Issue 004: Body by Karma Comes Before

an ring Featu sive exclu with view inter ariti M.T. P

Cover art: Jay Kennedy @jk_inc Love Your Body Enamel Pin by Thorn & Burrow Booty Shorts Enamel Pin by Lost Lakes Treasure

March 2025

King Shai: My relationship with my body is one grounded in unity. Guiding me through the highs and lows of life, I learned how to understand my experiences through my body. As someone living with different abilities, I acknowledge that I cannot do everything myself. Issue 004: Body took teamwork, stamina, and frequent breaks to complete. Your purchase makes this a rewarding physical experience. Thank you to our amazing contributors for bringing this anthology to life! Aisatou: It was a joy to be taken through such powerful and vulnerable experiences through your literature. The body transcends beyond the mind and soul. Each of these pieces touched me in a way that allowed me to view the body in such complex, profound, and introspective ways. I’d like to thank all of the contributors for their heartfelt work, the KCB team, and wordchefsteph for handing me the reins to read and reflect on your pieces. They inspire my own creativity as a writer and poet myself, and I am grateful for each and every one of your contributions.

With good vibes, wordchefsteph, King Shai & Aisatou

Note from the Editors

Balloon or Soup Bubble by William Doreski

Fish by Kate Smolens

These Blue Jeans by Aisatou Saho

This is My Body by Sally Arizona

When I Became a Stump by Alma Ariaz

Picnic, Blue Lagoon, & Rest by Caitlin Walton 14 Batteries by wordchefsteph

Stairs and The Tin Man by David Nobes

Over Weights by Isaac is Me

Neural Coupling for Echo by J. Bechard

Holy Grail by Madi Morelli

Gravidas by Midge Hartshorn

God’s Best Design by Ryn

queer forms by mk zariel

Brazilian Butt... by Emily Oomen

Miss Junior... by Kimberleigh R. Costanzo

Meant To Be Series with M.T. Pariti

Hyst- by Midge Hartshorn

The First Sunburn by Devon Neal

Hunting on Our... by Allison Cundiff

Fearless to Own Self by King Shai

Time Traveling by Madi Morelli

The Youngest Girl... by Emily Oomen

Dessert Before Dinner by Will Succeed

The Body Mysterious by abbiefornow

Sacrament by Ata Amponsah

Trade Driving... by Ariana Eftimiu

He Was About Six Foot, Nine by Phil Flott

The Asylum is Filled With... by E. Goff

Jelly Belly by RoyalZee

His Temple by Tamra Cosby

My Graveyard Waist by Madi Morelli

Lesson Plan

Body Playlist

Contributors

Acknowledgements

Balloon or o r Soap Bubble Today I’ll ride in a balloon or maybe a soap bubble. The view will ease my conscience by proving that the worldly world doesn’t require imagination. Someone more naked than me, someone who is naked when clothed, will pilot either the balloon or the soap bubble, experience being everything. Coyotes wail in the dawn. They’re mourning the shrinkage of the wilderness although they thrive on trash and unwary domestic pets. A slice of moon troubles itself with infinite longing. I press my body to my spirit and hope that for once they adhere long enough to get me through the day without a drizzle of expensive whiskey.

From the balloon I’ll observe people going about their errands. From the soap bubble I’ll see daytime ghosts prodding the snow for bones they’ve long abandoned. The pilot of whichever airship will remain silent as a boulder. His naked self fuels the flight so he must remain still enough to allow his fluids to drain. When we descend, the landscape will rise to meet our glory. I’ll alight with a bit of tremor but the ground will accept me as plainly as if I’d never left.

by William Doreski 5

FiSH

CW: Implied lack of sexual consent

It rained on the drive over, hard, fat drops smacking against the windshield like bullets. The drive to his place took half an hour, and I spent most of my time looking out the window. It was the kind of rain that obscured even the clouds, the downpour so heavy that if you looked up, all you would see was sheets and sheets of water. The alcohol in my chest had since dissipated, and as his hand rested on my thigh--I was aware of my coldness. His hair had dried into two short chunks that curled over his forehead protectively. They shook slightly as we stopped short, the rain slamming harder against the car. Under the glow of the traffic light, silhouettes danced across the street, the rain morphing their figures from bear to lamppost to man. The rivers gushed along the curb, and a flash of something bronze caught my eye. For a moment the rain on my window parted like a curtain to reveal a fish, small and amber, struggling against the water. Its fins moved frantically in a pathetic attempt to overpower the stream, its useless mouth flapping open and closed. In an instant it was sucked into the gutter. I couldn’t afford to have him dismiss it as a penny or can, so I kept my mouth shut. It was just me and the fish, and if the words left my body they would become contaminated, or worse, disappear. But I had seen it, its limp body carried away by the rushing water. The rain drummed against the window harder, refracting into a hundred little minnow trails. I could only half see myself in the reflection of the window, and my face melded with passing objects: newsstand, umbrella, office.

The sound of it is everywhere. We swim through the downpour to the door, where a steadily growing puddle captures more and more

of the building. I think about stepping instead into the puddle-lobby as he pulls me inside. An impatient heat emanates from his body, reverberating off the walls of the elevator. He grabs my waist, but the rain’s cold fingers remain wrapped around me, pulling my jeans closer to my skin. My heavy eyes draw me to the bed, and he eagerly joins, blanketing me. His fingers brush against a little switch just below my ribcage and suddenly my skin is replaced with iridescent scales, unfurling one by one with a soft ‘click.’ If I crane to the side I can make out a silvery tail poking out from beneath his legs. My lips hang open, cold, but he doesn’t stop kissing me, running his hands along my scales with a ravenous urgency. Two long whiskers sprout from my face, and I have to jerk my head to avoid poking him in the eye. He whispers something, a jumble of letters and breath that prompts a cellular twinge of familiarity somewhere deep within me. I can only exist in the spaces I have been in the last ten seconds, memory dissolving into the rippling sheets. I am completely immersed in the present, my unblinking eyes darting across the ceiling. He runs his hands over where he thinks a neck might be, covering my gills. I am suffocating, writhing, trying to open my mouth to scream but when I do, all that escapes is a trail of bubbles. They make their way up toward the strings of Christmas lights that line the walls, glittering as they ascend. Their soft, gentle glow calls out to me, so I latch onto a bubble with one of my whiskers. He parts like the Red Sea, and as I am floating up and out the window I look back and see that he is still caressing my shadow and whispering into the pillow that same mixture of sounds that grows further and further away.

by Kate smolens

I began to dread going through my wardrobe. My intestines were wrung like the towels from my kitchen sink, twisted and manipulated from the inside out. The fading jeans were staring right back at me. I recall the temporary tattoos etched along my abdomen. these blue jeans hugged me in all the wrong places. Its gripfirm, its loveUnconditional around my love handles. These jeans stopped craving me so suddenly. the buttons came undone, and its grip became unfamiliar. I thought my love for these jeans would be endless. They weren’t ready to commit to my body. What I thought was love ignited an endless craving. I longed for the zipper to catch my skin. For my skin to be branded by the seams. “if I was just a little less stingy with what I put in my body” “if I was a little more greedy,” These blue jeans scream back at me. They tell me to eat away the pain like I used to. But my aches became my new comfort food. Aching at the sight of these blue these jeans, who were so good at playing pretend. I don’t think they’ll ever fit me like they used to again.

y M s Bo I

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Please don’t love me like white people love Jesus, please don’t fall for me like Eve fell for the serpent. I am not your God, your Angel, your Lord and savior-You worship me as if I repent for my sins, you worship me as if I am to be worshipped. A heavenly body, a blesséd virgin, a child of God. Fuck this pedestal you make me live on, high upon your altar-my body is no reliquary for your fantasies, your stories, of how I save you instead of saving me. Blind faith; blind love; you are the conned, the fool, the blind man, who only sees the shape of my pale body-my neck, made by Him for choking my feet, made by Him for binding my mouth, made by Him to passionately accept you as communion bread. As if your Saint Peter could ever be worthy of my Eucharist. I am no holy vessel, no damn miracle of the divine-- so please don’t love me like white people love Jesus; They believe he loves them back. They love His Virgin and not His Magdalene, they would die for Him as He died for them.

