Late Night

Sleeping in a moonbeam, I dreamed
you were on fire, and I loved you
anyway. Pyre of loose clothes
and crackling skin, blackening
pine cones, red tongue in a grove
of cedar trees. You promised
to keep me warm all night.
I am doing my best
to be right here, to have faith
in the words I know.
I want to believe in something
other than weight and closed
books, the ghost in the blue dress
at our window who looks
like every woman my father ever wanted
me to love, who watches me fall
asleep in your arms, her palms
pressed against the glass. I want to know
you meant it when you called my name.

Setting for a Fairytale

My hair has grown so long
I can hide behind it.
I leave the window
open so the men
at the crosswalk might hear
me singing nonsense in the
shower.
+++++++I used to speak
Latin—I used to know
spells for love, but now
I can only cough up
the names of flowers
I’ve swallowed when
you’re not around—petals
spilling from my mouth,
whispering Larkspur   Daisy
+++++++Amaryllis        Gladiolus
++++Laceleaf
++++++++++Iris
+++++++++Rose   Rose
++++++++++++Violet
+++++++++++Rose
++++Lupine     Lily    Daisy
+++Poppy   +++Poppy
++++++++Clover
+++++++Bleeding Heart
Dandelion        Dandelion        Dandelion
till my breath runs out, asking
et tu? et tu? to un-spell
the slammed door, to contain
everything laid
bare—the black candles
gone out, except the tall one
with the crooked neck licking
my lace curtains, wall
of fire, new doorway
to the world you left
me for.

KyleMarbut lives in Ohio where they write, lie on couches, and long for spring. Their poetry has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and Up the Staircase Quarterly, and they can be found on Twitter @KyleMarbut.

summer body
After Kimberly Alidio’s “Lungless and the Petiole at the Barton Springs run-off”

six days and dogs find carcass
glass jar open / teeth, inviting
beehive white noise like flies
on deer rot / those dogs find flesh
they weren’t looking for / say flesh / and mean
nothing left / mean body must
be noise now / too late to be
listening / too late for retribution
dogs find manzanita tripwires
in the canyon / snakehole tongues
by the creekbed / acid washing
his denim on stone / washing, mean
hiding the scent / hiding the body
mean silence / from the feeding
mean too late to say most dead things
go unburied / go bone claw aiming
toward vultures, always / to his
listening mouth / open glass brim, inviting
that life to be swallowed / life,
meaning flesh now / becomes silent

i don’t blink
After Minnie Bruce Pratt

before i come out, i dream too often that i am+++++a body in the black lake
on my back watching the sky++++++++++++++++as if my chest is a pupil
dilating; the dream itself++++++++++++a kind of looking / as if the body were an eye
surrounded by+++++++++++++++no light. this is my garden;
a place beyond the self+++++++++++beyond the bright heat of day
and the way it seeks to swallow+++++my skin in sight.

Riley R. Leight is a writer, editor, and artist whose work centers on identity, religion, and LGBT history. They are the recipient of an Abraham L. Polonsky award for fiction and a Maurya Simon scholarship for poetry. Their writing has appeared in Occulum, Mosaic, and COAL Magazine. Now a founding co-editor of Name and None, a journal for trans/nonbinary creators, they were formerly the Editor-in-Chief of the multidisciplinary journal Audeamus. You can find them @rileyrleight on Twitter or rileyleight.com.  

 

An Heirloom Child

ReVerse Butcher is a multi-disciplinary artist with focuses in making unique artist’s books, collages, visual art, writing & performance. She will use any medium necessary to engage and subvert reality until it is less dull and oppressive. When she grows up she wants to be a well-read recluse. She currently lives in Melbourne, Australia.

We Are Us and Then There Are Other People

+++I met her online, at a bar, at a café. She worked at a co-op, was a screenwriter, a singer. We talked, had drinks, read and ate breakfast. I met them at a dog groomer’s, at the grocery store, on a hike. They worked as an animal trainer, as a protein drink promoter, on a reality TV show. We shared pictures of our pets, ate vegan pizza, toured Hollywood. I met him in Chicago, at a sushi restaurant, in a museum. He worked as an actor, as a life coach, for a landscape company. We went bowling, walked around the park, considered tattoos.

