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France, November 1916 My dearest Elsie I hope this letter finds you well, as it leaves me. I'm still in one piece, so I can't complain, in the circumstances. He scratches urgently at his groin, where the lice that nest in the seams of his uniform have emerged to feed. His skin is thickened and discoloured in places, and his underwear is flecked with dried blood. He stamps his feet to get the circulation going; numbness gives way to the tingling of trenchfoot, but warm, dry boots and socks are a distant memory. There is no point complaining. Things are relatively quiet in this part of the line. There has been some respite from the thudding bombardment as the main attack has moved further south. He can still hear the wailing as the shells go over, though, the crump as they land, the screams of wounded and dying men. I have not seen the enemy. He knows they are there, but to raise his head above the trench would be to risk having his brains blown out by a sniper. He wonders if their living conditions are as bad as his. He hopes so. I’m not allowed to tell you where I am. A trench is a trench, mud is mud. They are facing east. He knows this by the way the distant ridge is silhouetted in the mornings. The days are short now, the light dimmed with smoke from the shelling. Dusk lasts all day, until the weary sun drops to its knees and sinks back into the mud. I'm with a great bunch of lads. We watch out for each other. He checks each morning to see who's missing, who’s fallen victim to snipers, collapsing tunnels, gangrene. And who couldn’t take it anymore and made a run for it or put a pistol to their head. The ones they never talk about. We spend hours sitting around waiting for something to happen. Gas! Gas! Gas! Every hour he wets his finger and holds it above the trench to test the wind direction. Too many men have been caught by the insidious yellow tendrils because they were too slow, too clumsy, too scared to save themselves. I miss you more than I can say and dream about you every night. He tries to stay awake. Sleep brings only visions of severed limbs, mangled flesh, headless corpses and the remains of men hanging on the barbed wire like khaki sheets on laundry day. I can't wait to see you again and hold you, dear. If he still has his eyes. If he still has his arms. If he survives. Take care of yourself, my darling girl, and pray for me. He’s given up talking to God. God stopped listening to him a long time ago. I send you all my love, He has no use for it here. Here there is only fear and hate and mud. Endless mud. Harry Hilary Ayshford is a former science journalist and editor based in rural Kent in the UK. She writes mainly micro and flash fiction and short stories and has been nominated for Best Of The Net. She likes her music in a minor key and has a penchant for the darker side of human nature.

Average Interviewer: What inspired your short story “An Average Short Story on Something I Have Very Little Direct Experience With?” Average Writer: I think there’s an ongoing debate within the writing community surrounding the ethics of using people we know or have briefly encountered as inspiration—without plagiarizing their life, of course. We sometimes want to give a demographic that’s underrepresented in literature a voice without taking away their agency. Who are we to tell the life of someone we barely know without interviewing them or somehow including them in our writing and editing processes? Sometimes, we know someone for a very short amount of time and they inspire us to write a story about someone who is similar to them, but we have no way of contacting them to ask, “Hey, without asking too much emotional labour from you, would you mind telling me if this is an accurate or acceptable portrayal of your community? Of course, I can’t pay you for your time, but I would be eternally grateful.” Ideally, you would pay them as a way of giving back to someone who helps you with your craft, but [...]? It’s your responsibility to ensure you aren’t stereotyping any group of people. But writing can at times come from a very selfish place. We write because we want to tell a story or because we want to give ourselves closure. We see suffering around us and we want to write about it, so we do research and we hope we are doing our chosen topic justice. I’m still not sure what the proper etiquette is. It’s a very touchy subject, and I’m open to different perspectives on the matter. Average Interviewer: Would you like to talk a bit more about (your) Main Character? What are their motivations? Average Writer: Of course. (My) Main Character doesn’t want to be defined by (their) Central Conflict. They are looking to redefine what it means to be alive because they feel crushed by reality and the seriousness of their predicament. When writing about their motivations, I pulled from my own experiences and intrusive thoughts, but I think our characters shape themselves as much as we shape them, if not more so. I often find myself writing and suddenly feeling like I’m no longer in complete control of them. It’s like they occasionally have bouts of free will—if you believe in free will. […] In fact, (my) Main Character was inspired by someone I met at {Setting}. I changed enough about them so that they wouldn’t be identifiable to others and I made {Setting} different enough from the {Setting} it was based on. Then again, if the person in question were to read my story, I feel like they would suspect it’s about them. I think it’s easier to tell when a story is loosely about you than when a story is loosely about someone you know. Average Interviewer: Wow, I love how you said so much without really saying anything. What piece of advice do you have for emerging writers who might want to mimic your writing process? Average Writer: Haha, thanks! And my advice would be to not write the way I do. I think my writing process is very chaotic. To give you an example, I once had a philosophy teacher who said she was writing a book sometimes felt that her characters had free will and were writing the story for her. Most of the class had no idea what she was talking about and thought she had lost her marbles, but I somehow understood that feeling. I alluded to this earlier, but it’s like when I write, I don’t always have a set idea of how the story will unfold—I kinda let my characters decide how they want their story to end… which I know sounds crazy, but I think you have to be a little bit insane to be a good writer, what do you think? Average Interviewer: I think that’s all the time we have today, thank you very much for your time! Sophie Dufresne studies creative writing at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. They fell in love with poetry after reading "Hope" by Emily Dickinson in sixth grade and recently got into playwriting. They have been published by Milk Carton Press, Oddball Magazine, Brain Mill Press, _voidspace, JAKE, Cosmic Double and Roi Fainéant Press, among other publications.

