the eaold BRB

What makes you "Bea-you-tiful"? ...............................................................1 To My Belov'd Son, Swarna ......................................................................... 2 Lost ....................................................................................................................... 5 Enter the Apocalypse ......................................................................................6 Coffee ..................................................................................................................7 Painted Stones .................................................................................................. 8

I n d e x

Business ................................................................................................................ 9 Streets Ahead ...................................................................................................... 10 Recovered Files .................................................................................................. 11 Worn through Friend ..................................................................................... 12 Do it yourself ...................................................................................................... 13 Mapping Love with Increasing Uncertainty ............................................. 15 What We Talk About When We Don't Talk .............................................. 16 Isolation ................................................................................................................ 18 Virtual Victoria ................................................................................................... 19 Bibliophile ........................................................................................................... 22 Romanticism ....................................................................................................... 23 Love Your Body ................................................................................................. 24 Contributors ........................................................................................................25 About the Team ................................................................................................. 27

What makes you

"Bea-YOU-tiful"? By Shanaya Engineer It always starts at home. Not charity, bullying. Raise your hands if you have been a target of body-shaming at a very early age by your own siblings, parents, cousins and that random uncle that shows up at family gatherings. If you still remember those disappointing sighs when you grabbed that another slice of pizza or that glance across the room when you asked for a second serving, I get you. I do. When your childhood should have been a safe, non-judgmental space to grow up, you were forced to live up to the harsh expectations of your own family. The comments, the jabs, the taunts and the awful 'nicknames' never stop, do they? At a point, you don't even remember when your real name was replaced by the body-shaming nickname. As if being fat, thin, tall, short, or dark coloured are the traits we need to be remembered by. It gets worse when you realise that they associate these words with being 'not beautiful enough. If you are still being bullied because of the way you are, let me tell you something. Your complexion, your height, your weight, your hair, your nose, your pimples, your teeth, and your nails do NOT define your BEAUTY. Being overweight doesn't mean you are not beautiful. It simply means you are not fit. And those two things are very different from each other. Beauty emerges from words, actions, and behaviour. This kind of beauty creates a long-lasting effect. When 'Beauty' criteria comprise external factors, you need to know immediately that it is unrealistic.

1 Breathe BOLD |Fall 2022

You don't need to starve yourself to slim down nor apply some youtube recommended face packs to hide those pimples. You need to do the only thing and that is to accept it. Accept the body you have. Praise it because it is already the target of many badmouths. Love it, speak to it, cherish it. Be kind to it. Use gentle language with it and it will reward you with the glow you have been craving for. Your body belongs to you. You are its master and you are its designer. No one else, no matter who they mean to you in life can have a say in it. If you want to lose weight, do it for yourself only. Do it to become healthy and fit, not to fit into the 'beauty standards' created by starving models. If you want to apply makeup, go ahead, it's your choice! But not because you want to 'hide' something. If you want to wear heels, don't let gender stand in your way either. Go ahead, be confident in your own skin. If these things make you happy, and confident then nobody can hold you back. Your real beauty is reflected in your smile, your laugh, and the way you talk and understand others. Not your choice of clothes, or the colour of your hair. Your choices should make you feel beautiful, not forced to feel beautiful for the world. The naysayers can continue to spew their hateful comments. Now that is the real 'ugly'. Pulling someone down because of their appearance makes you ugly inside out. Love yourself, respect yourself, and be proud of the choices YOU make for YOURSELF. Be at home, with yourself and with your body. Be BOLD.

To My Belov’d Son,

Swarna By Sitaram Agarwalla

In senility and forgetfulness, when I’ll be looking for my walking stick, beloved son, Swarna, will you come nigh giving me your warm hand; or go away, chiding me for such careless negligence? In amnesia, just after having lunch, if I grumble and bemoan: Your memsahib doesn’t feed me! Will you get annoyed paying me no heed; or will fetch me a bowlful of milk ‘n’ rice to feed me again with your sweet hands, forgiving my forgetfulness? When my grandson will be playing with me, and in utter negligence I break my eye glasses, will you delay till next month’s salary; or repair ‘n’ replace it immediately?

