 TRIGGER WARNING: allusions and visual representations of bruising, illness, teeth, blood, skin-picking, meat, domestic violence, childhood trauma, loss. things that hurt to write. PHOTOGRAPHS BY VICTORIA ZEOLIclick images to expand photo 00000 - Rebecca Gooch photo 00001 - Julie Wittenburg @j.wlie photo 00002 - Jackie Hoag @jackiebhoag, makeup - Bray Mua @face_beaterr photo 00003 - May Mesleh @_xxmay photo 00004 - Jeffrey Anderson @jeffreymichaelanderson photo 00005 - Chelsea Evans @chelseaaliceevans
poetry by bee lbto face myself i try to avoid mirrors, but i’m drawn to them. i arrange my feet at odd angles to keep me away from them when we share a room. we often share a room. there is a mirror across from my bed, above the sink in my bathroom, facing the toilet and the shower in the second bathroom. sometimes i close my eyes. sometimes i crane my neck away. sometimes i peer between my fingers at the odd shapes my body makes. i pick at the dead skin on my lips til they bleed. i pry open my pores, pinch out the pus. i pull taut the hairs on my chin, jaw, the curve of my neck. slice them with scissors and wait for them to grow back. i smooth out my eyebrows. pick eyelashes fallen to my cheek and blow out a wish into the empty air. i look at my tired eyes. i wonder what’s behind them. i look at the fraying ends of my long hair. i chop haphazardly over the sink. i watch my cheeks bulge with mouthwash, my lips thin and turn blue from their stretch. i slip a nail in the dead space between tooth and filling. try to remember how many days are left before my dental premiums roll over. i trace the soft line of nerve damage from bottom lip to jaw. i pinch the fat soft beneath my chin. i squish the fat of my stomach, suck in until i see ribs, then let go until i see my body as it is. i turn off the light. i close the door. i move the mirror so it doesn’t face my bed. move the mirror so it doesn’t face the door. consider turning the mirror around so i am not faced with myself. ask myself why i spent real money on something i don’t need. i turn around and around so i am not faced with myself. i hide from myself. i cower beneath the weight of myself. i open myself up just to see what’s inside. i close my eyes. press my ruined nails against the thin skin over my eyes. i wipe the grease from my face. i bite my tongue. i peel the skin from my lips. i close my eyes so i am not faced with myself. i face myself with my eyes closed. BEE LB is an array of letters, bound to impulse; a porcelain pierrot with a painted face. they collect champagne bottles, portraits of strange women, and diagnoses. they've been published in G*Mob, MOODY, Landfill, and The Racket, among others. their portfolio can be found at twinbrights.carrd.co poetry by ingrid m. calderon-collinsi bleed over everyone hoping someone will offer up their wrists hoping someone will gladly bleed with me this is a metaphor, for friendship-- an unruffled camaraderie of chaos & wild repose where bile is biblical in that storm a boat sails to harbor engulfed by an army of every puncture stirred and cracked i am grieving for the woman who gave herself to men who looked exactly like her hate what am I, if not my anxiety? i’ve outgrown, outreached a tightness controls the soundtrack of my teeth the belt of love strikes, (finish what you started) no rite of passage no genocides, we dig our own we scratch away the dirt so the sting hurts less
photographs & poetry by robin goodfellow
canon snappy 50 from 1982 on expired kodak gold 200 35mm film unsavoury and it's just a realtree jacket size XXL layered over a 50 year old torn thrift store dress (white) it's necklaces of real bones and plastic rosaries Japanese eyeliner and American cigarettes and it's just that ache to drive hours (alone) forest service roads and billboards for burgers and God it's reservation gas stations and pink lighters it's CBC radio and Norwegian black metal and it's just small town gun stores and hockey arenas cotton candy lip balm and cases of beer antique dolls and muddy thrift stores and it's spending too much money on the perfect vintage dress and it's just frontier churches and disposable cameras Starbucks and a stack of VHS tapes a wood-panelled house and strawberry incense that doesn't quite cover the smell of old carpet and VCR head cleaner the rot
poetry by gina tronClone The older a memory is the more that me feels like a different person and so I allow them more leniency unlike with present me I want to be back where they are Now that I can see how good they are as a separate form of cells watching cartoons on couch ribbed blue I can wish them love instead of ripping them apart.
