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contents
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vitrine Chris Timmins
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femininity Aischa Daughtery
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we both got on so well Nic Hutson
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Fluidity finds form Isabelle Hunt-Deol
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Bodies (like mine) Rebecca Gault
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the body is an imperfect vessel Emma Simpson
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sometimes something shapeless Nic Hutson
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This Body Ness Kohl
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Glass Hummingbird as Queer Symbol
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dressing for yourself Axe Marnie
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vigil Agnieszka Wodzińska
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shift Isabella McHardy
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Tethered Martha Stefani-Bose
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censored for an ex-lovers anonymity
Allie Kerper
Holly Parkinson
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blue Matilda Eker
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the body is a communal space Adi Currie
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Dazzle Ships Noush Bourne
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I Built it! Lilidh Jack
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beach #1 Matilda Eker
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Kintsugi as a Tool for Healing Jaime Russell
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Sweet Teeth Letty Wilson
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beach #2 Annika Dahlman
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nectarine lover Chris Timmins
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strawberry seeds Heather Hilditch
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when thinking about my sexual preferences, i like to split them into categories Aischa Daughtery
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faith Chris Timmins
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thank you!
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trans rights are human rights
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V II T TR R II N NE E V CHRIS TIMMINS
1. hair: fallen, shaved (c. 2014, c. 2019). (gendered associations removed at artist’s request) 2. broken heart (the first) (c. 2014). 2a). naïvety [under repair] 2b). partial feeling in right index finger / burning his letters must burn him too 3. curved body, politicised flesh, ‘childbearing hips’. (c. 2009) 4. tears 4a). (artist’s own) (constant) 4b). (unknown) 4c). in flesh / hatred / words pierce tender skin / as if i could ever be your / normal (c. please) 5. stolen kisses, 999 calls (3), sausage rolls (broken heart (the second)) (c. 2019) 6. pink, a reclamation 6a). choker, faggot, lockable 6b). 13th birthday performance of femininity / covered in gemstones and toilet roll 6c). [invisible to the naked eye] 6d). can i be beautiful ? boys can cry too
(c. ?)
femininity
after ‘High School’ by Blythe Baird AISCHA DAUGHTERY
this is how to stand so that you look thinner / how to open a sanitary pad without making a sound / how to laugh so that you don’t sound raucous / how to shut up / when to shut up / why to shut up / why to memorise the face of every man who walks past you / every car registration plate / this is where to sit on public transport / in taxis / how to sit / how to keep loving your grandfather / your male friends / this is exactly how to hold your keys inside your pocket when you are walking home / why to change your route and schedule / why to always be in company / why to walk around the trees instead of through them / this is why to stay at least two meters away from cars that ask you for directions / why to play no music through your earphones / why to avoid wearing them at all / this is why to tie your hair in a ponytail before you leave actually no / why to leave it down / why to go the long way although it'll make you late / why to cross the road although you don't live on that side / why to stick to well-lit streets full of people who might scare you more than darkness / why to keep your chin up / this is how to reject him without making him angry / why to keep your hands empty / how to scream when you / this is how to pick locks with kirby grips / how to clench up so it hurts less / how to cover up a love bite / how to share your location with your flatmate’s iPhone / this is how to recover in the place that made you sick /
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WE BOTH GOT ON SO WELL
(A FOUND POEM)
NIC HUTSON
A couple of bodies - friends hidden inside and receiving It has required some ingenuity on our part but we found the blood pulsing through flesh. They asked me again: what holds you altogether? squeeze your eyes tight closed as tight as you can press your hand into their stomach into another warm body until you feel the heart beat let them slide out towards your hips incredible all I could do was sit helplessly and hold them it was more than we could bear and then suddenly they are standing We have become quite nicely accustomed to travels throughout this body remember much simpler times before we found ourselves in this crush we’re afraid - must be constantly prepared to learn from our mistakes it is good to know that we survived
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ISABELLE HUNT-DEOL
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Bodies (Like Mine) REBECCA GAULT
i.
I took my body to the cliff side, asked if it felt alive yet and when it trembled, I trudged through the autumn leaves to take it back home.
ii.
I took my body to the high street, watched as it pondered over each individual strand of thread. Bodies like mine are held together by shoe-strings, overlapped and intertwined, in formation.
iii.
I took my body to the emergency room. Caught sight of myself in the blue-washed bathroom,
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hands and knees and broken bones. I prayed for my body the only way I knew how. iv.
I took my body to the mirror, asked if it could see beauty there; “I suppose�, it muttered. And for the first time in months, the fire dislodged itself from my throat.
v.