I could never love you! I take pride in being my own Magdalene, I would never lay my life down for you. And you damn sure would never die for me; you don’t love me, you love how I can save you. You wrote me into your scripture to make you feel whole, without seeing me… I am no lamb. This is my body, damned in all its beauty;

I. Am. The. Serpent.

When I Become a Stump When I become the stump of a tree or a foot, I’ll let the rot devour me to uncover the sum of my worth. Through defensive thorns and thistles I’ll insist “No, it doesn’t hurt,” As a witty wind will amputate through shallow strings of veins and roots. When I become a stick-thin stump, And the woodpecker takes aim and nips at the exposed bone, I’ll dig my marrow out myself and serve it to her with a spoon, Trading cakes and candles for the rings and layers displaying my years in the dirt and burrowed between each burden composing my being. After an unheard plea for anesthesia— And a swing down on the dotted line— Please pretend the stump was formed from me, And not who I always was.

by Alma Ariaz 13

Ca itl in

n to al W

REST

I caved in and got the rose. A little bedside buddy. I don’t even like roses. But I do like the thought of my tulips kissing one.

ies

Batter

I like the sound of the vibrator as it buzzes in applause, while I finally get the flowers I deserve. I love the way the soft petals ride my pink valley, and how the sweet heat concentrates on one spot, A sweet spot, the perfect spot to b l o o m. I’ve made bouquets out of nights out alone. Holding onto hugs and highs, to come home to my thighs, and the slippery surprise, of my surrender. I don’t make love to the rose, and that’s our only thorn. Because when I close my eyes, try to enjoy the ride,

and I start to come alive, You come to mind. I start to cum alive, and you come to mind. Then I can’t feel the buzz anymore... Can’t feel the way your tongue travels down my spine like only a human can do. The way you stick your stem up the hem of my dress, and undress me. Caress me. Kiss me softly. And gently.

I pull my petals pull back when I’m with you. Lean hard into your rays Man, I miss the fucking days when time didn’t exist. The times when I couldn’t resist your lips When I got lost in your beautiful brown eyes we had the time of our lives

in our little forever. I miss touching you. Miss loving you. Miss you loving me. And if you keep the roses I bought you, I will materially. Just not internially. Don’t take it personally. You are a beautiful rose, but, baby, I am a TREE, it’s time to plant a new seed. A new garden for love to grow. I know you know this, because it don’t feel the same. That’s why I’m sayin, I caved in and got the rose. It makes my back bend and pose, and I can follow my moans

to the golden honeycombs, of my WAP, but I stop because I want you on top, and I wilt, from the guilt of all the love that we felt just gone like a d a n d e l i o n p e t a l... A wish for a kiss, I’ll always miss you. When I think about the birds and the bees, because I’ll never be pleased with just these batteries.

by wo rd

e p t h s f e ch

writer

editor

teacher

writing, editing, feedback, collaborations, and brand development services

Ah no, stairs! Yet more stairs! Four years of living and working in China made me hate stairs. There are stairs everywhere, even along forest paths and tracks up hills and mountains, where footpaths are paved with steps and the steeper sections have sets of stairs. A natural stride is impossible; my stride is instead constrained and compressed. My office was on the fifth floor of a six-story building with no elevator. The number of floors is actually important: In China, an elevator is required in any building with seven or more stories. Architects and builders think that if they must have an elevator for seven stories, why stop there? In China, then, there are a lot of buildings with six stories or fewer, and some buildings with dozens of floors; there is no middle ground. Every day, twice a day, I would trudge up those flights of stairs, my arthritic knees clicking, grinding, and grating with every stair. I could hear the click, feel the grind; I could feel the grate, hear the grind. I had early-onset rheumatoid arthritis in my right knee from an injury when I was a university undergraduate student. I tended to compensate for the strain on my right knee, and that put strain on my left knee. I still managed to play basketball with my Chinese colleagues, and our department even won the staff tournament one year. I wasn’t able to move quickly, wore knee bandages, and playing hardcourt basketball took a toll on my already battered knees, but it was good exercise, and I am big and was good on defense getting in the way of the other team’s offence. Years later, trying to adjust for my arthritic knees put a strain on my hips. I hate stairs. My arthritis first manifested in my hands, just like my mother and just like her mother. My fingers aren’t as gnarled as theirs were, not yet, but my fingers are slightly curved away from my thumb and towards my little finger, just as theirs were at first. I think

of how they coped, or not, and that guides what I do. My mother was active when younger. She liked to dance; it’s how my parents met. One time, my teenage sister had a party at our home, so my parents decided to go out for the evening. When they got home, my Dad went to bed but my Mom stayed up and learned “The Bump.” Sadly, as the years wore on, Mom struggled with the discomfort and pain of arthritis. She moved less and less to avoid the pain. She spent her last years in a wheel chair. My mother’s mother, my Finnish grandmother, kept moving. Her gnarled and misshapen fingers still knitted, crocheted, baked bread, until a week before she died. She once told me that kneading bread dough helped her hands. I no longer have bread to knead; I now live in Asia, and few Asian homes have ovens suitable for baking bread. But I think of her staying active and moving until the days before she died. Some nights, I have trouble finding that just-right position for my hips so that I can sleep. Every morning I wake up with sore stiff hips and hands that feel like blocks of wood at the ends of my arms. I sit up and groan with the stiffness that emanates from almost every joint. Some people have described arthritis as having glass in their joints. I understand that sensation, but for me, it often feels more like sand in the gears, grinding and scraping and impeding movement, or rusted joints like the Tin Man. So I get up and move. If I don’t, I might seize up like the Tin Man, and I don’t want to spend my later years in a wheel chair like my mother. I have no magic can of oil to ease my rusted joints. So I keep moving. I must keep moving.

by David Nobes

over weights

I was so over weight back then that Now I cannot get over weights It is an obsession 5-7 days a week for 45 minutes to an hour is how I meditate I hope y’all can relate, but I think its a problem at this rate I hope I am okay with the weight loss and I’ve gained Going up and down feeling like a yo-yo doing tricks like its 1998 Walking the dog but I don’t have any pets, but I would fest like I had a litter Over eat my problems away binge eat when I was stressed. Rewired my brain, communicated the relationship I had with food The results in the gym over time were really good seeing my clothes not fitting was good, buying smaller sizes feeling like a Papi Champú (a hunk or attractive guy in Dominican slang) Girls who didn’t pay me mind now I had the time and would hit me up to hang out A few times I took them out and at the end of the night blow their back out Oh TMI? My bad... but here is why the lifestyle changed worked... I started to prioritize me first

This place is a shared space we working The personality was always here Confidence too, now I guess the weight loss made my voice louder My skin wasn’t loose, most people after not seeing me for a while I would hang out and text them and they would double- and triple-take. “Isaac? No way!” Moral of the story there should be no shame in your game All in due time as it may just refuse to set a foundation of excuses

You! Can! Do! This!

ac is M a s I e by

I can feel your heartbeat against my cheek, And for the hours we have lain here I have been comparing it with my own. Slowly, our syncopation becomes synchronization. Every pulse against my temple matches the rhythm in my chest, Our blood being pushed and pulled through our bodies To the same meter, same tune. Our breathing follows the same time signature, The neurons in our brains firing off the same symphony. One beat, two beat. One breath, two breath. Same meter, same tune.

With gouged eyes and ruptured eardrums, I would search for the body so perfectly in unison with my own. I would know you by nothing but that. I would know you without senses.

