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As I was leaving her apartment one afternoon, she took me by the hand and led me around her building to the garage. Showed me the motorbike underneath a blue tarp there. All sleek chrome and mean intentions. I was surprised. She didn’t look the type. She worked in an office and was a saleswoman of some kind. Medical equipment, I think. She seemed so damn proud and really looked something else draped over the handlebars , smiling that pink lipped smile, hair hanging down. I really liked the idea that I was fucking a girl who rode a motorbike. But she never rode it once while we were together. I didn’t know why. She was one of the kindest I had at that time. Better than I deserved or needed. We found each other in a dark place, searching for a little bit of light. Promising we were just using each other to forget about the one before. Seven months later, when I left her for the one who almost killed me, she cried hysterically and I was surprised again. She didn’t look the type. I saw her once, a few months after, riding past me on that motorbike. All sleek chrome and mean intentions. She still seemed proud and was still something else. I held up my hand in an apologetic kind of wave. She gunned the throttle and was lost to me in the night city traffic. I liked to tell myself that she didn’t see me, but I know much better by now.

Language falls from the sky, As my eyes, fleshly opened, After two days Drinking straight, Lungs full of the black weeds of time, Strangling notes like newborns, Their limbs leak water, like spiders out of the Sides of my mouth Until it tenderly covers my mother’s skin, Encrusted with layers of human ash, Watered by tears Fallen - Falling forever. Sparrows line my legs And speak the sky into my ears, I have no time to lie in limbo, Suckling the stale air like milkshake Flavoured by my dreams - My nightmares Beatific in ritualistic despair No, my eyes roll back To rest in the womb of the skull Until my limbs dissolve into the dirt Every wrinkle flattens out Into the body of the earth. I am a seamstress who Stitches together the torn skies Into the shut mouth of my father. Lightning blooms painfully Through the cracks in the night's surface, Before being dragged down by god’s tears To birth the morning into my eyes, Heavy with our memories, Projected into the cemetery of our skulls, Our years seem nothing now. David Hay is an English Teacher in the Northwest of England. He has written poetry and prose since the age of 18 when he discovered Virginia Woolf's The Waves and the poetry of John Keats. These and other artists encouraged him to seek his own poetic voice. He has currently been accepted for publication in Dreich, Abridged, Acumen, The Honest Ulsterman, The Dawntreader, Versification, The Babel Tower Notice Board, The Stone of Madness Press, The Fortnightly Review, The Lake, Selcouth Station, GreenInk Poetry, Dodging the Rain, Seventh Quarry and Expat-Press. His debut publication is the Brexit-inspired prose-poem Doctor Lazarus published by Alien Buddha Press 2021.

I still want you, moon after Brenda Shaughnessy I read righteous rage of a poet telling you to fuck off calling out all the ways you invoke our lust monkey O, you-- my beloved excuse—I offer up nasty behavior and every slanted sin in your name ugly cry during the day-- waive white underthings drink plum wine until your pearl sweet glow your pulsating lily resurfaces from primordial broth roundplump—antigravitational-- one perfect breast ahh, I’m sorry for how Brenda treated you my patience for the noon sun is below crimson (Chad of a star, if you want to talk tools) you are worth one hundred thousand of him, my kitten nightblossom-- tipsy silver lilac, opium dust sticky milkweed at the side of a summer dirt road even when I can’t see you, moon, I feel you inside you never condemn me to drown in night’s waters alone crying on new year’s 12:01 am as January strips skin from the new year I count day to night as the bud’s plumping advances through my blood the air gold dipped in graceful fragrance petals unfurl curves of skin and your wrists are branches the boughs bend a brushstroke blossoms and snow those twin perfumes crisply entwined both ephemeral, almost vernal the naked way you tug at sleeves to escape the magnet of this flower opening between us my winter was a long gravel road black skies observed robe of thorns and twine and you, oh you warm fall of the most tender snow blanketing recesses of old pain of years’ denial my plum covered heart Golden shovel of Otagaki Rengetsu’s “evening plum blossoms” photograph I lay sleepless last night envious of a world that held you before me it was a picture: you— on the cusp of womanhood eyes dark starless midnight I burned jealous your smile barely hidden by curls imagining past winds touching your skin bygone sunlight kissing upturned lips something fluttered weighty a moss-covered ache I didn’t know how to name a fire that trembled taste of bitter orange and iron I finally found relief dreaming myself those three pines stretching behind you the grass under your bare feet— the paper this photograph was printed on superfluous you say you have been small for so long but now feel the entirety of the spaces you inhabit-- they seem more --- airy a cocoon around you more breath between your words even the trees stand taller you say you feel like high tide I imagine you a California red-sided garter snake (childhood oddity) kaleidoscope of turquoise, crimson, azure dancing double-helix down my brainstem around-and-around-and-around each notch of my spine I will my bones bleached white under a sphalerite desert sun a more perfect setting for the jewel of you: all slithering roses and water you are so young and new in this big space, my love and I can’t stop staring at the delicate egg-tooth above those delicious lips will I too be absorbed or become vestigial as a dewclaw? to catch you up-- cause you pain -- when you wind forward so sublime into this new life Nicole Callräm (she/her/她) is a nomadic bureaucrat and disciple of existence in all her life-affirming and confusing manifestations. She adores rideshare bikes, red wine, and Osmanthus flowers (preferably a mix of the three...all at once). Nicole has been published in A Shanghai Poetry Zine, Nude Studio, Kissing Dynamite, and Rat's Ass Review. You can find her on Twitter at @YiminNicole.

