UNQUIET

UNQ
 UNQUIET
Editor in Chief Emma González

Art Director Daniel Williams

Creative Director Veronika Shulman
Creative Producer Amanda Conlee
Creative Consultant Jon Ladalla
Creative Contributor Avalon Fenster
Creative Director & Curator Hadas

www.marchforourlives.com

one
Mission
Unquiet is a peaceful protest.
A space for the enraged, the indignant, the ready to stand:
To get loud, be free, and stay open.
Forever.

We exist to improve:
This is a land of love and truth.

Everyone rise:
You are heard,
You are wise.

We dedicate ourselves to shifting minds.

We dedicate ourselves to changing hearts.
We dedicate ourselves to you. To life. To art.

#Unquiet

two
 Out
of
Reality
Turn off the T.V screen, disconnect from the internet and avoid the headlines,
The world will feel safer once you’re blind,
It’s easy to feel secure when you’re not on the frontline,
When it’s not your life at risk, it’s easy to dismiss, this national crisis when you don’t live it.
Just because this plague doesn’t roam your school hallways,workplace, or the streets of your
neighborhood.
You’ll say it’ll never happen to me, but it could.
But since your life has been protected thus far as it should,
You’ll live out the rest of your days, like the kids in coffins wish they could.
Everything a person was and could ever be is erased in a instant,
Yet to the masses this issues seems so distant,
Even though the death count is staggering and so consistent.
The efforts to reverse gun violence are nothing near persistent,
number.
Because the death count is just that; a numbe
Not someone’s friend, teacher, sister or mother,
Just another statistic that gets buried in along with the others,
Who’s names and stories will be forgotten just as quickly as their lives were stolen.
People are dead, Justice is not served, and families are broken.
When will you decide to speak up?
Now or when your last words are spoken,
indifference is more dangerous than any gun.
Because indi
It puts you in danger, and everyone.

three
The value of human a life is growing lesser and lesser,
Even though we might deny it, these numbers are people like you and I.
With passions, goals, hobbies, and dislikes.
Much like you they believe their life was a right,
Much like you they never thought they would be forced to survive and fight,
Because It always starts with “it’ll never be me”,
But if you’re doing nothing to maintain the safety of others, so there’s
there no guarantee.
Public safety has a direct correlation with personal safety,
America you have forgotten that lately,
You’ve lost touch with humanity,
You’ve switched your priorities,
It’s seems dollar signs and profit are more important than unity,
Our government leaders are focused on everything other than the people,
It’s like the money is God and our government is the steeple,
It
When will we realize that the true power lies in the hands of the people?
That our leaders and citizens are exactly equal, the only thing sets us apart is the labels.
The discussion is overdue and no ones at the table,
Yet there’s millions of us perfectly healthy and able,
These senseless killings are no fable,
Thus we must not live in a fantasy,
We must plant the seed, so that every single person has the opportunity to live in peace,
That’s true equality.

- Sam Fuentes

four
artwork by Melikai H.

five
artwork by Meredith M. & Melikai H.

six
 Flour and Sugar and Milk.
- Brianne James

She had eaten pancakes that morning. The fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth,

blueberry kind, with a little bit of butter and a lot of maple syrup
on top. There had been a note left beside the plate, scribbled in a
morning rush.

Flour and sugar and milk.

Her body was stiff as she traced her foot along the yellow line before
her, letting out a slow, shaky breath. Her arm jerked forward and down
as she placed the shopping bag she had been holding on the pavement
beside her.

Rubbing her throat, her burning, brindle eyes searched the crowd
surrounding her. They were a din sea, much more deafening than she
recalled. There were too many. There had been too many.

What’s in the bag, Miss?

Flour and sugar and milk.

She remembered the way her heart began to pound against her chest when
she first saw them, dressed in dark blue.

Why hadn’t she crossed the street?

Instead, as she approached, her index finger, hidden within the front
pocket of her lilac hoodie, pushed down on her phone’s side control
again and again. Music off. Tight-lipped smile.

Do you have anything else on your person?

Flour and sugar and milk.

The pancakes had been a good luck offering. An early, final exam
celebration. She finished them rather quickly, as she had been in a
rush herself. She couldn’t recall washing the plate, but she had
grabbed the note off of the counter before she left.

Flour and sugar and milk.

seven
The inside of her ears began to tingle as she tried to ignore the
blaze behind her eyes. Her feet were just over the yellow line now.

Oh, we’re going to find something.

Hands. Body slammed. Bent and exposed. Arms bound behind her back with
metal as she thrashed and screamed.

Had she been invisible? Was she invisible now?

Nausea clawed at her throat. Her hands flew to the pavement as her
legs gave out and she sunk to her knees, landing on yellow. Leaning
over the platform’s edge, her stomach contracted up and out.

Flour and sugar and milk.

Her chocolate skin was pale and damp as she felt a familiar breeze
kiss her face. She peered into the black tunnel, willing the dim,
flittering light closer.

No one will believe you.

She could hear the shopping bag ruffle beside her as she lurched even
farther and heaved. The clunk and squeak of the oncoming train sent an
adrenaline rush through her trembling veins.

