ALOCASIA

if i were a worm would you still love me? 

i’m asking because the stakes are that high / 
during your manic episode / 
you laid out the apocalypse for me / i 
didn’t question you / when / you said you were god / 
we must learn to survive / i listened to you
as you explained how / the wormholes will 
get us before the zombies do / 
i believed you when you told me about / 
wormholes swallowing providence  / i 
listened and contemplated my survival skills.

when the time comes i’ll be ready / here / 
i built you this time machine using my 07’ Honda Civic / we can 
escape the apocalypse
we’ll be equipped with / time / our hands / a rosary of our baby teeth / our moms can
still sing in this /              timeline / and we’ll be worms in a garden.

last night i watched you tattoo yourself / your forearm bloody / you were 
covered in your own sweat / sometimes people just want to be 
forgiven /

you said that / there will be a garden 
during the apocalypse / because there still has to be something
that survives /

i have been teaching myself to garden / because my father
is my father / you reminded me / that worms consume /
that entire July / i was a heart outside of itself / a worm
in the garden / flesh outside of flesh / flesh outside of flesh /
swallowing / planting mint leaves outside of your childhood home /

there will be a garden / and 
before the apocalypse comes / i’ll build you a garden / in every 
universe / it is inevitable / i would still offer you a garden / 
while / getting consumed / by an all-swallowing / wormhole.

if i were a worm would you still love me? 

you’re asking me / because the stakes 
are that high / and after contemplating the 
apocalypse you laid out 
for me / i know / for a fact / 
i would still love you / if you were a worm / in 
every reality of the apocalypse / i would build you a garden.

 

Blue Đào Nguyễn (IG: @blue.ngu) is a Vietnamese-Teochew (潮州話) non-binary lesbian poet, artist, and organizer. Their work, inspired by cartography and Vietnamese architectural symbolism, explores grief, prayer, and livelihood through poetry, oral history, and traditional Viet woodworking & fiber art, using organic materials. Viewing material as altar : poetics as prayer. Their debut collection, Hey Siri, What Time is it in Vietnam? is out now with Game Over Books. Their work is featured in Foglifter, Palette Poetry, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Peach Mag, and an exhibition at 50 Arrow Gallery. They have received fellowship and/or scholarship from Lambda Literary, AIR.HUE, City of Boston x Fine Art Work Center, and more. Nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets, you can find them at bluenguyen.com.

Low, this body 
humbled to its knees, 
neck bent like a stalk of silver 
bluestem by summer sun 
or a breeze that sweeps across
the bayou and folds the wild 
grasses upon themselves 
until they feather the dirt—
their white inflorescence soiled. 
This isn’t so much a metaphor 
as where He brings you, 
as what moves around you 
when He becomes your wind, 
your light. The grass doesn’t want
the dirt so much as it requires it
like your mouth full of earth
where anything might grow.

 

Matty Layne Glasgow is the author of deciduous qween (Red Hen Press, 2019), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award. His poems and essays recently appear in or are forthcoming from AGNI, Copper Nickel, Ecotone, Kenyon Review, Queer Nature, Southeast Review, Strange Hymnal, Sugar House Review, and elsewhere. Matty is a Black Earth Institute Fellow for which he co-edited the “Strange Wests” issue of About Place Journal with Jasmine Elizabeth Smith. He holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Utah and is an Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston where he currently serves as the CNF Editor for swamp pink.

Meditations in a Climate Emergency

after Cameron Awkward-Rich

I pull the weeds & it breaks my heart. I harvest the strawberries & the smell of sweet rot breaks my heart. I collect the eggs and slaughter the quail, talk to people at the market. The local squirrels & crows, the neighbors screaming in the streets, midnight fights & gunfire, all of them break my heart. There’s a dream I have where pocketed goods go unpunished & the bottle & the neck slimming the flow of supplies to just a drip, is smashed. Regions distinguished only by their floral scents, mingling for miles. Like you, I was an idea. Like you, I come from the realm of big hopes pinned to small things. Heart leading the way. Heart always leading the fucking way.

 

Fuck Monsanto

I dream of a world
without miles of plastic
wrapped soil,
where weeds are thick
and topsoil is nutrient rich,
home to worms
and beetles
ready to grow and feed
and decompose
and do it all over again

I dream of a world
without gallons of
FDA-approved poison
spray that kills every bug
and bird who eats bugs
every weed
and mole who eats weeds,
that poisons the lung
and skin of the sprayers
tracked home on the soles
of worn boots
passing asthma
down to their children,
and thins the bark
of the hedgerow
running through the streams
filling the reservoirs
with chemicals
that will live in great grand children
of my niece and nephew

I dream of a world
where monsanto
is run out of town
by a pitch-fork armed angry mob
who no longer buys the lies
and the people
in those towns
divide the mono-crop farms
among the workers
who’ve tended the land
for decades,
they know the value
of a hand tended meal,
seeds and chicks and lambs
lives are beyond
hunks of meat
wrapped in plastic

I dream of a world
without perfectly shaped carrots
and blemish free
everything
lacking marks from the world
they came from,
where food rots
and does not burn away
the ozone traveling
thousands of miles
away from the overworked,
underpaid, hungry stomachs
who grew it.

