Full House Tarot Issue 1

January 2022

A note from the editors Welcome to Issue One of our new-look Tarot deck.

For Full House’s first year we worked our way through the standard playing cards deck, launching with the Diamonds issue in Autumn 2020, and finishing with the Clubs issue in Summer 2021. Each issue contained 13 pieces, one for each card in each suite of the standard deck. We have been fortunate to receive so much excellent work since our inception – poetry, prose and art – that we also published Wildcard issues in addition to each Issue, so that we could share, publish and celebrate more of our contributors’ wonderful work.

For our second year, we are doing something a little different. Having worked our way through the 52-card deck, we’re now taking our inspiration from Tarot cards to shape our issues for the year ahead. But these are not Tarot cards you’ll find in any other deck; they have been created specifically for Full House by our brilliant Art Editor Claire Hampton. She has designed the front and back cover of the issue, and all the tarot card artwork within.

As well as all the hard work and incredible creativity from Claire, we couldn’t have put this issue together without our fantastic volunteer team, who give up their time to blind-review each piece, and help us collectively choose the best work to showcase in each issue.

Another change we have made this year is to invite a Guest Editor to join us in the final shortlisting and editorial decisions. We have been honoured and delighted to work with the brilliant writer Mandira Pattnaik on this issue. A huge thanks to her for giving her time and commitment to this, and for her insightful comments and input.

As usual, we received far more brilliant work than we can publish in one single Issue, so rather than create additional Wildcard issues, we have created on our new website a Featured Creators section where we will publish work that we love but which didn’t quite make the cut in the latest Issue.

We’ve been in awe with the work we received, and feel so lucky to be able to publish such incredible writers. Thank you to all the wonderful writers and artists in this issue that trusted us with your work.

Claire will be selling print versions of the Tarot artwork featured, so do check out her website https://clairehampton.com if you’d like to support her work and own a piece of it yourself. Thank you again to Claire for her hard work and beautiful art pieces.

We really hope you enjoy reading this issue, and don’t forget to check out

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the audio version available on the website: www.fullhouseliterary.com/issues Many thanks for your continued support of Full House and all our wonderful contributors.

- Leia and JP

Head Editor and Assistant Editor of FH

On Monday mornings, when my husband leaves for work (he works outstation and returns for the weekend), I’m usually too busy to notice I’m lonely, except now, as I’m holidaying, and the kids are in school. It’s like the soft cocoon of words that envelop us constantly, and we notice when we are cold.

Words — spoken, heard, written and read— how they comfort us! Presenting this Issue with words and art to surround you, take you inside a world different from the one you’re in at the moment!

When Leia and JP invited me to guest edit the first issue of Full House Literary’s second year, I was both elated and intimidated. All nervousness, however, was soon gone, as both were most kind, and amazingly accommodating to my schedules (different time zones!) Thank you both for the great learning curve!

Our editorial process included inputs and suggestions, and finally, all three of us joined via Zoom (our official final discussions!) and brainstormed to get the right mix together. That process was most rewarding and we came up with those pieces that received our unanimous love.

Here’s applauding the wonderful work that makes this issue! Hope you take time to relish all that’s inside.

Happy reading!

- Mandira Pattnaik Guest Editor

With big thanks to our talented and dedicated volunteer team: Claire, Kinneson, Jack, Lisa, George, Millie, Beth, Bareerah, Christina, Carol, Rich, Alice, Charity, Ed, Michael, Teo, Kathryn, Bianca, Christopher, Natalie, and Amarys.

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The cards to come The way I love you by Arden Hunter

p.6

How to Stay Warm by Kathryn O’Driscoll

p.8

Smoke of Dreams by Terry Holland

p.9

Roses in Midgard by Jem Henderson

p.12

The harvest of the gods by Patrick Ball

p.14

An Affront to the Eyes by Chris Warren

p.16

Bees by Millie Guille

p.18

Small but Mighty by Jenni Coutts

p.20

Surfaces by Camellia Choudhuri

p.22

Pack by Amy Neufeld

p.24

judas lies dying by Kelci Baughman McDowell

p.26

Bath Tub Philosophy by Molly Beale

p.28

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The Father, The Son by Spencer Woollaston

p.30

Into the blue by Helen Gwyn Jones

p.32

Silent Danger by Mark Blickley and Amy Bassin

p.34

Tu me manque by N. Taupe

p.38

Only the Ghosts by JP Relph

p.40

When I tell him grandma’s in a better place by Amanda Rabaduex

p.42

Una sopita by Sabina Y. Wong

p.44

is nothing like the sting of indifference by Nicole Callräm

p.46

The Night Bird by Molly Greer

p.48

July by Jennifer Judge

p.50

About the contributors

p.51

Artwork by Claire Hampton: The sad clown (p.5) The dragonfly (p.7) Madame mystery (p.11) Farmyard foes (p.13) The three of bees (p.17) The queen of cats (p.19) The collector of coins (p.21) The Thieves (p.23) (p.41) Keep it in the clouds (p.27) The boy who hates hugs (p.29) Father time (p.33) The masquerade (p.37) The Moth (p.39) The dreamer (p.41) The shooting star (p.43), The Siren (p.47), Summer Skies (p.49)

