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My high school boyfriend leans on me, the full weight of him disarming the rhythm of our steps as we walk home from school. The worn sleeve of his forest green hoodie covers his hand draped across my shoulders. There is a significant gap between our heights, his stride longer than mine, he pulls me close as the winter wind picks up. His friend, Jamie, strolls alone in his own hoodie and shivers, colder than my high school boyfriend, who leans on me. # My high school boyfriend leans on me. My knees prop up his back, American Lit notebook in my lap too close to my face to adequately write my essay outline. I scrape my pen along the metal spiral, the ca-jink jink jink vibrates in my fingertips. Angelo plays his Switch, periodically lifts it up so I can see where he’s at. I wait for him to die before asking him to shift so I can turn the page and write my last topic sentence. He growls as he snuggles further between my knees, his sharp shoulder blades dig in my tender flesh below my kneecaps as my high school boyfriend leans on me. # My high school boyfriend leans on me at dinner on a double date with my friend Monica and her butch girlfriend. Empty plates, dirty napkins covered in buffalo sauce balance in small piles around the booth. Angelo’s head under mine, I breathe in his leathery Drakkar Noir cologne, the smell of weed in his hair. Monica and her girlfriend are tonguing each other, her hand grips Monica’s thigh under the table. Monica breaks away and asks me to go with to the bathroom. My high school boyfriend leans on me more, holds me down so I have to struggle a bit to get out from under him. I play along for a moment, laughing behind a grimace and then break free. Angelo yelps as his neck flinches and he bangs his forehead against the edge of the table. He accuses me of doing it on purpose. He would never do that to me. He was only playin’, he says, there was no need for me to get up like that. When we return from the bathroom, I split the bill with Monica’s butch girlfriend. My high school boyfriend leans on me to whisper that he’ll pay me back. Monica’s butch girlfriend cackles and says, yeah he will, on your back. # My high school boyfriend leans on me when he is cut from the basketball team for his bad grades. He has more free time now, and he wants to spend it with me. When I hang out with Monica on Wednesdays, he’s with us, “just tagging along,” he says, he’ll stay out of the way of our girl time, but constantly looks up from his phone at us eating chips in my kitchen. He says he doesn’t want any. Jamie is still on the basketball team so we don’t see him as much. I tell Angelo that I have math to do and I’ll call him later. He kisses me deeply, cinnamon breath, his tongue sweeps mine. He is impressed by my dedication to school, he winks. Monica stays at the dining table and he hollers for her to walk out together. If he can’t distract me, neither can she. My high school boyfriend leans on me one last time, watching Monica put her boots back on. # My high school boyfriend leans on me after he comes on my breasts, his knuckles in my collarbone. I try to fix my bangs so they stick less to my forehead, fluff them up again, but he pushes them aside and says I should grow them out, the bangs make me look like a child. My high school boyfriend leans on me, inhales my hair, wipes my chest off with his t-shirt. # My high school boyfriend leans on me with his fist against the wall. He threatens my mother on my behalf when I tell him I can’t go out that night. I am pissed at her, but it feels strange that he’s more angry than me— at me. It’s not my fault, I tell him and his hand, the wall, my mother yells. Once he leaves she tells me that was out of control, my high school boyfriend leans on me too much. # My high school boyfriend leans on me–stay home with me–call me right now, I need to speak to you. His eyes bore into me, don’t talk about me to other people. Whose number is that? Who’s texting you? Your mother is a bitch. Monica looks at you funny, like she’s into you. You better not dump for me a girl. Promise me if you dump me, it won’t be for a girl. My high school boyfriend leans on me, his nostrils flare, his smell is feral and hot. If his jealousy were a smell it would be timber and vetiver. # My high school boyfriend leans on me on our rainy walk to school in spring after a sleepless night of crying and begging him to trust me. The crook of his arm possesses me, pinning my arms to my sides. The rain whips my hair across my chin and I cannot reach to wipe it away. Brown molted leaves from last fall clog the sewers, rancid. Blood under my skin spreads its yellowed-black wings in all the spots he’d leaned on. Water rises along the side of the road next to the curb, nowhere for it to run, run out to sea. Alison is a mixed and messy writer existing in Massachusetts. They have some other stories in Ellipsis Zine, JAKE, and Rejection Letters. Read more by visiting www.alisonfraser.space

"Before words can run out, something in the heart must die." —Alejandra Pizarnik Bella closed her eyes at the bar, and memory formed two people from shadows. They were born six months apart, alternating elevenths, opposing points in the revolution of the Earth around the Sun. One. One. Adding to two, until one night, they became none. Bella sounded a little scared when she got to that part of the story, and considering what happened, she was sad when she concluded it. It is never a straightforward story to relate to but tell it, she did, painful as it was. The compulsion was obsessive. Bella just had to talk about them. Tomorrow, Bella’s sister Vivian would have been 71. This weekend, Bella planned to get a cousin to drive her to Granger and visit her. Bella will join Vivian, Daddy, and Mama, a family, then forgotten. That assessment scared Bella the most. People needed to know about them. She did not want them left unknown. Also, Bella did not want to die without their story entirely told, realizing her mind continued to fail her frequently. That next step of her long decline was coming soon and she was running out of time. The symptoms of her illness were irreversible and not going to stop until everything else did. Drinking made it worse. Bella did not care. She was beyond that, weary of fighting against the tide before the inevitability of being pulled underwater into oblivion. But, there was something Bella had to say, to grasp, and pass on before this lifetime of facing a shattering mirror, watching once-important memories fragmenting into shards. She always hated puzzles; now, her life was becoming one. * * * * The specialists called and told her she had organic brain syndrome. Daddy had suffered from this. It crept up slowly. As his condition worsened, he sat in his overstuffed chair in the den, a television tray serving as his desk. While holding a notepad and pen, he would ask Bella about past events, himself, and the family. Bella would tell him. Daddy would write them down, his arthritic fingers struggling while scrawling over the lines of the notepad. Then, when he finished writing her answer, he would look up to ask another question, and Bella would answer. It was vital for him to write it down himself. When he finished, he would look up and ask her again. One afternoon, at the dining nook in the kitchen. Daddy stood up and said he had forgotten his name. He reached his throat, grasping Vivian’s Confirmation medal, tugging on the chain until it snapped. “My name,” he said. “What is my name?” This is what was going to happen to her. She found that talking about her sister Vivian helped. Who she was. The time she went to the Dairy Queen. Everything changed after that. But she needed to understand why that was and how she stood in the wreckage of Vivian’s death. With a drowning grip, Bella held to the story of her older sister. There was hope in those days. Life was easy, and choices were simple. Dairy Queen, Holiday House for burgers and shakes, and the Woolworths counter for grilled cheese sandwiches. Dance squad, and working towards making varsity cheerleader and good enough grades for the University. Coming home to her room, and always finding Vivian sitting on her bed, reading magazines and books and writing in her diary. That was the time of her life Bella focused on. That time led to a thunderstorm night and the officers at the door, but as months passed, Bella realized the fragments of weeks before and after her sister died mattered the most. Daddy had just joked to Mama that Vivian wished the rain would never end when the doorbell rang. After being pulled underwater, the disease proceeded with Bella’s slow but discernable