Originally published in Gay Frogs (2026).

 

KB (they/them) is a queer farmer and poet based on unceded Chinhook land, otherwise
known as Portland, Oregon. These days, KB’s poems explore the connections of the natural
world with queer experiences and radical political perspectives on current realities and their
belief in a better world. Their work can be found in the anthology Transchool Vol. 2, Rogue
Agent Journal, All My Relations, Bel Esprit Literary Paper, the 2024 Trans Farmers for Trans
Farmers zine, and on their instagram, @chronicallykb.

nawa angel alviar horton, widely known as Moonyeka, is a chimeric creator with a multi-embodied presence in performance, qt nightlife, writing, experimental media, teaching artistry, and divination praxis. They center kilig as a compass to conjure erotically charged revolutions with animistic unapology, risqué, and Ilocano imagination. 

nawa’s past publications can be found in smoke and mold; Khôra; The Holy Hour anthology by Working Girls Press; Seventh Wave’s On Queer Family Anthology; Instruction Manual for a New Era with PNW Conceptual Art Center; Lilac Peril’s Taboo anthology. They have been the recipient of residencies, awards and fellowships including Tin House, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art CXL, In Surreal Life Artist-in-Residence, George Newsome Humanitarian Award, Seattle DanceCrush, Mary Gates Research Award, Arc Fellowship, and Andy Warhol Foundation’s Precipice Fund Award.

nawa exists in the in-between, frequently emerging on Tongva, Chumash, Chinook, Puyallup, Duwamish lands; the Coast Salish sea and cancerian multiverses. 

Waling waling palpitations is their first book.

Their website is moonyeka.world.

Cyanotype of a Burning World

White shadow glows on dark blue wash,
a negative space where life once was.
Blank space in collective memory—
our gorgeous extinction event. 

Grass glows arsenic 
green beneath smoke-
sepia skies and oil spill holds 
prism break upon the pave.
Slippery rainbows in poison puddled.

Lives become primordial plankton 
tar-tucked into oil 
sand beds fueling 
a rich man’s future. 

Hope is a thin-shelled egg
on our pale blue dot
belly ripe with child
flower gone to seed
pine cones on a dying tree.

 

Weeds

We were told to deodorise our flowers, 
as though flowers require such things. 
And brainwashed and believing, 
we spent hard-earned money on 
what ended up being herbicides. 

We sprayed our blossoms.
They withered. 
Petals cracked.
Stamens oozed, 
and we gardeners wept when
flora died, acids turned alkaline,
and rot inevitably set in. 

We gardeners believed.
Misinformed our mentees,
generations poisoned plots. 
We trimmed hedges.
Mowed lawns all the way down. 
Called natural fragrances filth,
and yanked so-called weeds
until we’d bled our earth dry. 

 

Raised on the land and off the grid in rural and remote areas across Canada, Shantell Powell is a swamp hag and elder goth who grew up in an apocalyptic cult but got better. She’s a graduate of The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity’s horror residency and a speculative fiction/poetry grad of The Writers’ Studio at Simon Fraser University. She’s also an alum of LET(s) Lead Academy at Yale University, the Novel Immersive for LGBTQ+ Writers at GrubStreet, the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, and the McCormack Writing Center. An Aurora finalist and Brave New Weird winner, her writing appears in Augur, The Deadlands, The Malahat Review, Nightmare, and Strange Horizons, as well as several anthologies. She has a reverent approach to nature and an irreverent approach to religion. When she’s not writing, she wrangles chinchillas and gets filthy in the woods. You can find her on BlueSky, Mastodon, or at her writing blog, Nudity is Only Skin-Deep.

SITE WRITING // elm, alder, ash, oak.

There are our ghost footprints, the monkey bars, the half-pint pillars.
Our frowned over moss lawn, our to-the-left roots.
Spring turf, Rhytidiadelphus Squarrosus. Star-like, red stem.
Pointed spear, Calliergonella Cuspidate. Base-rich, pointed, branched, chartreuse. 

Too warm in my human skin, I wish to ripple and shed. Become bryophyte.
Woodland dwelling, striated feather, abundant. Bridge. (Drawing). Applied to face twice daily.
It stays at the surface; we let the spectre come to us. Fragment, scattered, un-here. Heritage holding kinship with assemblage. We were not a trick of the light; I tap this to myself via my knuckles. The passage under the bridge tells us to check the entrails again. The narcissus does not answer any questions. (We walk). In wake of a storm, two trees lay here together.
Haul them back up. Undo storm damage, place plasters on their tree-knot-heart knees. Our indignant responsibilities: tending, restorative justice. Grass standing a new upright.
Vines between the echo of other.
Silvergreen, Bryum Argenteum. Extended, rewilded, perennial.
Oakmoss lichen, Evernia Prunastri. Deciduous, antlered, green, grey.
Two saplings stretch to find vertical. Gain vantage.
Wych elm, alder, ash, oak. Clay body a crater. 

