ISSUE 40 | MAY 2014

HOLD OR BE HELD

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Illustration by Sahara Shrestha

Anna Aizman

The Second Mouse, or the Other Half

the special type of salvation reserved for mice - unworthy of being ritually sacrificed - it evokes other rests - The Mouse people would become a revolutionary body - the narrator buries her prematurely in « the eternal history of our people. » - Perhaps he is no mouse at all

Olivia Durif

Snails (A Translation)

Allons-y - eat her, shit her - salad butchers - to be (vain) or not to be - patient crusade - their flocculence intensifies - unapologetically, by trace - (the road to self-perfection) - Humanism

Katie Bradshaw

(keeping myself up for some more stimulation)

a head as a friend and fucking you over good - dumb cows with bad lives - as being naked is quite enough - cucumber rose otherwise known as feminine gin - and the men all blend together we were all tired of you - instead of faces or method or hum - replace I with a verb - she wished more than she worked

Danya Lagos

B-Stylers

specter of minstrelsy lurking - an infiltration or assault on the female-exclusive conditions - depending on each other at all - one’s white parents - the emphasis on « passing » - the mere possibility of re-thinking them - ethnic dysphoria and subjective interest - a very strange soup that looks nothing like something - to expand or rethink

Manuel Arturo Abreu

the friend from your notebook

distance would sigh - as you can imagine - In it you insert your iPhone - Smoke more blood

Teal Gardner

Heartworm

Now I am living in a hivebox of sorts - the one who isn’t talking anymore - one pancake, gin and tonic, kale always kale - stuck us together as we were dissolved in a water - You love everything through your love of the house - but yes, avoiding - I dream of a ribcage - a tiny yell from a hinge near my head - Old habits against new aspirations. Whiskey or tea? - if you’d only let me touch your frozen doorknob - I wanted to—we wanted to be friends, I think - I look around. Where is? There is? - living in a rotten honeycomb

Rebekah Volinsky

A Conversation Between Two Rebekahs

side-eyed glances at my reflection - like if my Ego ever got the chance to examine my Id - some reason and some relief - to document the mirror talking back - the embarrassingly young ambition in my questions - And it’s just us. - like, art education, umm, and advocacy? - umm, experimental animation - seven o’clock, turn the shower on, go to work - residencies - a room of one’s own