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By Ella Cunningham I’ve been thinking about whether this is it from here, whether it’s coming home and kicking my shoes off without untying the laces. Whether it’s deep- cleaning the bathroom, buying a new mattress, a little too firm. Whether it’s taking our rabbit to the out of hours vet- again- and looking for a new desk chair on facebook marketplace. If it’s getting the usual from the local Indian restaurant, forcing my bike up the horrific gradient of Friday Lane clocking in, clocking out at work asking your nan about her arthritis and your sister about her house-hunt, Is this it- finishing a series, a book, or me putting petrol in your car, you picking up my prescriptions. It’s you holding me when yet another resident dies at work, when I’m the one who had to dress them, lay them out. It’s you, excited to see me on a regular Tuesday evening, listening to a new album together in the car. You, proud of me for writing a few lines of a poem, you, reading my poems when you don’t really get them. Liking them anyway. I’ve been thinking about what it is to want something. Whether I need to know something exists before I find it, and how that could be when we can keep conjuring these beautiful, normal things for ourselves from the thin air between us. Ella Cunningham (she/her) is a queer poet from Chester, UK. Her work has featured in Bath Magg, Porridge, Stone of Madness, and Poetry Bus, and she was longlisted for the 2021 Plough Prize. She currently lives in South East London and works for a care charity. Twitter: @EllaMadalene
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By August Bennet in the threshold between you & who you think you are there is a bird sitting on the feeder there is a squirrel nesting in alcove, in branching ivy, in your mouth babies chirp & squirm in soft tissue, buds of orange trees & fish eggs manta ray sunning on black sand, words you said that you shouldn’t have under your breath, rests between measures cross-stitch through skin unseverable from that which birthed it, swelling new as droplets of blood drip & stain & stain & stain & stain still at threshold, gripping to faint presumption of self there is nowhere but here for you to suck out the marrow & spit back what is not serving you free from fluorescence or bile allow yourself to open the gate & breathe fresh water allow yourself dirt beneath skin & sound of unreachable fawn hooves on riverbank allow tears to be crystallized & dancing in rays of sun August Bennet is a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where they received a BFA in Writing & Applied Arts and a BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. They have interned as the managing editor and the editor-in-chief of UW-Green Bay’s undergraduate staffed Journal of Art and Literature, Sheepshead Review, during the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters respectively. They are a writer interested in gender, the body, horror, and nature, and their poetry appears in Anti-Heroin Chic, Sheepshead Review, and Northern Lights.
They cut down an ancient tree on the university green yesterday. I lay myself across the width of its stump and get splinters in my shoulder blades. My mouth tastes like hydrocortisone. When night falls, the moon is a sliver mark made by a fingernail that gouged the sky, the bruised horizon mocked by the lithium glow of a thousand red tail lights. Arms unfurling, I trace the caps of defiant little mushrooms peeking through the dewy lawn despite the herbicide treatments. Networks of mycelium will consume the concrete. Nothing can stop the foundation from rotting. N. Taupe is someone’s pseudonym. They are a queer/disabled/trans/nonbinary person. Their work has previously been published in hyacinthus mag, warning lines, and Full House Literary Magazine. You can find them @taupe_n on Twitter.
By Emma DiValentino Melissa exists in a world of praise. She has long hair, huge tits, and practiced fuck me eyes. She never says no Never has opinions Or a single thought in her head. She never complains when men want to fuck her in the back seat of her Honda She never stares too long at the bruises on her knees, They’ll disappear in a few days anyway. She never makes men wear condoms They say “it doesn’t feel as good” And she appeases them. She accepts rough, emotionless sex. She never asks them to look her in the eye Or kiss her nicely Or if they have a girlfriend, maybe a wife waiting for them at home. To them, She’s a nameless, fuckable, piece of meat. They don’t say this with their mouths But in the rapid, forceful push of their hips (Ignoring the fact that, yes, she is in fact a woman, with a cervix, and that hurts) In the bite of their kisses The way they shove their tongue in her mouth, not questioning what feels good. Never offering to go down on her. Always wanting her to kneel for them. And she swallows what they give her As willingly as she accepted The Eucharist from the hands of a priest in her youth Enduring the bland, salty taste In back alleys, In hotel rooms In dark stairwells In marital beds The backseat of a Honda Civic. She still wears the purity ring her father placed on her finger on her fifteenth birthday Sometimes she thumbs it, Spins it Soothes it As she moves her head up and down a stranger’s shaft. She thinks of the white sundress she wore, Of how sullied it is now. Of how it still hangs in her closet, marked with coffee stains and red wine that a young man spilled on her at her friend’s eighteenth birthday party. She thinks of how he looked at her Apologetic And Regretful. Of how upon waking in his bed the next morning, She promised herself she’d take it to the dry cleaners But instead, tucked it away in the dark corner of her closet. Every year like a New Years resolution, She takes it out to study the stains Only to return it to its rightful place, Forgotten and Abandoned. Emma DiValentino is an emerging, queer writer and student at American University.
