VULCANALIA '21
CONTENT WARNING All pieces in this collection may contain sensitive, sexual, violent, triggering, or otherwise distressing topics. There are very explicit sexual scenes and themes within this anthology.
If the author has provided content warnings, they will appear after the title of the piece
We have only included content warnings that the authors provided.
Note that while not all of the pieces have content warnings, any of the pieces MAY contain themes that are sensitive.
Please care for yourself as you read the pieces in this anthology!
VULCANALIA '21
EDITOR'S NOTE
It is with the utmost pleasure that I write this editors note. I will attempt to keep this as brief as possible, but there is much to say about the work that has gone in to creating this beautiful anthology, both from my lovely team of staff members and from the contributors themselves. I have read work and seen images that amazed me. I have read work and seen images that shocked me. I have read work and seen images that inspired me. Within this collection, all of these emotions run rampant. VULCANALIA is about sacrificing bones, blood and flesh for the fire, to encourage living warm and full. The words and artwork in this anthology are the artist's purging their innermost desires, anxieties, celebrations, truths, lies, and freedoms. Please, as you read, consider deeply the amount of work that has gone into each piece, both in writing or drawing, editing, and submitting, and praise each artist for their confidence and visibility. I hope to create a platform for the words of these artists and to continue to provide space for the most marginalized of voices to shout, growl, screech and howl. I could not have done this without my staff. Thank you A. R. Salandy, Kelly, Caroljean, Fox, Morley, Kate, Kai, E. Valentino, Kat, Luz, Jasmine, and liam. Each of you have played an integral role in the continued growth of LUPERCALIApress, and many of you played an integral role in curating this very anthology. Your impeccable attention to detail and ability to work together is so appreciated. To all of the writers and artists featured within this anthology, I cannot thank you enough for stripping down your fears and submitting to us. You are all deserving of so much more than I can write in one little editor's note. Vanessa Maki, thank you so much for providing the beautiful cover and back cover artwork for this anthology. Ami J. Sanghvi, thank you for being our featured author and for submitting such captivating hybrid poetry. Please enjoy VULCANALIA 2021.
-Venus Cohen, editor-in-chief
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VULCANALIA '21
FEATURED AUTHOR
Ami J. Sanghvi
POETRY and VISUAL ART
Vanessa Maki .......................................Cover and Back Cover Callie S. Blackstone ...................................................................... 1-3 Jamison Conforto ............................................................................. 4 Nat Dodd ................................................................................................. 5 Mykki Rios ............................................................................................... 6 Halle Preneta ................................................................................... 7-9 Alexis Frueh .......................................................................................... 10 Spencer Sheehan-Kalina ...................................................... 11-19 Freydis Moon ...................................................................................... 20 Bryce Baron-Sips .............................................................................. 21 Em Setzer .............................................................................................. 22 Rachel McCarren ......................................................................... 23-24 Elle Lane .......................................................................................... 25-27 Princess Rose Asoh ........................................................................ 28 Yarden Tsfoni ...................................................................................... 29 Lassiter Waith .............................................................................. 30-33 Tavish Young ................................................................................ 34-37 C. Lofty ............................................................................................... 38-39 Shuqi Gao .............................................................................................. 40 Alejandra Cabezas ........................................................................... 41 Caroline Wunn ............................................................................ 42-43 Jade G ................................................................................................ 44-48 The Maenad ................................................................................... 49-52 Terran Brice ............................................................................................ 53
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VULCANALIA '21
POETRY and VISUAL ART (cont)
Corinna Schulenburg ............................................................. 54-56 Ankoor Patel ......................................................................................... 57 Fanta Conde ......................................................................................... 58 Katie Proctor ......................................................................................... 59 Danny McLaren .................................................................................... 60 Rey Fairburn ........................................................................................... 61 Alice Alexandra Moore................................................................... 62 Clark A. Pomerleau ........................................................................... 63 Amelie Pollak ........................................................................................ 64 JP Seabright ................................................................................... 65-70 Lauren Sisko ..................................................................................... 71-76 Andrew Watson ............................................................................. 77-81 Clem Flowers .......................................................................................... 82 Emory Brinson ................................................................................ 83-86 Sappho Stanley .............................................................................. 87-90 Helen Jenks ......................................................................................... 91-93 Sloane Angelou .................................................................................XCIV-XCV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VULCANALIA '21
FICTION and VISUAL ART
W.C. Perry ...................................................................................... 94-103 Remy Chartier ........................................................................... 104-108 Cat Blackard ................................................................................ 109-124 Keith Raymond ........................................................................ 125-133 Silas M. Adams .......................................................................... 134-137 Curtis Garner .............................................................................. 138-144 Mia Altamuro ............................................................................. 145-153
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VULCANALIA '21
Featured Author
AMI J. SANGHVI
VULCANALIA '21
FEATURED AUTHOR:
Interview with Ami J. Sanghvi Ami J. Sanghvi has absolutely incredible poetry in our collection, and the moment I read their submission, I knew that I had to highlight their innovative and fearless work in LUPERCALIApress. I was so thrilled when Ami agreed to be featured in our VULCANALIA '21 digital anthology, and was even more so when they agreed to participate in an interview about their craft! Please enjoy the following chat that I had the pleasure to have with Ami J. Sanghvi and be sure to check out their press, Gutslut!
Venus: If you'd like, please introduce yourself to the readers and let us know a little bit about the collection that is featured in VULCANALIA '21? Ami: Hello, I'm Ami! I'm a queer, Indian-American writer, artist, designer, and boxer. I actually just came out as non-binary (he/him, they/them) a few months back, and also quite recently entered into a fabulously emo relationship with my best friend. It's all very sweet because this is the first queer masc. relationship either of us have ever been in. Regarding my poems here, they're all about my grappling with mental illness, learning the joys of love, exploring pleasure as my authentic [enby] self, and rediscovering my bodily autonomy, especially as a survivor, through sex with a partner who feels like home. Venus: Your poems have an incredible sense of personal voice and style, as well as some really interesting formatting techniques. How long have you been writing and developing this voice, and has your work always been so aesthetically dynamic? Ami: Gosh, I really appreciate that! Thank you so much. I've been writing here and there ever since I was a little kid, but it didn't get very serious (read: feel remotely possible) until 2018. Then, I went to an experimental art school for my M.F.A. that changed my creative practice(s) entirely. The voice in these poems is not even a year old, but I think it's a result of my finally coming into myself as a chaotic, South Asian, non-binary alien wraith space gay who finally wants more out of life than what I settled for in the past.
VULCANALIA '21
FEATURED AUTHOR:
Venus: Who (or what) inspires you? Who (or what) are some of your biggest artistic influences? Ami: Mahavir Bhagvan and my late grandparents are my biggest inspirations. It's always strange stating how a Tirthankar and my [mostly] traditional ancestors are my driving forces behind stuff like this, but... I have my ways of knowing. Conversely, my teachers before art school were John Milton, Dante Alighieri, and J.R.R. Tolkien, so they are major influences in my work. My partner also inspires me by always supporting me, challenging me, believing in my broader art practice, trusting me enough to share his own writing and music with me, and showing me that sincere love, friendship, and partnership are all things that can actually exist in my present and future. Other influences include Matias Viegener, Brian Evenson, Anthony McCann, Michael Leong, and Jon Wagner -- my favorite IRL teachers in the art of writing. Venus: What are you currently working on? Where can we see more of your writing? Ami: I'm presently working on developing a South Asian, Sanskrit-gothic "Science of Wraiths" by deconstructing Tolkien's criticism and employing ancient, Eastern methodologies of knowing. I am also manifesting my trauma through a Sad, Lonely Alien character I created, developing my digital and mixed media art practice, and hammering out some miscellaneous, multimedia image/text poems and speculative fiction pieces. The best place to find my work is at my website. I try to maintain a comprehensive CV there, but I also am the chaos, so sometimes my efforts come up short. Venus: Finally, please feel free to tell us all about your own literary press, Gutslut Press! Ami: The first thing to know about Gutslut is that we absolutely adore Lupercalia and are so grateful for the work you do! Regarding our press, we are actively trying to dismantle, or at least aggressively push back against, oppressive gatekeeping in publishing and the arts by prioritizing marginalized, indie creators. We are a multimedia operation always searching for stuff that is punk, difficult to categorize, and breaks the rules. We lean towards the dark, chaotic, alternative, hybrid, and experimental — but don't require it. Basically, we just want to elevate work that deserves a platform, but often falls through the cracks of notoriously corrupt industries. You can learn more about us at gutslutpress.wordpress.com, or by checking us out on social media (@gutslutpress).
Thank you Ami, so much, for your time, your words, your truth!
FEATURED
VULCANALIA '21
I AM THE SACRIFICE AMI J. SANGHVI
POETRY
FEATURED
VULCANALIA '21
POETRY
[FIRST, WE ARE] SEVERELY HOT, BUT DOOMED IS WHAT WE AIM FOR (ON) AMI J. SANGHVI
FEATURED
VULCANALIA '21
POETRY
HIM WITH THE [ACTUAL] SLURPABLE EYES AMI J. SANGHVI
FEATURED
VULCANALIA '21
FABULOUS EROTIC ASPHYXIATION AMI J. SANGHVI
POETRY
FEATURED
VULCANALIA '21
MY BABY'S BLOOD IS METALLIC (IN THE FUN, DELICIOUS WAY) AMI J. SANGHVI
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 1
POETRY
SACRAMENT CALLIE S. BLACKSTONE
You slowly open and close your lips
I can decorate you with gifts,
around the chocolate I bought you.
sing your praises, write about you
Half a square breaks off in your mouth
obsessively. I can fill your belly with healthy
and you allow it to remain, slowly melting.
vegan foods, dark leafy green vegetables.
The dark bitterness that coats your tongue
I can slip you the indulgent chocolate,
is suffocating. You let it sit, you savor it.
pour you the wine. You confided in me that you couldn’t trust her with your child.
You never allow yourself this,
You can trust me to read to the baby, to sing lullabies
one moment of silent fulfillment,
reminding her of who she comes from,
one moment away from
to give her the bottle filled with your milk.
wife and child. You never allow your mind to wonder to a woman
I will sustain you, praise you, worship you:
that can fulfill you, that can adorn you
I will place you in my mouth, slowly melting
and bathe you with flowers and herbs,
and coating my tongue. To eat of you, to drink of you,
decorating your precious body, soaking it,
the greatest honor: your body the only salvation
cleansing it.
I need. Let me eat of you, drink of you. I need it.
VULCANALIA '21
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ICARUS CALLIE S. BLACKSTONE
Oh holy mother, fertile goddess, you carry the world in you and you radiate with it. You are the sun, the universe. Give me one indulgent moment; let me get close to you; let me get too close, close enough to burn. Burn me down to nothing. And I would be grateful for it— I would flare out with your praises on my lips.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
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UNTITLED CALLIE S. BLACKSTONE
womb full of flowers, head full of stars, body expansive, endless, ever growing, alive and green, thousands of leaves unfurling, thousands of birds nesting, their delicate blue eggs decorate your body your body the natural cathedral, your body where i come to pray
POETRY
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PAGE 4
COPPER TALK JAMISON CONFORTO
High on black water he sits like the sun Rose colored marbles, scent of saffron Bright stained-glass eyes beneath dark windswept hair Tell me I’m needed, that I belong there His smile is wide and yet it still breaks Haunted by tragedy, honest mistakes I halt and feel numb, for am I worthy To give comfort to him who comforted me? Tears pour from his windows, his hand grasps at mine Swirling me into his seafoam and brine We tumble through cotton and clover and blue Twine and sweet ivy, muslin and yew Tell me your secrets, lay down your cares For what burdens you, I shall help bear Forget all your worries and come home with me Boy of the wind, the grass, the sea
POETRY
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PAGE 5
POETRY
SACRILEGE NAT DODD
You want to see a real example of
On his back lay a pane of glass
Christ atoning for our sins?
(His form is impeccable
Picture this:
Trust me,
It’s a Friday evening in early spring,
We wouldn’t risk breaking our good china were it
The flowers of the skunk cabbage have just begun
not)
To cautiously peak their tiny heads
Hors d’oeuvres carefully arranged on
From their stinky tentacular hoods.
heavy, ornate platters line the table. The whole thing is disgusting; ostentatious, even.
He won’t have the pleasure of witnessing it.
I love it.
Our Lord of Lords is in the living room, Stark naked, of course
Someone suggests we get a tablecloth,
And on all fours
Says that those decrepit old table legs
Surrounded by big, ugly plush sofas
are putting her off.
(I can tell he is judging the upholstery,
I apologize, suppressing a smile,
And how the pattern clashes
Explaining frankly that all of my tablecloths clash
with our hideous wallpaper,
dreadfully with the wallpaper,
But I like it that way)
And then you’d really lose your appetite.
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 6
RICARDO MYKKI RIOS
he was too clean and elevated for the hazy Florence bar we met in wearing a three piece suit, white, maybe linen something rough but refined, refreshing a sprig of mint mien a rimming of sea salt and sugar on a cocktail in a stylish shapely glass i was one drink past charming, but he held my hand led me to a secluded booth smiled when i ordered a pear juice over ice grinned wider when i asked why he’d bothered to approach your eyes, he drawled brushed his thumbs over my brows closed my eyes for a blink with his hand like he was laying me to rest your nose, he breathed tracing a finger down the healed bridge i had previously thought a disfigurement when we kissed i tasted lemon zest and burned with black pepper my heart was a den of foxes racing through a forest he was a violinist i regret never hearing him play but the way he moved his hands i could tell he could coax any mood from bow and strings his every fiber was mellifluous we only had one fleeting night but it lingered in me when i asked to see him again he apologized too much of our futures are mysteries solving themselves, he said it is better if you forget about me, banish me from your head and i knew right then i never would
POETRY
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VULCANALIA '21
WOMEN HALLE PRENETA I am addicted to women’s bodies Their lines and curves Their hands and legs Their chests and hearts I want to break them apart And see them for who they really are See their shining souls And genuine smiles Hear their vivacious laughs And somber cries Experience their hands in mine Skin on skin Soft kisses like Little clouds down my jaw Radiating pure joy
POETRY
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POETRY
BODY BURNING MENTIONS OF STRESS EATING, MENTIONS OF SUICIDE
HALLE PRENETA
i want to pump my body full of shit
instead i’ll lay on the floor
watch it burn
hoping my body will disintegrate into dust
feel it crumble in my hands
and join the stars in the sky
skin black
i know no matter what
hair dead
i will always wake up the next day
i will keep stuffing you and stuffing you
hungry
with food i know is bad for me
craving more
pizza, chocolate, various desserts
the cycle continues
and i won’t care
as my body burns
when my chest hurts
turning into dust
when my stomach growls
and the hole in my stomach just gets
opening up
bigger and bigger
asking for more
swallowing me whole
i’ll keep feeding it and feeding it
i want to watch you burn
until everything is black until i feel like a balloon and everything around me feels dead because at the end of the day i would rather be dead than doing whatever needs to be checked off my to do list because what’s the point of living if i’m never happy
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VULCANALIA '21
HEATHER HALLE PRENETA
Her light shines upon me like a star, guiding me to where I need to go Ethereal; like heaven on Earth. Angels in the sky and light always flowing, my body filling with happiness As she moves, as she talks, as she breathes. She fills me with light. She fills me with life. The essence I didn’t know I needed until it was gone. Until it was taken from me. Hearts beating in sync, I wish to join this universe full of love where light radiates everywhere. Where Earth shifts on its axis every time someone realizes they’re in love because love is beautiful and love is powerful and love is Real just like she is. My star in the sky, guiding me towards my future.
POETRY
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VULCANALIA '21
VISUAL ART
ALPHABET SOUP LANGUAGE, HOMOSEXUAL SLURS
ALEXIS FRUEH
Alphabet Soup: a metaphor for an abundance of abbreviations or acronyms Abbreviation: 1.a shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole 2.an act of abbreviating; reduction in length, duration, etc.; summary 3.a short phrase or reduced form used to represent a larger, more complex idea, situation, set of beliefs, etc. Or in this case, a person:
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BEAR SPENCER SHEEHAN-KALINA
When I came to this island I’d been warned about encounters with bears. I’d not imagined that contact would be like this: while mounting me, I plied erect, pink berries with my tongue, pulled them between my lips, I grope my hand down a bush of fur hoping to find a piece of wood, found my head between yellowed teeth, our limbs entwined; eat musky earth until the bear had finished mauling me.
POETRY
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POETRY
REVOLUTIONARY RADISHES SPENCER SHEEHAN-KALINA
Prologue I incite my innate right to speak of my own lived, human experience and do so now in this manifesto. May those whom walk a path like mine, and for those that wish to help them, have their own journey be with a lighter heart and easier step because of what is written here; and for those that have come to see me as oppositional in some capacity, may this work be some step toward a better understanding of the different kinds of footing with which we find ourselves.
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VULCANALIA '21
POETRY
Advice to A Radical Artist “The soil in the city, where we lived, was so bad that nothing at all would grow. Even sand would have been better, it was a mix of eroded concrete and filth. Your grandmother had us plant radishes in the city’s dirt, so at least there was something growing that we could eat, even if you didn’t like it,” my mother tells me as I walk through, trying to make sense of my own garden. I’ve called her with a wounded heart after receiving another round of unfortunate news: Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, a whole string of speaking engagements, publications and other work-related events had been turned upside down and inside out. “I just don’t know what I’ll do!” I whine while she continues on, speaking right over me without paying any mind. “It’s a good way for you to return to nature. That’s what she would tell you to do. Don’t worry so much about it, as long as you can turn back to nature. Did I tell you that I’m going to start growing” my mother continues, “and then I’m planting mint there, because it’s so hardy and nothing else will grow?” I’m attempting to cultivate mint where nothing else will grow, too, an intensely sunny spot that I often forget to water on my porch. “And maybe we can see if we can go fishing. Or ask some friends to go berry picking with you. Forage for mushrooms. There’s so many around, right now. It’s a good time to go.” My grandmother often didn’t see her own yard as the limitation for her garden, and was fond of finding places to forage food for herself, which my mother was referencing now. “You’re so close to the ocean, you could eat seaweed. You like seaweed..." As she goes on I’m feeling lost in the conversation and I’m trying to refocus and ground myself so I can better understand. “Mom I’m going to let you go. You’re right. I’m going to go back to nature, but I’ll call you back after.” Here, in my small garden, I am the collaborator and conspirator to a whole host of wonders. They unravel before my own eyes. I daydream of existing in the world differently. I want a different way to grow and sustain myself, my family, and my community. I take my mother’s and my grandmother’s advice. I take a small bucket to gather berries into. “Oh, good, honey, of course,” she says abruptly, seemingly pleased with herself and relieved that I was acting on her advice, doing as my grandmother had taught her. I leave my garden and walk back into my grandmother’s. I gather berries.
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VULCANALIA '21
POETRY
Tenets of a Radical Artist’s Practice 1. Art shall be defined as this: a process of living through continuous creation. 2. An artist must be able to hold anything and contextualize it through the response of creating: art is our greatest tool for understanding and learning. 3. Art is a gift for those who are here, still yet to come, for our Ancestors, and for one’s self. 4. Art is a spiritual practice and should be treated accordingly. 5. All things will lead to art, as art is derivative of life and based in lived experience; be open to the lessons, joys, and freedoms that the creative process brings. Don’t worry about the future. 6. The ability to stand in one’s own truth, as best as that may be understood, and despite the commitment to constantly walk with courage and state of vulnerability, is among the greatest of life’s accomplishments. 7. Acts of creation are natural and offer a way of returning ourselves to nature; also, the artist and the artwork are like the apple tree and its fruit, in relation but distinguishable. 8. Art should be made from the heart as a radical act of love and audacity— this could change the world.
9. All things are art and art is everything, everywhere, and therefore, also nothing. 10. Always choose art. Art will be your best friend even when it feels like the world is against you. Art is sustaining like love, or radishes, grown in city dirt. 11. Against better judgment, choose to take a new way. 12. Anyone and everyone is an artist, and they are making art with each breath. 13. An artist should not be afraid to charge a living wage when asked to dance the social role of Artist. 14. Always remember that you can walk into nature and reclaim your humanity there; the natural world is the greatest creator of art. 15. Always keep reaching, just as cut grass will do. 16.
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POETRY
Chant of a Radical Artist This chant is a psychic space that has unfolded from lived experience. I have come from difficult experiences, learned, and have returned with these words. Who we are and our place in the order of things, like all things such as water or the trees, is constantly in flux or motion. These words are of the body, meaning they are alive and breathing: expansions and contractions, edits and alterations, based on the needs of the person, the place and time. What is presented here is the chant as it has been caught to the page come time of its printing.
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 16
I am alive and I am breathing. I am drinking the water and I find nourishment. I am the creator of my body’s artifice. I am waking and resting and walking on the First People’s land. I am talking and eating and learning among the ghosts of my Ancestors. I am scavenging and inventing and learning new talk. I am a house with an open door for all to come in, be warm, and rest. I am a truth finder and speaker, no matter how grim. I am lost, but also where I am supposed to be. I am the water and I am in the water and the water is in me. I am displaced and unsettled. I am a writer of lists. I am sloth. I am nuanced, contradictory and hypocritical as every other human. I am the realized ambition of my Ancestors efforts for survival. I am open hearted and authentic. I am giving you my heart words, my sleeve’s cut back and my wrist bare and open, bleeding. I am a sculpture that will never be fully fathomed. I am my own food, and am now asking neighbors to taste me, be nourished. I am feminist. I am queer. I am all the animals you’ve ever seen me as. I am listening to elders and I am listening to children and I am listening to all my cousins. I am cat person and a dog person, I am an every animal kind of person. I am holding both my parents’ hands, though they can’t hold each other's. I am a talking body, dancing tongue and thundering emotions. I am able to grow dreams and hope like hair and skin, and shed them just as often. I am willing to stand in disruption and be uncomfortable. I am in transition to a better self. I am wanting to become a good Ancestor for those still to come. I am not afraid of other people’s opinions of me. I am the inheritor of privilege. I am in disbelief of what has happened and know we can all do better
POETRY
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I am hungry and tired. I am not afraid to look through other perspectives. I am not afraid to tell my story as I know it to be. I am a tool of dismantling oppressive systems of operation. I am singing. I am stardust and I will always be stardust. I am a believer that there is more good than bad in people. I am certain that loving each other will change the world. I am holding magic in my cupped hands. I am made of magic. I am a dreamer, artist, lover, warrior, academic, healer, teacher, storyteller and student. I am racialized. I am gendered. I am with a sweet tooth and will eat food for comfort when stressed. I am convinced that art is the medicine that we all need. I am making medicine, enough medicine for everyone. I am at home in the city and the country. I am my home and my home is my body. I am excited to sleep and dream and wake, until I don’t. I am in love with everyone I see. I am chanting. I am seeking balance and harmony. I am not able to reconcile everything that is happening, that has happened. I am still convinced that I can fly by breathing deeply. I am in a performance. I am the food I’ve been nourished by. I am bridge and blockade, unapologetically. I am growing radishes from city refuse. I am caring for bushes of wild berries that I sometimes talk to. I am netting honesty. I am doing the work. I am watching time progress linear, but know it is a circle. I am healing. I am not doing enough of the work but both my hands are full. I am waiting until I can do more work.