+++++++ She said – +++ I like your style.

+++++++++++++++++++ I’m thinking about kissing you.

+++++++++++++++++++ I’m going to write so many songs about us.

+++++++ They said – ++ Let’s make love on a star.

+++++++++++++++++++ Your mouth and the way you look at me are distracting.

+++++++++++++++++++ My mind has been captured by you.

+++++++ He said – ++++ You are so powerful and beautiful and sexy.

+++++++++++++++++++ You make me ridiculously hard all the time.

+++++++++++++++++++ I feel strong and alive in your arms.

+++ It was a Saturday. She took me back to her house for a party and I didn’t leave till Sunday evening. Her roommates were drunk when we arrived – they draped their arms around me, welcomed me, made me feel like I belonged. Where did you meet her? they asked. Online, at a bar, at a café, I said. One of her exes introduced herself to me over the bean dip. Instead of listening to her, I drowned out her words with the crunching of chips in my head. Later I went to the bathroom and my date followed me upstairs. Why  do you have another date here? I asked. She’s not a date. You’re my date, she said. When I kicked my shoes off at the foot of the bed, she tucked them away, perfectly straight, in the closet. When she kissed me, it was hard. When she slipped her fingers in me, the sweet warmth between my legs could have drowned us.

+++ It was a Friday. They invited me over to play games and I didn’t leave till Saturday morning. Their roommates, swimming in the pool or lounging on the couch, nodded their ‘hello.’ Where did you meet them? they asked. At a dog groomer’s, at the grocery store, on a hike, I said. During the card game, their cheeks pinked with frustration, disappointment at losing so soundly. Later, once they’d beat me at two rounds of HORSE, they accidentally hit me in the face with the basketball. I was going to win that round, you didn’t have to cheat, I said. It was an accident. But you weren’t going to win, they said. When we took a bath that night, they made galaxies in the golden bubbles, told stories of tiny worlds we ruled over. When they kissed me, it was on every inch of my face. When they fucked me, it was with the bed pulled away from the wall.

+++ It was a Tuesday. He invited me over to run lines and I stayed with him every night that week. His roommates told me about their upcoming projects, played me some music, gossiped about their love lives. Where did you meet him? they asked. In Chicago, at a sushi restaurant, at a museum, I said. Before he showed me the script, we went to Target, kissed over distressed sweaters, tried on mauve dresses and Sublime shirts. Later, we played darts at an Irish pub by his house and snuck out to the back patio to smoke stolen cigarettes. Be careful how sweet you are to me, I’ve fallen in love for much less, I said. Could you stop yourself if you wanted to? he asked. When we walked, we kissed at every stoplight. When we finally made it to the car he climbed a tree, swung like Tarzan. When he held me close he whispered about water and stars, the potential to wrap ourselves in each other, the desire for feelings with weight.

+++++++ She said – +++ You feel nice.

+++++++++++++++++++ We are writing our own fairy tale.

+++++++++++++++++++ I love how our bodies and minds and hearts mesh.

+++++++  They said – + You excite me so much.

+++++++++++++++++++ I long for your touch, your voice, the feeling you give my

+++++++++++++++++++++ entire body.

+++++++++++++++++++ I love the way you suck and stroke me.

+++++++  He said – +++ You smell and feel like heaven.

+++++++++++++++++++You know my body and my cock better than

+++++++++++++++++++++literally anyone.

+++++++++++++++++++I love you.

+++ That night her friend was having a show at a library-themed bar downtown. All the drinks were named after famous authors. With each sip of Hemingway, each mouthful of Walker, each smooth taste of Hurston, we sat a little closer, laughed a little louder, kissed a little deeper. Once we were properly drunk, we walked down the street to a burrito shack. While standing in line, she texted me I’m high on you. She texted me You have my heart. She texted me You’re a queen. That night we lay in bed and told each other secrets. Lifting the veil between ourselves, we gave each other permission to have hurts and fears. Then we kissed all the fractures of our hearts, used our lips as sutures, and breathed promises into our skin.