4 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022 2 Breathe BOLD |Fall 2022

When incurable illness, at late-night hours, I groan ‘n’ cough, shall I irritate you and your sweet slumber with the lovely bride; or will you be nigh to put your affectionate palm on my forehead? Now such thoughts arise in me, and it seems you’ll always embosom me till I die!

If all this be not so and may otherwise go, I pray divine intervention to call me back before I grow (old).

For in old age, when I’m about to bid adieu; If my only son be not nigh, O senility, I’m afeared, how shall I live, how shall I die?

3 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

4 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

By Thorvi S. Mule

If the time could stop Or let me go in past. In search of you, Where you were lost. If it could pause for a while I would have walked a mile In search of you, Where you were lost. If it could wait for us Till the next sunlight Or freeze in Chilling moon light. I’m in search of you, Where you were lost. Between my dreams and reality

Half way in life...

5 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

eNTER THE aPOCOLYPSE By Jack D. Harvey

"

Now sense some coming apocalypse, now expect some ripe recipe for total disaster; in the first nanoseconds of God's hideous anger, fortified with worse than fire and brimstone, the earth, our mother, overcome, overcooked, glows hot and red, our red-hot mama can't be saved; the heat, the deadly radiation patiently seek our bones, our marrow, our cells. From Pensacola to Beijing and all points west, east, north, south, everything dead or alive, rocks to rooks to cats to Kathy next door burnt to a crisp; look at the charred trees in the garden of Eden where Eve's lovely breasts and the rest of her used to sit; the patient farmer turned to charcoal along with his plough; even the dead and buried wake, turn and peer up through bone holes, wormy eyes; some citizens see nothing but the removal of agriculture in their situation,

an end to the fertile earth; others, passing on from a life of faulty digestion, sour guts and Paregoric show faith in the power of death; no hurt to them, this ravishing terminus.

The typewriter building in Rome, the Taj Mahal, Saint Peter's dome, start to smoke, then in the blink of an eye, like fiery wedding cakes go up in a blaze; oceans boil away, roaring their anguish, their seasoning burning in white heaps; the glaciers cry away their mass in floods of icy water; mountains melt like butter, rained on by the corona of some enormous nearby sun. The shroud of death spreads over the broad burning earth and then the horror of too much Assyrian orange takes away resemblance from everything, leaving the remains of blackened bits and pieces, unidentified debris, piles of nothing turning to dust and less than dust. We don't have enough time for all of it, over the eons slowly creeping and no need describing the whole extinction, my fellow shareholders; a spectacular dish for special occasions, but expensive and terminal; beyond its horribly radiant gate, beyond God's towering cloud of wrath, wherever he is, there is nothing.

"

6 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

C CO O FF FF EE EE By Shristi

I drown in the coffee brown of your eyes The comforting scent of your shirt holding my senses so tight. Your laugh sounds so much better when with mine, a cheesy joke sending sparks flying. I can't get enough of the days you used to cry because you lost a football match, Or when you used to noisily complain about how Shakespeare gets your brain all messed up. It all seems in the reach of my fingertips but an eternity away.













Your comforting deep voice along with static through my phone now sounds like a forgotten lullaby. The hem of my dress flutters as I sit and I cry. Oh, how ironic is it that life gives you love but it's always on trial? That happiness and hurt both starts with an 'h' but so does your name. That both you and I feel the same but are lost in the sound of a ticking maze.

Very. In the end I'm left with a lingering bittersweet feeling, wondering...why are all last words goodbye? Why did your lips mutter... goodbye...?

7 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Painted Stones By Mark Tulin

The spirits have breathed life into the painted stones at Ventura’s spiritual garden, colourful heart-shaped rocks, symbols of lost loved ones

who roamed the beaches, made footprints in the wet sand, etched their faces in dreams, and once inhaled

the same seaside air. They lost their lives for different reasons, leaving wives and husbands

for distant stars and uncharted adventures. In this garden of spirits, memories turn from sadness

into youthful laughter, amid the waves, the siren sounds their cry.

8 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Business By Thomas Zimmerman

Fine mist, as if a cloud were sitting on the ground. Leaves, twigs, and branches underfoot.