POETRY
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I am certain that to work is to have your place in things. I am happy to have a place. I am totally invested. I am not one place or person to just one person, I am part of a community. I am not trying to brag but sometimes it comes out that way. I am trying to disappear. I am trying to make things better before I go. I am trying to fit into little pockets, like change, but I’m too loose for that. I am gambling, with everything, but I’m not a gambler. I am mentally unhealthy but more stable, able and grounded than ever. I am able to expand and contract beyond limitations imposed on me. I am yelling. I am nature, just as much as anything ever was or will be. I am dark on the inside. I am scarred. I am a preservationist. I am making preserves. I am a constellation of resilience and resurgence of life’s joy. I am family orientated. I am a medical miracle. I am a survivalist making it through. I am remembering how much my grandmother loved me. I am able to exist freely and alone. I am always working. I use every precious family heirloom as much as possible. I am dancing. I am forgiving but not forgetful. I am recommending you join my social media and mailing list. I am, in the end, going to erupt in sunlight. I am not beyond reproach or mistake making. I am always trying to do better when I know better. I am starting now and ending here. I am thanking our Ancestors, the land and creator of all this.
POETRY
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Dreams and Prayers 1. I consume the earth and from me and out of me comes something new, until I too am then returned to that which sustains, and been sustained from. 2. The whales return and the water is cold and thick with ice once more; the salmon have returned and the trees grow thick and tall once more; the bison have returned and their hooves have freed hibernating grasses and flowers once more; the beavers have returned and the marshes are swollen with thick water and are lush once more. 3. Our Ancestors contently smiling, our Forbears contently smiling, all our family contently smiling, hand in hand, and celebrating! Peace at last, peace at last! 4. You have come to visit me and because I love you and now because I am dying, I reach into my chest and pull out the wet, red tooth-smiling bird that once was my heart. and place it into your own hands. Together we watch it go still and then you ask, “what is this?” “A gift,” I say, “that I ask you to hold onto with love, as it was my life, so that good may be done when opportunity comes, and you will know when that time is.” There’s no time to explain more. Already you sound far off and like you’re laughing, I see nothing except a narrowing that is my shrinking life, my small life, and only hope for the best; for you and that small red bird that id now yours to hold in your hand.
POETRY
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VULCANALIA '21
FORBIDDEN FRUIT REFERENCES TO SEXUAL ACTS, LIGHT BODY HORROR
FREYDIS MOON
I remember hanging from a branch tart; new—drawn taut and bracing for teeth I remember my evolution you: plucking, prodding, peeling away skin pulling bones backward pitting a peach I remember my deconstruction cradle me, i’d said, and i’d meant: murder me that’s what it was, wasn’t it? transformation turning, transitioning there you were, thumb to pupa, and there i was digesting myself inside a gilded womb crack me open, i’d said, and i’d meant: give me your rib, Adam I remember my reanimation slick and clumsy—shuddering in your mouth spread open and wishing your mastication would snap through the membrane still closed around me, newborn next to nothing nearer to something it’s good, i’d said. it’s good, it’s good, it’s good a church choir chorus to the sound of you eating me I remember entering the world a second time unfurling— chrysalis discarded at your feet like an evening gown and you; beckoning and me; evolving I remember excavating the truth prayer, like a viper curled around the branch where you’d plucked, prodded, peeled call me Adam, i’d said and that night you put Eve to death deconstructed disassembled until she was me and i was you and God and he
POETRY
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PAGE 21
ISAIAH BRYCE BARON-SIPS
You are kneeling, you will kneel (It is not said with any force) But the breath knocks you back and the angel Turns his face, the front of it backlit by your fire He shuffles like your grandmother in a kitchen that isn’t hers That image is gone when he turns, searing gradients of degrees of burning, and every Thing washes from your head You see the coal between your new tongs, going black at the edges, tarnished and made pure, made sterile However the end is throbbing as nerves of steel Decauterize And become sensitive You wonder if he’ll put a hand on your face, if you need a steady hand to carry out God’s will Clear words to make hearts calloused, If it takes balance to dance on the head of a pin You will be good. He will say you have been so, so good. Antsy, antipathy, anticipFingers scrape for the back of your neck, assent to being steadied, a small, devoted noise Before screaming, steaming spittle goes up to the heavens.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 22
POETRY
ANGEL-FUCKING, OR LOVE FROM BEHIND EM SETZER
Rider, the staff, ungraspable grip take it now. Your angel neck, your violin sternum, I am calling, could not be any more ripe without exploding, pollen and plasma orgasmata everywhere. You intensify all around me, trilling your light green annunciations - I think that means you’re having a good time? Lover, the curved pipe, the fountain, the unbreakable bough, drive the sap along with galloping horses. High-flying smiles, I linger, alas, my gratified spectator my fringes are so happy for you. Let’s make like mating cattle, scavenge final fruit from the floor of my orchard, grave, the half-shell oysters littered around your wingspan I want them for keeping. Angel, angel, you, angel, tell me, blossom, unblossom, your buds, a pewter plate, tell me am I your puppet? Even while I loved, I played dancer, your stuffed form on a famous portico. So, tell me, angel, glutted with hailed embryos, sweetness – please, ignore my father lying in our depths – tell me, am I submitted, or loved?
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 23
PHOTURIS RACHEL MCCAREN
Lying back on the concrete boat ramp, her body is half-submerged with her head in my lap. Her long black hair, river-slick, drips onto my wrists. The shallow water stings in circles around my ankles. My palms tingle when I touch her. Her fingertips are electric spiders. Mind-numbing cicadas buzz, frogs and toads croak and groan in the brush. The hollow thrum of a train crossing the metal bridge rumbles up under my thumbs. The fuzz of rum thickens my teeth and tongue. Not for the first time, I’m thinking how young she is. I inhale dusk; wet earth, charred oak, smoke, pine-pollen. Power cables double-cross the blue-gradient sky. Amber light licks the water's surface. My ears are hot. The night ripples with high-voltage hiss. Her wet kiss burns cold on my lips. I yearn to burn her again. Embers erupt on my forearms. My eyes lock on the pale glow of her neck and breasts’ swell in the blue dim. Fireflies as bright as bulbs burst along the tree line. Her mouth’s sickle shape shines like a tackle knife as she grins.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 24
MON CHERI RACHEL MCCAREN For Clarissa When her body is in motion it moves like molten candy on a stick— honey mixed with deadly poison. Pink wig tied back with a red velvet ribbon, she sweats neon rivulets. Gold chains drip when her body is in motion. With every new twisted contortion, she empties pockets and fists of honey mixed with deadly poison. Her secret fix, her life’s solution— the pollution she can’t seem to kick— sets her body into motion. Her beauty is enough to open the palms of any; still, she searches lockers, wallets for honey mixed with deadly poison. Offstage, she transitions, takes a hit, shimmies into her next sequin slip. When her body is in motion, she’s honey mixed with deadly poison.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 25
MURDER-SUICIDE MENTION OF SUICIDE, VIOLENCE, SEXUALITY
ELLE LANE
I wanna fuck you to a sad song, So we can cry when we get to the end. Sprawled out on your couch like a murder-suicide. Your chalk outline burned into my mind. Tell the inspector, what I did was wrong, But when I had you that last time, I cried. When I imagined all the ones who’d follow me. And all the people didn’t deserve to die.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 26
DISHWATER BLONDE ELLE LANE
Dishwater blonde with a dirty mind, From Holland, Michigan or somewhere nice. Freckle-specced or flecks of dirt? Islands dotting her archipelago. I think I’ll take her to Mackinac, To serenade sirens, alone. Then tie a cinder Block to her toe, And watch her drown.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 27
DUTCH GALLERY ELLE LANE
Let’s hang ourselves in the art museum, In the corner of the Dutch gallery. Between Van Der Meer and Willem Key, Till we’re blushing white with freedom. Our boots filling wood panels with sockets. Like good little artists, gone before our time, White knuckles grasping our necks as we die. And ears buzzing like the flies in our pockets. Let’s visit the Dutch Gallery, my beauty! We’ll be like all the painted birdies, In the paintings of game trophies. And join their flight when we finished our duty.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 28
POETRY
LOVE LETTER TO MY BODY PRINCESS ROSE ASOH
She is ethereal
The path through her arms is a journey to the place
One made of magical pieces
of solace resting along the
Crafted with mastery
slope of her breasts; the birthplace of a
beyond mortal knowledge
kindred fire within her significant other
Divinity's gift
Tranquility lies in the valley
The emissary for mankind to sing the
between her thighs, with pools of
praises of providence
salvation where vulnerability is
Treasures sought after are buried deep
made the miracle of love
within each expanse of her flesh She blooms with features pleasing to all senses
She exudes a radiance in the morning light,
Of eyes, which share the certainty
evidence of a sweet love making
of an unknown truth
between the sun and her skin
Crumbling the walls of her prey and
Her silhouette under the night sky
dragging them into abysmal ends
boldly announces the craftsmanship
Lips, which spew forth unspoken promises,
of her creator.
in kisses flowing with desires fueled by unquenchable passions
PAGE 29
VULCANALIA '21
VISUAL ART
A CELEBRATION OF DIVINE WOMANHOOD YARDEN TSFONI
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 30
POETRY
BRAIN RUMINATES ON WASTED, BEAUTIFUL BODY TRANSPHOBIA
LASSITER WAITH
“It’s hard being trans with a body like that, isn’t it?”
It’s devastating to be transgender
Wolf-men whistle it to me
“-when you’re so beautiful!”
Whisper it in my ear
A hen-woman tells me as I sit on my fire escaping
Write me letters on the subject with pictures of their
the flame
babies attached
I do it by sheer skill and power of
Asking me to make sure they all grow up hot
“Will you let me take a picture for my mantle? Please,
someday
just to remember you by.”
I kiss their foreheads and grin like a politician
I sigh, fingering the red string spooled tightly
I send them mugs with my face stretched around
in my breast
the porcelain
I hold myself up and smile like a fish on a hook
It’s rough to be trans with a body so
Assured she’ll eat well tonight.
Banging
I make a plaster of my body in the living room
With a pussy so tight you could bounce a coin off it
surrounded by mystery novels tossed haphazardly
Sleep in it like you do your mother’s
to the floor, unreadable to my sinkhole eyes
laundered sheets
They house so many lost souls
No, I don’t need a shower - I need a coaster
my head’s been labeled haunted
The red one with gold script stitched across it
When I ask if I can change my name
I may not sweat but my drink does!
the woman asks, why?
Laugh
Then she says, no.
My polo shirts get tighter every year Wrapping around my curves like lycra I am deified on the golf course Denied entrance into polite society I receive call after call from women whose countryclub-men want me in their bed Or dead.
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VULCANALIA '21
POETRY
“I’m sorry hon, it says here you’re a historical landmark.
The only man I sleep with is my teddy bear
I checked. I double checked - yes ma’am.
Whose plastic eyes simply pretend to see
No ma’am, there’s nothing either of us can do about it.
I can pretend too, see?
In fact, you should do nothing at all.
Simply close your eyes and say it through your teeth
Just sit back and be admired - hell of a gig.”
When he thinks I’m asleep he strokes my hair and whispers;
The body in white sits up and gives the
“Why don’t we switch Darling? Stuff your mouth
impression of staring.
with cotton and soak my chest in blood.”
Not at me - but at a mirror, slightly warped. The wrong color, the wrong proportions.
The hospital I was born in is gone now
I think it’s my face, crafted out of butter and slowly
I walk past it every day and pray
melting in the summer heat.
I don’t hear the doctor - the first words ever said to me: “It’s beautiful!” He cried,
I sell the body to a museum and sit on my
holding me up to my dad’s camera lens
mother’s couch, holding pages in my field of vision.
Ten centimeters dilated
Wishing I could understand
“She’s the most beautiful girl in the world!”
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POETRY
WHEN I SAW HIS HUSBAND IN A PICTURE I WEPT HOMOPHOBIA
LASSITER WAITH
It was sticky-hot that summer
He and I were one then
Air choked with barbeque smoke
In the green water
My mouth choked with an assortment of teeth, three
Hands slapping at the surface
loose at once
Feet slipping over moss-rocks
I pushed my cousin in the river because
Eyes shut too tight
He was gay like me
Grabbing at each other in lieu of the adults’ hands
He was scared like me
that were all reaching down, all
To hear him
straining to save us, all screaming in that faraway
Scream
Above We played Imaginary the first time we met
The bathroom’s tiles were wet to the touch
He was the boss
Gooseflesh rippled across my shaking arms
I was the secretary
And my small chest heaved
“He’s busy, he’s busy, he’ll call you back later!”
And
Later we ate watermelon on the back porch,
Heaved
listening to our cousins laugh inside
And
Dining on white chocolate
Heaved
While our eyes were red from crying over a fight
Until the water dribbled down my chin
we’d had about what we weren’t
Jaw sore from the way my teeth C
We stuck out like
C
Limp wrists and
C
Swayed hips and
C
Butch swag and
Chattered
F
There was a knocking on the door
An unnameable horror that washed over us in cold-
Are you coming out?
shock waves
Are you coming out
Girls don’t act like that
soon?
Boys don’t drown
PAGE 33
VULCANALIA '21
In the car I looked out the window at him on the lawn, wrapped in an American flag towel that dragged in the grass around his dripping ankles His red face and Quick to anger eyes and High nasal voice that I loved to mock “You sound like a girl!” You sound like You sound like Me
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 34
POETRY
WOODS TAVISH YOUNG
This green
a dead pygmy
and brown has
owl, and
seen me fully;
shove them all
my bare
down my gullet,
naked
like a bullfrog.
backside
And leave
in the winter.
with all this
Cold,
shit
and pale,
rotting inside me.
in the moonglow.
I kiss a poplar on
I have given it
the way out,
footsteps, and
and smirk,
the wet
like an imp, or
of my breath,
some sort of
and urine,
pervert.
maybe, now, I could
The next day,
take
I go to the store.
something? So I take handfuls of dirt, and acorns, and
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VULCANALIA '21
The lady with the red hair rings me up. I saw you. WhatIn the woods, yesterday. I blush, embarrassed, I should not be embarrassed. Why do you kiss the trees like that? Like a boy? Like a gigolo? Why do you talk to the dirt? Tradition, I say, my mother spoke to the dirt. I think, you looked rather handsome. Could you maybe kiss me like that?
POETRY
PAGE 36
She tastes like a sycamore. We run together to those woods we get naked and roll in the dirt, so ecstatic and feral. Over years we grow fur and large ears, kill rodents with our teeth we are so in love, we are so perfect.
VULCANALIA '21
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 37
CAR TAVISH YOUNG
I gaze at him- long-necked and austere. Reach a hand, and land, gently, on his ear. Rub the lobe in between my fingers, like young men on the bus, who roll cigarettes. They sprinkle tobacco into pieces of crinkly paper and wrap them up with spit and the warmth of their tongues.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 38
I DON'T KNOW IF BOYS CRY C. LOFTY
i don't know if boys cry but I do. i don't sing but i still hum those hymns & the same songs soar from somewhere not too far from these rooftops maybe a side porch and from south to further south wormhole to wormhole i don't know if wormholes exist but i do & i can conjure you here i can conjure you here & that would be the reason for the encore for the chorus for the chorus i don't know if boys cry but i do after i sing on sundays
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 39
SAINT MARY, THE SADIST MENTAL ILLNESS, COLONIALISM, AND POLICE.
C. LOFTY
if you pay attention // the spirit // will call you // before you see it // this is anxiety // in many ways // i am anxious // the one // that insidiously crawls // into this house // with its talents of wander // in many ways // the road is backwards // & it is i in street too // yelling // bursting // with // frustration // at these skin seams // & the road is still backwards // are almost // there // the sun // needs to see // exactly how i am changed// because // i have been changed // how i feel // if i // just // sing // enough // the heavens // will come // preach // my soul said she heard // so she did // in the noise // of confession // the funeral // of the facade // the melting // the wave // hit
her
preach // my soul said she cranked // he left shoulder // like the // gothic guild // a haitian family portrait// the port // the cove/ / every arm swing // the flapping of // the brush // for the birds // the sky // red // now flashing // the sirens // preach //my soul said i felt her// the dance// she does// i do// the scream// wailing// too many drugs// it seems//the spirit// wants out// i know// no exorcist// just shedding// the body is only // a body// if you// think// we are this// & only this // then yes// we be animal// we dance like// we were// whatever past// you pick// i promise// is not as real// as my neighbor// Mary // she is a lost time traveler and knows it // her cat walk is Q street at 1am // the stage is the concrete highlighted by the lamplight // she used to wake the whole block until the white people moved in & finally called the racist cowboys //
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 40
POETRY
SYMBOLISM WILL BE MY DOWNFALL SHUQI GAO
A lamp's life is waiting to drop.
My moon is locked in my basement.
Gardening is the most important thing.
My room is a silent web (has nothing sharp).
Cure is bite. Love is fear. Crow is faith.
My light is tapping the wind.
Life is a knee-jerk, and the recycling of that.
My vagina is lightning contracted.
My orgasm is anticlimactic.
My scrotum is an edible instrument.
My hair is getting thinner for I hold on to it too much
My mattress is burned because memories are
in the nights.
overrated.
My soul is a many-eyed hungry rug.
My tattoos are wrong.
My heart is a septenary room of entanglement.
My melancholy is perfect.
My wings are bat wings.
My fear is my eyes.
My pencil is concentric to my heart.
My life is within a life that moves rather slow
My teeth are sticking on the rails.
if you take a look.
My nails are dirty in your mouth.
My life’s purpose is alchemy because translator
My ears are shiny, and my eyes are the skin of a
sounds so lame.
peacock.
My god is heartbroken.
My vegetables are clogging my drains.
My cat can go anywhere.
My people are skins I peel off.
My chokes have holes.
My words harm me and my plant.
My lullaby consists of seventy-six “no’s”.
My bath is my ramen.
My dreams are real, my sleep is not.
My death is a door and not a door at the same time.
My reality is inseminated by drapes.
My love is coming clean and hanging dry.
My beauty is not virgin to rancor.
My socks are matched three times a year. My body is a shower curtain with a fish on it. My aura is a leavened purple. My past held hands with my future.
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PAGE 41
POETRY
SOME MEN WANT TO CARVE THEIR EYES OUT ALEJANDRA CABEZAS
Do you remember the way the light was before the mutilation, when your cosmovision of pairs died in a singular socket
— your lids clamped to a nothing, meanwhile I hung to a bundle of fibers like a lifeline?
I bet you still will yourself into blindness; closing what is is not the same as seeing through what once was.
One eye is enough to trace the hollows of my face to my lips wherein lie the secrets of your severed eye.
If a cyclop’s socket is enough to lose a man at sea, best beware of carving out new orifices — I’ve heard gods make curses out of mortal pride.
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PAGE 42
ARTICULATE CAROLINE WUNN
Sounds so sweet my bones are aching for the taste of sugar and spider web whispers— that rough catch in your throat the ah of open lips and a plea for your salvation— dipped in softness ripped from laboured lungs scratched on linen bleached— and moaning strings make better speeches than our tongues in groove could ever spin, wordless cries mean everything when trapped in walls of sound.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 43
FIDELITY CAROLINE WUNN
My wedding ring will be made of marzipan and sugar spun so carefully into the shape of crystallized eternity with golden honey dried and drawn into a hexagon stuck for everyone to see where the diamond ought to be and each time my mind wanders back to you I can rub my ring between my hands and feel my fingers stick to the hollows of my palms in thick and viscous sweetness like my lips between your thighs.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 44
POSTPONED HOLIDAY DREAMS JADE GAYNOR
For transatlantic transbians When time comes she is allowed to spend the night. I will hold her tight,
whisper the sacred name: ohyespleaseohgod to invite holiness, to repent and accept forgiveness
and she forgives with breath, Yes, baby, good girl after pressure softly builds–– she moves in, she slides home, white hot light behind eyes, she has words for me I have sounds for her she has smiles for me I can’t see anymore–– then communion is received, we take and eat of our bodies, broken for ourselves as much as for each other, spending too much, which is natural for holidays, and nothing makes a holiday feel whole like a love which is too spent.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 45
IT’S NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING TO HAVE BAD FEELINGS JADE GAYNOR
When they stripped me away they did not do it carefully, only on purpose and with not as much cruelty or anger as might have helped, broke fingers but not wrists. They did not trust my offerings, new living room or stuffed animals so, they threw them away, kept only colors, explored only where they had to, left a very clean note in the mess they made of my house, took doors with them for safety, left dried leaves to emphasize how few light bulbs were left. In the beginning I poured myself a glass of cereal to say that I did not need or deserve an apology, but after twelve bites of stale milk I’m beginning to think I do.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 46
EFFLORESCENCE JADE GAYNOR
Something about becoming a woman makes me want to be stripped naked, paraded before all lesbians hungry gaze like a rainstorm where you feel a drop then two then it’s raining then it’s a deluge then my world is drowning for the first time, and, with permission, they descend on my body, tear me apart,
use the pieces to fuck deep into new holes, familiar holes, every hole planting doubts in my doubts, and this antediluvian drought, this parched rind, this cracked shell, falls away into the fullness of my efflorescence—
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 47
I AM QUEER AND FREE AND POINTED JADE GAYNOR
My heart is a space where I keep lots of room to grow and run like a child and a puppy and a bird of prey, osprey, sea hawk, falcon, crest -ing the waves of my Ocean bright shining sun and salt stinging my face with kisses boundless dancing with words and body leaping scaling the walls with my crows and rats as we seek the fauna of warmer climes across the endless dreams of life, across the endless dreams of life I am Queer and Free and Pointed
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 48
TRANS DAY OF JOY & RAGE JADE GAYNOR
Okay, When I was cis, I saw As a cis person does— As in a bathroom mirror During a private dinner. Now that I am trans, I see as through a puddle before jumping in and dancing in tiny pink galoshes
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 49
POETRY
REINFORCING STEREOTYPES? DOOR TO DOOR AT THE HOUSES OF THE ELOI CLASSISM, FAMILY SEPARATION, MENTAL ILLNESS, PROSTITUTION, RACISM, STREET CRIME, TRAUMA
THE MAENAD
They say, they tell me
Doing it alone without your help
That I am
Your ways, your money, your actions.
Reinforcing stereotypes
Doing everything
Of my people
Where it is going to be forgotten
Really? I’m 49
Where I play my trade is the sort of
How many others
Places that prefers to remain unseen
How many trans women
And is not very remarkable in any.
Do you know that
I’m fat
Have survived
I pass
Long enough to reach 37 Let alone 45, or 9. How many of those now
But in thrift store sheen and ghetto princess bling
Make less than $30,000 a year
I would be Ms. Thing but I’m white and I don’t even
How many make even less.
Bother wearing a wig or anything,
No please tell me
What you get, WYSIWYG.
I’ll wait
Not the way this is supposed to be but fuck that,
I will be right here
this is me.
Reinforcing the stereotype
I do things my way, for me.
Of a mother,
Is that the stereotype
49, who misses her daughter
That you girls bandy around
19
In your clubhouses
We don’t talk.
Where you don’t let
At 13 she fled back to
Filthy hoes like me
Trump fed Texas, white bread.
Inside to keep
We both have issues with the health in our heads
Your halls nice and middle class,
No I have subscriptions to all of these
White and clean, Heather-fied?
Damage and trauma magazines
Gag me with a spoon.
Mere issues would imply only
Fuck me with a chainsaw.
A hobbyist's eye, not any
No, a stereotype goes like this:
Of these tortures and troubles, I’ve seen, been
You all have degrees
Living past 37 is a miracle in itself
Are in your 30s
Making it 12 past that, with my subscriptions, is
Transitioned completely
something else
In just a few years.
PAGE 50
VULCANALIA '21
POETRY
You all write space shit
But if I am just reinforcing stereotypes, by
And wear the same fucking socks
Being the kind of people you
We like the same music but
"Better-thans" just don’t like,
Most of you can’t handle wanting cock
Then I am just collecting cannibals
Everything’s paid for everything is-
To fill funnels of Moorlock tunnels with
Oh, I don’t know, I’m assuming
Me and mine, the Disgraced disreputable.
What it is like inside your
Unmutual.
Plano, Texas or Richardson den, veranda, or some
Unnatural.
