swine 2023 Digital edition 2: TENDER

swine presents submissions for

Shell

Replace all parts of a ship, are they still the same as you remember? Scoop out the insides and listen to the echo. Hear the crash; feel the heat. A home, an iridescence, a casing, a sign. Withdraw within, to be soothed, to be smoothed. Embrace the cracks that threaten to splinter. Face revelation without fear. Let in the out and out the in.

Crack into the theme of swine issue 3: SHELL

We cannot wait to hear your interpretations of the theme. Be as experimental or literal as you like, the theme is there to guide not hinder. Follow whatever inspiration strikes, be it a colour or feeling or abstract reference.

Submissions are open to ALL forms of media and we especially encourage visual artists and non-fiction writers to submit. .

Send your submissions, pitches, or ideas to print@ssu.org.au. Submission guidelines on our website.

Closing: Midnight July 2nd 2023.

Contributers page

The team

Fantine Banulski Editor Print@ssu.org.au

Sophie Robertson Designer Designer@ssu.org.au

Stay tuned

Instagram @swinemag

Facebook @swinemag

Website swinemagazine.org

With thanks to our extended team

Dilini Fredrick, Lucy Pembroke, Tamar Peterson, Monique Pollock, Matt Richardson, Nadia Rocha, Alex Schagen, Carly Waller.

How to Contribute

If you’d like to contribute to future issues or have your work published on our website, check out swinemagazine.org/contribute or reach out to print@ssu.org.au

Advertise in swine

Eric Lee Communications & partnerships officer Media@ssu.org.au

Media Credit 8Machine, Alex Shuper, Anastasiia Romunza, Anita Jankovic

Evie S, Ira Vishnevskaya, Jay Chen, Kyle Mackie, Maria Lupan, Robert Collins, Wilhelm Gunkel

The Team

Fantine Banulski — Editor

Fantine (she/her) is a writer, bookseller, reviewer, and the current editor of swine magazine. She is studying a Bachelor of Arts with a major in creative writing. When not reading, watching, or writing (or working or studying), she can be found hanging out with her cat Zuko or having a drink with friends. She appreciates stories that allow space for the audience to imbue their own meaning.

Sophie Robertson — Designer

Sophie (she/her) is a designer by day and still a designer by night. She also happens to be the current designer of swine magazine. She is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Communication Design (Honours). You’ll find her trying to justify buying a too-expensivebut-oh-so-pretty design book, or getting an equally expensive mocha and an almond croissant. Sophie gravitates towards storytelling that emotionally strikes her in the heart.

Acknowledgement of country

The swine team would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, the traditional owners of the land on which the SSU offices are located and our staff live and work. We extend this respect to Elders past, present and future, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Swinburne students, faculty and alumni.

As creators, writers, and artists of all types, we feel it is vital to acknowledge the deep connection to land, sea and community held by the Traditional Custodians.

As we may draw inspiration from and explore our connection to so-called Australia, we recognise First Nations peoples as the original storytellers, whose knowledge and wisdom has been, and continues to be, passed through generations since time immemorial. We also recognise the continued attempted destruction of this cultural practice through British colonisation.

Sovereignty was never ceded, always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

…

If you’re looking for further ways to take action, check out indigenousx.com.au for articles and resources, and consider paying the rent at paytherent.net.au.

Swinburne's Moondani Tommbadool Centre

Indigenous Student Resources

Indigenous Student Advisers

Indigenous Student Advisers are available to meet at Hawthorn, Wantirna or Croydon campus by appointment during office hours on Monday to Friday. You can also email and schedule a call-back at a time that suits you. To contact the Indigenous Student Adviser, email indigenousstudents@swinburne. edu.au or leave a voicemail on +61 3 9214 8481.

Academic skills support

The Indigenous Student Services team provides academic skills support for Indigenous students enrolled in higher education and vocational education.

Indigenous Academic Success Program

All Indigenous students enrolled at Swinburne (including Swinburne Online) are encouraged to apply for the Indigenous Academic Success Program. Eligible students receive two hours of tuition per unit of study per week from qualified tutors to assist with their studies. Additional tuition for exam preparation is also provided. The availability of tuition is based on funding and need. The program is provided free to eligible students.

There are also a range of scholarships available as well as an Indigenous Student Lounge at the Hawthorn campus which provides a quiet and culturally safe environment. To find out how to apply for scholarships or gain access to the Indigenous student lounge, visit the ‘Indigenous Student Services’ page on the Swinburne website or email indigenousstudents@swinburne.edu.au or leave a voicemail on +61 3 9214 8481.

Swinburne's new social enterprise cafe; Co-Ground.

All information taken directly from https://www.swinburne.edu. au/life-at-swinburne/student-support-services/indigenous-studentservices/ and https://www.swinburne.edu.au/news/2022/08/new-oncampus-cafe-to-support-indigenous-training-and-employment/

Welcome to our second digital issue of 2023!

Congratulations to the students who made it through semester one, and all the non-students for making it through life, in general.