Close the pores. Find what you need. Brought down to show the same kindness. An act of grounding, shoes removed, feet to rest on a fallen trunk. Followed overgrowth, crossed a pit, noted uneven ground. If the roots cannot span, will the moss continue until it is exhausted? Distraught, we keep pulling it from the tomb, borrowing it for flow states. A fluxing vestige, the magic that came inherent before the stretch. Hand inside the generator, flood bounces on its axis. 

There are no historical stories adapted to this genus at the present moment.
But it continues to grow through the lawn. Bark forms on the surface organ, branching the oesophagus, pointing at a once folkloric hibernation. It knows us too well to go through with any abandonment. My alarm goes off as I reach the group. Later, I will ask what becomes of the roots. Bryum, Klauss, branched, yellow green.
It fills the rifts.

 

WHAT BECOMES //   

Wych, Scots, twisted grain
water disturbances
you hand will tremor as you consider
moments and ancestors
the caterpillars rely on the rare blades
path: sticky weed, cleaver
goosegrass          breaks to
sponge
leaves meant for the stream
we sat opposite the sign
“Welcome to Applecross Street”

Alnus, birch, swamp dweller
fissures with lichen
the narcissus grows by a fallen trunk
believing itself to be the last of the gorgeous
nearby we are rounded by tread
meander and pause
meander and pause
cobbles to brick to dash
meeting of cool smooth temperate

Canopy, age, belove,
lilac or olive
toward the sun
dropped, still green
where we stepped
we only looked for ways to feed it
eyes follow the trap
rooted portal 
collected on a whim 

Spiral, lobe, borne within a cup
loosen and shelter,
seven hundred and sixteen variations
expectant and toddling
under the ancients
hauntings and branch cracks
humming places
to see faces in the trunks 
cave, knee bruise

Sherwood, nine hundred
Bowthorpe, one thousand
Marton, one thousand two hundred
Windsor, one thousand four hundred.

elm, alder, ash, oak
Ulmus Procera
Alnus Glutinosa
Fraxinus Excelsior
Quercus Robur

it is not for us to know
if the roots will reach what they need.

 

Jodie Whitchurch (she/they) is an Art Writer and Theatre Maker based in the East Midlands. In September 2025, she graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in MLitt Art Writing. Their writing has been published by Big White Shed, Big Red Cat Zine, From Glasgow to Saturn, Flare Lit Magazine, Eavesdrop, The Yellow Paper, and The Nottingham Horror Collective. Writing with beloved (though tiresome) ghosts and mysticism—they traverse terrains of poetic hybrid form, botanical illustration, and knitted sculpture. Their pamphlet, MOSS GIRL, is currently stocked at Good Press, Glasgow. 

Viceroy

Sunday at the park, I read poetry on my phone
linked from QR codes along the walkway,
local artists trying to pull art up from the concrete 
and out of the Bermuda grass. Not that that’s all 
there is—a hill, too, and a man-made marsh, 
an unkempt amphitheater for the show of still water.

I am most compelled by the butterflies.
A monarch, I recognize, but no others. There are
smaller orange ones, tiny yellow ones, black and blue 
ones on red flowers, which I relate to for some unnamable
reason I think my friends would understand.
I read another poem, realize in every one
the poet conceives nature as something which beckons.

I am beckoned off the main path, into the dirt, 
by a tall metal structure that “at once evokes 
a grove of trees as well as the flowing bend
of the Tennessee river.” The label says: “We invite you
to come”— but a man is asleep in his lover’s lap 
on the camouflaged bench melded to the brass,
and I stop before they see me.
She pets his hair in the shade.

I stick to the concrete path and find
a lesbian couple in the field on a picnic,
one woman fastening a necklace around
her lover’s neck, steady and smiling.
They sit, facing each other, under
the shade of a fully green maple tree.

It bothers me how literal the art is, here.
A bronze statue of a maple leaf.
A brass model of a tree grove.
But I think the issue here is me,
who searches for the thing beneath
the thing, flies circles around myself.

