ILMH Issue Seven by insertlitmaghere

issue seven// may 2016

From the Editors This work needs very little introduction. In this issue, as in our past issues, you’ll find noteworthy work from a variety of writers. As always, we are constantly striving to showcase a broad range of writing. We believe the selections we’ve made show a beautiful range of contemporary writing. But, some things have changed. In this issue, you’ll also see an interview with our first featured writer, Clara Zornado, who was the winner of our first writing contest. And, for the first time we are offering a print version of this issue which will be availble for order in the coming weeks. We are so proud of the work that makes up this issue, and we are so excited to share it with you. We apologize for the delayed release, we have jobs and school and we wanted to compile the best issue we could. It took longer than we expected, but we are so happy that we took the extra time to make sure this issue was as special as possible. This summer we are coming for your throat with new releases, new calls for submissions, and some exciting projects from our new editorial staff. We are so thankful for everyone who supports us, through reading and submitting. We’re so excited to be in this mess with you.

Featured Writer: Clara Zornado Interviewed by Joe Barchi

Clara Zornado is a New England based writer and performer. Julia and I were immediately drawn to their poems. The tenderness and control of language caught our attention. We were so excited to award them with our contest prize. We were also so proud to publish them, and invite them to speak with us about their life, and their poetics. Joe: Who are some of your favorite poets? Clara: e.e. cummings, Andrea Gibson, Joseph Bruscini. Joe: You’re not just a poet, you’re also a musician! Where does your band name, Lady Queen Paradise, come from? Clara: Yes: the moniker is based upon a line from the Oxford Book of English Verse. Joe: How does writing a song vary from writing a poem, if at all? Clara: I don’t approach writing poems like I approach writing music. My poems are personal, while my music is sensational, and those are two very different modes of creation for me. It’s much easier for me to mull over a poem draft than it is a song draft. I don’t like to let my songs stand still for too long or become stale, while with poems I’m okay with letting them sleep for as long as they need. I definitely trust my poems more than my music. In addition to that, when writing poems, I don’t think about how it would feel to perform them. Because they’re so personal, I don’t feel like I’m performing when I read them aloud. It feels like speaking. I don’t like to share the texts of my poems because they’re not meant to be read like that, just to be spoken, or heard. Joe: What are some of your favorite remedies for writer’s block? Clara: Even if I can’t make anything whole, I will still try to make pieces.

Joe: Any advice for young writers? Clara: I have a book shelf full of my journals and diaries ranging from 2006 to 2013 and I am so grateful that I kept them. I would recommend organizing your writing now, as having everything cataloged makes looking at your progress and keeping your ideas safe far easier. Joe: When did you start writing? Clara: I started writing poems when I was thirteen or fourteen, but I wrote a lot of short stories and vignettes before that. I also spent a lot of my childhood creating fake correspondence scenarios in which I would write letters to an imaginary character and they (I) would write back. Joe: Do you find most of your writing comes from personal experiences, or do you draw your inspiration from somewhere else? Clara:My poetry is definitively personal, my prose is far more fantastical. Joe: What are your plans for the summer? Clara: Making progress and money. Joe: Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your wildest writing goal/fantasy? Clara: Me, Miranda July, David Byrne. Sitting at a table. Blank pieces of paper strewn about, but no writing utensils. Joe: Who is the writer/musician you most wish to work with? Clara: If I could continue to work beside and in collaboration with my friends throughout my career, that would be extraordinary. Joe: Any plans for a full length collection of writing? Clara: Yes! Joe: Favorite social media site? Clara: Instagram!

Joe: Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your favorite piece of advice youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever been given? Clara: Not my favorite, but the most memorable lately: death is the opposite of everything. Joe: What would you say is, if anything, is the theme of your writing? Clara: The trauma of memory/the survival of trauma/the memory of survival. You can follow Clara on instagram @ladyqueenparadise. Enjoy their poems, and their immaculate grid on instagram.

Night Dialect Andrea Martineau Enter stage right. Sheets cover your body like a curtain blankets a stage. Hiding under the covers wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t protect you from the monsters of your mind; a ritual remnant of childhood. The house lights go down. You are alone in this theatre with your unconsciousness. Wicked little thespians lurk inside the roots of your psyche, promenade across this potent platform, litter this once grandiose space with black sand trapsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; coherency and logic drained into unreachable voids. They encircle, taunt you with the voices of loved ones minus their mentalities. You choke on this language, your tongue shrivels at its pungent taste. The glowing exit pirouettes away as the costumed hellions loom in front of you, snatch your voice leave you a stranded siren on this sinking cinereal shipwreck. Daylight will never again direct this stage. No exit.

