Category: Issue 20

Mouse House I am visiting my boyfriend’s mother up in Maine, two hours north of our cluttered apartment in Boston. Really, we both are visiting the whole thing: the family, the place. But in another sense, if I look close into a cobwebbed corner of my mind—the one filled with mirrors and hats—really I am…

“Sucker” by Sky White A few hours before J Xu turns into an insect, she stands in her parents’ bedroom on the muddy brown carpet that so artfully camouflages cat vomit and examines herself in their full-length mirror. It’s the back-to-school dance at Central High, and J’s wearing a spaghetti strap black dress that hits…

Cover   Mouse House   Sucker

  Debt (4) –I was once owned by a boy and all I received in return was his guilt. Such a concept, the property of lust. How we long so much to own something, let it be the boi poured from a lover’s cement. Halpern states, “this eternity of stars repeating, whatever you make me…

All which isn’t frightening,is heavenly. Is the safety of birds and the madness falling into a farewell. Ignite a match, and a little more light into darkness. A little more beauty in the melted wax on the table. We know there are cracks in what hardens.In rosebuds. In the deep freeze of the unexpected lilies. Sometimes the pond is. Empty.Like the mulberry bush.…

It gets old.  I’m going to kill you.It gets old.  They don’t kill me.I get old.  And older.  All thesecrap coffee jobs, jobs where I drivewhen there’s no traffic, allapocalyptic, getting there when the moon is still making outwith the fence.  And then thesecoworkers who tell me if I ever saythat again, I’ll find myself…

Is there a parallel universe where My parent’s showerhead wasn’tDetachable? That parallel girlIs probably getting a lot doneToday. It would have beenEasy to avoid the knowledgeThat pleasure isn’t something To be felt, but followed, a handGrappling walls that have been scratchedBy other hands. When I’m bored,I damage myself with pleasure. But I still wonder if the circle of…

OKAY IT’S TIME TO LISTEN UP ALYSSANDRA: thou hast no idea What you’re dealing with. Thy Blood flows because I swim thy Heart beats because I drum thy Breath is steady because I only mess with you when you’re awake & don’t know how to breathe. Listen: you’ll consult a Psych and she’ll ask you…

               After Kazuo Shiraga There’s an untitled painting in the Metthat makes me think of bloodied women. It moves in a way only quiet things move, all the wet climbing toward itselflike reverse capillary action. I could’ve watched that painting breathe for hours but there wasn’t enough time. In…

               after Shelley Puhak that the toilet never choked and the balloons never fled. that I always found the last piece of the puzzle.  that I caught the train by its collar and parking had the ease  of sliding into a dress.  that I witnessed small births, smaller breaths:…