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The way I love you Arden Hunter The casual cruelty of The way I love you broke me I’m growing tired of the way I love you is infinite reminders of your treachery get rid of it lives in the shine of my eyes are tired from crying take his kiss and the soft step of my feet ache from pacing did you say you’d give him every strand of hair attempts to pacify me did you tell him to contain it makes me sick I gave you every fold of my skin itches where you touch me give me a knife to make a channel for its passage away from here away from you does he touch you the way that I love you have destroyed me the screaming in my head is fierce and full of hurry towards hell for all I care was it worth it is not the languid stretch my sanity to breaking were you thinking of a tame house catch my breath I’m dying you said you loved me but the prowl and pounce of course it wasn’t true it’s all gone dark things in the jungle calls for violence I’ve forgotten who I am quiet as the hunter is quiet now and still death comes stalking ever onwards the knife in my hand your veins are sleeping I’m tracing the path of your heart won’t beat I smother your cries so that I may capture it anew sense of purpose cradles me it’s the end of you now and keep it’s the end of us both when they come I won’t even run from these shining eyes clear for the first time in days would you forgive me if you must I regret what I’ve done? they can lock away my body but beware that my progress cannot be stopped the hate that drives is as inexorable as love and just as cruel am I still breathing?

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How to Stay Warm Kathryn O’Driscoll I rub my bones together like campfire sticks, the char of childhood trauma flakes and fire nips at it. A tiny solar flare of pain.

Of remembering.

I inhale ashes and ashes until my brain gets dark. Clogged by them.

But I keep striking matchstick against marrow, femurs split open like well-ready rhubarb; I think someone once told me this is how you keep yourself warm.

I think I like to tell myself this is how I stay warm turning bad dreams into bonfires and setting the sky ablaze with everything I should have done differently.

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Smoke of Dreams Terry Holland I light a cigarette: click, flash, flare. Hiss. Glow. Pull in the smoke.

Unhabitual, now. A remnant. A ritual. An offering. Appeasement. Sacrifice is not the right word. Or maybe it is.

Plant of promise from the New World. Scorched earth. Forest fire. After the burn-off, the regrowth. Fresh foliage flares, Phoenix-like, from ashes.

Smoke coils blue; up, up, out of the open window.

-oSmoke coils brown/grey; up, up, out through the opening in the temple roof.

Dusky beams, red clay tiles. A square of sky. Dreams, caught, entwined around ancient rafters.

Visitors stand quiet, heads bowed. Click of beads. The air all incense and expectation, wafted on the rustle of paper prayers.

No photography allowed in here. The mind’s eye is all.

Click! The shutter snaps shut. Memory stored.

-oI exhale. Twin smokestreams – a parody Chinese dragon. Missy Luna, black familiar, looks up, green saucer eyes questioning. Wrinkles her nose. Turns tail, sashays away. Slipstreaming disapproval.

-o-

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The temple is the mirror to our souls, reflecting the moment, that shines then shatters. Then lives on in shards: glimpses caught in a shop window; the flash of colour in a crowd; flame hair flying in a strong breeze.

Fragments of wild calligraphy; pages torn loose, scattered on the wind.

-oWe leave the temple and slip into a café styled like a ’50s American diner. All red and yellow Formica, slick waitresses and gleaming chrome. Incongruous and not amidst teeming traffic, chaotic, clamouring street-stalls, massage parlours and skyscrapers, tangled electricity cables spiderwebbing the gaps between the high-rises like mycelium.

We drink lapsang souchong, talking and laughing like it’s not the last time. I light a cigarette.

-oClick, flash, flare. Hiss, glow. Pull in the smoke. Exhale. It escapes through the open window, and is gone.

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Roses in Midgard Jem Henderson Roses in Midgard The vial. The nurse. Just a sharp scratch. It fills on the second attempt with brown-edged rose petals. The walk home in the rain, past the mistclung churchyard where Yggdrasil stands and stone - faced angels beatbox to the rapid thump of your pulse.

The wait. The frantic calls to get your results, Hel cackles down the phone from her ice-cold reception desk. They're not here yet. The text message. The doctor wants to discuss the findings. A heart emoji to take the edge off. A shot of mead to take the edge off. Your first cigarette in 10 months to take the edge off.

The speculum made of frost from the cupboards in Niflheim, biting before they insert the wand for your trans vaginal ultrasound. The technician gives you nothing. Not a smile. Not a bunch of carnations. Only experts can read these runes, give you their gift of a diagnosis - a rose, its petals starting to land one by one onto the windowsill.

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The harvest of the gods Patrick Ball After the revolution the decision was made to take the gods of the people hostage. This turned out to be a bigger and more complex job than we had anticipated. The initial vision had been of a medium-sized warehouse in the capital, perhaps a few miles wide and a few miles long and a few miles deep, in which could be housed the wooden and stone and fibreglass idols that till then had stood in village squares and in neighbourhood shrines or in the courtyards of the villas of the rich. With their gods forever under threat of death the people, it was thought, would turn docile. So we set out then with picks and jackhammers and hacksaws to take the gods and to cart them back to the capital.

But in one town the god was a flock of crows whose shit slicked every surface. In the centre of one palace the god was a fountain of pigs’ blood.