Holy Grail

There are women to be worshipped, Heart and soul and rosary, And there are women to be consumed, Body and bones and blood. Take me, all of you, and drink of it This is the cup of my blood. The blood of a lukewarm and coagulating covenant, It will be shed for you, and for all, I would shed it for anyone who looked down from on high And told me I would always be unclean But they would forgive me if I begged. If I meant it. Whose feet do I wash? Whose son do I resurrect?

by Madi Morelli 33

Gravidas An empty womb is approximately the same size and shape as a small, inverted pear. I carve it out of my soft belly with the toothy edge of a grapefruit spoon. I cradle it in my palm to judge its ripeness by its trembling weight. Carefully, I divide it with the spoon into more manageable bites. I feed my lover spoonfuls of my swollen, pulpy flesh lowered to waiting lips like a mother feeds her new baby planefuls of rice cereal. Ah. ah. oh.

by Midge Hartshorn

God’s Best Design From the crown of my head to the tip of my toes, My silhouette tells a story only it knows. Each curve a mound of divine, A symbol of me, God’s best design. A brow that burrows in thought, Brown eyes that seek and sought. Full lips that speak in power, A height of 5'5" that towers. Shoulders of strength fierce and bold, Arms that reach to cradle and hold. Legs that carry me steady and long, With firm feet they step strong. From head to toe I am whole, A masterpiece of body and soul.

by Ryn 35

you tell me all the reasons you hate the soft edges of your body, all of which mostly amount to preschool taunts and bigotry. and both of us are convinced that we'll never be desired, craved, ached for that we'll stay lost in this queer oblivion of a collective jouissance-negation of desire that you read about in a BashBack zine that may or may not be practical that our bodies can be amorphous as our theories of liberation, if only we ignore and treasure them enough. and at 1 am we discuss queer forms of care, of relating, of gender— aren't queer forms of self more powerful than any framework of transformative justice any dog-eared book by a dead white man? our queerness encircles us like the flame of our desire that is here and alive and can never be defined and your queer form may never be a symbol of resistance, but we are an ecology of care a rewilding. isn't anarchy the queering of everything? says a friend, and we all have to agree but by that logic, aren't our bodies anarchy?

Brazilian Butt Lifting My Life in Tijuana The lines painted all over my body stare back at me, striking like the lightning of a knife. I wonder if I took a selfie right now what an Instagram filter would do to me. There are my rolls full of parking tickets where abs should be, my face that looks like a purse vomited all over it that needs to be nipped and tucked, and a butt that resembles two soggy biscuits that has to be injected with a birthday party. What’s a love that’s not measured in mirrors that leave you black eyed by gravity? If I had a superpower, it would be to be able to jump in a mirror and fly. I pray to the surgeon’s knock on the door. Turn me into the opposite of hallelujah, a knife to an unfinished poem.

i em

o o y

n e m

Miss Junior Teen Long Island, 2008 Upright and arched, breast buds presented proudly, little Miss took the stage for competition. The tiny speakers of the rented high school auditorium spit out the soundtrack to her Lyrical solo, and she left it all on the stage.’ All– her insecurity about the curls in her hair and whether her boobs would get bigger her confusion about why she sometimes wished Carolina was more than a friend the memory of the arch of Lilian’s back in the sleeping bag they shared the voracious hunger in the back of her throat the heat between her legs during kissing scenes on TV

–on the stage. The silver metal hung heavy on her flat chest the whole car ride home. Still, second place isn’t so bad.

by Kimberleigh R. Costanzo

112 E 11th St. New York, NY 10003

Kiss

ii D i vi n

Jas

ne Gonza mi

Thursday, March 20th, 2025 6:30PM Doors Open

lez

dchefstep or

’s h ep t fs e h c d presents or w

Jean

Meant to Be series

with M.T. Pariti

Beat on the street is that M.T. Pariti is slang for “Means to Parity.” That’s right: When it comes to equality, Pariti knows exactly where the party’s at--and h. It was only right to pick his brain for our first anthology! WCS: “It’s Pariti time!!! Thanks for being here with me today. If you had to describe yourself without using your job title, who are you?” MT: “I love that. I really do because. I absolutely abhor the idea that in our culture we often ask the question, what do you do? And we expect the answer to be your job, but that is not what I do. And that is not who I am. That is how I do what I do. I say I, I read, I write, I hike, I, you know, hang out with my friends. I snowboard in the winter. I do this in the summer. Like this is what I do. The other things are just a means. They're just the means. And I think it's unfair that in our culture we have, you know, it is, it isn't not true that if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life. And here we are, we are both here trying to have what we love to do underwrite our life in some way, shape or form, but we'd be doing it anyway. We are doing it anyway. So if an alien were to ask me who I was, I would say I give people the opportunity and space to be heard and SCENE.”

installment 005

WCS: “Okay, that's a perfect transition. So you run The Scene. What is The Scene?” MT: “It's a print in your hands, the log magazine that highlights and connects the vibrant, but independent poetry open mic scenes around the geographic long Island, which we consider to be from the bridges. To the Forks, which is Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk. Okay. So that's, that's what we do. And what we, what we do is we, we print 10 pages of all local poetry submitted to us from the community. We print four pages of an interview with a local open mic curator or hosts. Or platform, we include artwork on the cover and throughout the magazine from one local visual artist. We have a book review where we review in the back of the magazine a local artist's poetry book or album. And on the very back cover, which is our part of our DNA, is a calendar of open mics.” WCS: “That's super awesome. Would you say you were meant to do this work? And if so, how did you discover that?”

MT: “You hit the nail on the head. I've been talking to so many people lately about how I feel like I was meant to do this. Like this, this, I am tapping into my purpose so much and I can't get into all of it and I won't, but so much of what has shaped me as a person, um, have, has influenced me and made me who I am, has made me, has, has made this the perfect fit for me. You know, I've, I, I'll share a little bit by, by the time I was 18, I'd moved 30 times. So I'm used to being the new guy on the scene. I'm used to introducing myself and getting to know people. You know, I also, I had some other, um, periods in my life where I was like a youth leader. And I learned organizational practices, and I learned counseling practices, and I learned all sorts of, so there are all, all sorts of what I call incarnations. Different lives, literally different lives I have lived that culminate, that all come together and converge. into the scene.” WCS: “I love it.”

“There are all, all sorts of what I call incarnations. Different lives, literally different lives I have lived that culminate, that all come together and converge into The Scene.”

WCS: “I do want to know, how do you balance your day job with all of this passion that you have, you know? How do you prevent time blindness?” MT: “How do you balance? I'm really lucky. I'll say that. I own a small business, that I work three days a week. I work it from about 9 a. m. to 1 p. m. And then I have lots of free time. Now, I also help my father with his business, which is a bagel store. So, honestly, on the regular, I'm a bagel clerk behind the counter, but it's early work. So honestly, I don't really balance, I just do a lot!”

WCS: “Me too. Same. Like, it's the balance. The balance is that there's a lot on both sides of the seesaw. That's the balance.” MT: “You know, and so I have, I have a lot going on for work. I have a lot going on for The Scene. I just have a lot going on and that kind of keeps me going, you know? Like the Law of Inertia, an object in motion tends to stay in motion.”

“It's really important, first and foremost, to believe in yourself. I think you have to be your first fan. You have to like what you put out.”

MT: “And so I just, you know, don't stop swimming. It's very Dory from Finding Nemo, just don't stop swimming. Don't stop swimming. Just keep, keep going and it'll keep going.”

WCS: “Any advice you have for someone who would be trying, maybe not even to transition completely into the creative arts, but at least to start getting paid? What advice would you give those first timers?” MT: “Yeah, well, I mean, when it comes to getting paid in the arts, the most important thing, I think, is believing you deserve it. It starts there. Because a lot of us mostly struggle with things like imposter syndrome, where you almost don't believe that you deserve the attention or the accolades or the compensation.

So I think it's really important, first and foremost, to believe in yourself. I think you have to be your first fan. You have to like what you put out. And that's not to say that you have to like everything you put out, you know? In my very first interview with The Scene when I interviewed the host from The Muse in Huntington, New York. He said something profound that really struck me: ‘You can't be afraid to suck.’ And what I got from that was simply create,

keep doing it. Don't stop. And that's the next thing I would say to the person who wants to go there is you can't, you can't quit in the face of adversity. The ones who make it are two things. They're the ones who believe they could make it. And the ones who don't quit on making it.” WCS: “Yes. Come on. Cause slow and steady wins that race.” MT: “You know? And I'll tell you what, no one made it that didn't believe they could, but no one, no one made it that didn't push through the hard times. That's the standard. I'm going to go to Bukowski. Basically he says, ‘If it doesn't burst from your core, if it doesn't prevent you from living a normal life, don't be a writer. Cause, listen, writing ain't easy.” WCS: “Like, actually, it was the hardest subject for me in school, and it's one of the only subjects that we continue to need to practice and be exposed to and learn.” MT: “Right, and I believe we should write everything. Writing, in itself. is an act of mindfulness. WCS: “Yes. You can write to learn, right? Not everything needs to be performed or published at all.” MT: “Absolutely. So write, write for the purpose of knowing what's in your mind, because you have to know what's in your mind to write it down. That's mindfulness. Writing has to be because it's the only thing you can do. Because you can't do anything else. Because you wouldn't even want to.” WCS: “I agree. Because when other people ask you, what would you want to be if you could change your life? A writer, that part, because I can't change life itself.”

