Writers Bloc 34: Universe of Intimacies

Editor’s Not Dear Reader, I've been thinking about intimacy a lot, in all its forms - platonic, romantic, sexual. I moved to a new continent a few months ago and it's made me re-evaluate my relationships with people. I've become hyperaware of the ways in which people interact with each other, the ways I interact with my family and friends. For my rst issue as Journal Editor (!!) I wanted to explore what intimacy meant to other people. I knew it would be an easy theme, writers love writing sad pieces about their relationships. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of assessment season, and everyone was so busy I wondered if there would even be an issue. But it's here, and I'm proud of it I want to thank everyone who submitted, for nding the time and for writing such honest and interesting pieces. I also want to thank Christi, for the help and guidance, Hannah and Thea, for being great presidents, Helen, for the socials and the trip(s) to Waterstones, and Zhan, for letting us use a picture of their friends for the cover So many people have contributed to this in one way or another, and I'm so excited for this to be out into the world. This is universe of intimacies, and I hope something in here moves you.

Kene

Content Mid-morning by Connor Parke December II by Andrea Guille symbiotic by Mia Lyna what changed? by Helen Ree Judas Paradox by Elayna River Vergessen by Kene Udoetuk Bardo I-III by Evan Alle Counting Roadkill by Lana Donova And that’s the life for me by Ben Vasquez Words by Will Byrn we don’t talk anymore by Emek Intimacy or A Friendship by Eleanor Jeffre Night Daydreams by Andrew Guillen Mid-summer by Helen Ree

Hand by Jo Birch

I now know the curve of your cupid’s bo

I promise you I didn't rip my heart out of my ches

He knows what I’ll say in respons

and I can’t stand it my veins burn and pop and hiss with jealousy and

Mid-mornin Connor Parke I wake up before you; it's not wasted time. You sleep facing away, and I silently trac The constellations made by each mole on your back, the parallelogram at the base of your neck You asked if I’d noticed, but I feigned otherwise I now know the curve of your cupid’s bow, The scar that’s there, and how you got it – dog attack I know the shape of your nose, and how much you hate it. The smell of your hair, the colour I dyed it. The sound of your breath and, oh god You are my anchor through turbulence I’ll dig in my ngers and then, and then The seams will split open and I will know all of you spun out in ribbons We’d make the most breath-taking tapestry, wouldn’t we

Your phone alarm blares; I blink once or twice. Time’s up Slowly, you animate, cracking a small jok As I crack my joints, and I scoff. I ask you about what your plans for the day are Pretending that somebody else’s name in your mouth doesn’t sting like an allergy. I can keep acting, so long as I’m able to keep these midmornings for me

December I Andrea Guille On the quietest night When I can't shut up and the light doesn't make any nois I shelter and drown in the mess of blac And I tell myself that I miss you, even though I already kne Today I don't feel your breath too war I just feel (or don't I feel?), and not so ba On the coldest winter day That had gotten used to belonging to Summe my tears freez And it hurts to cr because they are har although they always have bee I promise you, Mommy, it's not a sad poe although sometimes it i I promise you I didn't rip my heart out of my ches and that I can still die, I haven't died yet even though I've already done i

I promise you, Mommy, I'm not sad and I am happ So happy it's sa And it hurts to feel that everything is alrigh

I wake up, alone. It happens quickly, as does the realisation that the space next to me, usually lled with a comforting presence, is empty. He’s too far, sat on the edge, but as soon as he notices the blurry blinking He moves to me tting his head into the croo where my hair splays, covering the pale of my neck his longer legs bend -ing to t into the ga I have left behind Taijitu My coffee leaves rings on his table My bed is never tidied the right way but I leave it like that when he leaves He knows what I’ll say in respons to one of his quips, before I say it and puts on a voice, my voice, whenever he predicts my retort We both chuckle and smile, and he’s never wrong

He taps his hands in a rhythmic bea tap tap, tap, tap, tap tap, on my legs, my stomach, my arms wherever he can reach whilst I’m writing I rub my hand in small circles one, two, three, four

symbiotic Mia Lyna

Constantly connecting he occupies my thoughts. I blink and he’s next to me stroking my hand or ghosting my spin in a rhythm only he knows whispering encouragement in a wa we only speak to each other