 

Life at the End of the Holocene

after Kailah Figueroa

“The marriage between dreams and nightmares—that is life.”
          -Everlyn Nicodemus

 I.

red soil running / electricity in the water / immaterial snakes / after the hurricane, the floods no one saw coming / the front porch thrown board by board / into rapids / remember when we rocked / in the rocking chairs your grandmother gave you / we bought fresh peaches and basil from the farmer’s market in the town square / blended them together / poured it
all on ice / sat on that porch and watched the robins hop around? / we both admitted to being surprised the other was still there / how we’d been so naive / so disloyal and then destroyed / but stayed through the wreckage and whatever came next / predicted the end of the world / 8 years ahead / and we were right but there are many ends / many creatures drowning in the hills of Appalachia / even more dreaming of dandelions / by the new and bloated riverbed / I am trying to be brave / I do not know my end / maybe my last breaths blowing / seeds across fertile ground / the mangled meadow of my best friend’s backyard

II.

red soil running / electricity in the water / immaterial snakes / after the hurricane, the floods
no one saw coming / the front porch thrown board by board / into rapids / remember when
we rocked / in the rocking chairs your grandmother gave you / we bought fresh peaches
and basil from the farmer’s market in the town square / blended them together / poured it
all on ice / sat on that porch and watched the robins hop around? / we both admitted to
being surprised the other was still there / how we’d been so naive / so disloyal and then
destroyed / but stayed through the wreckage and whatever came next / predicted the end
of the world / 8 years ahead / and we were right but there are many ends / many creatures
drowning in the hills of Appalachia / even more dreaming of dandelions / by the new and
bloated riverbed / I am trying to be brave / I do not know my end / maybe my last breaths
blowing / seeds across fertile ground / the mangled meadow of my best friend‘s backyard

III.

red soil running / electricity in the water / immaterial snakes / after the hurricane, the floods
no one saw coming / the front porch thrown board by board / into rapids / remember when
we rocked / in the rocking chairs your grandmother gave you / we bought fresh peaches
and basil from the farmer’s market in the town square / blended them together / poured it
all on ice / sat on that porch and watched the robins hop around? / we both admitted to
being surprised the other was still there / how we’d been so naive / so disloyal and then
destroyed / but stayed through the wreckage and whatever came next / predicted the end
of the world / 8 years ahead / and we were right but there are many ends / many creatures
drowning in the hills of Appalachia / even more dreaming of dandelions / by the new and
bloated riverbed / I am trying to be brave / I do not know my end / maybe my last breaths
blowing / seeds across fertile ground / in the mangled meadow of my best friend’s backyard

IV.

red soil running / electricity in the water / immaterial snakes / after the hurricane, the floods
no one saw coming / the front porch thrown board by board / into rapids / remember when
we rocked / in the rocking chairs your grandmother gave you / we bought fresh peaches
and basil from the farmer’s market in the town square / blended them together / poured it
all on ice / sat on that porch and watched the robins hop around? / we both admitted to
being surprised the other was still there / how we’d been so naive / so disloyal and then
destroyed / but stayed through the wreckage and whatever came next / predicted the end
of the world / 8 years ahead / and we were right but there are many ends / many creatures
drowning in the hills of Appalachia / even more dreaming of dandelions / by the new and
bloated riverbed / I am trying to be brave / I do not know my end / maybe my last breaths
blowing / seeds across fertile ground / the mangled meadow of my best friend’s backyard

V.

red soil running / electricity in the water / immaterial snakes / after the hurricane, the floods
no one saw coming / the front porch thrown board by board / into rapids / remember when
we rocked / in the rocking chairs your grandmother gave you / we bought fresh peaches
and basil from the farmer’s market in the town square / blended them together / poured it
all on ice / sat on that porch and watched the robins hop around? / we both admitted to
being surprised the other was still there / how we’d been so naive / so disloyal and then
destroyed / but stayed through the wreckage and whatever came next / predicted the end
of the world / 8 years ahead / and we were right but there are many ends / many creatures
drowning in the hills of Appalachia / even more dreaming of dandelions / by the new and
bloated riverbed / I am trying to be brave / I do not know my end / maybe my last breaths
blowing / seeds across fertile ground / the mangled meadow of my best friend’s backyard

VI.

red soil running / electricity in the water / immaterial snakes / after the hurricane, the floods
no one saw coming /the front porch thrown board by board / into rapids / remember when
we rocked / in the rocking chairs your grandmother gave you / we bought fresh peaches
and basil from the farmer’s market in the town square / blended them together / poured it
all on ice / sat on that porch and watched the robins hop around? / we both admitted to
being surprised the other was still there / how we’d been so naive / so disloyal and then
destroyed / but stayed through the wreckage and whatever came next / predicted the end
of the world / 8 years ahead / and we were right but there are many ends / many creatures
drowning in the hills of Appalachia / even more dreaming of dandelions / by the new and
bloated riverbed / I am trying to be brave / I do not know my end / maybe my last breaths
blowing / seeds across fertile ground / the mangled meadow of my best friend‘s backyard

 

Logan Elizabeth Craig (she/they) is a poet currently residing in Chattanooga, TN. Her poems are published in several print and online publications, including elsewhere, Frozen Sea, OROBORO, underscore_magazine, Anodyne Magazine, and others. Their work can be found at their linktree, and on Instagram, @loganelizabethcraig.writes.

