Changeling

By Nemesis Jarry

There’s a fire crackling under my skin, when I smile at the mirror. It rips away my old bones, like the shedding skin of a great snake And when I wake up, aching and hungry

I’ll reach and eat anything that I can take.

And then I stretch, and my wings unfold, Dierent from yesterday, for I am a creature of the Unknown. You’ve never seen something quite like this before.

I'm the fog taking over the marsh on dark, rainy days.

I'm the magpie stealing your trinkets and running wild.

I'm a disheveled coureur des bois, I’m an ivy-covered statue, I’m the prettiest girl at the party but life is the only party I’m attending!

Can I have your name?

And you, you poor fool, You give it to me.

It pours down from your lips and I savour its flavour and swallow it whole.

By Sarah Foster

All of your sculptured perceptions of perfection crumbling before your very kingdom. Built on rations and merciless winters. You wander around the promenade of deserted streets and unheard apologies. Searching for the loyal ones remaining. Seems even the greediest bourgeois refused to take what little you have left to oer. Your surroundings lack the vibrance of years past.

Every corner is more devoid of colour than the last. The underground rumblings previously unacknowledged.

Growing louder until the cobblestones burst beneath your calculated footsteps. Your loafers strewn on the surface as you flee the eruption, unclasping your mantle to shield the downpour.

As the endless rainstorm approaches its finale, The weight of your soaked frivolity is too much to trudge. Though unwilling, you've found the hope to rise yet again, walking through the darkest alleyway of your once prosperous land. You shed yet another piece of your idealized identity.

Lifeless trees.

Desolate crops.

Burned out lights and broken glass.

All of this, unrecognizable territory in your name.

All of this deafening silence that you rule. The significance of time never meant as little as it does in this moment.

When it feels as though every sense has lost itself on you.

A freezing substance dances its way over your toes.

Admitting defeat, you glance down at the riverbed.

You kneel before the only lively entity left, and ponder your reflection.

Darkened eyes and a clouded backdrop

What a scene!

The towering piece de resistance lay upon your emaciated countenance.

Frozen fingertips grasp your meaningless power and crown the waters. Having now regressed to what you've always truly been.

You observe what mysteries await ahead, looking back just once before letting go.

You wonder.

"What am I, but the monarch of no man's land? And when did the line between kingdom and dystopia begin to blur