Some are packed away in suburban garages, safely out of sight, especially the sight of anyone we’ve recently started dating. Some we keep nearby, where we can pull them out from time to time after a couple bottles of wine when we are feeling nostalgic or self-punishing. Some we lost in fires or floods, to our total devastation and equally total relief. Some met an anticlimactic end in a recycling bin.

Some were never ours to begin with, but belonged to a girl we loved or wished we could be or a boy we wanted or wanted to become or a stranger we always thought we’d someday meet or never imagined we would but did. Some never existed at all, or were only ever spoken of in future tense. Some are still in us somewhere, packed away in a dusty nest of regrets.

These are stories of zines we did and zines we didn’t. What’s yours?