Trey strained at the leash, a universe of scents beyond his earthbound snout. A trail can be a trial: I dodge a jutting root, a branch knocks off my cap.

It could be worse: that time a skunk sprayed Scarlet; Percy gone on strike in summer heat, his pace a snail’s. Those two long dead, their ashes still at home.

We need to scatter some in places that they loved: the woods, a favourite evergreen. My business is the living.

What I mean is movement, flux. Now Trey’s just seen a cat—a flash—it’s disappeared. And so’s this poem.

9 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Streets

Ahead

I walk abandoned streets, Alone.

Steering from the crowds Of the popular and the pensive, The active and the passive. My past, present and future in synchronicity.











I’m an impersonation of my personality, A mere caricature of myself. Reverberating pangs of conscience Echo my vacant heart The emptiness that bellies within, Isolating me from passions withheld.

I am far too sincere for my own good, I become sentimental far too soon, My compliments end up as insults, Incapacitated by my confidence, Irrelevant to my incompetence, No longer belonging in this time or place. Though I can’t turn back or move forward Merely situated by what’s presented. 10 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Recovered By Ben Nardolilli

Files

If I’m ever a subject, will I be a difficult one? Or will it all be easy to figure out My death as the world’s most obvious crime scene? Plenty of evidence has been left behind, more Then the average person today, Even for a writer too, how many of them Still keep their journals and preserve their emails? I do it all, leaving a trail for anyone trying To trace me through my drafts, And through the days of the life I’ve lived as well, Certain things may remain a mystery, since I’ve stayed off of Twitter and rarely Take selfies to show off my decaying looks, It’s fine if historians find me more words than body

11 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Worn

THROUGH By Anika Yup

Friend

You’ve changed me, Arranged me in ways I could never have found on my own. The way that I’ve grown Since you came to me, Stars in your eyes, Sparking my wonder I wonder What I would have been Without you. I’m a fool, But only for you,

You are fuel to my fire And the flames are so cruel. You rewire My brain and my heart, Inspire my art, An indispensable part Of my story, Start, middle, and end; You’re around every bend, Casually waiting For me,



Your worn-through friend.

12 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022



Do it Yourself

“Learning to be important is a delicate process,” she said, “and a long one at that.” She sat on the hotel room chair, legs primly parallel, uncrossed, and took another sip of her Chablis. The rest of us were piled on Tina’s bed with our legs curled under. Then she proceeded to tell us with brave pride how she had taken things into her own hands for her fiftieth birthday, made reservations at a classy restaurant she wanted to go to. It wouldn’t have occurred to her husband, bless his heart, to take her there. “And was it wonderful?” I asked. “Well, yes,” she said. She fingered the bow tie of her pink silk blouse. “White linen napkins and fresh flowers on the table. Red carnations and white daisies. The food was superb. I felt so grown up. At long last.” A Chablis giggle followed her words. The rest of us chose to ignore the bruised bravado in her bright eyes, her pursed lips, the furtive swipe at her cheek. I thought uneasily of the many roses I bought for myself, week after week, year after year, through one relationship after another. The oh-so-familiar ache of getting what I wanted with stoic autonomy. A man once told me, if you have to ask, it doesn’t count. That’s what his wife and four small daughters had taught him. To which I would add, if you have to do it yourself, it sometimes loses flavor. We toasted our valiant friend and our private yearnings.

13 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Mapping love With increasing uncertainty

Love is

like a shifting reflection in a river’s uneven surface— unique, familiar yet strange, and always moving. For some, Love takes us by the hand and leads us out of the darkness, and for some,

Love is the reason we know what darkness is. For others still, Love merely leads us in circles, back and back again to the beginning, back to lies, back to truths we aren’t ready yet to accept.

When loneliness paints the world in angles of silver and navy, it is Love that keeps us awake, but so too can Love appear like an angel of hope in the morning: like faith or a promise that there is something worth waking up for.

Love is the air a recluse inhales when they learn there’s someone to whom they want to speak, the silence when a warrior lowers their arms.