When choosing a theme we consider interpretation and inspiration. Words that have a multitude of definitions, symbolic significance, or are just plain interesting. After the whimsy and gore of issue one: Teeth, a theme that elicited questions of growth and bite, Tender was chosen with the expectation that it would bring in some love. Perhaps some nautical references, and of course, hopefully, flesh. And we were not disappointed.

Within these pages are stories of first loves and self-love, of caring for those you will lose and those you wish you could. Shakespeare asked ‘is love a tender thing?’ and the common theme, the strength of these submissions was the willingness to explore the complex. Nothing is ever one thing. Love and hate can become inextricably enmeshed, and tenderness can feel like pain. When I considered tenderness I thought of exposure, of vulnerability. And the strength that can be found in the discomfort of change.

Thank you, as always, to our wonderful sub-editors and contributors for your work on this issue.

Tenderly, Fantine

Sisyphus

Lucy Joy Pembroke

bodies together tangled and torn, poisonous words borrowed and worn. gentle as a killer cruel as a friend, blue as a lover tenderness bends. break my heart ten times over i’ll bring the glue, those pretty words lead me clawing back to you.

Fingernails

Abby Harvey

Content warning: themes of mental illness, explicit blood and skin picking, brief mention of self-harm

I can’t remember a time when my nails haven’t been bitten down to the cuticle, jagged and sore. Our family photo albums have picture after picture of my tiny fist in my mouth; a mirror image of my dad. He’s been biting his nails for as long as I can remember. I suppose I was doomed to have this habit before I was born. I’m not sure if that makes it hereditary, or if there’s something to be drawn from children copying their parents’ habits. There’s a photo of us centre-page, watching ‘The Wiggles’, fingers between lips. I can’t see any anxiety on his face, but the feeling is familiar.

I don’t know what it’s like to have fingernails that aren’t constantly bloody and tender. No amount of reflection can unblur the lines of whether this constitutes self-soothing or harm. I missed girlhood rites of passage; sitting alone at the kitchen bench while I waited for my friends to finish painting their nails. I once coated mine in iridescent purple, the oozing polish stung as it seeped into my broken skin. None of the other girls had that problem.

At times, I can’t help but gnaw and pick and bite until I can’t feel anything but my pulse thrumming in my fingertips. Every thought takes centre stage, and my only reprieve has become reflexive. My feelings are reduced to this silent, dull throb, settling in the most isolated parts of my body. When I struggle to type because every push of a key sends a shooting pain right back up into my hands, I resent the strength of my heart. When the tenderness gets too much. When I find that I can’t hold my toothbrush, turn my steering wheel, or squeeze my lover’s hand.

I can only hope that he doesn’t pin my hesitance on anything but my weeping fingernails. I sit against him, my hands tucked between my knees and the couch, horrifically embarrassed. Hoping he won’t catch a glimpse of the pain I’ve caused myself, of the concave cuticles, dented from searching teeth. I want to run my hands through his hair, to twist every black curl between the pads of my finger and thumb. But I’m afraid that if my hands aren’t contained, my self-destructive anxiety will melt into his skin. I hope that my words hold him, in the way that my hands want to, but won’t allow. I can almost see them brushing against his chin, trailing down his shirt and slotting between his own perfectly fine fingers.

Sometimes I wish my heart wasn’t so full. That I was somehow able to avoid this constant, anxious pain, spanning almost two decades. I imagine going back in time and clasping my own chubby fists shut, whispering that the ache in our chest is not all we are. Even then, I know it won’t stop the blood from my veins pouring out of my bruised fingernails, as it has since I was first able to move my hands to my lips.

My Mama's Marigolds

Sophie Robertson

Content warning: contains themes of death and terminal illness

Cheap 70’s plexiglass, fluoro-orange. A grinning font, all cap’, beams from embossed plastic: “VERY TENDER”

A palm-sized sign with a gleaming spike to puncture hunks of thick wadded meat. In the 90’s my parents—radical vegetarian activists—pricked it into wax sculptures of human meat displayed in a butcher shop window. My dad made a mould of his ass. Ha.

It was in the papers and caught all the passers-by in double takes. Now it rests with a fat glob of blue tack on my door, a precursor.

I work at a grocery store liquor shop and when I brought Dhal in for lunch (which my radical vegetarian parents taught me to cook) I made friends with a woman working hard to save up money for a holiday back home (in India with her family) and it was a sweet and friendly conversation (the kind that means you always share a genuine smile with every hello after) but when she asked about my family (which we hadn’t discussed before) she mentioned it casually (like we had) and... Look. I never lie and so I don’t know why I did, but I did. And now I’m just thinking it could be that I wouldn’t have known how to answer the question of what happened? But anyway, so…I just clammed up and lied. Said, ‘They’re good,’ and ‘they live far away.’

It takes the courage of a lion to wear your heart on your sleeve. The whole, pulsing lot of it.

To not cook off the fat, slice its tendons, shuck the bones.

Once I told a customer about my parents (rare) and he trilled, ‘ohmygoooooossshhhh me tooooooooo.’

