km/mile

coming of age issue 1

words

The stages of growing up are a profound, important, and beautiful thing. The curiosity and innocence from

childhood flowing into imagination and the exposure of reality all while discovering oneself combine to

form an extraordinary process. Adding pressure from society, school, parents, friends and ones own mind

creates an emotional fluster of anxiety, expression, and rebellion. Being a teenager is being lost in a world

of your own, only having yourself to understand, doing stupid things and learning from the mistakes,

realizing what is important in life your own life, falling in and out of love, not knowing what to do for the

rest of your life, and thinking that the little thing that is bothering you now will affect you forever. But

overall, coming of age is attempting to understand that life comes with both positives and negatives, and

you are not alone on your journey through it.

- nick

Congratulations.

You’ve made it this far and you are in the position to sit, stand, crouch, lean or lay down in whatever

environment you are in, your room, a cafe, a library, a friend's car, and you have been given the

opportunity to read these words. With every step, breath, blink, sigh, mouthful, you are aging, coming to a

point of new age, moving past the past, and you’ve taken this moment to allow your eyes to reflect the light

bouncing off these words on this printed paper and you have translated that reflection into a picture of

letters that you understand as words, as sentences, as a paragraph or two. Congratulations, with every

second you are coming of age.

Sometimes it is like a tap on your shoulder by a breeze, or your own reflection in someone else’s

sunglasses, or the finding of something hidden in your room that brings you back to a moment of

childhood innocence, that reminds you that you have grown older. It is a gentle reminder, a soft one, but

you feel it deep down in a place owned not by your gut, heart, or mind, but your soul, or whatever you’d

like to call it. Perhaps the quiet intake of these words is your reminder. I’d be honoured if that was the

case.

I have never been afraid of getting older, I hope you are not either. It is important to remember that

coming of age does not mean your childhood is over, your innocence forgotten, nor your ignorance

depleted, but rather you’ve gained a newfound sense of the unknown, a new set of steps to climb, acquired

a list of wiser goals to reach. Bask in your new found ignorance, strive for all of the knowledge you can eat,

yearn for all the chances you could possibly hope to take, because you are ready, every second to grow and

come of a new age.

This Issue, like the many more to come, is intended to make you think, inspire you, and allow you a

moment outside of your world where you can appreciate another’s creativity within the grips of your aging

fingertips.

- elaine

We would both like to thank everyone who made this possible, including all of the submitting artists.

artists

audrey french

david granado

emily duvall

jenna silverstone

marco moukhaiber

tayler fraser

tiffany lovett

mary-claire brennan

adam borman

nasra adem

curated by

nicholas redmond

elaine maynard

cover by audrey french featuring zoë kruschke

music

forget you in l.a. by poema

teenage talk by st. vincent

lonely boy goes to a rave by teen suicide

papi pacify by fka twigs

cool kids by screeching weasel

native korean rock by karen o

ponyboy by surf curse

tweaker kidz by the aquadolls

wildflower by beach house

enough said (feat. drake) by aaliyah

running wild by la sera

baby say goodbye by wavves

chosen by blood orange

bloody bandaid by cherry glazerr

palm trees (instrumental) by flatbush zombies

void by naked

9 (feat. sza) by willow

cape cod kwassa kwassa by vampire weekend

mon amie la rose by françoise hardy

almost leaving by 18+

top: audrey french; bottom: tayler fraser

photo: audrey french

Ivory thighs,

cherry lips.

The things I hate myself most for.

A sweet breeze on raw flesh is something

like a whisper, but a screaming, shrieking

whisper, one that pools into my chest but

never leaves my lungs.

Too-cold hands, taking too many baths.

The things my mind obsessively, and

incessantly reminds me of.

Fix yourself,

fix yourself,

fix yourself.

photo: david granado; poem: maryclare brennan

photos: nick redmond

SCARS

Three nights ago, I fell asleep on my bedroom floor

Skin still crawling in regrets, leftover cigarette smoke, lazy unrequited love and every burgundy

battered heart

That’s ever been pinned to my chest, sleeve and tensor bandaged around my knees-

Simply made it hard to get up.

Wings clipped 4 grams and a 2-6 ago

I don’t even think they were mine to begin with

No I don’t think these scars were mine to begin with

But with 2am consciousness comes 2am confessions-

and my mama always told me that pain is contagious.

That if I’m not careful I will begin to bleed blood to thick and dark to be mine- to tread with

caution.

But what she doesn’t know is I’ve already slipped my soles in to your childhood chucks and walked

the streets where you grew up and kissed the girl with the pink top who left you for the boy who

reeked of danger and musk

I wish you’d stop smoking, my lungs can’t take it

And I know we’re all going to die anyways but what is so romantic about this premature parting

Especially since you’ve just replaced your shadow with me

I will follow you into the dark as best I can

Just take my hand.

Run your fingers, calloused with calamity down my forearm

Read your stories through my brown goosebump braille recordings of every drunken soliloquy, all

the coulda beens and shoulda beens

You are a classic tragedy, Shakespeare couldn’t have dreamt you up if he tried

Baby, it is about time you realized I have not belonged to me since your half mumbled “I love you”

leaped from your lips and took refuge in my chest

I have yet to learn how not to drink up other people’s smiles and tears and memories and fears

I guess I hate being empty more than I like being me

The next time I fall asleep on my bedroom floor

I will try my damn near hardest to make sure the nightmares that keep me up

Are really mine to begin with.

poem: nasra adem

mixed media art: emily duvall

o u r

love

has

photo 1: david granado; ‘no rhythm’ project: divot x nick redmond

photos: tayler fraser

“L”

I never knew what the “L” in “love” stood for.

But you taught me what it was in lust and lies and lingering goodbyes

You could write lesson plans on lifting limp spirits living solely to let them loose from the

Himalayas of Layla's and Lisa’s and Laura’s...

I guess I shouldn’t have waved back.

As I watched those porcelain dolls fall from your grip to the foot of that cliff...instead I dusted

them off my shoulders and asked you to show me what you love about the mountains

My tanned skin tour guide-

I should have known better.

Than to let you compare my french tips to Kilimanjaro's very own

And follow you up so high when there wasn’t a single threaded lifeline attaching us

Not a single parachuted back bone belonging to us

That when the blindfold stitched together by your favourite coloured love and pin pricked thumbs

and every flaw known to every man except you...would unravel

We would.

Your vision no longer hindered by such plush fabricated memories

And I guess Father Time disapproved of you before mine had a chance

We both knew we had no chance

The universe laughed at us

2000 miles and crippling winter storms laughed at us

But your te amo’s were louder

Your “baby you’re beautiful”s were louder

My name, foreign honey new and sweeter on your tongue

Technicolor wings brewed windstorms around my core

I became terrified of my insides

So I pulled back my skin in hopes that maybe you could find something worth kissing, something

worth staying for, something worth waiting for

But I guess even then I was not naked enough for you

My exposed flesh and hollow bones were not enough to satisfy your hunger for my innocence-

In a sense, I could empathize with why your eyes diverged at every curved and accessible road

they came across

They could take you places I never would.

But I heard, some men prefer the road less traveled by anyways.

Your tan has faded

And the only sparkle left in your eye is merely the reflection of my smile

Bright and full

With the few cracks you’ve managed to seep through

But broken I am not

And dust off your shoulder

I never shall be.

poem: nasra adem

photos: adam borman

previous page: tiffany lovett; current page: david granado

“run away, question everything, spread positivity”

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