I took myself to the cliffside. Staring at the village towns below and when I asked the void if I felt alive yet, I felt my own head nod.
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EMMA SIMPSON
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SOMETIMES SOMETHING SHAPELESS
NIC HUTSON
We are nobody’s children Not your daughters and sons We are both sandpaper skin and rough edges tender parts and soft spots mismatched anatomy and dreams of something better My chest sticks out too far yours dips right in we are both flawed and somehow fit together so well. It is a surprise to feel somewhat whole for once Rounded. Sharp edges tucked away or filed smooth We swap shirts like shapeshifters patterned prints as queer culture Bonding over the beat and the wish of swapping - or removing incorrectly gendered appendages Later, in front of the mirror picking off parts of my body shedding soft skin revelling in the luxury of ugliness Shaving long strands of myself in the shower smooth skin quickly turns to stubble swore I’d let myself grow this time I have learnt not to trust I have learnt not to trust but I am trying again
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This Body is foreign Bruised the colour of a full-bodied wine I do not want to drink These feet are tired Struggling to keep a footing This back is crooked Breaking itself under the weight of the world This belly is frail It doesn’t have the guts to properly process or disappear These lungs are empty Desperately gasping for safety Caught in the cut-throat business of being
These arms are weak They cannot hold in the crawling skin Cannot hide their imperfection Embrace numbness These hands are chapped They make rash decisions Suffer the consequences Plastered in scars they struggle to hold on to life delicately These thighs are wide wearing jeans and glances skin tight Shrinking in on themselves Trying not to be a waste of space
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I am learning that this body of mine is everything I need it to be
NESS KOHL
This body got off on the wrong foot tried to back out but stomachs the world and finds a breath of fresh air Armed with nothing it accepts what it’s handed No longer on the hip it makes a clean breast It is determined to heal and wear bruises like badges of honour
THIS BODY
This chest is unfamiliar It holds many things Some are bubbly some are sharp It always seems too tight but keeps abreast Patiently waiting to unlock its treasures
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Glass Hummingbird as Queer Symbol ALLIE KERPER
How fitting this pain as ink assaults thin skin, rainbow’s end over vein motorways. Blood vessels break as the tattooist mimics glass, drawing sheet wings and needle beak that chip only if I pick the scabs. Colours wave around the bird, a flag that stings when my skin attempts to twist out from under it. I clench my teeth, remind myself denial had its own kind of pain, a nectar this creature sucks out of me.
AXE MARNIE
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I know you were an autumn baby but you will always remind me of summer drinks deep into the night & flashing lights somewhere on Sauchiehall Street. I don’t believe in ghosts but I swear I keep seeing you everywhere before the strangers come closer. This city didn’t belong to you but it was more yours than it will ever be mine. As I walk the streets, I look at my hands like they were someone else’s and remember you no longer occupy space any space. Gone in a puff of smoke. I am sorry for catching a glimpse of your room weeks after you’d gone (an invasion of privacy even though you weren’t there anymore) An empty room white puffy duvet folded on top of the bed – Did you look out that window and think about dying? Did it make you feel better, or worse? I don’t believe in ghosts but I think of you the second a stack of CDs falls over I can’t listen to Nina Simone anymore. Grief gives me a migraine so powerful I vomit, my body jerking me into life convulsing despite my wish to sink into stillness. Apparently, exercise helps. I burst into tears during savasana -- being still reminds me of you it was the last state you were in before they put you in the ground -ashes to ashes like they said in church.
VIGIL
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AGNIESZKA WODZIĹƒSKA To this day, I do not know how you felt about the Church. Would you have liked a different ceremony? A toast and a drink, a dance in your name, a glance at the lights moving across your favourite basement bar full of queers looking for a good time, looking for someone looking at the faces of strangers -- in your case, soon-to-be-friends, one night only, maybe for longer -twinks, cruisers, daddies and bears, closeted gays; how you loved them all. (Despite the swelling sadness, quiet but brimming, still) When I go out dancing, I will think of you; I want my body to start flowing like water like the stream you crossed to get to work like the murky depths of River Kelvin (the bridge hangs way too high) like tears shed on that Tuesday so many tears none of us knew how to replenish this type of empty other than to hold each other, keep us from going limp in the summer heat. I’ll dedicate a Whitney song to you and let it wash over me until all I see is glitter on skin against skin until all that shimmers in this world is on a sticky dancefloor in Glasgow somewhere until there is nowhere else nothing but strobe light snapshots in the dark belly of the night.
