Dire Need Halloween Zine

Swamp Water And All I Got Was This Lousy Finger

I found my high school ghost lurking around the muggy thrift stores of Fort Lauderdale loitering in abandoned parking lots half-smoking cigarettes that require her to pop a menthol ball in between her thumb and pointer finger throwing back cans of 12% ABV gasoline juice and wrestling gators (girls) in a wet (swamp water) t-shirt contest at a sleepover

and then never speaking about the things that happened at said sleepover

thirsting for pumpkin spice lattes and desperate to be seen breaking down in the chipotle bathroom because she got her first finger and it sucked brutally hungover in Joann Fabrics

getting screamed at by a cunt while watching a scary movie finding comfort in the onion aroma that stained her fingers while she was chopping up horribly bloodied meat

puppies running amuck while she took her mirror selfies (the only photos she liked of herself because she was convinced she could control how she was perceived by the morally superior pests who became professional haters when they grew up)

I found my high school ghost. She was a haunted mirror that smelled like a CHI flat iron and was picking a thong out of her ass

the scientist and the monster

by aj flora

i took my thread and scissors and sewed myself together i placed myself from limb to limb to make a better man i made each part painstakingly and filled it with my love i kissed every stitch and let myself revel in the act of creation

but when i step out and let the sun kiss me too i feel not the firm grasp of the sun not the gentle embrace of the moon i feel coldness of a stare the heat of their weapons and their torches in their hands, in their hearts so even when they look away the flames lick at me

i fall apart

my stitches grow tired and slack and my limbs part with every step you can watch me held together by strings struggle in the light of day but i pray please look away.

And I’m stitching it closed. And the needle is red. And my mother is watching. And she’s holding the thimble. And the needle is red. And it won’t keep the rain out. And she’s holding the thimble. And the hands have no nails. And it won’t keep the rain out.

And Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. And the hands have no nails.

And she turned eighteen.

And Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. And I’m stitching it closed. And she turned eighteen. And my mother is watching.

The New Skin by Julien Griswold

THE FOUR HEARTS OF THE APOCALYPSE

Conquest //

Trampled beneath your feet, sand grinds into my gums

Bolts loosed from your bow pierce more than marrow

They tear at my affection until it is laid to waste

At the foot of your throne

I placed that crown on your head even as you grasped my throat

I am a massacre.

War //

I have not known peace since meeting you

Restless, drenched in sweat, I am losing everything to this battle

You are an unfettered thing, raging against every boundary

Fire surges in your eyes

And along the edge of your blade

I surrender

Accept the tribute of my absolute devotion.

Famine //

No bonds hold so tight as the wasting of one’s own body

Trimmed down to the bone, I hunger for more of you

You’re keeping all the bounty to yourself

There is nowhere else for nourishment but your arms

Survival waits on your lips.

Death //

The grave holds nothing for me

It can’t hide me from you

Hell is eclipsed by your touch

Pale as a candle and melted within, I’m a withered soul without a flame

Drain my blood and see how I can bleed for you still more

My life has always been yours to take.

BY MADISON FARRELL

Death Defy

BySarahButkovic

eden eyes of splendor masked by a moribund sheen, you defy death by being death itself.

you take the thing that kills you and set it between your lips like a lilac in a crystalline vase. verdant and freshly foraged it hangs not as death wish but an extension of the self— a refusal to let catafalque crows signal an untimely end to anything other than a good time.

there’s a defiance in embracing, the act of being walking death with a heart sewn onto the chest pocket like a patchwork adornment. to be all haunt and bone without a shred of gauntness creeping in, you defy death in ways that amaze me, in ways that make me believe you will never acquiesce to the slab of stone waiting patiently in a cemetery yet to know your name,

how jealous such a graveyard is to know that instead it is carved into a loving obelisk in the shape of my heart.

BySarahButkovic

amatter oftaste

you like your well-done—poetry charred, bitter.civilizedchallenging,

I like mine a little bloody— juicy enough that you can almost feel the pulse

Oh Rats!

short film

by nina rowan