Welcome to
Let’s Stab Caesar!

Improvisation: llanto or 왼揆꼇돤 (1)

Janet Jiahui Wu

demivirgin anxiety shits into the quarter-queue
no proportion or plan measure censure belt and pain
what furnace drenches the products of the world
pensions menopauses itemizers fronds flats fans
frog ponds at what point do seasons and blood
and salt mélange into one turn of the head or one
turn of the screwy life one turn and DEAD! what regrets!
dawns and days democratic freedoms tariffs questionnaires
sisters of soldiers clay and space gods and dozens of change 
below the bottles rung flung bunged columns stand to the right
and to the left the circles complete là-bas under the box
of matches what grandeur of the behinds of animals elegiac
effaces dupes rapes roasts cuts minces spits on our lips!
this endive estranges us culture enslaves us gates to heavens
close upon our hands reaching and clam shut on our fingertips!
for lack of force vigor virile strength lost through touching
OURSELVES we clutch the ivy and poison our neighbours—
without defence without phones in hand without schedule
we are disarmed 
leaves that died from last autumnal anguish that tickles our femurs 
ghosts that spring up from seats and benches at the seedy metros
innocent animals plants women and babes that died without murmurs
to what funny foxtrots do we subscribe and like and click click click
at whose funeral do we burn the PLASTIC pyre?
sleep anywhere frozen tufts of hair armpits lice elbows prisons that arc in the sky
waters trickle upon the house auctioneer’s bowtie polka dots
garrisons train stations beacons castles peoples fountains leaking shit-coloured mud
potholes getting bigger and bigger and BETTER alas the pothole PROGRESSES!
ECONOMIC FREEDOM IS THE NEW SLAVERY
infidels pawing the knees of girls in short skirts (uncles)
lance through chest and knife in the back (law & order in wigs lol drinking vodka)
the paintings and sculptures sneer at the erect nipples, hard cored foamscrumbs beans cloudy substances smearing in our trousers and undergarments
indecent obscene fabricated impure blood! oh what the HACK—
RISE UP, YOU WHO NO LONGER WANT TO BE FREE! 
the intrinsic moment passes, intrigues die, enjambments
lose their charms, matrons slap children and missiles
race through man-seeded clouds— (desert wind— skull sucking cigar
camel piss, SAND INTO GLASS INTO BOTTLES INTO 
SAND AGAIN
the time is now
NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW AGAIN THE PAST CATCHES
NO ONE
the snow is BOMB and sublime RADIOACTIVE cosmos
bridges are monumental TRIBUTE TO SELF
trees eulogies space picnics VEGAN LAMBSHANKS
East and West
FUCKING ON A BED
how idyllic the cow horns
the apples the naked angel’s milk engulfing EVERY LAST MAN . . .
let’s drink! let’s eat! let’s fuck! let’s try something new! FEMINISTS!
go instrumental delete the tempo all together shoot the doves shoot the pacifists let’s stay strong read and reread Nietzsche BARTHES & FOUCAULT. . .
poets repeat after me
SLAVERY IS THE NEW FREEDOM LET THE WORD BE ENSLAVED LET THE POEM BE UNBORN LET THE POEM CRAWL BACK TO THE WOMB AND DIE DROWNING IN PHLEGM AND SPIT—
the poets smoke the poets talk too much
according to NUMERICALS 80% of poets are suffocated by their own words 

CASKETS FOR LETTERS!

COFFINS FOR LINES!

URNS FOR SPACES!

PLOTS FOR TIME!

1984 is old
man
us postmoderns we have surpassed the supermen . . .
it’s okay to be sentimental now and lament

Quebranto! Quebranto! Quebranto!

because when else?
if not 
now? (2)

(1) In Spanish: crying/weeping; in Chinese: kū xiào bù dé / can neither cry nor laugh.

(2) Additional line in Chinese: 現瞳꼇꾸劍／痂麼時빅꾸？(xiàn zài bú cào ta/ shěn mé shí hòu cào?)
Translation: if not fuck it now, when fuck?

Testament to St. CLaudine de CUlam

Connor Turon

Meg Ryan, America’s Sweetheart has ate
you out, from the inside-out.
The tree branches get tired and wilt
like squeezed toothpaste, and you
cry like someone murdered your pet fish.
(O’ Jane Fonda! O’ Earth Mother! tra la la)
Meg Ryan when you roll a ball
of your earwax between your thumb and forefinger
it is a war crime.
We all just wanted you to make sense!
I could shit on your knees
and make you smile,
you are getting too old for
my Dad to fuck anyway.
Meg Ryan, America’s Sweetheart has ate
you out, from the inside-out.

Hard-body-blondes
where have you gone,
nineteen and as tight as
The Sharper Image cutlets?
Where have you gone,
those vacuum packaged buttocks?

Fibonacci rabbits beneath a concrete ceiling

Yumedyne

(((pour cement down the rabbit hole)))
imagine the elders and their young 

blindly cleaving one another
as the roiling mass rings itself of brains
and oxygen
mercy forgotten as blood drips warm
into their useless eyes
the deafening shrieks and the tearing of 
limbs
what is an arm?
a leg ?
an eye  ?
a womb   ?
when an invisible force bears down in the serpentine dark
down where the panic lives
there are no exits
only bodies
an endless sea of white-eyed kits
choking on fluids and viscera
dung and stench
indiscernable sounds
punctuated with unbreakable silence.

does it remind you of what we are?
because rest assured, my long-eared fellow:
I’d eat my own children if I could see the Sun again.

Once it Almost ate me alive

Sanja Vasić

An excerpt from Tell Me Have You Ever Seen the Giant?

One summer night, my Grandma—that petite woman with deep blue eyes and calves like toothpicks—stood  in the middle of the white plateau of our house and started slapping her own face vigorously, pulling her  hair, and screaming at the top of her lungs. Then she suddenly stopped, left the house, and went towards the forest. 