In Steady, Anne Whitehouse’s new poetry collection, the natural world takes on the role of a main character, in a manner of speaking. Interspersed with tender reflections on love, chances not taken, and the curious human experience overall, these pieces remain earth-grounded, scattering reflections of that experience through all living things. From Pond Lives The decomposing matter floating on the surface emerged from the bottom, where organisms live off the waste of fungi, bacteria, and worms. The autumn winds and rains mixed up layers of water that summer had stratified. As I paddled the canoe, glimpses of aquatic life beckoned below me: a flash of a fish disappearing in a ruffle of waving weeds, a turtle paddling towards a log, snakes, worms, and crabs scuttling into the rich murk. That’s not to say there aren’t tales to be told, however. In pieces like From the Life of Iris Origo, Frida, and Bernadette, the reader sets off on a winding road through events from various timelines, historic to the present day. This micro-storytelling in verse opens the door to familial relationships, romantic endeavors, and striving to understand the self in ways both timeless and relatable. From Bernadette I was late to marriage, late to motherhood. When I met Jamie in New York, something blossomed in me that had been dormant. His jazz club became my hangout, I dressed up every night with some place to go. He was the owner, and I was his girl. Jamie’s mind had layers of learning like geologic strata. He was a born teacher, a shamanistic poet and spirit guide for many. His love was like cool water from a deep well. Still, the path returns to a rooted place, one of rumination on life’s lengthy (and simultaneously too-short) journey during the Earth’s warmest month. It buttons up the collection using a common thread and an apt title: the steady passage of time, of the individual through their days, and the happenings and observations that shape them as they travel. From Late Summer, Block Island From the marshes comes the trilling of red-winged blackbirds, in the thicket the cardinal’s chirp, the meadow lark’s whistle, chatter of a hawk chased by crows. In the afternoon, sunlight behind banked clouds glints off a sea as pale as isinglass, reflecting back my memories as I write, until the day when words will be all that are left of me, words and images and other people’s memories. Steady is Anne Whitehouse’s fourth poetry collection published by Dos Madres Press, following The Refrain (2012), Meteor Shower (2016), and Outside from the Inside (2020). Her other poetry collections are Blessings and Curses (Poetic Matrix Press, 2009) and The Surveyor’s Hand (Compton Press, 1981); three chapbooks from Ethel Zine and Micro Press: Frida (2023), Escaping Lee Miller (2021) and Surrealist Muse (2020), and two from Finishing Line Press: One Sunday Morning (2011) and Bear in Mind (2010). She is the author of a novel, Fall Love, available in Spanish translation as Amigos y amantes, as well as short stories, essays, feature articles, and reviews. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, she divides her time between New York City and Columbia County, New York. www.annewhitehouse.com