He’s half-asleep, has been for a while I realise that he has left a space next to him me-sized. So I go curling into the emptiness and lling it with warmth Even half-asleep, he reaches for m and sighs, both of us conten as we match our breathing an fall together into a soft slumber

on his back, his legs, his shoulder wherever I can reach whilst he’s working

what changed Helen Ree you sit in the kitchen, your smile spreading across your face until that is all it is and I want to kiss it. to taste your staccato laugh that you haven’t done for anything I said since that summer day I made daisy chains and basked with you as sunlight washed across each crevice of your face. I stand beside the counter, defensive for no reason, feeling defensive for no reason, feeling every comment as a thorn under my skin, bleeding me dry. I don’t know what to do now, I want to know you again and make you laugh again and destroy this thing that festers in my brain ruining all I know with you.

my insecurity lurks pushing comparisons upon me believing these comparisons believed by you and I can’t stand it my veins burn and pop and hiss with jealousy and I watch our bickering as the third person screaming at myself at you at the kitchen I don’t know how to leave I existed with you in messages and letters and long zoom calls three AM I love yous muttered in quiet breaths before sleep and now. now. we exist in reality and don’t know each other again.

Live free, live burdenles

There was a woman who was quite discontent with the state of her boyfriend.

A dazed fawn mourns a cold and crumpled doe in dirt whipped weeds

We oated off in the home-made cof ns you made u

I saw a couple wearing baseball caps in Costcutter

I pull your body through min just to see who makes it to the other side

Judas Parado Elayna River TW for blood and violenc Take in the scene. A glass of water. A glass of wine. A crystal table. It’s you and me and all our friends; the last true heathens. Here is the bread and the mouths to ll. Here we dance and I step on your feet, but it's okay. It’s okay, you smile and move through the night as if you own it because you own it. I pull your body through min just to see who makes it to the other side. Me and you, you and me – stuck in the throats of everyone in this room. The air stinks of us.

;

The wine, the bread, the Red Sea in the night sky;

parting. The seconds crawl. Camera pans to the empty bottles Pause. Zoom in on my eyes re ecting you; re ecting me inside you. For someone, somewhere Time runs out. Have we always been like this? Waiting until someone blows us wide open. Pity it has to be me. Pity I kiss your cheek and not your mouth. Pity you swallow me u only to spit me back out. In the end, it’s all teeth, isn't it You feeding me with the knife I hold to your neck. Your blood on my hands, in my mouth. The script crossed out, rewritten

You keep smiling.

Vergessen Kene Udoetu

People are different after they cum. The orgasm is not only a climax, or release, it is also a slicing. We are halved viciously into two people. There is the person you were before the orgasm, and the person you are after – sweaty, relieved, the feeling of unful llment growing slowly within your belly as you realise that this was not enough I watch him from the other side of the room. He stands in front of the TV watching cricket, in the red boxer briefs I yanked off him less than an hour ago, and nothing else. A hand reaches down and scratches his crotch as his eyes follow the game. The rest of his clothes are on the oor by the couch. My eyes reach the smooth black metal of the Vergessen implant in his elbow, the way it pushes through his skin like a foreign growth He hasn’t looked at me yet, and I’m not sure if he’s forgotten that I’m here, or if he’s waiting for me to get dressed. In a few moments I expect him to look at me, confusion in his eyes as he wonders who this stranger in the middle of his living room is. It will take a few seconds for him to remember that ten minutes ago I was arched across his body as his hands mauled my bare skin. I’ve made little progress in the post-coitus procedure. I’m getting dressed, but slowly, picking my clothes off the chair I hung them on and pulling them over my body. I think part of me doesn’t want to leave just yet. Being close to another person was such a wonderful feeling that I don’t