She was wearing my favorite nightgown—baby blue, translucent, long—hovering a few millimeters above the  grass, making her look like a phantom, as it swiped gently across the surface. Yet she walked with such determination, slowly disappearing into the depths of our back garden. I was following her—I was following  her alone—I was afraid. But I knew no one else would do it instead of me, so I was pacing—with quick,  determined steps—the grass was high, tickling my knees—the cesspit was nearby—and the side edges of our  property were fuzzy and wrapped in the elastin of total darkness. 

I was following her, passing through the rows of onions, tomatoes, squishing them on the ground, tearing bits  of parsley and basil along the way. I was following her until we reached the point where the garden ended—where Grandma paused a few feet in front of me. Right there on the edge of the forest, at the borderline  where we were flowing into the other—where all the words were disappearing, stuck to the thick layers of  vegetation and humidity—right there she paused. I heard her deep and strange breathing. She stood in front,  with her back towards me, and when I got a little closer, I saw that she was bent forward, both her hands on her thighs—while her head was hanging upside down between her scrawny legs: swaying left–right–left-right like a pendulum. Through her harmonious movements, I caught a glimpse of her blurred eyes.  And in that moment, absolute silence enveloped us— I knew that in the world there were only me and  her and the delicate thread of sanity that was separating us. And I wanted to step forward, reach out, and  touch her. I wanted to calm her down, to say that everything would be fine, just to be there for her. I was paralyzed, but somehow managed to utter a question: “Grandma, are you okay?” 

At that moment I heard loud reverberating sounds coming from inside the forest: 

Screams, squeals, yelps, and howls. 

In the flood of dissonant sounds, I discerned a familiar one. 

That screech.  

From the depths of the depths. 

A cry for help—I knew it was coming from my Grandma. 

And as tears started welling up, I made out the words: 

“Do not come any closer.” 

From the other side of the garden, I noticed a beam of light coming from the direction of the house—my uncle  had finally found a flashlight and began to search for his lost mother. The artificial light enchanted me, and I proceeded to amble back towards the house, without looking back. I went in, climbed upstairs, and lay down  

in my bed. Soon after, my mom’s head popped out through the open door to tell me—It’s not my fault; none of  that was ever my fault… 

🗡

Once our family had a little lamb. It was smaller than its siblings, black with a white spot on the top of its  head, and on one occasion during play it got injured and broke the front left leg. Grandma named her Milica, separated her from the rest of the herd, brought her into the warm kitchen, and made her a crib there out of a small crate right next to the old wood stove. She wrapped her leg in bandages and fed her with a baby bottle. Milica loved to cuddle and spent a lot of time with cats and puppies that were always around Grandma’s legs. However, she was growing and recovering quickly. My grandma took her back to the herd with a heavy heart, and afterwards watched her secretly over the wooden fence as she ran with the other sheep, slowly reintegrating into their company. A few years later, when the family gathered for  Christmas lunch, mutton was on the menu. We tore off chunks of meat with our fingers and threw them into their white ceramic plates decorated with thin gold rims and faded pictures of lilacs. I leaned over to pick a meaty chunk for myself, when my mother suddenly screamed, her eyes transfixed upon her plate. 

There were small pieces of meat in it, with a protruding bone in their midst, on which the line from the  fracture was clearly visible. I looked back at my empty plate and muttered softly: “Grandma, why did you kill Milica?” 

My mother rose and screamed across the table. 

“Mom, why did you kill Milica?” 

Grandma was just staring at her daughter with her watery blue eyes. 

It was cold outside, the air was clear, and the frost clung to the windowpanes, blurring the view of the  garden. 

Then she glanced at the table and said, as if to herself:  

“Just shut up and eat.”

Untitled #70

Pasmur Rachuiko

every night on the smoking benches i ratwatch

Geyl Wells

because there are no birds in Seattle.
Their tails the texture of my grandmother’s skin
drag across the pavement. The pounding
of their paws.
The heartbeat of a city. I think

about everyone I love somehow
dying tonight.
How I would stack their bodies up like a monument,
and the rats would take turns
racing to the top, take turns
ripping flesh from bone.

I know what it’s like to be so hungry.

Every night on the smoking benches I ratwatch
and get so high I recite the entire plot
of Flowers for Algernon to no one.

You’re so pathetic, you’re so pathetic
says the big one with brown spots down his spine.
You’re so pathetic, you’re so pathetic
says the rat eating bagel crumbs from the palm of my hand.
You’re so pathetic, you’re so pathetic
says my toilet-water reflection

after I finally go inside and remind myself
what it once felt like to be ravenous.

Untitled

Sydney Sebastian

Sugarwater

Abby Holgerson

Petrichor and Pluviophiles

R. T.

Feel it lick; tiny pins
And pricks of cold,
Coming down. Perhaps
A gentle tap or successive
Pats, pittering and trickling
In rivers that caress hot skin.

The heaviness swells,
A thick smell supplants
The perfumes of plants and
Flowers. The scent of fertile
Places from the earth’s skin
Permeates in waves,
Washing away as bodies ­­—
Heavenly — roll and heave, flow
To crescendo of that
White-hot spark as steam arcs
And pops in percussive
Screams of release.

Opening wide the flow plunges,
Expunged from home. Shooting,
Careening towards hard wood and
Slippery stones, it runs in rivulets,
In streams that meander and seep
Into fresh puddles. It cleans away

The sludge and grime of
Dry hours and time passed,
Lifting spirits in its wake as
It leaves its participants reborn.

Two wrestlers reconcile after the show

Yuval Katz

Pseudo Teeth

Ariel Yisrael

Why did birds let go of their teeth? And the myth that a human can bite off their finger without even trying. They should be swimming around in the hollow confines of their jaws. Bumping into their pseudo edges. Gnawing into a chicken bone to test themselves. They should be fingering the food stuck in the back of their throats. Until the tooth splinters into the gums. And its pieces fall onto the table at dinner, while I’m out with what used to be my closest friends. Eat steak so raw it’s sitting in a well of its own red life. Dole out fleshy carrots and lamb stew. Tremble at the head while they force the door open and suck it apart. And laugh at their child’s uncalloused tongue. Hold a lover’s finger in between my teeth. Brush away a tear. And chew off the final bone. Touch their lips to my own before I pop the joint right open. Watch it hang because I couldn’t get it clean off. Watch the ring slip down it limply.