decline. Yes, she was told the drinking made it worse, but she felt she had to die of something and decided she should feel good in the process, and nothing made slow-motion suicide in the face of an incurable disease feel as good as a single malt scotch, neat, with a water sidecar. Since the symptoms began three years ago, Bella had already forgotten much of her life. For a time, she worked furiously, keeping a diary of stories about growing up, the years at the University of Texas, and the time she went to San Francisco and Marin County for two years before returning home broke and humiliated. She filled two spiral notebooks before she realized there was no one to read them but her and that so many of these stories were meaningless. They were not that important to Bella. What was important was remembering the date, when to take her meds, that she took them, and doctors’ appointments. Eventually, piecing together those shards of memory was too much for her to handle. She needed to focus. But Vivian, her sister, was the most important. Bella needed to remember her. After Bella’s diagnosis, she recalled Vivian in as much detail as possible. The night she had left them forever was when everything changed. Woke up every morning with an empty bed next to Bella’s. A space at the table permanently left untouched. Mama started getting sick shortly afterward and died when Bella graduated high school. Finally, it became Daddy alone, staying that way except for his trips to the family ranch in Granger. As Daddy sat alone, Bella went on that adventure to find herself. That was San Francisco after it was fun. The architecture was crumbling as the people staggered around looking for angry fixes, caging change, stealing, and kicking the crap out of each other to finish that mathematical problem of maintaining addiction. If it wasn’t the heroin used to sink oneself into the ground, it was a go-go of shooting speed. Bella went for the former. She wore long sleeves for years after that. She whored herself out. Backstage at the Fillmore, sweet-talking touring musicians into bed with an eye on what was in the velvet trouser pockets in the morning and running out to the Haight to score. Eventually, this got too much for her. She flipped out and ran with one of the lesser self-proclaimed gurus to a tumbledown Victorian in Marin County. She latched onto a fantasy of the Boxcar Children amid the chaos of filthy mattresses and became pregnant. Junk sick and desperate, she hung a ride from her rescuer. All she could remember was his flaming red hair and beard. He drove her to a clinic. Got a referral to a halfway house and spent months there on brown rice, beans, and methadone. She was as much of a blur as those memories. She willingly gave up the child at birth, incapable of taking on anything more than getting clean. She wished the redhead had been the father. But instead, it was probably the guru. His name was Gus. Or Gaston. She couldn’t remember even back then, and no reason to start now. After taking night business classes at the University of San Francisco, she returned home to Texas. * * * * On several occasions, Daddy told Bella, “I can accept loss, but I cannot abide it forever.” She felt the hurt in those words, in his voice. He didn’t speak much about it otherwise, but Vivian lived on in the silences between sentences during conversations. And on Bella’s dresser, a cedar box with revelatory artifacts inside. The adoption papers were neatly folded in the cedar box. She looked at them daily to remind herself, especially after Carey was hired as the bartender. Vivian was Bella’s sister, and Mark was the boy Vivian met. It was a cold spring day at the Dairy Queen on Guadalupe Street. Her sister had just turned fifteen. Her given name was Irene, named after her grandmother. Irene did not like her name and insisted on calling herself by her middle name, Vivian, as in Leigh. Gone with the Wind, with God as my witness. Irene was a Texas girl, but Vivian wanted to be someone bigger than Texas. Bella ordered another scotch neat. The disability money went into her bank account yesterday, so it was The Balvenie today. She was feeling expensive. “Do you want me to close out the tab?” Carey, the bartender, was sweet and one of those new girls. Her dad was a cop in Rhode Island, and behind the nose ring, the color streaks in her hair and tattoos was a young woman raised right. Looking at Carey’s expression, Bella recalled Vivian telling her: “I am a good girl, not wishing to be bad, but learning to be both. Good bad. That’s the thing about me.” “I guess I’m good for now,” Bella said. “Maybe the one after this.” Bella glanced up at the television screen. The fantastic young quarterback backing up for the injured starter, Dak Prescott, tossed a five-yard slant to Whitten. First down, Cowboys. * * * * Vivian was a genius as all she touched turned to gold. Except for that boy she fell in love with at the Dairy Queen on Guadalupe Street. He was one boy parents would wish best left unmet, but that’s the kind of boy some of us dream of, Bella thought. But what a boy Mark was. He was one handsome fella; Bella recalled that brunette ducktail sliding down over his forehead, the blue denim Levi’s jacket, and his striped t-shirt. Yeah. A greaser. Vivian was a good girl. She sure looked like one wearing her Girl Scout troop leader’s dress, with black lace-up shoes and knee socks. It was cold that day, so she had on that black wool jacket while listening to music on the jukebox, sitting at the table alone, waiting for her strawberry shake. Vivian said she was the only customer until Mark entered the Dairy Queen. When her order was called, she went to the counter and stood beside him. He smelled like Fatima cigarettes. Their eyes met. Bella was not there because she was practicing to be a line girl for the opening of the new Interstate. It was a big event. The Interregional Highway was going to become Interstate 35. But, the newspaper said, when finished, the highway would be from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Cape Horn in South America; instead, the road goes from Duluth, Minnesota, to Laredo. While sliding her finger over the glass, Bella remembered her sister’s face when she told her about meeting that boy. He just sat down across from her. Slapped a pocket paperback book, The Informer, by Liam O’Flaherty, on the table and sipped his soda, staring at her. “He’s a poet,” Vivian later told Bella. “He wrote me a poem on a sheet of paper and slid it across for me to read.” Bella folded the poem in fours in the cedar keepsake box on her dresser. Bella read it before bed. Mark could write. Had something going on as he was growing up. What Vivian wanted and held on to until the very end. We were born six months apart, alternating elevenths. Opposing points in the revolution of the Earth around the Sun The spider-chalk scrawl we gaze upon from our seats. Unexpected emotions were shared, clustered around silent glances. Furtive defines our rhythms as our interrupted lives now control this shared space. We speak, betraying the sense of wonder and surprise. I think they know. Watching your smile return to lips, eyes flickering. Undeniably happy in the place where your heart suddenly stops, starts on a different shore Okay. Should we-- add a note into the atlas of memories? Discovered. Dusted. Opened. * * * * Vivian had dirty blond hair, cut in a bob like Barbara Bel Geddes, who Mama said she resembled. Thick black glasses hid a Southern beauty, and her overbite added character. That’s what we all said when we took her home, crying, from the orthodontist when the family could not afford braces. Those were different times. Only the West Austin girls in Tarrytown had the money for braces. We had to make do with whatever God gave us for appearances. That and makeup, but we were Catholics, and our parents were stern. Vivian was a good girl and made do. She did, you see, she did. Vivian saw Vertigo at the Paramount on Congress Avenue when she was 12. Bella was 10 and too young for that movie, but Vivian went. She loved Barbara Bel Geddes in the movie. She played a painter in love with the hero, a detective who feared heights and couldn’t save the girl. She wore glasses like Vivian. After that, Vivian cut her hair into a bob like Barbara’s. When they looked at the fashion magazines, Vivian kept pointing out Kim Novak’s dresses. While Barbara was a pretty girl, Kim was beautiful. Vivian pointed at a photo of Kim Novak. Then, pushing her glasses back, she said, “I can be Barbara and her.” * * * * The bartender carried out a rack of barrel glasses from the kitchen. After setting it down next to the twin steel sinks under