Let it ride He has always been relentless when it comes to the chase. As a boy tossing coins for sweets, luck was his sugary hit. All the other kids smelled fear when tempted with one more spin. Attached to a father’s addiction, his small steps followed shadows in racecourse betting rings filled with the noise of men so sure of it. Fists full of cash and the same stories of fake glory repeated ad nauseam. It’s in his blood now, a transfusion the speed of light through his veins chasing the next race, a hard whisper in his ear whooshes through his brain. The winning post is his only orgasm, away from tactile moments he lost. He thinks hesitation is for losers, winners never blink- stare deep into the sucker’s soul. That ping every week from a text- another insider with a crystal ball; A golden prophecy - a sure thing. Calle Sin Salida (Dead End Street) Mamá has 3 sons still young enough to hide their tears. Her eyes the colour of cacao sink deep and dark telling her story. 6 days every week- rising with the first robin song, returning with the fumes of the colectivo; Chained to the local factory, lines of sweatshop wives sewing heart shapes to a Latin chorus of the needle beat. Lila Downs screams heart filled boleros to their shared lunches of muted longings. The three brothers go to school but soon the shadow of work will be calling like sunset. In early evening they kick a flat football on streets paved with dirt until the last light disappears. Their Abuela casts a shadow, fading in the house. Papá as long gone as the last train after midnight. It’s the only way Get rich faster than light. Incinerate your eyes with the prize. Wear headphones so nobody can hear the beat of that music. Sit alone at the afternoon cinema, wait for the same story to unravel. Listen to silence as words spew out like soda from a shaken can. Hide inside bubbles made of steel that no pin can ever pop. Sell your soul to pray for a miracle. Drift in and out of your evening stupor- reality dissolves on your numb tongue. Leap onto a moving train that is never going to stop. Smell like leftovers and Listerine. Ghouls crawl up your nostrils. Leave an empty diary in the desert- it screams of madness in its padded cell. Walk with stones in your shoes. Hidden secrets inside those silk socks. Hand out business cards at funerals because life must go on. Waste everything on the buffet table. Let it all rot while the bands play. It’s the only way. Damien Posterino (he/him) is a Melbourne-born poet writing in Mexico. His poetry explores characters, conversations, and capturing moments in time. His work has been accepted by 30 different publications including recent editions of Sledgehammer Lit, Rough Diamond, Crow Name, The Madrigal Press, Roi Fainéant, Fish Barrell Review & Paddler Press. You can find him on Twitter @damienposterino

a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass deep reverb echoes off my face my cranium thin vibrating party walls I knew this skull from long ago and to this end we all will come but not tonight no way a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass I’m on a nightclub balcony but could as soon be or not be upon some castle ramparts ghastly prevaricating indecisive in languorous admiration of the mass those dance emotion bodies moving down the Haç. a drum a drum and bass and bass - bad bass bounce Bambaataa bad rub - a - dub - dub - dub if ever nightclub kingdoms fall we’ll all build castles from the rubble of the Dub. my ears are now in 3D now all-hearing a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass strange Techno reimagining of Strange Fruit or maybe we have eaten of the insane root? I find a dry ice room of fog and filthy air a chill-out zone with next to no one there some walking shadows signifying nothing and nothing outside this moment matters (though I don’t know why I wrote that line because I never thought it at the time - just lived it) and in this moment I know not when or where or who I am no one / I am Shaman. an Acid House remix of Slave to the Rhythm drab inhibitions busting out of prison percussion clatter rattled like the rending of all chains my mum would say these tunes all sound the same (but clearly fa so* young and clever we know better). a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass now hearing colours now tasting flashing lights now feeling hot now feeling cold as ice meaning lost and found in the dungeon of the night. I coyly request a Paradise Garage mix the flowers of Ophelia - DJ Violet says she’ll play that later Mick Hucknall dances on the Frantic Elevator old Holden Caulfield dithers over a dagger (I’ll always love that dude) a sweet prince and a symbol wait for fate under a Killing Moon Hunter S Thompson drops another quaalude some post-punk band trash In the Mood indie beats as fast as pumping iron throw another