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SHIFT
ISABELLA MCHARDY EARLY MORNING SUNSHINE DANCING THROUGH MY WINDOW I FEEL LIKE A CATHEDRAL RAYS WEEPING THROUGH STAINED GLASS COLOURS MELTING INTO MY SKIN SCINTILLATING AS IF THEY ARE CELEBRATING SQUINT THROUGH THE BEAMS THE COLOURS TEASE EACH OTHER I AM A PLACE OF WORSHIP OFTEN BUT SOMETIMES FOUNDATIONS ROT AND I FEEL MYSELF TUMBLE AND I AM NOT A CATHEDRAL MORE A TENT ON A MOOR THE WALLS ONLY SHEETS THERE ARE NO BEAMS TO SQUINT THROUGH NO SUN TO DANCE IN JUST DISORDER AND THE SOUND OF A STORM WHEN AM I A TENT AND WHEN AM I SOMETHING SO SPECTACULAR AND HOW CAN I SHIFT SO CARELESSLY I WISH TO BE A CATHEDRAL IMPORTANT AND LOVED BUT THERE S SOMETHING SOOTHING ABOUT SLEEPING IN THE DIRT
’
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MARTHA STEFANI-BOSE
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HOLLY PARKINSON
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MATILDA EKER
ADI CURRIE
The heart is to be shared. I want to share mine, to hand you a segment of my self, the pulp of me, everything that I am and will be. I want to nourish you. All of you. I want to hand myself to the world over and over, continuously, as I am replenished by it and by you and by the green of the grass and the faint sun still, still rising.
these hands to build, to touch, to twist the green leaves off the red berry. these arms, to hold you. this chest filled with life and air and a song for whoever will hear it. this heart, to be shared.
The body is a communal space. By which I mean,
THE BODY IS A COMMUNAL SPACE
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DAZZLE SHIPS
Dazzle ships can’t bear to have an outline to be material to be physical to be a Thing of Substance. An object in the sense of occupying and interacting with space. I used to think the outlines were wrong because they were in the wrong places too curved too bulbous too soft too convex too great in surface area their fractal dimension too divergent from their topological dimension. But now I see why the outlines are wrong – they are wrong because they are there. It is unbearable to materially witness my own existence; this is what the body is. Energy born as matter, Spirit born as flesh, Thought born as dirt. This is what they say – God Made Man. Give me patterns of lines, of shapes, of contrasts. Dazzle me. Hide my edges among many more, my body dispersed as patches of alternating positive and negative space. A shape in fragments, strewn across a field of motion. NOUSH BOURNE
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I BUILT IT! I built it! I built it! I built it! Every night, twice a week I got home, took off my clothes, Jock strap on, vas/line out and I built it. I built it with my friends, I met friends building it, Do you know, so and so, Aye—why yes, I built hers too. Hers has toys, oh aye so I heard And hers and hers are interlaced And she and him I know too well, But there, at hers, I built it first. I came inside—the curtains synched The waists were drawn and there I built A pyramid of playing cards, A pyramid of playing cards.
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Grampian light came through the lines: Euclidean geometry. I traced the pride upon the walls the sun setting discovered. Then, questioned what my business was, I let the neighbours in to see. Some thing they carried dismantled my pyramid of playing cards. Three men, I saw, when walking home: Two hands synched and interlaced, And as they passed I turned to look Their pyramid of playing cards. My eyes were heavy on their spine, Intertwined, two hands no longer Their pyramid of playing cards
LILIDH JACK
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MATILDA EKER
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KINTSUGI AS A TOOL FOR HEALING Jaime Russell
Fill the crevices, with gold. Medals for display, I have earned these scars.
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SWEET TEETH LETTY WILSON
You spoke the hunger that sat stale On my tongue, and it sounded so sweet, I felt it on the inhale Set my teeth on edge, and rounded Out my lips. I bit my tongue You took my dumb lack filled your lungs And breathed it back Honeyed. I am sour, coffee grounds I am eating fistfuls of salt And saying I’m the ocean With a mouthful of blood
You are sugary, your name An ice cream headache Needlepoints of aspartame Bubblegum and birthday cake. With only air and light to hand, you Photosynthesise ideas Round and heavy, honeydew Break the flesh and angry nectar frees Itself. You puff your cheeks and spit out pips That flower where my sourness leaks My sullen silence on your lips Is flavoured like forgotten fruits, whose Sweetness says we’re capable of growth. That anger, sadness are our own to choose And the doubts that fill my mouth Taste like peaches when I speak them aloud.
