WL Volume VII, Issue II

Letter from the Editor

Cover

The inception of this magazine’s theme, "The Millennial Map," was the love child between the idea of creating a channel for the millennial experience, and the earnest desire to fashion a map from the experiences in our lives. You will find articles in here that are a clarion call to cease the ignominious bleakness of the world we live in, articles that relate the quintessential experience of navigating heartbreak in the age of the millennial relationship, and articles that expound on how uniquely separate the millennial experience is from past generations.

I am a millennial. I am the product of a world that was fashioned by explosive technology, expanding realms of social media, and an ever-increasing sense of cynicism. We millennials live in a world where school shootings are regarded as a way of life, solace is found on the Internet, and religious divides become ever more apparent. We live in a world where our roughly-paced diurnal life has caused us to abandon certain skills in order to make life more seamless. We live in a world where the loudest outcry to save a dying planet comes from the young generation itself. Individuals such as David Hogg and Greta Thunberg are at the forefront of the voice of the youth, demanding we finally reverse the dire fate we have drenched the world in.

The millennial experience is raw, unfiltered, and occasionally vulgar. Our subconscious hammers against a reality where we are all exposed, dust and darkness our only attire. It is because of this reason that I have chosen not to remove certain expletives from the writings. I wanted it to be the rawest form of the millennial truth on paper. And our souls, our hearts, and our thoughts are not always without expletives; it would be a veiled and clouded truth to remove them.

And so as you take this dive into the millennial voice—navigating an ever-increasing desolate landscape as our millennial authors have—be sure to prevent the pessimism from getting the best of you. Keep an open mind, and an even more open heart. À votre santé, readers—we may live in a gloomy world, but that shouldn’t stop us from dreaming of a better one.

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Illustration Outline & Title

Mitchell Cameron

Black Tracing

Shanarah Bargan

Coloring & Background

Delaney Hooper

Farrin Khan, Editor-in-Chief

Foreward

By Jana Trehan

I’m not a millennial
I’m too young,
Too fresh,
Too green,
Too naive,
Too unsure of myself,
Unsure of the world,
Unsure of what I want,
Who I am,
What I want to be.
Aren’t we all?

I’m not a millennial,
Missed the mark by a few years.
But I’ve heard they feel a little lost,
A little scared,
A little hopeless,
A little unsure,
And I feel like that too.
Glad to hear

That I’m not alone
In this stumble through the dark.
That we’re all trying to find a way,
Saying okay, boomer,
Doing the best we can.

All the different craters that make up my planet,
And I stumble across blindfolded,
Following cookie-cutter instructions
That promised me a good life,
    A college degree,
        A good job,
            A good man, two point five kids, and a golden retriever.

And then they tell me my degree isn’t good enough,
My job won’t pay enough,

My man might be my woman,

I can't afford to have kids

On a burning planet,
And that I should adopt, not shop.

I’m stumbling across blindfolded.
Running,
Tumbling,
Trying to find something,
Someone concrete to hold onto.
And I feel a hand hold mine, grab mine, desperately,
Pick me up and pull me toward the finish line.
Where the grass is greener, the sun isn’t as hot,
Stumbling toward the promised land,
The one the older generation told us about.

Hands joining together,

Through tweets and things.

Helping little revolutions rise up,

Like giving someone you’ve never met ten dollars toward their insulin.
And big ones,

Like sharing tips on how to avoid tear gas
From Venezuela to Hong Kong.
Across this planet, we’re all blind,
But I’m holding your hand,
And you’re holding mine.

I’m not a millennial,
But I’m trying to draw a path with my brand new pencils.
And my hand is just one,
Joining older ones,
And we’re all drawing,
sketching,
painting,
sculpting,
Writing a new world for ourselves.