The New If someone jumped I’d jump into the warm whatever of mid- May I’d not leap as the maneuver’s overused– I understand these liminal expectations from poetry if I haven’t quite mastered the rudimentary mechanics of swimming. I am the sediment from a different continent rising to you as loam scraping against sand. You said wave, I said wind. The red tide carried us. Whatever. We ended at Point B. The alternate universe if you’d call it that. But I said the stop sign. I said all kinds of things as you drove through ocean construction. Scrub the provision the carcass provision the carcass a carcass to provide the carcass blaze Fade Barber shop this morning– an old man talks about his sixty-year high school reunion, how even if he could afford to go, the seven friends he wants to see he never again will. You Ask If I Want Children The answer is perpetuate humanity. The answer is nothing is certain, but we know that. We will go into the shrouded wood as the sun sets onward, as the world spins through another autumn getting older, not wiser. The leaf flutters. What we want to catch always eludes our grasp. James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. His latest chapbooks are Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022) and Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021). Recent poems are in Stirring, Vilas Avenue, and *82 Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)

DANGEROUS BREED i was mauled by a dangerous breed in the Burger King carpark left me maimed, disfigured for life may as well been a grizzly bear the surgeons tried their best to fix me but they’re no miracle workers i’m finally accepted what happened but people can be so cruel mothers scold their staring children “don’t stare at that man’s face,” they whisper as if i’m some kind of monster but i get it - it’s only human to stare teenagers are the absolute worst they spit at me, throw things, call me names like freak, weirdo, hamburger-face maybe my face looks like a Halloween mask but so what - i like the way i look even though i won’t get back the feeling OTHER PEOPLE other people waste life looking for deeper meaning i look at my phone instead it’s like a mirror i’m a realist i scroll and swipe inhabit my wormholes the ugliness is frightening at times but so is reality CHANNELLING THE BADDIE they say i’m channelling the baddie from home alone 2: it’s gotta be the fingerless gloves or the doofus winter hat with the fuzzy earflaps i wear: the one that ruins my good hair i have a perfectly good explanation for that: a narcissist can manufacture excuses by the thousands i paint myself the victim of karmic injustice: the people want slapstick: slips, trips, falls me, i was born a consummate performer i will lay down my life to give the people what they paid for J. Archer Avary is an aspiring ferryboat captain. In past lives he was a punk rock drummer, champion lionfish hunter, and weatherman on Caribbean TV. He was born in the USA and now lives in the Northeast of England with his wife. Recent poems/stories have appeared in MONO Magazine, Bullshit Lit, and the Close to the Bone. Find him on Elon’s dumpster fire of a site: @j_archer_avary

“The pied au gratin is magnificent,” the waiter caws. “What sort of foot?” the husband squawks. “Free-range, organic,” the waiter caws. He wears a pigeon’s heart on his starched uniform. The wife wonders if the stiff material chafes. Her own corset is digging into her ribs. “I’ll take the pied au gratin, and my wife will have the kidney fricassee.” Her husband knows that she loathes organ meat. She wants to squawk but presses her beak together, silently reciting her calming mantra, sky sky sky. Azure with wispy clouds she sees herself taking flight gliding on an updraft far far away from the clatter in the dining room. The waiter wheels in a steel table with a naked man trussed on top, a gag in his mouth. “Left or right foot?” the waiter caws. Alicia Hilton is an author, editor, arbitrator, professor, and former FBI Special Agent. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Breakwater Review, Creepy Podcast, Dreams & Nightmares, Eastern Iowa Review, Lovecraftiana, Modern Haiku, Mslexia, Neon, NonBinary Review, Not One of Us, Vastarien, World Haiku Review, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volumes 4, 5 & 6, and elsewhere. Her website is https://aliciahilton.com.