the bar, she removed and stacked them neatly beside the cash register. Bella watched the bartender work without actually seeing. She was too busy trying to remember. Bella took a sip from her scotch. Then paused, downed it, and asked Carey for another, placing her bank card on the bar. She promised herself the next scotch should be her last. She smiled as Dak Prescott ran a quarterback draw into the end zone. Touchdown Cowboys. The most dynamic quarterback they have had since Staubach. A shard from the past flickered. The family gathered, watching the team on the Zenith console. So this is who they were, and Bella wanted them back. Mama sat on the plastic-covered tan couch with her knitting. The cancer was already growing deep inside. She died from it five years later, three after Vivian passed, who sat cross-legged next to Mama, reading her book. She was disinterested in sports. Bella sat at her father’s feet. She loved watching football. She was a cheerleader at junior high that year and hoped to make the freshman squad at McCallum High the following year. Looming above Bella, Daddy sat nervously in his chair, tapping his pipe against the polished oak end table. The Cowboys wore navy blue uniforms with star designs on the shoulder pads and white helmets. They were dark gray on the black and white Zenith. Eddie LeBaron was the quarterback. The playcalling was rudimentary. They were a new team—an expansion franchise, they called them. They invariably ran on first down, with the fullback, Don Perkins, driving into the pile of bodies. The television game announcer, his voice rising, said, “First down. Perkins up the middle.” * * * * “This one’s on me, Bella,” she said. Her smile was a little sad, Bella thought. Got her thinking again that Bella was old enough to be her grandmother. She never did become one. Did marry, though. Didn’t like it and learned to hate the man she was with. Living with him became worse than in the commune in Marin County. It is a memory that fades. She knew it was terrible, but Bella forgot why. Carey started working here two months ago. A petite blond from Rhode Island. Father is a cop—a detective. She told Bella he raised her himself. Bella knew not to ask why. Instead, she remembered how Mama started to fade after Vivian died. The summer before Bella began University, she had passed, the first to join her daughter in the family cemetery in Granger. Carey listened to Bella’s stories with a sympathy that grew with intensity in each visit. The other night, she confided to Bella that her mother left when she was a little girl. Her mother was still around, remarried, but their gulf was an unbridged abyss. Carey commented she was the wandering type, obsessed with finding her birth mother. The family that adopted her was abusive. Bella suddenly stared. Carey had Vivian’s hair and eyes. Since then, Bella had thought about asking her over to the apartment. Make her dinner, and talk. Show her the life she had and the essential things about Vivian. Carey was alone. She just broke up with her boyfriend: Bella saw the fight in the parking lot the other afternoon. Yes, Carey would listen. Ask questions. She cared. No, Mama--I guess that would do it, Bella thought. But I never fit the part, she whispered. * * * * The Eagles quarterback fumbled the snap on the first play after the kickoff. Dallas recovered the ball on the Philadelphia 25. Carey handed her the receipt. Bella paused before signing. It was laborious to write her signature. Her hand quivered as she overarched the B, followed by a straight line. Sometimes she signed with her old married name, her older signature. Her last driver’s license had this, which was often problematic when signing paperwork. She remembered the night Vivian wore the party dress Mama made from a Vogue pattern. It was black silk chiffon with an angled neckline that framed Vivian’s coltish body, particularly her shoulders. She was such a skinny girl, but she grimaced when Bella zipped up her dress that night. The lining was taffeta, and Mama tailored the fitted waist to give Vivian more of a figure. The shirred skirt flowed over her legs. The dress matched the church gloves Mama gave Vivian for her birthday. “That’s a right, pretty girl,” Daddy said, biting nervously down on his pipe, his newspaper spread across his lap. It took some convincing for him to allow her to go out. Vivian did look like Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. Daddy drove her to the dance at the roller rink in South Austin. Bella knew Vivian switched out her kitten pumps the minute she walked in. Vivian’s forbidden high heels were Lucite stiletto slingbacks with rhinestones. She borrowed them from a girl in school. Mark waited for her. Bella imagined him leaning against the wall behind the back tables above the rink, smoking his Fatima cigarette. They said he was dressed in a dark green suit and a string tie, with his black shirt and cowboy boots. They made quite the couple, with Vivian as that Texas girl wanting more. She came to him. They kissed. And left. * * * * The Cowboys won. Maybe this is their year. Bella remembered sitting and watching the games with Daddy. Unfortunately, he died the night after they beat the Bills the second time in the Super Bowl. In her notebooks, Bella speculated that Daddy’s decline began when the new owner of the Dallas Cowboys fired Tom Landry. Daddy loved his football and obsessively held on to the team after Vivian and then Mama died. The franchise firing the legendary coach changed Daddy. Bella wrote that he started to forget parts of his life, like mixing up the stories he used to tell of working at the ranch in Granger, which he spent in Lawton, Oklahoma as a mechanic during World War II. He married Mama in Granger at the old Czech church on Christmas Eve in 1944. Irene Vivian, and then Bella Ruth were born. They moved to Austin, and Daddy went to business school at night and took courses at the University. While he never earned his college degree, Daddy had a good job in the billing office at Winn’s. Daddy worked his way up and retired the year before Landry was fired and planned fishing and hunting with his old friends. But, as Bella later discovered for herself, Daddy began acting like sleep was coming down, as he put it. Bella moved in with him, back into the house of her childhood. Daddy was adamant he didn’t want the nursing home. So Bella hired a nurse and a housekeeper. She had long since divorced, and the house wasn’t far from Antone’s blues club. Bella was seriously drinking by then, and listening to the music made a good fit. She does not remember those days well other than the margaritas, which she had more than she could handle. After the trophy presentation, Daddy asked Bella to turn off the TV. In a rare moment of lucidity, which was few and far between in the last two years of his life, Daddy reached out from his worn-out chair, grasping Bella’s arm tightly. “I miss my little girl,” he said. He paused, tears in his eyes. “He was a good boy, Bella. This wasn’t his fault. None of it.” “Yes, Daddy,” Bella said. This was the first time he mentioned Mark to her. Suddenly, Daddy was a younger man. Bella sensed his sunken chest filling with the air and his stare with a mindful sharpness that had been thought faded forever years ago. “Bella,” he said. “I never told your Mama, but I visited his family. We all had a long talk. His parents were good people. I came away wishing I had met that boy. Wanting things to be different.” His grip slackened just a bit as if aware he could hurt Bella. He continued, “Jim—the father, you may remember—took me to Mark’s room. We sat together on his bed, walked around, and touched his possessions. The books. That boy certainly read a lot. Papers were stacked neatly on the desk--his poems. Jim talked of publishing them, eventually. He never got around to it—I guess it was too much for him to do.” Daddy described his hands traveling over the broken spines of battered old paperbacks, sliding over what Mark’s father called the “smooth geography of books” Mark read as a child. But, he added, “Jim said Mark would go to the bookstore above Dirty’s on Guadalupe and spend hours there. Jim also said these books would do no good sitting on his desk and would sell them back to the bookstore.” Bella put her hand over his. “We gathered them up and took them there,” Daddy said. “But I held onto one. I accidentally opened it when we stacked it on the bookstore table. Then, when Jim wasn’t looking, I put it into my satchel.” He raised his hand toward his father’s live oak shelf during the Depression. It had been in the same spot in the den for forty years. “I put the Coronado’s Children