Andrea Martineau is a third year English and Psychology student at the University of Regina. She is a hoarder of plants, essential oils, travel books, and half read non-fiction.

What Grows in the Desert Lydia Armstrong

He hates himself. Looks down at his body and says, There’s nothing here to love. Pale skin stretched over bones like sandstone, Ribs low ripples like dunes. Keeps his shirt on Never stays bare long enough to soak him in. He loves you like the desert does. Hates his insides too. Closes his eyes and says, I should’ve never been born. Says everything here is already dead. Makes you feel like you lost someone When he’s standing right there. Bone dry in a downpour Wrings the blood from your heart. You tell him things grow in the desert, There are mountains in those tiny grains. The whole world was born from a dust pile. He says he’d rather blow away Than return to it.

Lydia Armstrong lives in Richmond, Virginia with her cat Birdie, where she collects bugs, drinks copious amounts of mint tea, and is working on a novel. You can find her on Instagram @cr0ssmyfingers.

Heirlooms Shreya Sharan

“I know what you do” you told me one day “I know you run the bath, so no one knows you cry” But you were my mother, And I couldn’t fool you You never asked why Because you knew Just beneath an inquisition was a little girl much less fearful than you You must have known years ago Your skin was much too thin for the way life cuts those who choose to live So you chose, to pass life To me You must fear how you, passed me your eyes, your teeth and your loneliness That must be why You never ask why Do I terrify you? In the way I loved All the wrong men The way my father never loved you?

You showed me stale love, vacant love And sometimes, I still search for you In all of my empty spaces

Shreya Sharan is a young Cancerian in Southern California going through the motions of love life and loss and trying to write it all down. She wishes to reach people to remind them that being human is okay because we all are. Her poetry is a self-exhibition that puts on display things that we all feel.

John Sheirer teaches writing, literature, and communications at Asnuntuck Community College, where he is also the faculty adviser for the literary journal, Freshwater. His most recent book is The Alpha Dog Alphabet, the third installment of his series of photo books featuring his dog Libby. John can be found at johnsheirer.com.

Tinnitus Howie Good This maddening ringing something only I can hear the pulsing of my own heart sounding especially loud like blood and shit and flies during those moments that get so quiet without you

Howie Good is the recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his forthcoming collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.

in the dimly lit stories the stupid and unsober of our youth

dimlylit-stupidanddrunkaffr Kim Morales

we will forget our shirts were stained with jungle juice from the night before a little vomit and blood maybe eyeliner grazed my hand during a teary confession i woke up soaked in urine in front of our apartment and she yelled at me for not having the keys i didn’t care that our red-eyed neighbors their front door less than 4 feet away had seen me wet and sleeping i was 12 a decade later and im wet still im wet and pathetically drenched because i can’t hold my liquor and i can’t keep my lips puckering at people to say hello, im short skirted im big breasted im heavy handed im deep throated and that pays my rent i have a lease out on existing i signed it with red lips

but i voided it my stretch marks are folding over the edges of my hips my face is breaking out in post-adolescent songs about too many cigarettes people who don’t send the right heart emoji when you text them ‘o, i love you’ in the dimly lit the silly and the somber stories of our youth we will only remember the kisses we stole from snap-back wearers named Chris or how we tried to steal sex out of Gomes’ fingers the night after Thanksgiving but he is gay and we all knew i will wake up soaked in sweat another night terrors are common among 30 year olds who used to be brown kids that watched too much PBS and ate off brand Lucky Charms during weeks the checks didnt come in who paid way too much for school

and no attention to a traveling accent that started out South Brooklyn maybe i will drank too much wine the night before a decade before then which is now im still wet or i was wet i am wet dimly lit slow and stupor-ed i tell you stories now about how the crackhead wore curlers to bed and my father never said goodnight he only ever mumbled good morning in drunken haze we sit in sunnyside bars or stoops where we smoke about beirut and fanon and dicks and sad brown folks i dutty whine about my life and everyone takes mental pictures because dimly lit stories need them