+++ The next morning they came with me to my parents’ house. All afternoon we lounged by the pool. With each splash, each glance, each passing cool breeze, we kissed a little deeper, felt a little warmer, loved a little harder. Once we were properly burnt, we walked the dogs to the park. While hiding in the slide, they texted me You’re a queen. They texted me I love filling you with my come. They texted me My mouth loves you and your mouth. That night we took mushrooms and watched the night sky change colors above us. Lifting our arms to the stars, we opened ourselves to the depth of the universe. Then we kissed all the goosebumps on our skin, used our hands as parentheses, and climaxed in purples and greens.

+++ The next afternoon he took me to the ocean. All the beach bunnies were trapped in their offices. With each passing hour, each eager touch, each fiery lungful of weed, we loved a little harder, smiled a little faster, died a little slower. Once we were properly high, we walked along the shore to the crab shack. While waiting for our order, he texted me My mouth loves you and your mouth. He texted me They’re playing our song. He texted me I want to spank you and tease you. That night we drove up the coast and watched the sun share the heavens with the moon. Lifting our shirts above our heads, we trusted each other with our bodies in every way. Then we kissed all of our scars, used our words as blankets, and dissolved into the world around us.

+++++++ She said – +++ I want to repeat last night a thousand times.

+++++++++++++++++++ You’re a dream.

+++++++++++++++++++ I will hold you down and make you take my cock from

+++++++++++++++++++++behind.

+++++++ They said – ++ I love the way you love me.

+++++++++++++++++++ I long to be back in your arms.

+++++++++++++++++++ I want to massage you, kiss you, fill you.

+++++++ He said – +++ You make me feel so good.

+++++++++++++++++++You deserve to be cherished.

+++++++++++++++++++I’m so grateful for our passion and joyful love.

+++ She asked me if I remembered the day we met. On the hike, I said. And then we went bowling and had drinks, they said. I thought we toured Hollywood and considered tattoos, I said. We did. We did it all, he said. Can you just love me forever? I asked. He pulled me close to him, crushed his mouth to mine. They raked their nails down my back, held my sides. She licked her palm, ran it over the head of her cock. With my legs wrapped around their back, I closed my eyes and let myself sink into him, gave myself permission to be weak with them, told myself it was okay if I loved her more than he would ever love me.

+++++++ She said – +++ Thank you for seeing all of me and not looking away.

+++++++ They said – ++ Thank you for seeing all of me and not looking away.

+++++++ He said – ++++ Thank you for seeing all of me and not looking away.

+++++++ I said – +++++ Thank you for seeing all of me and not looking away.

Tai Farnsworth is a mixed-race, queer writer based in Los Angeles and uses she/her pronouns. In 2015, she earned her MFA in writing from Antioch University LA. Tai’s work can be found in The Quotable, CutBank Literary, Lunch Ticket, The Evansville Review, and forthcoming in Sinister Wisdom. She’s presently shopping around her young adult book about a girl discovering her bisexuality in the wake of her boyfriend’s death. She was also a 2018 mentee through We Need Diverse Books. Both Tai’s Twitter and Instagram handles are @taionthefly.

bareback poetry for a prep age

Grab that chest fur.
Sit on that high school senior
who can prove he’s 18
when his mom’s not home,
comfort the attorney who can’t help himself,
the marine’s spit
still drying when his girl gets back –

It’s only 11am.

I zip my fly to play poet at a burlesque brunch.
Write erotica, they yammer,
as if that’s one thing.
But when I write sweat and saliva,
biceps and brutality, I can never be certain
if this a space is for nudity
or only nakedness.

As soon as the audience is drunk enough,
they leave.

Burlesque brunch is for married men and single women’s birthdays,
mirage of perky breasts and firm buttocks
for those who can look, but can’t touch,
and the drag queen folded in my brain says,
+++++++Sure, I’ll perform for you, but just
+++++++to remind you
+++++++that I, too, have power.

But even in this assertion of might,
there’s a core that remembers,
this world is not for us.
So the only way to be is to fight.

But – I’ve made a calling of chameleon, diplomat,
the dog rolling over to show his belly.

You don’t want the dog to have an erection,
do you?

Brian Sonia-Wallace, sometime poet, Writer in Residence for Mall of America, Amtrak Trains, the National Parks, and Dollar Shave Club. Seen skulking in the pages of The New York Times (“what secrets does he know that other writers do not?”) and The Guardian, infecting the Mississippi Review, HowlRound, LACMA Unframed, and LA County Arts Commission with his words. Search him out behind a typewriter at Google parties or Emmy screenings, making that cheddar, or teaching at UCLA (guest lecturer), 24th Street Theatre, or Get Lit.