Crouched beneath an overgrown bridge we found a god, perhaps twelve years old, drinking shoplifted Heineken. In a village in a gorge in the mountains the people sang the god all day and all night in eight-hour shifts. In the troglodyte towns the god shone through a hole in the wall to illuminate the caves between six and six-thirty AM. In another place the town was the god and the god was the town. On the gantries and skyways between skyscrapers the god was a new grain of rice each evening. Or the god was a bear, or just the scent of a bear, or just the memory of a bear, or just a story about a bear skilfully filleting its catch with a Swiss army knife that was once published in a prestigious literary journal. In one basilica the god was my own first kiss, playing in looped slowmotion in the dark.

We carved new caves in the capital to catch the sun between six and six thirty. We took tanks into which we could drain the pig’s blood or the cow’s milk or the crude oil or honey or copper sulphate solution. We laid out sugar traps for the sacred mosquitoes and we entangled the sacred starlings in nets.

From looted vaults we paid the universities to develop machines for selecting rice, or for remembering bears, or for singing hymns in artificial voices. We tore down the god-towns and god-mountains and god-forests and rebuilt them

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in the capital whose walls swelled ever outward. Where the people resisted the harvest we brought tear gas, or sjamboks, or the guns that shoot bean bags.

I went then with a sledgehammer and with some revolutionary cadres to take down my first kiss. When we arrived the people stood together with locked arms between me and myself and the boy of back then.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” said my younger voice, very loudly, and then it laughed. By muscle memory I knew each movement and word that was coming, but I could not remember the name of the boy.

“It’s okay. Me neither.”

I waved one hand and the cadres advanced with nightsticks out. The chain of the people was swiftly broken. My kiss was bundled into a sack and locked into a container and sent by rail freight to the capital. With bloody faces and without their god the people wailed.

Many years later the revolution came again. The warehouses were cracked open and the god-machines were sabotaged. The mountains were moved back to old jurisdictions. I flew from my apartment in the north-east of the capital to a warehouse in the south-west to spill my kiss from its sack.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I was saying.

“It’s okay. Me neither.”

I rode back with it in the container, watching my hands, my mouth. I opened the doors before the same basilica, pouring light upon myself and the boy. But I was already there, in a slow-motion loop, cuffing a child with zipties.

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An Affront to the Eyes Chris Warren

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Bees Millie Guille Bees haunt the lavender stalks they are looking for a kiss your tongue is a stamen in my mouth, lips pollen-hot you bent on park like a

have me this bench doll

if my mother only knew oh if my mother—

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Small but Mighty Jenni Coutts

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Surfaces Camellia Choudhuri Surfaces i.

Wood

The splinter on the piano - as old as us, as old as a fairy tale - we must have known why it was there (I shivered when you traced it with a finger). Perhaps there had been a fight, an accident, some miracle, a curse – that chipped a little storm in brown solidity.

The music rose and fell, all monochrome, all formula, grinding a prison of keys that never felt a thing.

We had to sing to it, in chorus, had to let voices rise and fall, gush, melt into foam, till by some accident it splintered a place in me. And I should have known, it was as old as us, as old as a fairytale - too young, too scared to burn.

ii.

Pearl

Our kiss opened like an anemone in a whirlpool’s heart - churning possibility in soporific lips hesitant, awkward, cowing, then crashed into their coves.

We could shatter this world, any world, with a breath or glance or a slippery word. You played the game too well - could best Cupid at his trade, retreat, balance, bullseye. The arrow of your gaze asked for compensation – for my shame, all mother of pearl. And so I said, Go look for it in the ocean, I left it in those waves.

iii.

Flint

Tuesday; we were sixteen, knees jammed under the desk, choked by regulation, skirts, biology.

The last hours – mine gave yours a nudge, let a joke spill from my skin into yours.

I remember after all these years: the sun latticed in your hair, half a word scratched in the margins - 'Iris' - a part of the eye - yours lighter than mine, pulsing; a wildflower pimpled by rain.

We walked a mile and a half, saved bus fare, spent our breath, being indiscriminate. You crossed roads like the song torn from a cuckoo's heart. I was the better one with lies, and tipped them off at every corner, every minute, against your elbows, between your brows; and you, you never saw quicksand churning in my fingertips, even in the light.

We had a way of leaving things the way the gold in a teacup turns to stone. I fancy we've made it flint this time. But when I see the sun latticed in your hair, it is still Tuesday and we are sixteen.

So tell me for once, tell me why, two flintstones so far apart, can make me toss and burn.

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Pack Amy Neufeld “Trevor! Stop taking the longest fries!” Carter slapped the back of my head, aiming for playful and missing.

“I’m not!”

Carter held up the fry I’d dropped and measured it against the one in his hand. Mine was maybe a fraction of a centimetre longer.

“See?” He popped both into his mouth.

The food court was full of moms and their kids and old people drinking small cups of coffee. No hot chicks at all, which was why Carter and us all were here. Kenny swore he heard Daliah was coming with her older sister and some university friends, but we’d been sitting in these hard plastic chairs for an hour and not seen a single hottie.

A kid walked by with a big smile and a red balloon, some stupid promotion from a new store.

“How funny would it be if that popped right now?” Carter asked, eating the last of the fries.

