The Lake - Emma Rothweiler pages 1

A small boy played with a swan drawing close and retreating close and retreating when she realized his game she paused before him and moved her long neck forward with dignity and the boy became still and apologetic

I watched as to the right another less cautious child stood at the end of her mother’s extended arm thigh-deep in the water good morning! good morning! she spoke to each swan that floated past her and each one regarded her with curiosity

I made a seat of the wide, shallow stairs that led to the water I folded my arms across my knees and felt the sun on my hair

1. Every now and then I place my hand on my bare thigh And squeeze A mockery of desperate intimacy A grapple at understanding sexuality Another broken eye line Another hand on exposed skin, Weighing up the magnitude of fat That presses my legs together Refusing a gap The light finger tips tracing my own sides, Making me giggle I’m ticklish, I almost forgot Because I am clueless about you And I blame you for the lack of attention You wean from the eyes of immature boys While you yearn for warmth and Hands that won’t judge the pockets of fat That bookend my not-so-life-bearing hips

2. I recently learned the feeling of a heartache Its deep and immovable gnaw on your soul Like its own shuddering heartbeat in your chest An empty place where my stomach would be I feel incomplete My lips cannot describe it But even if my brain momentarily forgets My body will remind me that it hasn’t, And burn with loss.

The Phantom Effect by Simrun Kaur-Rathore (she/her)

Air soothes hot skin Untouched; but not unclaimed Softly parted lips gasp and tingle As if they were flowers to be pressed How can thousands of miles fail to prevent: The feeling of thousands of kisses, littered upon miles of skin; Sensation of wondering fingers, Across a soft jawline Along a gently arched spine, in the midst of parting legs; Only elevating pressure. Every light breeze feels like a light breath When smitten in the memory of a stranger Who remembers anything? In yearning for someone else, You forget yourself, your touch becomes theirs But they’re nothing but a phantom.

Through the Birdcage by Simrun Kaur-Rathore (she/her)

by Yanisha Luckhea (she/her) beautiful flower, how you bloom in the sun, with the warmth of those compliments, likes comments and tags. photo synthesising and photo tropising, you use the brightness of your screen to grow and move, following it to different lands sunny beaches and snowy mountains, where its luminosity produces a surge of electricity in your brain, a rush of serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin. suddenly you stand in darkness, disoriented hugging yourself in the cold, for your screen is dead, until the warmth of a flame guides you forward, and leaning towards the light you drop the phone to clasp the hand reaching out towards you.

No One Left Behind? Really? by Maria Pakpahan (she/her)

by Imaan Asim (she/her)

to write is to be complete to glue myself together with words piece by piece comma by comma

after taking a dagger to my mind trying to escape this web of lies i’ve cocooned myself into as i set my past on fire and watch as her ashes fall soaking, disintegrating into the wet ground my language will never be freed from her pact with violence

i’ve tried to tread lightly pass through life like a wave but i can’t - instead flames ignite at my fingertips scorching white paper red translating numb emotions into shame and fear

writing is supposed to be an act of revolution because my name bears the weight of generations of women before me who ripped out their lungs and screamed so i could speak whose shadows stretched within them and blood seeped out of their mouths so my tongue could be a weapon of destruction who ached and howled for me to write the legacy of their memory