trauma – honey gaze

Sanctuary

Agatha scrapes open the rusting backyard gate, and a chorus of yips erupts from the inside of the bungalow. The troops emerge from the homemade dog flap in the back door; thirteen chihuahuas, dachshunds, and small mutts veer through the maze of vinca tendrils and tiger lilies to reach her as she walks up the thin path.

“Goddamn slimy devil spawn that girl is!” Agatha’s wrathful smoker’s voice rasps through the open kitchen window. “The audacity to try something this shifty, I just can’t fathom it.”

Point of Impact

Before I knew you’d died, I was driving/backwoods dirt roads, just/outside the small town we used to share

Chrysalis

A clump of five boys Devan’s age sat in the back row closest the emergency exit. Devan gave a little nod and a wave to one of them, a gangly boy with blonde locks that were much longer than the other boys’ hair. Even from the length of the bus, Devan could see an undiscovered galaxy of copper freckles pepper his cheekbones.

Scavenger

My dog sees it first,//her sleek silhouette/stiff & still &/bristled at the scent.

Dissolution of True Knighthood: Queer Identity and Trauma in Calvino’s _The Nonexistent Knight_

The narration of Italo Calvino’s novel The Nonexistant Knight explores the aftermath of trauma in the queer body through the repeated use of mirrored images, contorted doubles, and illusion. In this translation by Archibald Colquhoun, the character Bradamante embodies elements of a non-binary gender identity through her status as a knight within Charlemagne’s army. InContinue reading “Dissolution of True Knighthood: Queer Identity and Trauma in Calvino’s _The Nonexistent Knight_”

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi: Book Review

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi is a queer coming-of-age novel like no other, exploring trauma and its aftermath within an earthly body full of gods. The story centers on a young Nigerian girl named Ada, but is narrated largely by the Ogbanje—a swarm of Igbo spirits that come from the womb of the python deity AlaContinue reading “Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi: Book Review”