Changeling Kid

Mary Cregan

Bound Bone 1 & 2

Kat Smith

Fishing

Maria-leonora cabiles

I could be more honest:
there are things I would rather forget
would rather push farther and farther
into that familiar darkness

pretend they aren’t pulsing.

What I feel for you is squishy and alive,
writhing in defiance at being pulled towards something so close,
so on the verge of being known.

I want to take the hook out and gut it,
feel the blade graze its soft underbelly
through the handle of the knife—
see the way it shivers at your touch,
its glossy eyes pointed at you,
gasping—
pleading for its release.

I want to hold it in my hands
and feel the weight of Longing—
this sharp and painful beauty—
I am too focused on what’s beneath the flesh to call it by name
it’s only when I felt something caught and pulled,
felt the hook tear through parts I didn’t know I had,
that I examined myself,
on the table,
laid bare.

Skewed Diamond

Thaïs Lenkiewicz

Requiem in A Minor

Kelly Wu

Yankee candle stages of Abstraction

ded really

BLACK CHERRY              Level 1 

The scent represents a physical object. The object’s aroma is one of its distinct properties and is identifiable to a large and general audience. 

THE LAST PARADISE                Level 4 

The scent represents an event with an intrinsic property. This temporal aroma is not linked to a location or any objects (but a shared idea is still understood). 

ALL IS BRIGHT               Level 7 

The scent represents only an intrinsic property. That property has no physical form, nor aroma, nor ability to interact with aromas of any other objects. 

SWEET NOTHINGS               Level Ω 

The scent represents a total abstraction divorced from space, time or materiality. The absence of any real world referent is in fact part of the aroma. 

MELLASOUIX’S SPOOKY LOVE TRIANGLE               Level Æ 

By performing a thought experiment outside of time, the scent proves the necessary existence of the impossible viewpoint. The fanged noumena shudders with the recognition that the scent can now claim access to the Real. Fear spreads like wildfire through the hearts of men. The Old Ones have returned. 

CHAOS REIGNS               Level Ø 

Scent walks alone along the trail encircling the bandits encampment. The smell of gunmetal fills her nostrils as she grips and holds up against her cheek the modified revolver she stole from the half-burnt and rotting corpse of the Chaplain on the school steps. As she thinks of the man who had caused her so much pain and humiliation from such a young age yet ultimately died an agonising and diabolical death at the hands of her followers, she asks herself if he really deserved it. She’ll think twice about going all Gaddafi on her enemies in the future—after all, satisfying the bloodlust of the abused, abandoned, and betrayed queers she’d trained into notorious militia was only a means, not an end-in-itself. What is the end anyway and when is it coming? They said all over the media during the weeks prior to the insurrection that the end was nigh and the public had lapped it up. What followed was a spectacular feat of coordination and command that made the Cultural Revolution look like a game of cops-and-robbers, especially when they gave all those Young Christian League fucks nerve agent tipped dartguns. It was like those fascists knew they had to trump every genocidal act of cruelty previously known to man if they were going to win the hearts and minds of the Australian public. “Why couldn’t those Rayban-wearing Mumford cunts just be happy with their craft beer festivals?,” she internally mutters to herself (and whoever else is listening to her implant this time of night). The jury’s still out on whether Ben’s piggy-backing technoempathy strategy is going to work. She doesn’t trust that UniMelb kid as far as she could toss his fat ego but, unfortunately, Ben won the day by conceding a 5% share of the profits from the OnlyFans could go back to the party members to use for personals. Now reaching the spot she pointed out to Kirbs on the platform earlier, she worries that using all this web stuff puts them at risk of sabotage by tech companies. After all, how difficult could it be for some engineer in Palo Alto or Mumbai to move a few pixels around on the data array, making it look like there was a clear exit route when it was actually blocked by a fallen tree? This is how paranoid she has to be all of the time just to stay alive and she resents it. They said it was the end for sure but she and the others knew it was just more of the same except now repackaged in black-chromed paramilitary garb and Kings of Leon t-shirts. The pundit class suspected witchcraft early on but when that crew in Bristol kidnapped JK, tortured her with knives and pliers and hung her flesh, cut into strips like ornamental ribbon, from the gates of Buckingham Palace, the public conversation shifted from witchcraft to antifa terrorism—a useful cover for her coven to prevent their growing list of demonic alliances from getting out. Now things are looking up—Gyøœmlēk promised them that if they can bring her three hundred pairs of testicles and the bleeding hearts of their owners for her new jewelry enterprise then she’ll unleash her minions of the city. Jeezus, whose idea was it to introduce ancient, shapeshifting succubi to the Etsy market? Probably Ben—that guy was certainly full of ideas. He’s probably sitting there on her shoulder, getting himself off to her innermost thoughts right now, the creepy cunt. After the three men in the bandit camp they’ll only need one more sacrifice. Ben certainly talks a big talk about how they all have to ‘put their bodies on the line for the party’—perhaps it’s time for him to put his kahunas where his mouth is? She could order it if she wanted—but the thing with the Chaplain has left her feeling less easy about exercising ruthless and bloody vengeance than she was in the early days. The thought makes her chuckle just loud enough that one of the bandits hears her and spins around. Her cover is blown—it’s now or never. Scent flicks off the safety and starts pounding hollow-tipped, German-forged metal into the back of their skulls. It reminds her of that video of the reality TV contestant and the watermelon that she saw years ago. That thought amplifies her sly chuckle into a wicked cackle. And at that moment she realises she is truly enjoying herself, and fully present with her own body and her own emotions for the first time in her life. If this is indeed the end, it certainly feels like the beginning of whatever is coming next is gradually bringing itself into being at moments like this. As she removes the first headless corpse’s belt, flicks open her knife with one hand and undoes the zipper with the other, she has an ‘aha!’ moment. Scent realises what that essential flavour she wants to introduce to Tyrrjål’s spring collection will be: Airborne Arterial Blood.

