i never could taste the bitterness of decaf coffee until the barista at the cafe on the first floor of the MSU library handed me a cup with the word “ma’am” attached to it, and now every sip of every coffee i take fills my teeth with grounds that taste nothing of the robust heartiness of non-binarism for me, but instead taste of the time i was sitting in my bathtub, not seven years old, newly indoctrinated into Forest Hills, when my mom found me chopping my hair and saying “i’m not a girl i want to play boy i’m not a girl,” to which she fabricated a lie about it being against the law to hold scissors until you are twenty years of age, and i wiped my soaked face with my chopped off hair, thinking the police would come get me because i wanted to play boy, and no matter how much caramel and whipped cream i pour into my coffee it will never stop tasting of that moment it will never stop tasting of that moment when my mother made it illegal for me to be a boy

Madison Fay is an emerging poet based in Michigan, where they spend their days writing, painting, and shoveling snow. With a Master’s in English Literature and a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing, Madison Fay has years of writing and workshopping experience, as well as some publications. Madison Fay is the Editor in Chief at Mycelium Magazine, a small online indie lit mag that specializes in the weird, absurd, and uncanny, and they are the head narrative writer and content manager for Trans Folks Walking, an indie video game currently in production at the Amatryx Gaming Studio Lab at the University at Buffalo. Madison Fay finds inspiration in the quotidian and in the spiritual realm to fuel much of their writing. Madison Fay’s pronouns are they/them, and they are neurodivergant and disabled.