WCS: “So my last question for you is what advice do you have for someone trying to discover their purpose? And if that's too big, then maybe just even their passion?” MT: “No, purpose is great. I love that word because it really connects with what I feel like we're doing. Purpose is to me what it means to live a spiritual life, right?” “So you've heard of psychosomatic, the mind body connection. In college, I came across this phrase: ”Socio pneuma psychosomatic, which was relationships, spirit and or purpose, mind and body. And these are the integrated parts that make us whole. We are our social relationships.”

“We are our sense of purpose. We are our mind. We are our body. We are all of these things. So for the person looking for purpose, I would say, find your vocation..”

“We are our sense of purpose. We are our mind. We are our body. We are all of these things. So for the person looking for purpose, I would say, find your vocation. Words are buckets, words are buckets. We fill them and empty them of meaning. But when I say vocation, the word that comes from the same root as vocal and voice, your vocation is what the universe tells you you're meant to do. You have to listen.” “So that's what I would recommend. Spend time listening. If you want to find your purpose, you've got to spend time listening to your higher power. And when you hear that still small voice tell you what you're meant to do, you will have found your purpose. So listen to that voice and find your vocation.” WCS: “Bravo.”

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Hyst50

You’re Finally a Woman I always had such awful periods Curled up in the bathtub for hours I felt like such a baby They were always regular, which means they never stopped even when they should have stopped (A typically fertile woman having unprotected sex with a man for years on the regular would expect a pause in her periods.) I always wanted a large family, five or six babies. Sometimes I cried for hours Until I was finally pregnant. Then I had false labor for hours Regular contractions, until they stopped And started again a week later. But pushing out a baby didn’t make me feel like a woman. It never felt worse than those earlier periods of my life (maybe those weren’t so regular). Nursing was disturbingly regular: Those long midnight feeding hours may have kept away my periods, but as he grew, they never slowed or stopped. I knew so many women who had three children in the years it took for me to grow and wean one baby. But I didn’t know if I wanted to have another baby.

The trips to the hospital were becoming more regular. I knew I wasn’t a woman but as a mother, I was wasting precious hours; From October to January the bleeding never stopped. I couldn’t name my last menstrual period. The worst period was when my gay friends found out it was happening. Baby, the congratulations never stopped. I wanted to scream that this wasn’t a regular good-news, gender-affirming procedure; I went back and forth for hours. My surgeon was a woman who stopped my explanations and said she’d regularly remove an organ from anyone who asked, period. The hours in surgery took longer than pushing out a baby, but I was no more or less a woman...

by Midge Hartshorn 52

The First Sunburn

When you awake, there is a slight numbness as if you slept with limbs too twisted, a blush too faint for morning bedroom light. Outside for coffee, the wind feels different, like a shirt that shrunk in the dryer. Soon the cold seems colder— briars in the air conditioning, the bite of water from the hose. Sometimes it’s in a hot shower when you discover the buzzing of bees, their pink tattoowork. Other years, back out on the lawn, you find the sting as the sun resumes, like you, yesterday’s work—planting heat thick under the surface, waiting for summer to bloom.

by Devon Neal

Hunting On Our Own Land Bag of tricks. Corn works best. Cellar-wrinkled sweet potatoes (powdery mildew got the apples) coarse brick of salt. Slipped in morning snow, looked up to see God’s dark face beyond the timber. Didn’t feel good. All that stillness save the tree frogs rude call at water’s edge. Hunger is the knot under the diaphragm, suddenly just too much, so you forget the barrel. The things we risk, walking up to death like fools for a taste. The doe’s face lifts in dawn’s damp. A wet twitch of the oily nose, frozen above your linseed finger in the crosshairs. They can smell us. Everything that you do, everywhere you have been.

The duck eggs you fried for dinner, the brine of our last fuck you carry on your body to the White Oak standing catholicschool still.

by Allison Cundiff 55

Fearless To Own Self Hurt by others Crushed feelings hold me together Crazy thoughts that engraved my fingerprints Fearless of pain, so now I dive right into it Stone grave with everyone else’s name on it besides mine Not worried about the future, so I don’t care what happens to me later on in life No, matter of fact death I will come to you so you wont have to look Compact memories took over my eyes sight They haunt me everyday but You can’t hurt me anymore Because of the survival images that the body, mind, and soul had to take on Fearless To Own Self As I lay down in a bed of allergies I get immune to all my surroundings Leap from the highest mountain I’m not afraid of hitting the ground from above So I welcome it with open arms Afraid not to jump in front of a bullet Because nothing can injure except self thoughts Cream of life smeared over anyone who feels like dying

But not me because no medicine can cure my own I stand in a crowd and no one can point me out From the lack of identity that myself owns Fearless To Own Self Leaping into water with drowning on my mind Doesn’t effect me because I will float to the top anyways Own self is like a one hit movie You can see my own start slipping after it gets a big break Mind and spirit separated from each other Because there is no support But you still see me walking want to know why Because I am the untold symbol that has to make a mark in your life Fearless To Own Self Quick sand is the home where my body can get interrupted And its not from someone living Wind let me jump on your back and leave my body Even if I fall, get scraped, get bumps, deep cuts, or even broken limbs it don’t bother me Because when your fearless to own self Only you can hurt yourself.

by King Shai 57

Time

Traveling

When the sun is high on a downtown Sunday morning It is impossible not to love the wanderers. Skin tired and bare Breaths long and slow As the transit. For one bright moment I am not wondering who on this street corner can imagine kissing me I am kissing my coffee, and the street signs hold my face And I am, at least on the sunny side of the street, so Very Among Others. A girl bikes by with flowers on her head instead of a helmet. These are mornings I am less of myself and more of the planet. And I am not tall or angry or strange on these mornings. My sweater blends in with the pavement I could lay down on those sauna stones and sink into the crust And I am softer and smaller and dirtier And it is time-travelling of a sort. This body is the machine.

by Madi Morelli

The Youngest Girl in Water Aerobics Class by Emily Oomen

It had been a winter of gray matter and a mind like a swimming pool with no water. So, when I saw the water zumba aerobics flier At the YMCA, I thought I’d finally follow my therapist’s advice to try something new. I arrived at the pool the next day in my black speedo and stained beach towel. The smell of chlorine hitting me like bleached coffee. I slid into the pool to the end of a lane full of a parade of retired women. Pop hits from five years ago began the play as the instructor danced on the pool deck. Step right, step left, jump, move it all about. Everyone had the dance memorized, hooting a hollering, and moving to the rhythm & blues of a pool noodle. The moment we lassoed around to Old Town Road, though, I was in. Pumping plastic weights to Pitbull and yelling “Heyyyy! Sexxxy lady!” when Gangnam Style came on. The water wrinkled with joy and I felt like silly string. We cooled down to John Legend, Put our plastic weights away, and made our way to the locker room. I turned on the shower and drew faces with the steam for the first time in forever.

DeSSeRT BeFoRe

DiNNeR

Damn, this is happening. I never asked for dessert first. You got everything I want, but one thing is missing. Where is my dinner? I'm saying prepare for me. Be aware of me Your underwear unseen, like one thing I need from you isn't your moves in nude. Your booty sways me in a way my body doesn't but you does it! I don't do cuffin I need huffing I need puffing I need that big bad itch legitimate loving! Blow me down! I lack lasting in lusting. This has you on me rubbing like you want 3 wishes from a G. Knees, you on your knees. You want 7 sins from me. You want to be my 100th problem. I need my #1 I must concede.