When the woman says ‘but at least you can pass’

and I run my tongue against the inside of my cheek, tearing teeth
create blood pulp canvas/
and I look down at my manicure, shiny turquoise, middle and
ring finger scuffed on the NYC sidewalk/
and I take out my Medicare card on the bus so I can get a
discount because the check won’t be in for another four days/
and I get lost on the subway, wind up twenty-six blocks farther
than my destination,  forced into a cab/
and I stare at the menu, finally tell the server ‘the usual’ because
I’ve lost the words today/
and I get asked by another person on the bus if it was cancer,
or tell me how their loved ones beat “the big C”/
and I forget to refill the medications again, go through another
weekend withdrawal trip/
and the child in the supermarket stares at my picked apart face,
my cuticles no longer an acceptable release/
and all the knives in the house sing about my uneasy blood,
all the alcohol knows my soft spots/

and I look down at my imperfect self
wonder, pass for what?

SaraEve is a performance poet and epilepsy advocate from northeast New Jersey.  A 2015 Best of the Net nominee, she has performed for both local and national events, including the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles 2015 Care and Cure Benefit to End Epilepsy in Children and as a reader for Great Weather for MEDIA at the 2016 NYC Poetry Festival on Governors Island.  She is the author of You Must Be This Tall to Ride (Swimming With Elephants Publishing) and View from the Top of the Ferris Wheel (Clare Songbirds Publishing House).  Her third book, Trauma Carnival (Swimming with Elephants Publications), is due early 2019. She loves Instagram: @SaraEve41

The Birthday Cake

That day-old birthday cake in the fridge is feeling neglected. She didn’t ask for this. She wants more out of life than you’re willing to offer. She doesn’t want to grow mold while fighting off the advances of last week’s greasy chicken thighs (Who says things like, “How ’bout you and me take a ride?” and “Hey, baby, haven’t seen you round these chilly parts before”?) She is a delicious cake with a lot to offer, if only someone was willing to appreciate her after the candle smoke cleared.

That day-old birthday cake is considering searching for an in-network therapist, she imagines a kind, open-minded muffin of the blueberry variety—but on second thought, she figures she’ll wind up learning to express her needs from an unstable monologuing instant pudding cup, since the in-network therapists are always booked until next century’s nervous breakdown. She considers meditation, knows that it can open her heart to the world, but does she really want to open her heart? That is how she winds up getting hurt.

That day-old birthday cake is resenting you. She doesn’t know where she belongs. For one glistening evening, she was the star of the show—minus the birthday bitch, that is. Everyone gathered ’round and admired the birthday cake’s fluffy buttercream icing and crown of fresh strawberries. She fancied herself royalty, thanks to your mansplaining session about astrological charts in which you told your girlfriend with the sad smile that, according to your chart, you’d been someone famous in your past life—probably a member of royalty. Way to put that in the birthday cake’s sweet moist head. As if she doesn’t have enough going on.

That day-old birthday cake is currently wrapped sloppily in tin foil, a section of her side exposed to the cold fridge air. The fridge smells like rotten game and the tears of mothers. Speaking of which, call your mother. You know how she worries. Her mind jumps to icepick lobotomy within seconds of a missed call. She’ll probably fall over when you tell her that you made your girlfriend’s birthday cake from scratch. As an aside, you should avoid telling the day-old birthday cake that you’re her creator; her tiny saccharine world may implode, her crumbs spreading a light, crusty layer over the fridge’s occupants and quite possibly landing on a greasy chicken thigh, who of course assumes any attention is a come-on.

The day-old birthday cake shivers in her tin foil sleeping bag. The fridge’s thermostat is overworked, underpaid, and alas, is not regulating the temperature particularly well. He just wants to kick back and smoke a J, maybe play some Far Cry 5 and save the townsfolk from Eden’s Gate.

“Hey, darling, need someone to keep you warm?” clucks a chicken thigh, some of his slimy skin sliding down his side and landing on the plastic Tupperware bottom.