A limp handed air slap and roll of the eyes. Under my hard-candy-shell veneer, it pricked me. Didn’t he feel the bruising and aching of a person my age with no one? No one of blood, that is.

I do have someone. My grandad.

He’s kind of become my best friend.

He’s due to die any day now.

He isn’t shy about the topic of death with me, and I can feel him ease at my ease. Like a Pringles can opening. A suck of air and release. It must be a lonely venture. Everyone around you squirming like maggots, fussing.

“TENDER: 1. showing gentleness, kindness and affection.”

My Granddad. My Normie, can swindle any smile with his charm and kindness. He’s good at laughs too—making them and having them. When my mum told him that my sister was trans, there was not a second wasted on any type of phobia. Only love.

Almost extra-terrestrial for a man of the silent generation.

“2. (of food) easy to cut or chew; not tough.”

Normie has a tumour in his throat that makes it very painful to swallow. He’s living on soups, juices, KFC gravy and mashed potato slurries.

When I was a child, we’d ‘come over’ to his house, and he’d cut spuds into thick wedges and fry them in his one-person deep fryer. We’d have them with tomato sauce and salad. He’d have it sans sauce; an Englishman. Alone, he’d have them with steak. Never with us though.

My partner has started having their meals alone, mine not being solid enough anymore: Dhal, fried rice, Tom Yum, Aloo Curry, Jambalaya, garbage plate, noodles, and all shapes and colours of pasta. Their rotation is something like hot dogs, burgers, pizza, oven chicken, sometimes pasta, bacon and eggs.

I can’t seem to eat now that it’s only for me.

Me! A glutton and life-long foodie, will starve because I can’t think of a thing, I can be bothered wrapping my lips around and chewing. My mum always imagined me marrying ‘a nice vegetarian boy’.

Through our ‘not-talking’, mum and I had agreed to keep it all from Normie.

I call him, getting off the bus from work one afternoon. The sun is shining, and I know a chat with him will only further brighten my day. We chat as we often do, but he seems in low spirits, turning down my comedic volleys.

I get home.

He loosens.

He lays out full pelt what is bothering him. He knows about mum and I’s *not-talking*.

Normie is straight terror: another dent in our busted-up lineage and clean out of time to fix it.

He bolsters his anger at me, over and over. I sob and dry scream at him— the whole, pulsing lot of it. Me against his only daughter. I am straight terror: I have no one.

We rumble and clash and yell hideously and talk over each other for the first time in our lives.

‘I don’t want you to die thinking that bad stuff about me, because it isn’t true.’

After shove and fall back, and shove, and fall back, he understands That extra-terrestrial empathy.

‘It’s only that I need to be my own person, like you have always needed, Normie. And I don’t know how to do that with mum right now. She still thinks I’m the same person as her.’

That I’m still rocking in her womb.

I promised him I’d always find my way back to my family, that it wasn’t forever and never would be.

“3. NAUTICAL (of a ship) leaning or readily inclined to roll in response to wind.”

Later, Normie and I sit in a dinky food court in my hometown sipping Laksa. He’s never heard of it before.

In Summer we go on a date to Melbourne and see a gold-class spy movie. We have bubble tea, no bubbles. He’s never heard of it before.

On his birthday, I come to his apartment with homemade Tom Kha, the big vegetable bits spooned out of his portion and into mine. He’s never heard of it before.

We sit together for hours talking over a gin. He’s heard of it before. He prefers whiskey.

‘I like to have these conversations with you before I go.’

Cavernous

Skylar Klease

I spend most of my days Bruised in Blue and impinged upon. Scratched and Scarred from Barb-wired friends. Who mistake my Skin For a Cardigan.

Paralysed in Purple Waiting for a face to fit The shape of my ache. Rendered hapless, Shapeless, and Gummy. Nothing but plum, Numb, A bag of grape Sour Patch Kids.

I spend most of my days Scorched in Red, By that Royal Gala Radiator, Raptured on my Sleeve. By that gargantuan furnace, blazing between my ribs. The one that heats your frosty fingertips, That beats behind the slope of my chest, Where your head indents.

Tender Burns, Swollen swatches of Flesh: The price at which I pay For Loving Tenderly.

I spend most of my days Away for Good Favour. Sparing myself from the feelings, Found in the melodies that weep me to sleep. Saving myself from a Time when Tenderness wrecked my ___ Leaving me winded and wrought.

At this Time

Tender heart of mine, Was lulled softly. She Broke quietly In Shut-Door Privacy. Was Stung, Sliced and Scraped from the Sharpness Of Sentimentality.

At this Time Weeks washed over me. The tidal waves that were; my kernelled cul-de-sacs, and blizzardous blunders

Flooded my ear canals in fluorescent labyrinths.

So, I could not hear you— —Softly treading, Floating past my cartilage. Rhythmic beating of Heartbeats and Humdrum.

So, I did not see you— —Taking stock In my primordial soup.

It was a blindness Deafness, Senseless Past.