I want you to succeed not this way. You dare to scheme on this ice cream. I'm Mr. Softee. Pause ‘cause you seen me rock hard Ain't this awkward? You are missing something I need. For this hard work I put in you’ll see me hardly. You're heartless. Girl I'm an addict. I gotta have it. If I don't got that magic then you don't got shhhhh! It, I'm looking for your spot spoon fed to me on a platter You invited me for tea. While you spilling all over me I must decline. My time with you defies my diet. I'm dying since you don't want me for you. You want to be mine until sunrise. That's fine, but I'm loving for life and you want d!ck for the night. I decline because I don't work that way tonight So let me know when you want me all day. I could hit you up to visit or I could hit you up to stay.

by WiLL SuCCeeD the ARtiSt 63

The Body Mysterious by abbiefornow “No,” I told my roommate during one of our sprawling, late night talks. “I never feel gender dysphoria, it’s just that I have a hard time feeling connected to my body and usually don’t really like it all that much.” It wasn’t until the next day that I realized the absurdity of my claim. I woke myself up thinking, “Wait a second...” Why am I such a mystery to myself? As soon as I started experimentally thinking about myself as trans people started getting confused about my gender. I didn’t actively change my appearance—no late-night weird haircut, no purging my closet of clothes with color, and yet there seemed to be a shift. A guest at the theater where I work called me sir, a child on a scooter pointed as I walked past asking, “Is that a boy?” A woman freaked out when I emerged from a bathroom stall to wash my hands. In a way I guess these instances are representative of a sort of trans privilege. Without much effort there is ambiguity in how I’m read. Nonetheless, I find moments like these more baffling than euphoric. I’ve always thought of myself as femme even if the term “woman” has never felt particularly resonant. Have people always been reading my gender as less fixed than that and I just never noticed it before? In questioning my gender have I unconsciously taken on masculine traits? What are people seeing in me that has taken me so long to see in myself? What do I look like? Do I really look like that? I saw a new therapist and in our intake he said “and you identify as

female and use she/her pronouns right?” And I said “uhhh” and he said “Oh, sorry for assuming.” But then feeling panicked I said, “It’s ok don’t worry about it! I don’t really think about gender that much, it’s just, like, totally irrelevant to me.” I felt horrible immediately, but I didn’t bring it up again. Despite the image of a void coming to mind when someone says “gender identity” I have a hard time claiming any of the language associated with non-cisness. Trans, non-binary, gender queer, gender fluid–these all feel like Things, when what I feel is a Non Thing. Even agender has gender still right there in the name. How do you describe a non-thing? Is it possible? I tried to think of a good metaphor to explain my relationship with gender–it’s a playground I’ve outgrown but sometimes still visit, a sweater that fits so well I don’t notice I’m wearing it until someone points it out and it becomes impossibly itchy, a lamp that I see on the side of the road and don’t really need so I just walk past it–all of them felt silly and meaningless because gender feels silly and meaningless and I can’t make meaning out of something meaningless. Are some people really out here with a meaningful sense of gender? What does that feel like? This is not a rhetorical question!!! Please tell me!!! Sometimes, I accidentally say dysmorphia when I mean dysphoria but maybe this slip of the tongue is the best metaphor of all. Dysphoria is defined as unease or dissatisfaction whereas dysmorphia is an imagined abnormality in the shape or size of a body part. I don’t know that I feel uneasy exactly... maybe my gender is just a little abnormally sized. I recognize that most cis people probably wouldn’t think to describe

their gender as a lamp or an abnormally sized muscle, even in passing. Still, I’m not sure I’m really trans. Where does this hesitancy come from? Who does it serve? I know all the lines: You don’t need to have dysphoria to be trans, you can look any way and be trans, you don’t have to transition, you don’t have to justify. Even so... Sometimes I feel like I’m not really trans because maybe my problem isn’t actually to do with gender, it’s that I hate acknowledging my fundamental animality. I want to live in my head, in the beautiful playground of ideas. I hate that I have to eat, and shit, and sleep. I hate that someday I will die. I hate that ultimately, I have no control. I must eat, and shit, and sleep and someday I must die. Sometimes I think my real problem is that I am fragile skin stretched perilously thin over a disgusting mess of blood and guts and I am not at peace with that. Sometimes I feel like I’m not really trans because I’m graysexual. Don’t tell the other asexuals!! I know that this is A Take Which Is Bad, but sometimes I think gender is reified through sex and I don’t have sex and therefore I don’t have gender. It’s just simple math!!

Sometimes I feel like I’m not really trans because I like femininity too much. But how can I tell what’s true? Do I like femininity because it’s pretty and soft and fun to play with or is it all just the patriarchy internalized? I know the rules of being a girl. I know how to use femininity to get attention. At a party a couple months ago a straight girl told me I had Madonna boobs and I batted my eyes at her and beamed. Might I have replied instead, “The better to be desired with my dear!,” then drunkenly stared at myself in the bathroom mirror ‘til I realized that I was the wolf wearing granny’s crop top??? Can the auspices of girliness be fun to play with and a trap? An easy fallback? Is it possible that butterfly clips and silky slip dresses are

just really awesome and I don’t need to overthink it?? Sometimes I feel like I’m not really trans because actually I’m just fetishizing trans people. I go on Tinder and swipe right on anyone with T4T in their bio, hoping we’ll match and that that will confirm my own transness and I’ll never need validation again. But I also swipe right on trans people because trans people are hot. Is part of being in any group wondering if you actually belong in that group? Is it part of the human condition to wonder if you belong at all? What if, ironically, it’s in part because I was socialized as a girl that I feel like I shouldn’t take up any space in any community? Am I using the word ironic correctly??? I want to not crave validation so much, but I don’t think it’s helpful, or accurate for me to adopt an entirely individualistic pull-yourself-upby-your-bootstraps mentality around identity either. To the extent that I do feel any sense of gender it’s only through relationships. I feel like a femme when I’m the only one wearing color at a lefty meeting full of theory bros, I felt like a female when a man pulled his dick out at me on the street while walking home, I feel like a beautiful, ineffable mush when I’m in the ocean at Riis beach, topless and surrounded by queers. Fluid floating in fluid remembering that what makes up earth is mostly fluid. Who am I in community? Who am I alone? Am I anyone at all? This past December I worked at a camp for kids on winter break whose parents were still working, like a summer camp but for winter. One of my campers was a five year old trans girl, J-. Day after day, I watched her thinking, “You’re so young! How do you know so clearly who you are?” which made me feel like a transphobe because that’s the sort of thing transphobes say except when transphobes say it it’s usually to deprive trans children of (often life-saving!) care, but

mostly I was thinking it because I was jealous. What a miraculous thing to know yourself! Who knows what kind of exploration and angst may or may not await J- in the future. For now, there she was unbothered at the top of the slide playing princess, yelling orders to her plebeian five year old subjects below. How dare anyone take that away. How dare anyone deny the miracle of someone, somehow knowing themself? If a summer camp takes place in the winter, is it transseasonal? Does that make the whole camp trans? Once, back when I used to date cis-men, a boyfriend told me that he liked my voice. “It’s so low and womanly,” he said. I had no questions about gender at the time, mine or anyone else’s. Even so, I laughed in his face. Does it matter how others perceive me? Does it matter how I perceive myself? At various times, I’ve tried out new names to try to find one that felt better, but now there are at least seven different things people call me by and most of the time it makes me feel like my identity is splintering apart. And I still don’t like any of them! Once though, a friend introduced me as “Abbie for now”, almost as if it were one word: abbiefornow. I found some solace in that. It felt like the opposite of being introduced as née something, l ick instead of acknowledging past shifts, I could acknowledge future possibilities. What if my real problem is just that I’m afraid of commitment?

At work I wear a name tag that says, “Norma,” and that definitely doesn’t feel like my name, but I do like when people use it because first of all, Norma is my grandmother’s name, and second of all, who born after 1930 is named Norma???

What if my real problem is just that I want to feel special, like has-aname-that-no-one-else-under-94-has kind of special? My new therapist said I should try to philosophize less and focus more on how I’m feeling, what is actually going on in the world outside my head. But he also said “and you identify as female and use she/her pronouns right?” So what does he know? I don’t know what it would feel like to feel at home in my body, but I’m trying to get better at appreciating this messy, imperfect, life giving dwelling. I like the gap in my front teeth that, as a preteen, I refused to let the orthodontist close. I like the scar on the inside of my right thigh that I got from deliriously trying to hot glue together a costume while I was wearing it (like a FOOL). I like how in the summertime you can almost watch freckles appear in real time as the sunlight hits my face. I’m grateful for all the things my body helps me do. Still though, it’s hard. I fantasize about dancing, letting loose, succumbing to the inescapable pulse of a pop song, but the truth is I hate going out. When I do, I move awkwardly and, worse still, aware of my awkwardness. I fixate on the gaping abyss between my hesitant, jerky limbs and freedom. Maybe the best I can do is not put so much pressure on myself to be something in particular, or worry too much about the implications of every passing thought. Transness is expansive, and magical, and it’s mine to claim if I want it and that’s that. Maybe the best I can do is to say out loud (in late night conversations, and therapy sessions, and scattered essays) how I really feel and then try to hear my own words. There may be a lag, but maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of myself. Maybe I’ll wake up the next day thinking, “Wait a second...