rhythm in the cauldron Rosencrantz and Guildenstern suck cocktails in The Gay Traitor** a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass out of the body experiences transcending race and gender just another night down the Haçienda dancing to the Mondays and the Roses popping pills and powdering our noses a mindfulness of mushrooms coming up (we quit before we got serious neuroses) we thought we could do anything leap mountains part the seas we thought we were as bad as Holy Moses where bad means good fair is foul and foul is fair something is rotten there so somehow still smells sweet my memories dance as fast as funky feet. if this decadent reign must be o’erthrown I can’t help thinking it’s still better than what came after - sly normalisation of gent rification / austerity / corruption a rising tide of lies hath made of us a sad and small- er, nation preferring dis dis disco discombobulation I feel more at home in Haçienda dislocation. a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass. Exeunt Notes * do re mi fa so la ti do. ** The Gay Traitor - a bar in the basement of the Haçienda nightclub.. A word from the author: This long poem imagines a night at the Haçienda nightclub (Manchester, UK), where the poet and various characters from literature and the 1980's music scene are partying hard.

We’d split remainders of bottom-shelf half-gallons between the six of us at Jason’s and it wasn’t until after 11:30 we realized we needed to ring in the new year with Prince’s song “1999” but I’d left the CD back at the house. My brother Dennis and I didn’t grow up in town so we weren’t too good at riding bikes, but this was important and the clock was ticking. He grabbed Cepheus’s bike from behind his place and took off down Forge Avenue, cutting through the graveled sidewalk that ran between the churches. The rest of us sat on the porch steps howling at his wicked witch wobble silhouetted under the one security light on the block. Nicki and Amy shook with laughter against my knees on the step below me, then went back to kissing and whispering over shots of tequila. When Jason bumped his shoulder against me like he was claiming me for his own, I didn’t pull away. We were surely going to kiss at the end of the countdown, I thought. Start the year 2000 with sparks. I watched Amy’s hand tangle in the curls behind Nicki’s ear. It was seventy-some degrees out, humid enough to shake a few damselflies up from the Mud River. For the first time it set in that something funky was going on with the weather, that maybe this whole global warming thing was the real deal. The Mormon boys who lived in the place on the other side of Jason’s sure thought something was going on. Usually on nice nights they’d sit on the porch swing with an acoustic guitar none of them knew how to play, singing for the floral dress girls they also didn’t know how to play. But tonight it was like the end of the world. They were out back in the gravel turnaround, their black ties flying, white shirts untucked and covered in grime from wood they dragged up from the riverbank. They built up a big pile, almost like a pyre, and doused it every so often with grill lighter fluid. The whole back end of Forge Avenue stunk with fuel and the blackcats Jason had been tossing out after every shot. His index finger and thumb were black from the firecrackers; I couldn’t tell in the dark if it was dye from the packaging or he had burned himself showing off. He was already numb-drunk and drinking faster than ever. He hogged as much of the tequila as he could before Dennis got back, because he knew Dennis would drink whatever was left. He tossed another shot back, flicked his Zippo over a fuse, and lobbed a blackcat into the gravel under Cepheus’s bedroom window. Nicki and Amy jumped every time. Cepheus wasn’t going to wake up from that little pop; he was half-deaf from his own heavy metal drumming and once he passed out he was usually out until noon. Cepheus was like a headbanger groundhog. If he showed up to a late-night party you knew you had to watch his shadow for some big sign. That was Cepheus, cymbals and symbols and the simple things in life. He wasn’t bothered by nothing. Jason offered a drink to the Mormons. Three of them did their polite, flat-palmed western wave and went back down the riverbank for more kindling. A fourth stopped to chat like he was the leader of the group. This guy went by the name Zeke. I always wondered if they took on fake identities when they went out into the world for their missionary thing. Zeke was cute enough, kind of square-toothed and square-faced. Clear-skinned, shiny-eyed the way kids raised in strict but rich families always looked. He wasn’t my type. He combed his hair straight forward like all the ROTC guys who thought they were the next Julius Caesar. Zeke held his shoulders perfectly