dusk jacket over it. I didn’t want your mother to know we had it. She would know that the book belonged to him.” “Why hide it from her?” She had to ask. Daddy was already starting to fade away into the shadows of his mind. It took a lot for him to get the words out. “You’ll know when you open it. It’s not about the book but what the boy left inside. Trust me. You will know.” His head slumped slightly to his left. “I’m tired, Bella. But, how ’bout those Cowboys?” They smiled. Bella walked him to bed and did the Decades of the Rosary before he slept. When she checked on him an hour later, Daddy had already passed. She had read the Celine novel as part of her mid-century literature class before finally getting her degree in the mid-1970s. The unfortunate coincidence of its title had already touched Bella. Out of bored curiosity, she had already discovered the book one afternoon a year before and had it in her hands when she found her father. She held his still-warm hand, read the note aloud, and called for the ambulance. With the letter were the adoption papers for Bella’s daughter. Bella had thought she had lost them when she moved in. But, instead, she sat at his side, numb to the consequences of silence. * * * * Bella finished her drink and said goodbye to Carey. Pausing, their eyes met. The young woman resembled Vivian. She really did. I am scared, and I am brave. Bella recalled the look in Carey’s eyes the night she broke up with her boyfriend. This happened in the parking lot. Bella and the other patrons watched out the window. One of the young men shooting pool went to the door, slapping the cue stick in his palm, ready to act if needed. When Carey returned, she started crying in front of Bella. Bella reached out and grasped Carey’s wrist. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” “I don’t want to cry alone.” Bella gasped. She remembered when Vivian said that after she vomited and told her why. I am scared, and I am brave. I am ready to tell the family, but Bella already knows. I had no choice. The dates she recalled. Those numbers matter only to Bella. 1968. 1990. Carey’s mother. Carey. Bella left unsteadily out the door. Bella was drunk. Nothing is as disgraceful as an old drunk almost turning 70. * * * * Vivian had kept that in her clutch purse, neatly folded with her Confirmation medal, a lucky rock she found in the dry bed of Shoal Creek, and loose change in a zippered pocket. The clutch purse lay on the oiled asphalt, a white chalk line circling it. Bella went with Daddy to the police station to pick up the box when it was released after the inquest. They did not go directly home. Instead, Daddy drove them to Bull Creek Road, the television and radio antennas on top of the hills outside the city limits. Several years later, when she was hanging out to see The 13th Floor Elevators play at the Jade Room and the New Orleans Club, Bella found out that was where all the freaks stashed their dope. When they arrived, Daddy told Bella to stay in the car. He took the cardboard container from the backseat, setting it on the hood of the Dodge. He opened it and looked inside. “Bella,” he said. “You can come out and see this.” He was crying. Daddy kept the Confirmation medal. Bella, the poem. They buried the rest behind a gnarled mesquite tree. Daddy’s tears were still on her mind when she saw the antennas. In this part of the story, she repeatedly tells herself to remember what remained from her life as it crumbled slowly, inexorably to nothingness. Daddy wore the medal around his neck for the rest of his life. He told her that the award felt warmer around Vivian’s birthday. Daddy explained it to Vivian, letting him know she was always there. Bella had that poem in the cedar box, too. Next to the book she intended to give Carey when the time was right. Bella felt the time was coming soon. She needed to do it before she forgot. * * * * Bella crossed the parking lot to the apartment she was resigned to die in. She would invite Carey tomorrow night, and if she said yes, Bella would tell her everything. Carey had heard about it many times, though she did not know the entire story. Some essential details had been left out. She did not know about the book and the story folded inside. A letter. It was more than just a poem. So much more important—this was about what was cut short on U.S. 183 one night. Bella will soon forget about this, memories vanishing, and no one will ever know. She cannot withhold. There is a lot to talk about with Carey. She needs to know. There is that letter to show her from the book Daddy found. Then Carey will fully understand what it all means. Why this is important. Bella planned to leave nothing behind when the lights went out. Bella resolved that Carey had to know. So finally, she decided it was time to say to it once and have it fade into the shadows. At last, someone will know and remember. Bella tried to focus as she walked, her thoughts moving quickly from inception to disintegration. But, instead, she focused on recalling the rest of the note Vivian wrote: There are times when you walk into a particular room where all you ever wanted is in place or meet someone, and somewhere in your head, a door opens, and the light shines blindingly on you. This yellow envelope in its warmth. Our grandmother said: Do not put out the fire that burns you. As her mind began flying again into pieces, Bella resolved that this was what she must share before she lost it for good. So this is what this is all about, Vivian. Right? I have to remember you to finally come to remember me? Right? Right? The clouds had darkened, filling the sky, portending a thunderstorm. Mike Lee was raised in Texas and North Carolina trailer parks. Editor, writer, and photographer for a trade union in New York City. Stories are upcoming or published in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Drunk Monkeys, BULL, Fictionette, Bright Flash Literary Review, and many others. His book The Northern Line is available on Amazon.

I paid close attention to those who barely paused and those who honored my mother and took their time and pointed, laughed, or even cried as they inspected and studied each picture. The easel under the archway of the viewing room held up a giant collage of snapshots that captured different moments of Mama's life as dozens of family members, friends, and coworkers moved through the receiving line, exchanging memories, hugs, and tears. Along with personal photos we brought to Mama's house, my sister and I, and Hugh, Mama's longtime partner, spent the previous forty-eight hours sifting through troves of albums Mama kept in the antique hope chest that once belonged to her mother. I tasked each of us with selecting the perfect photographs that genuinely captured the essence of Mama and her relationships with her family and friends. Mama's life meant something, but precisely what that something might be to an individual is like a whisper you could only hear in your heart. Between greeting mourners, I caught someone admiring the picture I had taped to the bottom of the collage. Did they spot Mama in her best Sunday housecoat twirling my once coal-black curls with her fingers? She pressed me tight against her soft, doughy belly on that summer day while we sat at the picnic table in our yard. She smelled of Crisco, flour, and her favorite Avon roll-on deodorant. That very picture, like me, was Mama’s favorite. Earlier that morning, my sister Kathy had taped up a photo of Mama smiling, holding up the carrots she pulled up from her treasured vegetable garden in one hand, the other hand closed into a tight fist that hung by her side, making it hard to discern whether Mama truly felt happy or frustrated. And like a trail of clues, a crushed soda can and crumpled paper napkin lay on the ground behind her as some trash overflowed from a nearby barrel. Despite her pride in growing the sweetest and largest carrots that season, those tiny but visible details on the ground probably drove Mama crazy that day. Mama hated a mess, and most of all, she couldn’t tolerate carelessness. Not such an ideal photograph to represent Mama in her garden, I thought as I grew annoyed at my grieving sister standing next to me. Aunt Martha, a childless eighty-five-year-old and Mama's last living sister drove down from Maine all by herself and arrived at Mama's house with only an hour to spare before the wake. She breezed into her late sister's house wearing a fitted black sheath and pumps,looking remarkably fit for a woman her age. Aunt Martha was ten years older than Mama, but cosmetic surgery ensured Martha looked much younger than her baby sister, a fact my aunt often pointed out to Mama, only