Was that yelling, she heard?

The light was closer now, blinding, as she turned her head to stare at
it head-on. She closed her eyes then, just for a second, before she
was pulled back by the hood of her sweater.

When her eyes opened, she was greeted by a rush of silver, mere inches
before her nose.

“Are you okay?” asked a man dressed in a grey suit, stooped before
her. His green eyes searched her own with concern.

Would he believe her, if she told him? Would he care?

She wasn’t a historical monument, a beloved rifle, or even a lost

puppy. She was just a woman, born with ebony skin, living in America.

“Yes. Thank you.”

She had pancakes for breakfast this morning.

Flour and sugar and milk.

eight
artwork by Etavanni

nine
artwork by Cedeara

ten
 et
Reformed Sonn
e.
en ds an d I al l sh are the same nightmar
My fri by looming clouds.
Adolescence eaten uare
ot orcy cl e co ug hs, chokes in Time Sq s.
A m
r co un try ga llo ps , gathers the shroud
& ou
ith echoing sounds
Palpitations pulse w are, a scare (not ra
re)
a blare, a flare, a sn ert, convention, crow
d.
any classroom, conc
eemptive terror.
Paranoid panic, pr
n.
w e le ar n Lo ck the Door & Lay Dow bare
In clas s,
of ba ck pa ck s are stretched out thread
Bulletpro ouns
us: Prescription of N
What will not save ts , bu t ha ve you tried prayer?
thou gh
I know you’ve tried

ru ct a se nt en ce of our ascendance.
Const ent.
ha t w ill sa ve us : subtracted amendm
W

- Mila Cuda

eleven
artwork by Amber Ibarreche

twelve
artwork by emulsify

thirteen
artwork by Sly Watts

fourteen
 ‘Whoa now’

Whoa now

‘There’s peace won’t you look today’

a
I say, ‘Whoa now’

Whoa now

gun
‘Look for peace like e-very day’
So, ‘Whoa now
now’

poem
Whoa now

‘These bodies no longer hang

They fall
They fall’

They
fall
fall
Fall
FALL!

Fall away from the safety of body entering another body with smoke, with repression and typecasting. You are
who you are. You know what you did, don’t hide now. Wear your fear like a medal, wear us like trophies. Every
Body wears a hood and a scythe. Uniform or plainclothes: I know the Executioner has a gemini painted behind
his eyelids. All my Nightmares are in gunmetal grey. The Dreams are loud, so loud you can’t hear the orphaned
mothers. Every child - parent to a disaster they birthed. Stillborn and beautiful and we did not listen when they
cried and it was not for joy but justification and I know every day is celebration and my Father won’t talk about
Desert Storm and I too will not talk when the newscaster outlines bad weather.
weathe A shower of life-takers were let
into a sea of life. Playground or schoolground, our only safety is to be angels painted on T-shirts.

u·til·i·ty
/yooˈtilədē/
noun
noun: utility; noun: public utility; plural noun: public utilities
1.
the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial.

They did their job perfectly. I know what color my nightmares are in, and I know the shape of love that Those
Which Hold choose to give me. Those which hold use, profit, benefit, love, entanglement, and fault in the
balance.

fifteen
Ephesians 4:2

“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of
your love”.

Our bodies are not too different, you and I. Vessels for a higher misunderstanding. A confusion that births
meaning. But I can not breathe knowing another body, not too different from my body, has let in their last
life-giving breath because of the acts of a

man with a gun.

But I understand fear. Except mine is not painted Black or red. It is a Blue line and a pale division.

I know what fear tastes like. The lead still sours in my ears. The explosions still smell in my eyes.

‘Whoa now’

Whoa now

‘Cop a piece won’t you today’

I say, ‘Whoa now’

Whoa now

‘There’s no peace so we say their names’

So, ‘Whoa now’

Whoa now

‘These bodies no longer hang

They fall
They fall
They fall’
fall

- Cyrus Roberts

sixteen
artwork by Dantrell Blake

Anger Rejected
J

seventeen
artwork by Victoria Phan

eighteen
artwork by Jaida Stallworth

Put Guns To Rest.

nineteen
artwork by Shanti Broom

twenty
 Contributing Artists
Brianne James Mila Cuda
@briannealanna @d.our

Chi Cyrus Roberts

@chii_soul @vyrusmichaels

Etavonni Dantrell Blake

@wearetavonni
Victoria Phan
Melikai Hubbard @vadooodles
@deaveux
Jaida Stallworth
Meredith Mitchell @adia.j
@meredith.m10
Sly Watts
Emulsify @sly.watts
@emulsify.art
Shanti Broom
Sam Fuentes @shvnti.v

Amber Ibarreche Daniel Williams

@amberibarreche @danielfrwilliams

Creative Contributors
Rez Refuge Young Creative Agency
@rezrefuge @yca_world

Matt Deitsch Bria Smith

@mattdeitsch @briaasmithh

Cover Photo: Vincent Yu / AP

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 Follow @MarchForOurLives
to see art and action in the name of gun safety.

twenty-two
we
will
not
be
silenced.