ANNIKA DAHLMAN
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NECTARINE / LOVER chris timmins
quiet touch / bodies linked in / eggshell skin / peel for / your words / our lust / my pith / warm beneath your fingertips / want me / your secrets held in my tender pulp / fill me / sweet nectarine lover / bruise me / lay me down in your fruit bowl / love it is only you and i here / love / hot breath under blanket secrecy / yours / if you / need me / fuck me / love me
strawberry seeds Heather Hilditch
strawberry seeds and her lips that open like a peach being torn apart form the centre swollen and gushing that left me shivering with longing the next cold morning. and i never knew that love could feel like this. sticky, wet and dripping for more. blatant and obvious with my bald head and her black doc martens laced all the way to the top. dangerous and passionate when she begs me to push her and she lets me do as i please. and dizzying when tells me she loves me, or that i’m the best sex she’s ever had, or that i taste just like fresh air after a long thunderstorm. me, with all the ways i’ve made myself uneasy to swallow. with all my jagged pieces of glass that lie just below the surface of my skin. i never knew that love could feel like this. sweet, yet prickly. like when we fight on saturday morning and make love by sunday night. just like strawberry seeds.
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AISCHA DAUGHTERY
when thinking about my sexual preferences, I like to split them into categories • mental 1. context
(google: tumblr.com
pornhub.com | category: lesbian not directed by a man ... pornhub.com)
2. relationships (hookups, casual, long-term) am I just pretending to feel something 3. body image
(all the internet gave me as a kid was a thigh gap and loads of weird kinks)
4. environment (some dungeon or posh hotel, ideally) (kitchen worktops, student bathrooms, dirty bedsheets, realistically) 5. mood
(not entirely sure but usually down)
• physical 1. sensations: 2. positions: 3. restrictions: 4. erotic pain: 5. accessories:
(like how I’d imagine a near-death experience) leftist (must be reciprocated) (feminist instinct/anatomy, breathing, blades, leather, metal) (see point 1) (see point 3)
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faith
chris timmins
can i call myself religious, if their prayers to God were never made to fit my tongue? can i call myself holy, if your spit in my mouth feels more sacred than milk and honey? can i call myself reverent, if i find faith - not in the gospel, but in the queer space, where our bodies do not quite touch / in the aisles of a sex store drowned in neon lights, the echoes of strangers, the saccharine smell of leather / in the shared joy of bruising this consecrated flesh?
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thank you! Thank you to everyone who submitted their beautiful pieces of art to this inaugural issue of the zine. There were so many incredible artists and poets, and it was an honour to read and celebrate your work. Thank you to Creative Scotland and the National Youth Arts Advisory group for granting me funding from the ‘Time to Shine’ fund to start plantbot publishing and this zine. Thank you to Colin Herd for the use of his adobe account so I could make this zine and his support of the project. Thank you to Jane Goldman & our tuesday poetry seminar for inspiring me to create art and start writing poetry again. Thank you to my friends and family for listening to all of my constant worrying, second guessing and excitement/sheer fear every day. You were there every step of the way and i couldn’t have done it without you. Finally, thank you to everyone who has supported the zine, from its conception on social media to the final zine you are reading right now. This project is a true labour of love and joy, and i appreciate every bit of support. with love and solidarity, Chris Timmins (Editor in Chief)
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TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS HOW TO SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH THE TRANS COMMUNITY
RIGHT NOW, TRANS RIGHTS ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER ATTACK IN THE MEDIA AND OUR SOCIETY - MOST RECENTLY EVEN WITHIN THE LITERARY COMMUNITY ITSELF. HERE ARE SOME WAYS TO SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH OUR TRANS COMRADES AND MAKE EVERYONE FEEL SAFE AND SUPPORTED: - DONATE TO #TRANSCROWDFUND ON TWITTER - CALL OUT TRANSPHOBIA WHEN YOU SEE IT AND DON’T LET TERFS (TRANS EXCLUSIONARY RADICAL ‘FEMINISTS’) HAVE PLATFORMS TO SPREAD THEIR HATEFUL, TRANSPHOBIC VIEWS - TRY TO EDUCATE PEOPLE ABOUT TRANS ISSUES AND RAISE TRANS VOICES (SO WE DON’T HAVE TO DO ALL THE WORK) - SUPPORT TRANS ARTISTS (SUCH AS BY BUYING THIS ZINE!) - MAKE SURE THAT THINGS YOU TAKE PART IN ARE EXPRESSLY TRANS-INCLUSIVE