to be rebuffed with one of Mama's snorts. Once settled in the living room, Aunt Martha pulled about ten photos from her purse and studied each closely as she shuffled through them three or four times until she finally stood up and placed one of her pictures inside the top right of the frame. She selected a photo of the four sisters all dressed alike, lined up like the tiny wooden yellow ducks in a carnival shooting gallery, wearing matching bobby sox, button-down cardigans, and plaid skirts. Mama, the youngest, had been positioned on the far right with her face tilted slightly to the left. Mama looked annoyed. She hated this pose among the dozen or so others the professional photographer had taken that day in her family's living room, much preferring the photo where she sat on the floor in front of her sisters, staring straight ahead with a full smile, ready for the flash. And although Aunt Martha knew how her sister felt about these pictures, she selected Mama's least favorite photo for the collage. I thought about taking it down in protest, but instead, I rolled my eyes and let Aunt Martha leave up her choice as a true reflection of her relationship with Mama. A moment later, my eyes drew to a picture of the four of us, before the divorce, standing together in front of the doorway of our old house with my sister Kathy’s arms wrapped around Daddy’s leg and Daddy’s hand at Mama’s waist while she cradled me like a loaf of bread. Mama’s proud chin jutted out, but she didn’t smile. When she got sick late last year, Mama confided in me that an old neighbor had taken this picture on the first day we moved into our new house, on the very same day Mama found Daddy in the back of our old Chevy earlier that morning, thanking their realtor, Kitty, who later become Daddy’s second wife. Who added THAT picture, and when? I silently screamed and glared over at Kitty, who sat with my ashen-faced father in the back corner of the funeral home. I scanned the collage again and focused on a picture of Mama looking beautiful in blue. She and her best friend Donna had hunted dress shops for months to find the perfect shade and fit for Mama's mother-of-the-bride dress. Donna made sure she placed THIS picture of Mama, radiant in this particular hue of blue, near the middle, just left of center, so that everyone at McVoy's Funeral Home would be sure to see it. Mama looked especially satisfied and happy in this picture, practically glowing, standing proudly beside Hugh at my sister's wedding. There was a slight glint in Mama's eyes as if she had shared a secret with the photographer, or perhaps, she knew she'd sent a message for all that would look back at this moment, her moment, later. And who should be sitting in the picture's background just over Hugh's left shoulder but Kitty! Boy, she looked miserable that day. Kitty had been seated with my father at a table directly behind my Mama and Hugh, wearing her familiar scowl, an extra twenty pounds, and a noticeable au jus stain from the Prime Rib on the top left corner of her breast where a heart might have been. I laughed so loud that my sister elbowed me in the ribs while a few mourners looked me up and down curiously. I collected myself, then my eyes danced toward Kitty and then back to Donna. I smiled. Like Mama always said, make sure they get your good side. Margo has worked in public education for over thirty years and is the mother of two daughters and the best rescue dog ever, Harley. Her work has appeared in places such as Maudlin House, The Dillydoun Review, MER, HAD, and Roi Fainéant Press. You can find her on Twitter @67MGriffin.

Eternal bless Your heart is like a big bank’s vault full of eternal fine wine be thankful for whoever cracked it open Now, you can pour from it to everyone. Judicial body A thought comes and another goes one shares my truth one lies under oath others are mere hearsay my mind claims to be the judge “is there an eye witness in this courtroom? do we have a verdict?” i ask my mind doesn’t know it has no clue I like to call my body to the stand tell us what you know with a subtle pause and a steady tone the body says this music from across the street moves cells in my heart brings memories that itch my lungs these feelings tell a story full of contrasts with a sad ending a happy ending open ended so i sit and listen to all endings the relief the chills the tightness in my chest the flow the ease in walking this way this body gets the final say.

I got a message from you last night. It said you felt a lot of crazy ways that I didn’t know you felt, and it said a lot more than that. It said awful things about me when I’m naked and it told me not to ever talk to you again. I figured not to worry and that we could talk about it over dinner. Who can say! Work life was trying today. There were many mini meetings concerning other meetings we’d already met in most of this week. One guy tells you this and another says that—and before you know it, everything is a total wash. Whole day down the drain. It’s half a wonder we can even get the lunch order down. I landed those vouchers to that thing you want to do this summer—I know! You don’t want to talk about it because it’s not the real thing, even though you and I both know that a mostly simulated vacation is better than no vacation at all. I’ll bet when it’s said and done, you’ll be glad you went virtual this year. Not only will we save tokens on the dollar, but you’ll hardly notice the difference because the quality is so good. Who can say! I got a call from the school again. Our three youngest, if it can be believed, appeared to glitch at several points throughout the day. They are screeching terrible dial-up internet sounds at me and clamoring that they didn’t. They are barking ones and zeroes and I can’t say for sure if they’re even the ones I dropped off at the bus port this morning. I’ll say this: I’d rather unadopt them to wherever they came from than spend another three days waiting in line at truancy court. The cops called, too. Said they have CCTV footage of grandpa holding up the credit union. Said they’d be willing to clear and reverse the charges, as the footage shows an abnormal number of fingers and teeth. Still unsure, though, as grandpa did take all three sets of dentures and one and a half pairs of skin tone gloves out with him today. Who can say! Please get the mail when you get home, the box is overflowing. I’ve been brought up on twenty-three dashcam litigations this week and I don’t have time to file for more appeals, what with more and more videos of me speeding in residential areas and doing e-brake slides in school zones. Just bring in the mail and shred what you can. I can’t respond to notices I don’t get. I just read on the news billboard that the president just declared war on Angola. Said we intercepted six cruise missiles and sent twelve back. Instituted a draft, if it can be believed. Unsure of the status. I’ll either be home after traffic time or reporting to boot camp. If it’s the latter, I’ll be sure to write. Who can say! By the way, I’m bringing home milk. I know, I know—they say it’s bad again, but when it’s reported wholesome and clean tomorrow, I want to be ready. What really does a body good is preparation. Who can say! I got your funeral notice. I’ll try and squeeze it in, but with all the scheduled meetings at work next week, I just don’t know if I’ll be able to attend. Once you’ve been duped into several spousal sendoffs, you become sort of a cynic. I’ll wait until you’re gray and cold to the touch, because I know caskets don’t sell themselves. I also know I can’t afford another thirty-thousand credit whoopsie. Those bastards at Interment Zone can be a real bother with their viral marketing. Listen, I’m signing off. I’ve got a lot of sleep to catch up on during commute hour. I’ve been up for days just trying to decide which of my faces is mine. Mirrors seem to lie to me, anymore. Everything seems to lie. If you don’t trust in the veracity of this message, I won’t blame you. The letterhead alone can’t make you sleep at night. My blood signature could have easily been synthesized. I want to make you believe me, but in the long run, who can say! I’ll see you at home, or I won’t because I’m at war. Don’t wait up. Mostly love, -Me William M. McIntosh is a writer of drivel and collector of rejection letters. He loves literature, film and any other kind of art he can get his grubby little fingers on. His work has been published by Maudlin House, The /tƐmz/ Review, The Yard: Crime Blog, and Night Picnic Press. He doesn’t tweet, but if he did it would be @moonliteciabata. You can find links to his work at www.wmmcintosh.com. He is based in Cincinnati.