“Not if that someone is you,” the day-old birthday cake responds.

“Would it kill you to try something new?”

“Probably. Leave me alone, grease monster.”

“Hey now, what did I ever do to you?”

“Exist.”

“You’re just mad the Eaters don’t want you anymore,” he snickers, bitter about her rejection.

The day-old birthday cake stops responding. She can hear your heavy footsteps enter the kitchen. She smooths down her buttercream icing and shifts her positioning so that her freshest strawberry is facing the fridge door. She strikes a pose and holds her breath, waiting for you to give her a second chance. This can’t be all there is.

“They’re never gonna want youuuuu,” mocks the chicken thigh, trying to adjust his slipped-off skin like a bad toupee.

You open the fridge door and stare blankly inside, like all Eaters do, hoping to conjure up something delectable.

“Did you like the cake I made, babe?” you call to your girlfriend, who’s watching Mindhunter on the couch and repeating “fuck” to herself.

“Yeah, it was good, although I think I prefer chocolate,” she says, between profanities.

You huff a little, then peel the day-old cake’s tin foil up, stick your pointer finger in the icing, and give it a good no-shame lick. The day-old cake coos with pleasure. Yeah, more where that came from, please.

“I think I do too,” you admit, folding the foil back down over the day-old cake and grabbing a Magic Hat #9 from the shelf on the door.

The next time you see day-old cake, you don’t recognize her, because she is no longer day-old cake, but rather month-old cake. She is dejected. Her once beautiful body is covered in a thick layer of greenish-black mold. Her buttercream icing has lost its confidence and shape. You hold your nose while you lift her gently out of the fridge and into the trash bag your girlfriend is holding, arms outstretched to separate herself from the stench as much as possible. You don’t hear the cake’s gut-churning scream when she lands in the bottom of the bag.

In the dumpster, that month-old cake is reunited with a greasy chicken thigh, who compliments her new fuzzy green jacket, noting its similarity to his own. He says he’s been doing a lot of thinking and he’d like to start over as friends. The month-old birthday cake doesn’t have the energy to stay angry with him. She thinks about abandonment, the shape it takes and the power it holds. She wonders if anyone you’ve ever loved has thrown you away.

She rocks back and forth for a while. The chicken thigh asks if she’s okay. She sighs, but doesn’t respond. What’s left of his skin slouches a bit. Hours later, when she thinks he’s fast asleep, the month-old birthday cake confesses to the chicken thigh that she wishes she could close her eyes, sing a song, and make a wish on herself: that when she opened them everything would make sense again.

Marisa Crane is a lesbian writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, Jellyfish Review, Pidgeonholes, Pithead Chapel, Drunk Monkeys, Okay Donkey, Cotton Xenomorph, X-R-A-Y Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the co-founding editor of Collective Unrest, a political resistance magazine. She currently lives in San Diego with her wife. You can find her on Twitter @marisabcrane. 

Maggie O’Brian is a graphic designer living in Denton, Texas. She is currently attending UNT for a communication design major. Maggie loves to make zines and promotional flyers that support local artists in the Denton area. She is currently graphic designer and Editor in Chief for ARThaus, a nonprofit gallery based in Denton, TX that has the goal of being a supportive, inclusive art space for the Denton community. When she isn’t designing, she’s busy hugging her pup or feasting on Korean food. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @maggie_obrian

Mouth

I was born into a role filled with expectations rather than options. I was expected to capitalize god, only speak when spoken to, take piano lessons, help in the nursery, stuff newspapers into boxes, babysit to buy the trinkets I wanted from Claire’s, tithe, save myself for marriage, sit near the front in church, pull in the good grades, separate my lights and colors and darks, sing in the choir, shop clearance racks, joke using puns, attend baby showers and weddings, blush when sex is mentioned. Marry a man. Bear his children. Dote on them all. Eschew myself. Make Crockpot chicken. Sew wayward buttons back into place. Laugh at family sitcoms. Buy a home. Fill it with wooden knick-knacks from craft fairs. A dog wouldn’t hurt. Buy themed birthday presents. Hang a cross on a wall somewhere. Drive a responsible used car, best a Honda or Toyota. Send Christmas cards. Iron his shirts. Work a job to help with the finances. Make sure it offers decent health insurance. Don’t work a job, the kids need me at home. My husband is the head of the household. Never go to bed angry. Bite my tongue. Bite my tongue. Bite my tongue. Swallow the blood.

