Table of Contents

Untitled - Razan Omar 

The Silent Shoulders - Syed Mohammad Raza 

She was more than a teacher, you know ? - Ayesha Bibi 

From Rejection to Respect. - Ayesha Bibi 

Family Reunion - Jyair David

Midnight Ascension - Fatemeh Mahya Ansarian 

656 Nanometers - Dhruv Chandrasekhar

Funny Circle  - Dhruv Chandrasekhar

The Lord's Prayer - Dhruv Chandrasekhar

When Fate Showers luck - Nandika Nath

Ecliptic Romance / Water and Win - Jacky Hazan

Traveller, With Dreams On My Eyes, Before You Depart - Sheher Naz Prionty 

At a Distance, I Pray - Azhaar Khair 

Untitled- Apoorva Bakshi 

The blackberry bush that killed me- SJ Deveraux 

Kafka's Journey- Soniya Prajapati 

Untitled 

By Razan Omar 

Razan from Syria student in germany.

My poem is about sacred love. 

May our souls merge, 

Dripping like honey from the heavens

onto this earth, my beloved.

May it blossom into the fruit of life,

Pouring out the tenderness of your eyes,

Like rivers on sacred land.

Oh, how sweet it must be,

tasting hope. 

And looking up to the skies

as the Angels watch. 

Is it a sin?

Two hearts, beating in a chest 

like Tariq, deep in the Expanse 

Devoured by darkness.

She was more than a teacher, you know ? 

By Ayesha Bibi 

Ayesha is student of bachelor (English) in GPGCW, Haripur. 

She was more than a teacher, you know?

She was a whole presence at my very low.

She feels like a moon in the sky full of dark.

She feels like a cloud in the day full of hot.

She was a comfort in the world full of tiredness.

She was a listener in between ears full of ignorance.

Now it's strange ,honestly.

It's been ...... what? Two years back when I sat in her class.

carrying her voice in my head every single day with chaos.

And yet here I am....... still carrying memories with her.

Still thinking what's the thing that's different in her.

I always wanted to tell her everything.

but ended up with my thoughts denying.

Like how she shaped me without trying.

A silent muse in my chaos, gently guiding, undying.

To the times when I feel alone

To the times when I was worn

To the times when inner me was hitting hard

To the times when I was no more strong

To the times when I was about to fall

To the times when my soul was about to drown

She was the one who made me stand up,

To look around and to be strong

She has noticed what others don't

She has done what others don't

She knows how to comfort one

The one who can't talk to anyone.

She was more than a teacher you know

The warmth in her smile still missing below.

Even now , when I mess up,

I still wonder how she taught me to handle the situation

Even now, when good things happen,

She's the first person I wish I could tell.

She left a part of her in me

Which appears when nothing feels better to me.

She taught me that your silence still has some worth listening.

She taught me that your life still had something worth achieving.

She was more than a teacher you know

In every silence, her presence doesn't show.

Moving forward in life to say

I still miss her each and everyday

Now everyday, I walk into new rooms and people

Still no one carries what she could

No one hears what she could

She was more than a teacher you know

A light in my life that refused to outglow.

Family Reunion 

By Jyair David

Jyair David is a young aspiring author born and raised in Tennessee. Even from adolescence, he remembers writing fictitious stories just for the heck of it, all with the dream of one day becoming a writer. Now, at 17, he is entering his senior year of high school with a great deal of knowledge under his belt–how to utilize rhyme and rhythm, pace effectively, and drive necessary uncomfortability through his work in ways that he could never do before (not even a year or so ago, when David was first published by the Beneath the Mask Literary Magazine). Lover of rap, and mesmerized by the constant punchy, unrelenting usage of wordplay held within it, Jyair David aims to become one of the greatest voices of this generation. Founder and leader of his high school’s poetry club, as well as co-leader of its Writers Guild. 

We peel off every layer to introspect. Inspecting the intestines like a detective, because there’s layers to the heart. I was born with hardened lungs, for inhaling the sky.

I chug the world and public eye like they’re hard liquor, burning rough inside my throat. Took it like it’s medicine, for the creative in my bones.

(Take it off.)

Show it all to go down hard. Or coat it up to be more soft. To be loved, to be held, and to be soft.

But I’m meant to go down hard, according to my God. My Lord and Savior told me to stop repressing it; to not let the resentment ferment hate, bottled up like my own father.

My mother’s words still seem to stick with me, when she turned me towards religion. Her disposition empathetic, surviving through her issues.

Overtime to keep a shelter, with her own health instability. She still finds a way to shelter me, to be preparing me for the realities that I’m not ready to learn. Her harsh mentality, unbeknownst to me and unflinching, single-handedly raising a son.

My organs like a banshee, my parents that can’t stand me—

Handhold it like an addict, heavily medicated and attracted to the hardcore rush of beer, attention, heroine and dopamine crackhead for the rush of motherfucking ‘congratulations’ fame.