straight, too. He probably thought he was charismatic. He sang Hootie and the Blowfish to the floral dress girls. I don’t know, maybe he was charismatic to them. He stepped onto Jason’s porch and smiled so hard I could hear the spit click in his cheeks. Zeke held the shot glass between the fingertips of both hands like it was a cup from a child’s tea set. “It’s the end times,” he told us, and took a tiny sip. The other Mormon boys dragged up a bone-white limb of sycamore and laid it straight up in the air. They twisted a few sale bills and stuffed them up underneath the pile, squirted a little more lighter fluid over the wood for good measure, and stood back. One boy tapped at his black wristwatch and yodeled, “Quarter ‘til!” He tossed a match and the sycamore branch became fingers of upside-down lightning sending sparks up into the sky. Zeke balanced the shot glass on the porch rail, gave us a close-up cowboy palm-wave, and jogged back to help stoke up the flames. Nicki and Amy twisted around to confer with us about the end times. “What the hell?” Amy shouted. Her hair glowed like straw in the backlight of the bonfire. Dennis was wobbling bad by the time he got back at 11:57. He was so out of breath he couldn’t tell us what he did to warp Cepheus’s front tire and twist the handlebars so crooked. He just gasped “Made it!” and delivered my Prince CD from the inside pocket of his blue-jean jacket. Jason snatched it away to get it queued up in time. He turned up the TV so we could hear when the countdown started and propped one stereo speaker out the window. Dennis collapsed beside Amy like he’d just run a marathon or something. I don’t know why Jason was so obsessed with having “1999” playing at midnight. He didn’t even like Prince – he made fun of me when I admitted I had the album. Turns out that was the way he was about religion, too, making fun of it and then wanting God around at the right time. Maybe Zeke could see it in him. Maybe that’s why he was always nice to Jason even when Jason was a dick. Especially when Jason was a dick. Prince got the party started, post-haste. I craned backward to see Jason inside doing a cheesy knee-bend dance and struggling with something at the kitchen counter. On the TV, a montage of fireworks and the wobbling Times Square ball sparkled and exploded into half-static. Up in New York they were playing “1999,” too. My heart thumped in anticipation of a kiss. “This is it!” Jason yelled. He hustled out the door with a half-unscrewed champagne bottle and launched the cork against the wall of Cepheus’s house. He took a big swig, then sauntered right past me down the steps to flick a blackcat at Dennis. We all counted down together, the Mormons and other, unseen neighbors shouting across Forge Avenue. At five seconds to go, Zeke leaped right into the bonfire. The flames licked up in surprise. He high-stepped out the other side unscathed, slapping his shirttail exactly at midnight. When he spun around to face us, his face was contorted in a maniacal grimace. The other boys jumped in one by one, each screaming through gleaming square teeth and running back around to go again. Jason and Dennis got in line to jump through the pyre, too, chanting the words “nineteen ninety nine” and stomping fire off their sneakers between chugs of champagne. Jason shouldered right into the sycamore branch like he was doing battle with the devil. The white limb toppled sideways and released a spray of sparks over the gravel. Zeke squared off with the bonfire and cleared the whole thing in a running jump. He puffed his chest out like he was going to King Kong-thump. He was at the height of his powers and about to lose control. Something about the end of the world, the whole thing going up in flames, was irresistible to guys. Maybe there was something to this end-times stuff. Even Cepheus stepped out onto his porch to watch. I hoisted the liquor in offering to him; he looked like a good kisser under all that shaggy hair and he was a much nicer guy than Jason. But he only lifted a hand in a groggy greeting and retreated back inside. He was shy. Maybe in the new year. Nicki and Amy just went on giggling against my knees. “You guys are so dumb!” Amy shouted. Prince’s squealing guitar echoed off the brick backsides of the churches, back to us in a split-second delay. I poured out the last shot of tequila for myself. Along the rim of the shot glass, firelight illuminated the overlapping lip-prints of multiple people – Jason, Amy, Nicki, Zeke. The worm rolled onto my tongue and I imagined I was kissing them all into the year 2000. Edie Meade is a writer, artist, and mother of four in Huntington, West Virginia. Recent work can be found in Feral, Still: The Journal, New Flash Fiction Review, Fractured Literary, Ghost Parachute, and elsewhere. Say hi on Twitter @ediemeade or https://ediemeade.com/.