I was ripe for Tender’s taking.

I spend most of my days

At bay with ardent fervour, Avoiding memorabilia that offsets my melancholy.

To relinquish myself from the Time where Tenderness stained my Skin.

In shades deeper, than any; Blue, Purple or Red.

At this Time

I’d lay facing your back. Tracing the rivers and valleys, between your shoulder blades. Finding consolation in Sacredness Withheld.

I’d lay in pearly white sheet; Listening and Curling, Cavernous & Chattering.

Craving heat You do not bestow.

I’d be sleepy, bitten by impossible patience. Dense with acrylic, pastel, oils From painting the Spine and Torso You turned away from me.

It was a Tiresome, Lonesome, Burdensome Long Ago. A Wage Not worth the Cost.

I spend most of my days Cavernous; Cool from Deep Heat, Crouched in Green Sheets. Waiting for the Face of my ache

To halt its time, away from me. Waiting for your warmth

To return to the ramp between my breasts.

Raw and Frozen Indented Chest.

The Pain and slow Decay Of Loving Tenderly.

CAVERNOUS — SKYLAR KLEASE

The Ease of It

Matt Richardson

Content warning: physical intimacy (consensual), brief mention of possible past abuse

The first time he was caressed, nothing more than gentle fingers against his cheek, he cried. Twenty-three years and it had never happened, even though he had longed for it. Those simple touches, thoughtless touches, because-you-were-there touches—he wanted them more than anything. But he had never considered what it would truly be like.

‘Are you alright?' his partner asked, jolting back, tearing his hand away.

'I’m fine,' he said, and tried to ignore how choked the words were. 'Why?'

At that, gentle fingers returned to brush beneath his eye. 'You’re crying.'

He was. He hadn’t realised. A soft noise rose from the back of his throat. 'I’m sorry,' he whispered.

'Why are you apologising?' Again, there was that tenderness, not just in his touch, but in his voice as well.

'I don’t know.'

His partner said nothing; he didn’t need to. He pulled him in, arms wrapping around his waist until they were pressed together completely. Sobs wracked both their bodies but spilled from only one. Between each breath were whispered comforts and heavy sighs.

'You’re okay,' his partner said, rubbing small circles into his back. 'You’re going to be okay.'

When he settled, eyes sore and face numb, his head was buried in the crook of his partner’s neck. They sat together on the bed. There were fingers in his hair and a worn shirt bunched in his hands. He was tired, but there were words sitting below the lump in his throat, words his partner deserved to hear.

All he could whisper was, 'sorry.'

The response was a kiss against his temple, almost enough to spill tears again, and a murmur of, 'Can you tell me what happened? Did I do something you didn’t like?'

Could he explain, when he didn’t properly understand it himself? The words sat there, waiting. He swallowed and pulled back to peer into the face of the man he could come to love, and tried to explain things as best he could.

It was his past, it always was. The touches that had been rejected for one reason or another, the touches that had hurt, the touches he had begged for and been disappointed by. The touches that had made him feel disgusted with himself. The countless little grazes and the ugly words that had accompanied them.

Never in his life had he been held like this. He had held others; it was expected of him, demanded of him. He had touched and loved and shown that love as best he could. He had not been shown the same in return. It had been normal, in his mind. That was what he deserved, that was how a relationship should be. He would take what he could get, even when that was nothing at all.

No one kissed his forehead or held his hand in public. No one held his face in their hands or hugged him from behind. No one wiped away his tears. All these things he dreamed of but never had. And yet, there was his partner, touching him like it was nothing. Like it was easy.

Like he deserved it.

'Oh, my love,' his partner said as his confession fizzled into terrible silence. 'You deserve it, you deserve it all.' Did he?

'I…' he whispered, not knowing what the rest of the sentence was ever meant to be.

His partner simply hummed and pulled on his hand. The bed met him, warm and comforting. He curled up, let the blankets cradle him, and felt the weight of his partner against the mattress. He resisted the urge to apologise again, the words strangling him in their desperation to escape.

A tissue brushed against his cheeks. Even when he was a sobbing, pathetic mess, his partner was still there to clean him up. How could he ever compare?

He reached out, limbs moving beyond his control, and cupped his partner’s face the way he always did.

A smile beamed down at him. 'It’s alright,' his partner said. 'I understand.' He wasn’t sure if it was the truth, but it felt like maybe it could be.

Hands rested on his hips, moving up to stroke his neck, his face, the back of his head. All of it was careful and slow, relaxing enough that he could fall asleep if he wished to. But he didn’t. He wanted to see his partner, see the love in his eyes and the way they darted to each part of him. It took his breath away.

Overwhelmed, laughter bubbled up from his throat and if he cried again, neither of them noticed. He muffled his chuckles into his partner’s shoulder. He held on tight, as tight as he could, determined to stay for as long as he was wanted.

In the back of his mind, he wished for forever.

After 10

Sithmi Adishka

My love for my cousins expired.

I knew the very summer it started to rot. When our ages had two numbers in them, instead of one.