poetry by alex tretbarAnxiety IV 1. An influential sire, a well-known story, a history it captures. It is only logical to end at the beginning, and although some might say that would be the first importation, we prefer to flow in the veins of nearly every industry forever. Anxiety died young, and against the recommendations of his owner, the two men bought his progeny. 2. Came then Anxiety IV, the carefully planned revolutionary thinker. Came then methods met with criticism, rangemen who loved the unusually strong hindquarters. Unable to compete, pedigrees fizzled out. 99% of all Americans are responsible for there being a[n] [beef] industry, unlearned, firmly fixed in the hands of these same two men, a bloodline trending in reverse-- increasing the carcass’s value. 3. photograph of portal to Texas either Climax V or Anxiety IV the town got its name from this herd one photograph: negative, b&w, 6 x 7 cm 1900~ creator unknown person who is significant in some way to the content of this photograph, audiences may find this portal useful in their small rooms, 6 x 7 cm, negative, b&w funding provided in part by Populism, the New South, the Great Depression, what responsibilities do I have when using this photograph 4. Since 1944 we’ve been breeding straight-bred Anxieties in the western hemisphere, and possibly the entire world. Consistent and constant selection pressure that functions very well on forage. We are a partnership, already named, arguably the most efficient animal this side of the dark ages, and our work positions an expanding national population, hereby ensuring protein to the populous [sic]. - A note on the text: Anxiety IV was a legendary steer from whose loins the modern Kansas City beef industry sprung, but his history is a complicated one, not easily tracked, and appears to intertwine with another steer, Climax V. Documents suggest that there was not just one “Anxiety IV” but more than 9,000. “Anxiety IV 9904” is commonly cited as the specific bull imported from England in 1881, the so-called “Father of American Herefords,” a product of linebreeding who was himself integrated into American linebreeding practices. The poem is a combined erasure and recomposition of the following sources: 1. “Anxiety IV,” Sara Gugelmeyer, Hereford World, pages 38 & 40, July 2008 2. “Anxiety IV,” Sara Gugelmeyer, Hereford World, pages 38 & 40, July 2008 3. Image description, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth3434/ 4. Website for “Lents Anxiety 4th Herefords, The Fountainhead Of Anxiety 4th Blood In Its Most Pure Form,” https://www.anxietyherefords.com/
poetry by chris blexrudPostnasal The drip is not for us, we are for it—what came alive those nights, the dreams in our throats, a great conspiracy to set aside our pain only to better preserve it - Cotton Dream maybe it’s softer whatever comes next you’ll be so loved there and float right through it making up for everything that happened to you here
art by caitlin mccormack&poetry by chris mccrearyImages of my work, which were photographed in Spring 2021 on the forested grounds of ChaNorth Artist Residency in Pine Plains, NY. The urn piece depicted in two images is entitled "Origin Story" (crocheted cotton string, foraged pigment, and glue on velvet-covered mixed-media assemblage with synthetic fringe) and the bird skeleton made of plants is entitled "Prince of Nothing" (crocheted cotton string, foraged pigment, and glue on velvet-covered wood). Accompanied by poetry by frequent collaborator and friend Chris McCreary.
 Unearthlings Second person or third, you're an alien either way orbiting disjoint & perturbed in eclipse’s fading in faded he exfoliates exsanguinates peels back the cataract & climbs inside. Curtains drawn against neon flashing. Necessity compels the obsequities & compounds of chamomile & mandrake, poppy procured for proper sleep. The aether bleached. Proceed to the glad hand as the rubber band snaps : discard, donate, dismantle action figures for later repair. Streets disappear only to resume in adjacent neighborhoods. The platform stretches as you dash for the farthest car. All conversation becomes a cover song regifted, prayers wasted on the dire porcupine afraid to dance. Everybody’s busy & beleaguered & everybody’s beset by all manner of calamitous etc. Everything’s 45 minutes away. Labyrinth as circle pit. Finger puppet as skeleton banished to the cabinet. What passeth as scarcity of provision proves thick & brackish in titration or lapse into what remnants clung unto guts. Auratic night light, cat on lap. Rings on the glass hand, necklace in the dish. Resistance bands for when wither, bend, for when stones roll back & other muscles impinge.