I take the train home, sitting in the back of the carriage, next to the window. In the front of the train is a poster advertising Vergessen. A couple with pearly white smiles on their faces brandish gleaming new implants in their forearms. At the bottom of the poster is the tagline – Live

want to be alone yet. I want more time, to stretch this out until I’ve had my full and my body aches with satisfaction As I reach down to pick up my socks, my vape pen falls out of pocket. It clatters across the oor, breaking the monotonous drone of the TV. He turns away, his gaze focusing on me. He blinks once, twice, cocks his head to the side as if maybe from a different angle he will recognise me “You’re still here?” he asks, his voice sluggish I was expecting this, but it still hurts to be reduced to a stranger. The shift from object of desire to faceless individual is jarring, and I don’t think I will ever get used to it. “I’m leaving now,” I tell him as I shove my feet into my trainers. I put the socks in my bag beside my deodorant and body lotion He leads me to the door, silent and robotic, more out of obligation than an actual interest. In a few hours there might be a text from him -that was fucking hot. when are you free again? I don’t think I will respond. I don’t think I can do this again

The sun has set by the time I get home. As I walk up the stairs to my at, I wonder how long I was gone. how many hours did I spend on my journey? How long did I spend in the embrace of a man that I will never see again? What will Sunesh say when I walk inside I open the door and I can hear them, the chatter of voices, Sunesh’s laughter echoing out of the kitchen. I know how his face looks right now; the broad-toothed grin and

free, live burdenless. I can almost hear the jingle. I’ve seen so many adverts for Vergessen over the past few months, conventionally attractive people bragging about how much better their lives have been, how much easier their relationships have been. I glance at the text from Sunesh–hey I have friends over, see you when you get home. I don’t reply, it wasn’t a question or request Sunesh and I argued over those implants for months. He wanted the freedom of loving without the fear of getting hurt, the luxury of pulling out of his emotions when things got too dif cult. He quoted the adverts back to me verbatim, sent me every test and study that showed that the implants weren’t only safe, they were bene cial. He wasn’t asking for my permission, or even asking me to get an implant, he was simply telling me what he planned to do. I should’ve known that this was a glimpse of what our relationship would become

”

dimpled cheeks, two things I haven’t seen in ages. He stopped laughing at my jokes after he got the implants. The kitchen door is ajar, and I can smell warm pizza. The last thing I want to do is go inside. I could go to my room and pretend to do something as I wait for Sunesh to enter and say hello, but I don’t know how long I’d be waiting, and I want to see him They go quiet as I enter, my presence has sucked the joy out of the room. I see the smile on Sunesh’s face freeze as his eyes meet mine, the warmth slowly bleeding out of his expression. His smile becomes perfunctory as I place a kiss on his cheek. His body is unyielding, and his friends watch me as they’re waiting for me to leave. “We’re going out,” he says as he pulls away. “I’ll be back late. I don’t ask to go with them, and he doesn’t invite me. It’s an unspoken agreement that his friends are his alone. We don’t share, and I’m not included. I mumble something about seeing him when he gets back and leave the kitchen. As the door swings shut, they begin to speak. I know they’re asking Sunesh why he’s still with me, why he’s stayed even though the easy thing would be to put an end to our relationship. The rest of the night is spent waiting for him to return. I hide in our bedroom until I hear them leave, and then I go to the chicken to make dinner. I watch a movie, I read a book, I masturbate, and I wait. He returns around 3am, less than two hours before the sun is to rise. The door to

”

our bedroom opens and he stumbles inside. I roll over and watch him as he takes his clothes off “Hi,” I tell him He looks at me, startled. “You shouldn’t have waited. “I wasn’t, I just couldn’t sleep.” We both know I’m lying. He climbs into the bed, and I take in the scent of him; sweat and alcohol, two different perfumes – his and someone else’s. This shouldn’t bother me. His Vergessen implant winks at me from the back of his neck. This bothers me “Did you have fun?” I ask him He rolls over and looks at me. “Did you? Has he texted? “I did, and he hasn’t. “You sound disappointed,” he says “I’m not. He smiles at me and rolls over. I study the lines of his body as he shuf es around, adjusting himself into a suitable sleeping position. This has become my – our life. Our relationship exists in two separate worlds that never interact He stopped laughing after he got the implants. Over time I watched his kindness and humour turn inwards, directed at other people in eeting bursts, but never at me. The tone of his voice became measured, and he began to look at me as if he was assessing me. The part of his brain that allowed him to form attachments was being inhibited, prevented from maintaining our relationship

”