It’s leggy I know
but I like the way 
it dangles
its long legs 
down
from the little shelf 
above the microwave
and kicks them out
in search of scraps
of light 
leaching out
from the edges
of the kitchen window
that would otherwise
provide
the perfect source 
of sunlight
if only it weren’t 
around the corner 
blocked by all the 
appliances we never use
and I like the 
logarithmic spiral 
of its leaves
their jagger-toothed 
profiles
that cast barely
a shadow
on white walls
fine hairs 
along etiolated stems
and the badly drawn
orange flowers
that appear 
only as an affront
to all of my 
carelessness 

 

Daniel Cartwright-Chaouki (he/him) is a professional gardener from Birmingham, England. His poetry is informed by a range of themes and ideas. In particular, he focuses on the intersection between people, plants, and landscape. His work has previously been published in Brand Magazine, Pulp Poets Press, Bodies on Bodies Magazine, and The Cannon’s Mouth.

with a line from Robert Frost

I was the first creature after the apocalypse,
a bougainvillea, beautiful & tender.
I carry memories of history in my lenticles,
my mother is alive, she lives there too.

A bougainvillea beautiful & tender,
my petal is a city of blood & I’m sure
my mother is alive, she lives there too.
I stem from a line of horticulturists, 

my petal is a city of blood & I’m sure
there is a battalion of bats in every corner.
I stem from a line of horticulturists
and I’m the last of their kind. Because, 

there is a battalion of bats in every corner
killing the butterflies and honeybees—
to the very last of their kind. Because,
In this new garden of mine, nectar has a tendency 

to kill the butterflies and honeybees. 
Even the most beautiful flowers, 
in this new garden of mine, has a tendency 
to wither before it blooms. Because 

I carry memories of history in my lenticels.
I do not know the love of a horticulturist. 
Nor the touch of butterflies & honeybees. 
I was the first creature after the apocalypse
 
And that alone has made all the difference.

 

Gospel Chinedu is an Anatomist and poet based in Anambra, Nigerian. He is a joint-winner of the 11th Suspect Poetry Prize, 2025. His works of poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Massachusetts Review, ONLY POEMS, Forum Magazine, Porter House Review, and Poetry Wales. Gospel tweets @gonspoetry.

Have you ever seen a microorganism die? Under the microscope, you see those single-celled organisms. You can see what’s going inside them, cuz they are translucent, kinda look like jelly. But that doesn’t mean that they are borderless. They have that layer, just like humans having skin, that holds them inside and separates them from other organisms. They are all individual beings. And when they die, amazing things happen. Their layer, that thin layer that held them, suddenly disappears, and what was inside their body spills out, like it never had been inside one creature. It literally pours out like, when you put water into a balloon, and you knot it and poke a needle to it and the balloon suddenly shrinks and the water just gets all splashed out? That’s how it is. And after that, you cannot tell anymore what was from the dead cell and what was floating around before that. The cell is no longer an individual.

That’s what’s called lysis. I love watching it. Maybe cuz my work is about death? Or maybe because of how I deal with the corpse? Whatever that is, who cares. It’s my favorite pastime to watch videos of lysis, and that’s good. No need to make excuses for my pleasure.

I can get up now. The corpse is all decomposed well enough. I can feel it underneath my million bodies. Yup, it’s good to go.

I got up from million mushrooms to a solid human body. It was an old man this time. Already decomposed enough, didn’t take much for me to dismantle his body. Wasn’t so nutritious though. What can I say? Can’t complain. Most dead people are old, usually. As I slowly wear my clothes back on, I find one piece of him left, a tiny bone part of a size of a pea. I pick it up and stick it in my pocket.

I run an arboretum burial cemetery. People think that I cremate them, but what I really do is I decompose them in a more natural way. I eat them, basically, not that I am a necrophile, or maybe I am. But I am definitely not a cannibal. I am not exactly a human. Didn’t you notice? Then you are dumb. Anyway, so I can’t be a cannibal, cuz I eat other species, which is humans. Period. I am being too kind right now telling you what’s obvious. What I do after the corpse dies, I hang a sign of the dead’s name on a tree. Whichever I have in my forest here. There are a shit ton. Anywhere. Nobody knows. And yeah, today’s job done. I need a cigarette.

I walk to the tree, my tree, so to say. I will never hang a plate over it with others’ names. It is my smoking spot. I put my hand in a knar near the tree trunk where I put my Lucky Strike and the lighter. I lean my back on the tree and light up the cigarette. The light from the tip of the cigarette sizzles into redness. I inhale. Breathe in deep into my nose, and phuff, I breathe out the smoke. I watch them spread out in the air, like the spores I become. And the nicotine kicks through my brain, and I feel hazy, or unclear. I feel sleepy or kind of high. Maybe it is just reducing oxygen in my brain, and this is what it feels like to be smothered. Whatever. Fuck it.

I rub the short cigarette bud on the tree trunk and extinguish the light. The tree got cigarette marks here and there. You might think I am nonsense that I said I love the tree. Well, isn’t love a process of slowly killing each other? All love ends up with ruin, destruction. I don’t love others. It is just a waste of energy.