IAMA GARBAGE - COLLECTIVELY A NOUN Kim Morales i want to write a poem titled: make love to me on chocha beach because that’s gross and people might laugh or get mad at me i will laugh part of any great love is a lot of swallowing rite swallow your anger, swallow your sadness, swallow your correcting swallow your mother’s cow-eyes, swallow your friends’ liquor swallow what other men whisper on slanted roofs in Bushwick i want to dedicate all my verse to you you are a battlefield constantly your fat breasts smell like curdled milk, are mountains for guerrilla groups to climb on your lips are sandtraps for the enemy your soft fingertips are wiretapped phones click...click...click..click... i want towrite a play for the cia the f-b-i the n-s-a the n-w-a the p-u-t-a everybody

i am an artist love me love me part your young lips and love me girlwomen who break ruless are fun but only for a moment yeah break rules for a skateboard you cant ride break rules for a clean white shirt break rules like you break yr back; arching it while twerking incessantly break rules your red lips scream are necessary i want to writee abook with only one word but iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve worn too many black clothes to find it excuses are the most disgusting thing to ever come out of my mouth i might as well have projectile vomited bilious semen at you i forgot you like living, your praxis is fucking and words are only good if i mean them and then lick them into your ear i am a garbage though - i am a collective noun i am legion for i am many i am what i am, i want to write

Kim Morales is a student-poet from Brooklyn, New York.

I KEEP MYSELF IN PRISTINE CONDITION BUT STILL MANAGE TO FEEL LOVE. Clara Zornado I feel most things but not necessarily anything worth grappling with. My mother somehow still manages to love me when I am dead. When I am mostly boxes of rocks I couldn’t skip or toss away, I am not any kind of rock. Fair enough, I am and there is only this, mostly brutal: I skip only the truths that go all the way across the pond. You do not skip at all. These are my two parts: I am playing the dozens but it is more like I am hurting in twenty-seven different ways. I think I put my head so far down onto the steering wheel that the cop pulled me over just to talk. Girl hyphen elsewhere, I am lucky and white in my crying, simple point taken, I am barely, or fairly,fighting, or faring, or sensibly, fucking, a rhyme. I want to be the blanket from my childhood, resting in a place. Someway between safe and cold, where I feel no weight of need tearing at me. I am two-halves of a bed in some sleepless places, this is something like a recollection now. I cannot sleep on it. I say, I could eface myself into a bag if I tried, you tell me not to. I go home. I go back. These are fingers in my low spots, thumbs horizontal. My hands are on my face, palms open all the way down my throat, somehow this feels like self dash love it is a leaving that feels like on the way home.Because I am beneath it. Because I am a circle. Because I am leaving, the water leaves rings around my body as if it is a hard place. As if I am the rock. As if the shadow went inside me and became that holy and vulnerable darkness, light which shot me down and became. The kingfisher, he tears up the surface just to eat. So do I. This hunger maybe feels like a poem now, but my body, still, the shitty earth napping. Little slash no sound. No hyphen elsewhere.

I want to be this blanket from my childhood. In pieces. Comical line: I am, already, trying to be funny in a few tenses, trying to be whole in one. Tying string to my finger and wire to my tooth because there is no other hand and I see no other door. But this is not an exit and I am not a beginning. Here is my vague yellow light. I wish I could drop it all and turn towards you. Turn towards now. This is a lowercase smile in the big upper world, somehow it feels like love. Knotted into brightness feed it out the window and climb down.

Untitled Clara Zornado There is a dark hole in the ground, right in front of you. You notice that it is a new hole-- you remember that you drove over this street just yesterday and there was no hole, the car did not jump or bump, you would remember if that had happened because you were sipping a Coke at the time and it would have splashed onto your face and possibly over your new dark blue pants, and that would have made you cry because they were $51 and you got that money from your grandmother on Halloween because she was different like that, giving money to her grandchildren on Halloween, anyway, she died after Christmas and so the dark blue pants are really the last relic of her life, to stain them would be to tarnish her name and possibly soil all memories of her, losing them in their stuffy beige purity to sugary brown soda splatter across your lap forever, and you don’t even think of her anymore, you worry about the dry cleaners because you’ve never gone to a dry cleaners and try to remember to not forget to empty your pockets of valuables so no one takes your splatter pants and steals your money out of the pockets, even though these are the kind of pants that have fake pockets, their convenience and handiness is a mere facade, and why should it matter because you enjoy making things harder for yourself, you would rather struggle and hold on for dear life instead of taking the easy way, the easy way does not exist, the easy way is just another way of describing the less hard way -- and you stare at the hole and it is not as dark as before, you have been staring for so long it looks like the road around it, only deeper, it is the same color as the the road, the texture also now undifferentiated by light or dark, from faraway you might not even notice the hole at all, it blends right in, but you don’t want to chance moving away from it in case it does disappear, you don’t move because you’re not ready to let go, you think of the light and the dark and know they are there but don’t want to really see, you are happy with the hole, you want to stay, you think about walking home and packing your things and moving in, creating a home around the hole-- you want to call it your hole but it isn’t yet, you haven’t touched it, you haven’t looked in its eyes and it hasn’t looking into yours, knowingly, as if to say “I love you” after five months of being together when you both know it’s early for