Love is the opinion you listen to even when you pretend that you don’t, the moment when you tell a secret to someone about who you are and they say,

I already knew that.

14 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Maybe, Love is the pain you choose: the work you take on when you already have a full-time job. Maybe, Love is what happens in the years that pass while you’re trying to figure out what Love is, or maybe,

Love is the years that pass while you’re trying to figure out what Love was.

maybe, Love is the answer to all of your questions and all

of your frustrations: the foundation of your haunted house, but also the seeds of that garden you seek refuge in. Maybe, like that reflection in the river, Love is just another you— another wanderer on the same path, a vagabond at a crossroads going one way with a smile, waving invitingly, while you hesitate, undecided

15 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk We’ve been together most of your life. And, I have only one rule.

An eighty-four year old widow, hands trembling and crying on her marital bed remembering her ninth year on earth and the death of her mother in 1919. Too afraid and confused to say, They took turns flicking holy water on my mother’s casket before it was lowered. First dad, then Josephine, the Eddie, then- When it came to me I couldn’t. I threw it on the ground and ran home. Her face wet, she sat in silence. The girl who walked home each day after school with the sixteen year old boy, suddenly and silently absent from her seventh grade class.

Sitting by themselves in front of their Sylvania halo-of-light console television screen. Lights down and volume up as minds veered from her husband’s burned sister dying in a foreign state to her three children soon to be motherless. The single available channel tuned to Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town.

A German war bride, during the annual church supper at the municipal building, her palm held across her stomach, unable to empty her mind. She remembers. That poor girl in the basement house next to us. Her father renting her out to men for fifty dollars a month. No wonder she did what she did to him. Then turned away.

Daniel’s best friend, the ten year old no one talked about, dead within days. His mother’s friend standing in their kitchen on the evening of the funeral, stared out the screen door, her arms clenched across her chest, thought but never said, His family was haunted by that image of their ten year old - waxen and pasty-faced. With the rest of his body covered. Just a few days before they were water skiing.

An old man cries in a crowded room six blocks from his childhood home. When he was a boy, his father would prance wildly in front of him and cross his eyes imitating his son’s strabismus.

16 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

A grown man, his face in tears, arms scarred by burns received when, as a threeyear old, he urinated on his father’s boots. His father spread lighter fluid around the boot, dumped the three-year old in the center, and tossed a lighted match into the circle. A thirty-nine year old man, in a dead-end treatment center in a small town in the western part of the state - in recovery for cocaine addiction - decided not to risk telling his counselor about pressing a pillow into his lover’s face and shoving it down for long minutes - after months of attending to his dying partner who lay splotched, festering, and boiling from a disease not yet named. A middle-aged woman isolating in a corner of a hospital room, after learning her father was killed for reasons yet silent. For decades quiet about a phone call from her father’s paramour, answered by her – then five years-old. The child’s contralto voice mistaken for her mother’s. That call followed by a divorce; her father’s imprisonment, their visits through a twelve-by-twelve glass window, then silence. She watches nurses remove the needles from her father’s veins as the room is prepped for the next person.

You know who I am. We’ve been together most of your life. And, you know my one rule.

Written by Thomas Elson

17 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

By Ushmil Rimjha

Isolation is the deepest depth of the ocean where little light penetrates, cold It is the fire burning with intricate patterns of seclusion, conflicting: warm to feel, lethal to touch It is confidence in the darkness of the shadows, an intimate home Isolation is tearing away relationships with the hope that they see you need them, It is covering the warmth that enunciates from your being It is a shadow of tears unshed and voices unpronounced voices, who whisper that you are not worth it, that you deserve to fall

Isolation is convincing yourself that you are not needed it is weaving stories of what-I-could-have-said-instead And debating with your mind about something someone said and they told you to leave that bubble, told you to not be so antisocial and you smiled you are already deep

(fall is a beautiful word, isn't it? You fall in love, you fall out of love and you fall, just fall.) 18 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Virtual Victoria **TW: Slight offensive and rape content