Sacrament

The first time I had sex, I thought I was Going to hell. I was twenty years old, And I’d fallen into my first relationship. The third time we shared a bed, my girlfriend Asked if I wanted her to let me in. I said, “Maybe.” Sometimes uncertainty Is read as coyness. She took my “maybe” To mean certainty. The next day, she left— Left me to ask if I was destined for hell. Alone in my room, I talked to myself And God. Before thinking to have a girlfriend To sleep with, I thought about the difference Between spouses and fiancées. I told myself marriage and engagement Were statements of intent, and if their Intents were identical, then they were, too. But I found impulse, not intent, between An angel’s thighs; behind them, a choice Between irreverence and repentance. I couldn’t make myself feel remorse. Regret— that that first time was something that just Happened—but not guilt. The truth was, I couldn’t Feel guilt for something that felt good If that something didn’t hurt someone else. Years later, I know better now, of course. I know now to regret sex with someone If you don’t intend to make them feel good. In the throes of agony, I realized sex— Intimacy—to let yourself be known—

I can’t explain how it feels to have your Body pressed against another, skin and Tongue like velvet, lips plush, bodies both soft And firm. I can’t describe how it feels to Trace a lover’s body with your fingers, Sending shocks down their spine like electric Static, shivers racing across their skin. I can scarcely explain how it feels to Hold someone in an embrace and want to Draw them closer and closer and closer, Hold them, breathing, heart beating, until Time slows down, stops, and starts back up again. I can’t tell you what it’s like to swim in Another’s waters, to dive deeper and Deeper down in paired exploration and Ecstasy. I can’t tell you what it’s like To draw the juice of a ripened mango And drink it. I can’t explain what it means To be held in another’s eyes and know They love you and you love them in return. The scope of spoken word sometimes fails me. Some phenomena are best understood When they’re felt, and I want to feel them all. When I had sex for the first time, I thought I’d condemned myself to hell. Now I know Nothing pure and honest can be sinful. And I’d I’m wrong, I’ll pray for the courage To walk, unflinching, right into hell.

by ata amponsah 71

Trade Driving for the Passenger Seat and in this house i am catching my foot in the screen door and in this body i am entitled to what i am not and in this place i am the galaxy standstill / i wake whenever i please, and know not the meaning of calories. i take eyes turned upwards towards me as submission. i take myself as oppressed for wanting to submit sometimes. and in this town i am licking bookshelves clean and in this building i ask the only questions and in this room i am not receptive to consequences and in this universe i do no wrongs at the time of inception i am unbridled by what is necessary or what is sufficient by to whom to lend a piece of heart and where tears go for those younger with unaddressed ailments those the wiser with unheld hurt and what it means, in general, to feel fatalistic tie, to give to fatal degree and in this situation i can ride a bike, and better correct english, and welcome the dogs biting at my forearms in this instance i know everything you don’t although i don’t really quite know much at all

by Ariana Eftimiu

HE WAS ABOUT SIX FOOT, NINE worked in the packing house. He packed a fist so hard he knocked out cows on the killing floor. When done with work, he washed up, returned home. He’d mellow in his easy chair a half an hour each day. His wife had supper on the table by then. They ate in pregnant, frightened silence. He didn’t help with dishes, just sank into the easy chair again. He remembered lines of silent cattle, not knowing sledgehammer fists awaited them that day. When his dad returned from work, steel hands grabbed him. Violent, measured speech, didn’t care why he had misbehaved. His body jerked in the easy chair, to avoid those red fists. He pursed his lips not to scream. Then he would no longer feel the punishing fists. In his guts he carried a steel garbage can, its lid pulsing to flip off.

by Phil Flott

The Asylum is Filled with Summer Bobs In the heart of my Saturn Return, staring down this summer in which I turn thirty, I find myself feeling strangled, quite literally. But not in a sexy way, either. I wake throughout the night with my hair-that’s-always-been-long wrapped around my neck, a noose of color-treated keratin that’s a knockoff the summer’s trending, old money blonde, but only due to negligence and how squeezed my paycheck is feeling. Like many of my other millennials on the younger end of their generational spectrum, this overstimulation of hair goes hand in hand with my latest fixation: An effort to determine if I’ve persistently undiagnosed ADHD. Sure, the brushing and the washing gets annoying, and how much the humidity on the back of my neck annoys me is directly related to the temperature outside. But it’s worse than that. The moment my hair tangles with an earring or zipper or air pod sends me into a nonsensical rage, a Furiosa with no (Taylor)-Joy to be seen. The more time between haircuts and the longer this bleached beast gets, the more time the bitch spends locked in a hair clip that’s only ever trying its best. Through my late twenties, that feeling gets worse and worse, until it can’t just be a hangerinduced vengeance in a moment of low blood sugar. It’s more than that. Maybe a lot more. As is a cannon event of the millennial quest, I find the beginnings of an answer on TikTok

when I see a woman describe how she immediately confines the greedy arms of her hair when she returns to her tiny New York City apartment. Her hair has given her sensory overload. Her hair has given her sensory overload. That’s it! Exactly. I’m almost thirty, no kids or pets, but I live in one of the most cramped cities in the world and finally the nudging and the brushing and the tightness is all too much and I am simply overtouched by my own hair. It’s got to go. I find myself in a new chokehold: The one that the summer bob has on everyone. Oddly, the haircut I want is the hairstyle I had as a kid, the age when your hair is still naturally blonde and it’s hard for our parents’ old college friends and gossipy extended family to tell if we’re a girl or a boy so they have to really nail that shit home with a ton of pink and blue accoutrement. A Saturn Return seems like a good time to reinvent yourself, or at least your look, something that also scratches that itch of my ADHD brain craving new stimuli: Fresh clothes, constant travel plans, that good good hit of orgasmic sugar only a Tootsie Roll Pop can provide. At its core, a Saturn Return is a return to a lot of things lost: Watching our favorite childhood cartoons, adult friend group trips to Disneyworld, mocktails and unironic Shirley Temples, early bedtimes. Learning how to play again. A return to our inner child. So who is my inner child? What does childhood look like for a millennial plagued with the intersection of sensory overload, a hatred of friction and constraint and crowded air that ends in exhaustion and burnout and this ultimate desire to shed an all-seasons coat of hair to just be rid of another pesky label and layer of self already?

Let’s go back to the basics. My inner child is an only child. We know the spiel: Only children grow up early, are mature for their age, parent the parents only to have to parent themselves when they inevitably revert to their young selves as they try to carve out a childhood that was too short. Saturn Return, indeed.

Google and the AI overlords give us a YouGov survey: About 12% of folks said they grew up with siblings. Then we’ve got Psychology Today: The only child household is the largest growing family unit, at least within the US; now, about 20% of homes with children are only child households. An only child means I was a voracious reader, and that’s no coincidence. Much of children’s literature centers protagonists who are only children (see: the topic of another essay I’ll get to at some point when my brain remembers). The special chosen ones, so to speak. Don’t @ me. Just kidding. Or not. I didn’t see myself reflected in the classroom or on my cul-de-sac in the 90s, but I did see myself as a rural, Kentucky Fried Eloise with worse teeth and a twangy Momaw instead of a Judi Dench Nanny. Some of you other Millennials might call younger-me the favorite 90s flavor that was a safe and not-too-spicey way to be different: Tomboy. Oh, you were an only child, an only daughter, you must’ve been raised as the boy your parents wanted instead, right? The opposite. My folks were adamant I would not be too “girl” or too “boy” –but also not just neither. My first toys were Barbies and dump trucks. I began a decade of classical piano at the same age I began my trek to become an eventual second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. So I wasn’t raised as a girlish tomboy, or a boyish girl. But rather, both, if unconsciously. Daughter and son. Only children often are, whether parents intend to or not. That’s where folks get it sideways. Only girls aren’t raised as tomboys and only boys aren’t raised to be like their moms. It’s both. But my childhood is also not 2024. This is the 90s here. Not NYC 90s but 90s in The South™. Gender norms are stronger than ever, and heaven forbid you’re a tomboy past your first period, or a teenage boy who would rather read or draw than play football. So what happens when you’re both?

