i. At the spindle top branch balancing flightless, thin and heavy, when the siren sings (Golden one golden one golden one) of her – Fleeing for earth, exile’s attempt at homecoming slip down bark, scrape palms break knees prostrate to ground shove a hand wrist-deep through stubborn soil until elbow, shoulder, wracking knuckles against roots ripping, tearing, wrapping knot around the waist, leashed. ii. (golden one) She recognized...
In The Deep, Rivers Solomon loosely adheres to the science fiction genre to confront the relationship between post-colonial ideologies and the persistence of memory in a novella deeply coded with genderqueer possibilities and reclamation of racial fantasy. Adapted from a song of the same name...
Poisonous saliva slips between your teeth. Mouths hungry for parts of a body but not a soul, not a mind, not a word: Butterflies swarm around me then fall to the ground as a caterpillar. I climb trees forty feet tall that shrink into blades of grass. I submerge in freezing lakes and wash up on a shore with a crimson sand shower curtain. I meet...
Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, violence, homophobia, self-harm, ableism ________________________________ There is no funeral for the boy who drowned in the lake. He was only sixteen, a year older than me. A life ahead of him, until there wasn’t. Until someone saw him kissing Tommy Gilner from down the...
24th March Dear Charlie, I miss you. I know you’ve been busy, but your last letter was two months ago, and I’m going crazy. I can’t stand being without you. The longer I’m stuck here, the more I want to tear across the page and scrape ink into...
The light, blinding and blue, Ancestral nets reeking of brine and fish, Lapping waves bouncing against the bow, The chugging, stalling of the ancient Johnson that never gave up, Skin covered in slime, Shaking and cold, I had fallen underneath the churning waves over the side of the boat. Fascinated by the...
Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House and Jeanette Winterson’s “The Poetics of Sex” both engage with the concept of the lesbian utopia. An important ideal in lesbian feminism, the lesbian utopia positions relationships between women as nonviolent and equal, promising an escape from the...
in the backseat of the company van, exposing his new habit to tonight’s gluten free pastries and vegan appetizers, just this one last time. The Rise the ornamental kitchen is sterile in preparation for the chef, The Cyclone, pelting rain behind synthetic euphoria and a white apron. paranoid, he examines the...
O thou art encompassing, goddess. The gentle dips and rounded curves, the sharp divots and peeking arches became known to my sorry, wandering hands. Pillars of supple, freckled skin kissed delicately by sunlight draped in white silk. Heavy cream and honeyed wine on parted, darkened, sanguine lips. You tasted mine...
I wake to the sound of unclipped claws scratching against my wooden door. A quiet moan comes from just outside my bedroom. I roll over and turn on my side light –yellow light falling across my skin. It makes me look sickly. I ease out...