“I want to be an actress,” said the decidedly male voice on my phone. Born a Christian son to a conservative family, at twenty-five Michael had left his parents, his penis, and his good name behind in the Philippines. “Now I’m a night stocker at the Tenderloin Gap and I’m going crazy,” the voice said. Living a stealth life under the aspirational identity of Rachel, she’d started hormones and every aspect of life anew in San Francisco. Enrolled in acting classes there, she felt marginalized and miscast as men by teachers with limited vision. Half-minted, between surgeries, genders, jobs, and citizenships, flooded with desire, courage, and faith, Rachel intuited that I could help. I had a first meeting on Zoom with a person presenting as an attractive, a mannered, young man. “Well, the first lesson, we all call ourselves actors now,” I said. “Not because of any feminist policy, but because ‘to act’ is a verb, just like ‘to teach.’ I don’t call myself a ‘teachtress’ or an ‘actress.’” “I just know I want to play women and be a woman.” I spoke, candid and cautious, about her range. At this phase, they presented as too effeminate to play a straight male and too melodramatic for a naturalistic performance as a female. “The process won’t be linear. I’ll work hard to find you interim roles. Don’t think about how it looks, just feel how it feels to be your essential human self in different stories, whatever the gender.” “I’ll work hard to fill them from the inside out.” Touched by her determination and vulnerability, I committed to a six-week tryout with homework on roles I’d assign, with Friday online sessions to monitor progress. I felt honored by the responsibility, daunted by the challenge, glad to have this focus for us both as a plague erupted in March of 2020. From inside her parked car, her shared apartment’s bathroom or an office at the Gap, she brought me slices of her life each week. She worked hard to embody new kinds of roles that presented different aspects of humanness, grateful for the escape, while all evidence of the facial beard disappeared, and the male voice thinned in a renewed puberty. Soon the flutter of forced femininity faded and a pure Filipina soul and strong gift for imagining began to show through whatever role I assigned, whatever personae she’d eventually embody. 19 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

She shared a play she’d written about saying goodbye to her penis and welcoming a vagina that touched me with its poignance and poetry. At some future point, I pledged to direct her talents in this three-aspect, one-person tour-de-force in progress. She fantasized about the future and prayed it into existence while I remained pragmatic and blunt about what might be possible when. Over that year of calibrated hormone treatments, elected surgical procedures, and weekly lessons, she got cast in a San Francisco stage premiere about an “internet cleaner.” In her debut as a trans filtering sensationalism and snuff online for web censors, her character and the play opened to rave reviews. Sent a filmed scene of one performance, I knew we were on the right track. I assigned scenes from Pinter, Albee, and McNally, and she dove deeper, no half measures, exploring new forms of herself inside other’s stories. And in a changing LBGTQ+ marketplace she expanded everyone’s understanding of diverse casting with her flexibility. In a year of virtual acting sessions, I nurtured her from an innocent chrysalis to a confident female Monarch sprouting gorgeous wet wings in the Spring of 2021. Then, she missed her session for weeks. Not my place to pursue her, but with the pandemic proliferating again, I reached out. At last, she responded, altered, and not just physically. Invaginated and fragile, she’d met a masked man at a club who came to court her newborn virginity. New to the wiles of womanhood, she welcomed him too soon to her apartment, to her body. Never would’ve been better. Pinning her down, the suitor cocked his stun gun and raped her, damaged her tender new construction, toppled her scaffolding of faith. I wished she were nearer. This violated young maiden needed a mother. Broken in spirit, she renewed in name to “Victoria.” Now pledged to a good S.F. church to stay celibate till marriage, she committed ever further to acting. She soon was cast in a new role as a drag queen Auntie in a new stage comedy about a Filipino family, presented in Tagalog and English in San Francisco. Again, success. I got tickled by her performance in the filmed scenes she shared. Even though the masked audiences were small, I could feel her power onstage as she practised for a new life. And, defying the gods, and overcoming her odds, in the third month of the publicized run, she attracted the love of her life. Straight friends rarely ever had this kind of luck. He was a stage door Johnny named John and a storybook romance ensued. John’s kind Christian family welcomed Victoria as

warm

as

her

family

of

origin

had

excommunicated

Michael,

now

their

actor/daughter, cold. They would not invite the couple to visit Manila, nor attend their wedding. Nuptials were planned and she invited me to attend.