The license plate on the garage wall once belonged to a farmer named Harold who suffered from hemorrhoids and didn’t love his wife. Every morning, early, he drove his truck, considering the road ahead and the color of the sky, past the store that had been the Five and Dime and then the Sugar Bowl Ice Cream Parlor. She’d ordered a banana split, looking a thousand miles away as she ate, and Harold longed to go a thousand miles away with her but she complained of brain freeze so he took her home, haunted for the rest of his life by the possibility that he’d bored her. Then Marge came along. Julie of the distant eyes had moved away and that boat had sailed anyway. Every night he slept with Marge beneath a quilt that made him sweat: roses and polka-dots, peonies and pinstripes. When he tossed it aside, itchy and smothered, Marge would tenderly cover him again, and Harold would close his eyes as she laid him to rest. Their kids grew up; Ray ran a tattoo parlor. He married a girl named Darlene Marge always said wasn’t right in the head. Tina started drinking after her husband left her for a woman named Dawn who wrote bad poetry. One night serving up pork chops in the bile green kitchen, Marge said, remember Julie Warnick? The mushroom soup was congealing around the chop on the yellow plate as Harold recalled the swoop of Julie’s pale hair before she secured it behind her ears and took up her spoon. A little, he said. She died; it was cancer apparently. He did not taste the pork chops. But then Marge had prepared this dish each Wednesday night for forty-three years; it has been decades since he tasted pork chops. After he died (heart congestion) Harold’s pickup sat in the garage for fifteen years. Marge clung hard to her routine of church and get-togethers with the girls and a crochet club started up at the community center, but then she had a fall and the routine that glued her minutes and hours and days together melted away and she remembered the boredom she’d tried so hard not to see on Harold’s face every day of their marriage. Ray and Tina visited her in the nursing home and she smiled and nodded at the chocolates and crossword puzzles but it was so late and she needed to say the words in her head. Of course Daddy loved you, Tina looked out across the parking lot, bored and resentful, fifty-five and hoping a man named Greg who collected Meerschaum pipes would marry her. When their Mom died Ray and Tina held an estate sale to get rid of all the household items accumulated over a span of almost fifty years, then put the house on the market. Ray sold his dad’s old pickup. Years later the license plate ended up in a cardboard box In the back of an antique store named Years Gone By that sold collector’s items. Tina had drunk herself to death by this time but Ray and Darlene were welcoming grandchild number six. A man who lived alone bought the license plate that was once fixed to Harold’s pickup as he drove to the farm wondering What would have happened if he’d called her after the brain freeze incident? Of course the man who bought the license plate knew none of this. He took it home and hung it on his garage wall. Stepped back. Carefully straightened it. It looked really cool. A word from the author: Collector's Item is a poem about loss, regret, and boredom.

1. When Madee and I split, all I thought about was the language we lost. Words that I was no longer allowed to speak because they were part of a lexicon we developed together. Inside jokes, the particular way we made eye-contact across the room; specific sounds and dialects that existed only in our relationship. All I could think about were the silly farting noises we exchanged under the covers when thunder woke us at 3 a.m.; the faint curling of her lip when we played truth or dare but we were already down to our underwear; the patterns I traced in the tiny hairs on her neck while we watched Ghost Hunters. Intimacies only we could decipher. Lost, never to be spoken again. 2. That language exists only in accidental fragments now. The words I utter when I forget myself; in the lies I tell the dark when my mind wakes me with thoughts of everything I wasn’t to her – or worse, everything I was. Like twins who feel each other’s pain, we shared a unique bond. A bond that was perhaps always haunted by the inevitability of the dialogue ending. Does she feel the same? Does she speak to the walls thinking I’m still there, in syllables only we can understand that now roll into the void? I say her name and know how lonely it is to speak a word no one else understands. 3. I’m rereading a study Madee worked on years ago. It examined how multi-lingual dementia patients revert to their native language as their conditions progress. I realise I’m doing the same. I blow the occasional raspberry as I thumb through her Instagram; shoot an inveigling look to the empty bed as I undress; trace the same chaotic diagrams in the dent she left in the couch cushion. I slap it and her perfume puffs and, for a fleeting moment, she’s there again. The dust particles describe elegant hieroglyphs as they flutter down and settle in the shape of my memory of her. 4. The language we shared remains with us. I tie my heart in knots, thinking someone might find it, excavate it, and attempt to translate it. One day, Madee will screw up her nose and he won’t know it’s because she can’t stand the smell of unseasoned rice. She will purse her lips and heave a long sigh and look at him from hooded eyes, and he won’t place a cushion on his lap so she may lie down. He won’t know why she slams the cupboards, why she leaves the room when pet food adverts come on TV, how to respond when she’s working late and texts a picture of her ankles. But after a time, they’ll form their own vernacular inscribed in the ashes of past tongues. Each of them carrying remnants of languages they once spoke – once shared – whose embers form the foundation of their own. The etymology Madee and I constructed will become a relic memory. Extinct. Lost. Just one more language strangled by passing time. Geoffrey Bunting is a writer, journalist, and book designer. He has written for The Washington Post, WIRED, Rolling Stone, and more. He hates moths and can tie his shoelaces really well.

