AS TE R I SK
THIRDWORD’S F IRST ZIN E OF 2013. A COLLEC- TION OF SHORT F I C T I O N A N D P O E T R Y .
TA B LE OF CONTEN T S
“Comfort Food” by Michelle Sharp
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“Untitled 3” by Nicholas Kinsella
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Haikus by Pip Atkinson
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“Over Thai” by Amy Trompeter
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“Selves” by Grace Mitchell
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“MKE” by Stephanie Gage
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“—” by Nicholas Kinsella
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“Untitled” by Anne Burnett
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Comfort  Food Michelle  Sharp
And no matter how many French fries I shove in my mouth, gagging on the cold ruffles with my tight throat, the coarse salt burning my self-inflicted fingernail wounds, I cannot fill the hollow spot with cold, soggy comfort food. I cannot fill a chest hole with neglected, dismembered potatoes. Perhaps casserole will work.
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Untitled  3 Nicholas  Kinsella
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Haikus Pip Atkinson
Once I showed a girl In preschool my vagina. During our nap time. I stole a picture It was of Daniel Radcliffe From Woman’s Weekly. I learnt the word cunt From our neighbor at the beach He was a feral. I bit Jack’s finger To see if it would hurt I got in trouble. Lauren was my friend Told her I was allergic To her and her face.
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Over Thai Amy Trompeter How did I get here? Hunched over the latest issue of The Onion spread across the restaurant table. Something you grabbed on the way in to break the tension. Is that Bon Jovi playing? I can’t quite decipher over the voices in the room, or justify a thai restaurant playing classic rock. It seemed abnormally busy for lunch on a Monday. I couldn’t help but look around the room, studying each table, we must look like any couple in their twenties, enjoying lunch together. I was eating my egg roll with a fork, a self-conscious effort to avoid appearing slobbish, despite the assurance that you fucking love egg rolls, and would have ordered one had your head cold not called for soup. It wasn’t the first excuse of the morning at the expense of the common cold. When you failed to understand why the article Rock Apparently Factors in to Girlfriend’s Shower Routine was so funny, the irony was not lost on me. Jabbing at particularly clever “news” headlines, we took turns struggling to explain memorable Onion articles from the past. The humor is usually lost out of context. Within the first few bites of phad thai, perspiration clung to your upper lip, despite previously voicing the concern that you had not ordered your lunch spicy enough. Maternal instincts initiated. I offered some of my white rice to deter any discomfort, but it was too late, the burn had already set in. Remember when we watched that house burn down? You complained about the addition of tofu to your order, and we agreed that soy was not actually a very healthy alternative to meat. I hear it can give men breasts, it’s the hormones. I wasn’t certain that was true, but we agreed just as easily as we had agreed to loving green peppers as I plucked a large slice of one from my Massaman curry. I prefer red, though. There were red peppers in your phad thai, but you didn’t offer me one. I wouldn’t want to catch a cold, anyway. We were filling up fast, hardly making dents in our plates. I imagined eating my leftovers alone in my bedroom, lingering on fond memories. See: yogurt in the morning, sneak- 5
ing brandy in to the casino, finger drumming to my heartbeat. I was grateful you hadn’t met my parents the day before. Still not as good as Jow Nai. We both agreed to go together sometime. It was one of those agreements you make purely for the sake of the conversation, both parties well aware that such an occasion was quite unlikely. How many “coffee dates” have you failed to follow up on? I thought of how salty the curry was, far saltier than my homemade variety which was lacking in comparison. Add more salt next time. I remembered the salt still smeared across my face from only a hour previously, and the salt which had set in to the right shoulder of your boyish plaid shirt.
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Selves Grace  Mitchell
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MKE Stephanie Gage
Walking down Brady street with the sun on my eyelids and palms. Milwaukee in the summer is unrivaled until the dense air creeps into bedrooms under door-cracks and I’m laying on the wood floor with a fan on my legs. The lake makes the air viscous and the cigarette smoke lingers too long and I still drink hot coffee even though I’m sweating through my bra straps because iced coffee isn’t very good, in my opinion. I’m beginning to long for (in vain) October last year when our landlords didn’t turn the heat on in our apartment until mid November and I slept with four blankets and in that jacket someone gave me a while back and a scarf wrapped around my shoulders and neck. Thinking about it now it was silly we smoked inside that house but maybe my opinion will change when I’m waiting for the bus in December and it feels like I’ll be waiting for eternity because I can’t feel my fingertips and my socks are wet with slush from the holes in my boots. Besides, I have fond thoughts for those times. Like when we would sit on my couch together with coffee in the gray mornings and share a cigarette. Or when I couldn’t sleep at 2 in the morning and I found myself sitting by the windowsill smoking in that state of melancholy that comes with any sleepless night. And now the air outside is sweet with vanilla from the bakery across the street and I don’t know whether I prefer that or the wet, languid smell that comes from the brown Milwaukee River. At least in winter I can watch from above the geometric pieces of ice that wander down it; they kind of fit together like a puzzle but not exactly because much of the ice has melted already and gone back to being brown, fouled water.
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— Nicholas Kinsella
I am a nine pound strand of licorice leaning on an old brick compound next to my neighbors house back in Iowa You are still on your way and sleepy And the lampshades all flipped inside out like a windy umbrella And now it’s like when your fingers slip on the edge of a pool and you bust your chin on it Then we would both be floating with everything around, like limestone ash and cloth wrapped to copper limbs and even my neighbors dog is there with us All grabbing at our guts to keep from puking, and all sort of dancing without really meaning to
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Untitled Anne Burnett
Don’t polish the spoons because the spoons are part of the everlasting cycle of shrinking testicles. Cannabis grows from a sort of metal that lives in the hearts of most small rodents. Every time you use your knee to push open a door an angel gets it’s wings. Celebrate having toes regularly because soon they will be a fleeting memory. Shoe laces are born within God’s belly. If you choose to own sun glasses remember you’re choosing a life of sometimes not seeing as much of the sun. A pregnant sea horse’s favorite pregnancy food is cheese mixed with pesto and coffee. Never judge a book by it’s cover because a lot of book covers are poorly designed, especially when they resemble movie covers. When in Rome, wear good shoes because it takes a lot of walking to be a tourist. Astronauts are really just intergalactic tourists. Never touch a gifted horse in the mouth because horses see fingers as carrots. (Remember not to be stupid, always lay your hand flat when giving a carrot to a horse.) Keep your friends close and your organs closer.
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This zine was published by Third- Word in October 2013. Design work by Stephanie Gage.