Raft of the mikusa (After Géricault)

Jordan Homstad

Young Lady

Kristin H. Sample

Long Island, 1992

I.

It’s my sister’s birthday party today. 

A pool party. 

Her birthday is in July and that’s why she always has better bathing suits than me. 

I wake up to find a red stain on my sheets. My mother told me this would happen. But knowing doesn’t make it less gross. Or terrifying. When I go to the bathroom, I see globs of blood in the water. And it takes so much toilet paper to feel like I’m clean. 

When I tell my mother, she gives me a pad. The sani pad is awful. Like I’m a teenager and I’m wearing a diaper. Nothing like the woman in white jeans on the box. She looks happy. 

She clearly doesn’t have her period. 

Now my lower back hurts. And my stomach hurts. But not like I have to go to the bathroom. A new kind of hurt. 

So… I cry. I cry for my mother. 

If I wear this diaper she gave me, I can’t go in the pool today. Everyone will know that I got my period. 

My mother says I can use a tampon. She asks if I want her in the bathroom while I put it in. 

No, absolutely not. 

Okay, okay, my mother backs away. She doesn’t scold me for having a tone, which is also weird. 

My mother stands outside the bathroom door and gives me instructions on how to put this cotton and cardboard thing inside myself. 

So, you put it in and then you push the bottom part of the cardboard through the top part. 

What? That makes no sense, mom! 

Okay, Liz. Put your foot up on the bathtub so you can see what you’re doing.  

I do it. 

Now put the tampon in, my mother says. She’s trying really hard to keep her voice calm. 

I put it in. About an inch. Nothing. Nothing has ever been in there. So, I have no idea how far up my own body goes. 

Okay, it’s in. I yell back through the door. I’m calmer now, but we are not out of the woods yet. 

Okay, Liz. Good. Now there’s two cardboard cylinders. That’s called the applicator. Put the bottom piece through the top and that…

My upper lip sweats. The top of my stomach seizes. I can’t find my breath. Mom! That makes no sense! Stop confusing me! 

This scene erupts into crying and my mother loses her patience. Finally, she says, Unlock the door, young lady! If you want to go in the pool today, you have to let me show you how to use a tampon. 

I weigh my options. The humiliation of my mother coming in the bathroom is far less than the humiliation of all the party guests knowing why I’m not swimming today. Plus, my father heated the pool. 

Okay, I say. 

I take a deep breath, pull up my pants, and unlock the door. 

My mother brings two new Tampax. Okay, Liz, watch. I won’t stay in here while you put it in. But I want to show you how the applicator works. 

My mother shows me exactly where to put my fingers. She holds the applicator in front of my face and shows me how to push one part through the other. 

Then you put the cardboard in a tissue and through it in the garbage, she explains. And when you want to take the tampon out, my mother continues, you pull the string. But if you put it in right, you won’t even feel the tampon. 

She gives me a hug. Okay, I’m going back downstairs and to set up for the party. Let me know if you need help. 

When she leaves, I put the tampon in. It’s easy. And it’s like I’ve worn a tampon a million times. And when I swim, I don’t feel it at all. And I take some Advil for the cramps. 

I’m a woman. 

I also understand why my father seems a little afraid of my mother sometimes. And I understand why boys are nervous when they talk to girls. And they have to be in a group to feel comfortable talking to a girl. 

Girls are scary. 

You should be scared of something that bleeds for four days and doesn’t die. 

II.

I have a sleepover at Molly’s house tonight. Me, Molly, and this other girl. One of Molly’s friends from her dance class or softball team or something. 

Meeting new people isn’t my thing. I’m realizing lately that I have certain things that are not my thing. And meeting someone at a sleepover sounds downright awful. Like having a double ear infection and having to do two rounds of antibiotics. That’s two weeks of chalky, pink amoxicillin. That happened to me once.

Why do parents think it’s a great idea to throw girls in a room together and tell us to make friends and then sleep in the same room and then have breakfast together the next morning?

My mother tells me about the third wheel, Molly’s friend just moved to another town too. She’s lonely in her new town and she and Molly used to be best friends. Try to be understanding, Liz.

It makes me angry to hear about Molly being best friends with someone else. But I’m also embarrassed that I’m angry. Obviously, Molly can have other friends. And obviously, she had plenty of them before I came along. 

But we both agree—Molly and me—that we are the bestest friends each other will ever have.

My mother goes on, You know, Liz, you and this other girl have something in common. 

What? 

Well, you both just moved and you’re the same age. You can talk about it. 

We can talk about being almost thirteen?

My mother keeps folding laundry like she didn’t just say the most absurd thing ever. Why would I talk to this other girl about how much I hated moving from Elmont to Malverne? She isn’t a guidance counselor. 

I start walking upstairs. 

Liz, my mother called me back, it will be okay. 

I know. I know, Mom. 

And it is okay. When I get to Molly’s house, I look around and the other girl isn’t here. I don’t ask Molly or her mother about it because I don’t want to seem like I care. But when we get up to Molly’s room, there is no third bed. Only Molly’s bed and a trundle made up for me. 

Where should I put my stuff? 

Oh, anywhere, sweetie. 

Molly’s mom points to the trundle bed, Is this okay for you? Better than a sleeping bag, right? There’s just the two of you tonight. Kaitlin has strep throat. So, I thought, instead of doing sleeping bags in the basement, I’d just have you sleep up here. 

Poor Kaitlin. I think I should say something like that. But my heart nearly does a backflip in my chest. Relief mixed with joy. Molly and I get to hang out tonight and tomorrow morning all by ourselves. 

I have a great time. We eat pizza and talk and eat chips and talk and eat ice cream and talk. And when we can’t eat anymore because we are stuffed like Thanksgiving turkeys and we can’t talk anymore because our mouths are tired, we watch TV in the basement. 

I can hear Molly’s parents upstairs talking and cleaning up the kitchen. 