20 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

I’d never met Victoria in the flesh and had a hug on hold in my heart for her. I said I’d try, depending on the conditions. But first, Victoria planned her top surgery. She’d implant a bridely bosom in which to embed her heart in finished female form. Proud that she could finally invest in breasts, she wanted this final touch to fill out her fiancé’s mother’s donated wedding dress. No playwright could make up a love story like this, but if they could, she could write it. As her surgery approached, pandemic numbers again surged. I suggested she not rush to complete herself, to avoid hospitals or groups of people for the time being. “Can you have a small private ceremony now, then have surgery?” But having held back expressing her heart through a female body her whole young life, she hungered for a pious Christian ceremony with her congregation, and to offer her refurbished maidenhood for the first time in married love. “I’ll take the risk. I know it’s God’s will for me to be happy.” Thrilled that she would no longer need to strain to look like something she already was, she kept to her plan. She reassured me, prepaid for her next session, would meet me on my screen at our time in two Fridays in full female array—a full bosomed bride-to-be. I assigned her a sexy role to celebrate her upcoming pulchritude. But when our 55th Friday arrived, she did not confirm, did not show up on my computer. I waited, wondered, worried, then texted. She did not answer my messages via Skype, Facetime, or phone. I went down a wormhole of Instagram posts from theater companies, the Facebook pages of photographers, the social media of churches to learn that she had died —"stroke in mid-surgery” one post said—“irreversible brain damage prevented suffering,” said another. And a year past, I still mourn this brave soul I never met, the loving bride she nearly was, the actor/playwright she might have been. For me, this evolving spirit has become a miscarried child I never held in the flesh, only in mind and heart. A woman loved, an actor of promise, I pray she slept deep and left pain-free, thoughtfree, at that happy edge of consciousness where all dreams can come true.

21 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Bibliophile By Ananya Sarma

It could be pretty, silly, dummy Ugly, lazy, mighty, hearty easy, holy, crazy, friendly Psyche, dainty, jolly, cozy no limitation to the amount of daisies As I smell through the wondrous pages of my book Evokes a sense of gratitude that I can’t refute One of the greatest decisions ever made by me was of being a bibliophile and spending the rest of my life in glee Knowledge and pleasures from all around the world I guarantee If you are ready to try different eyes then please hurry Get a book that costs little penny and make a hot cup of coffee Just get a book honey of the best quality Gaining attachment and affinity is it’s only policy

22 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Romanticism By Ushmil Rimjha

Working is earning romanticized workaholism Is just like drug addiction But no one really dies from working now, does anyone? But it can kill you slower than death, squeeze out and decay all that you had you will be rewarded well though for sweating blood and glamouring smiles Yes, you will be praised for covering these successful miles You will have a family, kids and a mother, a father But you will prioritise your phone calls rather Guiltiness will seize the phalanges of your fingers If you have a good family time on the weekends Because family time is just a waste of time And you will have so much money But where are you planning to spend them Or maybe you can take them away with you when you die “But my job is my passion”, you say and I am not disagreeing with you And if that dream has turned into nightmares Who am I to disagree with that too? And if someone asks you: What do you know better than work You will not have an answer because you have forgotten All that you loved

23 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Love your body A short note to anyone who might need it!

LOVE YOUR BODY Many people in today’s society are not comfortable in their own skin. They look in the mirror and all they see are flaws. Society tells us that we need to be a certain size or look a certain way in order to be accepted. This is not true! You should love your body no matter what size or shape you are. Your body is the only one you have, so you should take care of it and appreciate it. Learn to love yourself and your body just the way you are It is so important to love your body! Your body is the only one you will ever have, and it is important to take care of it and appreciate it. When you love your body, you take care of it and treat it with respect. You exercise and eat healthy foods to keep it strong and healthy. You also take time to relax and de-stress, because you know that a healthy body is a happy body. Most importantly, you love your body because it is uniquely yours and it is the vessel that allows you to experience life! The way you feel about your body has a significant impact on your overall wellbeing. If you love your body, you are more likely to take care of it and treat it with respect. Being happy in your own skin is good for your mental and physical health. It is important to love yourself unconditionally and treat yourself like royalty. When you do, you will feel better, look better, and be better able to take care of those around you. Soo, LOVE YOUR BODY CAUSE IT IS YOURS AND IN RETURN IT WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU!!