By Anhvu Buchanan On Monday you grab a banh mi sandwich for lunch then laugh at the photo of your friends all making slanted eyes. On Tuesday you order Thai, wait patiently for your noodles to arrive then joke with your roommates about whether or not the food has kung flu. On Wednesday you scarf down a plate of egg rolls during happy hour then go on a date with us and call it activism. On Thursday you enjoy a steaming hot bowl of pho then shove us face first to the ground and call us chinks. On Friday you delicately dip your sushi rolls into soy sauce mixed with wasabi then throw a bucket of water on us and tell us we don’t belong here. On Saturday you order Chinese food, grab your potstickers and lo mein to go then kick us to the floor, stomp on us repeatedly like a bug that won’t die, making sure to not get any blood on the takeout bag. On Sunday you sit around a round table at brunch ordering dim sum then on the way home you see them pushing us onto the train tracks but turn and face the other way, your belly however, already full of culture. Anhvu Buchanan is the author of The Disordered (sunnyoutside press) and Backhanded Compliments & Other Ways to Say I Love You (Works on Paper Press ) and Which Way To Go or Here (Platypus Press) co-written with Brent Piller. he was the recipient of the James D. Phelan Award and also received an Individual Artists Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. He received an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State. He currently teaches in San Francisco and can be found online at www.anhvubuchanan.com or on twitter @anhvubuchanan.
By Anhvu Buchanan You are sweet and salty, fishy and funky. You are the secret ingredient to so many dishes. When I was young I was scared of you, of your taste, of what others might think if they knew I was using you. Yet you sustained in history and in my life. You are a love letter written in the kitchens of our ancestors. You are the fermenting, the earth, the brine, the salt, the hands all come to life. And yet there are still some that fear you. One man’s pungent smell is another man’s memory of home. When I smell you, I smell my mother’s marinated pork grilled and ready for us to meet again. I hope you know how much you mean to so many. The lives you changed. The meals you’ve saved. The taste we will always long for. Your smell drifting in our forever. Anhvu Buchanan is the author of The Disordered (sunnyoutside press) and Backhanded Compliments & Other Ways to Say I Love You (Works on Paper Press ) and Which Way To Go or Here (Platypus Press) co-written with Brent Piller. he was the recipient of the James D. Phelan Award and also received an Individual Artists Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. He received an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State. He currently teaches in San Francisco and can be found online at www.anhvubuchanan.com or on twitter @anhvubuchanan.
By Andrea Lianne Grabowski we are used to speaking in code. subtle nod, contraband. lemon dissolves easy on the tongue. i’m getting all the “i remember”s out of my system. i mythologized the last time. but this faux leather couch and moose dog toy are brighter. there is no more last time. only five copies of morning star and you saying it’s a valid question, it’s a valid question. the bathroom mirror doesn’t play any boy epic. my neurons have stopped aching for you shoving my head under the faucet, water running violet. my hair is mousy again, and so is yours. honest. your band sweatshirt from the plot in you is never going away. i will always put kale on pizza. so little has changed. how much. how much. a tiny piece of myself caught between your bookshelf and the wall crawls inside me and settles into my marrow. there you are. you’ve been gone a while. a breath of relief. christmas used to be hard, but finally, maybe not. we are used to standing in the darkened kitchen not-quite-sober. soft giggles ricocheting off countertops. the sink is by a window now. we can see out. Andrea Lianne Grabowski is a queer writer living on Anishinaabe land who can often be found peering into the windows of abandoned farmhouses. She’s been on the literary staff of NMC Magazine and is preparing to query her first novel. Her work appears and is forthcoming in Fifth Wheel Press, Catchwater Magazine, Catatonic Daughters, Hell is Real Anthology, and more. Twitter: @pingouinwrites.
By shannon hearn with the news being what the news is with negative results being the desired product with the end weather ticking with being weathered tethered and sick by the global influence of state violence inside our beating beating with the trans children fielding and their social worker under the window and caging with the monstrous saturation with the monstrous saturation constantly alongside our heads inside of our hands in front of our eyes where are your eyes where are you looking show me the truth just once don’t open your mouth just look at me to signal i will try to hear us both softly, not freedom, not free shannon hearn is currently a PhD candidate in Poetry at Binghamton University. their work has appeared or is forthcoming with 3:AM Magazine, cream city review, Fugue, Voicemail Poems, DIALOGIST, fifth wheel press, and others. she received her MFA in poetry from Queens College, and lives in Brooklyn.
By Brooklyn Plotner She remembers the ghost-- listen devour embrace decay, porcelain concrete dog do not die-- my naked smile is here which surrounds the sacred fever liquid-- soon, spirit said, you walk beneath wind wet champagne celebrates sex-- moss moon through quiet, rest and relax blue lake-- kiss it home, bleed poetry and breathe— the throbbing laugh of a velvet universe. Brooklyn Plotner is a queer poet from Michigan. Her poems consist of fears, dreams, and ghosts. She uses the em dash excessively and does not plan on changing that. She is currently an undergrad at the University of Kentucky for English and hopes to one day be in the publishing industry.
By KateLin Carsrud Woman like gold afternoon sun like sky so blue content but so blue crying so much Woman like little girl playing running laughing happy child carefree like free of care meaning having no care meaning wanting to stay in bed all day dark shades lights off dark Woman like tired bones heavy breasts Woman like worried trying to not worry trying but mom trying but dad sister sister brother still trying Woman like full woman woman holding planting marigolds sisters digging rosemary bread daughter spitting image small toes KateLin Carsrud is a graduate student in the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her work has appeared in Baltimore-based literary magazine JMMW, MEDICINE AND MEANING, and EQUINOX, where she was awarded the 2019 David Jauss Prize for Fiction. She has poetry in THE CLOSED EYE OPEN and NINE CLOUD JOURNAL. Her artwork appears in the sex-positive magazine THROATS TO THE SKY. She has forthcoming work in WEASEL PRESS, and OFIC MAGAZINE.
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