She was not what I’d been expecting; not less but somehow not quite enough. She was a stunner, slim waist, cross-legged now on the rug; a wine glass between her knees, balancing not falling. I was telling her about Caracas; she feigned interest but she was waiting for me to touch her. I don’t know how I could tell but I could. I knew that I wouldn’t and she would make a scene. I got up to change the record and instead walked into the kitchen to fix myself a whiskey. She unfolded her legs and leaned back on her hands, forming creases that I didn’t want to see. She wasn’t an intelligent girl but she showed a willingness to please. She had initially scoffed at my apartment then said she loved it. I didn’t like that about her. It implied lack of character. I wanted to tell her so but I didn’t. She could be wrapped up in bed with anyone she wanted. The pretense was ugly. I wanted her gone. I was tired and I didn’t want her sleeping over. I listened to the clock ticking, finished my drink and went back into the living room. ‘I’m gonna hit the sack now. I’ll call you a taxi. We’ll do lunch, yeah?’ Her face registered disbelief, ‘You piece of shit.” She scraped her coat off the sofa. I envied her for the first time that evening. She felt something. She would take that home with her. After the doors slammed I vaguely wondered if I’d made a mistake. I cleared up the living room and went to bed. I dreamt something sweet, but the truth is I didn’t want to tell anyone about it.

The world courses on arhythmic heartbeats, now too fast, now too slow-- vulture-winged clouds swoop, then fly, circling just beyond range. No storm tonight. But soon. Earth pulses, resetting tides rise and fall, each wave similar, each unique, vanishing in a tumbling froth, kissing the sand. Astronomers say the moon wobbles, and I watch her, waiting for the hiccup in her song. But she gazes at me, silver and serene, with merely a slight tremolo in her hum. Merril D. Smith writes from New Jersey, where she walks along the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published most recently in Black Bough Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fevers of the Mind, Sledgehammer, and Dead Skunk.

Luna and John sat side by side, a pair of clocks unwound into stillness. Their faces stared forward. Backs leaned up against a cracked plaster wall. Hands no longer moved to avoid the circumference of each other. The thin skin of an old air mattress sagged beneath them, bought for a camping trip they never took. There were only a few hours left. Before Luna vacated her apartment. Before they fully committed to this belief that life paths resembled things straight and narrow as planks. John would stand at the end of an aisle and wait for someone-not-Luna who wanted things like a French tulle veil and a child’s hand tucked in her own. Luna would take off down an airport runway where she hoped that old ties to this childhood city would finally snap as Flight 802 soared up towards new skies and unknown clouds. That’s the thing with planks. They have foreseeable ends. And Luna figured that perhaps if she hurled herself as fast and as hard as she could, she’d be rewarded with something open and blue, devoid of uncrossable borders and lines that existed even when left unsaid. JENNY WONG is a writer, traveler, and occasional business analyst. Her favorite places to wander are Tokyo alleys, Singapore hawker centers, and Parisian cemeteries. Recent publications include Acropolis Journal, Five Minutes, and Tiny Molecules. She resides in the foothills of Alberta, Canada and tweets @jenwithwords.