“Why are we still doing this?” I ask him. “Why haven’t you left? You have the implant so it would be easy, you don’t want me anymore. This isn’t working for either of us and“You’re wrong. “What? He rolls over. “This works. You want me, so I’m here, and there are other people to provide you with what I don’t. I like being with you, I like making you happy, and I like having a life that’s separate from you. This works for both of us. The moment it stops working, I’ll leave. “You don’t love me anymore. He smiles. “I do, it’s just different. And I’m ne with that.” He leans forward and places a kiss on my forehead. “The only person that’s unhappy here is you. You’re unhappy because you choose to be. He rolls over. “We can have sex tomorrow if you want. Good night.

A girl. Pale-skinned, frocked. Her father used to pull her hair and she did not like that. She died: out to milk the cows, one had kicked her in the head. Her father pulled her up by her hai to look her in the bludgeoned face. Over the world, she oats. There is no blush on her faceless features; no blonde strands. She is a phantom. Mr Terry the Butcher looks upon her In this life he shakes his head; she was a beauty, so this death is a shame and a waste.

When they march her through the village everyone will throw owers over her. Except Samuel: he remembers what she said to him.

Bardo I-II Evan Alle

II A man face-down in a river. He laughs rapturously a a child nds him and does not tell the police. And does not even ip him with a stick. 40 years pass. The child becomes a man who tells this story to his children He wonders who that man was, and wonders how he got there. The man laughs with rapture The laugh shivers through the child.

III There was a woman who was quite discontent with the state of her boyfriend. He left her feeling as if she badly needed a shower.

A few years later, When age had marked her lightly, she saw him once again:

he had fallen to his death, drunkenly, on the Norfolk Coast. This had made the news. She rolled herself a cigarette and As she sucked on it, Her boyfriend came together as A wistful cloud in her Drum-tight lungs

He endured three eternities watching the mirage of three blue women pulling their skin on and off like a satin shroud Each time the skin fell back upon their bodies, the woma lit a cigarette and recalled the feeling of badly needing a shower

Counting Roadkil Lana Donova Torn rabbits rip through headlight And between tires that sink into black air Bloodied and boned speed bump Grizzle smeared concrete tears past the window A teddy bear humming against the glas Bumbling along to Louis Armstrong mumbling Something wonderful through the back seat speakers It snows feathers through rain Melting into the parts of night that dad's taillights can't nd Foxes leap through traf c like Ribbons through win Whipped into submission as they blend and ombre into the M25 We drive away now from the town that Dad had intended to grow old i His ending place was my beginnin A game of LeapFrog A toad's stomach lies open by the curb, blooming with bluebottle ies

But he left too, with me, for me, from m Before mum painted the walls and the carpet was torn ou And the cats died And gerbils And hamsters And guinea pig And rabbi There's a lot of death in that house

The accusatory talons of a decapitated pheasant point crookedly at the moo She shrugs Those animals who only knew that house, this town The women are very pretty here and the men appreciate that but not the Red-faced, they drink beer on boats over plastic picnic table Laughing loudly, ugly I should like to live on a boa You can't own too much or you'll sink A crushed and stiffened squirrel gargles oil from a pothole And you can't stay in the same place for too long on a boat Dad never did A small house with a re by the fores A windy at with hidden door The loft of an old lady who smelled like nutmeg and soa The rough plaster walls of a friend’s spare roo A oor boarded brown at that he told me was the length of a blue whale I took his word for it of cours I believed everything he told m No one was smarter or kinder or stronger than Da And still, no one is A dazed fawn mourns a cold and crumpled doe in dirt whipped weeds

Dancing in the kitchen to Bob Dylan when he was alon Between marriages that i

Whistling over the smell of pesto sauce and zzle of pasta water I hope my ending place is sunn Laughing loudly, ugl Dancing in the kitchen to Bob Dyla Far from counting roadkill Louis passes the mic to Billy Joe And we karaoke home through a tarmac cemeter As Dad slows for a hedgehog

And that’s the life for m Ben Vasquez 2 warm ciders on the bow as silence lled the dead ai Interrupted only by your legs lie swinging out of sync hitting grainy wood One after the othe Ba-dump Ba-dum Ba-dump, ba-dump The water glitters like sequined velve The shards of light look so inviting You grin ‘I guess ship's about to go down… I roll my eye The waves roll their foam against starboard in protest or Verifying what you sai ‘I wish we could’ve seen everyone one last time. We’ll make it that fa ‘Sure’ You say as Gold coins like stones you skim

along the water

;

’

I tut. But then again This is as much use as we’ll get out of them.