that but it feels right and you both embrace the feeling and go for it and it does feel right and you look into the hole with your entire heart and you can almost feel it looking back at you, you feel the pull of its love and your head wants to be closer, and your entire body feels heavy and weightless and you start moving closer, you begin to bend down to get on your hands and knees, you are wanting the love so strongly, you are about to crouch down and put your face right next to the hole, to start your home, to start your life, you are excited, more excited than you’ve been for years, since you were a child in summer in your favorite outfit, black overalls with the red t-shirt that had embroidery on the pocket that the overalls covered so only you knew about the embroidered tree and clouds on the pocket and you used to look down at it when you were alone, the comfort of knowing the safety is within and the earth is small enough to fit on a kid-sized cotton breast pocket, you miss your pocket, you haven’t felt so familiar to yourself since then, until the hole, it is so close to your face now, your eyes are closed and you still feel the love from the hole, the love is rising from it, pulling it to you, the force is so strong that you can feel heat radiating from the hole, and soon it begins to shake. You know you’re about to feel the most loved you will ever feel, you place your hand into the hole and it hangs over the edge but the heat embraces it and you don’t mind that your hole cannot give your hand a place to rest, you feel the shaking and heat and begin to tremble yourself, you notice the hole shaking more violently than before and can almost hear its heavy breathing, and then notice that the bottom of the hole, the piece of love that had been so far from you, is now rising, you know this because you know the hole now, better than you know yourself, and you know it wants to give you everything it can, and everything you are waiting for is coming now, there is nothing left to dream, or want or need, the hole, your hole, loves you, in its shakiness it rises straight to your hand, which no longer dangles above the abyss, it rests comfortably on the hole, and you think of your pocket and grandmother, your leg twitches and you remember the soda and your new pants, you think of Halloween and about dry cleaners and Christmas and you feel whole, and you look at your hand sleeping so peacefully on the road and see that your hole has nearly vanished, beneath

your hand only lies a vague depression, you can only just feel it, your hand is so restful-- the hole gave itself to you, gave its home for you and your hand, gave you a place for you and you alone, you feel so loved, no one has ever given anything up for you, nothing has ever been sacrificed for your benefit, you feel so loved in the most unexpected place, and now you are home, you are here and here is home.

Clara Zornado hails from Connecticut and loves its rolling lands and every apple tree in it. Claraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art focuses on creating affection for the body, gender dysphoria, queerness, and for affection itself.

Dawn Sweet grew up in a small town in upstate New York in a time when kids still relied upon their imagination to keep them occupied. Most of her time was spent outdoors in open fields and woodlands with a Kodak camera, which she I took everywhere. She still finds joy in capturing photos of the raw, sometimes ugly, world around us. She has a running photo blog, Photos of a Broken World at dawnsweet. blogspot.com, and recently has some of her photos shared on DEAD SNAKES.

Fair Trade John D. Ersing

barista baristo? hands slow, deliberate pouring expertly into a to-stay mug as easily as he poured into me that night we watched (half of) The Craft before transforming into tangled limbs: And Chill, The Second Act kind, interesting, respectful, and so concerned with The Politics of Sex that he asks if Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m all right despite the noises Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m making being those of definitive pleasure and engages me in post-coital, post-structuralist Pillow Talk (our deviance distinguished Queer from Gay) his sexual awareness awakened something in me

not unlike the caffeine he provides to the yuppies at a 200% markup and to me free of charge I thank him, sink into a booth and write a poem, watching his hands brighten days 2 Counterintuitive yet comforting like a hot coffee on a morning in CancĂşn what I never thought was necessary to survive is what was offered and grabbed Hook, Line and Sinker (to stay afloat, no, really) I imbibed idiosyncrasy a coping mechanism in the cold born of intoxicated innocence You were my Bellini in a Blizzard 3 Cradling his Coffee Cup he leaned over the table so