It began with wanting hours to play together, Moved to wanting hours to talk together,

Then wanting to meet once a month, at the very least

To wanting to go home when we finally did.

Some of them are now living in parts of the world I can’t name; In cities, I haven’t seen With people, I'll never know.

Yet those summer days, They remain in my mind Like a stain, I don’t remember how I got.

I remember our teams, repeating the only jokes we knew. I remember every line, the sound of every laugh. I remember my ears hurting, when they screamed right next to me. We were telling stories, Laughing, sometimes snorting.

All these things still feel so close, And yet, like something that never happened at all.

I meet you now and you smile but don’t talk. You don’t reach out your hand to take mine; We don’t run to the open fields, Where it would be just us

I wonder what went wrong. I know what went wrong. We grew up. And I’m sorry that we did.

I’m sorry for what they tell me of you, For what you might have heard of me.

I’m sorry you don’t want me on your team anymore We played We played a lot, but it ended there.

I knew as little of who you were then, as I do of who you are now.

I am 20 now,

But at 60

I doubt that everything I remember of you will exist at all.

The only proof we had of our days was, broken slippers and snapped branches. those are long gone.

If our old clothes are somewhere, I hope they smell like those days.

Like oranges and rain.

I hope they carry those feelings, Those I can no longer carry. After all, I’ve had to make room, For the new ones.

We are not sorry for the strangers we’ve become. We knew it would happen and we let it,

Part of me thinks we wanted it. Wanted to be away from everything our parents told us, Rather be strangers than end up the way they all did.

I am glad we did become strangers. If we meet again, maybe we would finally get the chance to know each other. Not as family but as friends; As people with their own stories to tell.

Wherever you are, dear cousin I hope you are happy. I am too. I wanted to tell you, I liked playing with you.

Baby

Fantine Banulski

Content warning: blood and gore, childbirth, explicit violence, themes of child abuse and neglect

I called you Baby. I liked the way it sounded in the dark. I’d whisper it countless times whilst running my hands over my belly, tracking the swelling in the months following that blurry night. As midnight approached, my nocturnal chant would be lost. Inaudible beneath the yowling of the feral cats that roamed the vacant lot outside my bedroom window.

According to the library’s dusty growth chart, you were no bigger than a blueberry when they first came. Tails flicking in warning or promise. The tomcats were scarred and muscular, displaying their strength as they stretched to full height and scraped long claws down my window. The mother cats— kittens themselves—would lick their paws, their backs, their lips; gazes never leaving me. In my dreams, I understood it was you they wanted.

Soon the margins of my school book became overcrowded. I’d never done well academically, but now my scattered notes were illegible beneath overlapping layers of blue ink. A sea of strong B’s, looping A’s, curving Y’s, indifferent to the horizontal lines of my battered 99-cent workbook. I’d link each character in rhythmic swoops, weaving them together in the flowing cursive taught to me by the only teacher who noticed my silence. On the afternoons I thought my shaking legs would give out from standing by the school gate, Mr Wilk would usher me into a classroom. He would encourage me to read aloud, syllable by syllable. On the last day of year eight, he slipped a piece of paper into my hand. It took a minute but I managed to identify the scrawl as numbers. That’s when I cried, the only time I can ever remember. He wasn’t to know the landline had been cut off the previous month. The note has lived inside an old yoghurt tub for almost a year—alongside a magpie feather, a smooth piece of glass, a cracked Tamagotchi, and a bloodied pair of polka dot underwear.

By the time they noticed the change, I couldn’t stand for longer than a few minutes or my head would begin to spin. My uniform skirt had to be held up by three large safety pins that usually clasped thick curtains together, disrupting the path of any light that dared enter the house. The pins would snap undone during the school day, stabbing me in the hips, lower back, and waist, leaving rusted spots on my clothing. Crimson blood turns dirt brown, no matter how hard you scrub.

Despite my desperate slumping, my shirt grew uncomfortably taut. Some people, like Mr Wilk, averted their gaze. In the hallways and yard, his eyes would glide over me, ears reddening and sweat beading. He eventually stopped coming. Transferred, the office lady told me. Others didn’t try to hide their stares and laughter. My ears would prick up, and somehow, no matter the distance, I could hear their cruel words clearly.

This audience unsettled me. I became more fearful than I’d ever been before. I began to imagine the ways in which I would hurt anyone who came near you; the weapons I could fashion out of pencils and protractors. How I would transform before their eyes. The pads of my thumbs pressing into eye sockets

until they hollowed, my yellowed incisors sinking into sinewy necks and fatty thighs. I cut my dark curls short and let my nails grow long and sharp. The tips of my fingers grew calloused from the carvings I would leave beneath desks, testing this new strength.

I knew better than to fall asleep where I could be discovered, but on that day, your day, a pressing pain had begun in my stomach. It wasn’t like the pain of not having eaten for a few days, or of being hit. It was pulsating and persistent, spreading to my lower back and leaving a trail of pink goo in my underwear.