The wood is star ridden but instead of letting in ligh It’s wate I tut again as you try plugging them with tapioca bubble The ones you insisted we bring Humming as you g Placing one bubble to block the wate Then the next in your mout You’re gonna make yourself sic You shoot me daggers as you stick your tongue ou You take the sharper one and pick your teeth with it. You’re gonna hurt yourse … Told you I let you steer the ship as recompense (even though it wasn’t my fault You just like drawing with the ship’s snail trail, you don’t actually know where we’re goin But then again, neither do I Doesn’t matter which direction we go when everywhere is nowhere ‘I’m going to draw a heart Sure In your defense you got about half way before the rudder snappe You instead marked the endless blue canvas with half a heart More of a ? shape without the do

’

)

I guess that’s our nal mark

The water tickles our toes, it’s warm but unwelcome Better check below deck

‘I wish we could have seen land one more time We’ll make it that far Silence one again decided to chime i You climbed the rope ladder like a trapeze artist to view your masterpiec I climbed to keep my socks dry We tilted our heads and appreciated it from the wonky bird’s nest for a minute in silence like connoisseurs in an art gallery ‘hmmm… not much of a heart I drew you. Whoops I shrug, the effort is always appreciated. ‘Pilot’s have it easier, they have the whole sky to work with their trails yet all they draw is straight lines, wish we could sail the clouds instead’ Yeah well, I guess they (pilots) have somewhere to be. Out here it’s hard to tell the sky and sea apart anyway. Even the horizon melds into one homogenous blue where the sky and sea meet. Sometimes I feel like we’re the ones oating and I look up half expecting to see our re ection in the water above us. But then the wind picks up and the ocean ripples, reminding me that it’s below, so I guess what’s the difference either way? ‘hm, Wish we could’ve seen the stars one last time though We’ll make it that long Silence gave another speech

’

‘Well we better be off then You used the mast as a slide using the sail as a trampoline to break your fall I took the rope ladder back down

The ship sunk nally dotting your ‘? Silence had the whole world captivated

’

;

We oated off in the home-made cof ns you made us; splintery paddling pool We oated side by side as you tapped out ‘Hey Jude’ in yours At least now I don’t have to pretend to like the son It became too tiring to talk so silence volunteered itself Until you interrupted i ‘Guess this relation-SHIP is going down You smile I rolled my eye You had tears in yours ‘I hope I get to see you after, just one last time I promise we’ll make it that far, somewhere ‘You always make these promises You idiot, always so dramatic. I’ll keep this one I’m sorry. I guess I was never really trying to nd land; I already had you to anchor me in place. All the treasure I promised you; rubies and rings; pearls you could suck like gobstoppers. We even had maps to lead us to your treasure; X marked the spot. I found mine but I could never give you yours. Now the Xs mark the eyes of our soon to be sun bleached comic skull and cross bones as we lie here tongues lopping out. At least I enjoyed the voyage At least we’ll oat together Even if we don’t

I don’t know if it’s because there’s not another soul in sight but I’d happily sink as long as it’s with you Until the tides pull us apart Even then I don’t think we’ll be apart We’ll rule this ocean; this is just a rough patch Even when we sink we’ll rule the city of rising stalagmites below. I always had my head in the clouds so I never realised but to those who walk the ocean oor we’re the Gods who oat their skies. We are the pilots leaving heart shaped trails in their sky. Now we’re just landing We’re journeying down togethe Just, Please don’t leave m You chuckled ‘Where else do I have to go out here? I’ve always followed you even to the middle of nowhere What’s one more journey?’ Your voice petered out God, silence really won’t shut up today. I wish you’d interrupt it one last time

Words Will Byrne

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Why and how Did our patchwork last so long