Walking to the shack where I live. It is right next to the entrance. How long have I lived here, since I started to settle down here like 70 years ago. Surprised that I look like a twenty-year-old? You would be blown away if you know how old actually I am. Don’t forget I am a fungi woman. Or women. Or men. Doesn’t really matter. My cabin is pretty simple as I don’t eat here. Just a bed and a living room. I pull my socks off and dry them in front of the fireplace. Nine toes wiggling. The woods are almost always kinda moist at this time of the year. Always need to keep myself dry after my job. I pull out the bone I picked. This is the last bit of him left. When someone dies, one leaves one thing behind, just one damn thing. Some call it sarira, some say it is a bone particle. His is oval, a little bit squished on the edge. I lay it on my tongue and close my mouth. It is usually good what is left behind. But sometimes it’s not. I hope it is the sweet treat for the day. Soon I fall into a deep sleep.

My body is swinging as my feet are doing their steps. Brown suit flutters as I turn, swaying gently. I feel the softness in both hands with different textures. It’s a hand on my right hand, a small one. And it’s a velvet textile on my left, with a soft warm thing underneath. It’s a waist. I can see her skirt and her feet moving along with my steps, almost as if they are from the same person. And I am gently moving around the floor with her. I look at her face. A woman in her mid-50s, a charming face, her fluffy hair tied into a bun like a bunny’s tail. We sail our bodies in a living room with no one else, but only us. I notice the music. We are dancing. I guess it is a waltz. I am looking at her eyes, her black eyes. Her eyes are smiling. I can feel that I am smiling as well. The room still smells like a pie. My lips move to say something.

‘I love you.’ The deep voice comes out. And I kiss her on her forehead.

I open my eyes. I get up from the rocking chair. The fire was out, and it was dawn. I wrap myself up with a blanket and remember the dream, or should I say, the memory that the old man left behind? Eeh. Cliche. Always, too often it ends up saying I love you. Why is everyone so obsessed with love, leaving it as something that cannot be forgotten so badly even after death. And I don’t have a choice to deviate from the scenario in those dreams. I have no “I” in that shit. I just feel what they feel, and it feels kinda gross when I actually wake up. Like I am pretentious. Some of the feelings that I would never agree with, or even care about. The treat was a bad one, bad luck. Duh. Damn it. When I am lucky I have those dreams of having tons of cash in my hand. Which is always great. But today’s was definitely not. I can’t even dance with my feet, I can’t balance with one toe missing. Not even interested in ballroom dancing either. It is just so dumb, so highbrow. I need a cigarette.

When I open the front door it is foggy outside, which I like. I couldn’t even see what was out there a foot ahead. It is kinda cool to walk through this thick mist. You can feel the air that you wouldn’t feel the presence at all normally, calling it an empty space or vacant or even “void”. And I feel when it is foggy and I smoke, I inhale the water vapor with the smoke, which I kind of like. It is true that it is harder to light my cigarettes up though. As I arrive at the tree I snatched the cigarettes from the tree hollow where I left, and it felt weird. Damn, I left the box open. Fuck. The cigarettes got all soggy. I put one in my mouth anyways. I try to light it up. Flick, flick. God’s sake, come on! The lighter’s not working. Fuck. What a fucking day. Bad dreams, no cigarettes. What is worse than a bad day is the hint of silver lining of happiness that betrays you. Taking away is worse than not giving in the first place. I could have felt good with that fog smoke. I flicker a couple of times more quite of course without any luck and give up. It is too much for me to handle. I need to just decompress a bit. I start releasing myself into a spore spray starting from my head and soon I dismantle all over the tree. And I sip the juice from the tree, like what humans do at a cafe, drinking coffee or something. Small mushroom heads pop up around the tree’s body, this time it’s a poisonous yellow one. It is something that will obviously make me feel better. Watching my own body in multiple visions. It breaks my stress into smaller portions each, which makes it easier to process. The mushrooms grow bigger and bigger. Yeah, I feel better, or would rather say, “caffeinated”? So I pop back into a human form. The tree seems to wither a bit more than before, its leaves a little drier. I am kind of parasitic. That’s how much I love the tree.

I go back to the shack to change my outfit. I have work today, need to look “serious”. People take death seriously, so I wear my suit. White shirt, black jacket, black pants, and comb my hair. I take off some leaves that I collected by slurping the tree. And I tie my hair down. I look at the mirror, practicing a serious look, without laughing, but looking caring and not indifferent. It takes up a lot of energy to pretend, but I need those bodies. They are my best supper. Outfit, checked, hair checked, car key, here it is, and I am good to go. I jump into my limo and put on the address on the navigator app. Three hours away. Not too bad. I step on the gas pedal.