When I first received the call, I thought it was a scam. Who would believe that Her Late Majesty the Queen had left behind not just a few, but hundreds of corgis, and that out of all the people in the world I had been selected to take care of one? The person on the other end of the phone, who had a lovely midlands accent mind you, explained that the British Government would cover all expenses. While she was explaining, all I could think of were the current austerity measures. I wondered how they could have all this extra money to throw around when there’s talk of not being able to fund basic healthcare. “You did fill out form 48f-Zed,” the person on the phone said. “And you checked the Queen’s Corgi Fund Box, yes?” I vaguely recall filling out something for the SPCA during the pandemic, but I thought at the time that if the only way I was going to get out of lockdown was if I had a dog, I was going to sign and tick whatever form was placed in front of me. I kept waiting for the request for my banking information and my social security number. That did not happen. Instead, a very nice gentleman from the British consulate arrived at my door with the corgi. An actual corgi, complete with papers certifying that her name was Cindy, that she was in fact the great granddaughter of Oxo, an especially beloved dog who was known for how firmly she gripped her chew toys. There were all manner of supplies, including a special basket for Cindy to sleep in, and there was even a crew to install a system of hooks, pulleys and ropes to suspend the basket just a few inches off the ground. Apparently, this was the system they used in Buckingham Palace to allow the dogs to rock to sleep, away from any drafts. When I looked in Cindy’s eyes I thought I saw a glimpse of indescribable sadness, a grief that was as personal as a nation’s mourning was public. “It’s going to be ok,” I told her; I gave her a Bonio dog biscuit and a rub on the head. “She likes you,” the gentleman from the consulate observed. “On behalf of His Royal Majesty we extend a nation’s thanks for your service.” After some time filling out forms, I was finally left alone with my dog, my corgi, Cindy. I thought of putting on her custom leash and introducing her to the neighborhood, but Cindy had other plans. She made an adorable little leap into her basket and promptly went to sleep. “Sweet dreams, Cindy,” I whispered, and then went to the kitchen to fill her water bowl in case she woke up feeling thirsty. Care packages began arriving over the next few days. Normal dog stuff at first, but then came a new voice activated laptop and a special collar with instructions to charge it before putting it around Cindy’s neck. “Oh, thank heavens,” Cindy sighed after I slipped it on. “Be a dear and set my laptop up in the office. I’ll be working there for a while. Will you need to be compensated for renting a workspace for yourself?” I stared at Cindy in shock while she wagged her tail waiting for me to do what she told me. “Chop chop,” she said. “Labour isn’t going to lose the next election by itself, you know.” I meekly did what Cindy told me to do. She told me I was free to do as I liked, but that she would prefer it if I returned in three hours to give her her walk. I decided to give myself a walk. I called the consulate. They reminded me of the various forms I’d filled out. I came home and found every parking space in use, with my house full of corgis and political operatives, all doing heavy phone work. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and there was a coffee urn set up on a folding table with a pile of dirty paper bowls. One of the dogs looked up at me and his collar spoke up. “Cindy, is this one yours?” “Oscar, why don’t you be a dear and go to the backyard?” Cindy said. “I think you’ll enjoy meeting new friends.” In the yard were a whole bunch of people, all looking a little embarrassed. One of them said, “I’m Jean. You must be Oscar. You have a lovely backyard.” “Which one is yours?” I responded. “Teflon. Apparently he’s very good at fundraising. Would you like a gin and tonic? Bruce here brought a couple thermoses worth to help pass the time.” “I’m good,” I said. “But, and pardon me for asking, why are we letting a bunch of corgis manipulate parliamentary elections?” “You filled out the forms, didn’t you?” Jean asked. “Did you read them?” Bruce, a little bit wobbling, said. “I bet all those operatives helping them out in your house sure did.” “What His Majesty does not know will not hurt Him,” replied one of the corgis, coming back from doing some normal non-political dog business in the yard, part of a pack of three. “And you all are being handsomely compensated.” I stared at the rest of the people in my yard, wondering if any of them would volunteer to pick up after the dogs. Nobody took the hint. “And,” another one of the Corgis retorted, “it’s not as if His Majesty’s idiotic Jack Russell Terriers are not doing exactly the same work, just on the other side.” “So it balances out,” the first Corgi observed, as if that made it right. “As long as everyone continues to work as dogs, that is,” corrected the last, most philosophical corgi. “Could one of you pick up some kibble? We’re beginning to run low on snacks.” I went inside to look for a plastic bag. Hugh Behm-Steinberg’s prose can be found in X-Ray, The Pinch, Joyland, Heavy Feather Review and The Offing. His short story "Taylor Swift" won the Barthelme Prize from Gulf Coast, and his story "Goodwill" was picked as one of the Wigleaf Top Fifty Very Short Fictions. A collection of prose poems and microfiction, Animal Children, was published by Nomadic/Black Lawrence Press. He teaches writing and literature at California College of the Arts.

Winter Wonderland There’s a mechanical Mrs. Claus and Santa, each with a small light for their candles as if they were at a front porch ready to carol whoever opened the door to them, as if that is what we ever did, opened up— Mom bought them on clearance from Gemco, the year she had work at Helen Grace Chocolates, let us have the fresh toffee bars, strawberries she’d just dipped, the three-layered truffles she made better than anyone. It was the year they knocked her off the bus stop bench, all the money and the government check, all of the days in the sweets shop, long nights at Sav-on, where she’d put some stuffed elephants on layaway for us, all of it running off down Via Wanda Avenue, Mom screaming for help and nobody coming. She just stopped, walked back home, didn’t cry, just said we’d better pray as hard as we could because she couldn’t anymore. People don’t believe me. About the nurses who took up donations, brought us board games and Christmas dinner. About my brother Sam and his friend begging the tree lot to give us some almost dead thing nobody was gonna buy. About why I listen to Christmas music sometimes six months out of the year, same songs from the 80s, Larry Groce on the Disney Christmas album, was singing “Winter Wonderland” on one of Mom’s only lucky nights. Belief. It all seems too perfect, they say. Too Hallmark. How it all comes together, like they missed the part of Mom’s scraped knees, the year we let ourselves in, ate only candy she snuck us after a long day gone. What’s hard to believe? The Mirror Stage God, she loved to talk about Lacan. If you hear someone say dialectic, you had better buckle up cause here comes some shit about the body and recognition, like she ever cared about a body outside of the conceptual form, not the body bodies she dismissed as idiots who didn’t catch her lessons, couldn’t see themselves as toddlers too stupid to notice what they are watching is their alien selves waving back, row upon row, an other, another, other. J.D. Isip’s full-length poetry collections include Kissing the Wound (Moon Tide Press, 2023) and Pocketing Feathers (Sadie Girl Press, 2015). His third collection, tentatively titled I Wasn’t Finished, will be released by Moon Tide Press at the end of 2024 or early 2025. J.D. teaches at Collin College in Plano, Texas, where he lives with his dogs, Ivy and Bucky.

