me at the moment - my youth, few debts, no job or family to plan around. But still, there is something about travel that feels particularly daunting to me. Even without a family and work and bills to worry about, there are so many variables. So much organizing to do- where do you wanna go, when do you wanna do it, how much will it cost? Where will you stay, how will you get there, how will you get home? And what happens, if God forbid, something goes wrong while you’re gone? Even with how things have changed, there are still so many variables, so many ways things can go wrong - and what happens when everything goes to shit while you’re all alone in a place you’ve never known?
I’m graduating this year. By the time this is published, I’ll have two months until I am thrust out into the unknown - bounced out of my social safety net into a world devoid of the scholastic infrastructure that has dominated my entire existence. Sure, things are better than they used to be. My parents worked hard to establish themselves in lucrative fields so that when I grew up, I could fulfill my dreams, not dream about having a full fridge. I have their financial stability to fall back on if things don’t work out, properties that they will own no matter how far south the economy falls. But I’m not uncomfortable where I am. As ambitionless as it may be, at least it’s safe. I know what to expect, and I know how little is expected of me. I am afraid of what is out there - to imagine the future is very uncomfortable. I have the chance to achieve things that my grandparents, my parents, never could. How selfish is it to squander that chance?
I’ve never liked to travel, and I don’t like change. Although I know that my family and friends await me at the end of the journey, I freeze in despair at the first step. I look out over the winding path before me, and I can’t see them at the end. But I know they are there, waiting for me. So although I don’t know what may lie ahead, I hold my head high and take that first step past despair and begin the journey of the rest of my life.
Does Queer Privilege Exist?
Pardo, C.
ISSUE NO. 1 • To Have a heart
There are a lot of things about Fordham Lincoln Center I won’t miss. The lack of spaces to socialize, the slow and ineffective investigation of “bias incidents” (hate crimes), the restrictions on student free speech - but if there is one thing I can thank them for, its that by steadfastly denying and ignoring LGBT identities in their on-campus housing policies, they have created a place where for the first time, I got to experience a privilege straight people did not: being able to sign my same-sex partner in as an overnight guest myself.
Some say the gays are oppressed. Some say the transgendered shouldn’t be able to safely transition using government health care. Some say the Elgeebeetees are going to hell for their unusual lifestyle choices. But in all this talk of “oppression” and “state-sanctioned violence” and “eternal damnation,” there is one glaring question that we have all forgotten to ask: Are the queers privileged?
Sure, centuries of persecution and murder for having a lover with matching genitals or wanting to go by “Christopher” instead of “Christine” has been generationally traumatic for the larger LGBTQ community. And of course, who could forget the countless gay and bi men who died in the AIDS crisis 30 years ago while the Reagan Administration did nothing? Or the predominantly black and Latino gay and bi men who are still dealing with the crisis today?
Of course, no one will deny that the LGBTTQQIAAP community has had a few rough patches. Life can be hard on us Queers! But still, we cannot let this seemingly sound evidence deter us from our line of inquiry. In the name of intellectual curiosity and the advancement of human knowledge, we must dare to ask this burning question: Does queer privilege exist?
And the answer, my friends? Is yes!
Nestled in the Upper West Side of the shining borough of Manhattan sits a liberal arts school nationally renowned for its atrocious campus food, abysmal restrictions on student free speech, and dorm visitation policies straight out of the 1950’s:
Fordham College at Lincoln Center.
And here is where the Gays™ and the Trans-Gendered™ and the Kweers™ finally get the privilege they have so long been denied: the ability to sign in their same-sex partner overnight without incurring any fees.
That’s right, you cissie straighties, eat it!
While all of you will be running around trying to coordinate which of your “opposing sex” friends with the different crotch models is willing to sign your (g/b)f in for a steamy night of inexperienced Valentine’s Day sex, all the cis gays, and the straight trans people with cis partners, and the nonbinary people who are all matchy-matchy with their partners’ genitals are going to go to the lobby, walk into the RA’s office, and get a guest pass for their own lovers.
SUCK IT!
So what if the Catholic Church refuses to legitimize our existence and perpetuates dangerous stereotypes that threaten the safety of our everyday lives? So what if they’ve remained silent in the rising trend of homophobia and transphobia that is being justified through religious (usually Christian) belief?
At least at this Jesuit University, I can sign my partner in for the night whenever I want!* Truly, this is queerprivilege.
Boy, does institutional invisibility sure have its advantages!
Happy Valentine’s Day everybody! ;)
*Undergraduate residents may host no more than 2 overnight guests of the same sex at a time for two nights within a seven-day period. Regardless of host, a guest cannot obtain a guest pass for more than nine nights within a thirty day period. Guest passes must be obtained 24 hours in advance in the RA on Duty office from 7 - 10 p.m. each night with the exception of Tuesday’s (7 - 8:45 p.m.). In order to obtain a guest pass, a resident must present their valid Fordham ID, must know their guest’s full name, home address, date of birth, and emergency contact number.
Under tab “Residential Life Policies and Procedures”, header “Visitation and Guest Policies”, rule 2.