24 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

A Quick Thank you to Everyone who Contributed!! On behalf of the Breathe BOLD team, we liked to thank you to all the people who contributing to the making of our first issue by sending in commissions of your work. We couldn't have made this a reality without all of you. If you'd like to send in a piece of writing, art, stories or articles, please email [email protected] Thank you all again and here's to the next issue!!

"To My Belov’d Son, Swarna, In My Senility" By Sitaram Agarwalla Sitaram Agarwalla, who loves to be known as s Ram Agarwal, is born in 1965 in Gauripur Town in the district of Dhubri:: Assam (India). His most beloved mother first inspired him for writing poetry. He’s proud of his son Swarna (Raju) and wife Binita (Bnta) who now inspire him for writing poetry. He adores reading and writing poetry from the age of ten and his writings first began to appear in the annual issues of school magazines. He is an amateur poet who believes that poets are born not made. His poems are about the core issues of life like (unrequited) love, life, death, God, poetry, poets and such-and-such.

"Enter the Apocalypse" By Jack D. Harvey This poem first appeared in Zombie Logic Review some years ago. Also, in The Chamber Magazine more recently. Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Comstock Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Typishly Literary Magazine, The Antioch Review, The Piedmont Poetry Journal and elsewhere. Mr. Harvey has been a Pushcart nominee and over the years has been published in a few anthologies Mr. Harvey has been writing poetry since he was sixteen and lives in a small town near Albany, New York. He is retired from doing whatever he was doing before he retired. His book, Mark the Dwarf is available on Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/MarkDwarf-Jack-D-Harvey-ebook/dp/B019KGW0F2

25 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

"Painted Stones" By Mark Tulin Mark Tulin is a retired therapist from California. Mark authored Magical Yogis, Awkward Grace, The Asthmatic Kid and Other Stories, Junkyard Souls, and Rain on Cabrillo. He's featured in Weeds and Wildflowers, Still Point Journal, The Mindful Word, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Amethyst Review, Vita Brevis Press, White Enso, Still Point Journal, and other publications. He is a Pushcart nominee and a Best of Drabble. Mark's website is www.crowonthewire.com.

"Business" By Thomas Zimmerman Thomas Zimmerman (he/him) teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review https://thebigwindowsreview.com/ at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in Pink Plastic House, Roi Faineant Press, and Rough Diamond. His new chapbook, The House of Cerberus, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press.

"Recovered Files" By Ben Nardolilli Ben Nardolilli currently lives in New York City. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish his novels.

"Mapping Love with Increasing Uncertainty" By Ben Nardolilli Ben Nardolilli currently lives in New York City. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish his novels.

26 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

About our team:

Our Founder & Editor-in-chief: Ushmil Rimjha Ushmil Rimjha is a 17 year old with a passion for writing and reading. She believes in the power of words. It was among books that she found her reality. She is uniquely a person based on her thoughts and emotions. She loves to have meaningful talk and she loves to interact with likeminded people. Ushmil also loves researching around public health and philosophy.

Our Favourite Graphic Designer:

Jazryel Freeland Jazryel Freeland (a.k.a Niso) is a 18 years old, from the United State. She is the graphic designer/editor of Breathe Bold. She is a freelance graphic designer/artist. She has worked in various mediums including digital, pencil, watercolor, typography, vector, etc. Art has always been her medium to express, winning competitions such as the National Cherry Festival and MITES during high school.

Our writer: Shanaya Engineer My name is Shanaya Engineer. I am a 22-year-old graduate figuring out her place in this world. I write so your eyes can read. I write about issues that resonate with me. The reason to write the right things right now is for future generations to turn out to be better than us. I hope they can be kinder to people, to the planet, and most importantly, to themselves. I wish they can Be Bold!

27 Breathe BOLD | Fall 2022

Breathe Bold