Intimacy has broken me apart and pieced me back togethe

I will lovingly welcome yo

nothings breaking on the mout

as our hands entwine

we don’t talk anymore Emek Amy I remember the hours we invested, each thought I remember being yours Emily I remember being stuck with you: Replying was a chore You taught me to see the world in colour instead of shades Of greys as I recall? I traded my outlook for yours My comics for your manga I remember knowing I was loved and safe, how Nothing was worth the peace I found on your shoulder, My tears pooled an oasis but never a storm. I remember the noise. The weight of your rain drops: their… Pitter patter, icy, tent-invading morning dew Perhaps I felt like crying too? We t like Tetris blocks, neither solely whole, We were one geometrically, we were jigsaws. Neither’s image clear without the other’s.

Game over. Your company was loneliness, We were pieces of differing puzzles: We fit Syntactically, but were logically misaligned, we fit

Like an antibody to an antigen

You destroyed me The lack of you destroyed me Why and how Did our patchwork last so long?

I miss you as a stranger And I miss you, having known you.

Intimacy – or A Friendshi Eleanor Jeffer CW: mentions of self-harm, reference to suicide, slight reference to abuse, sex

We live as we die, alone And perhaps that is why I cling so tightly to the people that hurt me the most. Maybe it’s why I still cry for my mother in the early hours of the night whilst looking at the scars on my arms and remembering what she said. Over and over and over again. A poem or a song or some holy recited mantra that can’t quite reach a satisfying conclusion. I am angry and I am alone. The person I love the most in the world is having sex with a girl in the room next to me. My heart is bleeding. I pull it out with my hands and toss it between my palms, feeling it beat slower and slower. Nothing left; no air, no breath, nothing left to save or own. All that remains is the steady thumping of the bedframe and me, burying my head into a pillow to scream. Because it feels the same. It all feels the same. Every waking moment, when I look into his eyes and he looks back at me with the same, slightly confused expression, like he can see I’m not okay, but he doesn’t know exactly what to say. Even now, after every second that has passed since the moment that I realised I wasn’t strong enough to love him. I wish I was strong enough to face this world alone The day my father had a heart attack, I was doing something. I can’t remember what it was, all I remember is coming back to my home with the too-tidy front porch and

the slightly overgrown (by my mother’s standards) front garden. But I came through the door, and my mum appeared through a doorway and told me he was in hospital. I felt nothing. I didn’t even cry. Just emptiness, a quiet despair that made me feel like the world’s worst daughter for not being there when I should have been. She hugged me. I didn’t have the strength to squeeze back hard enough Everyone speaks of love, of intimacy, of the feeling you get in your chest like it is about to burst open and ll the room with sparkles of sunlight and joy and happiness. I know I have felt that. I felt it on that October morning, when he told me he loved me for the rst time. Me, with the bad skin and the messy life and the little marks on my inner thighs where I pushed school compasses into my esh in maths class. I said it back. I wonder now whether I ever meant it. And of course, I did, I loved my high-school boyfriend so much it hurt, sometimes. I thought I would be with him forever. And then intimacy faded, replaced by that one morning when I knew, I knew. I knew he loved her, not me. He wanted intimacy with her, not me. I was alone. Our most intimate moments are there to be shared with others. Our rst steps, our rst words. The rst time we fall over and scrape our knees on the school playground tarmac. Our rst kiss, hidden behind the bushes in the park. The rst time we have sex, terrible and painful as it is. When she tells you that she cannot love you – cannot love anyone. When your best friend leaves you. And the next one, and the next. Every de ning moment we have is

designed in the image of the next, each is a natural progression. Intimacy broke me over and over, but still, I crave it Yesterday I woke up, pushed halfway out of my bed. My best friend lying on me, pushing me down into the springs of my mattress. He’s too warm. I grimace, and nudge him away, down to the other side of my single person bed. I can’t sleep when he’s here, taking up all the space with the way he spread eagles and kicks his legs out to a diagonal. But I cannot sleep alone, either When I push him, he wakes. I’ve slept next to him enough to know how he wakes up – it’s slow, and sleepy, and if we have a time crunch then I set our alarms an hour early so he has the time to wake up the way he likes to. So his eyes don’t open immediately, and he squints at me through the early morning light that peeks through the sides of my blind. “Y’alright?” he slurs, shifting across slightly, to allow me some more room “Mmmhmm,” is all I respond, moving myself so my body is, once again, completely on the bed. I lift my torso and shoulders slightly, so he can slip his arm under me. Then I lie back down, and he pulls me closer. “I dreamt that I lost all my teeth,” he says, voice still sleepheavy, pale in its consistency. I instinctively look over, just to double-check that it didn’t happen in reality. He sleeps with his mouth slightly open, so it’s easy to check. He also snores. But in some way, I like that. When I wake in a panic, from a dream where everyone I have lost is there, waiting for me, arms outstretched, I can hear him