Other room that has a credenza.
Too Big.
Which was your grandmother’s
Unclean.
Or mom bought it on the cheap
My kind, we survive, outlasting outcasts, who eat of
At a police auction, being district attorney.
the Eloi tribe.
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 51
COUPLING THE MAENAD
I miss flirting
And no,
Real flirting
I miss coupling.
Not the perfunctory perfumery airing of wine
Shhh
The performative underneath, capitalism kind.
Be quiet,
I mean real flirting
You know-
Most--especially,
No, there is nothing.
I miss flirting
Thank goddess
With someone
For web cams,
For whom more is at stake
Cell phones,
In something so innocent
And prostitution.
Then any mere figure on your credit card.
For else
I miss slow
I would long ago
Fingers twining
Have become an old
In hair and straps and laughter.
And shriveled dumpling.
What was that like?
The kind you find later, washing
I don’t know
Not even the kitchen dog will eat that one.
It’s been so long I can’t remember Only capitalism Lies
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 52
SHAPESHIFTERS MYTHOLOGICAL BESTIALITY, FANTASTICAL BIRTH
THE MAENAD Flip your coins, sup your wine let us gather round tight tonight. Inside where you have your parties gathered ‘round fires, the light, the heat, the liars. I will ,,,,outside Under the stars' shining night eyes. Running and screaming, dreaming, naked and shameless, yipping With the coyotes. Just don’t be blind if you find In five months time, I come home with pups. I’m a shapeshifter, I don’t give a fuck. Well, sometimes I do. Sometimes it is good to be a coyote, Sometimes it is even better to get fucked like a coyote. Coyotes are also shapeshifters, you see This one too, knew who I was, what I knew Took me on a journey, said don’t stop believing. It takes one shapeshifter to prank another So, when the boys get older They’ll go say hi to their dad’s old lady, She can take them, they’ll be fine. It don’t bother me any Chaos and claw are but natural law. And I am here in the fringe dancing In the corner of your eye, mother to many, elusive as a memory on the wind.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 53
POETRY
BLACK X BLUE TERRAN BRICE
The crowd's laughter microwaves the air
I mean sure, you could easily be mistaken for straight
Moonlight catches your trade-like flair
But “Queer” was practically written all over my face
Freezing in place; my mouth ajar
12-point.
You walk in erect, like a fucking rockstar
Arial. Bold.
Blue jeans; black shirt
In semen.
Pants so tight I know they made your balls hurt I was like...
The stars don't compare to your melanin gleaming
So close to shitting myself 'cause I couldn't believe
You smelled of power; sweet, odiferous pride
you actually came out to see me!
You didn't cower; no inclination to hide Instead, you let the murmuring fade into moonlight
I bask in your aura for a second's eternity The moment fragile
Barbwire cuts from your tic-tac-toe beard
We broke the silence
We parted bodies, yet no severance of care
Nervous laughter; gregarious smiles
You built me up with your concrete eyes
Greetings cut short by our magnetism
Re-animation jutsu between my thighs...
Your body a compass; my body – true north The host calls my name; it's now time to perform We embrace; the world's orientation shifts to a halt
You give me a wink, my confidence turned on
They're watching; waiting; whispering; wondering
You've beaten my anxiety black and blue Old feelings repainted a lustrous hue
About us About our past
Making my way cross the manicured lawn
About whom you really were to me
I take to the stage; the crowd cheers me on Our bodies Black
About our secrets
Our history blue
About our truths
Yet here I am, left wondering
About our sexuality
About me and you
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 54
POETRY
MY SEXUALITY CORINNA SCHULENBURG
is relentless headless torsos
will be fractals of goosebumps and shudders
is a stuffed cat girl I hold between breast buds
will have a surprise at the bottom of the box
is a praying mantis with her mouth full of lovers’
was just a heap of elbows and sorries
heads
was also that scene where Devil seduces Lily
was once a complex board game with a missing
by transforming her into darkness
manual
darkness of dresses and dancing
will be upgraded shortly
and so really should’ve known sooner
will have herself a Hot Girl Summer
is mostly lesbians tbh
will make you pancakes, the ones with berries
is mostly you tbh
used to be that rainbow circle loading, loading
is a reckless abandon
may be open to that if you ask nice
with you at the wheel
may be open to not asking nice
would love to be poly AF
may be No Drake for men but Yes Drake for masc
but for all your fatal gravity
used to be a nearly empty toothpaste tube
will try for escape velocity
is now a discharge of howling phantoms
but keeps falling for
is getting a running start
is you was you will you
is in a quantum superposition
fuck me
will live or die when you open it
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 55
POETRY
IN THE EXAMINATION CHAIR CORINNA SCHULENBURG
I guess they're called stirrups? But I feel more ridden than riding, and could I move my body down a little? My butt edges to the brink of the exam chair, my gown flares and I am wider than I've ever been. Cis girls do this all the time, I think or at least once a year. Hands pull, poke, dysphoria flares at the touch like lands mines left from old wars. We have enough to work with, he says, you can come down now. But now I want to rise up in these stirrups and ride, gown incarnadined with all the blood to come, billowing like a queen on her steed, witch on her broom, woman on her whole damn self, wild with all that will be.
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
I WILL DO SIDE BENDS AND SIT-UPS/ BUT I WILL NOT LOSE THIS BUTT CORINNA SCHULENBURG
Baby, at last, has her back.
and my round thing in a face
Pill-plumped rump, estradiol derriere,
that loves me enough to use me
no hourglass alas but ass enough
and hand me an ice pack after
to shake, duff enough to ruffle the hassle
because above my behind
out of the bastards I street-slide by,
lower lumbar teeter like Jenga.
caboose juiced by informed consent,
Good Sir, I grow old, I grow old,
intent on getting the proper lap sprung.
I shall wear my jean shorts rolled.
It'll never be a bootie, tho.
Look, I can speak
White trans girl knows her lane,
of how gender euphoria makes
even if she dreams of Sir-Mix-A-Lot
teenagers of us all, silly and sexy,
hot on the teen center's dance floor
coltish as freshly-foaled demigods,
thirty years too late and right
rough-cut cuties on the dance floor
on time.
shaking all we made from what Listen, I can squeak
these plum cheeks in skinny jeans and feel the eyes eyes eyes even at forty-five. What I avoided is the same as what I missed. What would be bliss is that bass
our mamas could never give us.
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POETRY
BLOCK PARTIES AT THE MAZE ANKOOR PATEL
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POETRY
WOMEN FOR WOMEN FANTA CONDE
Right! Right. Right? Please don’t be fooled by them. Them women passing out flyers in gender studies class for the protest. Protest huh? What a funny way to describe a parade. Parade with hired policemen who will die to protect them, but will take a Black life over a mishap! Please don’t be fooled by them. Them women and girls use us as numbers. Numbers they use as wins. Wins these women equate to equality. Equality their Black female counterpart will never know nothing of. Please don’t be fool by them. Them women will compliment your kinks, skin, teeth, and body, but in the same breath reports you to the manager because you put their groceries in two bags instead of one. One minor foolish mistake that puts you on the watchlist. A watchlist guard by one of them. Please don’t be fool by them. Them women oppress but that money ain’t, yeah that money. Money they use to hire Black nannies, the same money leveraging them because of genocide, rape, imperialism, and colonialism in those nannies’ countries, poor nannies. Poor nannies who left their oppressive homeland because of their puppet leaders for survival, expecting the best in their newfound land, just to be bamboozled back into those pale hands.
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POETRY
T4T KATIE PROCTOR
there came a time when my breasts stopped aching with unfulfilled womanhood, and i stopped hurting quite so much, started wanting and living and loving like i was born to do. every morning i look at the picture on the fridge, stand by the toaster and still see the she with the smile and the baby blonde hair, and it still feels strange to think about where the line was drawn. like when i started growing into the body i get to call home. i stopped hating it and started calling it a blessing, a privilege for anyone lucky enough to see it sprawled in the moonlight in satin and lace. like i’m goddamn work of art in my not-quite-femininity, won’t let anyone in who doesn’t understand that my hips can be androgynous, non-committal and just as fluid as when i dance to lizzo in my bathroom. and i’m mourning, i say, really i am, pining for an innocence and delusion i barely remember but can see in that picture on the fridge. wish it’d never crossed my mind, life would have been so easy. but what’s life if you can’t write your own fables, i don’t know but i sure as hell wouldn’t like to be living it. not when it feels just like this, thunder outside my window and a bouquet of genderless roses. won’t go back except in the skirts and shoes i’ve learned i can still love. doesn’t make me a girl, doesn’t make me anything. it’s abundant and rich and empty all at once, loving between the lines - myself and others, so regardless. i don’t think about it, don’t kiss and tell and label. it’s cold, really, and pretty all at once. got to love my stripes and glitter. finished with naivety if it doesn’t mean understanding. i’ll cry a thousand times over if it can be like this. i’ll put flowers in my mouth and at my ankles. i get it now.
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VIDEA GAYMES DANNY MCLAREN
Michelle Visage says “you’re giving me boy” to a queen on the runway, like this is a scathing critique of drag. drag that’s a queer art form, drag with its deeply transgender history, drag that uses gender as its palette and canvas. that drag. to critique a gender performance for being not gendered right, not gendered enough, is absurd. but a mainstream audience means mainstreaming gender, too. RuPaul says being trans is cheating. maybe drag shouldn’t have rules that don’t allow for gender-fucking or gender-queering or gender-cheating. maybe drag wasn’t meant to be commodified, have its value priced at one hundred thousand dollars and an absolut vodka sponsorship. I have a drag persona. her name is Videa Gaymes and she is your titty streamer fantasy. she’s a vocaloid, cyber robo bitch with a cat ear headset. she’ll fuck you in VR or AR or just plain R. she’s Y2K retro-futuristic, sega dreamcast meets oculus rift. her head is a webcam, her pussy is a USB port, and her body is a hologram. is she human? human enough to know that gender is bullshit and bodies should be made of metal. how do you critique a virtual girl? a drag-mech with a queer/trans/non-binary pilot? what is this gaming-consolecomputer-monitor-blender-from-your-kitchen-counter of a drag queen giving you? boy, girl, alien, android, high fashion nightmare– she can do it all. she’s just that versatile. Videa Gaymes will short circuit your brain. she eats live wires and transphobes for breakfast.
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GOLDEN HOUR REY FAIRBURN
Golden Hour Sunlight kisses her face And for a moment I swear I see a halo just above her head Her smile pulls tides of blood rushing to my cheeks I open my mouth then close it again How can I tell her that Heaven is right where she stands And the world can say we’ll go to hell but I’d burn for eternity for one glance one touch one stolen moment one blissful kiss I’d do it all for Her
POETRY
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PYRISCENCE BLOOD & SUICIDAL IDEATION
ALICE ALEXANDRA MOORE
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 63
TO BE RIDDEN CLARK A. POMERLEAU
I want to be ridden by queer Dionysus his scent curling in my nostrils buds reddening magic stalk lengthening in my mouth until sweet lilac fills my throat dripping through me Ragged
breath
heart pounding in ears
the beat
of revelers’ feet with pressure building a volcano from dormant Mount Nysa that, heated with no escape, blows
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 64
9PM AMÉLIE POLLAK
the choking warmth of a summer’s eve gushing through the windows of our home we bathe in silence and late sunlight legs laid on the balcony swallowing the faltering breeze pearls of sweat swim off my forehead I suggest we have salad for dinner the buzzing fan answers in your place you are too busy melting into the smudged pages of your book ‘this is our soft island, our enclave’ speak your eyes as you turn your head to me spreading your gaze onto my sweltering skin, hands chopping cucumber and lettuce leaf goats cheese and bright red beet.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
SOME FUCKING PLACES JP SEABRIGHT
A bench - St James’ Park - after dancing in Heaven (never felt so alive at five in the morning) Shower cubicle - changing rooms - Students Union (your hand over my mouth to hush my exuberance) The toilets - Ghetto Bar - down on my knees (the bouncer broke the door threw us onto the streets) Your bedsit - bike handlebars - sticking into my back (licking blood off my fingers to remove your Mooncup) First time - a woman – bed unfucked & unmade (your tongue teaching me an entirely new language) Amsterdam - trams clang – woken from bare hours (a night spent with sex toys from that shop on the Spui) Leeds - business hotel - after securing the contract (so horny and drunk the wrong gender didn’t matter) Campervan - Lake Balaton - sweat pouring from limbs (windows shut tight to stop mozzies getting in) King-sized - two butches - battling for top dog (next door your girlfriend goes down on the lodger)
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Suit-strewn - student room – on Polytechnic streets (your close shave gave me a rash for weeks) Single bed – cheap holiday - all night on the beach (we caught San Lorenzo’s stars when they fell within reach) Polyamorous - penthouse - we practiced your kink (then I chatted up your housemate at the kitchen sink) Mattress - scummy lino - chair propped against the door (while around us the builders slowly ripped up the floor) On floorboards - my friend’s room - a night of Fuzzy Duck (we did it in silence though we knew he would look) Front seat - your car - before we were caught (the police sent by parents disapproving and fraught) Your bed - voluptuous - I was nervous as hell (crept out in the morning before the alarm bell)
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 67
F-WORD JP SEABRIGHT
My love for you is fat it's fierce it's fucking fearless its force a wave that flings me sideways I'm fumbling tumbling stumbling in the slipstream flailing to keep head above water finally falling with fervent adventure fragile heart fickle no more I fall into you and our desire in awe of my good fortune
POETRY
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DE-GENERATION JP SEABRIGHT
don’t emasculate my masculinity or force the female form upon me why emulate a straightjacket all in for a more degenerate gender
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
OH LOVER COME QUICK JP SEABRIGHT
oh lover come quick My lips are starting to dry and crack from the lack of your kiss My skin is beginning to blister and peel without the feel of your touch My heart is starting to weaken and chill without the thrill of your love - oh beloved come quick
VULCANALIA '21
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PARADE JP SEABRIGHT
We are confetti dancing in the slipstream of haulage trucks grinding their gears for dancing boys waving dayglo penises high on helium bopping from poppers & rainbow lager fizzled with sunshine breathless with happiness our whistles slicing the world in two US & THEM where us is everyqueer all colours of the rainbow & then some spectrum of light & love today even the police & usual protesters will not shame our pride & sense of injustice when every parade public display of affection is still a protest & petition for basic human rights
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
SEQUENCE: UNBINARY LAUREN SISKO
GIRL And in this way, because of these stockings and nylon and cold red lipstick, the material of her skirt swishing against her knees, because of these she was a woman, though she had never been a woman, and would not be for some time. GAMINE Secretly she knows she’s screwing all of this up, it’s building, and soon enough it’ll come crashing all around her, searing like a pyroclast. DENIAL: IN PICTURES I want to fall in love with a photographer I want albums of beautifully-composed, candid prints Like stills from a movie “Best Cinematography” “Best Leading Actress”
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THIS IS THE ISSUE FOUND, naked and drooling, sheets contorted, eyes rolled up, head emptied, the color of milk gone bad, flies. THE THOUGHTS THAT ARE GONE BY THE NEXT DAY I said, “Oh. Oh.” I said, “Not now.” I said, “Later.” And meanwhile there are months and months and months. I said I’m taking care of myself, but there are parts of me that atrophy. The parts connecting us, the network of fleshy strings and strands, wet tissue. The pill is a white, flat disk. Sits on the muscle of my tongue. It goes purring down my throat, every night, a clockwork dose, a familiarity. I get off on familiarities, mostly, more and more these months. There’s a pop outside like a firework. Fuselage and spark, maybe the plastic syrette in the foil package, warming in my palm. The pill is a white, flat disk, melting against my esophagus
POETRY
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VULCANALIA '21
.... . .-.. .--. I will follow you. I picture myself alone and brave somewhere distant. My face in the glass is a white smudge of milk, spoiled beyond the season. My ears are ringing with graphite that rips across the page and shallow keys clicking Morse code into clapboard walls. SINKING The bricks are cracked. This place is going down. DENIAL: IT’S ON THE MENU I will have photographic proof. There it is, emerging from the steam. Pressed between my teeth, the goulash of my brains.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
SEQUENCE: THE FEMALE LAUREN SISKO
MYSTIQUE This absence of one, This lack of a face, Fills her chest like a glass: Hissing aspirin, The length of this space. DAMNED Blinded by the tears rolling down onto the pillow. Shh, don’t let him see. Hiding too much. There’s pain in those depths. A sharp, knifing pain. And together they pull her legs apart and cry · · · Yes, Miss! Yes -- You’ve got a monster inside you. This is the time of mourning. WE ARE SUCH GLAMOUR Caught up and drifting away. It’s a tangle of bodies, of corsets and spike heels and silk ropes and fishnets and platform tall and PVC and skin, a smash of color: black and red and white and black and blazing electric pink
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VULCANALIA '21
and a specific flavor: a kicked-back slutted-up Gothed-out smoke-em-if-you-got-em all-on-the-ropes mentality. A bass that bleeds your ears. It’s those skinned bodies wheeling and gyrating over our heads, hard drinks lamp-lit neon signs, getting lost in the crowd, feeling yourself move with it. It’s those hands against your back and that look in their eyes, bullet blues, the points of fire that follow behind hot red fingertips. IN THE MORNING Rain falls straight into my eyes. It runs into my brain, Where it dries.
POETRY
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GRACE ( no one knew about the garbage in the back, the vomiting and the guts that spilled all over the floor ) AND THEN SHE LOOKED AT ME and we smile with a shared breath, in spite of the warnings, watching the clouds shear the sky into shreds, beads of silver, breath from our mouths, that handsome exchange: We’re Fucked as we thrash like butterflies all cold against the glass.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
SATURDAY NIGHT ANDREW WATSON
can I make you forget
you are incandescent inside me
the rigid lines of time
I writhe to your beat
with my hips’ calligraphy my pulsing tongue?
we build glories and topple them
can the intermingled pleasure of this pain I cry quicken in you the primitive
we are ancient stone painted
religionless lust?
lit by modern light
soaring solitude leaves neither blood nor feathers
and when we come,
as we rip and tear to the desired flesh
when your soul rolls through me and we are mortal again,
you have wound your wildness into tense flame
you lay your nearly extinguished skin
there is no rock within me you cannot turn to diamonds
next to mine, that these cherished embers might be fanned by our sleeping breaths.
but your hands are too few so you must press your lips and every muscle against and around me you who have crowned my throat and rectum must become the shape in which my molten body will simmer and steam I have lost you in the moment you are only the strength of your thrusting and the scraping of your moans across my ears like your stubble over my nipples when you half-panicked hurried to the root of my weakness for you
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POETRY
THE MOMENT’S NEED ANDREW WATSON
break your languid lutes and their candlelit glissandos toss your dream-spun home life past those shaded Sunday avenues slash the careful weave give all the priceless paintings to the fire but leave your hard cock gleaming where the whirlwind gathers
VULCANALIA '21
PAGE 79
TO THE BATHS ANDREW WATSON
Wherever I thought I’d find you— standing in a corridor, lying on a bed, slipping your towel off before sliding into the hot water of the pool— I didn’t find you, nor did I learn how to find you. I only stepped again and again into the tear between my life outside the bathhouse and the world I sought to create of prowling eyes made patient suns, of furtive hands slowed, revolving in waltzes, of silence ringing resonant and golden with meaning that grows past the bathhouse to where light reflected off water frames your reclining form before you disturb the stillness of fantasy by waking up, walking toward the ocean with the ache and beauty of a coronation, until your feet meet the tide and you enter the nexus of so many myths, where I cannot find you, can only recite tales of your wonders to my children, the daydreams I raise and clothe and feed and put to bed before I leave the apartment you’ve never known for the bathhouse I’ve never known you to enter.
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
IN THE MIDNIGHT OF MEDITATION ANDREW WATSON
In the midnight of meditation I fall into the shadow of his voice, warmed only by the kiss he burned upon my lips when he bent his face whose effigy is dream to mine. I fall into the shadow of his leaving when midnight kissed with meditative lips a dream that one day I would sip again, as from a golden chalice, the attar of his eyes. I rise from the shadow of his love to stand in rags, a seer bereft of prophecy, with no guile left to gild the bones of hope I had arranged about my heart as an effigy of our final kiss. I know nothing of love except it is the shadow of a midnight when his lips and eyes beguiled my heart, when his body became a chalice and I drank of its dreams, thinking them prophecy. I know nothing of love, but I remember it as it spoke and kissed and turned and left. And I hope it remembers me, receding into the distance.
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POETRY
DRAG SHOW AND LAST CALL ANDREW WATSON They say the jewel is fake, artificial the feather, the voice of song a ghost; but the lips are real, the fluidity of limbs traces patterns that sparkle across Time. What else could one possibly want, especially afterward, when each drop of acid wit leaves the lies and delusion pockmarked? Can one ever say what it means to abide for an endless moment in this resplendent space where truth and falsehood flex lacquered limbs in the dawn of whose identical sheen the old divisions unite, and the new, the unthought breathes its blessing through this sound, this look, this meticulous edifice of beauty without death, joy forever unfolding into the sky from this single point on the Earth before it turns and the shadow that always follows the gleam of love reminds us of time, and where we have to go to now that it is time to go?
VULCANALIA '21
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AN OCCASION OF SIN SEXUAL THEMES, RELIGIOUS IMAGERY
CLEM FLOWERS
Lake waves lapping at our feet Shadow walking Beneath the salted heat Cresting off the moss- cooked waters As we sit huddled together Sharing cigarettes & stolen Watermelon wine homemade- stick to your tongue & teeth sickly sweet He leans over & I breathe him in
Menthol-- patchouli-- musk Laying back, knees trembling, excited panic in the throes of lust
Lips on mine & it is explosions & fire & heat & raw bloody fuck knots Music is the katydids and cicadas intertwined with our tongues tangled Like the kudzu vines Tightening their death grip on the shore Gentle, kind touch Leans me back slowly, panting, as I feel his hand trace along the waist of my jeans And every Sunday service Promising eternity by a Broiling lake of fire & damnation All drowned out In my fevered, swimming skull By the song of fireflies Swelling along the grove Of pepper trees
POETRY
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
CONTRAPUNTAL FOR JUNE SEXUAL THEMES, RELIGIOUS IMAGERY
EMORY BRINSON
1969//stonewall my girl loves like burning cherry tops charcoal tar black and bruised rock salt and tequila on the tongue firebombs on the brain harsh breathing and vultures circling we sway with the movement, become stone liquor stains and brick dust on cheap sheets
if it were easy to love the brawl would stay between our bodies, so I get drunk on bloodlust and the thrill 5 nights too few for a city girl my mother pulls out her teeth bone by bone I throw a brick at a snorting hog
my girl kisses me like rioting fresh wine crystallizes the tips of stilettos there is something about a good dancehall rage leaking around the edges of a moment they will say it isn’t true worship we exalt the shrine of burned out bricks anyway we molotov our way into the future
put differently we plant revolution in scattered bone marrow funeral parlor flowers reclaimed breathe life into my cavernous mouth the building shudders and we remain
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POETRY
2016//the first wedding lovemaking bodies baptised in shattered glass this is the easy work of waltzing with the devil and I want to spill into her space, more angel-like loose limbed and velvet mouth open both in and under the wretched night sky empty lipstick shells litter the mattress
if it were easy to love I would still take the plunge find her in the honeywater light of knowing what it means to live no permission necessary for adoration rosary beads and wedding pearls hurl a bouquet to a pink-cheeked crowd of lovers
sugar-rot and salt burn gap-toothed is her best look anyway there is something about the line between a lover’s stare and the yearning of a record player but what more could this consumption be take in the taste and sound of a satisfied existence our light in the heavens for everyone to see
I burn for her. tulips and white roses in the pulpit will she make love to me on the dais mark the instant we become one we are a movement in technicolor steadfast in our devotion.