If you were an insect what kind would you be? - that’s a weird question but what’s your answer? - I don’t know I think you’re a Ladybug I measured my response is it because you fancy me a good luck charm? or because you never think about me until I am come upon? maybe it’s the way I sit still, dormant until I’m touched and in half a blink of an eye my wings broaden and I fly away Because unlike ladybugs, whose bright colors function to warn predators of toxicity, I come with No Warning I flutter my eyes toward him a ladybug? really? hmm, I’ll take it they’re so cute Like Me Sipping my cappuccino, and feeling sort of jumpy despite drinking decaf John D. Ersing is a copywriter, journalist, essayist and whateverist. He lives in Brooklyn with his limited-edition Oops!...I Did It Again (Remixes) vinyl.

Sonnet for Malcolm in Psychosis Mikey Berg Sunday, Ro leaves. I have been in New York one week. My cunt bled the next day. I walked, sober, looking for no one’s food- pork. You text me, unexpected in your way of explanation, say “I’m cracking up.” Behind my eyes is a space like the opposite of love, a lacking in which I can only picture your face imperfectly, as if you were dead. I confessed after leaving California to read genocide lit shivering in bed I prayed Friday without knowing, Torah verses, calling to older ghosts; the rain, the spiders, small firm hands. “I am losing my grip” you say, but the noise of the train seven days another blue body blooming inside me / not you. “How’s your class?” You ask and I know why Kaethe called you “beautiful, tragic” – flash of dark in glass How you love me, to expect me to be cruel to you? To deprive you of my care? Would you still fall from me if I were near? I know possession, like submission, despair the opposite of love, mind stacked with years

This is Full. A madness you have married Like my lovers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; we will, alone, be buried.

1. Page of Wands

Reading, Winter 2016 Mikey Berg

Functionally: single but not singular. New butch, at times crossing the border of time back to hot stone, red-handed with my enhancements. I would have stayed and died ugly, if not for the easy out futurity afforded. As such, I am building a new body. Sleek, and android. 2. Page of Swords Consider the girl gone for the month. Consider crumbling, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;ilyâ&#x20AC;?s, thrown into each lone dialogue with something between despair and exasperation. The end is near, my love, my point of breakage; I have shouldered my sword and left for the long wait.

Mikey Berg is a senior at Sarah Lawrence College. They have had poems published in Alt Citizen and the Sarah Lawrence Review. If you would like to talk to them about publishing, masculine emotional labor, or smoked fish, you can reach them at basementfag.tumblr.com

Scrambled Eggs Emily Muerhoff I keep having dreams where I wake up next to you. I flinch awake with pools of sweat behind my knees and no one to stop me from getting out of bed and I eat brown sugar for breakfast. You whipped up storm winds like scrambled eggs on Sunday morning. The whole last month was breakfast in bed I’ve had more baby carrots than pall malls. Today I called my mom—she bought me a music box It sits on my windowsill where you used to put your watch It’s not that I stopped loving you because oh God, I still do— before our first date I was so nervous I did a shot of vodka and it felt like opening a bottle of champagne and the construction outside my apartment window the morning after the first time I booty called you was sweeter that any songbird but Jesus Christ, all the plaster dust on your knuckles made my lungs itch I’ve hated spicy food ever since I was young my dad force-fed me hot sauce to make me find something sharper than my temper but today I ate a whole jar of salsa. I wanted to time travel— it worked you’re still wallpaper over a fist-shaped hole the size of your heart and I’m alive

Emily Muerhoff is a Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies major at the University of Minnesota. Frequently cries upon seeing small dogs in sweaters.

IN HOPES, TO BIND janyn blood tried to leave your face in haste as you lean in to take a taste of what binds her constitution it’s a pity you want to wait until she fades into a shade of nothing more than moving bones and delusions you’re a little late to see nebulas forming in her eyes and how she’s given birth to dancing stars that started revolutions now you try to feel her mind and in your blood you hope to bind all the times when she had loved your beautiful illusions janyn is a 20-something Broadcast Communication graduate from Manila, Philippines. She is a part-time video/sound editor and photographer/videographer, and a full-time online content creator on most days of the week, except for rainy evenings, when she’s writing poetry and probably reblogging posts on tumblr.