Violoncello In a Wednesday subway train, undulating, the fresh boyfriend tucks his girl in the U his hands make supported against the handle rail. They are music, and then a man with a violoncello comes aboard. For a jiffy I imagine him playing out a bollywood scene. He mops his sweat, looks at the couple. The crowd allows room for the musician the way water accepts water. That Scary Feeling Of The Being A Freed Balloon Yeah, the balloon I let loose has become a lone-star, recluse, floating, art, two-way sadness and a stoic in search for my fingers still curled, but when a breeze brings it down to the tree we named a name now unremembered in our childhood, yeah, freedom has made it ascetic as if the fright of its solo flight has filled an immortal but wrong soul into its rubber skin. At night it is my moon, the south side of it, asking 'why'. "I was scared too." I murmur. Crickets form a vast meadow around us. The author of 'Postmarked Quarantine' has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of 'Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe. Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

At the tender age of 6 The pastor I saw every Sunday- The one with a booming voice And a blinding Cheshire grin- Spoke from a leather-bound book that seemed far too heavy for his hands. The honey-soaked iron Of his words were more than enough To breathe fealty into a girl Who did not yet know death Or fear Or shame. The sweetness that veiled his rotten claims Hooded my young heart in the same false stickiness That coated the heart of my mother And her mother before her. Women are the rib of man! Designed to complete him In all his divine essence— A helper, the pastor said!— A gift from God And a blessing to Eden. By age nine, I only spoke when spoken to And learned to cross my legs At the knee To honor the body which would one day Belong to my husband. I learned the temple that housed The holy spirit of God And the nuance of my personhood was chewed gum no one would desire after use. I decided to press my school uniform And wear lace hair bows To decorate the body I had grown to know as an object— A piece of gum not yet chewed. My mother believed herself to be gum already chewed. A broken thing only a merciful God could love. And I understood her. At twelve, I was a broken thing too. Lost, hurt, and desperate to hear God The way the pastor’s wife claimed To hear Him. I prayed as if my clasped hands Could save me from the inferno If I just pressed them together hard enough. In my prayers, I begged God to show me How to want a man And the picket-fence existence our pastor told me Was the only path to purpose. But God never told me How to recover from the chronic shrinking Of my body (USED GUM, USED GUM, USED GUM!) Or the desire to share love With a woman. When a man hurt me for the first time, God did not hold his strike. Am I not the rib of man? No, I am NOT the rib of man. I am woman. In the mirror, I see the face of every woman Ever born before me. Who were tested, Worn as thin as stretched tapestry By the church and the patriarchy. I see the beauty, Not the brokenness, Of my mother And her mother And her mother. Until Eve: The first woman to abandon tradition. Ahorita, the unity of all souls Is God to me. I am just as much God as the meager ant Or the mighty lion; I AM NOT CHEWED GUM! I am a fraction of the Universe Experiencing Itself for the first time, Crying out like a baby for its bottle. My God cannot fit inside the tight walls Of a church with stained-glass murals Or the fragile pages of pew hymnals; And most certainly, my God Cannot fit inside the perfect picket fence I once begged for. I no longer press my clothing And force bows into my hair, Ignoring el dolor de cabeza. I am more than the rib Ellos me obligaron a ser. A word from the author: I have been writing poetry for as long as I can remember—focusing primarily on my experiences as a woman, a member of the eating disorder recovery community, and a trauma survivor. “I am Not Chewed Gum!” is a semi-biographical piece that recounts my divergence from the protestant religion I was born from in an abstract and free-flowing manner. In this piece, I dive deeply into the interconnectedness of my identity and the meaning of divinity in my own eyes.