Then Molly says, Hey, you want to see something crazy? 

What?

She goes behind the TV and pulls out the cable box. 

What are you doing? 

Shh!

I walk over to see Molly fiddling with a switch on the back of the cable box. 

You know how we always have good movies and boxing fights on? 

Yeah.

There are tons of parties at Molly’s house. And they always have on some boxing match or some other glitzy, brutal fighting happening in Las Vegas. A new kind. Not quite karate. It’s called UFC. And UFC means there are no rules and the fighters fight in a cage shaped like an octagon.

Molly puts the cable box back and jumps back on the couch. I wonder if we are about to watch a UFC fight. 

We have all those things because we get free Pay-per-view.

What?

Shh! Her shush is a little louder this time. But she’s got the biggest smile on her face. 

Liz, we get free pay-per-view. It’s why we can watch movies like way before they come out at Blockbuster. 

I always wondered about that. 

Then I pause. And I think for a moment. Pay-per-view isn’t free like all the other tv shows. That’s why I have to ask my father whenever WrestleMania is on and I want to watch it. And he says no because it costs fifty dollars. 

Molly, I say, is that an illegal cable box? 

She smiles and nods. I’m immediately excited. Strategies form in my head—how do I get my parents to get an illegal cable box? My father won’t even steal a stapler from the electric company.  With summer coming up soon, free pay-per-view will make me and my sister fight so much less at home. 

So, what movie are we going to watch? Is that why you had to turn that switch? 

No, you have to turn the switch if you want to watch the adult channel. 

The Playboy channel? 

My eyes must have been as wide as pizza pies because Molly started laughing hysterically. 

Yeah, the Playboy channel. 

Molly scrambles over pillows and covers to reach the coffee table. She grabs the remote. 

I don’t stop her. I should stop her. I am a few months older. I should point out that we could get in big trouble for watching the Playboy channel. But she might think I’m not cool. And, if I’m being honest, I really want to see what happens on that channel. 

Molly pushes the buttons on the remote. I see the channels creep upward. There’s like ten pay-per-view channels. And White Men Can’t Jump is playing and I kind of want to see it, but that doesn’t matter right now because we are going to watch the Playboy channel.  

There’s no turning back. 

We get there.

 It’s a lady sitting on couch—the couch is velvet and has rhinestones all over it. She has big blonde hair, and smoky eyes, and very red lips. She’s talking to a man who sits next to her. Like an interview. Except the woman has on lingerie. And spikey heels.

I’ve never seen a bra like that, Molly says. 

I giggle. That’s what all my bras look like, I reply. 

We both double over and laugh. 

Molly looks me up and down. Liz, she says, your boobs would never fit in that bra. 

We laugh again. And I know it’s meant in fun—a compliment even. Lots of girls comment on my boobs and they seem jealous. But they have no idea. My boobs are annoying, and they make feel self-conscious. 

Hey, Molly continues, it’s a good problem to have. 

She smiles coyly and I smile back. 

The screen is a little blurry and we keep the volume low. We can’t hear what they are saying. Boring. So, what? I think it myself. The Playboy channel is just a lady dressed in underwear talking to an old man. Who cares about either of them? And I’ve seen underwear like that before. Sometimes I look at the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue before my mother throws it out. 

Molly and I turn off the TV and chat some more. She shows me the safe her parents have in their basement. Right by the laundry machines. 

They have cash in there, Molly says. Then we go upstairs to the kitchen. It’s all clean now and Molly’s parents are in bed. She takes out the Redi-Wip and we take turns spraying whipped cream directly into each other’s mouths. 

I can’t believe we watched the Playboy channel, I say to Molly as we are lying in the dark. 

Me either. 

III.

What happens when the half-naked woman is finished with the interview with the old guy? Do they have sex? I need another sleepover at Molly’s. 

IV.

Molly and I are in the basement at her house again. It’s late and my parents are upstairs in the kitchen drinking wine with Molly’s parents.  They are talking loudly about colleges and how much they cost and how you have to save up for years. 

But it’s an investment, I hear my father say.

I can’t help myself. I want to see the Playboy channel again. Molly clearly has the same idea. She goes right behind the TV to flip the switch on the illegal cable box. I pick up the remote and lower the volume. 

I use an announcer voice and say, We’re goin’ down.

This time there is a movie on. 

A movie where people have sex and they show everything. 

I’ve seen kissing and sex in movies before. And my mom let me watch Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour. She recorded it when it was on HBO. So, I know about being sexy. And I know how babies are made. 

From my mother. 

From Aunt Lyla.

From health class, too. 

But this sex is different. And I feel different watching it. 

The volume is so low, but I can still hear the sounds. I’m glad it’s low. I don’t want to hear the moaning any louder. I should not be watching this. But how I can take my eyes off it? 

They kiss with tongues out and wrapping around each other. He’s kisses her nipples and other places too. And staying there for a long time. 

Then there’s a blow job. I know what this is. I knew since like fifth grade when Corey Powers explained it to me at lunch. Using a hot dog. 

The blow job lasts so long. And all they show is the girl’s face. And she almost chokes but seems happy about it. Just when I think we should turn it off, they start actually…doing it. 

Molly and I lean forward. I can’t see her eyes, but I’m pretty sure they are as wide as mine. 

It’s disgusting and elegant at the same time. Their limbs intertwining, the sweat on his face, her closed eyes. It’s all so nimble and intense and almost cruel. 

We watch for a few more minutes. I’m in disbelief at how long this goes on. And then I see something I wish I could unsee for months to come. 

The man ejaculates in the woman’s face. I know what that word means from health class. But it’s horrifying to see it defined so graphically. So specifically. 

I’m horrified. And I think the woman is too, but she doesn’t let it show. The man’s face looks like he’s in agony but also like if he felt this feeling all the time… it would be okay. 

After we learned about reproduction in health, we had to carry around a five-pound sugar bag that was our “baby” for the week. That sugar baby was funny. It didn’t make me think that sex was a bad thing. 