A friend once asked me if I liked to lean away from traditional feminine markers because I grew up in a family of almost all women. Grandmothers, aunts, and great aunts raised me. There were only two men in my family, my dad and one uncle. Was I subconsciously trying to fill in and find a niche in a female-dominated family? Striving to be less feminine, more foil for the silly sake of some longingrained societal sense of neatness and completion? I still don’t know the answer to that question, and it’s a tricky one, because it implies dependency on a binary and the idea that there is an inherent hole or deficit in a female-led family structure, as if there are gaps that need to be filled. Throw in the added bonus material that I wasn’t originally an only child, but absorbed a twin early on in the womb (a taste of that wild parent lore they drop on you randomly in the drive through of a Bojangles). I kept my hair long just like my grandmothers loved it, but learned to drive in my dad’s truck the minute the law allowed. For men in the South, a driver’s license is synonymous with freedom, and no way would he have a daughter without a license and the ability to pick up and go. Answers or no answers, that question is still one that tickles my brain each passing year, especially as I get closer to thirty and contemplate knifing off all my hair. “But wait—Jesus, hold on a second!” you say. How does growing up as both first-born daughter and first-born son lead to a feral need to cut off hair? I don’t have all the answers. Probably won’t find them all, either. But I can speak to what I know: You’re constantly torn in two.

Now, I’m not suggesting any malignant intention on the part of parents, or that the existence of a spectrum here implies disastrous chaos. The opposite, really. When you grow up as two, one possible

result, as was my experience, is quickly developing a need for order and control. Or maybe the duality just reveals what’s already lurking there in the brain. Either can be true. More bonus material: I had OCD as a tween (no, not Only Child Disorder), but because this was The South™ in the early 2000s, no one talked about OCD or even how to spot it in young children. Like ADHD in women, OCD in girls looks stunnin’! Control, neatness, organization, cleanliness. People pleasing (and what I later learned as a baby adult to actually call it, in my case: masking) becomes a means of power and gaining back control. The overachiever in us eldest and only daughters thrives on being a sophisticated Excel sheet. You’ll hear only children as adults say they would’ve liked a sibling. I never did; I raged when my cousin was born and I was no longer the only grandchild and person under thirty. I never wanted a sibling to take any type of role off my shoulders. As a proper only daughter, I wanted the whole burden. But does the only child turn into the workaholic, or does the inherent overachiever thrive in spaces that force you to compete against yourself? I don’t have an answer for that one yet either. This is where only daughters and only sons branch. There already exists space for a sole male heir. It’s the topic of many regency novel. But a sole female heir? Also the topic of many a regency novel, but always the family’s grand problem, never the solution. So while only male children grow comfortable in spaces already carved for them (saw this firsthand when I dated one—phew!), only female children operate in this limbo. To be a daughter, or son? Dowry or heir? Both? You develop your body image issues in middle school when you’re chunky from grandma biscuits, battle your eating disorder in high school, and by the time you reach college, the joys of womanhood give you PCOS which means you gain weight again randomly. Then, as the stress of a big girl job in a big girl city after college wreaks

havoc on your nervous system, you’ve got chronic stomach pain by twenty-five, pain that sucks pounds and life from your body for the next few years. But hey, look at that! You’re skinny again, and now you’ve got big girl money to buy clothes you actually like for this body. Except your inner fat kid in the reflection never goes away, does she? All of this leads to the same mirror, though: Body Dysmorphia. Girls raised in the asylum of the 90s and 2000s will also be the first to tell you—recent societal advances or not—the world is made for thin people. This fact is ironically harder to escape in the forwardthinking blue metropolitan centers of progressiveness like New York City. Life seems easier when there is less of you to manage, figuratively and literally, the same way it’s so much easier to arrange compact pieces of furniture than bulky family heirlooms in your sixthfloor walkup in Chinatown. So with a loud mind riddled with OCD and an ED and ADHD, you want things to be neat and easy and simple. Quiet. To see and account for the edges of yourself because Good Lord, isn’t it so much easier on a starving nervous system when things just fit and the friction disappears? But what do those edges even look like? No, I don’t mean the proverbial edge of sanity. I think. That same brain—the one that makes you wonder how society can possibly still operate well within any kind of determinative binary— will tell you, if you manage to find a quiet space and the time to listen: an only child doesn’t have to be both. At all times, or any time. Imagine! Those edges are straight lines, no bumps or ridges or

potholes. The feeling begins to sound a lot like that other word folks don’t like to discuss except, of course, when trying to lecture the young girls they encouraged to be feminine about what they’re missing in order to make it as “high fashion” models: Androgyny. Disney tells us that female villains are nearly always skeletal, to the point of approaching that oh so scary space that is the middle of a gender spectrum. And whether you’re a Cruella DeVill or a Maleficent or an Yzma, the same is true if you’re a male villain. You’re thin as well, and drawn decidedly less masculine in such a way that us youths had no chance at fighting the technicolor rhetoric that told us feminine men with eyeliner are bad news (can you tell I took an entire course in college on Disney animation?—that’s another essay, promise). A Disney heroine, on the other hand, is always thin with a healthy glow, with long hair and eyelashes and virginial energy galore. The world is made for thin people, but thin in the right way. Asylum, indeed. So where does all of this—the only children and the eldest peoplepleasing daughters and OCD and the Kate Moss quote we all know as well as the macros of a nutrition label on the Cronometer app— where does it take us? Perhaps here: There’s a reason Millennial women are suddenly obsessed with the bob. They’re exhausted and tired of all of it. Hair is holding so much, it’s gotten fucking heavier than the kettlebells we like to toss around (but not too much, don’t get bulky!). And we’re done hauling it, alongside our bags of laundry, on our backs all the way to our walkups, day after day. Perhaps.

The answer I’m really interested in, instead, is the one that’s always been there, in a way: We don’t have to be All at All Times. We don’t have to be both. Allow yourself to not be both. So that, ultimately, you can be neither, and cut your hair.

by Ellen Goff 82

JELLY BELLY When away from life’s pressures & In seldom times of leisure One of my guilty pleasures Is to lie in bed With thoughts in my head Said and unsaid…

Reflections with recollections Of many, My hands stray to play With my belly. I Love My Jelly Belly

And expand it. I make it concave

I beez lowkey obsessed with it. I like to caress it

Rub it and tug it I can even make it wave. It’s so soft. I’m in awe & revel on how grand it is. I Love My Jelly Belly. It’s stretched thin With marks and lose skin. I’ve been Gifted with a seed planted within. So it became a Holy Place, My babe’s sacred space, To nourish and bloom in. My Belly is a Blessin’! I Love My Jelly Belly,

It’s a rare love affair Where… I grab the extra flab That is there.. I give it a wiggle And you gotta see How I’m filled with glee When it jiggles Making me little girl giggle.

I Love My Jelly Belly. It’s not sculpted or flat, And, I’m still considered fat, But I don’t care about that. At this time all I know Is I don’t wanna go

You see,

To the body sculpting offices of

There’s no need to make it tight

Sonnobello.

For me… It’s just right. I’m not gonna hide it, Deny it, Or try to make it invicible, Because it’s beautiful And, I love it plenty. An ode unexpectedly To my Jelly Belly. Now if I can be as mesmerized

With these Thunder Thighs.

by RoyalZee

His Temple This sacred sanctuary became brewing brothel Tainted & Tasty Until you came Flipped those tables over

I was never meant to be a den of thieves I am not for sale Refine me down to hell Potter my ashes into seeds Keep me planted in your hands Harvest me new I am your dwelling.

By Tamra Cosby

My G r

Dry as bone

The waste in the glass Passages caved in Blown to hell No more tourist paths

st ai W

yard e v a It goes, it goes

Where to put them now that they’ve dried out? Where do I put the maps of the body I built? My collaborators remain at the site, Keening and cleaning and brushing and weeping The graveyard was plotted expertly Nothing left vacant No undisturbed crosses left behind

orell iM

by Mad

Nothing can ever just be kept empty There is no more waiting in a cemetery.

Big Idea Discussion Whether we view our bodies as temples or wild forests, our bodies are our permanent homes. In what ways do you experience joy in your body? In what ways does your body feel like home?