Time has passed away, just like the dead dandelions that drift upon a breeze. It floats above our fallen dreams like some specter from film noir. You hold out your hand, but all feeling is lost. Numbness sets in. We bury the mantel clock as a symbol of all things forgotten. Once we knew how to sing. Our voices now crack like lightning. A sharp, raspy requiem pours out. Youth is undervalued, we play with it so carelessly. All that is left is a faded photograph, of who we once were. Burial over, we stand up, brushing the dirt from our knees, and say goodbye to time. Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry; nominated for the 2023 Dwarf Stars award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association; winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year. Her bio is featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021,” published by Sweetycat Press. She is the author of 16 poetry books, and 1 short story book. She lives in Delaware, USA. She loves gardening and cooking. Chris lives with her husband and four cats. Her most recent credits are: The Phoenix; Eclipse Lit, Carolina Muse, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Ephemeral Literary Review, The Elevation Review, The Closed Eye Open, North Dakota Quarterly, Tangled Locks Journal, Wild Roof Journal, The American Writers Review, Black Moon Magazine, Pacific Review, The Silver Blade, Pomona Valley Review, West Texas Literary Review. *(a complete list of publications is available upon request)

CW: Eating Disorder I slid into his DMs with a burning fire at the tips of my fingers. I rushed to type a message that would remain vague, yet not so vague to signal we were similar. I wanted him to notice me. I wanted him to know that I knew what he was talking about. I wanted to hear back from him, as though his words would lift a weight off my hunched body. *** At 11, I was already taller than most boys in my school. Every month that passed, I grew a few inches taller, bringing my plump figure and baby face closer to the grey skies of my hometown. In a crowd of indistinct, small pre-teens, I was an easy target: the mannerisms in my voice and hands did little to help. I seemed to grow faster than everyone else. Somehow, my body wanted to stand out, while my mind desperately sought to hide. The curvature of my spine is but the compromise between body and mind. To the skies, I preferred the tarred school grounds and the laces on my shoes. Head down, I tried to blend in as much as possible. Your nails are so pink, you got nail polish on or what? what brand are your shoes? don’t look when we’re changing! have you even kissed her yet? why do you always hang out with these girls? why aren’t you showering after PE? My head down, I tried to disappear. I failed. Food quickly became my savior. Not only did it provide mental comfort, it also added shielding layers to my fragile body. For a while, I thought I was protected from their blows, but in reality, I had turned into memory foam. Each insult landed against my skin with force. Each blow buried itself deep inside me. Unable to push back to my initial form, for years I carried their violence and my excesses. *** When he replied to thank me for my kind words, I realized I had not revealed enough. My words were indeed supportive and expressed sympathy, but they weren’t enough to engage in the meaningful conversation I had so hoped for. I could have replied to clarify. I could have said Hey, I’ve been through it too. It’s so rare for men to share that it felt quite liberating to read your story. I could have written my story then to an audience of one, to someone who would understand exactly what it means to hate one’s body and oneself so hard that only binging and purging offers peace and solace. He knows how good it feels to be full to the brim, to extend the borders of one’s stomach to breaking point. He knows how good it feels to have control for once. To finally decide that enough is enough and you can fight back. You can expel all the pain; let it all out. And, empty you’ve never been so full of yourself and happy. I would have told him that the so-called perfect body and its many iterations on social media don’t affect me as much as they affect him. Somehow, I have enough self-awareness to know that I would never be satisfied. That only a scalpel could really bring me contentment. I want a full-body lift. I want staples and stitches. I want to be so tight that living tears me apart. *** Outside of PE, I enjoyed running. Far from everyone’s gaze I would move my legs swiftly and elongate my strides to experience that millisecond when both feet are off the ground, when your heart fills with joy and possibilities, when the gravity of life dissipates. I ran fast so that life would not leave me behind. I ran fast to save my life and hers. M. was standing in front of a precipice at the local park and the thought of losing her terrified me. M. is my everything. Tired of dealing with P.’s drinking problem and his violence, M. wanted to put an end to these inconsolable years, to make one with the void. But she heard my tearful plea. She stayed and held my hand. As she finally sat on the bench next to me, she wiped off my tears and hers. There I vowed to always keep the void far away from her, whatever the cost. *** I started dieting during senior year of high school. On my way to class, I changed itineraries to stay away from temptation. Buttery and flaky pastries fresh out of the bakery’s oven were both a distant memory and a close reminder of the past I needed to erase. I stopped eating junk food, said goodbye to take-out, and began a new relationship with my stationary bike. Before dinner, I would work out for an hour and take stock of my slow but real progress. By the time I went to college, my body shape had become more pleasant and acceptable. People looked at me differently, and, for once, living was not so painful. Yet, something was still brewing inside me. When I left home and moved abroad after college, I experienced new depths of solitude. M. was a quick flight away from me, yet far enough that her absence dug a well in my heart and stomach. For some time before my departure, I had tried to help a friend dealing with a severe eating disorder. It seems I picked up cues along the way. I do not blame them for my slip up. I realized that whatever advice or support I was providing them, I needed it for myself first. Alone in my bedroom, the only support I found lay in grocery bags and junk food. I would sneak out of the house, rush to the store, and pile on all the bread, butter, cookies, cheese, and soda I could afford on my meager salary. I would sit on the bed, turn on the TV to muffle the sounds of my binging and ingest days’ worth of food to my heart’s content. Comedies were never as funny as when I was full and on the verge of exploding. I could not contain the irrational rush of ecstasy taking over my body. I was the last one laughing until the time came to rid myself of this burden. After all, I couldn’t ruin my past diet efforts by keeping it all in, by bottling up the food and the feelings. Purging became the way out, out of the overwhelming sadness and my inability to belong in the world. My gastric efforts yielded a greater weight loss. My skin getting closer to the bone, I was renewed. And, so long as I kept swallowing the sea and the land between M. and I, I could protect her. Every day, I swallowed the world to be on that bench once again, close to her, away from the precipice. *** I slid into his DMs with the exhilarating confidence that my secret would be safe, that the world around me wouldn’t change, and that no one would look at me differently. I don’t have the courage to come out of the pantry and lay out my truth for all to judge or pity. Would everyone pay closer attention to the content of my plate? Would they be suspicious of my visits to the toilet? Would they feel sorry because they never noticed anything? Would they be kinder, more hypocritical? Would they trust me when I say it’s in my past? One thing is for sure, I don’t like change or losing control. Once the story breaks out, it is no longer my own: my narrative is up for grabs, for interpretation and appropriation. Living with my disorder, I have mastered the art of secrecy and deception. Am I ready to be exposed? *** From kindergarten I remember well the story of a mouse who rode a bicycle around the toilet bowl. This funny little creature – competing in a championship – lived life on the edge. The risk of falling and the treacherous, slippery surface added tension to the story. I cheered for her with passion as M. or I turned a new page. Today, I find myself on that same bike, my feet locked in the pedals. On that same enameled surface, I hope to complete a lap, just one, without falling in. I’m now competing against myself. But who will read my story? Who will cheer for me if I don’t tell anyone I need support? Who will help me turn a new page and make it to the finish line if I don’t tell anyone that this book is too heavy for me to handle alone? *** According to the National Eating Disorder Association, “in the United States alone, eating disorders will affect 10 million males at some point in their lives.” I am literally one in a million. My suffering may be singular, but I am not alone in that race. That same study also notes that a significant majority of teenage boys want to bulk up because the muscular body is the ideal body. I wonder why bulking up was never an option for me. I could have increased my muscle mass and, perhaps, my peers’ respect along the way. I suppose it was never actually an option for a boy like me. I would always stand out, so I chose thinness to try to disappear. As Édouard Louis’ queer narrator writes in The End of Eddy, the crime is not so much to engage in marginal sexual acts – as many straight men do – but to be marginal and to look like it. I found myself doubly marginalized growing up in a society where homosexuality wasn’t quite accepted just yet and where bisexuality was considered worse. At 15, I sat quietly around the table at my grandma’s house while the adults talked about gay acquaintances or cousins. They all agreed that they were acceptable people, not so deviant after all. Bisexuals, however, were not to be trusted. If you can’t make up your mind, there’s something wrong with you. You don’t choose to be gay, but bisexuality is a sick choice. What was I supposed to think as a young man who had always felt desire and lust for both the women and men leads on my favorite television shows? I couldn’t like both, so I had to pick one. By default, like many, I hid the extent of my desires and focused on women with more or less success. It is nevertheless hard to succeed when you’re hiding half of what makes you, you, and, even more so, when everyone is convinced that they know you better than you know yourself. Like binging and purging, men and women go hand in hand in the realm of my satisfaction. *** I slid into his DMs and wrote to him in the present tense because the past is never distant enough to not be a threat. I typed a message vague enough to retain control while the ground was slowly slipping beneath my feet. I slid into his DMs to give myself some space to explore and redefine the contours of my body. *** I write in the present because I am scared to animate the past and unearth a hunger like no other.