“They’re here again. Alfred! Can you bloody believe it?” I twitch open the curtains, “The girl is licking the walls, does nobody teach their kids manners these days?” Alfred looks at me and then settles himself to carry on watching the TV. I wouldn’t mind, but this sustainable house was his idea. We’d only been married a few months and were living in a small flat in London when he brought home the brochure: Secluded Sustainable Living. “I’ve been thinking,” I mean, I should have known then there’d be trouble. And now here I am with those bloody kids picking off bits of my house and eating it without a second thought about us. “We’re like prisoners in our own home, Alfred, it’s beyond a joke.” I can hear them laughing, “They won’t be laughing when I’ve done with them, I can tell you,” I say. Alfred looks like he’s going to try and talk me out of it, but he knows better. “Hey,” I shout, leaning out of the window, “what do you think you’re doing?” “Get back inside, you old bag,” the boy shouts and then runs off. “Did you bloody well hear that, Alfred? Well, enough is enough,” I pick up the small shiny phone, all the rage apparently, and ring the only number programmed into it. “It’s those kids again, Margaret, they’re eating the bloody house. Come winter, me and Alfred will be freezing our bits off.” “Hmmmm.” “Oh, I mean I don’t know about that…” “I see what you’re saying but…” “Tit for tat and that, yes, well ok, I’ll think about it.” “Bye, then. Yes, I’ll let you know what I decide.” Once upon a time, I’d have talked this through with Alfred rather than Margaret, she is a little on the harsh side. But Alfred started forgetting. It’s getting dark outside, so I’m hopeful there’ll be no more attacks tonight. I pull the curtains closed and add some logs to the fire, sneaking a look at our wedding picture on the mantle piece. A young me and Alfred smile from the frame, standing outside the church. Yes, we can go to church, don’t be so judgemental. The TV is still playing, the nature channel as always. Alfred started watching it not long after the diagnosis, he couldn’t keep up with the crime dramas we used to enjoy. “You have got to be bloody kidding me,” I shout, hearing the familiar crunch of my windowsill, there’ll be nothing left of it soon. “It’s dark outside. Don’t kids have a bedtime anymore?” I ask, looking at Alfred for the answers. He doesn’t give any. I sprint to the front door, pleased I can still move so quickly in this old sack of bones body, and fling it open. “Get away from my house!” “Or what?” shouts the girl, her face smeared in the chocolate paint. Don’t they tell kids about sugar rotting their teeth anymore? “Or else,” I say, the fury burning in my throat and Margaret’s words echoing around my head. I slam the door closed and look at Alfred. He’s peering out of his glass case at me. He doesn’t have the same fire in his belly since I turned him into a tortoise. Don’t judge me. I couldn’t face the day he wouldn’t know who I was. And as a tortoise, he’ll outlive me. It’s better this way. Shrieking from outside permeates through the walls, “Ha, Han, I’m through. I am actually through the wall.” This is the final straw. This is my home. Just me and Alfred – we’re supposed to be safe in here. I wipe away a tear, “Well Alfred, it’s going to have to be Margaret’s suggestion. There’s nothing else for it. The bloody oven it is!” Lucy is a Barnsley-based writer (between Sheffield and Leeds before you pull the map out). She teaches and writes and has ridiculous conversations with her naughty dog, Loki.

She’s out here again, head bowed, trying to scrape up our dead skin cells. Or maybe not skin, but hair or coughed-up fragments of lung. Pissing in the wind, she is! The wind that’s about to dishevel and disrobe us even further while her back is turned, while she stoops small over a rounded belly in our stretching shadows. We writhe ecstatically, rooted to rise tall. We are bemused as she comes back barefoot in dimming light to rearrange our crisp golden debris into pyres for a smaller version of herself to leap upon and sift themselves under. She breathes hard and cries to herself. It was a field here, before. A field and a thicket. A copse. A wood. A grove. A coppice. There were small, furred heart thrums then, cosying in our nooks. Now the hum of a vibration purrs from yellow, biting, crashing machines. This buzz crackles through tendrils of mycelium and travels along each branch, through our sap, our tree senses. It bounces across the gaps we modestly leave for each other. It’s a stress memory, shuddering through our limbs on still nights when we are slacker and less watchful. Looking up, rake in hand, she thinks she’s performing a rite for us, a vigil as we slip naked into a winter death. A laying out. She looks up again, wants us to see, wants us to know. But we are already budding, our tips tinged with tiny promise. We are ready to let go for now and rest into dampness, still watching over her amber orange squares of light. A word from the author: In my writing I hope to explore the crushing expectations placed on mothers, the mythologising of pregnancy and also to explore the ambivalent sensations created by push-pull mothering in a patriarchal society.