Because us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to us that we feel included in and can understand in our own ways; Because we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other; Because we must take over the means of production in order to create our own meanings; Because viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo. Because we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams and thus seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things; Because we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can't play our instruments, in the face of "authorities" who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and; Because we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn't; Because we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary "reverse sexists" and not the TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS that we know we really are; Because we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours; Because we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations; Because doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives; Because we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process; Because we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of being cool according to traditional standards; Because we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak; Because we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors; Because I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.

Caroline the Nonexistent Queen

A glass of iced coffee with soy milk in her hand, with the lingering smokes of our cigarettes up in the air, as she spoke,

Do you know how it feels to be genuinely perceived, Sya? She asks.

I sit in silence, typing on my laptop while occasionally glancing up at her. I opened my mouth, until she stopped me.

Even if you have, I know it's been a while.

I nodded, taking a sip from my bottle of lime soda, then continued typing.

You are right, you are... I paused, It's been years.

It's been years, yet,

Yet?

Yet you persistshe said softly, taking another drag from her cigarette.


Her name is Caroline, no surname or anything, just Caroline. A queen of a faraway land deep beneath my own semblance of sanity. She often comes, she often goes, but more often, she stays.


Did you hear that? She said, breaking my fixation as I look up and listen to whatever is out there intently.

Siren?

Siren, she paused and sighed. You didn't try to...

I did. I said firmly to her, I did,


For whatever reason, she decided to pay me a visit today. A visit that I genuinely do appreciate, but oh god do I hate it when she saw how horrible I live.


She came earlier tonight, one or two hours ago if I'm not mistaken. She knocks softly on my door before barging in swiftly to take her usual spot, and empty floor mat underneath my guitar rack. The smells of her vanilla perfume as she moves, intermixed with burnt nicotine and dust, oh what a smell.


Or I didn't. I continued, There has been protests going on, might be the cops roaming around.

Is it?

Maybe.

That's, an ambulance siren, Sya.

I guess so.

You didn't try to ki...

I did. I sighed.


Tears formed in her eyes


Why, Sya?

Why not?

But why...

Why no...

Do you love me, Sya?


She cries, quietly. She rarely cries, she never cries, yet she did.


My nonexistent queen, my schizophrenia demon, my soulmate and my lovers and my partner and my everything. She cried.

I do, I paused, drinking my lime soda, and I want to spend my last time with you. I look at her eyes, and her light red hair, and her pressing hoodie. I gave her that hoodie, my dysphoria hoodie, a black dysphoria hoodie with a lasting smell of tear gas from many years ago.

Silence surrounds us, slow hum of exhaust fan, the distant yet looming sirens, our cigarettes, the lime soda and the iced coffee, the strips and strips of poison I've been taking

All fading away.


I do,I said, softly, as my visions go blurry, as my persistence stops, and as I give up.

Then nothing.

My beautiful queen, is gone.

My beautiful, nonexistent queen, is gone.

And so do I,

My nonexistent self,

Is gone.