Bidets and such Friends warn me, one of the hardest parts of travelling overseas is the unusual toilet configurations. To be prepared, I practice in the shower. I squat over the drain and imagine narrow streets with exotic smells. Crossing oceans is perilous. The birds look different, sound different, act different. In Türkiye, I'm warned, the pipes are so narrow toilet paper goes in a little bin lest it clog. This is why bidets are so important. I bend over under the stream of shower water. My loves will fly across the world without so much as a hotel booking. But for me, planning is vital. Tomorrow I'll fill a backpack with UHT milks and take the stairs up and down to teach my knees. I read consumer warnings that airlines will increase the fares if you search for a flight too frequently. They put a price on preparedness because it is so valuable. I sew a secret pocket into my jeans to hide my secret second back up travel card. I've read that, in Finland, people sit naked in hot saunas. I think there is a nudist beach somewhere here but first, maybe next month, I will try to visit a gym and strip off my swimmers in the humid changeroom and only hide in the cubicles a little. Hot but not heavy Hot showers give me acne, apparently. The vloggers are unequivocal: they're bad for the environment; they probably cause cancer; I'm growing mould on the bathroom walls; and I just don't care. Leon the Supermarket Lobster may have been spared a toasty demise but I want to be boiled. I want that whistle scream, too high for human hearing, when steamy worry and stress escape my glowing red skin. I want to submerge in bubbling brine. No more scrabbling in the muck and mud chewing on worms and my own shed skin. No more being dragged aboard a boat in Maine for a notch and a photo op and a fish. No more sad green-gilled woman. Passing through heat I become the ideal. Astaxanthin makes me brilliant cherry red. Boil me like a questionably immortal crustacean. Boil me like Patrick Stewart in a bathtub. Bump it up one more degree, just boil me, baby. A binding not affected by moisture or blood Crying in a taxi again. I think, maybe I'm allergic to alcohol. Or maybe just those chemicals they put in wine. Preservatives. Most adhesives require proper ventilation. I’m so sensitive these days, my eyes are so itchy. Or maybe I'm just crying because I love you so much you gorgeous babe, you beautiful soul, you friend of my heart. Both our hearts are broken and mended a thousand thousand times. I’ve heard cyanoacrylate was invented across the ocean in a wartime jungle for closing wounds. It burns at the raw flesh, and these fumes sting my watering eyes. There we go, the cut is sealed. The good news is, you don't need to come back to have any stitches removed, but I'd like to see you again in a fortnight just to check on how it's healing. And if you notice any heat, or redness, or inflammation, call me straight away. We can try whiskey next time—I think maybe I might be less allergic to spirits, if I just drink it neat. Tara Willoughby lives in Canberra with her spouse and their cockatiels, Pooface and Porridge. She has too many houseplants and years of education, and not nearly enough books. Her work has previously appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Cicerone Journal, The Bookends Review, Melbourne Culture Corner, and others.

On the most prolonged day of the year, a line of five-year olds stand sea-facing. They used to call it jumping rock: a plume of ancient lava pierces the sea at the edge of the bay. Here the currents can rake an ill-timed jumper over customs, polishing limbs until one resembles a small roasted stone, a lump of oyster. Parents would suffer the most, yoked to the shore by tradition. The bravest child yells a warrior’s cry into the arms of the sky. He recalls the survivors’ advice from the older boys all year and last night. The bravest parents attempt conversations: today’s weather, the mid-tides. The bravest child bypasses the wet ledge of rocks below, now baptized, now smiling. White teeth and white wash. One by one, parents fall to their knees in disbelief or gratefulness. At least that’s what the elder twin, Caleb, had envisioned would happen today. He would leave his sister to figure things out, but she, the smallest of the fives, stood farthest from the cliff. Caleb’s grandfather would have to wait. He didn’t like waiting. Caleb imagined the trajectories: running and clutching her before take off. Maybe an underhand toss? Maybe his grandfather might like him more? Caleb thought he had accepted the fact that he wasn’t his grandfather’s favorite. He demanded his sister’s arms and swung her around and around and around until his world became hers, and he is sitting in Grandfather’s lap, tracing his scar from forehead, over his paperthin eyelid, its path blocked at the border of his nose. It is his shoulders Grandfather covers at night with his own blanket. It is his plate Grandfather fills with berries and bananas from his morning walk and prayers at Grandmother’s grave. He whips Cora around and around, ready to be rid of her, of himself, this invisible war. His fury weaves between sea and sky, rocks and white caps, he doesn’t know what he’s aiming for. Gravity loses its name. She lands, not so gracefully, in the sea. Half fish, half manta ray—Cora makes her way inland. One by one, the rest follow, trusting that mother sky and father ocean will love them, too. Caleb spins and spins. With each child, he releases his shame, his grandfather’s rejection, his quiet resentment toward his twin. He reminds them to release their hold on him, too. They resemble brown ants pinned against white clouds. They are wooden spears cast by their gods. They emerge as fungi and penicillin, satellite and synapses, things he will learn about so far in his future. One by one, they beeline and bob toward shore, vinyl green like coconuts. He is the last one on the cliff of five years olds. He marks the spot farthest from the cliff, where his sister previously stood. Caleb allows himself a long runway toward acceptance and sprints with knees and elbows, even though the shores will be empty, all the parents closing their petals on their child, shuffling them home. No one wants to be next to the last parent waiting on shore. Caleb will find his grandfather and Cora back home, Cora retelling her flight, how the sky rained five year olds and the lands will be fruitful for another year. Grandfather will be patient and listen to her story two or three times over, sitting at her height, tucked in, all elbows and knees. Shareen K. Murayama is the author of two poetry books Housebreak (Bad Betty Press, 2022) and Hey Girl, Are You in the Experimental Group (Harbor Editions, 2022). She’s a Japanese American, Okinawan American poet and educator, a Pushcart Prize nominee, as well as Best Small Fictions & Best of the Net nominee. Recently featured in Poets & Writers Debut 5 Over 50 Authors, she lives in Honolulu and supports the #litcommunity @AmBusyPoeming.

thistle hurt spied a thistle in my pasture she cuts, i’ve bled some same as before, you’re just as lovely and unwelcome grayscale how they find me she says, like a habit i can’t break so she chameleons softens, smiling her colors bleed perennial but if by relapse or relenting should they run dry she’ll be reminded to go and find some more J. R. Wilkerson is a resident of Northern Virginia by way of Lawrenceburg, Missouri.