During second period, as wood chips piled atop my knees, I became entranced by the large peppercorn tree towering beside the classroom window. It swayed back and forth, back and forth, as small shadows flickered through the foliage. In one disorienting moment, the tree looked at me and a sudden static crackle rang painfully in my ears. When I opened my eyes, the hair on my arm was standing on end and my classmates were watching me. My name had been called over the loudspeaker.

The counsellor was waiting in the hallway. Her smile was as vague as ever. Instead of the wilting paper rainbows and false promises of her office, I was met with the low grey walls and ticking clock of someone higher in the food chain. I remained as still as possible, ready for any sudden movements. My blood felt hot and my stomach squirmed.

I am not sure what would have happened next if a red-faced office assistant hadn’t opened the door, profusely apologising for the intrusion, before catching her breath to inform us that there had been an incident.

Climate change, pesticides, cruel boy gangs—all speculated culprits. Responsible for a grisly discovery at morning tea: a mound of tiny corpses beneath the peppercorn tree. Rats with their guts hanging loose. Pigeons separated from their wings. Possums with their eyes missing. Highly distressing. Parades of cars pulled up well before hometime to collect teary-eyed year sevens. Beneath the blood-matted fur and feathers, the reds and browns and greys, nobody noticed the long crisscrossing gouges in the bark.

Police officers circled and from within them, the unmistakable perfumed stench of social workers. The counsellor, all colour drained from her face, did not notice when I slipped away; saliva dribbling out of the corners of my mouth.

By the time I made my way down the hill and onto the bus, my uniform was drenched and my hair was plastered to my skull. An elderly woman had to help me sit down. I sighed, letting the cool blow of the air conditioning wash over me. I gradually became aware of a shaky voice repeating words like ‘hospital’ and ‘young’. It sounded faint as if I was hearing it from the bottom of the ocean. The afternoon sun against my eyelids gave everything a fiery glow. I opened my eyes a crack. Only a few stops to go. A discordant beep drew my attention downwards. Forcing my eyes to widen, I took in the wrinkled

finger hovering over ‘0’ on a bricklike phone. The old lady let out a cry when I gripped her wrist, my claws tearing at her tissue paper skin. She knew we were stronger than her. The bus halted. I stumbled towards the heat rippling through the opening doors and through the vacant fields. I didn’t stop until the front door slammed behind me, momentum seeing me to the couch as I felt my legs collapse. My last thought was how strange it was that I could no longer feel any pain.

The screaming infiltrated my dreams. In it, the strays’ summons were insistent and urgent. For a moment that stretched on for a while, I couldn’t remember what was real. The sharp crack of a slap knocked me from the stained cushions to the hard floor. I had become accustomed to trusting my body; it knew what to do when I couldn’t.

Upper arms cover ears (how else could I hear your voice)

Tough elbows go directly in front of eyes (I know you will be beautiful)

Scarred forearms crisscross over fragile skull as hands sink into hair (do not let go).

The blows kept coming—but they were landing where they shouldn’t. From somewhere else, I registered pain on the exposed skin of my cheeks, my shoulders, my chest. I felt it all because my arms were wrapped below me, around where you curled in the hollow of my belly. Head bowed and knees bent. My mirror image. I knew my mother’s voice, as you know mine.

Claws reached up, up, up through muscle and fat and skin, toward the air, toward the light. The scratching was everywhere, inside me, splitting me open, insistent and urgent. Humming, convulsing, bones bent and snapped. Alien sensation, past the point of pain, of essential mitosis; a long-awaited meeting. A scream ripped through me as one became two and you became you.

Then everything was warm. There were no dreams to escape. Someone was licking my face.

I pried my swelling eyes open. The darkening sky was vast above me, devoid of clouds. I carefully rotated my head to the side. I was lying on the concrete porch steps. Dark silhouettes slunk across my vision. Blinking rapidly to dispel them, shapes and colours came into focus. All of my belongings were strewn across the lawn.

Willing my muscles into action, I attempted to sit up. Head spinning, I fell back onto my elbows and looked down. Two identical pools surrounded me. They glistened, reflecting the dusk light and shaking slightly before coming together. The fluid was a garishly opaque red, viscous and littered with chunks of stringy matter. The low hum of an engine grew louder.

As my field of vision expanded, I realized the sound was not mechanical, but the collective purr of a dozen or so cats encircling me. Some lapped greedily, mouths wet and discoloured. Others prowled— keeping watch.

My head tickled and I reached up to feel the fine whisker of a calico nosing at my encrusted hair. My shoulder stung as a tabby dragged her sandpaper tongue over a cut, green eyes focused. I sat up fully. Two dark spots stained my school shirt. Below it, my skirt was bunched up around my hips. Between my thighs, a sleek black cat fervently licked at a small dark mass. As I reached down, she flashed her pearly fangs, severing the umbilical cord.

Then I was holding you as tears flowed down my cheeks. Your nose was small and pink, as were your velvety ears. A soft fluff covered your tiny body, warm against my cupped hands which you fit in perfectly. You let out a cry. My Baby.

