Elf Warrior
by Bonny Ross Bonny is a writer and illustrator from Melbourne. In 2008, she was voted Year 11’s Most Mysterious Female. She’s currently covered in glitter, probably. Continue reading Elf Warrior
Tag: issue four
Theft
by Audrey El-Osta Along Chapel St I endure many encounters of young ladies well-read in Greer, ignorant of hooks, who spy my features and ask me point blank; Oh my god, how do you grow your eyebrows so thick? I cannot help but reply in questioned truth: How do you get your eyes so blue? These young ladies well Presentable, educated by Methodists at the finest of Academies, use feminism as a codeword to pick and choose, mix and match pieces of a culture, a life, like a jigsaw that is not theirs So long as it fits into a … Continue reading Theft
L’eau d’Issey
by Audrey El-Osta I smell it before I see it, when I kiss you on the cheek I know this scent, that I smelled on your chest, when you fed me by your breast. I know this scent, when you held me into the night, when I fought my body and my mind with all my might. Here it lies, in a moon-topped bottle on your dresser, an Odyssey of a perfume, and these days you tell me to wear it, try it, enjoy it. But it is not mine. Not yet. This smell of courage, of bravery, of decision … Continue reading L’eau d’Issey
The Other Girls
by Audrey El-Osta boys; they like to tell me I’m ‘not like other girls’ the words like confetti tumble out of their mouths and fall, into their palms. Wide-eyed children that they are, they open their hands to offer me this gift, gold and gleaming with a fresh, still-wet stamp of authenticity. boys; they expect you to just take this as a compliment with affection, grace and gratitude Oh my, do you really think so? ~ Thank you SO MUCH ~ THIS IS EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER WANTED ~ like I’m meant to be proud of not being like other … Continue reading The Other Girls
Credit Approved
by Stacey Margaret Jones “What did the doctor say?” Evan asked. He meant to sound casual, interested, but Ada knew him well enough to know he was anxious. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose then wished he hadn’t. She’d know that was a nervous gesture. “She said …” she stopped talking, and closed her eyes. Her 60-year-old preserved Violent Femmes t-shirt pulsed up and down with her breath. “Ada?” He stretched his arm across the table of the café, navigating their latte cups and her iPad, another gesture to her Hipster past. “Just tell me what … Continue reading Credit Approved
This Sorry Cycle
by Andria Wu The Q train rattled, hurtled through the inky night outside with its passengers, their minds all tangled in cyberspace, their eyes locked to the glowing screens of their iPods, iPhones, their iWhat-Have-Yous. In the dark we laid quietly, chests rising and falling together, fingers laced between us, empty pizza boxes littering the floor and blankets twisted around our legs. I would have stayed until forever, lying with you on that lumpy mattress with its frame broken and discarded in the least obtrusive corner of our crumbling flat. By the light of the moon, I traced circles against … Continue reading This Sorry Cycle
Unfortunate Development
by Mora Torres A midnight stroll with Captain Radiostation in the hills, at night San Fernando to the left and Whites Canyon to the right the moon above completes the trinity of lights. Helmut off, he breathes what the atmosphere offers as crickets chirp, in the dirt, Past the River of Bones, and our old spaceship, busted and burnt, Away from the tick-tock and dreams that could’ve been but weren’t. His dusty sneakers- neon green next to his skateboard seat, in the desert, the coyote land, above a robot world that confuses satellites for stars that is the lifeless thing! … Continue reading Unfortunate Development
Bitches on Vaginas
by Carolyn D. Elias I’m tired of all these bitches bitching about how to use my vagina. Don’t even get me started on these bitches bitching about what I should do if my vagina gets full of babies. Bitches be baby Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Sending me magazines, blowing up my email with pictures of how I should be giving birth in a hospital: water birth, all natural, c-section is the devil. ‘Cause the devil made me full of babies. Bitches gots lots to say about how to raise babies. Can’t turn on the TV or go to the movies without … Continue reading Bitches on Vaginas
Thaw
by Ashley Hutson Since it has been getting warmer, the lake has started speaking to me. Ice singing they call it, but I know better. At dawn I walk outside and listen: far-off wails, low rumbling like thunder. Spring sounds terrifying out here on the lake, as if the ice knows the rising sun is the end of everything. In protest it sounds off like a great pair of scissors clipping a high tension wire, sending it whipping across the surrounding mountains and making sparks where I can’t see. Every year it is like this, the lake telling me that … Continue reading Thaw
Ne Rein (It’s Nothing)
by Vanessa Willoughby And before you hoarded the bill, before your eyes Set fire to the moon-eyed waitress, jailbait-Jessica-Rabbit Fighting against a dress three inches too short, lashes Fluffed with fur, a slippery, trickster vision shimmying Claws clutching a one-way ticket to Purple haze heaven. And before you confessed, letting Your tongue snake around Blue velvet loneliness served neat You made sure to draw blood in preparation for the bruise. “I like how you have the face of a nymphet,” you said. Death breathing like little gills beneath your dewy skin Hand hovering over a smoking mouth Watching the molted … Continue reading Ne Rein (It’s Nothing)
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