Taylor and Jordan: A Love Story, Minus the Pronouns

By Jenny Doocy

Taylor Johnson parked the rusted old pickup truck in front of a suburban mansion, two houses down from the intended destination, and sent a short text that simply read here. Being chivalrous and walking up to the door, at the risk of being seen in this part of town, was not an option. In other situations a quick honk would have sufficed, but seeing as neither of them wanted to draw attention to their meeting—that is, any more attention than a beat up truck in this neighborhood would cause—a text message seemed the way to go.

Taylor waited for Jordan Smith, releasing nervous energy by drumming two long, slender fingers against the steering wheel, body moving to the rhythm of the music coming from the old radio, sneakers tapping against the pedals to match the beat of the fingers.

Photo by Steve Halama

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Pen Friends

By Kelcie McKenney

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In the fifth grade I paid $1.95 for a best friend.

My French teacher pressed us to try a pen pal service that would let us meet new friends across the globe. I wasn’t all that interested in France—my French was a mumble at best—so I set my eyes on England instead. I sealed in a check, a survey about my interests, and the hopes of meeting an international friend into an envelope addressed to the International Youth Service.

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Grudge

By Hope Grey

Photo by Cherry Laithang

I cannot remember the date

Of which I was last raped

I believe I was eight,

When my virtue was at stake

When my soul left its gate

When a serpent took my fate

No, I cannot remember when

But I do remember the sin

I remember the choice that was stolen

And the heart, which remains broken.

 

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Hope Grey

How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?

By Lindsey Steer

This past semester, I got really into The Sound of Music…and I’m not ashamed to say it.

I was taking a film analysis class during the spring and noticed The Sound of Music on our syllabus for week number two. My professor introduced the film by saying, “You’re all probably wondering why we’re going to be analyzing The Sound of Music; it’s because when adjusted for inflation, The Sound of Music is the most successful film in cinematic history…and we need to know why.”

I live for this stuff.

Photo by Bruno Soares

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“Girls” and the Reality of Sexual Assault

By Kayla McCombs

I recently started watching the HBO series “Girls.” The decision to watch it stemmed from an odd mixture of my crush on Adam Driver and my irrepressible desire to have an opinion on everything and everyone, including the series’ creator Lena Dunham. As a person who cares deeply about social justice issues, I had “Girls” in the back of my mind for a while due to a lot of controversy over its lack of racial diversity and abrasively middle-class characters. That was my motivation to watch the show—I wanted to argue about it.

Photo by Rene Böhmer

While the aforementioned issues are undeniably important, I won’t be touching on them in this post. Instead, I want to delve into the topics of sexual assault and relationship abuse, two very real problems that are to this day clouded with controversy and misunderstanding. Sexual assault and abuse are often portrayed as being straightforward and easy to identify in film and television. While they both have distinct definitions—and it would be great if the world could be on the same page as to what constitutes either of them—the reality is that most cases come across as ambiguous and confusing. This, naturally, is a major source of pain for many victims who feel unsupported or discouraged from speaking out or asking for help.

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