But this scene. The translucent white syrup webbed all over her face and hanging off her eyelashes is enough to keep me off dating or sex until I’m thirty. 

The Marriage Masque

Abby Holgersen

Jingle Balls

Andrew Ketcham

When I was 17 I had sex with a mall Santa
who gave me my second set of crabs.

The first were hermetic and won at a
church carnival in my high school parking lot.

They died in half as many weeks
and left hollow shells the smell of wet foreskin.

I had never meant to make myself a biome.
Only to learn how warm flesh could burn

from friction.

Perverts (fig. 9)

Paul Coombs

Blind eye

Psychosurrealism

A Penis Boot

Narting tadoo

His family had requested that a boot be placed in the town square to collect the tips of well-wishers.

What had happened, I wondered? We all knew he had been in the hospital. He was a fireman, a saver of lives in a shiny yellow helmet. The boot in the town square was said to be his own.

How sadly did I recall the loss of Kemal’s plastic knee boots in a busy Dhaka marketplace. Plastic boots fetched quite a sum in Dhaka in the mid-90s, a man’s knees, his feet, much less.

Why then did Kemal, a poet/fighter and presenter of mid-range intensive “hairy man” bondage videos at international summits, protest? Surely, if he had not, the masked men would not have cut off his feet and fed them to the fat leper we called Big Nar Nar.

As I contemplated this boot and its chilly emptiness, bereft of well-wishing tips, I thought of my friend Kemal’s missing feet fed to Big Nar Nar the leper.

Overwhelmed by such a sad and distressing reminiscence, I upended the bottle of Seagram’s gin I carried with me on my evening strolls and with watchful precision cut off my penis with an X-ACTO knife that had once belonged to the deceased great American actor Christopher Reeve.

In the morning, as you may have guessed, the townspeople found the fireman’s boot empty of dollars but with a miraculous gift inside—my bloody penis stump!

After counting to nine, I emerged from the town rubbish heap to great astonishment and introduced myself to the inquiring firemen and even the mayor himself.

Fire

Peter Mladinic

An ash blew from a pipe bowl
on a dry windy day in an open field,
a space big enough for the ash to flame
the field in no time.
Covered wagons, horses, cows, houses
perished. People
picked up what they could and dashed
however they could to escape the flames.
The fire wiped out stores, churches,
a school, and history could tell us more,
if accounts are accurate.
Names of those who died, whose fields
were destroyed,
whose cows, are written
on a page in a bound book on a shelf
in a home owned by a woman whose
grandfather died in the fire,
an elderly woman who never met her
grandfather
but was told her father’s father and mother
stood, the mother holding her small son’s
hand as their house
burned to timbers and ash
but not before
the husband-father ran in and
never came out. Things got out of control
quickly. People knew him.
They knew the men manning hoses to quell
the flames that had spread to stores
and houses.
The smoker’s house was far away enough
so the flames
couldn’t reach it. No one blamed him
for the fire yet he blamed himself
years after the woman
who has the book with the names was born.

Ghost Faces

Roma Taylor

Odile and the plum pool

True Skalde

This Sunday I am 15 and ripping my toenail off
Blood pooling under the skin
A plum pool

I can feel it wanting to detach from my adolescent body
I tear it off slowly as to hush the pangs
A silent severance

A shot of apple cider vinegar, a bag of microwave popcorn, and a palmful of blueberries
My Sunday sustenance refuses to be tethered
The vinegar is seething its way up my esophagus

Later I will soak the foot of my tights in my mother’s sink
Shout and Dawn
I’ll scrub and scrub and scrub
Till the water runs from crimson to clear on the porcelain curve
I hold my toenail in my balmy palm for just a moment

It looks like a seashell found in the ebb of the tide near my home in Chick’s Beach
Rigid
Lilac
With a sheen shimmering under a virgin moon

I bandage myself and lace up my shoe
I ensure the ribbons are secure
I throw my toenail in the dressing room wastebin
There are two other toenails already lying limp
I wonder what stage of growth their owner’s ivory tusks are in

It’s time to take to the barre
There is a grouping of hair on the left side of my temple pulling too tightly at my bun
A headache takes its opening position
I’ve already swallowed 5 tylenols today
The pain is like a tiny screw slowly turning and turning into a wall
A portrait of myself is hanging
Someone has painted the vein of my forehead erect and painfully cerulean

You can count my ribs through my leotard
One by one
5,6,7,8!
Three times
They are all there
They are staring back at me through the mirror
They prod at my skin in the shape of a scythe

One day I’m sure, they will all protrude and burst through my alabaster skin
Splattering the mirror
My heart still pumping
My veins gushing

I am wearing my black wrap skirt
I hope Miss Ana doesn’t take notice
I drank a six pack of beer at the party last night
I made out with Andrew Altmann in the vegetable garden
A tomato exploded on my foot
My stomach holds the beer and the butterflies still

I pray Miss Ana doesn’t see it
I pray she is too consumed with Lacey’s wrist

Lacey is taller than I am
Paler than I am
Blonder than I am
Thinner than I am
She wears Freeds and I wear Gaynor Mindens
She is better than I am

Lacey’s wrist is bandaged
Medical grade
A plum line soaks the checks of the gauze

If Miss Ana is too consumed with the plum pool,
she won’t scream at my beer belly
I don’t wish to think of Lacey

Her rosy robe
Her blush bathroom
Her father’s silver razor
and the bleached part of her forearm

But it distracts my brain away from all the various pains
running rampant
around my juvenile body

The rose and blush soothes me
I notice Miss Ana’s red toe talon seeking severance

She slowly tears the nail from the glue
exposing her true brittle nail to the world
She doesn’t throw it in the wastebin
She fondles it
Holds it to her nose
Inhales the cheesy perspiration and lacquered acrylic
She smacks her lips
She sets it on a stack of Pygmalion and Gisele CD’s
She will take it back to the salon off Virginia Beach Boulevard and have the girl glue it back on

This antagonizes her
For a fleeting moment you can see a flare flash in her eyes
Rehearsal will be made strenuous
Whips from her Cuban tongue will lash the bones on our shoulders

She will bathe us in our own lassitude,
attempting to scrub the mediocrity off of our limbs
She will have us do the Odile variation
32 fouettés
We will bleed

What a Sunday
to lose a toenail!