It takes a while to get to places with human touches from my burial forest. Curvy roads that go round the mountain. Certainly not the best road to drive with a limousine. But I don’t give a shit. I drive like I am on a rollercoaster. It is fun to drive roughly down the mountain. And I lived enough to be worried about death. I can’t even die, man. I must have a new box of cigarettes somewhere here in the front seat drawer. I click open the drawer and grope around. Tiggit. That sound of cigarette. I stretch my fingers and drag the box towards me. Yes, I got one. I open and pull out one and put it between my lips without seeing. And I pat my jacket and pull out the lighter. Flick. I lit up. I open my window. Phew. I feel the air still wet with a cigarette in between my fingers. The day is starting, the fog thinning.

I arrive in a small suburban town. I check the name of the body. Ada Miller. Common last name. Not too common a first name. The navigator says I am there. Yup. This is the place. I get off the car and check the car if it got any stains. There’s some from the mud. I open the trunk and get the spray and a cloth and wipe them out. Neato. I take out another cig. I only got one left. Yeah, better get a bunch before I go to work. I look around, looking for any stores, which is kind of hard to find in this kind of small town. I walk a bit, and I see a sign that says groceries with onion and carrot illustrations. I hope they have some. I knock on the door and open the door. An old man comes slowly out from the back door, rubbing his eyes. It is morning time. I look around, look at him. “….Sorry.”
“No, it’s all good. I wake up early.” The man grins.

I look around, and there are vegetables and fruits in wooden boxes. I pick up an apple, and go to the counter where the man is standing.

“And do you have cigarettes?”

The man points at his back. And there’s a small rack there.

“Yeah, Lucky Strikes.”
“One?”
“How many do you have?”
“Let me see… around ten boxes.”
“Give me all of them.”
“All ten boxes?”
“Yup.”

I pull out the money as he draws out the cigarette boxes. I take them and the apple in my arms.

“Thanks. And keep the change.” And I leave the place.

I open the car door with my arms full of stogies with my fingers and pour the boxes into my seat. I open the drawer and pick the boxes up and store them. And I pick up the apple that rolled into the brakes. Uh… There’s a house where I can see a dog house. I put the apple in the yard. You know, I just bought it, just because. Maybe the dog might eat it. I check the time. Yeah, it’s nine. I walk up to the house and ring the bell.

I am driving back to the forest, just like I drove here, but with only one difference. There’s a coffin in the back seat. I drive, chain-smoking. The sun was up high when I was back in the forest. This sun. It feels like the sun is filling up the air, almost surreal. Like you know, the light is so steady without any changes, that it feels like time stopped and you kinda have that illusion that nothing is gonna change and you are in that infinity loop? Yeah, that is how it is. And the forest is damn quiet today, not even without sweeping wind sound. Weird. My eyes are frowning cuz of all the light today. Geez. I get the trolley that I use for the coffins. I open the back seat door and pull out the coffin. I slam the door shut and push the trolley to the backyard where I prepare them to be ready for the forest. I put the coffin on the working table. Ready to work. The sun is really shiny, kinda hard to open my eyes. I open the coffin. The sunray gets reflected by her white face, and I frown again. Gradually my eyes get used to the brightness, and I can see her face. An old lady, with blond hair, almost platinum, crooked nose, deep eyes, thin lips. She has the impression of an owl, which I am somehow familiar with..?

OH SHIT.

I close the door back. I sit, almost falling down to the ground. Pulling my hair backward. I feel a headache. God! I should have noticed the name. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. I knew that name, just forgot about it as it was too long ago. Am I a fucking idiot? How can I forget her name? Damn. I feel like throwing up. I run to the shack, to the bathroom, and puke.

How can I not notice my first crush?

And I let go of my mind for a while. I don’t remember.

When I finally got ahold of my mind, it was already dark. Yeah, this is better. I cannot do all this thing in the sunlight so bright, looking at her face with sanity. I go back to the backyard. I open the coffin. I pull out her body. I breathe in deeply. I unbutton her dress. When I am done with that, I take her dress off. Christ! Her body feels cold and stiff. Damn! Why was it me among so many other cemeteries? As I undress her completely, I take her body to my arms and lift her. Bodies are usually really heavy. I couldn’t be able to lift anyone up if I weren’t fungi. She is lighter than other bodies though. I remember her skinny when she was younger. Damn, why do I remember those? I place her into a tub right next to the table. And I pour buckets of water. I wash the body. Brush her off. I hold her left hand to brush off underneath the nails. Damn. I didn’t want to touch her body like this. I wash her face, all the makeup they did for the funeral. I place her back head on my left hand and gently wipe her face off with a soft cloth. I wipe out every crease, every wrinkle, which I didn’t wanna feel. Damn, at least it is better at night like this. I look up at the sky to avoid looking at her face. But I still can picture her as I touch her. There is a deep wrinkle between her brows. You grew old. Were you in agony? What was your life like? How were you? Did you have a happy life? Damn, I am getting sentimental. Fuck. Those are useless. I rinse her off several times and put her back on the table, where I placed the human-sized bag ready. I put her in the bag and zip the bag from her toes. I see her legs, her thighs, her pelvis, her belly, her breasts, her collarbone, her neck, and her face as I zip up the bag. I lift her up with my arms and walk to the forest. I am half out of my mind and just walk with her weight on my arms. I put her down as I just find a tree. I unzip the bag and pull her out. The moon is crescent today, so it was particularly darker. I take a deep breath. Damn, I need another smoke. I turn around and smoke one. No, two. Three. My neck hurts a bit and my brain is full of smoke, hazy enough. Okay. I need to do this.