to stand still and yearn to go you sit in silence, ground moving beneath the soles of your shoes, beneath the tracks; cities rushing by, a blink of an eye– and you're gone again somewhere else, somewhere new, pink trees and white skies and the smell of sunscreen in the air; take a picture, but the moment's already gone and now you're driving through the night, a different kind of calm, except you're still here – slowly realizing the magic of standing still and yearning to go. good for you I’m not good for you– you, who crave to love and be loved falling asleep in the arms of hope free of tomorrow’s nightmares I’m not good for you– me, daughter of dying stars and useless daydreams words slipping through my fingers and crumbling like fallen leaves I’m not good for you– a man with the universe in his eyes and comfort in his touch a gentle eventide after a harsh day I’m not good for you– a woman gone mad from trying to find galaxies and painting the sky red with starfire but your turn of phrase, moonlight spilling out of your every word, a soft brush of midnight, somehow feel like an eclipse in reverse so maybe these stellar explosions I can’t help but desire should make way for the quietude of dusk an unhurried, restful slumber; I’m not good for you– but I want to be. sunlight incarnate He sits on the edge of the world, turning a pair of sunstruck eyes toward the skyline something about the sight is startling but really, it should be no surprise that he’s brighter than sunshine and so hours pass in this silent calm– he looks on as another day dies, Helios climbing back into the divine; still, he stays golden, defying the dark, and in that moment, I realize I’d give anything to make him mine.

Poem for People Who Say They Don’t Pray This is a poem for those who say they don’t pray. Poem is a prayer. If you write, you pray. I write to the light of the candle. I walk with the moon at the end of the day. Walking is a prayer. I write with the devotion of a nun to her god. I walk with the devotion of a monk to his vow. I repeat: anaphora. I chant: Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ. I say: Santa María, Madre de Dios. I write. I walk. I pray. I burn incense for you. Frankincense. Violet. Rose. Myrrh. I pray. I drink wine. Prisoner Red Zin and Rombauer Chardonnay. I pray. I write. I walk. I say your name. You don’t answer. I write. I walk. I drink. I burn. I chant. I pray. Poem for Sylvia Plath TOO DARK told me I couldn’t speak to you through my Ouija Board, so I’m going to try to reach you through this poem. I want you to know how famous you are now and how many people adore you. My favorite poem of yours is “Tulips” and I also really love “Edge,” which is credited as the last known poem you wrote, but that’s debatable because Ted burned your last journal. That’s also debatable. I also want you to know that there’s a 1,154-page biography about you called Red Comet and that your tarot deck recently sold on Sotheby’s for $200,000. Can you believe that? Can you believe that some of your fans take a trip to Indiana just to see your braid? Others go to your grave in Heptonstall to deface the Hughes name from your headstone. You also have a bot that is quite active on Twitter. You probably don’t know what that means, but I think you may have liked Twitter and would have had a lot of followers. Ok, you probably wouldn’t have liked Twitter, but you definitely would have had a lot of followers. I would have loved to follow you. I follow Frieda for you on Instagram. You probably don’t know what that means either, but it’s a place where she posts photos of a menagerie of pets (including 14 owls!), paintings, cooking, nature walks, motorbikes, and flowers. I learned from Instagram that she had a big art exhibit in London recently. Frieda looks a lot like you. She has also published several children’s books and several poetry books. I want you to know that she seems to be doing well—in spite of it all. She still has your laundry box seat from the 1950s. She says she painted her feelings onto it. Poem for Gianni Versace For my birthday in 2020, I booked a room at Casa Casuarina to celebrate not being dead. I swam in your pool at night after everyone went to bed. I also ran up to the observatory to see if I could reach you through the red. You didn’t take my call, so I left you a heady trail of roses there instead. A word from the author: These three poems are part of my Poems for People series. Others have been published in HAD (Poem for People Who Don't Like Poems and Poem for People Who Are Tired), Maudlin House (Poem for People Who Take Public Transit), and Marvelous Verses (Love Poem for Fire-Star), and one is forthcoming next week in The Daily Drunk (Poem for Paris Hilton). Nicole Tallman is the Poetry Ambassador for Miami-Dade County, Associate Editor for South Florida Poetry Journal and Interviews Editor for The Blue Mountain Review. She is the author of Something Kindred (The Southern Collective Experience Press), and her full-length debut collection is forthcoming in the summer. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @natallman and at nicoletallman.com.