We all laughed like jackals.

“My ass hurts, let’s go,” Carter said. “I need a phone case and I hear Cellicon has a five-fingered discount!”

My stomach clenched as everyone high fived and left the food court. I scooped up the trays they’d all walked away from, picturing my dad’s face if I got busted for shoplifting. Picturing my mom’s was worse.

“My sister told me that the kiosks got new security cameras,” I invented wildly as I dumped the trays by the trash and jogged to catch up.

“With, like, 24-hour monitoring and enhanced facial recognition.”

Carter looked at me. Hard.

“Sucks,” I shrugged.

“Not worth it. I’ll use my mom’s Amazon account. She doesn’t keep track of what she buys. Let’s get out of here.”

Carter led the way to the parking lot. I walked to the bus stop, but he and the other guys stopped near a section of parked cars. Carter picked up two rocks the size of baseballs.

“Betcha can’t throw it hard enough to break a window.” He held one out to me.

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The car had two car seats in the back and plenty of toys.

“Dibs on the Spongebob umbrella!” Kenny called, dancing around and punching the air. Carter had a wicked grin, and my heart started to race, the sound of shattering glass already piercing my ears.

“No way.”

I walked away. Didn’t even care that they taunted my back as I left. I’d go find Nolan, my old buddy in elementary. So what if bullying him had become an unofficial school sport? We used to love running trucks down the slide at the park together. Never felt my guts twist around at his suggestions. We’d been real friends. We would be again.

Except none of that happened. I stayed glued to the spot next to the beatup navy sedan with a cartoon umbrella in the backseat.

And when Carter pressed the rock into my hand, I threw it at the window as hard as I could.

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judas lies dying Kelci Baughman McDowell

“But their spirits did not dare stand before him, except for Judas Iscariot.”

The Gospel of Judas

judas lies dying lemon eyes sallow skin a betrayer’s rope-burnt neck all i want is for lucy to kiss me, brushed teeth or not— lucy’s dry lips and cracked tongue with a ring of the cable car gears catching an electric bus sparking —my mouth tastes delicious cigarette smoke but sober and straight just dizzy with apocrypha— as if missing a kidney begrimed fingertips touch a ribbon of stitches lined uneven like downtown streets and a bay mist gathers droplets on lucy’s chin countenance dripping with tears on the tabernacle’s steps: judas’s sister found him hanging in the garage but lucy won’t lay me singing with stringy hair because judas’s leading star rose the moment through street trees the cobalt of the sky flamed

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Bath Tub Philosophy Molly Beale Is it better to be loved or understood?

Body curved a ruddy crescent; kneecaps gnarled lily pads. Turning under thumb and forefinger, a soap petal is torn.

Crude shaped heart, plump slab melting pinkish guts. Fragrant entropy. I rub the flower that’s not really a flower into dimples iridescent scars: falling apart. Is touch love? I love understanding. The petal becomes me and I it. Somehow, this body this planet. I don’t understand love. Impenetrable bulb. I revolt against the heavy fingers of summer. Our precise sun too cruel. I’ve got this lingering childhood belief in all people shapeshifting into monsters. Yawning fangs behind closed doors, when my eyes shut– sprouting scales. A petal is torn.

Nightmares won’t go to bed. I don’t want to be loved if I’m not of my own making. Body ballooning a shiny skin made to pop. Teeth stark as stars imprison a beastly conspiracy rooted in skull. This body this planet more than Heaven’s frivolous promises falling apart. Monsters are monsters for other people exist. I did not bloom; myself blown from a wand: a breath became a song. A scream. Soppy heft. A soap bubble slides a wet leg’s descent; tremulous mutiny. It lifts off above us little citizens of Hell amongst whom I melt. I lift off, an invisible phosphorous thing beyond the fretting of hands. A petal is torn then becomes a winged bit of feeling; an iridescent scale.

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The Father, The Son Spencer Woollaston I would have been content in the living room, if it had not been defined by his presence: a cold ashtray balanced on the armrest by his side as precariously as the stubby cigarette from his mouth; the ruffled broadsheet lay on his lap as a quilt, and the controller to the television was firmly locked in his weathered hand. Even in his unconscious state, he had an authority I dared not challenge, but to silence that nauseating chant of a football crowd projecting from the television to serenade his sleep.

I sat cross-legged on the brittle carpet, rolling strands of dog fur unearthed from the pressed fibres like tumble-weed. All the while, I kept my eyes pointing upwards.

I’d call him ‘Dad’, if the word did not have such a strong suggestion of love and respect. I didn’t know much about him. He worked night shifts. When home, he’d sit on the dining room table taking up space with dusty, hard-cover books. Once ready, he’d immerse himself in book-keeping. In the mornings, as I got ready for school, he was still working. In the afternoons, when I got back home, he was asleep. All to provide us with a crumbling council house in the floodplain of a river and the seismic zone of a busy railway.

How long was a football game meant to last? Those chants, like a bully’s taunts, were so confrontational. Had the savages not been so desperate to display their senseless joy, the noise might have been more bearable. Why were they happy? And him, that frowning face across the room, unconscious through it all. How dare he sit there, not even awake to enjoy the game that made me suffer? It was insulting. It was unjust. I loathed him. My fingers had stopped fiddling with the ball of fur and were now clenched into a fist.