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stonewall//the first wedding my girl loves like burning cherry tops / lovemaking bodies baptised in shattered glass / charcoal tar black and bruised / this is the easy work of waltzing with the devil / rock salt and tequila on the tongue / and I want to spill into her space, more angel-like / firebombs on the brain / loose limbed and velvet mouth open / harsh breathing and vultures circling / both in and under the wretched night sky / we sway with the movement, become stones / empty lipstick shells litter the mattress liquor stains and brick dust on cheap sheets if it were easy to love / if it were easy to love / I would still take the plunge / the brawl would stay between our bodies, so I / find her in the honeywater light / get drunk on bloodlust and the thrill / of knowing what it means to live / 5 nights too few for a city girl / no permission necessary for adoration / my mother pulls out her teeth bone by bone / rosary beads and wedding pearls / I throw a brick at a snorting hog / hurl a bouquet to a pink-cheeked crowd of lovers my girl kisses me like rioting / sugar-rot and salt burn / fresh wine crystallizes the tips of stilettos / gap-toothed is her best look anyway / there is something about a good dancehall / there is something about the line between / rage leaking around the edges of a moment / a lover’s stare and the yearning of a record player / they will say it isn’t true worship / but what more could this consumption be / we exalt the shrine of burned out bricks anyway / take in the taste and sound of a satisfied existence / we molotov our way into the future / our light in the heavens for everyone to see put differently / I burn for her. / we plant revolution in scattered bone marrow / tulips and white roses in the pulpit / funeral parlor flowers reclaimed / will she make love to me on the dais / breathe life into my cavernous mouth / mark the instant we become one / the building shudders / we are a movement in technicolor / and we remain / steadfast in our devotion
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POETRY
NOTHING ROUTINE HERE SEXUAL THEMES, RELIGIOUS IMAGERY
EMORY BRINSON
become sound / essence of vibration / vibrato / volume / learn to / jerk & pulse / with crowd of beings / composing the body / swarm of hornets / murder/ of crows under skin / groupthink / & hive-mind / becoming the routine / which is to say / overcoming / your pathological need to be / adored / i promised my mother i would never/ love a narcissist / but here i / quiver / where flesh meets / flesh / meets the earth / and you scutter with / the other snakes / i said / become sound / the way ears tremble / when bass breathes / too loud / the way the body becomes / one / with what slithers beneath / the melody / an octave meant / for the animal in your chest / the way in / death / we are all reduced / to remnants / echo of / vocal chord trace / fragment of fossil / in another life / we are the shriek / of wilderness / last month / a coyote slipped through our bedroom window/ they travel alone / searching for someone / to swallow / have you ever heard a coyote / yip / they sound almost like / a hundred vultures / mourning / the way a gunman laughs after / devouring / the bullet / you have a history / of howling / i have a history / of snatching / the bellow from air / and / smothering it in stomach acid / maybe what i mean / is / become silence / what is left / after the sound has finished / its shudder / faltering into / almost memory
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
BUTTERFLY IMPLIED TRANS SLUR, GAY SLUR
SAPPHO STANLEY
Lowkey,
This fuck is the kind
I’d let the judge
that leaves your
at my name change
tranny granddaughter
hearing fuck
awake at night
me in a sleazy
realizing, “huh,
motel while crackheads watch.
they actually have sex, don’t they?”
But like, in a conquering femininity
The fuck is so good,
sort-of way.
so BDSM-ridden, and so God-approved
The kind-of
that they had a lock
situation my
on their closet.
grandmother left herself in when she met
The fuck that brings a
Jeff in a bar.
non-related man to be your grandfather, the
A fuck
fuck that turns God
of femininity
into childhood trauma,
led astray into God’s hands.
into Perry Stone, into Qanon Facebook
The only kind-of
posts that are
fuck you find
sent to your daughter.
yourself in after enduring an abusive marriage, with alleges of poison.
PAGE 88
This is the kind-of fuck so goddamn good, that you alienate all the faggot grandchildren, radicalize, and gaslight your own daughter into responding to your text messages.
This is the kind of fuck that leaves your granddaughter, at her name change hearing, quivering with mental orgasms when the judge looks at her through his blue piercing eyes, bald head, with a look of absolute questioning and sexual frustration, and she responds back, with a voice-crack, “Uhhh-uh, Ye-Ah.”
VULCANALIA '21
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POETRY
NOW I'M WATCHING THE GOOD DOCTOR SEXUAL THEMES, RELIGIOUS IMAGERY
SAPPHO STANLEY
It was raining and God tried apologizing.
I’ll sometimes watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians,
She wallowed on the floor like She had been shot.
wondering how Kanye fits in it all.
She left me. My little cactus is knocked over by the wind. She texted me weeks later,
It laughs back at me, with a whistle and droplets,
asking to see each other.
before I close the window.
I’d already bought a new wardrobe and adopted a new cat.
Jesus calls me later that night, he apologizes for my grandmothers,
I told Her,
feeling sorry for so many misled
“we can still be friends.”
by Jones and Shapiro.
and She agreed at first. I tell him, “you could fix it, you know?” We’d get together,
He tells me it doesn’t work that way.
watch Hulu student edition
I call him an asshole, that I’m ashamed.
and the ads would forget to play.
He hangs up. God leaves a message two hours later
Then she told me our friendship
crying, asking whatever happened to
wasn’t great for her mental health.
our little family.
We were in the rain together.
Now, I watch anime on Hulu and the ads don’t forget to play.
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POETRY
ON DENVER TRANS SLUR
SAPPHO STANLEY
In some other time, I’m already in Denver.
I’ll come home and sleep happily, forgetting to take the makeup off and smear it all over the naked pillow.
I’ve arrived in the city with the droves of gays and lesbians, and trannies.
With her we make plans for Denver, maybe Portland.
I’m not stuck on piecing
We fight every other day, stop talking. About every two months
myself together through nipple piercings.
we take a break. We come back together and
In therapy today I was handed two buzzers.
I’ll put my glitter on,
The left one bzzzzzzz’s, then the right,
we’ll walk out, have a nice day,
but in a gentle reminder sort-of way.
she’ll grow distant, I’ll ask why,
She tells me to imagine a container to store
she won’t respond, until
all of my memories in.
I wipe the eyeshadow off in the bathroom.
I have an olefin carpet covered box with a fuzzy inside.
One of the bulbs above my mirror flickers, and my toilet feels cold to the touch of my bare skin.
I close the lid and paint my face with foundation and glitter, walk into the city. Some photographer finds me, tells me, “you’re something that needs to be seen.” I oblige.
VULCANALIA '21
THE DEATH OF TROY HELEN JENKS
Now there, in the moon of the tenth year, one could see them just as clearly from the walls –– soldiers of baleful beauty, standing tall and broken amidst the praise-songs of the poets and kings, drowning in the river-dirt throat of the Scamander. Ten years of dust and bile brings little comfort to neither men nor kings –– war is not a precious thing; oh, how it ebbs and flows like the salt-loom tides of the sea, a torrent of blood and bodies piled far and wide across the Peloponnese. Was Iphengenia the first, butchered by father’s hand, or was it earlier, when Helle plunged into the watery depths of the crystalline sea? Blood is blood, it flows in endless excerpt, just as the soldiers and horses and blades and kings steady themselves for more. But still they shout, with all the weary pangs of those who have lost and wept and grieved, cheering from the parapets until their words are lost by wind, and later, time; remembered, perhaps, by history.
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Laudamus te! Victoria semper contra Graeci! they cry in a language yet to be invented, borne out of the endless death and rape of the women and their children from the plains of Hellas to the mighty Carthage towering over the sea. Empires rise and fall with the keening pain of womanhood –– is it not enough to build a city on the foundation of grief, let alone to end it with the bartering of flesh-prizes and slaves to suit the glutton taste of conquerors? But that is all civilization is –– a cycle of life, death, rebirth, and destruction, glorified from this moment to the moments of every age to come. So when the poets sing of Troy, let them sing of how it fell with the sacrifice of Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles, with the rape and murder of the unnamed women and children, or how it burned as babies fell from the battlements –– a threat to history, to civilization, to the enduring legacy of the might of men. Flames, burning on savage glory –– the death of a city long now crumbled to the earth, mere bones of myth immortalized in tragedy.
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DIOMEDES WOUNDS APHRODITE (IL.5) HELEN JENKS
Strike at pale, limp wrist, son of Tydeus –– ichor spills on lofty plain from
glistening veins of laughter-loving Aphrodite. Lithe, a likeness in the body not of man,
but grey-eyed god –– warrior possessed exhumes the ardor of battle as goddess slinks away to high Olympus,
pouting.
VULCANALIA '21
XCIV
POETRY
TO MAKE LOVE WITH YOU SLOANE ANGELOU
I would like to discover the taste of your fountain with my tongue I would love to discover the taste of you clit to clit tit to tit meat to meat I want your taste in my mouth. may I plant wet kisses on your neck on your collar bones on your breasts at your navel in your hips I want to love you amen amen amen let the goodness and mercies of your body follow me all the days of my life let me love you amen. amen. amen.
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XCV
JEZEBEL WILL YOU MARRY ME SLOANE ANGELOU
when trouble calls Jehovah sleeps but I will be here awake with lust for you ready to love you with or without breasts to hold you through your silence to witness your existence or non-existence I will be here, awake nothing in me needs to cast you out of yourself make you forget everything you feel Jezebel will you marry me o Jezebel I want everything they hate about you when trouble calls Jehovah sleeps but I will be here awake to answer your silenced prayers.
POETRY
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WHAT'S LEFT OF MEADE UNREALITY, ANIMAL HARM, BODILY HARM, DRUG ABUSE, DEATH, GUILT.
W.C. PERRY
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GATE Leslie’s here, so it must not be so bad. You stop, boots crunching in the snow, only a few feet away from her. Her parka is soiled with packed layers of white and something black tangled in the fur lining of her hood. Leslie’s face presses into the snow, hidden. Her thin legs tremble and a soft, constant weeping comes from her. At the top of her hood, the chain link gate begins but does not end. It carves itself into the sky like a skeining web. From where her mouth is assumed to be, a rattling voice asks: Open the gate? Something to open it. Bring it back here. I cannot move anymore. How do you know this Leslie, dear Traveler? Does the voice sound like hers, does the body in the snow resemble hers? You shiver as the trees’ wiry fingers flit in the damp yellow floodlight. “Leslie” is useless to you now. She must’ve meant something to you in the past for you to remember her so easily, right? She could have been your sister, a coworker, or a stranger you saw in a hardware store three years ago. Leslie might have yellow fingers. She might have brown or black or blonde hair. But you don’t know. You just gape up at the endless gate and wonder how there can be an exit when you’ve never entered this place to begin with. You can’t just leave her there, alone and sobbing in the snow. Though you grab one of her arms and pull, she doesn’t move. Her elbow doesn’t bend, and her finger joints are solid. She won’t speak to you any more than a couple nonsensical words through tears. Useless. You grab the chain-fastened lock to the gate and pull. Nothing. There must be some bolt cutters someplace, or somebody with a key. Leslie disappears in the snowfall as you make your journey elsewhere. On the roadside, a rust-bitten sign holds against the storm. Its ripe green edges have been either torn or blasted off, with little pin-sized holes in the thin sheet of aluminum. MEADE, the sign reads, or at least from what is left of it. Droves of black plastic bags tumble past. The road is somehow not frozen yet, providing decent traction. When you were younger, your mother told you to never put your hands in your pockets during wintertime. If you slip and fall, she said, you’ll at least be able to brace yourself before you hit the ground. So, you keep your hands free, aching and faintly blue. What you keep in your pocket in place of hands is a paperback journal to take down whatever happens here. Remember: this wasn’t forced on you, the thoughts of what happened here after you left lead to this. After college, you took a journalism position in another
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town. It was larger, not sparsely populated and outnumbered by trees and flat-eyed livestock awaiting the goodnight kiss of a stunbolt. Your apartment had granite countertops, high ceilings, and a city view. But that wasn’t all, was it? Plants filled the bathtub, nestled in among each other – cacti, pothos, aloe vera, spearmint – in soil that stained the white basin a permanent gray. Just before the sun rose, you stepped inside and shut the glass door. Water would spew from the shower head and turn the soil to sludge, twisting roots together around each toe and pulling you deeper. Ouch. Pull the cactus needles from between your toes. That must hurt like a bitch. Start taking care of yourself more, do you know what mother would say if she were here? Over in the field, frost-hardened branches cover a low stone wall. Take a closer look at it. The wall is actually a well, and the branches are meant to keep people from falling in. Through the gaps in the branches, a small pouch is visible. It hangs loosely in the void of the well and there is no sound from within. Reach into the well, as deeply as you can. Now. WELL It appears you’ve managed not to fall in – congratulations. Inside the pouch, you find Thirty Tarnished Silver Coins. These are pretty valuable coins; what were they doing down in that empty well? One of the branches splits in the middle, careening into the dark. There is no sound from within. Back to the road, you stumble on the blacktop – or should I say “graytop”? Only blacktop that’s frequently redone remains black; others fade with time. This is why the roads in wealthy communities look nicer than they do in poor communities. Remember when you were poor, Traveler? Remember boiled hotdogs on white bread and mixed berry Kool-Aid – didn’t big sister always joke that they couldn’t decide which berries to use, so they just tried them all? And the cavity, too. Wasn’t she the one who tore the rotten tooth from your mouth? She always wanted to be some sort of doctor, if I remember correctly. Sitting in your palm like a black hole, the tooth was a hungry galaxy at the axis of surrounding lines. The dog ate it later that night. It’s not much further. Keep going. At the side of the road, a weathered homestead holds its own tonight. There’s no driveway – not even a trace of one underneath the snow – and the yard is littered with scrap
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metal, burnt wood beams, and three mismatched tires. Vinyl siding that had once been white is now beige with streaks of grime below windowsills. And to your surprise, none of the windows are broken. They’re flimsy and layered with plastic sheeting, but still unbroken. Almost anything would be better than staying out in this cold any longer. You step onto the porch, peering through rotten holes in the wooden floor with amazement that it supports your weight. Knock on the door first; don’t be rude. The knocking echoes within, the door thinner than presswood and yawning open with ease. You enter the abandoned house. HOUSE You can trust me, Traveler. This house is safe; there are no carefully planned surprises here to spring from their gimmicky mechanisms, no prerecorded howls or hidden fog machines anyplace. Go on, step further in. You’ll notice the wet carpeting throughout, but don’t pay it any mind. There isn’t any furniture here to trip over: no dining table or chairs, no decorative plants, no settees or grandfather clocks. It’s a clean slate of a downstairs parlor with a radiator next to the fireplace, a kitchen with doorless cabinets and two ceiling fans, and a dining room with no windows but plenty of light switches. Upstairs, there are three rooms, two of which are locked. The doorknobs rattle, firm. You give a knock on each door – no sound within. A pulsing heat comes from your knuckles after knocking, damaged from the dense material. Whoever built this house made it easier to enter than it was to explore. In the third room, a singular piece of furniture takes up space in the far corner. Rusting and emaciated, an antique bedframe supports an already-stained mattress without covers. Take a closer look – I promise there are no bedbugs hiding in the creases and seams. There are no little red legs to march about, unseen, in the shadowy linens to clamber up your skin and leave raw and reddened presents for morning. It’s nothing you haven’t experienced before: sensations of movement when nothing is there, cans of smoke consuming toys whole and waving green hellos through windows, the burning of a wooden bed and your favorite frog shirt. Didn’t the rooms look smaller with furniture pulled out from the wall? I apologize, Traveler. All this detailing has made me hungry. There isn’t any food in the kitchen, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to go and find some. I know it’s late and dark and cold. Go.
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Don’t bother locking up the house; the old door wouldn’t keep anything out anyway. There’s a tree at the edge of the property with a ball of tattered bedsheets hanging from a rope. It swings back and forth, back and forth, then to the side as the wind changes direction. Was that there before? Another strong gust rips the mass of sheets away and scatters them in the field. One has wrapped itself around the stump of an infant tree, a gaping bandage over a burnt arm. Somewhere, in its burrow, a coyote giggles. Lost beneath the snow, you can only walk where you imagine the sidewalks used to be. On one side of the road, a flat-topped building surrounded by empty parking lot emanates a flickering glow from the basement window. At the entrance, a concrete garden statue of Saint Mary reaches out her arms in welcome. She is no taller than knee-level, maybe even further down considering the loose gravel she stands on. There’s no reason for you to stop here; God has run out of generosity and saves none for the likes of you. Extending from the parking lot, a convenience store floods the area with dim light. There are only two gas pumps outside, each flashing over and over in thick block text: WELCOME TO FOODMARK! TWO FOR FIVE DEAL ON SELECT 12 OZ. BAGS OF CHIPS! SIGN UP FOR OUR REWARDS PROGRAM! Tricked by an empty gas cannister set in front of the entrance, a pair of automatic doors comes halfway before jolting backward in an infinite loop. FOODMARK Inside, the convenience store is a sickly yellow, quiet and deserted save for the constant hum of fluorescent bulbs and glass-front refrigerators with their hollow backsides visible from limited stocking. On the shelves, boxes are punctured, and cans are without their labels. Beneath them, the price tags are faded and illegible. There is no attendant at the counter, only a bare display case with coin slots on each window. One window contains a box of cereal printed in pastels with a curly-haired boy on the front, the slot labeled as Five Coins. Next is an aluminum can of black coffee for Ten Coins. Finally, in the last window is a metal cannister with a blue stripe down the middle and holes. A small ring dangles from the top. This item is the most expensive at Fifty Coins. Remember, Traveler: you only have Thirty Coins, so spend them wisely.
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You have chosen the can of black coffee and one box of classic cereal, for a total of Fifteen Coins. Once you have inserted the coins, there is no going back. Are you sure about your decision(s)? Okay. There are Fifteen Coins Remaining in your possession. HOUSE II You’ve made your way back to the house safely. Nothing has changed noticeably: the same wet carpet, no new furniture, and no houseguests. Each stair yawns under your weight, just as tired as you must be from the night’s ventures. Closing the door to your bedroom, you find a lock that wasn’t there before – a massive deadbolt more befitting of a front door. Better safe than sorry, you say, turning the lock. On the bed, you fold your legs underneath you and tear at the package of cereal. The opening tab is faded, but you can still make out the date: 3-14-84. However repulsive this is may differ on your current timeline, Traveler, but you’ll have to eat something eventually. Plain, sugarless oat hoops rustle inside. It appears that the plastic bag doesn’t fit properly into the box, and it is heavier than expected. Tear open the bag. Nothing out of the ordinary: just stale, flavorless breakfast food. Underneath the package, at the very bottom of the cardboard box, rests a Bronze Key. Rushing to unlock the door, you leap out of bed. Standing before the two locked doors, you wonder which one to try first. Neither one accepts the key, their hole shapes mismatched entirely. I promise you’ll get to see the contents of these rooms in time, Traveler. Just be patient. Hurry along to bed and remember to lock the deadbolt behind you. Close your eyes. Think of the past, or maybe it’s better not to – whichever gets you to sleep faster. Count the sheep leaping over a detached wooden fence in some blushing pasture, bracing themselves for the thrill of height and catching the sharp bite of a rusted nail by their hind leg on the way down. This sheep lets out a whine. It looks in your eyes and asks you -- why? FIELD It is still dark out when your eyes slide open. Tall, swaying stalks of grass have replaced the walls of your bedroom and the firmness of the mattress has shifted to the damp earth.
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At your feet, a crouched figure gruffly inhales with an almost sniffling sound. Its eyes are empty, hollow even, as the gaps in their head project the shadows of distant mountains and the immediate surrounding brush. Another figure comes from behind the grass, prompting the crouched one to stand and wipe dirt from the front of her dress. The second figure adjusts the frayed rim of his straw boater hat, taking the time to dust off his jacket as well. Both of them illuminated in the mauve flashes of dawn, their vacant eye sockets make silent contact before heading off together into the weeds. Good morning. Now would be a great time to explore the rest of the town in peaceful daylight. Get up. You don’t need to worry about them, they’re not here for you. Don’t tell me you think you’re important enough to have such a place created just for you? That’s hilarious. It’s time to go; you don’t know what lurks during nighttime. How did you get to be in this field, you ask? That’s information for another time. You look surprised to see the sheetwrapped stump behind your head, meaning you’re not too far off from the house. I wouldn’t have let you wander too far, Traveler. Let’s get you up and moving. Nothing further can happen here unless you take action; sitting in limbo is never quite as exciting. Head South. Yes, I said South. You have a wristwatch now, so place it level on the tree stump with the hour hand facing the sun. Halfway between the hour hand and the twelve, there’s an imaginary line pointing dead South. Got it? Now start walking, there’s something waiting for you. SCHOOLHOUSE Between the branches of two barren oak trees stands a whitewashed schoolhouse on a hill. As if it were an afterthought, a smaller main building slopes into a point with a narrow belltower placed in front. The top of the belltower is slatted and dark, leaving the bell’s current state unknown. Is it the same one that chimed schoolchildren home centuries ago? Has it been replaced by an impostor who can only pretend to have such memories? Or, maybe, the original cracked and nobody ever took the time to replace it. Below the slats, a rotting wooden sign boasts with freshly painted lettering: Meade Regional School. Adopted in 1914, the school taught children of all ages until its closing in 1943.
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Stepping past the comb-over remnants of a dead honeysuckle bush, you make your way to the concrete stop of the building. Underneath the vines, two small handprints are stamped into the concrete with the initials LT. Both windows at the front of the building are obscured by lace curtains, leaving the insides for you to discover. With a sturdy resistance, the iron doorknob gives way and paint crackles loose from the doorframe. Inside, there is an anteroom with five woolen coats hanging from hooks. Three sets of leather shoes wait below them, creased and crumbling at the soles. An arched entryway at the left leads into the main room. Aligned in rows of three, several desks are emptied out, focused on a larger mahogany desk at the back and the figure occupying it. Its face hides behind the paunchy frame of a woodstove and its pipe, positioned exactly in the center of the room. Its pale, waxy skin is covered partly by a navy blouse and a charcoal-colored shawl, both arms curled inward. In one hand, it grips a grouse feather quill, a half-opened envelope in the other. In your old house, the Atari’s chirps and beeps echo off every wooden wall panel as, outside, the rain begins pelting down. Your face is reflected in the television screen mere inches away, entranced as your sister paces in front of the window. She pulls back her hair, sighs, then lets it back down. This repeats several times before she snaps the elastic band back onto her wrist and presses her face to the glass, waiting for the mail truck to come down the road. When it does come, you don’t look up to see her dash out into the rain and meet the post worker at the curb, exchanging hopeful smiles before returning with a stack of envelopes. Her hair is slicked to the back of her head and the peaks of her cheekbones as she sorts through them: electric bill, retirement plan, another bill, a pizzeria flyer. Leaving them on the coffee table catch tray, she flees back into her room. For the past several weeks, after school, she’s been waiting for something. Waiting for your approach, the figure at the desk remains silent. Won’t you go take a closer look? Look how elegant they are: their stiff and upright posture, their freshly ironed clothes and curled hair. Didn’t your mother teach you not to keep others waiting? Go on, now. She’s expecting you. Her eyes are fixed ahead, unblinking as you approach. There is not a wrinkle to be found on her face, but subtle streaks of gray run through her curls. On her cheeks, the rouge appears flat and smeared on. She does not turn her head as you step beside her, bending to
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take the Envelope. Her fingers release it easily, curling back into place. Inside is a single sheet of folded paper, which you open to find a word scrawled in cramped, almost illegible letters. STOVE. You turn to the old woodstove and fiddle with its grate. Locked. An abnormally shaped keyhole at the bottom of the grate requests the Bronze Key from your pocket. The grate opens easily to reveal a clean interior. Three items rest inside: A Silver Key, a pouch containing Thirty-Five Coins, and a spoon that remains untarnished save for a warped discoloration on its bowl along with a strange, burnt residue. When you look up from the stove, the woman at the desk is nowhere to be found, the lace window curtains dancing in the wind. FOODMARK II On the way home, you decide to stop at the FoodMark to treat yourself. Your eye is caught again by the striped cannister. It might come in handy should you find yourself in a corner. This item is the most expensive at Fifty Coins. Remember, Traveler: you only have Fifty Coins, so spend them wisely. You have chosen the mysterious object for a total of Fifty Coins. Once you have inserted the coins, there is no going back. Are you sure about your decision(s)? Okay. There are Zero Coins Remaining in your possession. HOUSE III Once you’ve returned to the house, you rush past the living room’s new settees and the hallway’s chiming grandfather clock up to your bedroom. Lively sounds come from downstairs: pots shifting, light conversation, the back door latching shut. After securing the mysterious object between the stained mattress and the bedframe, you come to the locked doors yet again. Laughter echoes from downstairs, a couple of shadows shifting by the staircase. The Silver Key unlocks the door on the first try. Whatever lies behind the other door will have to wait. Like the others, this room has a soggy carpet, but it shows more damage: the seams have been ripped up from one corner and the material bent over, in another part a hole has collapsed into the floor, and in another a large dark stain trails underneath the bed. Upsidedown on the mattress, with eyes wide open and tears flowing, lies your sister.