poetry by arushi (aera) regeblood, bones, and butter there’s a heart in my hands, and blood in my mouth, and i don’t even know if it's mine. the heart is, of course, you would never give yourself so wholly, not to me. the blood though. the blood is confusing, because i don’t know if it’s yours, or if its mine, or if you want it back from me. my ribcage is cut open, in perfect strips, filets that only a chef like you would know, though you always claim to be terrible in the kitchen. you’ve ripped out my heart, and forced my mouth open, and maybe there’s blood in my mouth now, i learnt early that it tastes like bullets and pain and love. my friend thinks this is a war, a battle to be fought. something to be won. i think it’s love, after all, love and war are the same concept. only a person in love would succumb to war, just as i have. you tell me that i am blood, bones, and butter, blood, because i am painful, because i am in pain, because nobody could love me until i give them me, because at the end of the day, the blood that you give me, the blood that i give you, the blood we share, the blood in my mouth, that is what matters. not whose blood it is. you tell me that i am blood, bones, and butter, bones, because i am hollow because i am empty, because you must take your sweet time to shape me, and reshape me, and reshape me, and i must give, and give, and give, while you take, and take, and take, and i give until there is nothing left. my skeleton is yours to do with, darling. it was yours when it was mine, a hollow puppet for you, and you – the puppet master. you tell me that i am blood, bones, and butter, butter, because i am soft, because i am human, because i still give myself to you, the worship has begun, come one come all. the altar has been set, the offerings given, you, placed on the pedestal. butter, because what use is my heart if it isn't yours? butter, because who am i if not yours? you tell me that i am blood, bones, and butter, and that the blood in my mouth, and the heart in my hands is yours. after all, everything i am belongs to you.
CItation poems by j. lynn carrCITATION #6.5 Skies, Terrible and Broken. Silent Soft and Unfillable Hunger: Finding Yourself. Dark Places, Words on Our Fingertips: Bereft. CITATION #9 Soft, Faded Blue. Moss-Covered Oak and Gasoline: Lukewarm Air and A Pale Hug. Neon Lights That Line Your Face: Lips Holding Slogans, Between Them. CITATION #10 Demons, Bone-White. Vultures in Winter: Feeding Practices for the Sharp-Beaked. Juicy Red Hearts: Desserts, Cherry On Top.
poetry by james roachA Sad Haiku I almost hit a deer tonight on my drive home. I am so touch starved.
poetry by chris rockwellStay Off That Chair Did you arrive safely? Was the trip comfortable? Your body was so cold to the touch When you left That we fed you to the fire Just to keep you warm But now, your ashes are cold too And you never wanted to be scattered Someplace with a hot climate So here we are Leaving the doors of your van closed So your smell doesn't float out Trying not to sell all your old clothes Even though we need the money Sitting in your favorite chair With a pointlessly tense feeling Like you could Walk in the front door any second And catch us sitting there None of that matters anymore But it helps
art by cecilia mignon
These recent works, crossing processes and media from photo transfer to mounted collage to slip scans, are diaristic explorations of the loss of girlhood of myself and my mother. Through a foggy lens I am asking myself about the way girlhood links me to my mother as I turn into her caretaker, as we dance around our shared memories of my childhood, of hers, and our current moment in a split timeline away from gender and womanhood.
poetry by simone astridaxiom of infinity sorry it took a while to write, i have so much to tell you. no longer living in passed moments but stealing memories for inspiration, like raiding your closet. we play hide-and-seek from either side of the veil-- thin some days, sundays, nights get easier. after great indecision i confess i left your celebration of life well before the end, it wasn’t the you i carry with me. in my jacket pocket: platinum / iowa sunshine / starry eyes / your eye (for aesthetics) / palms pressed to paperinkgrass like a prayer. my luck—that infinite universes converged to bring you into my proximity. this is my version of faith. visit me in the next life, i’ll clean up the guest room. Simone is a poet living in Chicago and writing about their queer life. Their work has appeared in Naked Cat, voidspace, and more. Twitter: @simoneapoetry poetry by devon webbI'm Sorry I’m sorry that I’m hurting I’m sorry that I don’t know how to heal I’m sorry that I’m mean & childish & self-righteous I’m sorry for being a cunt I’m sorry that I haven’t done any growing just disappearing into all the noise in my head I thought I was doing what was best but I was just being defensive I’m sorry that I’m loud when we both want some quiet I’m sorry that I burnt it all down & left us nothing to admire.
poetry by david hanlonChildhood As a Forest Fire Endurance endures and a million tiny tortures split I really can see it all now can’t I? I suck it in this stocky forest its thorny damnation infernal fire how many ashes will cleanse it? will smother its trouncing? I still jolt-wake in the wreckage salt-dripping smoke pluming from my lips
photographs by Jessica kershaw
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