That face, wrinkled and slumped into his neck, and all which stood in the thick air around him, were perfectly dormant, like a world of silent prayer unto a malevolent god. How cruel it was to tease me with the remote, while forbidding me its use. The thought alone was impious, but I could take it for myself.

Palms flat out on the floor, I lifted myself up so gracefully the very air

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would not be disturbed, but cast adrift around my body. He did not move. I felt the tension beneath my feet, and readjusted my weight to avoid the floor from creaking. Still, I went undetected. My body rose, as if easing off the effects of gravity, until my arms were pulled up from the floor, my back straightened and I was standing, just a few feet away from him.

For a moment, I stayed still and watched his face. The slightest flicker of an eyelash and I would not have the confidence to go further. His gravelled breath marked the passing of time. Reluctantly, I took my eyes away from him, watching instead my own movements. One step, and another. I had yet to make a sound. At this distance, I didn’t even allow myself to breathe. His breath, though, had been loud and with a sickly clarity. The moisture of his throat crackled. The fumes of stale tobacco grew stronger, more penetrative.

I was lifting a foot off the floor, getting closer and closer to reaching the remote, when, all at once, my precautions were made in vain. Crashing violently from behind our garden, a train sliced the sun, spilling floods of light through our window, projecting an absurd, flashing silhouette across the wall, me a pantomime villain, both arms and a leg in surreptitious suspension, one arm reached out like a thief, him just a stirring, innocent man. I knew then what was going to happen. He would wake. He would open his eyes, bewildered at my idiocy. Soon, I’d hear him say, “twit”, and I’d have to sit back down, defeated. He’d sit there, silently, snarling.

I was right. He did wake. The stub of the cigarette landed on his shirt and broke apart. “What are you doing?” he asked. I thought he sounded abrupt and bitter, but it had really been quite kind.

“Nothing,” I lied, seemingly carefree. I sat down, this time on the sofa opposite his armchair. The train continued to make the sunlight sweep across the room in waves. Eventually, its rhythmic clacking receded, but the monotonous groan of the football crowd went on.

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Into the blue Helen Gwyn Jones

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Silent Danger Prose by Mark Blickley, Image by Amy Bassin

It was starting again. His father slammed the bedroom door so hard Nicholas could feel the vibrations travelling down the hallway, searching for him. He jumped off the kitchen chair.

Nicholas knew those vibrations. Like lightning, they were attracted to metal and it didn’t take a genius to know that the new kitchen set his mother recently bought had chairs with aluminum legs.

After the vibrations wobbled the chair, the yelling began. His mother Lucille, and his father Charlie, were now locked in their bedroom.

Nicholas liked living in the city but when the yelling started, he always wished he was living in the country. It wasn’t the trees or grass or fresh air Nicholas longed for, it was a house. A big house far enough away from his

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neighbors so his parents’ yelling couldn’t be heard. Everyone in the building could hear their screaming and the next day at school Nicholas would be teased about it.

No one called Nicholas by his given name, not even his parents. His father was always asking, “Hey, Nick, how’s it going?” Nicholas would answer, “Things are going swell and my name’s Nicholas, not Nick.” That’s when his mother would laugh and say, “Lighten up, Nicky.”

The first time Nicholas realized he hated the name Nick was one morning at the breakfast table. Nicholas was busy scooping out raisins with his spoon when his father burst into the kitchen. He had his hand on his throat and blood was seeping through his fingers.

Lucille jumped up from the table. “My God, Charlie, what did you do to yourself?”

“I didn’t do anything! It’s these cheap razors you buy. Even when I use a fresh blade, I nick myself.” Charlie pulled his hand away so his wife and son could admire his wound. The sight was so ugly that Nicholas’ cereal stopped tasting sweet, so he pushed it aside.

“If you stop buying such expensive liquor, I might be able to spend more on razor blades!” shouted Lucille.

“Since when have you complained about the quality of booze I bring into this apartment?” Charlie shouted back.

“Since it’s given you the shakes so bad in the morning you cut your own throat!”

“Ha! You’re the cutthroat in this house!” snapped Charlie.

“How dare you say that to me, especially in front of Nicky!” cried Lucille. But she need not have worried. Nicholas was already running down

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the apartment stairs, heading for school.

As much as Nicholas disliked the name Nick, he hated Nicky even more.

It rhymed with sticky, tricky, sicky and much worse. More than once he was the subject of some other hot-shot fifth grader’s rap song.

No, you could keep Nick and Nicky, but Nicholas he liked. It had dignity.

It was a name long enough that people had to make an effort to say it.

Nicholas tip-toed down the hallway as he made his way to his room.

He didn’t want his parents to hear him. Despite all the loud arguing coming from their bedroom, he still had to be careful if he didn’t want to be detected.

That’s because a strange thing happened whenever they started their shouting matches. Whoever was doing the screaming had the other’s complete attention.

The two voices never overlapped, never collided. When one parent stopped yelling there’d always be a slight pause before the other parent started in again.

It was these pauses that were dangerous. As soon as they were aware of their son’s presence, they’d stop yelling long enough to ask Nicholas to judge which one of them was in the right. No matter what Nicholas said it always made things worse.

