🍸"Punctuation marks, Bambi eyes"
Salt: 2
Hello, dear readers!
As we’ve received submissions, we’ve found and enjoyed numerous interpretations on the current theme of Salt. Yes, salt can be delightfully literal: an additive source of flavor. But, as all lovers of Hawaiian pizza know, salt can also enhance and change former assumptions on flavor and taste. Salt allows for anger, frustration, and every once-unpalatable emotion to become purposeful — even if only for ourselves.
This week, the salty entrée is from Shelby Newsome. Her interpretation of salt paints a picture from a pre-quarantine era: when your eyes could wander across a bar and seamlessly into the life of another person who had equally nothing and everything to do with your own life at that moment. It comes with a side of whiplash from memories that have shaped your current person, and a drizzle of questions you are afraid to answer.
An aperitif before the main course:
Salt submissions of all kinds can be submitted to tartmgzn@gmail.com until June 30.
For the Month of June, all proceeds from our Issue 1 sales will benefit Flatbush United Mutual Aid. Hard copies of the mag ring in at $15 and a digital PDF is available for $10.
Upper hand
By Shelby Newsome
Wispy hair, blue orbs for eyes, a smile suggestively vague. She sits on the chair, legs spread out, as her elbow rests on the table. She’s searching for something in his eyes—that I can tell—the same look she uses when she scans the rest of the room. People are crowded like small bursts of fireworks; the paintings hang haphazardly on the walls. The band is belting out obscure songs from the corner stage. Their sound is a cacophony of chords and shaky notes. The lights. The haze. The smell of weed.
It’s all a game. She brushes her leg against his, under the table, like a secret. She fiddles with the chain around her neck. It’s strategic. She’s got the upper hand.
Taut arms, dimples like punctuation marks, Bambi eyes. He leans onto the table, hands open, a green light signaling to her let’s go. His moves are primal. She sees that, though. She must see that. He nods his head when there’s a pause in the conversation—I mean, is he egging her on? Does he think that’s hot? She must notice how his eyes flitter every time the waitress with the too-short skirt brushes past. Maybe she is into it. Maybe she sees it as part of the game. Yes, maybe she’s using him—a carefully plucked pawn.
I sit across the room from them, watching like a concerned ex. I can’t look away. He laughs and her eyes flutter like a wandering butterfly; they land on me. Or was that a trick of the light? No. Her gaze is on me and it’s shameless, intimate...inviting? I’m lost in the haloed outline of her body as I try to figure her out—an enigma. Maybe, in figuring her out I will figure myself out. That question: Do I want to be her or do I want to be with her?
I don't notice when the band stops playing. I don’t notice the dull chatter when it magnifies. But a voice pulls me back to my chalky seat when it says, Hey, babe. What did you think of our set?
I turn around to the syrupy brown eyes that belong to the voice. They transform into a pool of blue and I’m at the table with her. She’s staring back at me, wistfully. And it feels like I was here with her before—on a different night or in a different life. I feel the invisible tug that tells me we are tethered. Her pull is urgent, fleeting. It both scares and thrills me.
I shake my head like it will wake up my brain and cut me loose from her. I glance discreetly at their table: she is looking at him and he is looking at her. I deflect back into the steadfast brown eyes towering over me and before I can think about her again, I respond, Great, babe. It was great.
About the Artist
Shelby Newsome is a writer living in Maryland. She will begin work on her MFA in writing and publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts this fall. You can read more of her work at shelbynewsome.com or catch up with her on Twitter at @shelbyanewsome and Instagram at @shelby_newsome.
✨LAST SLICE✨
“I saw Salt-N-Pepa at a free concert in Buffalo (where I grew up) in 2012. The show broke Buffalo’s records for free outdoor concert attendance and thousands of people were turned away at the gates — so they had a party/tailgate outside. Afterward, when everybody was walking to the parking lot, a brawl broke out. People rushed to get out in a throng of public confusion and chaos. For me, it was one of those adolescent moments when you feel yourself brushing up against unfiltered real life. Against current cultural conversation, I’ve been thinking recently about unmitigated self-expression — and the ways that spontaneous expressions of emotion can be characterized. Leaning into this month’s salty theme, here’s Salt-N-Pepa with, quite honestly, an underrated bop.” — Cailey