The Highest Bidder

Tamar Peterson

Content warning: sexual themes, mentions of violence and implied abuse

A brightly lit restaurant, with a boy who grins like his father. Peeling off her layers from across the table, Hell he has never been so famished.

Love her tender Love her sweet.

A darkened cinema, with a boy who smells like his mother. Groping a tit that he does not own, Hell he hasn’t seen yet.

Love her tender Keep her keen.

A grimy laneway, with a boy who cries like his brother. Struggling against the girl with the dagger, Hell she has never felt so vindicated.

Love her tender Make her smile.

His father taught him to love, through spittle and fists. Strip her heart before she steals yours.

His mother taught him to control, through murmurs and bruises. Don’t rise before his words soften.

His brother taught him to go for the girl, through fondling and ghosting. Take her for a ride she will never forget.

The remnants of him serve as a testimony: A warning for all sons to come.

don’t forget the mothers, fathers and brothers too.

Love them tender Before they become meat For the highest bidder.

Tender

Nadia Rocha

Squished Bugs

Jemma Heitlinger

Content warning:

themes of death and illness

Her mum lay in bed, a mound beneath the quilts. Jenna entered the eerily quiet room, watching her footsteps as though awareness would soften them.

The whole house was silent today. Whilst her siblings were working, she dedicated her day off to caring for her sickly mother. Jenna hadn’t planned for it, but at least she could catch up on some reading.

Despite it being the middle of the day, her mum’s room was enclosed in a thick dark warmth, the satin curtains drawn closed.

In her hands Jenna held a bowl of soup recently warmed up. She set it down on the bedside table, leaning over her mum’s small body.

‘Mum?’ she whispered, planting a hand on her shoulder and pushing gently. Jenna repeated it once more before her mum blinked herself awake. The surface of her face smoothed out as she awoke; the tension built up during slumber dissipating into consciousness.

‘Jenna?’ she asked. ‘Are the dogs okay?’

Jenna smiled at her mum, helping her to sit up against the headboard. ‘They’re fine. They’re resting outside, I walked them earlier.’

Her mother nodded, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. ‘That’s good.’

‘How are you feeling?’

In response, she threaded a bony hand through her hair, deliberating the question as she took stock of her frail body. ‘I’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about.’

‘Seriously, mum. You’re sick, I need to know if you’re getting better.’

Her mum rolled her eyes and an unconvincing grin spread painfully across her face. ‘Don’t be silly. You’ll know if I’m dying.’

Jenna frowned as a headache sprang to life. She soothed her temples in small circles and sighed deeply. ‘Please don’t say that.’

The bed shifted as her mum adjusted her position, staring at her daughter knowingly. Jenna nearly flinched, scared she had somehow jumped back in time to when she was a little girl. ‘Everyone dies, Jenna,’ she lectured. Her tone remained neutral and measured, the teasing from earlier gone.

Jenna couldn’t dispute this fact, but her mother’s ease in accepting this fate frightened her. Being young hadn’t spared her from understanding the certainty of death, but kids don’t think of their own death. They think of it in terms of squished bugs underfoot, the rotting vegetables in the fridge, a family pet being placed in a shoe box beneath dirt.

They’re in a better place now, children are told.

But kids do not, cannot, even think to understand their own parent’s death.

Jenna scoffed. She stood back with her hands resting on her hips, her foot tapping against the carpet. ‘I brought you soup. Do you want a bath afterwards?’

A small rocking chair had been placed by the bed. The padding was hard, and comfort evaded Jenna as she sat to observe her mother eating. They did not talk, but it was reassuring to see that her mum was able to keep the meal down.

As promised, Jenna aided her mum to the adjoining bathroom. The ten steps it took to reach it were slow, deliberate, and an arm was required for support. She undressed her mum efficiently, helping her step into the porcelain bathtub.

The water was kept lukewarm, and once half-filled, a generous amount of bath salts entered the

steaming water. An ocean scent filtered into the air, both calming and nostalgic as Jenna perched on a stool at her mother’s back. She emptied a cup of water over her mum’s head to rinse her tangled hair.

The fine threads of grey and silver melted under Jenna’s fingers. The water smoothed out any imperfections, cascading down her mum’s back.

‘Is the temperature okay?’ she asked.

Her mother leaned back into the soothing, repetitive touch. The idle stroking Jenna had started, stopped while she awaited an answer. ‘It’s fine,’ her mother said.

She began running her fingers through the thin hair again. ‘Are you comfortable?’

At this line of questioning, her mum twisted her body around, knocking the deft fingers from her hair. She gave Jenna a repulsive look. ‘Don’t treat me like a child. I’m sick, not incompetent.’

Jenna folded her hands in her lap, resisting the childish urge to pick at her cuticles. She settled for cracking her knuckles discreetly. ‘I’m just making sure you’re okay.’

‘And I appreciate it. But having you fret won’t better me.’