One night at the dinner table he asked his parents about their fighting style. “Mom, Dad, how come when you fight you never scream at the same time?”

His father straightened up in his chair. “It’s because we’re civilized people, Nick.”

His mother placed her spoon by her dish. “And we respect each other, Nicky. Your father and I respect what the other has to say, so we listen.”

“Oh,” said Nicholas as he dipped his spoon into a cup of chocolate pudding.

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Tu me manque N. Taupe Longing produces modes of both belonging and “being long,” or persisting over time.

—Elizabeth Freeman

Do you want to feel a loss?

I scraped my knee tripping over the boundary. Touch the wound.

Reach through the time zones and maybe our bodies will find each other’s contours.

Is it midnight in Scotland? I keep fucking the conversion.

I imagine in your summer, the dawn and dusk stretch out long, unrolling, tearing across the sky.

As you fall half asleep on the call, You’re still

there.

My fingertips are lacerated by the sharp ends of your pained words, Or just by the shattered glass of my broken phone.

Am I reading too much into it?

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Only the Ghosts JP Relph When we shared our first kiss, when your lips, chip-salty and beer-tangy, pressed to mine, I felt them dance to life in my chest. Those small, white butterflies I’d see on sunny mornings; like torn tissues flitting in the buddleiahaze. I could feel their dusty wings tickle and tantalise, like your fingers in my hair.

When we shared our first dance, when your arms enwrapped me in all my diaphanous georgette, I felt them quicken my pulse. Those glorious, Monarch butterflies we’d watched kissing Caribbean milkweed; like blood-orange stained-glass. I could feel their feathery antennae probe and promise, like your tongue on my neck.

When we shared our first child, when your hands embraced her in all her milk-sweet flannel, I felt them swoon in my heart. Those burnished, Comma butterflies we’d spot on shady woodland walks; like scalloped scraps of vintage fabric. I could feel their ragged wings swish and soothe, like your lips on her rosy-plump cheek.

When we shared our last anniversary, when your smile, whiskey-sour and sham-thin, hung on threads, I felt only the ghosts of them. Their powdered corpses littering the hollowness. The absence. In time, in their place, industrious spiders would weave silk-strong scaffolds; pulling together my broken parts. Warming the cavern of my chest in anticipation of a new, rousing flutter.

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When I tell him grandma’s in a better place Amanda Rabaduex

When I tell him grandma’s in a better place

what I mean is don’t spend your childhood worrying about endings what I mean is I don’t know where she went but I’m supposed to have the answers so I pretend I’m the one who taught him the sky is blue but already he knows that’s only sometimes the truth because he’s seen it despondent gray seen it bruised just before rain he’s seen how the rabbits feel the hawk how bare branches tremble on rotting trunks seen his mother in the dirt on her knees pulling stone after stone just to plant seed when I say his sandbox is not a pastoral what I mean is he’s watched darkness steal the day he’s seen a body placed in a grave but then again, he’s seen a new spring morning like a prism shimmer in sunrise so when I tell him grandma’s in a better place what I mean is it depends on the way we look for the light

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Una sopita Sabina Y. Wong “How much did you say again?” I ask, pen poised over my notebook. At the top of the page, I’d written Sopa de estrellas.

From my vantage point behind my Grandma’s shoulder, I missed when she poured in the oil, but I hope to catch the next ingredient.

She swings her hand over, a pile of dried pasta stars resting in her palm.

“That much,” she says, and tosses them into the pan. Picking up her wooden spoon, she stirs to coat them in the warm oil, the gentle scraping amplifying up the pan’s metal sides.

Sighing through my nose, I put my pen down. It might be easier to look up a recipe online, but I know it won’t taste the same. I want her recipe, the one my Grandma carried through the ages to today.

After some invisible cue—I don’t know what she’s looking for—my Grandma points with her chin. “Damelas.”

The “-las” refers to the onion I diced. When I was cutting it, she watched over my shoulder, making little tch sounds when she perceived I was becoming lazy with my task. In my notebook, it’s the only ingredient I’ll get an accurate measure of—half a white onion.

With both hands, I drop the pieces into the pan, their sizzle a cheering roar at my tiny contribution. My Grandma hands me the spoon, and I poke them around while she gets the can of tomato sauce. Steam wafts up to my nose, and my stomach growls at its beckoning.

“Mira. Watch,” she says, dumping the can’s contents into the pot, and I think, That’s easy to remember. The sauce muffles the onions and dampens their savory scent, but quickly morphs into gentle plopping sounds and a smell that’s acidic and layered. Then my Grandma walks to the sink and puts some water in the empty can—who knows how much?—swirling it as she returns to my side, and adds it to the mix.

I hand her the spoon and step back. She moves with quiet authority, adding spices and homemade broth, working off some long-ingrained timer that I can’t hear.

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In my world of alarms, measuring spoons, and precision, it’s a wonder if I’ll ever get to her level.

As she gives the pot one final stir, I see thousands of ghost women standing behind her, mimicking the same motion, pouring a little of the sopita into their hands and tasting for seasoning.

“Mmhmm.” My Grandma covers the pot, reducing the heat to low. Her face glows with excitement when she turns to me. “Did you get it?”