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Her clothes are thin and loose on her skeletal frame, not rising or falling with breath. An orange plastic cap peeks out from underneath the bed skirt, winking at the lighter in her hand. I know you don’t want to look at it, Traveler, but you have to. From her neck hangs a golden necklace in the shape of a key, the same one mother used to wear. It was the same one she wore that day you hand-washed the dishes with her, the older woman passing you a dripping plate to be dried off and set in the cupboard. You were younger then, but not too young not to remember her saying: You have to take whatever opportunities you can get your hands on. It’s been a rough time for all of us – we don’t have barely any money – so do what you can. Don’t wait for others to take advantage of you, baby; you have to grab that opportunity first. I’m sorry, are you having a bad time, Traveler? You can leave now if you want, turn away if it nauseates you, wipe your slate clean of this image, but you can’t destroy the original. It’s been burned into you since you first opened the door. How long ago was that again? Oh, you’re leaving to see what is in the other room? Before you do, I advise you to try opening this door at the other corner of the room. Yes, that’s the one. Open it, dear Traveler. You look surprised to see that this door leads back into the hallway; that means there’s no more exploring left to do. Were you holding onto the hope that there was another room and, if you had by chance chosen that one, you would have been spared of this image? I’m sorry to tell you that there never was another room – there’s been no trickery on my end. I’m not a dirty trickster like you. Remember to take the Final Key on your way out. GATE III You’ve made your way back to the gate, but Leslie’s already gone. Snow has piled up to the lower branches of a nearby tree, standing firm as if it were a mountain. The lock remains around the doors of the gate, large and clearly unable to be opened by the fingernail-sized Final Key on the necklace. You still have the Envelope in your pocket as well. But how could these two useless items open the gate for you, Traveler? I’ve already told you: there’s nothing left here to explore. Don’t press me for any more information. I’ve given you plenty of time and hints to figure things out.
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SNAPSHOTS OF A TRANS BODY IN LOVE
REMY CHARTIER
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The trans body is a naked body. This is fact. Invariably, upon discovery, the clothes vanish. A sharp whisk, a cheesy sound effect, and suddenly there is chest, there is groin. It bubbles into the mind, a curiosity half-caught in images, like a still-developing photograph hanging in a darkroom cast red. This is where the trans body belongs: in the dark. I think this in bed at night, with Jesse curled up beside me. We keep the curtains drawn in the apartment, ostensibly to block out the light and sound of never-ceasing city traffic, but slivers of bleeding neon from the 24-hour Rite Aid across the street creep around the curtain edges until the cheap fabric shines. In the glow, I can see the outline of Jesse’s shoulders under the comforter, the spiked semi-circle of their hair against the pillow. I try to picture the rest in the dark. I know you are trying to picture it too. The sharp edge of their cheekbone is just visible. If you squint, a slice of their chest can be seen through the gap in the sheets. You’re squinting, aren’t you? The trans body is a body on display. I bundle my own covers higher. Like Jesse, I sleep in the nude. With Ben, I wore footie pajamas with a hood, and he did too. We thought they were cute. We were in college. Mine had cupcakes on them and his had floppy dog ears on the hood. We broke up four months before graduation, allegedly because he wanted to stay in New York for his masters and I wanted to move to San Francisco. I had this image of the city, of walking down the street in a halter top and sunglasses like a movie star, and I wouldn’t be afraid of second glances. I’d want people to notice me. They would undress me with their eyes, but it would be okay because they weren’t making calculations, guessing parts, or if they were it wouldn’t matter because they’d want me anyway. That was the fantasy. To be the object. There is something about trans bodies on film, and something about mirrors. As if, instinctively, we know better than to look head on. Is full-frontal more or less shocking when it’s a recreation? When the trans body isn’t real? Courtesy of a ‘provocative’ art house film, the sight of duct tape still makes me shudder. I saw it with Jesse, in a little theatre tucked away on Clement Street. I went stiff, my grip tightening on our clasped hands. They stroked the back of mine with their thumb, and I looked down to see it sweeping, back and forth, in the changing lights of the screen. The line of their jaw was tense, and slowly we breathed out together.
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A month before Ben and I split up, he nearly broke my laptop slamming it shut, the two of us crowded together on my dorm room bed, the sounds of the half-finished sci-fi flick dying abruptly. “I’m not watching this shit,” he said, and left the room, and I opened my computer up again to check for damage, ignoring the now-static image of a body in a mirror, frozen onscreen. I still think about this movie too, about this captured frame, wondering what filmic techniques were used to splice the image together, Frankensteining the body for the audience to gasp over. I’m wondering, too, if you’ve seen this movie, or if you can picture the frame anyway because there are a dozen others like it. I know you’re thinking of it, if only because I brought it up. I am complicit, in this way, in my own objectification. I never saw Ben’s body, even in the dark. He’d wear a tank top and boxers, even under the footie pajamas, and I would draw down the zip and still kiss my way over fabric, heating it with my breath. He wouldn’t let me touch skin below the neck, and I devoted hours to memorizing the texture of his throat. In high school it was Gabriella, whose parents knew but wouldn’t let her go on HRT. She’d swamp herself with baggy sweatshirts and jeans, and on the weekends I’d paint her nails purple in the safety of my bedroom, kissing each one to test if it was dry. The polish was tacky against my lips, but hers were soft and warm and curious, slightly waxy from her honeyflavored Chapstick. I didn’t know any other trans people yet. I liked seeing her wrists, when the sweatshirt sleeves rode up, exposing little slivers of skin. I could draw a map of the rivers of her veins. I changed in the changing stalls in gym class, but I could peel off my shirt in front of Gabriella without fear. She was safe, and I liked to see her blush, the way she bunched her sweatshirt tighter when she hugged herself, her eyes darting away. Jesse doesn’t blush for me, not like that. Not when I draw my shirt over my head, discarding it over the edge of the bed we share. Voyeuristic, they stare, tongue darting out to wet their bottom lip, conscious hunger as palpable as the first night, locking eyes across a crowded club floor, bodies undulating in time with the flashing lights, figures pulsing together into one mass of writhing, indistinct parts. There is a checklist of risk, even here. The straight bachelorettes. The gold-star lesbians. The tranny-chasers. The people who hate my flesh, or love it wrong, but Jesse’s hunger was magnetic, and I starving for desire, craving the rush of exposure, just as I did with Gabriella. With Ben. With you, not knowing what your gaze means or what I am risking, and desperate for it anyway.
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That first night, Jesse worshipped me under cover of half-light, in the shadows of the black-painted bathroom with the burnt-out bulbs, liminal in the way only a club bathroom at one a.m. can be. Now, the half-light of morning beats against our curtains, washing in, and I watch Jesse’s eyes open in increments, tracking my movement when I rise to traipse into the bathroom, flicking the switch to bathe my naked form in that brilliant white glow. The trans body in the shower can be two things: nauseating, liberating. I am imposing a binary in order to make it easier for cis readers to understand. The trans body can be many things, in the shower or otherwise. The trans body in the shower is supposed to be sickening. Gabriella told me she showered with her eyes closed, scrubbing fast and raw. Ben never let me ask, but I could picture it, stepping into the bathroom when he’d finished and feeling the instant sweat drench my skin, the remnants of haze billowing out the open door. I imagined him cranking up the heat until his flesh burned, the steam choking him, melting skin and muscle and sinew, snapping it from bone. The trans body is sickening, it is supposed to be sickening, it is not supposed to be beautiful, which is what Jesse whispers above me when they join me under the spray and I suck bruising kisses in a circle of violets around their hipbone. Their fingers are damp and dripping water into my eyes as they card desperately through my hair, and my own fingers dig in just shy of where I help them with their shot in the mornings. They can do it alone, but sometimes they let me, and afterwards I kiss them stupid with thanks for allowing me to be part of this, of them becoming more themself in their chosen way. It is more intimate even than this, for me, on my knees in rapture, tasting skin slick with water and my favorite soap, the soap that smells like strawberries, even if it only tastes like soap, and maybe there is something there too, about things smelling one way and tasting another, but all I know is that Jesse tastes clean and their hands are warm and the water cascades over my shoulders, my body too, and these are the only things that matter. The trans body matters. I do not mean this as a political statement; it matters, and I know this because of the cis women who would not touch me and the cis men who felt betrayed, as if I owed a reveal of my flesh from the moment of meeting. The trans body is a naked body, and I am supposed to apologize for my skin. I am supposed to close my eyes in the shower and crawl out of my carcass, hanging it up on the hook next to my towel to slip shamefully back into when I am done. You are allowed to look, to stare if you feel like it, but I am not supposed to want to. And yet, I cannot help but keep my eyes open, even when they
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sting with the soap still dripping into them, dripping from Jesse’s fingers, and their eyes are open too, the both of us looking, looking down between our bodies, chest and groin, signs of their pleasure and mine visible in the barest whisps of steam. “Beautiful,” Jesse whispers again, the word splashing over me, and all I can do is make another little violet on their hip with my lips and teeth and tongue, knowing that when we step out, I will wipe the steam from the mirror with a flat palm and Jesse will hold me from behind, and then it will be my turn to be kissed, their lips on my neck and their eyes meeting mine in the mirror. Both will still be open, their eyes and mine, because it will be beautiful, and we won’t want to look away. You can watch it too, if you’d like. I am still objectifying myself. I can’t help it. It’s beautiful.
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FELINE FAMILIAR *CONSENSUAL SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS *QUEER/ TRANS SEX BETWEEN PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT GENDER PRESENTATIONS AND BODILY CONFIGURATIONS *BIPEDAL, ANTHROPOMORPHIC, NON-HUMAN SPECIES (THINK "FURRY") *SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN HUMANS AND OTHER SPECIES *ORAL SEX *PENETRATION *MASTURBATION *ANAL SEX/ RIMMING *SEXUAL FLUIDS/ SCENTS *LIGHT DOM/SUB THEMES *POLYAMORY *TRANSGENDER PEOPLE UNPACKING THEIR PASTS *TRAUMA RELATING TO NON-CONSENSUAL SURGERIES AND MEDICAL PROCEDURES *BEING STRIPPED OF AGENCY AND AUTONOMY BY A DOMINANT SPECIES/ CULTURE *TRIUMPHING OVER INJUSTICE
CAT BLACKARD
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VULCANALIA '21
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“Rutting! Raindrop! Bastards!” Sheena plodded through the rain, hopelessly soaked. At a distance, through the heavy downpour, she could’ve been mistaken for a tropical bird in panicked takeoff. The fluorescent flash of her jacket grew darker by the second. At least she had the sense to wear her tallest boots. Her door was just another nondescript rectangle in a row of nondescript rectangles; gray enough to blend in with the bulleting rain. With no awning to cover her, Sheena lifted her dripping bangs and snarled at the Identikey porthole. It cross-checked her facial topography with her HUD ciphers. The purple light chirped to blue and the hum of the door meshed with her annoyed sigh. As soon as she was inside, Sheena's flat sprang to life. Hall lights on, but dim. Ambient tones dialed up to best please her. The SafePlant next to the door frame greeted her. The biosynthetic security device was kind to authorized personnel; it bent its boughs and slid its leaves over her, absorbing the wet. She hung her bag on one of its branches and deeply breathed in the plant’s jasmine-scented blossoms. In the wake of a dismal day, the comfort of her own space soothed her. Sheena was a Diplomacy and Communications Specialist at Inter-Sol, the agency governing trade, immigration, and diplomatic protocol within the Solar System. “International, Interplanetary, Inter-Sol: Harmony Starts with The Home System”. The agency was recently formed and hard at work laying the foundations for how the brave new frontier would be governed – should, for example, the Martian colonies or any of the Belt stations separate from their respective Earth governments.
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Today it was nothing so glamorous: an obligatory sensitivity course. Eight hours of draining, shoddily-produced extended reality instruction. Decades of decolonization, deanthropization, and achievements in basic decency distilled into a day of saccharine corporate rhetoric: Sapient life is a spectrum of neurovariation, race, ethnicity, upbringing, belief, bodies, genders, and sexualities. At the heart of cooperation lies understanding. Never assume the identity and values of another. Trust the HUD! When in doubt, ask and share. All true, all good advice, but Gods in the Ground it was exhausting! She was certified to teach this class. It was like being stuck in a civil penalties course without the thrill of having broken any laws. Certainly there were cro-mags somewhere out there on the fringes, shacked up with their prejudices, but their days had long since passed. She daydreamed of making a scene, standing up and proclaiming, “I was on the front lines! I helped build this ‘more accepting and conscious world’ and now I’m gonna get back to making an even more accepting and conscious world! Who’s with me?” Instead, Sheena resorted to doodling. A gryphon, some cybernetic fauna... which were soon surrounded by penises, breasts, vaginas, abstract combinations of the three, and all sorts of sultry figures engaged in a wide array of hedonistic pursuits. “Oh DEER,” said a panting gryphon, as they were taken from behind by a hunky cyborg buck with chrome antlers and sunglasses. Despite the decidedly unsexy tasks of answering no-brainer questions about cross-cultural social etiquette and participating in quiz simulations, Sheena had worked herself into a humid daze of arousal. The class lasted an aeon and her horny thoughts didn't subside. Slipping into pornographic daydreams was the only thing keeping her sane. Even after a crowded ride on the tram and a rain-soaked jog from the station, Sheena was still vibrating
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with erotic energies. Off with the damp clothes. They plopped on the wood floor until she was just a goosebumped figure with hard nipples, a bashful clit, and a flash of wet pearlescent hair clinging to the top of her head. The temperature around her gradually adjusted. “Warmer,” she said. The hallway swiftly complied. A message appeared in her periphery. Ginny, the precious overachiever, had a policy question after hours. Unacceptable. “HUD. Lockdown one.” With that, her hatches were battened down. The overlays and nuisances were put to bed. All that remained was home. “Jupiter?” Sheena swung into the half bath for a towel to dry her hair. “Jupe?” She closed her eyes and a hint of a dream wafted over her, like a coil of mist - Not the overlay of the HUD, a fully visceral experience. Sheena could feel ferns at her ankles and saw flutters of light - the sun through the leaves of a far above canopy. It was the familiar traces of one of Jupiter’s jungle dreams. Her flatmate and oldest friend, Jupiter, was a cat; or more accurately: Jupiter was predominantly genetically feline and still referred to themselves as “cat”. The legal terms for their physical state were Non-Human Citizen and Neuro-Replica Engineered Organism - in Jupiter’s case that meant being a bipedal feline, about six feet tall, whose present body was
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created in a lab, and whose past memories and psyche were copied from their birth brain into a new one. Once upon a time, Jupiter was a four-legged domestic shorthair kitten from the shelter and Sheena was a five-year old human child who’d been gendered as a boy. Things change. Sheena followed the dreamy haze into the low-lit, carpeted living room. With each step, she moved deeper into the undergrowth of Jupiter’s subconscious, leading to where they lay curled up in their favorite nesting spot. Jupiter’s whiskers and fur abruptly twitched, though their body lay heavy - a physical ripple of their dream. Sheena felt the thrill of a pounce and flinched just as the tropical surroundings evaporated. No pounce came, only the sounds of Jupiter’s body stirring. “Flinch me awake- Like you don’t love it when I pounce.” They pulled Sheena into the plush circle of fabrics and pillows. The cold human girl gladly nestled her clammy body into the warmth of Jupiter’s dark gray fur. They rubbed their snout against her cheek. With kitteny motions, Sheena nuzzled the underside of Jupiter’s chin with the crown of her head. “It’s been a day, Jupe.” “Clearly. You're radiating tension and horniness. Mostly horniness. As soon as you walked in it was springtime in the forest.” Jupiter and Sheena were telepathically paired since the day they met. Theirs was the first generation to grow up communing with a familiar, or “Beastie Bestie”, as was the parlance in the early days. The commercialization of interspecies communication changed the world. Jupiter and Sheena’s exceptional circumstances placed them at the forefront of the cultural revolution.
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Only a few years into their bonded life, lymphoma came for Jupiter. Sheena’s concerned, yet absent, parents were frantic and open to suggestion. Anything to spare their just-out trans daughter the undocumented psychic trauma of losing a familiar so soon! And so, another new technology was exerted over Jupiter; their mind and memories were mapped into an enhanced body. They were reborn as something new: a human-feline hybrid. The cat had adapted to sharing thoughts with a human, and now like a fairytale, they would walk in their footsteps. Jupiter was to be both Sheena's constant companion as well as a naturally weaponized bodyguard who would grow up alongside her. Of course, Jupiter’s precedent-setting and phenomenally expensive procedure was only made possible via Sheena’s parents' wealth. Their substantial investments in AmnioTech’s life extension and body-engineering technology meant that the company’s scientists were only too willing to take advantage of the situation for the funding and press. They hadn't once considered the consent and autonomy of their subject, the cat. “We can just snuggle if you want. This is real nice,” said Sheena, “The rain is pretty when I’m not out in it.” She dug her fingertips into Jupiter’s favorite spot - their cheeks, just behind their whiskers. The cat pressed into the affection; their eyes and inner lids half open in pleasure. Sheena felt it too, in their shared physical feedback: a drool-inducing yumminess. She was content to cuddle, but she didn’t bother to hide the thought of Jupiter's soft hips, thrusting hard against her ass. “Don’t kid yourself. You’re insatiable,” said Jupiter. “That’s fine by me.” They slapped a firm palm upon Sheena’s rump. “I’ll grab a toy. Get yourself ready for me?” “‘Kay!” she chirped.
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Sheena kythed a non-verbal giddiness their way and Jupiter shot back with the shock of gripping her clit and tugging her hair. She loved it when they got fierce. Jupiter padded out of the room and Sheena slid into the warm spot they’d left in the microfleece bed. She circled and smooshed her soft clit, pressing it into her mons before it thickened too much to do so. As her fingers thrummed pleasured rhythms into her, Sheena pulled Jupiter’s blanket around her. It was steeped in their calming kitty scent; a scent synonymous with comfort, her best friend. They’d lived so many sweet memories and survived such radical changes. As young animals in confusing bodies, the pair helped each other find euphoric truth through their love and linked minds. Before her orchiectomy, Sheena would imagine she could press between the cleft of her testes to find a pussy waiting there. Jupiter would oblige her, dipping a finger inside themselves, sharing the sensation of their vagina. Likewise, the cat would revel in the gravelly rake Sheena’s erection felt under the lap of their own tongue. It was a glorious tangle of pleasure - formative and life-changing. Jupiter’s body was incongruous with their mind too. Sure, it was an expensive and custom tailored body, but neither the cat or Sheena had a say in it. When they’d walked on four legs, they’d been spayed. When they were engineered to be a girl’s playmate they’d been rendered just the same; with no gonads to provoke secondary sex characteristics. When puberty hit, Sheena’s parents had no qualms about outfitting their daughter with a feminizing organoid implant. They drew the line at giving hormones to the experimental “animal” who shared her mind. The pair celebrated their animal bond, but back then “animal” was a sinister word. Anything not human was lesser-than. Beasts. “Animals” had no autonomy. They were sexless servants of a species who believed themselves masters over the natural world. Sheena and Jupiter were vanguards for dismantling all that. They were prominent figures in a generation of partnered humans and familiars, whose powerful connections ripped through centuries of myopic dominion like a tidal wave. Interspecies partnerships were among the many commonplace lifestyles that Inter-Sol’s sensitivity course touched on. These days, “familiar” wasn’t an exclusionary term. Sheena was Jupiter’s familiar and Jupiter was hers.
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At twenty-eight human years and one hundred and three cat years, the pair were still voices for their cause and partners in symbiotic sensuality. The world they’d helped to build was unprecedented - one where all sentient life on Earth had a voice. No social revolution had ushered such a fundamental paradigm shift so quickly. It wasn’t perfect. Case in point: the nomenclature, “Non-Human Citizen”. Jupiter was working to change that and was optimistic it’d be done away with soon. Just a minor artifact of the world before. Sheena rolled over in Jupiter’s nest and arched her back; ready to get to business. She sucked a finger and slid it behind her. The day's bodily oils made for a smooth entry, though her finger was still annoyingly cold. She leaned to a nearby cabinet where Jupiter kept a tube of lube. Soon, three bright blue fingernails were wetly pistoning in and out of her ass. Then a fourth. She imagined herself in the middle of a pile of bodies; giving, receiving, becoming a fulcrum of pleasure. That was one of her happiest places. Sheena reminisced about the vacation she and Jupiter had taken with their friends Farina and Loreto after the Neo Fauna summit last year. Jupiter had found a gorgeous lodge out in the Venezuelan cloud forests. They’d filled that geodesic dome with so many succulent sounds and scenes. She shook at the memory of Farina’s prehensile cock writhing in her mouth while Jupiter went down on her. Nothing existed but tongues, pleasure, and deliciously differing sex tastes as the cetacean and feline pushed Sheena’s oral fixation into overdrive. Each wave of pleasure was just a prelude to the brain-sloshing breaker of Loreto’s touch. The human’s cybernetic hand spiraled into Jupiter’s sex with fluid precision, disarming the cat’s swagger and poise. They collapsed into orgasmic tremors and took Sheena with them - both moaning in unison, mouths muffled with their respective erections. Oh, the amplified joys of telepathic links and multiple partners. “Mm. Now that’s a lovely memory to walk in on.” Jupiter bounded into the living room, prosthetic cock in hand.
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“We’ve got to take them up on their offer to visit Kea,” they said. “Farina was talking a pretty big game about the seafood.” “Don’t even pretend like you’re not just hungry for more dolphin dick.” Sheena kythed the memory of licking a salty dollop of precum from Farina’s slick tip. Jupiter’s ears cocked, momentarily lost in the thought. “You’re such a brat.” “You love it,” she said. Jupiter smirked and plopped down in the nest, straddling Sheena’s chest. The cat’s member stood thick, just over two inches, from years of hormonal cocktails. “You’re 100 proof today,” Jupiter said, “I’m already wet.” They stroked their slim labia and dipped within. Jupiter withdrew a glossy finger as evidence and raised it to taste themselves, but paused. Instead, they turned their attention to Sheena, and traced their wetness on her cooing mouth. She sucked her lower lip, savoring Jupiter’s saltiness. Jupiter applied a small dollop of lube to the bulb at the base of the toy they’d brought. It was a neural-linked model, the M56 “Nightshade” – an abstract phallus, loaded with features. Sheena thought the shaft kind of resembled the stamen skullpods of the Amazonian plant entities – the ones that the logging corporations were always in territory disputes with. Jupiter placed the bulb inside them and the unit sprang to life. It clasped to the cat’s mons and suctioned on their clit. Straps, like vines, grew around their waist and ass. They could feel the bulb bulge to a snug diameter within, and as their vaginal walls responded, an aqua phosphorescence blossomed within the cock’s smooth, speckled flesh. Both Sheena and Jupiter shivered in delight as an effervescence prickled up the length of the prosthetic shaft. Jupiter pulsed their pelvic floor and the cock gave an affirming leap. Each stroke was responsive and pleasureful. Just like the real thing, maybe even better.
