BrainScramble Magazine. The world through our eyes. Toronto & Berkeley. Latest BSToronto i17: MEND, out now.
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Lucky Number 13
These charms are different from the ones I used to wear. For one, the chains don’t match. Neither do their sizes. Neither does the weight they carry.
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Will I Be Alright?
By Daisy Huang
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Tar
By Jaclyn Kim
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Smoking in Angola
By Justin Gray Many people are forced to grow at different rates with their own circumstances. Although I am not in the same situation, perhaps art can be used to represent perspectives in life, and to give people representation where their own experiences are undervalued.
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cryyyyy
by shina kang
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1
by shina kang
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Tar
Artwork by Jaclyn Kim
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Drawings of Contentment
Drawing people in real time is always a challenge. Everybody seems to squirm around and never sit still long enough for something to look perfect. But sometimes, when luck is on my side, I get the rare chance to capture somebody in the moment. Being in the moment I find that people have no sense…
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The Half-Human:
I have this dream. I am lying on the floor of my bedroom, my mind smooth, clear and unsolid. In this dream, I have no name, no purpose and no presence. I am simply a body, existing on my bedroom floor. The first thing I know in my existence is that my room is slightly…
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Five unique cafés in Toronto
In Toronto’s crowded coffee scene, it takes more than an exposed brick wall to stand out. Storefront of Colombian café Maderas on Ossington Street featuring a coffee bean in a simple but distinct design. As I was sitting in a café with my friends a few days ago, we talked about it: the dreaded six-dollar…
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Affirmative Action Is My “‘Nepo Baby”
College applications are approaching, and all my thinking about this defining time has not prepared me for one of the feelings I am experiencing. A feeling of being behind and wanting to catch up. I do not feel this in the typical sense—of not being prepared for the application process or not knowing where I…
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Yellow Baby
When my older sister was born, she had a condition called neonatal jaundice. She came out with a yellow colour on her skin and in her eyes, and the doctors said that she needed sunlight. So, my father held her up, a baby just the size of his forearm, to the sun everyday. He would…
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They have forecasted a storm today
It only rained — broken drops fell forthe cold stones,dustingloneliness.Autumn cold felt like pinching white chalk on a blackboard,little white flies shed under.Their feeble screech burntyearnedlike loveI couldn’t get my attention off the chestnuts,danksmashed needles bloom like algae,green like your jacket’s sleeves.I trod on it ferociously,I hated to rememberit was also green likeWhere my heart…
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Starlight and Sunshine: A Short Story
The night is cold. Cold in the sense that I cannot feel my wind-eaten fingers; cold in the sense that I am left wondering how my heart has enough heat to keep beating. Don’t get me wrong; I am very familiar with frosty nights. I tell myself that I was born with cold in my…
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Sew my mouth shut
Someone keeps sewing my mouth shutwith stitches that match my skin. My nights are haunted by dreamswhere a slippery arm pulls out my heartfrom my throat.In the clean palm of your handit is you who holds my heart—an eyeglass in one hand andneedle and threat in the other.Asking:Why do you cry?My mouth is sewn shut.Why…
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Rabbit-Moon
By Elisa Penha There’s a rabbit on the face of the moon. Well—the shape of a rabbit mapped out along the craters. It’s a rabbit in the same shitty way that constellations are bears or men with bows and quivers. I wonder about who must have been staring at the moon for long enough to…
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Queerness as Currency—A Heartstopper Retrospective
Show me who you are on the inside. Divulge yourself to an audience of thousands—perhaps millions. Do you like what they see? Are you okay with it? How does it feel to have these unwashed hands inside of you, picking apart everything you think you know about yourself, tearing at it? Imagine—you are cryogenically frozen…
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dream
I find solace in the fact that this vision of him in my dreams is simply a fairytale. I am mourning a person who doesn’t exist, for he never existed how I wished him to.