Twisted Nostalgia by Cobalt Magazine

twisted nostalgia

INGREDIENTS

TOP TIP: For extra flavour, be sure to have a Temper Tantrum, so your parents have no choice but to let you stayin the park for longer!

500g of Where’s Wally? 200g of Horrid Henry 100g of Biff, Chip and Kipper 300g of Peppa Pig 250g of Frozen 1 teaspoon of In the Night Garden 1 drop of The Cat in the Hat

METHO

1. Firstly, look inside the fridge whilst closing it to try and see the lights inside the fridge switch off.

2. Secondly, press all the colours down of a multicolour pen at once.

3. Next, don’t mention the ingredients you need for your Food Tech lesson until the night before you need them!

4. As an optional step, you may want to put Hula Hoops on each finger before eating them for extra flavour.

5. After this, refuse to eat the crusts of your sandwich during lunch time.

6. Finally, when drawing your sun, make sure it’s a yellow blob in the top corner of your page, with lines coming out from it.

7. To garnish, don’t be afraid to stab your rubber with your pencil at least ten times!

for

Raahimah Saeed D

Spectacle Memoria

Nina G. Tangled in thin cotton, light of sheer illusion, fire of a burning coffin, here we mourn the sirens of a hole burnt rotten, and it happens so often.

Gallery display of all that should be forgotten, storm of confusion, anger so begotten, all that is left is a door in need of locking, and it happens so often –often left, often sobbing.

Serenades of candied union weep in my ear, they weep, sigh, beg knocking so that my body tenses and shakes, apprehends and breaks at an aged window frame that is talking so faintly, yet, still tickles this object of a mind, this processor of time, and it happens so often –should be left should be forgotten

WILLOW Shreya Krishnan

Warped. Wilted. White. Witty. Woozy. Wild. Weakened. Wizen. Witch.

Tearing into a million cells all at once.

Thorns gnarling at my fingertips.

Tiered gown brushing through the crevices of her toes.

Love knew no other language.

Laughter that reverberated through these walls.

Lights gnashed on her visage.

Power, pain, pauper.

Penny for my thoughts.

Perinone, she stole from me.

"Till death do us part" is the statement that rings through every marriage, in the hope that it will be fulfilled. Yet, in this verse, a man regrets that he was not fortunate enough to last with his wife, Willow. Looking back on his marriage, he remembers little details of his marriage day, the minute details that made him fall in love with her all over again, and the marriage eventually breaking away. My interpretation of “Twisted Nostalgia” is laced with a certain spookiness that makes him look back upon the marriage in a detrimental rather than sentimental way.

EMILIA GROWNEY

BLAG ARMANI

You destroyed my tulips I can no longer see them Desecrated by the cigs you Extinguish Do I choose another Or would you ruin those too? Desperate attempts to grasp me But you make all my trinkets ash

I love nothing, There’s some comfort in that Knowing we don’t share the same Sentiments

But I can’t look away Your whammy calamity A mirage of closure

You peeled away your Petrochemical treasures But the dye has run It clings to your olive skin like tar You’ve changed clothes so many times As everything that touches you becomes Soiled

Fossilised are your omissions You can’t eradicate the fragments But you keep telling people they’re Armani

Your fascination with necks The jury will find romantic But your kisses are suffocating Splotches of ink transferring on to Me

It would be okay, but I have run out Of tan paint Maybe the kaleidoscopic clusters Suited me more I should accept they made me Interesting Like a church’s stained glass

But there’s nothing repentive about You

My sermons are splinted shards Because the disciples sang only Your praises

FALL '22 IN LONDON Iqraa Photography

Memories are our fingerprints. Sometimes we wear gloves, hiding them.

An old woman sat in her chair, She spoke to her daughter. “When I was young, I was happy.

Brown eyes gleaming, As I stared at the sky. The birds were tweeting, As I laughed and cried.

Dancing in circles, Stumbling over my feet, The noises of cheers, Made me smile through my teeth.”

The pills popped in the old woman’s mouth. Excited to retell her story, But the sad thing was, Her childhood was no glory.

She had convinced herself a different past, To heal through twisted memories. A fly in a trap, A trap of dishonesty.

SAARAH LY AHMED

CHILD

Her daughter raised her brows, As she held her hand tightly. She knew the story.

When her mother was young, She had tried to be happy. Tears down her eyes streaming, As she stared at the sky. The birds were tweeting, As she screamed and cried.

Running in circles, Stumbling over her feet, The noises of shouts, Made her too scared to speak.

She was a child in a war, A trauma felt through generations. No war anymore, But still not healed through age and patience.