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They shifted; fur against skin, face to face. Sheena’s clit slid against the glow of Jupiter’s cock. She grew harder, feeling their response to her. Lips and tongues and fingers and nails gripped and lashed. Jupiter was purring. Those rhythms were the greatest bliss she knew. Being in anyone else’s arms wasn’t the same. The frequency was theirs alone, like knowing someone’s heartbeat. It reached into her bones. Sheena basked in the vibrations of their chests together and the warmth of her breasts against Jupiter’s fur. Their chest was flat; six petite breast buds lined their lower abdomen. They were only mildly sensitive, but soft, cute, lovely to kiss. Jupiter nipped down her neck. They kythed the thought and sensation of being eaten out as they stroked her malleable clit. There was wetness waiting for them and with their thumb they roughly pressed and smeared pleasurably against Sheena’s slit and frenulum. “Your panties were soaked today, weren’t they, pet?” Jupiter stroked their cock, collecting the lubricant that had synthesized along the tip and ridges, making sure it was slick and ready. “Fuck yes,” Sheena breathed. “I was a damn mess.” “I can smell it on you.” “You can taste it on me too.” Sheena’s hand traced around Jupiter’s side, through their subtle stripes, to the sensitive spot at the base of their tail. She gripped there as their lips locked. The kiss broke and Jupiter descended to their girl’s excited clit. She flinched at the tickle of whiskers against her, the texture of Jupiter's nose, and their hot breath. Their snout nuzzled and inhaled her scent. Jupiter shared with her the sensory experience; the sublime complexity of musk that their feline nose unlocked. Huffing body parts was much more Jupiter’s thing than Sheena’s, but she loved feeling their thirst for her, for her scents.
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A hand slid over Sheena’s empty sac to her slick cunt. In the same moment that Jupiter’s fingers entered her, the cat’s rough tongue rushed over her clit, from base to tip. Sheena’s legs bucked at the exquisite texture that pressed into the curves of her pinkness. The purrs in Jupiter’s throat and the pulse of their fingers had the human grasping at the blankets. Her thoughts were a jumble of colors and roiling pleasure. Sheena gripped the fluff at the back of Jupiter’s head, stroking their ears, living for every lick and digit. Under different circumstances, Jupiter would absolutely be toying with Sheena - gently clawing the human to the edge, but her day-long lust-capade was like a drug. Later. Oh, later they’d make her mew and beg. For now, their hips were aching to thrust and Sheena’s body met that feeling like a magnet. The cat withdrew their fingers from her ass and grinned as they met Sheena’s hazy gaze. “Yes. Please, Jupe. I-” Jupiter grasped Sheena’s thighs and slid their cock against her erect clit; enjoying the complement of their similar shapes and Sheena’s comparatively diminutive size. They both sighed at the arpeggio of the Nightshade’s ribbed form raking against her. Jupiter smirked and leaned back. Sheena grinned like a cheshire and eagerly turned over, ass in the air. Her skin shone blue in the rainy evening light and the glow of Jupiter’s cock. Jupiter nuzzled their face against Sheena's rump, lapping and curling their dexterous tongue around and into her. Her clit bobbed at the hot tickle at her perineum and gushed at the smooth give as their tongue pushed within. They tasted her saliva, lube, and the sweet musks of her ass. Jupiter gently drew their nails along either side of Sheena’s cheeks and growled. In one swift motion the feline was atop her, digging their claws in and burying their cock to the hilt. Sheena shifted her hips, easing into the sudden depth, helping the length find the right path into her delicate darkness. The Nightshade clasped tighter onto Jupiter. It suckled and swelled against their erect flesh externally and internally, all while feeding them stimuli from the cock itself. Its ridged shaft delivered a succession of yummy quakes with each pull and
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push. The room sensed the change in its denizens’ energy and the smooth, ambient tones shifted to low, spacey grooves - accented by the couple’s pleasured moans and gasps. “Now you’ve gone and got everyone flustered,” said Jupiter. “It’s a gift. Gods, Jupe, you feel majestic.” “I do.” Wetness pooled from Sheena’s clit - a slow, salty line glistening towards the blanket. She arched her back, letting the cock better bulge against her prostate. The silken, sensual texture of Jupiter's fur was divine. Their thighs, their stomach, their wrists… Their nipples squishing against the smack of her ass. Jupiter grasped her hair and tugged with a giddy snarl. Sheena never had to ask. Jupiter and Sheena’s bodies were awash in an ouroboros of pleasure. Their paired hearts made each successive thrust a bleary-eyed, rhythmic experience and every movement an act of love-making. Anyone fortunate enough to be linked with a familiar knew all too well – there was little that rivaled the spiritual and physical partnership. Each mind guided one another, through the labyrinths of their anatomy, to the paths of greatest ecstasy. Within Sheena, the Nightshade had reached its full stiffness – all of its ridges flared. Each bump penetrated her like a deliciously twisting knuckle. Jupiter felt her ripples of bliss and leaned in, tenderly raking their teeth against her neck. She was on the brink. “Do it,” they kythed, “cum for me, pet.” Her elbows trembled. Her toes curled into the fibers of the carpet. Their words were the push. Sheena didn't even think to stroke her clit before her orgasm rolled into climax. Jupiter was with her too. The grip of Sheena’s cunt and the thrill of her release shot sparks into them. The cat spasmed around the Nightshade with a moan that was almost a shout. The bulb within them clasped and throbbed against their sex. Euphoria rocketed through the pair’s conjoined nervous systems; like coiled neon filaments bursting.
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Sheena crumpled face-first into the blankets, cackling and gasping. The bondage of the day was gone. She was unencumbered, unfettered, utterly free. No rainstorm could wash her so clean. Mews and sighs soon became laughter. Mutual pleasure thrummed and ebbed through them. Jupiter trailed their snout along her spine, kissing the ridges. “Attagirl.” “Yes, yes,” Sheena hissed, “That was ex-actly what I needed.” “Shh, just enjoy.” They pulsed the cock within her. It was growing soft. They’d let it dwindle a bit more before pulling out. Awareness of the stress on Sheena’s knees sunk in and wordlessly the pair slumped to their sides. Jupiter’s arms wrapped around the human’s smooth skin. Her arms held theirs. “I love you too,” Sheena whispered. Together, they rode the oceanic feelings. Sheena stroked Jupiter's fingers; the stripes of their wrists. Jupiter’s fingers left her. They traced gentle claws down her belly and tenderly squeezed her blushing clit. Their fingers coaxed out the remaining wetness from her slit, and brought it to her mouth. Sheena sucked at her flavor happily. She loved her taste; she thought about Jupiter’s. “Oh I am far too sensitive for that right now.” They gently leaned back, sliding the cock out from her. Sheena moaned as the ridges rolled out of her one last time. Jupiter kneeled, pressing their fingers against the base of the phallus. It responded by loosening its grasp on them and retracted the straps into its synthetic flesh. The bulb wetly popped out and the phosphorescence dimmed. They unabashedly drew their tongue along the sticky shaft of the faux cock; enjoying the syrupy gloss of sweets and bitters.
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“You tease. I oughta push you down and eat you out,” said Sheena. “I’d like to see you try.” “Can’t. Too blissy.” “Lazy.” “Eh.” Sheena swiveled onto her back, legs splayed. Jupiter handed her the Nightshade. The bulb that had been inside them was coated in their juice and still very warm. She adored Jupiter’s heady tartness and the ritual of grooming that she’d adopted from them long ago. Sheena might not be able to lick Jupiter’s fur without it adhering to her tongue, but she’d certainly clean everything else in due time. Jupiter returned the sentiment, lapping Sheena’s delicious bits. Sheena rose on elbows and pulled Jupiter towards her. She nuzzled and kissed her familar's face. They tasted of one another. The lightning softened. The ambient tones now washed to a soothing calm. Jupiter curled around their darling girl. Her fingers found their way to the feline’s favorite places, just as they always did. Rain pattered against the windows. Purrs filled the room.
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LOST FACE
KEITH RAYMOND
FICTION
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“Let’s see… sugar, oyster sauce, chopped cayenne pepper, breast of duck, rosemary…” I looked outside. There it was. Fresh green spikes on the balcony, reaching for the sun. If I opened the window, could I reach it? Maybe. Cut it, hopefully. If I just… “Don’t even think about it, Dirk!” I jumped, caught, Ben burned holes in my back. Then he sniffled and coughed. My fever was back too. Face dripping, and I thought it was just from slaving over a hot stove. “If they catch you, big fine.” “I know, I know,” I said. Then rooted around the herb cupboard, finding an old bottle of rosemary, forgotten near the back. It will have to do. I went to sprinkle the dried flakes into the pot, and the plastic top came off, dumping half a bottle of green ash into the pot. “Hope you like rosemary, Ben,” I said, as I scooped out what I could, watching in horror as it settled into the broth. “You know, I don’t like rosemary!” Two weeks in isolation, grinding teeth. I lifted the cleaver and turned towards my husband *** We were students in Paris together. It’s how we met. Roommates in a rooftop flat along with two others. Place on the fourth floor, the elevator permanently broken. Young and strong, we didn’t mind. Besides, we were in love, and the rent was manageable, as was the ‘Countess.’ She was the dowager that inherited the building, and gave us free tickets to the Louvre, every so often. I attended a third rate cooking school, and he was in a école d'ingénieurs, also not fancy, but we were in Paris! Our faraway friends envied us, although we were both HIV positive. Maybe that is what finally annealed us. The four of us, all strangers when we moved in, but friends forever when we moved out. Our windows opened on the street. Across the way, the rouged prostitutes brought their Johns to fritter. In the summer, we watched naked butts bounce inside those windows. A weird puppet show with cats crying out their story. One day, Pascal brought home modeling clay from his studio in the fifteenth arrondissement. He pulled out a few straws and handed them out, and we used them like blowpipes targeting the derrieres across the way. Moments later we were in a street opera, rolling on the warped wooden floors, laughing, while the whores screamed at us, and men shook their fists, bellowing.
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The bad times balanced out the good. Ben and I commiserated, still fraught with shame over being gay and getting HIV. Our coming out stories both made us cry. Someday, the parents of homosexuals will know how to love their kids when they share their truth. Not in our lifetimes. Years of blame followed us, and we wept, suffered and shared. *** I woke tired that morning, despite good sleep. I rolled over when Ben snorted and got up. Put on my cook’s gear and headed out. Took the ferry to the hotel where I worked in Hong Kong. I was a galley slave, despite my French appointment. Chills when I arrived, a dry cough occasionally. No one noticed. Everyone smoked, including me. The word was out about a new virus going around. The News threatened it would be bad. Another mainland special, threatening to be epidemic, maybe pandemic. Been there, done that… In the middle of the lunch hour rush, the maître d' told me to get checked. Sent my beetred face and dizzy expression upstairs to the house doctor. The hotel, fancy that way. Arriving, I saw a monster in Tyvek white, in mask, gloves, and face shield. Not my usual simpering, friendly doc. I thought he was gathering evidence from a crime scene; I was the victim. He pointed a gun at me and fired. I waited, and he looked at the number on the readout. Shook his head. Removed a swab from a specimen container, “Up your nose, Dirk,” he gestured with the swab, “Afterwards, you go home. I call you tonight.” *** I called Ben at eight. He was working late, as usual. Told him I had Covid-19. He laughed, thought I was joking, then swallowed. The shame welled up in me all over again. A scab ripped open, barely healed. He said he’d be home soon, but got tested himself on the way. The next morning, we were both in quarantine. I went to open the front door and grab the paper, but a yellow seal held it in place. The email informed us of the warning on our door and threatened fines if we went outside before a health official cleared us. I watched the tears well up in his eyes, reflecting the light from the laptop. The shame. Our friends called during the first week. Promised to bring groceries, but they never did. We ordered them by credit card, had them delivered. We could hear the delivery boys run after dropping off the goods when they saw the sign. We were pariah, the infected.
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*** Insensitively, everyone asked where we got the virus. Pissed off, I finally screamed, “I don’t bloody know!” My mind doesn’t work so well now. Ben and I are both prone to fits of crying, then laughter, but shame underlies it all. Re-stimulated from coming out, from getting HIV, now this. I heard him thunder into the kitchen behind me, “When is that damned food ready!” My hand shook turning on him, holding the cleaver, threatening. I wanted to bury it in his skull. My man, my lover, my husband. He lifted a straw to defend himself, placed a green pea in one end and the other in his mouth. The moment stretched, then we both laughed, remembering the flailing butts across the street in Paris. The smack of putty on their behinds. We’d made it through one more day, not losing face.
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GLITTER BOY TRANSVERSE
KEITH RAYMOND
FICTION
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Brock hated intergalactic travel. Even space was empty way out here. All he could do was keep looking toward one galaxy or back at the other. It was as much fun as watching his clone grow, even real fast seemed real slow in this in-between. Besides, how much time could a boy spend in an orgasmatron? His young body could absorb only so much pleasure before boredom set in. Brock was over two hundred years old, but it hardly mattered as he traded out his body every year, renewing it. He started out as a woman, Brook, then trans-ed. His favorite clone was a fifteen-year-old Troy model he liked to occupy. He tried a hundred different clone models in the past, but Troy suited him the best. Rock hard body, pleasantly large tumescence but not ginormous, like his friends craved. Good in the gym, better in bed, fantastic in free fall. Ho-hum, now what? He tired of the VR disco. Needed a challenge. He was running on his treadmill vertical climber when a chevron appeared in the upper left corner of his eye. Blinking, a data screen popped up informing him of a bifocal pair of directed tachyon bursts. Each source from the receding and approaching galaxies. His friends and lovers had come to visit! Based on the size of the stream, plenty enough for him to fill a bar. Of course, some of the incoming he purchased, but when you are this far out in the black, some companionship requires payment. His mouth watered, and for once Brock had something to look forward to in the way of entertainment. Pausing, he called up a control sphere to organize the venue for their visit. Thinking about it, he decided on a random environment selected by the ship’s AI. As the signal strength from both galaxies became optimal, he entered the VR tank. Floating in the gel matrix, his consciousness elsewhere, he could move about within the tank without fear of harm. *** Brock found himself in the middle of a solo in the spotlight on a small stage. He couldn’t see his audience but knew everyone from the tachyon feeds were there. He continued to sing as the admiration flowed over him. He could sense their adoration, reveled in it. The live musicians behind him worked hard to keep up, improvising when necessary, to pair the song with the solo performance. The song itself was winding down, ending, and he sustained the last note, letting the chord linger in the air. Applause intervened until it drowned out his voice. Brock bowed, the house lights came up, and he lifted his arms toward heaven, bathing in the audience's joy. Looking out, he saw all of them for the first time.
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The audience comprised only of men, lavished him with praise. Some transvestites, some cowboys, plus all the flavors of the rainbow awaited him. Some were hugging and crying, others pumped their fist in the air hooting, while still others applauded and cried for an en choir. His gold lamé suit spangled the cabaret light, throwing it over the ceiling and into the eyes of the onlookers. Brock bowed again and exited the stage, pulling a handkerchief from his vest pocket, he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He noted his make-up there, then tucked it away, heading toward the bar. Walking in the crowd, friends clapped him on the shoulder, and he obliged them with a 'thank you’ asking for some privacy as he sat down. They found his request odd as he invited them all to join him, but they went with it, perhaps to indulge the unfolding VR scenario. Brock asked the bartender for a drink, something elaborate with an umbrella. Moments later it appeared. He tasted rum and creme de cacao, along with other tropical flavors, too sweet for his usual taste. He sipped from the straw in silence until an older man intruded, sliding up beside him. He was tan and attractive, sporting that silver-haired fox look of men that were both worldly and confident. He leaned in and whispered something into the glitter boy’s ear that Brock did not catch. Still it sent shivers down his spine. Leaning back, the man spoke, “You were pretty good up there, young man. You sure you’re old enough to drink that?” Just then the mob headed back their way, wanting to congratulate Brock and ask for his autograph. The silver-haired man seeing them, stood and waved them off. “Sorry lads another time, yes? Now, where was I?” “Was I old enough to drink?” “Oh, that’s right.” The bartender passed in front of them, paused and answered, “You have no idea, handsome!” “I see,” then the silver-haired guy faced the glitter boy, “My name’s Xavier, what’s yours?” "Brock. Where are you from?” “Centauri Quintus. Do you play here often?” “Whenever I can, it’s a bit off the beaten track.” “Tell me about it!” “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but... How old are you?” Xavier gave him a flirtatious smile, “Why, you interested?” “Could be,” Brock answered.
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“Sixty something, natural,” Xavier said, grinning. “Why haven’t you shifted into a clone?” “Not my nature. Besides, I enjoy getting older, watching the changes. Maybe I’ll make the shift, someday, but for now, so long as I can still pick up the cute ones...” “Xavier, you’re a dog!” “Why thank you! Should I worry about statutory rape if we uh...?” “My family is long dead, and there is no authority way out here. Are you curious?” “Sure, because I prefer mine fresh!” Brock slapped Xavier’s cheek, saying, “Well, if fresh is what you want, fresh is what you get!” Then gave a high giggle. “You look good enough to eat!” *** Brock grabbed him by his tie and pulled him off the stool and toward a room upstairs. An hour later, Xavier rolled onto his back in a happy froth, his body coated in sweat. “Delicious,” he muttered. “I think I’m in love,” Brock answered. “Don’t tease me, glitter boy.” As they drifted off to sleep, Xavier mumbled happily. When Brock stirred, he saw no point in sleeping in the VR gel, and emerged from the tank. Showered, he slipped into a cocoon to spend the rest of the evening in free fall. He lived for the dreams micro-gravity provided. His lover could wait, frozen in the VR matrix while time passed. Problem was Brock was feeling something for Xavier. Something beyond the pleasure of the tryst. The man had touched something sleeping in him. Something that was long buried, a vulnerability, a longing. Xavier was far younger than him, and yet he carried a wisdom that exceeded his own. The way he moved in bed endeared him to the man, and yet it confounded him. Such thoughts intruded on his morning routine. The more he explored it, the more he wanted to get back into VR. Brock checked the ship’s trajectory, the tachyon feed, and engine status. All nominal. As he headed back toward the VR module, he paused by a porthole and looked into space. It took a while for his eyes to adjust and he turned down the illumination, shifting into the red. He felt like another stray object out there, lost. This, whatever it was, nagged at him, generating a strange discomfort, a toothache coming and going, demanding a tongue touch. ***
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Entering the VR tank, he closed his eyes and opened them a moment later to see Xavier watching him sleep. No doubt he was handsome, even with bedhead. Brock reached up to fondle him, but Xavier stayed his hand wanting to talk. “Are you lonely? I know I am; at times. Even when surrounded by friends.” Brock choked on his own inhalation. It was as if Xavier had been listening to his thoughts. Brock’s lusty smile changed to a frown. “I’ve been to so many places in the galaxy. Had many men. Friends and lovers, but no one has held me, held my attention like you.” His own words seemed awkward, strange. Xavier seeing the sadness and isolation in Brock, leaned over and hugged him, held him tight. Until Brock’s tears began to flow. “It’s all right. I’m here as long as you need me to be.” For once, Brock believed him, not the usual vows that a guy said to him in bed. He felt looked after, watched over, and was no longer just a glitter boy sparkling in the sky, but someone worth loving. An ancient soul in a young body, held by a much younger man that seemed to be his elder. “Where can I meet you, I mean, in the flesh?” “Are we not in the flesh now?” Xavier asked. A chill ran through Brock realizing a machine asked that, a mere programming node in a distant server. Deeply embarrassed, he felt like the girl that chose her dildo over a living member. Yet Xavier seemed so real. The man, the AI, had touched his core, and that was hard for him to live down. He wondered how much longer it would be until he held someone, a real man, someone he could lie with in his arms. A HUD note appeared in the upper left corner of his eye, ‘ETA five shipboard years, twentyone days, three hours.’ Brock answered Xavier, “Yes, of course, love, what was I thinking? Now can I enjoy your flesh once more?” “Certainly,” Xavier answered, smiling and pushed his head down. As Brock indulged, he promised himself he would find a man of his own, someone with whom he could live out his life.
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GIRLFRIENDS AND SWEET TREATS SILAS M. ADAMS
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Inaya pulled the bouquet of white and purple flowers closer. The plastic crinkled in her hands as she continued to shift. The scarf wrapped tight around her only served to increase the heat. She wanted to go home and toss the damn thing off, letting her hair puff out in wild waves around her. Humid air caught at the wind sending her gown flying in various directions, lifted upwards like the petals of blue poppies. Her gray tassel hung limp around her neck looking silver in the sunlight, not unlike chains. She was adorned with the colors of her school, the very place she wanted a respite from. Her toes wriggled in the confines of their tight sandalled prison, taking hold of her attention. She didn’t lift her head until she was instructed to do so. Smile for the camera. Aasma stood to her side, the taller woman had chosen a suit for the occasion, her own hair tied up in a fraying bun. People thought her quirky for that. How odd a girl would want to wear a suit but Aasma had never paid mind to people like that, not really. She as the sort of person to charge headlong into life without so much as a glance over her shoulder. Inaya always thought she was one of those people born fully formed from day one. She knew who she was, where she was going, and what she wanted. Inaya couldn’t help the envy that stuck to her at that. She didn’t want it but it was always there, watching and waiting. Sometimes, she thought she caught a glimpse of it through the corner of her eye, it was a twisted and ugly monster, dripping green slime with red eyes that covered its entire body. Each and every iris was trained on her. Tossing an arm around Inaya’s shoulder, Aasma pulled her close so that their bodies pressed against each other like they were melting into one another. The taller girl was warm and welcoming, familiar. Inaya leaned into her, wanting to pull her closer still, wanting that jealous monster gone. She knew to make it look casual, a friend leaning against another, joking and laughing as her parents caught the moment. “You alright?” Aasma asked, glancing down. Only the corner of her mouth moved in a twitch. It could have been the breeze if Inaya hadn’t been listening for it. “Nervous,” She responded, her lips in a perfect smile. She found it was always easier to be honest with her, more so than her parents. “Talk after?” she asked.
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Inaya gave the barest of nods as her father continued his ushering, “Left, to the left. Good, great, perfect now the right.” Her mother would offer the pair an encouraging nod, instructing Inaya to accept her father’s requests. *** “What’s wrong?” Aasma asked. She stirred her frozen chocolate and vanilla yogurt before biting clean through with her teeth. Inaya shivered. “That is downright unnatural.” Aasma rewarded her comment with a grin, “You’re just jealous.” Swirling the yogurt once more, she took another bite. She frowned, searching for the brownie bits she’d already eaten. She’d come along to support her friend and to get free frozen yogurt as Inaya had done for her graduation a week before. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.” Inaya’s face stretched, pulling itself into something of a genuine smile. She couldn’t help the corners of her mouth tilting up at Aasma and her chocolate addiction. She picked at her own frozen yogurt, some fruity combination she’d already forgotten, it didn’t matter much. All those citrus flavors melded together into a hodgepodge of bright hues and uniform taste. The pair sat slightly hunched at a lonesome bench near the sight of the ceremonial graduation from middle school to high school. There were only a few families around and none gave the two girls any mind. Brown patches of dirt with bits of grass surrounded them. Inaya shrugged in response to Aasma’s question before realizing she hadn’t seen. Aasma slumped her shoulders when she could no longer find any brownie bits. The green spoon hung from her mouth as she looked up. Inaya shrugged again. “Come on, you can tell me.” She urged, her voice came out slightly slurred thanks to the green spoon she’d clamped down on. Inaya shrugged once more. “Come ooon,” she whined, drool began to coat the top of her spoon. Wrinkling her nose, Inaya yanked the spoon from Aasma’s mouth. “It’s just, I don’t know about this.”