before my eyes adjust to the darkness. I only have to move closer for him to wake up and hold me as I sob into his chest. And he knows, he always knows who I’m crying for. Our intimacy is strange. More akin to lovers than ‘justfriends’. But I have no want for a romance. Romance has left me scarred and broken, pushed me down a set of endless stairs and set me alight, burning at the stake. I do not know if I am still capable of loving someone in that way, anymore. Not in a way they would deserve Intimacy with him is easy. It comes with the glowing, burning knives of my poor mental health, that jab him and spike him and leave us both ghting for breath, as he holds my hands above my head, so I stop instinctively lashing out at everything in my wake. Those are my most intimate moments. The ones when I lose all composure. When I scream and cry and break glasses by throwing them at the four walls of my tiny bedroom, shattering glass everywhere. When those shards are taken in hand and pushed through my skin. The complete absurdity of someone who has lost everything. I was headed for this moment the second my mother’s boyfriend pushed me under freezing cold shower-water. I love him, I love him, I love him. But I also hate him, hate him, hate him. I let myself come back to him because he is all I know. He is all I love. He has stuck through me through every attempt on my own life, every second I have spent crying over lost lovers and lost friendships. Intimacy is strange. I do not understand why I crave it, but only from him

Perhaps this is what they call soulmates. Our easy jokes and camaraderie. Knowing exactly how the other is feeling, unspoken, even if it is hidden behind a smile. Arguing like we’ve been married for 50 years but making up like nothing even happened. Planning idyllic lives around each other, where we each have ve cats and a wife and meet up on Wednesday nights. But growing up, away from him, scares me. It scares me more than death, or deep water, or millipedes and centipedes. I’ve built my life around him because I had noone else. I love him more like esh and blood than water and biscuits. The nightmares I have, where he’s gone and nobody can ever bring him back, are my worst nights. Worse than feeling alone. Worse than seeing her and wishing I’d had the guts to tell her how I felt before we stopped talking. Worse than the pain of loving a parent and yet not ever being able to trust them. Worse than being told to jump off a motorway bridge if I am in fact that depressed. Intimacy has broken me apart and pieced me back together. Having a friendship that is more than that, but less than romance, is something no-one will understand but us. And in the mornings where we wake up in each other’s arms, I feel ready to take on whatever my life throws at me. We are born alone, and we will die alone. But in the middle part, I have a friendship that matters more than the earth, moon, and stars. Intimacy that works like I have known him my whole life. Perhaps I am less alone than I thought

Night Daydream Andrea Guille In the days of nigh When the sun turns of moo And your shadow does not accompany yo The wind will kiss your cheek While the cold welcomes you and very cruelly Silence will make you noisy The idea of me will irritate yo And you'll want to get me out of where I now live to slee In the days of night When the silence makes nois We will want to forge We will want to di And unintentionall I will lovingly welcome yo outside your head to discuss what keeps you awak To die Until the sun rises

)

In the days of night when you forget about yoursel And my voice tickles your ear I hope your heart is happ I hope your heart is warm (and beating Remembering you are with m

Midsummer Helen Ree lips stained with honey and summertime whispers past them breathing into you murmuring enchantment, sugar spun nothings breaking on the mouth into ash, bitter, sweet

the soil outside is dark and rich and I wonder how this summer soaked esh would feel sinking into it

Hand Jo Birc

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Brushing, soft, rich velvet cloth quivers resonating rhythmic sound, threa forming plucked cello notes calming emotive storms, as our hands entwine your warm lips mouth sonatas; cloudless peace