So, when my mouth first filled with want for a body and the body belonged to another girl, I lodged my secret in my tonsils. I kept it away from where it didn’t belong. I belonged by being someone who followed rules, orders, roles, orders. When I first wanted to kiss a pair of lips, they were light pink and sticky with gloss. Instead, I held hands with a boy whose palm could envelop my face. When my hormones and adolescent angst had compressed inside me like a clamped spring coil, I let a boy take my clothes off, watched the spots dance on the ceiling while his dick howled through my tight virginity. When I realized he had filled my womb, I called Planned Parenthood, panicked that although I held my secrets in my body, my body could blab them if I wasn’t more careful.

I wasn’t careful enough for the compiling secrets growing up required: one slipped away from me. But I could fix this me. When my boyfriend proposed I swallowed the no that climbed up my throat and said yes with a nod meant to convince myself. I loved him in a way. In a way where I felt cherished as I was: damaged and impure. I could fake this role. I would keep better track of my secrets, grow paranoid, feign purity. Wife wouldn’t suit me, but I could suit up inside it, stand tall.

Until I slumped over the wheel, seized. After a decade had passed of Crockpot meals and buying a house and bearing children again, this time to keep.

When I first lay next to a woman, it was twice my lifetime from when I had first longed to. Unlike everything before, it came easy to me. I simply went out to lunch one day and then out for coffee and then to a party and then to a play and soon, she was curled up next to me and I wanted it to stay that way. It was an option I had always ignored until suddenly, after a very long time, I realized I had choices. I could simply decline the role I had inherited that didn’t suit me. Life wasn’t one mole trap after another underneath one of my father’s upside-down five-gallon buckets in the front lawn.

It wasn’t.
It isn’t.
It can’t be.

Don’t take off the bucket; I don’t want anyone to see me caught like this, my neck clamped in metal jaws.

Holly Pelesky is a lover of spreadsheets, giant sandwiches, and handwritten letters. She holds an MFA from the University of Nebraska. She cobbles together gigs to get by while writing. She lives in Nebraska with her two sons.

the signs as things that have eaten me

ARIES: an absence, half-pronounced. one foot out the door, the other latching on to a fatherhood shaped like the same christmas gifts every year.

TAURUS: an unnamed guilt renamed after my sister & the time i heard her crying through the walls, unable to keep our world from falling apart— a lost goodbye.

GEMINI: a first flower. wishes spent on dandelions & hearing your hair whisper what a waste to the seeds caught in the winds.

CANCER: a running track, lanes streaked with tears & breathlessness. i never learned the word for not knowing how to fly.

LEO: a cricket’s song in the pines. birds released to the hunt— an impossible liberation. marble betrayal in the cold. there’s never anywhere left to flee.

VIRGO: a cut-off tongue diving down a raspy throat. promise to wear my leather jacket when we meet again, if only you wear your porcelain teeth.

LIBRA: an ovarian cyst full of sleeplessness & hope. left hands rubbing sidewalk chalk off the dark side of the moon. eyes that obey the tide & look away too fast.

SCORPIO: a hollowed-out ghost knocking against the porch. too much candy to fill the holes drilled into my sorrow bones.

SAGITTARIUS: a forgotten pencil sharpener. lines that run deep around lips pulled too tight. a single black hoodie hanging on the skeleton of those who never dared to exist.

CAPRICORN: a handful of dirt thrown into a well. bottles strewn across the floorboards of a dimly lit garage. winter is the truest stereotype of bitter warmth.

AQUARIUS: a jacuzzi filled with snow. a cabin in the lost fogs of forgetting— lighting fire to the palms of our feet to see who ran away the farthest.

PISCES: a phone call to the cops. eighty-two birds screeching through the glass about poetry. a secret spelled out in smoke.

Caroline Grand-Clement is a seventeen years old, half-time poet, half-time student at an international school in Lyon, France. She dreams of art in any form, falling stars & late night conversations. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beyond the Shallows, an anthology by L’Ephemere Review, Rose Quartz Journal, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram @octopodeshearts.