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“Us?” questioned Aasma, her hand rubbed her jaw as her voice came out in a soft, gentle whisper. "Yes and no. It’s not just that.” Inaya leaned into the taller girl, allowing herself to rest her head against Aasma’s shoulder. “Then what is it?” “I feel strangely alone. I feel like there’s nothing for me after this. I feel like… my life is planned for me.” She didn’t say planned by who, she didn’t need to. “Maybe we’ll get a big break or something. It’ll be like how it is in high school musical.” Inaya snorted. “Don’t laugh, I’m being serious. Things change in high school, my older brother said so himself.” Aasma said every word with the kind of confidence Inaya wished she could have. “Well he also told you that everyone got on the tables and started singing which I’m pretty sure didn’t happen.” “I don’t know, he’s a theatre kid and theatre kids are weird.” “You’re a theatre kid,” Inaya pointed out. Aasma slipped her hand into Inaya’s squeezing for a moment before letting it drop. “I’m gonna say something to you and I want you to take me seriously ok? Don’t laugh.” “Alright.” “No, you gotta promise.” She insisted. “I promise.” Inaya said rolling her eyes. The little green monster out of the corner of her eye growing dimmer by the second. “Maybe it’s a bit cliche to say it but you’re not alone. I’ll be by your side every step of the way, if you’ll have me. If you need to fight, I’ll be there right next to you. I’ll have you flaws and all if you’ll have me just the same.” This last bit was finished without hesitation on Aasma’s part. Inaya lifted Aasma’s hand and pressed her lips to it, for the moment, not caring who saw. It was strange how Aasma could calm her with a few words and gestures, how easily she would willingly give herself up to the girl as Aasma would do the same for her. In that moment there existed only a sense of relief for Inaya. She knew the feeling to be fleeting but still clung to it. “I’ll have you flaws and all.” For that moment the little green monster was no more. It would be back, it always was but for those few precious minutes it didn’t exist. They pushed away from each other, watching the families as they walked by absorbed in their own world. To any passerby they could be mistaken for two girl friends enjoying a burgeoning summer breeze.
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JEWELLER
CURTIS GARNER
FICTION
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The air hums, and the sky is a dark blue, like a Van Gogh. He takes the last sip of his Lucozade, squeezes the air from the bottle, and puts the lid back on. The wind turbines a few miles offshore remind him of tall, bare trees. Heat rises from the sea, frenzied and warped, making the end of the water and the beginning of the sky indeterminate. How are wind turbines installed in water? The North Sea’s angry waves, the colour of rust, roll up the sand. A woman sits on a fleecy blanket a few feet away. She has twin boys, one on either side of her. The one on her left scoops ice cream from his cone with his tongue. The other presses his cone into the sand, crushing it like the butt of a cigarette. With his free hand he points at four donkeys in yellow reigns that are dawdling beside the pier. A Duran Duran song plays from the fairground. People leave London to get away from noise, he thinks. But there is noise everywhere. He takes out his iPhone and types this into his Notes, beneath other aphorisms and sentimental lines that have come to him. He closes the page, and his eyes linger at his screensaver of Alex whose face, with its imperious half-smile, sends a ripple through his stomach. He rolls the sleeves of his t-shirt up to his shoulders. After checking his emails, despite having an Out of Office on, he returns the phone to his tote bag. It contains the few belongings he has brought: a tin of Vaseline, A Clockwork Orange with dog-eared pages stained with ten-year-old sun cream, Sony headphones in their leather case, boxer shorts, a pair of balled-up socks, and a half-empty bottle of Bleu de Chanel. He stands up and pats the sand from his clothes. A retriever stops before him and writhes around on its back, like a person in agony. On his way back towards the promenade, he leaves his Lucozade bottle beside the recycling bin, next to other bottles with the air squeezed from them, all looking like they’ve been mangled and shrunk by the sun. The sand is burning his feet. He pulls his socks and trainers back on when he gets to the street, then walks down past the arcades and the crazy golf courses. The cinema, where he’d once watched The Borrowers with his mother, is an enormous 19th century building, covered with bird netting. The swimming pool is now a car park.
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He walks up Regent Road towards the high street. He can smell fruit and burnt sugar from the little rock factory. He stops and looks through the window, at a woman kneading and stretching out a chunk of molten rock on a metal table, red and shiny like raw meat. Tattoo parlours. Souvenir and ice cream shops. A bingo hall. A mother and father lug their children up the street with sunburnt arms, imploring them to use their own legs. They are locals; their intonations rise, making everything sound like a question, and they stress the words in the middle of their sentences. You should try to walk quicker? He has a headache. He still gets headaches sometimes. One in five people living here have a long-term health condition, according to his checks. Google Maps takes him to a wine bar. Red and yellow curtains droop in the windows like popped balloons. Inside, rainbow flags the size of postcards hang from the top of the bar, and the walls are the colour of dried blood. Despite the smoking ban, he can still smell stale cigarette smoke. He orders a lager, then sits at a table with it. He wraps his hands around the cold pint glass, then draws shapes in the droplets of condensation with his little finger. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a night with him.’ A man stands before him, holding his denim jacket with both hands like an offering. He is looking at the framed black-and-white photograph of Marlon Brando on the wall above him. Smoke curls from a cigarette in Marlon’s hand, and he wears a t-shirt so tight that it resembles an extra layer of skin. ‘What’s your name?’ the man says, picking up a beer mat and twirling it around in his fingers. ‘Art,’ he says. His name is Arthur, after his grandfather, but he hates this name. ‘Unusual.’ ‘What’s yours?’ ‘Michael.’ His sandy blonde hair and receding chin make him look young. ‘Can I sit?’ the man asks, but does so before Art can answer. Art thinks of Alex again. The narrow-eyed way he used to sip his whisky, and the tang of wood and smoke on his breath afterwards. His love of Francis Bacon. The way he closed his eyes when he laughed, as if to fully absorb the joke without distraction. ‘Would you like a drink?’ Michael says.
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FICTION
‘I’m still on this one, thanks.’ Michael goes to the bar, leans across and orders himself a lager. He points one foot behind him and lightly taps the floor with the toe of his boot. Art is possessive of his memories. He wants to hold them in his lap, close to his body, like a newborn baby so that he could nurture them, protect them from harm, and prevent anyone from stealing them away. He drinks as much of his beer as he can. Michael returns. He smells of tanning oil and salt. ‘What brings you here?’ he says. ‘It’s where I grew up,’ says Art. He runs his finger around the groove of the scar on his left temple, shaped like a comma. ‘Haven’t been back for years.’ Silence, then Art asks, ‘What do you do?’ ‘I work in the record shop down by the front,’ says Michael, covering his knees with his hands. ‘What about you?’ ‘I manage a team that informs on national health and population data.’ He pauses to take another gulp of his beer. ‘Death rates, disease. All very glamorous.’ ‘What’s the population here?’ says Michael. He leans forward and rests his elbows on the tabletop. ‘About 99,000 across the borough.’ Michael throws back his head and laughs, showing the metal fillings in his top molars. ‘You’re funny,’ he says, then lowers his eyes to Art’s glass, which is quickly emptying. ‘Fancy one more?’ ‘Sorry,’ says Art. ‘Not tonight.’ ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’ says Michael. ‘It wouldn’t feel right. I’m sorry.’ The words add weight to the air around him. It presses down on his chest and shoulders. Michael holds up both hands in defeat. ‘I think I should go,’ says Art. Michael raises his wine glass and smiles. When Art gets back to his B&B, one of dozens in a long row of terraces, he makes himself a cup of tea with the tiny plastic kettle. He pulls off his shoes and socks. His feet are red and hot after the long day, and his toes are wrinkled. He lays back, hooks his left arm behind his head, and searches for his page in A Clockwork Orange. The sheets on his bed scratch his skin, like tent nylon, and they smell of lavender laundry detergent. His eyelids are heavy. *
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Car lights sweep across the Artex ceiling, like blades. He has pulled the sheets from the mattress and his legs are entangled in them. They are soaked with sweat. He struggles to take breath. The dream again. The dream that he never knows is a dream, a memory, until he wakes from it. It takes place on his 29th birthday. He is walking home from a bar in East London at 2am. The street is quiet. Footsteps behind him. The crunch of a beer can in a fist. A tinny clink as it’s thrown into the road. He turns around, but the man faces the pavement. When Art faces forward again, another man has appeared before him. He has no hair, and the light from the streetlamp bounces off his head, highlighting the contours of his skull. Art hears the swish of the air as the man’s arm comes towards him. He jabs a fist into Art’s jaw. The copper tang of blood, and legs from behind trip him to the ground. He sees his own tooth on the pavement. There is a static sound, like white noise. Lace-up boots and fists come down on Art’s body. He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, a face is looking down on him. His head is in a man’s lap, and he can feel the chill of the pavement through his clothes. The man’s hands hold each side of Art’s face. They smell of metal and sulphur. ‘Don’t try to move,’ the man says. ‘An ambulance is coming.’ When it arrives, the man sits beside Art’s stretcher and the paramedics slam the doors. He hears the siren and the rumble of the road underneath as the ambulance moves. Some of Art’s blood has stained the collar of the man’s shirt. His hair is flecked with grey, and he has a fork of wrinkles at the corner of his eye. ‘What’s that on your hands?’ says Art. His body hurts when he speaks. ‘I’m a jeweller,’ the man whispers, as if it’s a secret. He inspects his black fingertips. ‘Polishing.’ When he smiles, he shows his square, flat teeth. ‘What’s your name?’ Art asks. ‘Alex.’ *
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Water drips from Art’s shorts and t-shirt hanging on a clothes horse. He washed them in the bathroom sink with a bar of soap. The net curtain quivers. He takes his phone from the bedside table and calls Alex. While it rings, he mouths what he wants to say when he answers. The call goes to voicemail, so Art hangs up and calls again. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Please.’ Alex doesn’t answer. Art gets out of bed, squeezes the water from his clothes and puts them back on, and then his socks and shoes. He locks the door of the B&B and walks down to the seafront. The air thickens and swells, making his forehead sweat before he reaches the end of the street. The ocean is inky black and endless, and the lights of cargo ships crossing the channel blink in white and red. Art sits and calls Alex again, but there is still no answer. He throws his phone, and it lands in the wet sand next to the water, upright like a javelin. He goes to retrieve it, and wipes the screen clean on his damp shorts. There is a crack in its corner. He returns the phone to his pocket and walks back up the beach. A clap of thunder. Rain will be coming in from the sea.
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FAR FROM SAINTLY HOMOPHOBIA, TEEN SEX TRAFFICKING
MIA ALTAMURO
FICTION
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I go through each day twice; that of a sinner, and that of a saint. I live the life of a good girl, who is made out of silicon and all natural plastic, the kind that grows off of the leaves of the tree of wisdom; but I am also the forbidden fruit, hiding behind the dark green leaves, concealed from the eyes of the onlookers. I am the girl in the Church choir, the girl who did gymnastics as a child and who has a head of blonde hair and sun kissed skin, who is the type of pretty you don't need to think about in order to feel. The second part of my day is just the opposite, when these clothes come off, when I am alone with nothing in between me and the moonlight. I live in two religions; one is the one given to me, the Roman Catholic faith, with its dark Churches who the candles act as street lights for, as I approach the alter and kneel, repentance and shame, always uttering the same prayer; that is, to remove the second religion, that I am a heretic of both and am trying to find the real God above God. Within the folds of her skin I live two fold and I live twice. I find myself between her lips and place my legs within hers, I surrender to the ecstasy and let myself lay down, as she sinks deeper in me, and I become one with her. I search for myself, in the agonized face of Christ, in the serene tears of Mary, within her, looking at her. I try to run away from myself, and yet I want her, and that is another contradiction I face. I'm living a fantasy within a fantasy; this fake self that I live out, this fake religion that I follow. Or, at least I think that it's fake. I arrive in school in the oppressive uniform, crafted by the priests and teachers, that makes us the objects of both the Church and porn; the whistles from the men on the side of the road, the smiles from our Holy Father, to see us so modest. We are living in a world that is all gray, made out of glass and the reflections of angels caught in it, the lamps trying to mimic the real light. We have porcelain bones and paper skin, ceramic decorations that our parents have prepared for the benefit of the rest of the world. We have been created to be enjoyed, and we have been created to be consumed, especially us girls; consumed by our religion, by our men, by the world at large, and we are swallowed alive. I am looking for the privacy, and perhaps that is why I like this secret and this double life enough to keep it. I watch the religious sisters, they are the angels, though they are not angelic nor are they our sisters. They are the hard faces, the black cloaks, the rules and the ruler slapped against the palm of their hand, they are the crumbled up notes and gum stuck under the desk during detention. I always thought that they are so wicked and hard and so strict because they secretly envy us; they wish that they could be like us, who get to have our own private lives and our sins, where no one can see.
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I am going through my normal day, and then her fingers brush against my palm in our secret Morse code that, for a moment, tempts me to color. It brings me to look out the window of the classroom, away from the lessons, looking outside and seeing a big bright world where everything is so appealing. I keep on consuming only to not get the best of it, of the rebellious girls, who go out of their mind and don’t care for anything. I have yet to reach that point. I’ve still got a dangling crucifix on my neck, golden and shining against my pale, pale skin with blue veins running through, the part of me that is tempted in two ways; to embrace and to reject myself. When we do this, it is a signal. She smiles the way a serpent does, a river in the desert, meant only for me, to cling to, to be a source of light, in the world of envious saints. Nobody knows between the two of us and our friendship there is a rose garden, they only see the petals floating around, and we come together down the dark hallway no one travels, in between lockers, showering in the gym class, in our beds with the doors locked and parents away, anywhere we can, we find places to let the rose gardens grow, on our cheeks, in between the two of us, and have our bodies always calling for more. Our oppressors come right off of us, sliding down off of our arms and being kicked off by our legs, until we are bare under moonlight, and there is nothing on heaven or on Earth that could possibly keep us apart. There is not a river I would not swim or a mountain I would not cross, I would fight the crusades myself if it meant I could be in her holy land, on her lips, her waist, and below. It was satisfying, to see how easily these garments that define and categorize us could come right off. I think, one day, we will be able to strip down the entire world. Her lips are red as a cherry and are as sweet as wine, they send shivers through me and pulses in between my legs. She is the only communion I take truthfully, all else is nothing close to the body. Her eyes twinkle like the stars, like the candles we set alight. I put my head on her shoulder, wrap my arms tight around her back, my legs around her waste, until I am an extension of her, and I press her against the bed sheets, taking deep breaths and absorbing every minute of it. She smells like jasmine, and when I put my lips against her cheek, neck, and breasts, she tastes like vanilla. I close my eyes. Nothing of the world could be this good. When we are done, we always go back into our other world. Back from being sinners, we are saints yet again, with repentance always wearing thin. In a world where we announce our prayers at the dinner table, and confess everything to a priest, we keep this one thing private. It’s a shame, because it would be the best one of all.
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FICTION
Still, when the entire town knows what you’ve eaten for dinner last night, it is good to have a private life, even if it splits you in half. These roles I play, of being the saintly Catholic girl who does everything right, who is good and pure and chaste and obedient, who is the twinkle of her parish’s eye, and the other, who is a shadow, who is the seductress of night, who is free and so reckless with it. I am not sure which one is closer to who I really am. Walking on my way home that day, which I remember so vividly, playing on and on, in my head before it happened and only stronger thereafter, I felt like I must have felt like the people of Genesis before the flood hit. The entire world was Noah, watching from down below. In my house, there was my mother and father, whose faces were tight lines. The smiling, saintly expressions shown in Church with their proud and thoughtful hands placed on my shoulder, a different kind of prayer, while they presented me in conversation with their friends. The Church people have a way of exhibiting one another, always trying to fight to see who has the best child. Talking about grades, girlfriends, and God. Trying to show a trophy for their own faithfulness. Look at what came out of my womb. There comes a time you realize your parents did not have you because they wanted you, they had you because they were told they should want you. And that because of this, they thought they would get a good deal out of doing so. They gave birth to you expecting you to be an ornament, the perfect little gift they got from following God’s commandments. And so when you act like a real person, it angers them. They knew what I was doing, they knew about her. They looked through my diary, suspecting something out of me, and I shoot tears out like daggers in indignation, that they invade something so private. It is like they opened up my heart and spilled out all of the contents. At first, I try to deny it, but it was all lukewarm. It fell empty under their knowing evidence, and I had nothing against them. I sunk to my knees in tears at their insults and their condemnation, until the only thing that exists are these tears and sobs. I face silence, and my mother is holding my hands and brushing my hair out of my face, she is looking me in the eye, she and my father, who are now taking me back in, now that I have been broken. They are trying to talk to me. And they keep saying I can either turn away from my sin or turn away from this house--it is my greatest fear, something I always somewhat knew, but had never wanted to confront or to recognize. I never wanted to think that one day I would have to choose between the rock I had built my foundation on that had cut into my skin or the unknown, which may or may not be better.
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They speak in two fold; they love the sinner and hate the sin, they love me, but they can't support something that will destroy my soul. They speak in violence, in hatred, in spitting in my face and telling me to get my things and leave, telling me no, telling me that they cannot love the person that I am, only the one that they have invented, that is what they tell me. But they speak in love and softness, telling me that they want me to be good, they want me to come back, they want me. Except they don't want me. One of those two-fold things again, that I am getting so tired of. I do not respond, I only move along, I only stand up with a hung head. Just like at the altar, but more defeated; I am not coming closer, I am moving farther away. Even if I were to repent and break up with this girl, even if I was to disappear, it would be useless. I can't look at them the same way anymore, knowing that this is what they would do to me. How am I ever supposed to come home again? I know what the choice must be. I had been given a half hour to pack, my hesitation being interpreted as disobedience. It was so foggy to me, so unreal, like the moments I had spent in silence...sweet memories now marked by reluctance, now that they are over and had ended unhappily. How could I think back and smile, knowing everything I had done in my life has gone leading up to this? I had knelt on the floor, not to pray, not to worship, but to instead surrender to the weeping. Surrender to my own misery, and to place my hands over my eyes before my parents would come in and usher me to keep on packing. I would uproot myself and go elsewhere, and who would be able to find me, in a place of such darkness? To them, I am a used up toy. I am taken, discarded, I am dried up. I have lived my purpose and am now dead to them. For so long, I had wanted to scream that I was in love, but had only uttered whispers and moans that I would stifle as soon as they came. Feelings so big that they could fill up an entire room stayed in my back pocket. As much as they wanted to be heard, wanted to be able to sing and to go up in the air, they also wanted to be understood, and they could already see the walls closing in and cracking, the condemnation, the religious preaching, before any of it could even happen. Opening up my closet door, pressing my hands against the fabric, tossing them in a bag, feeling like I wasn’t in my body, feeling like nothing was real… I felt the clothes I would wear, the roles I was trying to live by;
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FICTION
My school uniform, itchy and ill fitting, who I could never make look just right. Not like the girls, including my lover, who were able to tuck it in and hike up their skirts until they looked like some trendy Catholic Vogue. I was suffocated in it, but no one else seemed to notice. They thought I was perfect. The praises off of their lips, the twinkle in their eye matching the glint in my crucifix. On the weekends, there was my black, leather, ripped clothing that my parents always chastised me for wearing. The things I had to sneak in through the front door, that I had to cover with a hoodie before discarding. I could smile faintly at it, to see the rebellious teenage daughter who’s soul hadn’t been saved, who was as sharp as a knife in an entirely different way. Who just wanted a hug. I saw the jacket of my lover, and I could barely bring myself to touch it. But I had to bring it with me, had to take a little bit of heaven to hell. Now, confronted with everything I ever was, fallen at the bottom of my feet, my knees, confronted, convicted...is there any room for me underneath? I understand why it fell. It was always too heavy to carry, this burden, this cross, I was told the Church would help me hold but never did. Now, I walk out of Egypt, except instead of a God saying I am that I am, it is more like a voice in my ear, whispering, me almost unwilling to listen, saying, you are that you are. And so, I had walked down the street, made a left, end of the road, down a hill, twofold, as always, every Sunday. That is where the Church is located, where it stands on its wooden stone, reminiscent of Peter looking across a long stretch of sand into vast emptiness, where he was told to rise from the pieces to make the largest institution in the world. That is all it was to me. No longer was it the power over my life, my soul, my heart, the choke hold on me, the grasp. The face of God breathing in my skin, staring me in the eye, with some hard rock that turns into a moist rag, bleeding out the waters of rain, forever. It was no longer that. Now, it was just stone, and it was just a closed door in my face and the walls standing up strong and straight in their convictions, with its back turned on me. If I walked in, what would I tell them? Should I ask for shelter, say that I am tired and weary and have been kicked out? They will ask me why, they will be so unsure, unable to comprehend why a good girl like me would get kicked out, when I had always been the princess. I would tell them I had soiled flesh and a dead soul, and they would not know what to tell me. They would turn me out, if not in the whole, they would push me in the part. I wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't let them do it. I would reject myself before I could be rejected.
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FICTION
I wouldn't open up my heart only to let it be broken. If I let myself open up too much, there will be nothing left of me. I have to save myself, and allow myself to belong to no one, to be a child not of a home but of the entire world, to be looked at indifferently, away from the ignorant blind men pointing to the sun and calling it heaven. I would be on my own, and I would be closed off, but safe. When I had done so, I discovered just how much I needed to be loved, how much a person needs it, whether or not this was conscience. Just as soon as I had fallen out of one fold, I found myself no longer living a double life, but instead holding on to my other; I was a sinner now, fallen, out of the state of grace, closed off from the Eucharist and the sacraments. I was sure I would end up like this forever, and so I had surrendered to the shadows as they stood, turning their heads shortly, to see me joining their ranks. How sorrowful. In the club that me and my lover had gone to, where we pulled out fake IDs everyone knew was fake, but allowed us through because they liked to look at us in our intoxicated state and never touch us, but just know that they could, that they could see us like slinkies underneath the flashing lights with our hands above our heads. We were their perfect prey, their little does in the light, beautiful things in an ugly world. They could use us so well, and we would tease them, feeling like we were the ones in control, while they stared us up and down with perverted, watery eyes. Lighting up as though they loved us, and yet, it was with desire, the way a great white shark looks at the minnow, but softer. When the wolf gains affection for what it feeds off of, allowing it to survive. For so long I had walked next to the line without putting a toe on it, I had resisted. I would laugh at their offers, would push away alcohol when I was starting to get tipsy, my amazing restraint, the saint leftover in me coming over to help the other, so that my two selves could survive. I was always told that I had to make a decision, I had to choose, you cannot live your life in purgatory, you have to eventually go into heaven or fall into hell. Today, tonight, I had finally decided to buy it, their merchandise. The one who owns the club is also the one who owns the gates of hell. He would set me up with his other girls, his toys, and we would work for him in drowning our bodies for pieces of gold. At night, I numb myself and become the wind, an empty, soulless thing that is allowed to be penetrated, passed and used once again, at a ripe young age, and always aiming younger. They are screwing a corpse, making love in hate. They do not see behind your eyes and they do not care to. I am probably the age of their daughters, I am probably where they dispense their most violent fantasies, and every touch is like rape of the soul. Soon, I am no longer mine, the way I once belonged to God, I belong to whoever will buy.