Not at all.

“I think, I need to watch maybe...a few more times?” I say.

“Ahh. Así es,” she agrees with a nod. Her eyes get a faraway look. “That was me, too.”

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is nothing like the sting of indifference Nicole Callräm last night I wished you perfumed dreams under the yellow blanket of a full moon I spoke every Osmanthus bloom along the walks that take me alone alone alone

to and from work back to my home

and I described bright buttery ones and tangerinehued constellations-- even my most favored milk-honey buds that sit sweet shy amid leaves smooth sea glass I could get drunk on those, you know like you they coat my bones gold turn my heart to plum wine but only the street cats and I seem to note this delicate romance as we slink and hide try to find meaning along sidewalks under a gray sky

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The Night Bird Molly Greer This house is so still that it might not exist.

An invisible cloak for packed bags, fidgeting fingers, palms slick with sweat.

The car door slams – I press my cheek to the screen, perking up my ears

like a startled deer on a moonless night, eyes reflecting off headlights.

I calculate the weight of his footsteps, the frequency of his step, the rate of his breathing.

The rhythmic hum of cicadas is broken by the sharp alarm of the night bird – Her intricate song raises the hammer, beats the anvil,

shakes the stirrup.

Unleashing a melody with notes so breathtaking, that her intentions dissolve into the thick night air.

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July Jennifer Judge A million small miracles come in tandem: hummingbird helicopters around front porch fuchsia, hanging, searching for the one open bloom amongst the hard pods, lips sealed tight.

Nighttime rain yields, leaves glitter chrome.

Girls in braids and helmets skateboard recklessly golden, voices slung together in easy conversation like an arm looped casually through another.

I want to remember this day, hang inside it when all other days slide through my fingers: my daughters 13 and 11, perfect as the ripe blackberries picked across the street, make art with watercolors on porch stairs, trickle notes from ukulele out open windows, fling themselves into poses of reclining with this-is-a-good-book sighs.

And someone has to say it: my god, what a perfect day.

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contributors Arden Hunter Arden Hunter is an aroace agender writer, artist and performer. With an eclectic range of interests from the horrific to the whimsical, the theme tying all of their work together is an inexplicable and unconditional love of the ridiculous beast that is called ‘human’. Arden has words and art hosted and upcoming with Thi Wurd, Acid Bath Publishing and MASKS Literary Magazine among other places. Find them on Twitter @hunterarden, Instagram @ thegardenofarden and ardenhunter.com.

Kathryn O’Driscoll Kathryn O’Driscoll is a spoken word poet, writer and activist from Bath, England. She is the current UK Slam Champion and a World Slam Finalist. She talks openly about disabilities, mental health, neurodiversity, LGBTQIA+ issues and joys and gender politics in her wide range of poems. She was part of the BAFTA-winning spoken word TV show Life & Rhymes. She has a first class degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. Her ACE funded debut collection ‘Cliff Notes’ will be published by Verve Poetry Press in February.

Terry Holland Terry Holland grew up in England before studying theatre and languages in London and Berlin and settling in Utrecht, the Netherlands. His creative writing has been published by Almond Press (Scotland), the Bath Flash Fiction Anthology (UK) and Stukah! magazine (Netherlands), and is scheduled for publication by Pure Slush (Australia).

Jem Henderson Jem Henderson is a queer poet from Leeds, UK with an MA in Creative Writing from York St. John University. They have been published in Civic Leicester’s Black Lives Matter, Streetcake and recently won a Creative Future award for underrepresented writers. Their ramblings can be found on twitter @jem_face.

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Patrick Ball Patrick Ball is a writer of fiction and poetry in Sheffield, UK. Before that he was a misguided philosopher in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Chris Warren Chris Warren is a writer and typographic artist from Bromham, UK. His work is concerned with all aspects of typographic investigation, including the use of ‘obsolete’ technologies, especially the manual typewriter. His work has been exhibited and published internationally, with recent work appearing in The Cambridge Literary Review; with Hesterglock Press in conjunction with The University of Westminster, UK and as part of the TYPEWRITTEN series through Timglaset Editions / PSW gallery. His most recent work, D!N, is available through Redfox Press, County Mayo, Ireland.

Millie Guille Millie Guille is a London based writer, and holds an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. Her poetry has been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition, and shortlisted for the 2020 Aurora Poetry Prize, and the 2020 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition.

Jenni Coutts Jenni Coutts is an illustrator, speculative fiction writer and junior doctor based in Glasgow, Scotland. In her artwork she enjoys exploring themes of darkness, femininity, strong emotions and the fantastical. Her work has been featured in Déraciné Magazine, BFS horizons and on the cover of ‘Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology’. Find her on twitter @jenni_coutts or on instagram @jennicouttsart.

Camellia Choudhuri Camellia Choudhuri is a first-year English Literature student pursuing her Master’s degree at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India.

Amy Neufeld With her degree in English and diploma in Theatre Arts, Amy (she/her) is a contributor to Shameless Magazine and CBC Radio’s The Irrelevant Show.

Amy has been published in Daily Drunk Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine,

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Frazzled, and Little Old Lady Comedy, and is a member of Pat the Dog’s 2021 Women’s Room for playwrights. Amy is a knitter and a friend to animals.

