Everything

On the sidewalk behind the middle school at dusk, flashlight pointed down in the dark, spade in hand, standing before the overgrown field, I remembered  the guilt of loving a boy. Of burying that love, the future’s burden. That night I needed to know if I’d once loved and only learned not to, or if I never  loved at […]

In my head there’s an old man who says “GPS is for pussies” at war with an old man who says “hemorrhoid cushions are for pussies” so i’m not how you say deep but i learned a few things working at the butterfly exhibit one it’s possible to surround yourself with beautiful things and not […]

“Community Outreach” originally appeared in Trans Survivors Zine: Healing in Action, published by FORGE. Big gay non profit is rough with me. Breaks my limits hard and soft alike. Apologizes with day-old bagels and wilted cream cheese in the breakroom, left over from a mandatory training about pronouns. They tell us that we’ll get through […]

I’m not sure how to talk to my father anymore.I know how to reach out to him, but I don’t thinkI can make that effort after this election. I have tothink about what’s on his TV and the circles hefilled in on the ballot, and how all that makes mewant to do is take my […]

Neal Allen Shipley (he/him) is a behavior analyst living in Colorado with a modest collection of pets and an unhinged collection of plants. His other work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and can be found in Impostor, Creation Magazine, The Talon Review, and SCAB Magazine, among others. Despite the horrors, he loves a […]

Tonight I think no poetry can serve: no earnest coupletsabout the marvel of queer love being how it just is; no conceit sustained long enough to create policy change,to bring back the queers killed before or after me; no simile acute enough to capture the acrid pit of my stomachas another queer teen is bullied […]

You’re well-hidden in the womb of the earth.Then you sprout up, very small, and nobody notices.No animals have touched you yet.Your branch loses some of your greenage, some of your green.Then you have children, which are green in the springand orange in the fall. When you grow up,you have birds and squirrels nesting in your […]

say the table turns intoa face unimaginable.say there’s a prairie fire in thewintertime lights up the darksky in the afternoon.say the deer’s eyes get caughtin a flashlight while grazing for grassin the snow. say the clock ticks backwards onthe wall going 1 to 12pm. everybody walking backwardswithout turning around to see wherethey are going or […]

Marianne Cassidy (they/them) is a writer, game developer and narrative designer. They are half English, half Canadian, and live in Durham, UK, with two ageing cats and too many spider plants. You can find them at @mothshaped on Bluesky.

How many times can I tell this story before it corrodes. I am tired, I don’t know who I am anymore. I wake in the middle of the night and stare at a water glass. What would my life be if I had stayed? If I hadn’t swapped visual art for creative writing. The questions […]

Plato I had gone to your chapelon a wintry November night.Your sage scattered everywhere—in the air, in the water,in the earth, where I stareddeeply into the well of your eyes,a kind of abyssal charm.I went barefoot to see you.I climbed up the hillunflinchingly, Plato.I hauled your books like a bovine yakup the hillbilly brae of […]

Strap on the seatbeatas you leap off the cliff. Rinse the recyclables so they siton a landfill. Never raise your middle fingerbecause you can’t take it back. Be careful.Did you bring an extra pack of tissues. You quitsmoking ten years ago and you hate vegetables secretly.You want to walk with Marco, who lived acrossNorth Boulevard on the […]

We will learn the namesof the land, of the plantsthat were & the plants that remain Hand-counting bladesof grass until our tonguesgo numb chanting the sequence Music will be conducted by birdsong;extra credit if you can identifytheir new migratory patterns Our Art teacher is the still-lifeof a prairie dawn across the fields,a fresh chiaroscuro each […]

when I die bury meat the root of othergreen minded individuals. ones who know that evenmost things in technologymimic the best parts of nature. bury me withgrass that welcomes dandelionsand some weeds with petals whom move like solar panelsneeding to prove the sun exists.bury me with proof of life. don’t talk about the maggots.let the […]

Like the time we snuck into the open houseoff Park Avenue, relishing in what we had never known:open doors and floor to ceiling windows.And when the blonde realtor questioned your accent,humming a prayer against the backs of her teeth,we smiled and scurried away,our laughter drowning out the slap of our sneakers against the sidewalk.High off […]

over early coffee, a friend reminds you how young you truly are, howyour head & heart are developing with a rapidness too invisible to praise. it feels so obvious, yet you forget all the time.look, every day you unveil a new shadeof yourself, strange unseen tones bleedingtogether on your palette. lookhow your face has shifted its shape over […]

is the worst possible method of acquiring information.i never like what i learn & i refuse to listen to reporters who dress in colors you won’t find in thewoods: horrible dark greys, blacks, & maroons.            seeking answers, i take matters           into my own hands: i walk around & ask           every animal i see on a scale of 1 […]

Stand in the morgue and listento the hush between last breaths and statistics,where silence weighs heavier than data points,certainty is measured in empty homes and call medicine poison.Let mistrust metastasize like mold in flood-ravaged cities,watch fever slip through cracks in your rhetoric whileruin joins it in drought-cracked soil because disease is the freest thing of […]

everything was fireproof and temperateand the sky was whole and holding waterspace was clean and time was sloweveryone loved and believed in love orbelieved love would come they wonderedthey cried but their tears were waterfor uncooked seedseveryone was truthful and their names werefamiliar and their faces were familiar andtheir bodies were familiar and beautiful andeverything […]

wading in a lake of swing dance music, jeans rolled up to the knee-you were there with a sweat-soaked bandana on your head-this was a dance under twinkling electric lights in your backyard.the Moon was out, the stars were out, your smile was out, it was all gleaminglike a streetlight shining down on a graveyard […]

Zigzag across the road only whenYou’re sure you’re safe, when the headlights aren’t burningXrays of your bones onto the concrete. Dark enoughWhere all i can see are the whites of your eyes. your Voice carries over distant traffic, jubilant and trembling.Unbelievable, how you carry onTough as teeth through the winter when the airScrapes at the insides […]