August 15, 2024

ATMOSPHERE OF GLASS

by Andrea Abi-Karam

Mizna is honored to publish long-time contributor Andrea Abi-Karam’s first online piece. For their most recent print publication, see “DOCUMENTARY OF AN OUTLINE PT I / PT II” in Mizna 24.2: Cinema Issue. Link to order here

ATMOSPHERE OF GLASS

i sit in the dark, faced with powerpoints typed out in comic sans. some attempt to teach us something. about how science & research are holy. the assumption therein being that language is a means to some other greater purpose. i mean someone else’s end. the professor likes to do magic tricks & i hate him for it. he uses tricks to get out of needing to explain the mechanistic truth behind reactions. we’re supposed to be learning chemistry. the lexicon of life has its own linguistic logic. letters and symbols that confer to the reader the identity & possessions of an element. carbon has 6 electrons, (2 core, 4 valence). the backbone of life, carbon patternistically forms 4 connections with others, the maximum # of connections possible for most elements to reach the golden octet. a feeling of stability. it’s all about electrostatic attraction & repulsion. push &  pull. give & take. some elements want more than others. the more electronegative an element, the more it will steal electrons (share unequally) from another. when i tutor, i tell my students those elements are greedy, unwilling to share. as part of his bit, the pseudo magician pseudo professor shows us lots of youtube videos when indirectly explaining the different personalities. or behaviors. of certain elements. he’d plunge the room further into darkness & click play. i see 2 men on the screen in lab coats surrounded by a density of glass bulbs. their faces obscured by protective eyewear. i slouch in the dark, i seek anonymity. i see two matches, red & white, inside glass vacuum chambers. breathless. one of them turns a nozzle to let air into the chamber with the red match. nothing happens. he says, these are red phosphorous matches, like what you get at a bar. he releases air into the other chamber. a short moment of smoke before combustion. he sucks the air back out to choke the flame. lets air back in. combustion again. out. choke. in. singe. he repeats until there’s nothing left but ash coating the curve of the glass bulb. it doesn’t take long. they have this tone like, did you know that? so proud and smug behind their goggles. imagine if they gave you a matchbook of white phosphorous instead of red after you left dinner? ha ha! it would fuse the inside of your pocket to your thigh! ha ha! you would be holding a fireball in the palm of your hand! ha ha! like a super hero! ha ha! if you order white phosphorous off the internet make sure you keep it stored in water! on skin, white phosphorous causes severe 2nd degree burns & 3rd degree burns by fire & continues to chemically burn skin as phosphorous pentoxide hydrolyzes on and in your skin forming phosphoric acid, post flame. most patients can survive superficial burns over 95% of their body. most patients can survive partial thickness burns over 70% of their body. severe morbidity occurs in patients who sustain full thickness burns covering 40-50% of their total body surface area. as in, they do not survive.

ANDREA ABI-KARAM is a trans, SWANA, punk poet-performer cyborg. They are the author of EXTRATRANSMISSION (Kelsey Street Press, 2019), Villainy (Nightboat Books, Sept 2021), and with Kay Gabriel, they co-edited We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics (Nightboat Books, 2020). They are currently writing a poet’s novel.

Toward a Free Palestine: Resources to Learn About and Act for Palestine

We are proud to present this text as part of a list of resources to take action for and learn about Palestine, as well as works by Palestinian artists, writers, activists, and cultural workers.