🍋 "An inaccessible memory."
Intimacy: 5
Being intimate with y’all through this newsletter has been stirring and fascinating. Intimacy can take many shapes. By definition it’s a completely personal, inward-looking matter, and has no bounds on what it can feel like to an individual. Sometimes, intimacy is formed within us while we admire an animal in a cage, and ultimately set it loose. Sometimes it is acted out by taking a drive, or masturbating, or phoning your therapist. And this week, as we close out this curious and deeply emotive theme and move onto another, intimacy centers on love lost and the human form.
Is true intimacy linked between people? Or is it developed when that linkage is broken, and we are surrounded by only ourselves? Stephanie Kotsikonas parses through these ideas in her poem Regret. A partner that once felt “like home” can eventually become a blur, stored away “like china packed into cardboard boxes.” The landscape of intimacy is constantly changing, and rarely asks for our permission to do so.
As you have likely noticed, Tart editors are obsessed with portrayals of the human body, particularly when expressed in honest and engaging ways. That’s exactly what we see in Najeebah Al-Ghadban’s images in Untitled. Black and white space leaves much to the imagination, but the focus of the pieces is clear. A perfect farewell to intimacy.
REMINDER: We are open for submissions on a rolling basis for our weekly newsletter. We’ll accept submissions on the theme of Lost & Found until May 22. The earlier in the month you submit, the better chance your submission has of being published. Please only submit once per theme/month.
Regret
By Stephanie Kotsikonas
Among talk of music and ghosts,
Full of ash and smoke,
We whispered each to each
In your dark room, shades pulled down,
The last time I slept in your sheets.
The clouds showed me your face one night
And I cried and I thanked them each.
They showed me a house of my own,
The dishes always done,
Poetry and pot for dessert,
Your voice saying, “You feel like home.”
I once handed you a piece of paper
Folded three times over that read,
“These days everything feels heavy,”
Without knowing the weight that came with
Marking the empty days with grey circles,
Watered-down black paint,
On my self-made calendar page
Of a star chart for March.
You’ve become a refused entrance,
An inaccessible memory.
I put you out of my mind,
Wrapped you in old newspaper
Like china packed into cardboard boxes
The night when Mercury, or perhaps a very bright star,
Revealed a layer of moss beneath chipping white paint
And a pile of hollow snail shells.
You said I wanted too much.
I regret not asking for more.
Untitled
By Najeebah Al-Ghadban
About the Artists
Stephanie Kotsikonas is a former journalist and editor who is currently working toward a dental hygiene degree. She can usually be found reading in the sun or staring at the stars in Brooklyn, New York.
Najeebah Al-Ghadban is a designer and collage-artist from Kuwait. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic magazines. Currently, she practices design at the NYT Mag Labs in New York City.
✨LAST SLICE✨
During this bizarre time, the diamond shining through is A$AP Ferg’s Architectural Digest video. While he gives a tour of his New Jersey home, you can tell he is truly enjoying having a space of his own that he can fill to his delight like an Animal Crossing villager. Also, he loves art. — Vicky