I take off my clothes and overlap my body with hers. My cheeks are touching her cold cheeks. And I dismantle, my skin suddenly disappears and my body dismantles into million spores, spreading out like liquid, like slime, and covers her body up. I am a million bodies, a million selves, slowly degenerating her body from this Earth, breaking down her barrier, breaking her border, and I forget myself, and she forgets herself and will become one, all mixed up, inseparable.

You think your memories are all in your brain, and that’s stupid. Your body remembers things. Memory is the first phenomenon of your body. When dismantling a body, I go through their memories, which is the last thing that I wanted to do with her. I don’t wanna know. I didn’t wanna ever know. My million bodies try to ignore the visions and the sounds when degenerating her. Try not to know. It will make the process slower than usual. My million bodies and her body will glow in the dark the whole night to fully decompose, and I will soon lose the notion of myself.

I was a million indigo-colored mushrooms when I got back my self-awareness. It is an unusual type of mushroom that rarely comes out. The pale blue color looked like her eyes. Sun was rising. I slowly get up, and a million mushrooms morphed into my body. I see my palms still stained a bit in blue like the mushroom. I lift myself up. I take my clothes back on hastily like a girl who got naked for the first time for sex. I feel embarrassed to be naked all of a sudden. I wrap up my body tight and I look back at the place where I spent the night. And there’s one round thing left behind. I pick it up. I put my hands inside my pocket and roll it in my fingers. It is a round one, almost perfectly round. I stop at my tree and smoke almost mindlessly.

I come back to the shack and throw myself into the rocking chair. Damn. I ate my first crush. I don’t know how to feel about it. I pull out my fingers from the pocket. The only remainder of hers left in this world. Damn. I rub my face with my other hand. The feeling is driving me crazy like gurgling in my throat and I can’t handle it. Is it sadness? It is disgust? Is it self-loathing? I got no clue. Never liked me anyway. Holding this tiny piece of her left makes me feel even weirder. Maybe I should throw this away. No, I should keep it. No, I should bury it. Gosh. I don’t know what to do. I put it on the side table. I don’t know. I am confused. Maybe I should just leave it. I need to go to bed. It was too much. I drag myself slowly to the room.

And I stop. Walk back, pick up the round thing, and place it on my tongue. I sit back in the rocking chair. I take a deep breath a couple of times. After a deep exhale, I swallow it. I rock the chair for a while, and I fall asleep.

I am at a house, a living room, knitting. Yeah, I remember this place, a place I used to sneak around to see if she was around. But I was never inside the house before. This is what it looked like. Nice green sofa, soft and rounded, and a mahogany floor and an ivory wall. A still life painting on the wall. Her mom’s taste probably. I was knitting without a hurry. Cotton candy-colored yarn mixed up with pastel colors. Someone knocks on the door. My hands stop moving and put the yarn and the needles on the side. And I get up on my feet. I am wearing camel-colored corduroy pants, and a patterned knit with green and yellow zigzags. Totally her vibe. She loved earthy colors. And her short, yellow, thin, and soft hair fluttered as I walked down the hallway. I grab the knob and open the door.

And there stands a young woman, skinny, with long chocolate-colored hair, and olive tone skin, standing in front of the door.

That is me.

As the brown-haired woman notices the door open she looks up and her cheeks blossom with pink and turns her head to the side to hide it.
“Who’s this?”
My mouth moves and the voice comes out. The gentle, kind voice, that I never forgot. And the brown-haired woman nervously tries to talk. But she gives up, and she abruptly snatches my wrists and places something in my palm and runs away. I watch her hair fluttering in the air until I can’t see her anymore. And I look down at my palm. And there is a tiny mushroom. My fingers pick it up and hold it up. I stare at it for a while. And I take it closer to myself, toward my mouth. I place it inside my tongue. I swallow it. The mushroom glides down the throat.

I can feel my body rocking. I slowly open my eyes. I can see my feet on the footrest, and my body gently swaying in my rocking chair. And I notice my missing toe back, in the shape of a tiny mushroom.

 

Shantal Jeewon Kim is a visual artist and writer based in South Korea and the United States. She studied Art & Technology and Psychology at Sogang University (Seoul, Korea) and is a graduate of the Image Text MFA from Ithaca College (NY, USA). She conceptually explores the intersection of memory, melancholy, and translation, exploring both photography and experimental text medium. Shantal directed 4 solo exhibitions, and participated in group shows, screenings, and publications. Her writing has been published by Tarpaulin Sky, and her image-text monograph has been published by fifth wheel press. Her poetry book was published by 2024 from Gasher Press.