Kelci Baughman McDowell Kelci Baughman McDowell is a librarian and book artist living in San Francisco, California, USA. Molly Beale Molly Beale is a poet from Peterborough in the UK. They’ve previously been published by Datableed, Guttural Zine, Whatever Keeps the Lights On and New River Press; along with having done readings for Litmus Publishing and There is No Planet B festival. They are currently running Public Menace, a poetry initiative that hopes to connect emerging poets: www. publicmenacepoetry.com Spencer Woollaston Spencer is a London-based writer working in Ecommerce as an Online Operations Manager. Though a stubborn sceptic, Spencer doesn’t see any reason why he cannot incorporate magic, superstition, religion and the otherworldly into his work. Previously published by Bandit Fiction. @spencerzachw Helen Gwyn Jones Helen Gwyn Jones started recording her world at the age of 8 when she bought a Brownie camera from her sister, something which has become a lifelong passion. A collector of the past (hers and other people’s) she likes nothing better than muted images of imperfection. May be found poring over Welsh grammar books when not photographing drains or going into raptures over rust. Recently published at BluesDoodles.com, Hungry Ghost Project, Free Flash Fiction, Acropolis Journal and Paddler Press; exhibited at Print Swap Exhibition, New York.

Instagram: @helengwynjones Twitter: @helengwynjones Facebook: Helen Gwyn Jones Photographic Artist Mark Blickley and Amy Bassin New York interdisciplinary artist Amy Bassin and writer Mark Blickley

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work together on text-based art collaborations and experimental videos.

Their work has appeared in many national and international publications as well as two books, Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes from the Underground’ (Moria Books, Chicago) and Dream Streams (Clare Songbird Publishing House, New York). Their videos, Speaking In Bootongue and Widow’s Peek: The Kiss of Death represented the United States in the 2020 year-long world tour of Time Is Love: Universal Feelings: Myths & Conjunctions, organized by the esteemed African curator, Kisito Assangni.

N. Taupe N. Taupe is someone’s pseudonym. They are a queer/disabled/trans/nonbinary person. Their work has previously been published in Pollux Journal, hyacinthus mag, and warning lines. You can find them @taupe_n on Twitter.

JP Relph JP Relph is a working-class Cumbrian who grew up just across the border with Scotland. She started writing flash fiction at the beginning of 2021 and is mostly hindered in her endeavours by four cats and aided by lots of tea.

A forensic science degree, a passion for microbes, bugs and botany, and a dogged determination to make people laugh, all motivate her words. JP has flash in The Fantastic Other, HISSAC 2021, Sledgehammer, Splonk and Noctivagant Press. Twitter - @RelphJp Amanda Rabaduex A. Rabaduex is a poet, writer, and educator who currently lives in Tennessee. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in English and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University.

Sabina Y. Wong Sabina Y. Wong (she/her) lives in a tiny apartment in Los Angeles made from the hundreds of books in her TBR. Her work is forthcoming in Janus Literary, Full House Literary, Provenance Journal, and Gastropoda. Though she’s supposed to be writing, she may often be found on Twitter and Instagram @SabinaYWong.

Nicole Callräm

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Nicole Callräm lives and works in Shanghai, China. She turned back to poetry in recent years to intimately explore issues of identity, love, and existential conflicts that have been calling out for attention in her life. She loves to drink wine and ride bike (preferably on a sunny day and in that order).

She has been published in Nude Studio, A Shanghai Poetry Zine, Rat’s Ass Review, and Alluvium.

Molly Greer Molly Greer lives in Maryland with her husband and two children. Her work has appeared in 34 Orchard, Green Ink Poetry, Last Leaves Magazine, and Outcast Press Poetry. You can find her on Twitter: @MKGreerPoetry.

Jennifer Judge Jennifer Judge’s work has appeared in Literary Mama, Blueline, Under the Gum Tree, and Rhino, among others. She teaches writing at King’s College and earned her MFA from Goddard College. Her first book, Spoons, Knives, Checkbooks, is due out from Propertius Press in 2021. Learn more at jenniferjudgepoet.com.

Claire Hamptom Claire Hampton is an autistic writer and artist living in Teesside. She holds a BA(Hons) in Fine Art and is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing. Much to her bemusement, Claire is a BOTN 20/21 nominee with recent stories featuring in Crow & Cross Keys, Janus Literary Magazine, The Mark Literary Review, Versification, The Daily Drunk, Sledgehammer, Full House, and others. She has selected artwork forthcoming in Full House, Pithead Chapel, and Wrongdoing Magazine. Visit her website: clairehampton.com or say hello on Twitter @champtoncreates.

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Thank you for reading

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Featuring the work of: Claire Hampton Molly Greer Sabina Y. Wong Molly Beale JP Relph Amy Neufeld Mark Blickley and Amy Bassin Camellia Choudhuri Kathryn O’Driscoll Helen Gwyn Jones Arden Hunter N. Taupe Chris Warren Nicole Callräm Amanda Rabaduex Jenni Coutts Spencer Woollaston Patrick Ball Jennifer Judge Jem Henderson Kelci Baughman McDowell Terry Holland Millie Guille