So I Leave Eva Moe What he said was good grammar good tone good smile How much does an artichoke weigh How much Truth Do You Want How Hard do I Tap my Feet so he Hears I wanna be light as a dancer on a drum Do I sing or scream through my window & How sweet do I make the sound The longer I stay the faster my forearms feel dumb From him I inherit a thousand tiny vases of jagged glass and stutter on the first word I think to say and find there is nothing to express

Eva Moe is a Minneapolis-based artist and violinist who spends much of her time pondering potential biological explanations for superpowers.

pas de j. sebastian alberdi adultery is a dance in which everyone moves; an unexpected pas de trois where Eros tastes bitter in memory. when he invites you onto our seesawing loving (one of us stops, the other one moves), an unexpected pas-de-trois forms in our beds while he says ‘i’d rather be with you than with him tonight, be loving/fucking [one of us stops, the other resumes being loved/fucked] you’ and all of you believes his words, his wanting to be with you ‘than with him tonight’ — beloved by him, you’ll never dance a pas de deux; men like him are never content with one you. believe his words, his wanting too, because, right now, though you think you have won adultery is a dance in which every man like him is never content with one whose Eros tastes sweeter in memory.

j. sebastian alberdi is an undergraduate english major at northeastern university. originally from san diego, ca he sometimes sits in coffee shops and doesn’t read even though he wants to. he has never been published, but tweets from @_j_sa_.

Trick Mirror Margo Zeno I buried her out back with the dogs. It had rained the night before, and in no time I had mud and hair clotting under my nails. Blisters from the shovel. I went in the house as soon as I was done and cleaned my hands, washing and clipping and grabbing the band aids. I hadn’t looked back as I went up the hill. There wasn’t anything to regret. I had been upset to see that the mirror was empty when I’d looked into it, but I told myself I’d fill it up again soon. This town’s dogcatcher used to live in the house, back in the fifties. Used his own backyard, down the hill all in the pines and prickers, for a grave. It’s a weird awful thing to exist around, and it was a weird awful place to rest, but she deserved it. I didn’t miss her. I did think about her a lot. It got sort of inescapable. I did my best to build a new reflection: cutting my hair, new clothes, learning how I wanted to hold myself and how I wanted others to talk about me. But all everyone ever saw was her. A few months in the doubt started to build, and then one morning, a Saturday, I decided I needed to know if the grave was empty. The rain sprinkled my knees and forehead, glistening on the blade of the shovel. I headed out with my robe over my nightgown and my coat over my robe. Last night’s rain has turned everything to mud, and misjudging how warm it was, I ended up barefoot, mud clinging to my soles. Unable to feel the bottoms of my feet, I went through the mud and the damp grass, and I only stayed for a minute with my fingers on the cold of the gate latch before I angled myself carefully down the hill. The dirt patch was as I left it, a blotch on the earth with my left-behind boot prints softened by the rain. A little ridiculous part of my brain was regarding it with veneration. Like it was a real grave or something. I got it to shut up, but there was still a chill in me when I stepped onto the center of the dirt. Hold your breath when passing the cemetery. And all that. Disrespectful to breathe in front of the dead. Was she dead? I wanted her to be. I buried her and everything. But like, if she was never really anything at all, there was no life to take, was

there? I was super calm, so out of my head that I couldn’t feel anything, body or brain. I was watching this weirdo standing on the shoddy spot where they hid a lie. But to do this I really needed to feel. So I tossed down the shovel and crouched. Hugged my knees. Rocked a little, to center myself. I breathed till I was steady, and then decided that I was going to do it all with my hands. She wasn’t six feet deep. Forget that. The murdering was where all my motivation had gone. Every scrap of life pouring into my limbs, rage in my fingers instead of curdling my insides. They’d all of them made up a false image and I was ripping it apart. And then I’d been drained. Numb. With nothing left to do but clean up. Thinking about it made me surge with a new, nervous energy. I dug and scratched and soon I uncovered a mouth. It opened. “Please dig me out,” said the lips that looked just like mine. “I don’t want all that back. I don’t want anything else. I’m not a person. You know.” I hesitated, heart humming. I wanted to sweep the dirt back over her and stomp it flat. And then, something in me twisted a little. For the space of a beat my heart stopped. I had to heave her out. My heels sunk in the ground and one of my knees twisted and we both nearly fell but then there she was, on her knees and staring at me. The mud was caking her limbs, without it there wasn’t anything solid about her. She was translucent, like flakes of dead skin. She spat out a pebble and asked me, “Are you going to be okay?” “Why do you care?” I’d fallen backwards. I didn’t want to be close to her. I stood. “You’re just a—a mask, I guess. Maybe you could be a shield.” She looked up at me. “You don’t want that.” I twisted my fingers together, glanced at her and saw she was doing the same. “I’m not sorry for killing you.” “That’s okay.”