CW: mentions/light description of sexual violence, murder, and cannibalism. Defendant name: Andrew F Moore (A.M.) Age: 36 Court: Leeds Crown Court Judge: Judge Henry Stevens QC (J.S.) Country: England & Wales Date: 20-10-2008 Offence: Murder Sentence: Custodial Immediate Length: 30 Years - Life Defence Chambers: Furnival Chambers Defence Barrister: Ron Smithers QC (R.S.) Prosecuting Chambers: St. Paul’s Chambers Prosecuting Barrister: Oliver Sullivan QC (O.S.) REPORTER’S PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS O.S.: What is it that made you want to become a chef, Andrew? A.M.: I was always good at it. I’d been meaning to go for it further, you know, before I was scouted. O.S.: And what changed, again, in the last several years? A.M.: I turned thirty. O.H.: How did turning thirty affect you, specifically? A.M.: The gigs dried up fast. O.H.: Of course. I see. Is that also why you decided to kill Daniel? Was it a resentment stemming from that? A.M.: No. I still don’t remember. O.H.: Is it no, or is it that you don’t remember? A.M.: I don’t remember. O.H.: Do you remember declaring yourself heterosexual in several of your personal emails? A.M.: How is that relevant? O.H.: You probably also recall admitting that you only ever entered these competitions because you succeeded in them. . A.M. Yes. And? O.H.: It was easy for you to win them, what with your face and your physique. I saw the sashes hanging in your apartment. It’s all quite impressive, really. I watched some of the clips, those bar crowds endlessly praising you and calling out your name. You were not only the first Mr. Gay UK, but possibly the most highly decorated one to date. I’m sure it’s been quite lucrative. Is that correct? A.M.: Sure. O.H.: Explain to me then why you invited Daniel Littlefield in for a romantic evening on the night of the 23rd? Why hid you invite him into your home if you are indeed confidently heterosexual? A.M.: Yeah, well, I’m not always confident, you know. O.H.: That’s a rather convenient thing for you to express here and now—don’t you agree? It is noted that you’d told Daniel in your texts that you wanted to take things slow; to me, that doesn’t sound like the request of a man genuinely interested in his date. A.M.: I said that because I was nervous. I only wanted to make him dinner, watch a movie, and just see how I felt about it. How I felt about him. O.H.: And you felt that you had an influence on him. The fact that he’d been an audience member on your episode of God’s Gift… he was one of many screaming for your attention, hoping to be picked by you for the prized date. Wasn’t he? So you knew that you had power over him, still, for that reason. A.M.: That was a long time ago. It was just a coincidence. I didn’t intentionally target him or anything. O.H.: I see. Was it also just a coincidence, then, when you stabbed him thirty-six times, on the night of the 23rd? A.M.: No. I mean, I don’t know. O.H.: How about when you slashed his throat? Or when you cut out sections of his thigh and his chest? A.M.: I just don’t remember. O.H.: You know what seems the most intentional about what you did, Andrew? You seasoned all of the meat you cooked! You seasoned it. With herbs; with garlic! You were so precise in the way you prepared and served Daniel’s flesh to yourself. The officers said that your apartment smelled quite lovely. A.M.: I’m not trying to pretend that I didn’t do all of it. I know that I did. O.H.: Sure, but I’ve been a prosecutor for a long time now, and I have never seen any act of violence—certainly not one as precise and adept as yours—be a result of the state that you’re so claiming for yourself. A.M.: Well, I already told you that cooking is what I’ve always known best. So I’m not so much surprised that it’s what I would go back to, in that sort of extreme panic. O.H.: What would you be panicking about? A.M.: Like I said, the last thing I remember is still just waking up to his head between my legs. And like I told you, all I remember after that is just me screaming. O.H.: Okay. And nothing, afterwards? A.M.: That’s it. I have no clue. O.H.: But you remember it setting something off in you, don’t you? When you started to scream? A.M.: Meaning? O.H.: The feeling you had in that moment—it must have been memorable to you. Now, and also then, too. Has there been another incident like that that could have made you vulnerable to such blinding anger? A.M.: Such as? O.H.: For instance, has any person forced oral sex upon you in the past? Perhaps, such an incident was so upsetting that you lost control when it happened again? A.M.: Oh. Well… I think that depends. O.H.: Hm? It depends on what? A.M.: You said you watched the clips, didn’t you? End Appendix Some creative liberties taken, this piece is based on the 2008 killing of Damien Oldfield by former model Anthony Morley.