Writing Craft Exercises Vocabulary: Based on the context clues in "Fish" by Kate Smolens, what could the word "reverberating" mean? Highlight the words that helped you draw this conclusion. (p. 6). Setting & Senses: How does King Shai in "Fearless To Own Self" appeal to our five senses? Highlight one example of each (p. 56). Rhythm & Flow: How would you describe the rhythm of Ryn’s “God's Best Design?” What words slow the piece down or speed it up? (p. 37). Main Ideas: Read "His Temple" by Tamra Cosby (p.84 ). What is the main idea of this piece? Without straying from the main idea, replace the "brewing-brothel" simile with another comparison and rewrite the poem. Writing Genre: What is the main idea of "The Asylum is Filled with Summer Bobs" by Ellen Goff (p. 74). What conclusions can be pulled from the story that better help you understand the meaning of body?

Text Discussions Diction: In "You're Finally a Woman," how do the words "periods," "fertile," and "contractions," help enhance the story? (p. 51) Sense of Place: In "Hunting On Our Own Land" by Allison Cundiff, what do you learn about our place in the world as humans? (p. 54) Compare & Contrast: Read Madi Morelli's "Holy Grail." How are you currently taking care of your body, and in what ways can you show it more respect? (p. 34) Point-of-View: Whose perspective(s) is “The Body Mysterious” by Abbiefornow written from? How does the text formatting support these perspectives? (p. 64).

Projects Sculpture: Choose a scene from one of these pieces and create a clay sculpture. We recommend air or polymer clay. What colors and curves would you use to replicate the body in this scene? In what ways is this physical representation of this body different from the way you experience your own? Art: Create a photem (photo poem) inspired by a body metaphor in this anthology. You can use a camera or Canva to create your design, then write around it. See where it takes you. Then share with us on @karmacomesbefore on Instagram.

Through shai’s eyes

+1(646) 568-6843

HERU SMITH

mrsmith2k@gmail.com

Each song on this playlist was carefully selected to represent a different part of the body. See if you can fill in each blank using the hints provided. The first person to email the correct answers to kcbthemag@gmail.com with a paragraph about what they liked about this issue will win a prize in the mail! Rock With You by Michael Jackson Milkshake by Kelis Body by Summer Walker Hips Don't Lie by Shakira Ocean Eyes by Billie Eilish

t t ____ e e ____ at ____ i __p ____ a __ r e ____ ttr i __________ y ___

Brown Skin Girl by Beyonce, Saint JHN

p a s ______

BYBO by Shakin’ Da World

_______ r v t

FLESH by Miguel

____ m k s __

Touch My Body by Mariah Carey

e e v _______

Scars to Your Beautiful by Alessia Cara

sh ______’ n

Brown Skin by indie.arie Beautiful by Christina Aguilera Body by Loud Luxury

c c l e _________ m r l _______ in c n _________

Abbie Goldberg, @stab.ilify, is a multidisciplinary artist from the mountains of rural Maine. Their work has been performed at Lincoln Center, Rattlestick Theater, Salt Tree Eco Puppetry Festival, Rockwood Music Hall, as part of Adding Our Voices: The Jewish Feminist Songbook and Gender Inclusion Initiative, and more. Their writing has been published by HowlRound, Autostraddle, Dame, Waif Magazine, The Theatre Times, Sinister Wisdom, AK Press, Ben Yehuda Press and more. They have been described as "such a good storyteller" by their psychiatrist.

Ata is the Publishing Manager at Karma Come Before. You can reach him on Instagram at @ataaaaa_a.

Alma is a writer from Ontario, Canada. She wrote her first novel at sixteen, scrapped it, and has since been publishing shorter works in literary journals across the web. Her work comprises mostly fiction that is based (somewhat) in reality, as she forces the heaps of scraps she has collected over the years to take the shape of something readable.

Sally has been a poet since age eight, writing happy poetry for her loving boyfriend and Maine Coon, sad poetry for herself, and fun poetry for shits and giggles. She explores themes of love, loss, and religion in everything she does.

Exploring themes of mental health, personal identity, and the nuances of human vulnerability, J. Bechard's work is a reminder of young intellectualism and old philosophy; raised on classic literature and the religious chasms of the deep south, his prose delivers a unique blend of romanticism juxtaposed with contemporary style.

Kimberleigh is a poet and performance artist based in Ridgewood, Queens. Their choreographic work has been presented at venues throughout New York City and developed at residency centers nationally and internationally. Their poetry has been published in Survivors Magazine. Across genre, their artistic work primarily concerns queer identity, abjection, and the body as the meeting place of the holy and the grotesque.

Allison is a farmer and teacher in St. Louis. Her publications include the forthcoming novel, Hey Pickpocket (2024, JackLeg Press) three books of poetry, Just to See How It Feels (2018, WordPress), Otherings (2016, Golden Antelope Press), and In Short, A Memory of the Other on a Good Day, co-authored with Steven Schreiner, (2014, Golden Antelope Press). Connect at Allisoncundiff.net

lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024). His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals.

Ariana is a student at Barnard College, Columbia University, in New York City. She has published

work in the National Poetry Quarterly, Aerie International, Not Very Quiet, and the Columbia Daily Spectator, among other places. Follow her co-run online music and arts magazine at pottedpurple.com or catch up with her @arianadrinkingcoffee. Phil retired from carpentering, and has had poems published in Poetic Sun, Raven's Perch, Passager, Sangam, and other delightful mags. E. was born and raised in the wilds of Kentucky but now lives in the wilds of New York City. They have been published in the Indiana Review, Hunger Mountain, F(r)iction, T ulip Tree Review, New Millennium Writings. The short story “S.P.A.M.“ was F(r)iction’s Grand Prize Winner for short stories; the short story “Baptism“ was the Grand Prize Winner of the New Millennium Writings Award for Fiction; and the poem “Southland Eulogy“ was one of four select honorable mentions in the Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Prize contest.

is a queer poet and astronomer raised in Idaho. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Mount Holyoke Review, Zeniada, SARDINES, and Thimble Literary Magazine. Midge lives with their family in Massachusetts.

(he/him) is a Kentucky-based poet whose work has appeared in many publications, including HAD, Stanchion, Stone Circle Review, Livina Press, and The Storms, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. He currently lives in Bardstown, KY with his wife and three children.

D.C. Nobes is a physicist, poet, and photographer who spent his first 39 years in or near Toronto, Canada, then 23 years based in Christchurch, New Zealand, 4 years in China, and has retired to Bali. He used to enjoy winter, but admits that he doesn’t miss the snow or the cold. His poetry and photography have been published widely.

Emily is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. Her writing has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, BBC, BuzzFeed, The Rumpus, and other places. She holds a BA in English from the University of Washington. She has served in various roles for organizations such as Button Poetry and The Poetry Vlog. You can find her on social media @poetic_espresso. Kate is a writer from New York. Caitlin is from Kent and currently living in West Yorkshire. She considers herself to be an outsider/lowbrow artist and likes to portray a slightly unsettling vibe in an otherwise calm environment. They are a transmasculine lesbian anarchist and queer woman based out of Toronto who plans to someday publish a romance novel, a poetry collection, and some kind of scary play. Her work can be found in Wild Greens Magazine, Commuter Lit, Spell Jar Press’s first anthology and her poetry account, @musiing.more on Instagram. She is currently singing in public.

God, THANK YOU! We did it again! In Your name! Thanks to You! Wow, I never doubted You, not for one second. Thank You for creating me in the image of Yourself. As much as I AM my mind and spirit, I am ALSO my body, and I have learned so much this past year about honoring this wild flower forest. Thank you for drawing me into the beautiful watering pot that is Trevor L. Bailey. I appreciate him for saving my life as Stephanie, supporting me as wordchefsteph, and believing in Karma Comes Before. “You are where you belong no matter what.” This issue is dedicated to you. And thank You for shining Your light on my mustard seeds. They not like us, and we’re here to ROB HELL! May the light of Your word keep us warm, visible, and bright. Issue 004: Body speaks for itself. It’s our first of many anthologies and will one day graze library bookshelves, schools, and stores. This body of work is our greatest masterpiece yet, and I’m so glad You never let me run out of creative ideas for my organization. Thank you to Heru Smith and Aisatou Saho for bringing this dream to life! I hope everyone who supported this issue enjoys it-and please, TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!! Signed, wordchefsteph CEO of Karma Comes Before

Want your work in the next issue? Read more about writing, creating, or working with KCB at www.kcbthemagazine.com and stay tuned for Issue 005 updates on Instagram and Threads:

@karmacomesbefore

the Anthology