“Maybe I will be, someday.” She was wearing the same nightgown as me. She smoothed out the stained skirt. “If it’s right for you.” “Maybe I won’t.” “I’m alright with that. I mean, I’m out.” She reached for my hand, and without thinking first I gave it to her. She got to her feet and turned to look at the spot in the ground where I’d stowed her. Then she looked at me, and at the clouded sky. I asked her, “Are you going to leave?” She nodded. Something inside me unraveled. “Could you—you stay. For a bit! Not long.” We were there in the muck together, like a weird mirror. “We could watch a movie.” She sat on the couch next to me through The Invisible Man and half of Frankenstein. We didn’t talk, and we didn’t look at each other. We were at arm’s length. I sat with my hands tucked under me, knowing that really I didn’t want to reach. She never got up to leave. When I glanced over I was in that room alone.

Margo Zeno is a writer and comic artist deeply influenced by fairy tales, the folk process, gruesome history, and subversive kindness. They are currently writing a novel that includes all of that, and are pursuing an undergraduate degree in English. You can find them on Twitter @margozeno, and their comic work at gumroad.com/ margozeno.

oily plastic Ryan Tarr i’m not sure what it is today but i don’t want to be seen i want to cry and disappear i want to pretend time has officially ended january marked the first time i sat in the shower and cried honestly seems like i would have found the comfort in this months ago. IS IT ROTTEN TO ITS CORE feeling down on myself today feeling my impatience, my lack of dedication to things i wished i dedicated myself to wishing i could move back to west michigan again it’s a thought that’s been coming up more and more recently i didn’t feel it when i was on the phone with dad yesterday, but now it’s here he told me they’d support me if i did it remembering chatting with anna truly chatting the beginning of many habits i’m sure wish i could view the chatlogs with my high school crushes, with my old friends idk how i used to talk to ppl but i’m worse at it now a soft injection of ink into my retina. a single dot to note something. that’s a lie it would mark nothing but boredom but a sort of shaking, unplaceable, implacable energy. where low-level self harm is a sweet escape, some sort of focus. i’m glazed over.

“TAKE PRIDE IN WHAT YOU DO” as if my labor here really has any meaning “Good Corps” put a lot of energy into employee appreciation which is to say, they maintain the illusion that they value the labor so the monotony feels worthwhile, so that retention stays high & employees are less likely to protest/strike it’s your opinion but remember there is a right answer, and the right answer will drive corporate profits higher. a feeling of unproductivity, of dissatisfaction where i wanted to bruise. without worth or substance. profits // bring it to the market // compensation put enough pressure on my sinus to crack it. cave them in, let the shards linger been taking my glasses off lately. i’ve told people it’s because my eyes are fatigued but really i’m tired of seeing and being seen i’m feeling that wind that mom and pam both know - the need to Just Get Out escape feels so possible and impossible; i could tap into this feeling slightly yesterday maybe i’m tapping an aquifer inexplicably wet

I COULDN’T FIND MY NAME IN THE INDEX OF THIS BESTIARY my body doesn’t know what it wants. i wonder what would happen if i stopped smoking weed. tinder epitomizes my sexuality, a moment of interest that eventually (immediately) is overturned by an anxiety over human interactions, and disease. i fear and long for closeness. i miss a close hug, cuddles, maybe making out but with no ///and/// people are qt and i want to be around them and maybe kiss once but mostly play super smash bros i’ve felt selfish when fucking, selfish when not. never centering my own wants, so when they are centered i feel guilt. and my desire and yr pleasure aren’t discrete needs, wants, individual, One when fucking? where do these go? who? i don’t wanna answer which feels immature would much rather hide for a while than deal the restlessness settled in my body sorry, i don’t want to inconvenience you with these emotions, i’d rather sulk up before work wishing i had a place to tuck away if i don’t go in i’ll lose my job i’ll go in how to make a wednesday bearable how to build a home within yr home where no one will ever find you how to escape the weight how to cry before work without it showing how to destroy the life you have how to bury yourself alive how to write messages like your father how to give yrself away while feeling selfish

how to convince your eyes to stay how to convince your mind to stay only longing when conditions feel right and i’m perpetually waiting for the right conditions and they come and the longing doesn’t stars don’t align like you think they do your body doesn’t align that way either extend your arm and notice the knots bend your knees and feel them rotting let the moss envelope you and make you something better when can i turn to liquid and emerge anew or break while the transformation happens maybe it’s happening now fuck today see y’all tomorrow for the abridged version

ryan tarr is a non-binary queer writer (they/them/their) from michigan, living in austin tx, struggling with capitalism and not running away. their other work can be found at feveredpress.tictail.com feel free to reach out to them w/ thoughts, comments, fears: rwt1515@gmail twitter: @reebok_mcentire