Jael & Judith

Keely mclavin

Madonna at the carnival

Elias Diakolios

She and her husband have been trying to conceive.
He asks her where she needs to go. The evil eye
winks, steel bells ring from the shadows of entertainment.

Supplied with enough signs,
stripes, sugar, and neon knots,
the tightest line of gripped briefcases
turns into a pilgrimage of ants.

A recluse rides the Ferris Wheel,
dire mission. His crow
brings him funnel cake
when the tin-whistles

grant it opportunity.
She meets his eye.
At a dunk tank, some gruff
sinks until he is decapitated,

weighed down by tattoos
of anchors on his forearms,
blending into the mass.
No one seems to recognize her.

All the strobing is a good distraction.
...and the pop-cap rifles,
and the penny slot-machines,
and the bad fortune tellers,

and the philosophy attested to

by the neon vectors
of a thousand fingers
pointing indiscriminately.

She winces at the decommissioned caboose,
used as a zoo, where a donkey
eats a placenta, as on the first-ever Christmas.

Midwestern gothic

Jesse strohauer

Contributor biographies

Abby Holgerson (B. Wisconsin, 1997) has a BFA (December 2020) from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been displayed in the Midwest, East coast, and virtual events. These include The 2021 May Day Virtual Puppet Slam! hosted by Baltimore’s own: Black Cherry Puppet Theater. She has been featured on podcasts such as Roses All Trash: Episode 23- “How to be Perceived on Your Own Terms” (May 2021.)  Her film “The Marriage Masque” was screened at BU College of Fine Art’s Women & Masks: An Art’s-Based Research Conference (September 2021.)  Her paintings have been showcased in the Juried Foundation Exhibition (Baltimore, 2017) and Survive, Create, Empower (Madison, 2017). In addition to visual art, Abby is a burlesque performer, vintage clothing curator, creative director, model, and actress.

Andrew Ketcham writes about love. He is 29 and single and works at a sex shop in Chicago. His work has appeared or is set to appear in Hello Mr., Hobart, HAD, HORNS, Protean, The New Orleans Review and elsewhere. He tweets @islafissure

Ariel Yisrael is an Ohio based poet and freelance writer. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing at Northern Kentucky University. Her poetry explores the Midwest’s unique brand of isolation and strangeness so that you, the reader, may walk through the world that shaped the author’s relationship with race, mental illness and herself.

Claire Flath, located in Cincinnati, OH, works to capture the absurdity of contemporary life through oil painting. While tackling contemporary issues, such as climate change or modern femininity, she uses color, mood, and imagery to confront her audience; challenging them to face their own place in the world at large.

Connor Turon is a clean-living law school dropout who lives in Deptford, London.

ded really is a queerdo removalist, dabbler, pinko and unprofessional artist-producer chasing their joie de vivre down the garden paths of naarm-melbourne’s northeastern suburbs. you can find them spouting their foolish views and half baked expressions on IG @ded.really

Elias Diakolios holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University where he taught undergraduate creative writing and served as Poetry Editor for Columbia Journal 59. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Epiphany Magazine, Bookends Review, Juked, Rainy Day, and others. He also makes linocuts and studies entomology.

Geyl Wells, 21, is a graduate student of English at Middle Tennessee State University. She was born in the heart of Mississippi, raised in the shadows of Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, and lives in the suburbs of Nashville. You can find her on instagram @ebigeylwells

Janet Jiahui Wu writes and makes art. She has published in various publications of literature and is working on her first book. She lives and works in Sydney, Gadigal country.

Jesse Strohauer is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Their work is influenced by their upbringing in rural Michigan, an assortment of mental health crises, and their tumultuous relationship to their faith tradition. They can be reached at @christiangirlautumn_ on instagram.

Jordan Homstad is a painter working with collage made of found imagery and text scavenged from throughout the internet. Their work navigates the relationship between technology and human bodies, examining the ways manufactured identities, environments, and realities influence and coexist with the physical world. Homstad is pursuing an MFA in Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design in New York.

Kat Smith (@material.drifter) is a queer multimedia artist drawn to fibers, printing and writing- often times melding these mediums together. Their work drifts towards natural and mystic worlds with their process serving as a meditative act.

Keely McLavin is currently based between Dublin and Westmeath Ireland. Her work can be seen previously featured in publications such as Apricity Press and Outpost Eire as well as the group exhibition Antecedent hosted by TUD in the Cowshed Theatre, Dublin.McLavin is in the final year of her Fine Art (BA) with Technological University Dublin where she specialises in paint, text, audio and video art. The work created is often based on autobiographical themes such as love, relationships, friendships, as well as mental health, gender, identity, sexuality and womanhood. McLavin’s art practice is centred around creating an empathetic space amongst viewers and exposing mutual feeling and experience.

Kelly Wu is a queer Chinese-British artist currently studying BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, specializing in sculpture, performance, and experimental filmmaking. Kelly enjoys exploring themes of queerness, femininity, the human experience, liminal spaces, and the subconscious.

Kristin H. Sample’s fiction has appeared in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Sand Hills, Mawth, Running Wild and more. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Parents Magazine. In 2010, her debut novel North Shore South Shore was one of the first Kickstarter success stories for fiction. Her second novel, STAGECRAFT, was just released in March 2020. She lives in Dallas, TX. Follow her on twitter/IG: @kristinsample. Visit her website www.kristinsample.com

Maria-Leonora Cabiles (she/her) is a 28-year old from what is known as “Canada”. When she isn’t online or working part-time she enjoys staying at home with the cat, going for walks to the local Starbucks, listening to lo-fi, and writing.

