BrainScramble Magazine. The world through our eyes. Toronto & Berkeley. Latest BSToronto i17: MEND, out now.
-
ThriftyCat Vintage — More Than a Thrift Store
ThriftyCat is more than just a thrift store—it’s a testament to resilience, community, and the power of accessible fashion.
-
Slow Dancing with an Angel
I am privileged to love you, I am privileged to hold you, I am privileged to have my fingers interlocked so tightly with yours
-
Happy 18th Birthday
In my time of self discovery I have managed to abandon myself.
-
The Love I was Given
When I was fifteen, I fell in love with a girl.
-
Abandoned Rustbelt
June drew by, warm days I ran through like the backfields. When the cicadas started to sing, school paused for summer recess, letting their cacophony overwhelm. I had nothing to do during the long, summer days but ride my bike and hope that my father came home for dinner. One afternoon, my friend Jackson took…
-
Aimee, Beloved
I have a choice: I can let it rot, or I can face it. This is me facing it.
-
Don’t Fall In
Careful, don’t slip on it. Don’t look too close. Don’t fall in.
-
7 seconds
it always happens this way. i focus on the darkness behind my closed eyes and will them to get heavier, to push me past the threshold into sleep. it doesn’t work. through my eyelids, i sense illumination. i open. turn. phone notification. 2:45 am. jesus. i’m pretty sure it’s been about 2 hours since I…
-
Plum and Jasmine
It will be four years later. You will be walking down a tree-lined street after a day of classes, dappled sunlight shining softly through a layer of swaying branches, all lilting and turning and twisting in the breeze. There’s a good chance you will be deeply content, breathing in a lungful of fall air that…
-
Diaspora Machine
I’m a computer, comprised of a series of zeroes and ones that code for the woman I am. The zeroes dot my big brown eyes and the ones outline my calculated, feminine form. I was made in a dank, machismo lab by a mad scientist. No, in a field of daisies by a woman named…
-
sedated
peel myself off pale, clinging sheets, lethargy pooling under my eyes, dark side of the moon hugging waterline, readying for frosted floorboard’s touch on mine.
-
Another Tuesday Evening
Summer’s warm smile has faded under the clouds, and I’m watching the leaves glow as they float down from the trees’ arms. I begin to feel autumn’s cold breezes tickle my back as I fall to bed, and I regret complaining about August’s nocturnal heat. An entire life spent inside an oven couldn’t prepare me…
-
Me and My Salicylic Acid: A Tumultuous Affair
Beneath the angry, red lesions, beyond the reach of my fingertips, I believe there is skin as smooth as glass.
-
Butterfingers
The elegantly named “water football catch” was my favorite pool-related activity throughout all of elementary school. The idea is simple: my dad throws the ball while I jump and attempt to catch it. Sometimes other people would play, too, and whenever possible I would play against my relatives. One summer at my grandparents’ pool I…
-
Spirals
He posed the question innocently: “Isabella, what do you know about marijuana?”
-
Notes for Posterity
C. Was it worth it?
-
apoE
Short term is the first to go. We saw it in you and they search for it in Dad, however you check for that. We all took a test when I was younger; our blood in vials tagged on the counter. Mine was redder than my brother’s. Dizzy when I stood. Gauze and a juice…
-
Sweet Carnation
Wait, Sweet Carnation! How dare you grow with such haste My dear friend has yet to return