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FICTION
In truth, I had looked for the Devil, willing to sell my soul to him if it meant I could buy a nice winter coat, or sleep on a bed that night, or to eat a full meal. I began exchanging pieces of myself for it. If you ask me why, I would tell you it was not a decision, but mere surrender. I had toyed with the idea of expenses, of when my parents would kick me out, whenever I would come out, college, costs of living, too high to be honest. The greatest perversion became soft on me when I danced in their world for a little bit, and got used to the drugs, the drinking, the fighting, the casual sex, and all of the things that would corrupt my senses, that I would see and hear nothing but the shadow of what it was before. I had only given up, and it was nothing to me. I can feel your eyes glaring through the paper and judging. I can feel you in your heart beating, beating hatred, thinking that I am a tramp or a whore. I am envious of you. Envious that you would not understand why. I cannot feel the other side of the rivalry, of society and shadows, the way you can. And I am glad of it, that there is still parts of the world like that. I advise that you hang on to it for as long as you can, though I know it won't last forever. We all become whores somehow, if not in the literal sense. A worker for their boss, a voter for a politician, all of us to society in one way or the other, throw out ourselves and become empty bodies looking for survival, and we are all whores for capitalism. Still, did not feel completely broken yet. Like the truth was still written on my heart and the Church still fastened to me, like I was just a lost sheep that Jesus would abandon the ninety nine for, until the coming of the next day, when I had woken up a shadow, a special feeling, of reality setting in, and my body pulsing and in pain. Love cannot be forever, she saw what I had done to myself. She saw that now I belonged to the streets, and she wanted to return me off to my brothers and sisters, where I belonged, to my own people, a street rat, vermon, piece of trash. She didn't say it, but she meant it, when she said she would not sneak out of this gray world with me to go alight color, that she would not kiss me, because she thought that I may have herpes or some other disease one gets when they do as I do. I insisted that I did not, I would never put her at risk, but she dodged from my face in disgust and said she never knew me. I had no beauty, I had nothing left for her to look at. Watching her walk away, I watched that little remnant of light, and for a long time, I gave up entirely. Stopped going to school, stopped caring what I was putting inside my body, I stopped looking for a bed to sleep on and went with the other girls instead to the back of their cars. Why live a double life when I could emerge myself in one, climb to the top? No one can be a servant of two masters, I realize that now.
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FICTION
The sinners did not abandon me because it was not their place to; they were disgusting people, too. How could they spit on me when they are what is spit on? We are one and the same, and it terrifies me, but I surrender too my pride and my judgement, lay it at their feet, and I curl up beside it. I no longer see myself as having special worth, and this, in wretchedness and debauchery and all sorts of wicked corruption, is what made the light break through, and somehow, I had become as virtuous as a saint, pure as a virgin, and glorious as a queen. Somehow, I had needed to find hell to look up and find heaven, and it had come through in the coming days of this trying season. Somehow, I would find myself loving even my enemies. I had taken a look at my oppressor, the pimp, and wonder if it was Stockholm Syndrome to make me feel the way that I am, but not wanting to use such a word to describe myself. I kept on thinking about him, looking at the emptiness in his stare and the darkness that seemed to surround him, in his charm and his grace, his superficial havings and the way others are given no choice but to worship him, and he has nothing. He is evil, and all evil people are miserable. Even if it brings you good things in a corrupt world, it leaves you feeling hollow and sad and knowing you are nothing but a shadow who can never hope to have the full of humanity. Think of when you are angry, when you are hateful, and how tiring and how exhausting it is. And that is what they live in. It softened me in ways I couldn't explain, and brought me to tears, and yes, prayers. It was amazing. It was the most despicable thing that I had ever done. The girls around me, the whores and the immoral, who were bitter and rotten and corrupt, and I had seen so much in them. I saw the ways they were reaching to the light, how they were trying to be good, and I was touched by it. I was touched by the way a baby dove tries to fly, the way the light seeks its way through the night and attempts to make the best, the way a sick and waning humanity is always struggling to get better, even though it's impossible. They also had hobbies, they had quirks. Such tiny things, insignificant, meant nothing. But human. That is the greatest thing we are, in a world that takes us to extremes and tries to shape us. We are human. How beautiful, even if we begin as nothing and end as nothing, for such a short period of time, we are everything. It was nothing, but it was enough. It was enough to get me started, and to make me look forward. I changed nothing, but I woke up in the morning, and that meant something. I went to school again, and I faced the day, and I laughed with others, even when my laughter was mixed with coughs.
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FICTION
Never light, never dark, never gray...it was color all along, we had just never spent enough time appreciating it for what it was, always looking for something better. It is our greatest quality and it is our tragic flaw. The birds do not care how they should live or die. I had hovered around the Church, toying with the idea. Not Catholic, but Episcopalian. It was like a warm blanket, a bath, a bed. It was a little bit of light, knowing how those Episcopalians feel, to be able to rest my head against their walls, even if I wasn't quite ready to walk into a place that calls on the name of the old God who I had felt abandon me last time. Or maybe, it was him, all along, resting in the lowest parts of society, to make me resurrect from my weakness. There's a sun-shiny Anglican girl with long blonde hair and sparkling eyes who sits by me, who hands me soup and wraps a coat around me, as her alms giving. And I rest my head on her shoulder. I feel something in her. I feel love. Maybe I will be fine. I don't know yet. “Where are you from?” She asks me. “Around here,” I answer. Truly, I have no home. Not anymore. All I have are these streets, where the double lives I used to balance stretch out and reach infinity. Perhaps, when everything is laid bare and nothing else is concealed, I am finding the truth of who I am; somewhere in the middle of hedonism and selfrestraint that borders on insanity, I am somewhere in the middle of excessive indulgence and the soul shattering deprivation. She is saintly, I am sure, a princess of light. Something better even than a saint. And I am undecided. I am fine with being undecided. As long as I am free of the shackles of my previous life, and the life that came before that, and I am only staring outwards into the after, after, I will be ok.
Contributors
VULCANALIA '21
Halle Preneta Halle (she/her) enjoys writing short stories and poetry and gets her ideas from random life experiences. When she’s not writing, she’s either watching YouTube or playing Animal Crossing. Her Twitter handle is @YaTheatreNerd You can check out more of her work here: https://sites.google.com/view/halle-preneta/home
Jamison Conforto Jamison Conforto is a writer, animator, and biologist. He can be found picking wildflowers, sitting on the highway overpass, or lost in pretty much any department store. You can find more of his work on YouTube under the channel Toast Part Two.
Clem Flowers Clem Flowers (They/ Them) is a soft spoken southern transplant living in spitting distance of some mountains in Utah. Maker of a fine omelet, but scrambled egg game needs some fine tuning. Nb & bi, they live in a cozy apartment with their wonderful wife & sweet calico kitty. They can be found on Twitter at @hand_springs777
Keith Raymond Dr. Raymond is a Family and Emergency Physician. He practiced in eight countries in four languages. Currently living in Austria with his partner. When not volunteering his practice skills, he is writing, lecturing, or scuba diving. In 2008, he discovered the wreck of a Bulgarian freighter in the Black Sea. He has multiple medical citations, along with publications in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Grief Diaries, The Examined Life Journal, The Satirist, Chicago Literati, Blood Moon Rising, Frontier Tales Magazine, and in the Sci Fi anthologies Sanctuary and Alien Dimensions among others.
Spencer Sheehan-Kalina Spencer Sheehan-Kalina lives on the Salish Sea with his life-partner and their pets. Most recently Spencer's work was found at the Comox Valley Art Gallery and bloodroot gallery. His most recent collection of poetry was a chapbook published by bird, buried press, Of This, and a children's book of poems, Nootka Sound in Harmony.
Amelie Pollak Amelie Pollak is a 22 year old writer from the South of France.
Nat Dodd Nat Dodd is a twenty-something queer poet and social worker living in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Inspiration for their work includes: bizarre dreams, questionable habits, dead friends, the inescapability of being raised Catholic, and experiences with the sacred.
CONTRIBUTORS
VULCANALIA '21
Ankoor Patel Ankoor Patel is an educator and writer from Vallejo, California. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in OROBORO, Santa Fe Writers Workshop Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Freydís Moon Freydís Moon (they/them) is a Peruvian/Welsh nonbinary writer, tarot reader, and tasseographist. When they aren't writing or divining, Freydís is usually trying their hand at a recommended recipe, practicing a new language, or browsing their local bookstore. They have short stories forthcoming in Stone of Madness Press and The Deadlands, and poetry forthcoming in Strange Horizons. They are on Twitter @freydis_moon
Corinna Schulenburg Corinna Schulenburg (she/her) is an artist and activist committed to ensemble practice and social justice. She’s a white queer transgender woman, a mother, a playwright, a poet, a founding Creative Partner of Flux Theatre Ensemble, and the director of communications at Theatre Communications Group. As a playwright, actor, director, and community builder, Corinna has worked on over forty plays in New York City and across the country. She has poems upcoming in Canned, Capsule Stories, Eclectica Magazine, and Oroboro, and is thrilled to be included in VULCANALIA '21. https://corinnaschulenburg.com/
The Maenad Trans queer poly kinked, mad, and Proud, . The Maenad is a transgender goddess who writes poetry, prose, rules, and essays. Her work has appeared @fahmidanjournal @redplanetmag @wickedgayways @365tomorrows, the Gongfarmer’s Almanac and Madwomen in the Attic. Her first chapbook, the Ishtar Cycle, is forthcoming from @lupercaliapress
An independent DIY e-publisher, model, camgirl, and sex worker, the Maenad writes about gender, class, sex, inequality, mental illness, and the intersection of these points, sometimes also writing about culture, games, space, futurism, and the human condition. Thinking of other worlds and how best to help this one. Find her @dreaminggynoid
Caroline Wunn Caroline Wunn is a bi-sexual non-binary neurodivergent poet, crafter, history buff, and music enthusiast living with multiple sclerosis. They currently reside in Iowa with their spouse and cats.
Danny McLaren Danny McLaren is a queer, trans and non-binary writer who uses they/them pronouns. They write about trans existence and resistance or video games, or both, if they can pull it off. They currently have a poetry chapbook with Ethel Press entitled Two-Way Town and a collage micro-chap with Post Ghost Press entitled Sorry It’s Not Better News: Volume Two. Danny can be found on twitter at @dannymclrn.
CONTRIBUTORS
VULCANALIA '21
Yarden Tsfoni Yarden Tsfoni is an Israeli painter and archaeologist from the town of Modi’in. Her artwork focuses on the built world and the humans who occupy these spaces in relation to lived dailiness. These themes are explored through the lens of a cosmic vision. Her deep understanding of material culture and its reflection of the human experience, expression, and emotion finds its way to the canvas as it does to the history page.
W.C. Perry W.C. Perry is a writer from southern Ohio pursuing a BFA in Creative Writing at Wright State University. Their works focus on loss, family, spirituality, and the midwestern landscape. Their poetry has appeared in Prometheus Dreaming. To contact this author, burn a candle on a starless night and scream into the nearest cornfield — they’ll get back to you eventually.
Cat Blackard Cat Blackard is a multidisciplinary artist specializing in storytelling. Throughout her career in podcasting and journalism she's worked alongside her favorite artists of all time to create meaningful explorations of media and irreverent adventures for outcasts and lovers of the unusual. She's the founder of The Nerdy Show Network, Consequence of Sound's Consequence Podcast Network, Omniverse – her genre-bending production house, and is the showrunner of the award-winning audio drama, The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program - a queer horror-comedy. Her illustrations, photography, and writing have appeared in myriad publications and public spaces. catblackard.com
EM SETZER EM SETZER is a student-poet pursuing a degree in Classical Studies and Poetry at Bard College in New York. While they are currently in the Hudson Valley, Em originally hails from the great state of Maryland, where the crabgrass grows. Em writes and works at the meetingplace of modern and Archaic notions of otherness, queerness, and deviancy. Their poetry and translations have been published in The Foundationalist, (M)othertongues Magazine, and Bard’s translation journal, Sui Generis.
JP Seabright JP Seabright (she/they) is a queer writer living in London, who has had poetry published in three anthologies, short stories published online and in print, and various pieces shortlisted, longlisted and highly commended. Their debut prose chapbook is due out with Lupercalia Press early 2022. More of their work can be found at https://jpseabright.wordpress.com/ and on Twitter @errormessage.
Rey Fairburn Rey Fairburn is a queer poet and artist. Their work is informed by their experience as a queer witch wandering through the world, and she tries to imbue as much magic into her creations as possible. You can find more of their work on Instagram @reysenchantments . This is her debut publication.
CONTRIBUTORS
VULCANALIA '21
Jade G Jade G is a neutrois trans woman (vi/she) living on stolen Muscogee land. Vir work has been published or is forthcoming in Delicate Lit, Maw: Poetry Magazine, New Session, and The Bastard’s Review among others. You can find her being entirely too human on twitter @messiarchy
Rachel McCarren Rachel McCarren is a pansexual, sex-positive poet from Butler, Pennsylvania. She received her MFA in poetry from Carlow University of Pittsburgh, PA, in 2018. During her time at Carlow, she studied summers at Trinity College Dublin, IE. Her poems have appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Pittsburgh City Paper, The Unexposed Magazine, Radioactive Moat, and more. Rachel is an LGBTQIA+ activist, a mental health awareness activist, and a diversity and inclusion activist. Elle Lane Elle Lane is an undergraduate writer and artist originally from Kansas City, Missouri. Her style is a combination of Queer Literature and Southern Gothic and her fiction and poetry are a form of Biomythography. Elle Lane is a proud trans-woman and her work often delves into the theatre of gender. She has published in SOS Art Cincinnati, Issuu Magazine, and Field Trip Art Blog, and was a keynote speaker at the Reiss Colloquium.
Curtis Garner Curtis Garner is a queer writer living in Hackney. He has been working in publishing for the last four years, after graduating with a First in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Greenwich. He has also recently completed his MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University. In his spare time, Curtis reviews queer novels on his Instagram account (@queer_novels) and is currently in the final stages of editing his first novel. Princess Rose Asoh Princess Rose Asoh is a queer/bisexual writer and poet from Western Africa(Nigeria). Living in a homophobic nation, where the queers are considered criminals and sold into lifelong slavery of remaining closeted, Princess found poetry to be an expressive form of art, a means of transit for her body to a realm forbidden and a liberator of her soul to a place untold.
Andrew Watson Andrew Watson is an editor and translator from Chicago, Illinois.
Alexis Frueh Alexis Frueh is a proud lesbian woman who lives in Austin, TX, where she was born and raised. She has a B.A. in English from Texas State University and an M.Ed in Educational Administration from Lamar University. In her day job, she teaches high school English, while using nights and weekend hours to seek out instant gratitude as a bartender. Alexis is currently traveling the country in search of inspiration and a new way to express her love for language.
CONTRIBUTORS
VULCANALIA '21
Lassiter Waith Lassiter Waith is a black, queer writer who looks for strangeness in the everyday. His work has appeared in The Roadrunner Review and the Brushfire Literature & Arts Journal as well as being a finalist for the Best of the Net award for fiction in 2020.
Tavish Young Tavish Young is a writer and performer living in Maryland. His work explores fleeting intimacy, location, and very loud music. You can find his words at Rising Phoenix Press, and The Preface Literature magazine. C.Lofty C.Lofty is a black, queer, and southern poet who has recently relocted to Chicago. C.Lofty completed undergrad in May 2021 where they studied critical race theory and visual media. Through their poetry they explore notions of identity formations, the quantum imagination, history, ontology and voodoo practices. C.Lofty self identifies as a theorist, writer, and anarchist and in their free time you can find them brewing coffee, writing poetry and cooking. Shuqi Gao Shuqi Gao is a queer artist, bilingual writer, and creative coach from Yulin, China. She graduated and received an MFA Publishing Fellowship for AMP: Always Electric at Hofstra University. Shuqi’s work has appeared in Plume and her self-published collection, I See Ourselves Sitting on the Hour Hand of Time. Her poetry focuses on art, psychology and current issues. Silas M. Adams Silas M. Adams is a writer and editor currently working as a freelancer and receptionist with the hopes of breaking into publishing. They are a graduate of Rutgers with a major in English and a minor in Creative Writing. Writing has been a way to help Silas understand and explore the various cultures that overlap within their life. Their works have appeared in Haunted MTL (2019) and Running Wild Anthology of Stories Vol. 5. (2021). Bryce Baron-Sips Bryce Baron-Sips is a Wildlife Science student from the Chicago area. He likes mycology, surreal video games, and Russian literature, and he is currently recovering from injuries sustained by dancing too hard to Boney M’s Rasputin. You can find more of his work in Coffin Bell Journal.
Clark A. Pomerleau Clark A. Pomerleau (he/him) creates poetry as an invitation to record, reflect, and regenerate. His work features memory, place, nature, queer aesthetic, and transformative agency. A writer and teacher from Washington State, Finishing Line Press published his first chapbook, Better Living through Cats (2021). Other poetry appears in Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, Peculiar: a Queer Literary Journal, Poached Hare, Coffin Bell Journal, and the poetry anthology, Welcome to the Resistance (2021). Pomerleau’s scholarly essays and book (Califia Women, 2013) historicize feminist diversity education, feminist views on sexuality, and trans-inclusive praxis.
CONTRIBUTORS
VULCANALIA '21
Terran Everette Brice Terran Everette Brice (He/Him) is a 23-year-old, Queer Bahamian blogger, author, writer, poet, and spoken word artist. He humbly describes himself as an introvert – one who possesses the mindset of an engineer and the passion of an artist. His poetic works usually explore themes of existentialism, introspection, transcendence, romance, sexuality, and mental health. Terran can be seen occasionally airing his thoughts out on his blog, www.introverted-insight.com. While in his “Little Space To Be Creative”, Terran enjoys engaging with his beloved “Insighters” (readers of the blog) through a series of personal short stories, interesting lifestyle takes, as well as riveting, Top-5, music countdowns.
Remy Chartier Remy Chartier is a queer and trans author, hailing from New Hampshire. As a student of Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, they teach a class on fanfiction and the importance of uncensored creativity in an increasingly capitalist society. Above all else, they identify as a teller of stories.
Fanta Conde Fanta, called IJF is a multi-hyphenated being. As a first-generation Guinean-American, Fanta’s writing is tailored to her experiences as a Black millennial in the Western world and capturing those moments with words.
Alice Alexandra Moore Alice Alexandra Moore is a ludic, chimeric lilith who creates outside the fringes of acceptable convention. You can find her writings, music, art, and other musings at tempoimmaterial.art.
Katie Proctor Katie Proctor (they/them) is a poet from Yorkshire, England. They write freeform poetry and prose typically regarding their experience with love, relationships and mental health. Their debut collection of poetry, Seasons, was published in 2020, and their sophomore collection A Desire for Disaster will be published later this year, both by Hedgehog Poetry. They are the editor-inchief of celestite poetry, a journal of creative writing and non-fiction. They are a student with a passion for literature, history and classics, and plan to study English Literature at university. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram @katiiewrites.
Sappho Stanley Sappho Stanley is a trans woman and Senior at East Tennessee State University. She is working on her English undergraduate degree as well as two minors in Creative Writing and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is also writing two trans literary studies articles as part of the McNair Scholars ARI Program. She grew up in a small town in Southwest Virginia named “Pound.” Currently, she lives in Mount Carmel, Tennessee with her cat Kevin. You can find her Instagram and Twitter accounts @sapphostanley .
CONTRIBUTORS
VULCANALIA '21
Ami J. Sanghvi Ami J. Sanghvi is a non-binary, Indian-American, queer author, artist, designer, boxer, Eric Hoffer Book Award finalist, and recent graduate from the California Institute of the Arts Creative Writing M.F.A. program. He is a poetry editor for Wrongdoing Magazine, fiction editor for Decolonial Passage, and photographer for AsianZine, as well as the co- founder and coeditor of Gutslut Press. His work has recently appeared in So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, Inverted Syntax, Humana Obscura, I Hope You’ll Still Love Me: A South Asian LGBTQIA+ Anthology, Masalazine, and several other publications and exhibitions.
Currently, he is living in Los Angeles with a focus on autonomy, extraction, space, time, functionality, minimalism, and the subliminal in his writing and visual art practices alike. Sanghvi is also querying his M.F.A. thesis manuscript, developing an existentially compromised world for his Sad, Lonely Alien through various methods, collaborating on a hybrid experimental collection titled Pink Light Suicide, and deconstructing the literary criticism of J.R.R. Tolkien in order to develop a deeply South Asian, Sanskrit- gothic Science of Wraiths. On the side, he is preparing to re-immerse himself in the Elder Scrolls Online and befriend cute desert lizards who may or may not actually be aliens. Twitter/Instagram: @HotWraithBones Website: amijsanghvi.com
Lauren Sisko Lauren Sisko writes from a hole in the ground in Athens, GA.
Callie S. Blackstone Callie S. Blackstone writes both poetry and prose. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Plainsongs, Lily Poetry Review, Prime Number 53, West Trestle Review, and others. Callie is lucky enough to wake up to the smell of saltwater and the call of seagulls everyday. You can find her online home at callieblackstone.wordpress.com.
Mykki Rios Mykki Rios is a queer, genderfluid Mexican-American poet, performer and interdisciplinary artist. Raised in Chicago, and having lived many places across the globe, Mykki strives to achieve clear, authentic communication and self-expression that strikes a chord with the human condition. With a lifelong affinity for language and the music of words they hope to use their voice to connect and entertain the alienated, sensitive, and chaotic people of this world. Mykki has had work published in issues of The Minison Project, story twigs, and Welter. Helen Jenks Helen Jenks is a queer history student and poet based in Dublin with a nervous disposition and a fondness for jumpers and other knitted things. She enjoys writing about the sublime, mythic, romantic, and nostalgic –– poetry from life, in all its many forms. When not writing, you can find her hosting tea parties with her stuffed animals, who are all very polite and supportive of her work, or working on The Madrigal, her own poetry journal. Her work has been recently published in The Martello, Eucalyptus & Rose, Poetically Magazine, Spellbinder, and Seedling Poets, and she can be found on Twitter at @rosemaryandwool and @madrigalpress.
CONTRIBUTORS
VULCANALIA '21
Mia Altamuro Mia Altamuro is an eighteen year old lesbian writer from New York. She grew up in a small town, within a Catholic community made up mostly of immigrants in a poor family. She discovered writing at an early age, and will soon be a first generation college student. She has never been published before, but was a semi finalist in the Blank Theatre play writing contest with a play that dealt with the issue of conversion therapy.
Alejandra Cabezas Alejandra Cabezas is a poet and writer from Antiguo Cuscatlán, El Salvador. She is a winner of the Anne Singer Memorial Award and the Sydney Robertson McLean Short Story Prize. Most recently, she was awarded the Clio-Melpomene Grant for her hybrid work in poetry and history. In May 2021, she was named Poet of the Month by YES Poetry and wrote for the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project. She also represented Mount Holyoke at the 98th Glascock Poetry Contest.
Emory Brinson Emory Brinson is a student at Brown University studying Literary Arts and International Affairs. Terrified of spiders and obsessed with writing about the body and all of its fragments, she spends most of her time daydreaming about reading poetry in her dorm room. She has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and the YoungArts Foundation, was a finalist for the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, and has work in or forthcoming in Cargoes, The Apiary Magazine, and more.
Sloane Angelou Sloane Angelou is a storyteller & writer of West African origin; passionate about learning of human existence by interrogating human experiences. They exist in liminal spaces.
CONTRIBUTORS
VULCANALIA '21
VULCANALIA '21: FRONT AND BACK COVER BY VANESSA MAKI