Mary Cregan: I am an artist located right outside of Cleveland, Ohio, where I was born and raised. I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting Concentration) from the University of Dayton in 2018. My work obsessively discusses myself through the lenses of family, history, my femininity, and the pressure of expectations I’ve imposed upon myself since childhood.

Narting Tadoo grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was most inspired by the rebellious lyrics of Muzaffar Fazlul Chowdhury,* “the Poet of Deep Energies.” Tadoo now lives in Virginia in the USA and is pursuing a degree in the Veterinarian Sciences. A Penis Boot, part 5 of a 133-piece Epic Cycle all involving themes of Public Emasculation and Alcoholic Deliriums, is his second publication in English.

*now in jail in Taungoo, Myanmar. Please support his immediate release!

Nina Tokhtaman Valetova is a New York-based artist. Nina explores the relationship between ancient cultures, mythologies, fantasy, metaphysics and philosophy. The theme of science is also presented in artworks, like a homotopy and mobius strip. Nina establishes the Synthesis Art Style in contemporary art, a style which combines suprematism, surrealism, cubism with abstract and figurative elements.

Paul Coombs (b.1975, Somerset, UK) is a multi-media & performance artist examining the impacts of homophobia and his lived experiences of HIV and Bipolar Disorder. A Royal College of Art graduate, Paul has exhibited and performed internationally, was artist-in-residence at Chisenhale Studios (London) in 2021, and has writing published by Pilot Press and The Guardian. He lives and works in London. www.paulcoombs.co.uk

Pasmur Rachuiko: Born 1986 in Rostov-on Don, Russia. Educated at the St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts. Has been working in painting since 2012, using a subjectivist pantheon of symbolic characters and pop culture memes, among which self-portraits occupy a key position, being placed in the context of issues surrounding gender, social and national identification. As well as painting, the artist carries out performances using locally foraged foods as media, such as snails and nettles. Works by the artist are held in private and museum collections in Coldrerio (Switzerland), Milan (Italy), Paris (France), Berlin (Germany), Kiev (Ukraine), San Francisco and Philadelphia (USA), Moscow and St. Petersburg (Russia). Currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Peter Mladinic’s fourth book of poems, Knives on a Table is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.

Psychosurrealism is an artist from Liverpool inspired by Surrealism, Pop Art, Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism. Also taking inspiration from 1960s Psychedelic art and Poster art. Every piece of work has a meaning behind it for the viewer to interpret.
Psychoanalytic + Psychedelic + Surrealism = Psychosurrealism

Sanja Vasić (B. 1993 in Belgrade, Serbia) is a transdisciplinary artist working with mediums of poetry, installation, photography, writing & performative-based practices. Her work is focused on building a multimedia nexus of vocabularies for alternative forms of world-building, storytelling, and critical reflection. She holds two MA’s: an MA in CCC (Critical Curatorial Cybermedia) from HEAD - Geneva (2019), and an MA in Textile Arts from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade (2018). In 2022, together with Swiss artist Giulia Essyad, she co-created a show We want you here, and it’s out of love., focused on the series of poetry performances in Théâtre de l’usine in Geneva, supported by la Ville de Geneve, la Fondation Nestlé pour l’Art and Artlink, among other institutions. Her recent projects include Initiation Rituals done for the occasion of Artist in Residence in KC Grad in March 2022, as well as installation in the kitchen of abandoned Hotel Belgrade for Art Weekend Belgrade in October 2021, curated by German artist and curator Ann Paenhuysen. IG: san.java_

R.T. lives with his husband, a dog, and a cat in central Ohio. He loves to write what he feels, but has problems with writing about who he is; probably because he’s not sure, himself. He hopes to figure it out eventually.

Roma Taylor is a multi-disciplinary artist based in London, who specialises in printed textiles. She is a conscious maker, using reclaimed materials, salvaged from the industrial area which houses her studio. In recent years, she has been exploring generative, chance-based processes to create a visual canon of otherworldly narratives—windows into fleeting moments of human expression.

Seth Ellison was born in Beckley, West Virginia in 1984. His childhood was spent compulsively drawing Disney cartoons in preparation for his future career as an animator. It wasn’t until encountering the Louvre Museum in France and a magazine depicting the work of Philip Guston that he decided to become a fine artist. Seth graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009 with a BFA and then from the University of the Arts in 2012 with a MFA. He currently lives outside of Philadelphia with his wife and two children.

Sydney Sebastian is an Ohio-based multidisciplinary designer, optical magician, and photographic alchemist; a visual creative with an affinity for wordplay, introspection, and composition. A user-experience designer by day and a concert film photographer by night, Sydney’s work is highly influenced by the pain and pleasures of modern chaos.

Thaïs Lenkiewicz is a multi-passionate artist based in Plymouth, UK. She has an interest in how we understand and connect with natural and artificial worlds through painting, making, gathering, and collecting. Her work considers our domesticated vs primitive identities through our relationship with our environments, the internet, and each other. She is a Co-Director for CAMP (Devon & Cornwall), a co-animator of Artist Parent Alliance, and a Feral MBA graduate.

True Skalde was born in Lexington, Kentucky. A child of an ice hockey player and a Las Vegas showgirl, she has relocated around the world in her youth. From Orlando, FL to Leksand, Sweden and Cincinnati, OH to Hokkaido, Japan. She has recently relocated from New York City to Los Angeles, CA and is very much enjoying strong margaritas and tragic sunsets.

yumedyne is a writer, painter, illustrator, sculptor, clothing designer, and aerospace engineer based in Huntsville, AL. Potentially despicable, potentially academic, their work pulls inspiration from popular and obscure culture alike, collaging historical references to music, literature, film, and art to create assaulting, maximalist statements on uniquely human concepts such as morality, relationships, and existential dread. Their work can be found on Instagram (@yumedyne_art) and on their Etsy page (etsy.com/shop/yumedyne).

Yuval Katz: I’m a 25 year old visual artist living in Jerusalem. Currently finishing my studies at Visual communication, my works vary from ancient cultures studies to freestyle life drawing. I try to always try new mediums and lately fell in love with 3D design and animation.

The Editors