Jenna stared at her mum in tense annoyance. The crack crack crack of her knuckles the only deterrent to an oncoming spillage. Stretching out her fingers, her calmness acted as prelude to her inevitable fury. ‘I don’t have to take care of you.’ Jenna’s voice was cold.

Her mum gave an incredulous look, as though Jenna had told a joke. My very own comedian, she would say when Jenna was a child. ‘I didn’t ask you to care for me.’

Jenna dropped the cup, watching it bounce up against the wall as it clattered on the tiled floor. The stool lurched to the ground as she stood, filling the bathroom with a grating noise. In its wake, a long, deliberating silence followed.

‘Call for me if you actually need some help. I’m going outside.’

As she left the bathroom, her mother called out after her, ‘Don’t be so immature, Jenna.’

‘Don’t be so immature, Jenna,’ Lea said, laughing as she watched her toddler throw the sweetsmelling bubbles into the air. Some landed on herself, and some on the walls and floor, but the highpitched squeals of enjoyment from her daughter made the mess irrelevant.

Through the window, heat gathered visibly on the black asphalt outside. The family’s pair of puppies rested close to the bathroom, in the coolness of the air-conditioning. Today had been scorching. Tan skin blistered and faces freckled in familiar resemblance.

Lea smiled at her daughter, whom herself wore the same wonky, all-teeth grin. She washed the curly strands of fine hair, tangled with salt and sand, as her daughter babbled about their day together at the beach. Lea’s older children, much older than Jenna, were in their rooms hiding from the sun.

‘Can we go again? Soon?’ her daughter pleaded.

Lea massaged shampoo into her scalp, catching the droplets that threatened to drip into her daughter’s eyes. ‘Of course we can. It would be a waste if we didn’t.’

Helping her from the bath and towelling her dry, Lea carried her daughter to the child’s bedroom. The puppies wagged their tails and nipped her ankles as she went.

After the long day, Jenna was finally in bed. Lea watched the delicate features on her daughter’s face grow tired, eyes fluttering closed as she stroked her hair soothingly. When she kneeled by the bed

to tuck the blankets around her daughter’s small body, her knees ached, joints swelling up with sharp pain.

Jenna must have noticed, asking, ‘What’s wrong, mummy?’

Lea used her free hand to squeeze feeling back into her legs. ‘Getting older, darling girl. I don’t have as much energy as you anymore,’ she said with a weak smile, and Jenna tugged at her hands determinedly.

‘I can carry you. I can take care of you,’ she said with confidence.

Lea laughed and shook her head. ‘Mummy can take care of herself.’

Jenna closed her novel at the sound of the fly screen door snapping shut. Her mum waddled across the porch deck, huddled deep into her dressing gown, and sat beside Jenna on the threadbare patio couch. The sun had been slowly falling from its peak, and now spilled onto the porch.

The warm glow illuminated her mother’s features as she sat down awkwardly, in obvious pain. Her tan face, splattered with freckles, reminded Jenna of her own childhood appearance. She abruptly remembered the portraits in the hallway of them side by side. Two different beings, and yet so similar.

‘I’m sorry you have to take care of me,’ Lea said.

Jenna sighed, placing a hand over her mother’s. ‘I don’t mind. Really.’

Her mum squeezed back, wrinkly skin meshing with smooth flesh. Jenna watched her close her eyes and nod in acceptance. ‘I know. I know you don’t, but… you need to accept that I’m getting older—’

Jenna interrupted her. ‘It’s frustrating. To see you in pain. You not letting me help. And—I know you’re getting older.’ She fiddled with a dog-eared page, eyes averted from her mum. ‘But I want to help you, for as long as I can.’ She met her mother’s heavy gaze, a fearful lump growing in her throat. An unpleasant silence followed, weighing between the women. Her mum leaned back into the tattered cushions, face awash with sunlight, warmth pulling her into the past.

‘Fine,’ Lea said finally, ‘carry me all you want.’

SQUISHED BUGS — JEMMA HEITLINGER

Sword and Sheath

Sarah Jane Hurst

Content warning:

sexual themes

(consensual)

A girl in love with love— scared of the sword men yield in times of Lust. Holy Mother Mary... Oh, Sweet Aphrodite! To whom must I pray before I am satisfied with myself?

I lie on the exposed doona— naked and salted, a mixture of sweat and tears. The seam between my thighs burning, stinging, undefeated. A woman who cannot give herself. Am I even a woman at all?

Naked strangers on my phone— I watch with an algal tinge as they can do what I can’t. Try with one finger File the nail sharper. Why does every encounter leave me empty?

No one wants a clammed-up oyster with a calcified shell. It’s the inside that counts. Must I be broken for a pearl?

Is being whole not enough? Is being happy not enough? Am I not enough?

I see the frustration in your eyes when I say, Not tonight… Never claiming more than a consolation prize. Scorn me with your sharp kiss and prick my flesh red.

The more we try the more I feel this is about you. It’s not like I cum most of the time. And yet I lie here, pretending that it doesn’t hurt. It’ll be worth it in the end… right?

Thank you.