A JOKE YOU'VE HEARD BEFORE

FELIX VAN OORDT

An Englishman, an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scotsman all walked into a bar.

They lingered and stuttered until they were offered A cramped booth right next to the door.

They shuffled and stumbled, laid their uniforms bare And tattered on the edge of each chair.

And they strained as they sat, and shrank into themselves, Like rats who shelter 'neath bookshelves.

Exhausted and shattered as they were, Each sound they heard made all of them stir.

A mad drunkard's shouts made the poor Scotsman cower, His eyes shot down, his expression turned sour

As he thought of men chained to ivory towers Whom medals were thrown at for abusing power.

The Welshman froze as a car's engine purred; His chest had tightened, his vision blurred.

He muttered a prayer but forgot half the words, He knew there was something about a blackbird...

The Englishman stared at a small group of friends, And mourned the men he saw meet their ends.

His mind was then dragged to foreign lands To see those he loved make final stands.

The Irishman likewise relived that day when He saw how lead can break iron bands.

Watched souls and souls escape bodies again Like pellets of sand in a small child’s hands.

They sank in the silence suspended between them. It picked and clawed and pestered the scars

Infested with ghosts that had festered, encroached, Like how mustard gas smothers, polluting the stars.

The Irishman saw the other men disturbed. He urged to speak up and say something, a word

Of assurance, perhaps, that would not go unheard. Instead, what he told them was a joke.

The joke was a mess, unbelievably dull, and slid off his tongue with the grace and the charm Of the guy on his own just a couple booths down, with rum on his face and his sick down his arm.

His delivery skewed on a joke which was doomed to lie down and bitterly die.

It was old, lame, unoriginal too. It was a joke they'd heard before.

But maybe that's why they laughed.

Maybe that's why the Scotsman could find the strength for a wry sort of smile.

And maybe that's why the Welshman could scoff at the joke so void of wit or style,

Or why the Englishman could look his friend in the eye; he'd not done that for a while.

Maybe the joke didn't need to be one his audience would adore.

Perhaps it was enough for it to be known, familiar, one that they'd heard before.

Dar. Anoushay Dar.

don't move your feet don't move your feet

I remember him saying, I remember him saying, “don’t move your feet” move your His walking stick firm in his hands, walking stick firm in his Though not moving. Though not moving.

He said, “the devil plays beneath” said, plays beneath” My legs don’t reach the floor, My legs don’t reach the floor, I was only five. I was only five.

I remember her saying, I remember her saying, “don’t move your feet” “don’t move your feet”

We sat across the lake, sat across the lake, My toes dipped, raking in the water. My toes dipped, raking in the water. She said nothing but placed her hands firm on my thigh. She said nothing but placed her hands firm on my thigh.

I was only twice of five. was only twice of

I tell myself, I tell myself, “don’t move your feet” “don’t move your feet”

Something is playing from beneath. is playing from beneath.

I dangle, it pushes back and forth, I dangle, pushes back and forth, Like a child on a swing. Like a child on a swing.

I am only sixteen. I am only sixteen.

I remember them saying, I remember them saying, “don’t move your feet” move feet”

And I knew why. And I knew why. Yet, the movement doesn’t faze me, Yet, the movement doesn’t faze me, The sensation of being able taunts me and The sensation being taunts me

So, I move my feet for perhaps move my The beneath to be free. The beneath to be free.

Anoushay

Tra My Insua-Luu

ESCAPE ROOM ART DURING LOCKDOWN

One Beautiful Evening, One Beautiful Town, One Beautiful Monster.

It was late February

In a tiny gallery, sun sitting low in the painted sky After talking for too long with artists We left Importantly, I live near the sea

I miss the sea in many ways The sand under my shoes, in my hair, socks, eyes, and teeth (crunch)

The brine water—it smells like rot often Fog on the harbour, men taking leave, fishing boats alight with gulls, the shout for fresh seafood

I could keep on yearning, but no more than about this:

That evening we were screaming, laughing on an empty beach And I thought to myself (and I told him, and he told me) I would remember it well

The air whipped our faces like a scolding mother We were lighter than feathers Throwing flat stones (Like in movies, we said) There were hints of rain, ocean spittle

Some things, only sea folk know And I only know him

Here, in a crowd of grass, dirt, trees, roads, buildings, farms, cars Stretches of land - only land, flat, industrial, which unsettles me It takes time to remember

My shadow is on the beach, in the waves

My heart is with him, somewhere

There were other times, on the beach

I saw men in cloaks, circled there, dusk And strange lights over the ocean—Her eyes, Her mouth, Her promise

A year it lasted; the ocean called to me Magnetised

And looking into those dark waters