With your fingers, hands And even arms cut off

Tree Scars Yuan Changming

You have scars all over Your body, which first You used to protest against all human pain And injury in deafening silence, then Your mouths became eyes staring still At each evil knife, each inhuman act Now you are looking forward, and beyond Without a wink, without a tear drop

Slowly Yuan Changming Let us take all the long time we need To wake up from our overdue dreams Get out of the bed, and stretch our Limbs as far as possible for a new morning Let us take all the long time we need To listen to the first song of the birds Watch the rise of this summer sun, feel The breeze combing each tree with tenderness Let us take all the long time we need To enjoy being together with our beloved Exchange a smile so that they can stay with Us just a few seconds or even minutes longer Yes, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take all the long time we need To drink this tea, to chat about this weather To look back at the road we have travelled along To think, to cry, and to die in lingering twilight

Crows Yuan Changming Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re neither the mystic Prophet Nor the common Fortune teller As you are believed to be In the east or the west Rather, you are the soul of a fellow Human, perching on the treetop Speechless, as if meditating over Life, as if recalling your prayers

Yuan Changming, 9-time Pushcart nominee and author of 7 chapbooks (including Wordscaping [2016]), published monographs on translation before moving out of China. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1179 others across 38 countries.

1. Sylvia Nic Gutierrez

~~~~~~~TOP TOP TOP “do u remember” @s YES!~ @s U PUSHED ME AWAY! ~~~~~~~TOP TOP TOP

3. Sylvia Nic Gutierrez i used to be into cum but now im really into honey you can wear it as a mask or as an inner lining it can heal wounds, stitch together bonds, and keep you alive through a cold winter

4. Sylvia Nic Gutierrez Large vinyl sheets white ocean trash head a Pool scene .@Syngenta if a subtweet misgenders is it really about you Screenshot 1 screenshot 2 I’m sick of waiting - learn to corner Picking a title/name is hard Here there is an absence of flowers and an abundance of naked trash been a museChugging Water in the kitchen I cleaned the floor this morning but the floor will never be clean 1 day --- im waiting tonight only we provide free earplugs You can’t tattoo water what did you think i was doing ? what r u scared of ? Creates humannes --(but aren’t there yet) (**/in the line to get to the corner shelter! i need a trip do you think about her!! xoxo,. No type of love is indifference Attention this is a space a model, a sub/beyond person still a human for the day. :) i want a system to bend and filter and pass through Here is a water cocktail with hormonal saliva and Evian Facial water i gave it to 2 gallery interns sit in silence as they are coping - makes survival nicer

Even tried sorry that u worry about me, but my body is not ready now Even tried sorry that u consider it an order A foundtain in a similar idea to soul and body,. really only fragile as liquid - sorry i want to b liquid for you Lovely @luvletr i confess i hv no. hv no love for you Nobody asking me if u don’t hv. hv no body. body not having i hv no body i am waiting for my new body

Sylvia Nic Gutierrez (@nailsalonhelp) is an artist and writer. In her writing and recent paintings and sculptures, she has explored the line between trauma, empathy and sacrifice within systems and the finite resources (water, oil, emotional energy, etc) that cause them. In the spring of 2016 she graduated from NYU Gallatin where her concentration was titled “Nail art: trans* image making and the letter after the digital ubiquity with an emphasis on painting and body augmentation/modification”. She currently lives in New York; is available to paint your nails; is looking to hire someone to give her subdermal implants.

Insert Lit Mag Here is a literary magazine that looks for work all over the internet from both emerging and established writers. You can read more issues of ILMH at issuu.com/insertlitmaghere Insert Lit Mag Here is a part of Chipped Tooth Press. Chipped Tooth Press seeks to instil a love of poetry and literature in even the most relentless of naysayers. You can find out more about our press at issuu.com/chippedtoothpress chippedtoothpress.tumblr.com or on Twitter @chippedpress