The Literary Home for the Ji Yun Center for the Weird and the Speculative
I bled out on your front lawn. I foamed at the mouth, screaming “Do what you want to me!” I thought you’d see how loyal I am. I wrote your name a hundred times on my mirror. Someone told me that might work. I sent you a picture of me bare as I was born. I hoped you’d say I was beautiful. I spent a month’s rent on the payphone to call you. I guess you were just busy. I …
I sit beside her sleeping body, tucked under the white blanket The novel I’d been reading to her, is still open in my lap, untouched for hours. I dog ear the page I’d left off at, shutting Our Wives Under the Sea place it quietly on the chipped wood of the nightstand. The warm light from the bedside lamp turns off with two sharp clicks. I slip under the covers, wrap my arms around her nuzzle my nose against …
We the girls no longer with teeth Worn down, crumbling from our mouths. All the baring takes a toll. The signs they won’t read Our tears they won’t see But our teeth? There’s no choice but to notice. The bark …
Ares, for what are you but a former shell? Ares, for what is that blight you wish to quench? for when you wash away everything, war raging, everything-eating, do you find yourself feeling the weight of the world in your own hands? The way the blood seeps through your fingers The index, the middle, the ring, the palm, gripped tightly on your spear Twisting into the red viscera of which you seek Clotted ribbons in which they fall, stomach …
The top of the food chain, We are no longer. Nature once a sanctuary, Now just a fractured palladium. The hunter became the hunted. No other prey in its barbarous sight, It has our petrified scent. The human without his tools or bullets, A leaf lying in linen-colored snow. The amber-eyed beast lunges forward. Sinking its honed teeth into tender flesh, It decorticates a layer. As sinews and tendons rip Like a damp …
You do not ask what it is Or where it came from Deep down You already know. In the mirror before you stands another you In the bedroom of your adolescence One you should know so well Its skin like moon craters pale and hollow Its eyes like caverns dark and sunken Shining with tears yet to fall Staring, trying to find its meaning Your meaning? Its mouth is misshapen with an unmoving frown There is nothing where its …
I want this job because sailors no longer roam the seas and regardless of the patience of Death’s Embrace A girl’s got to eat I have many skills to bring to this team, I could show you if you like In this modern world I no longer sing But I bet I still could bite The faeries left long ago And the dragons sleep in their dens No man on land can dance like waves And I miss …
Looking stupid in front of others. Being rejected. Being looked at. Having something on my mouth. People not understanding what I’m saying. Clowns. Clowns. Art the Clown. Momo. Mascots. Centipedes. Rats. Being eaten by rats. Spiders. Spiders. Bugs—all of them—spiders are the worst. Frogs. Sharks. Fake People. The ocean. The ocean. The deep ocean. What is down there? Tsunamis. Heights. Dark matter. Black holes. The silence of space. Asteroids. Airplane crash. Floods. Bridge collapse. Bridges with water under them. Drowning. …
When my leg grazes my head, they pull in a straight line. My brown, dry, scabbed skin is revealed. Slick buns draw blood from our hairlines. Instructors pluck the fly-aways from the root of our scalps. Skin-tone tights make our legs look Perfect. Covering the streaks of scars from …
My little dear, I’m here again, whispering your name, Kneeling where you lie, Wishing I couldn’t hear you crying. This world, harsh and hungry, Would have swallowed you whole. I couldn’t watch you suffer, Like your siblings who came before. I held you bundled in my arms, Your breath so soft, so short, A tiny light I feared would dim, Like all the dreams I lost. Forgive me, my love, If my hands were too rough You know I was …