My mother would be mad with me, disappointed looking down at me, all strung out like music and craving for more dope.

I’m sober now.

Rehabilitated, on the up and up.

I peel off every layer to introspect. Intro dumbshit friendships who use me for my smile. Move onto relationships still left unattained, all along unreachable, ignoring roots laid in my soul and taking out my guts.

(Take it off.)

Trauma courses through me just as fluent as the English that I speak. I come from a generation of ego pride that’s humbled in the face of Trump, triumphant against aggression and enforced blatant white oppression—because it’s white men that are most suppressed, according to the system.

Trauma holds my hand, to write, to live, and breathe. Therapist-taught tactics, but I dropped Melissa, and learned to feel it for its whole.

Elizabeth, am I happier now? Am I good enough for you? Aren’t my lines finally enough, without the healing that you craved?

You wanted me to be better without actually allowing me to get better, Elizabeth, and I’m sorry that I had to let you go. It was a different me. But I’m growing up successfully because of me, and I know that you cared for me, but I had to lose the therapy.

And Jake, and Ross, please just hear me now, when I say you set me back. You helped me hate my mother, and you made me see my father from a different light. Through a mirrored lens, but that only set me back.

I apologize, for my past.

(Father, are you content?)

…

(Take a minute.)

(Breathe, and sit with it.)

Feel it like a verse.

Drink it like the world.

(Take the mask off.)

My father left me when I was growing up.

Homophobia, along with the pattern of his own parental bonds. History repeats again, and now there’s discord, left between me and Mr. David, me and Mrs. David, me and Jr. David, me and the forgotten baby sister that I’ve rarely ever met.

Say it to my backside, with the awkward laughter in the room. Talk it to the hand, clenched up in a fist. I rip it off like it’s a Band-Aid, and let the marks heal over wrong.

I’m not perfect, I’m not mature, I’m barely better. Barely healed, not yet drunk enough, I was always sober but I still needed a drank, I need the Hennessy.

Are you addicted?

Are you high off of the warmth it gives?

Like a group family hug—like it’s a full family reunion—outside of my found fostered home.

This is my greatest piece, this is the barest me. That’s not actually true, actually I’m more equipped to express my sorrow angrily, on and off the page.

More prepared to let the frustration cardio through me, to ruin my well-being, as fluently as words, after a full year of depression.

Mentally diseased, emotionally teased, and shaken to the core.

Just a youngin down at heart.

(Take it off.)

Feel it.

(Listen, son…)

...

(I’m proud of you.) 

656 Nanometers 

By Dhruv Chandrasekhar

Dhruv Chandrasekhar is a student, poet, and video game addict. He's been heavily inspired by games like DDLC and Omori. He loves listening to maretu. A lot. 

Whatever will happen to my eyes.

I watch the fireflies flicker and flit around the large stone,

Lighting up names.

The screens flicker harsher.

Concentrated like a ray of sunlight through a concave lens.

Burning into my retinas like it’s an oled.

Whatever will happen to my eyes.

When light doesn’t disperse and the world looks white.

Why don’t the fireflies light up the way for me?!

They light up everything but the path I should follow-

They light up the freshly dug grass,

They light up the wooden crate I broke open

They light up your face and mine alike.

Whatever will happen to my eyes.

Irises don’t contract even under such conditions.

Iridaeceous irritants.

Wavelengths deviate from expected values,

Every single spectral line showing up in the balmer series.

The world looks red.

Color constancy impaired-

What’s the use of image permanence when the images are just a block of color?!

Depth perception doesn’t work when everything’s 656 nanometers, screw you!

Whatever will happen to my ears.

If I can only see red, can I only hear red too?

No, I hear the fireflies flit around.

I hear the static of the speakers and I hear the text-to-speech telling me to do something-

I hear green and blue and orange

I hear RED AND RED AND RED AND RED AND RED AND RED AND RED AND RED AND RED AND RED.

Aren’t they different wavelengths?
Yeah, it’s a difference of about a trillion.

I mean, terahertz already hurt-

How bad could a few megahertz be?

bad enough

to

m

a

ke

i remember the way your voice caressed me like a warm blanket on a cold winter night.

i remember the way your eyes and smile brightened up the room.

i remember the way your voice croaked.

i remember the way your eyes went dull.

i can

t

hear

i

can’t hea

r

help

please

megahertz

megahurt.

sorry

please

im sorry

i wont try to listen

i wont try to see

will you

go after my

nose

mouth

skin

next?

my brain?

my heart?

my liver?

my kidneys?

will you forgive me if i put you back

will you forgive me if i buried you again?

The Lord's Prayer 

By Dhruv Chandrasekhar

Dhruv Chandrasekhar is a student, poet, and video game addict. He's been heavily inspired by games like DDLC and Omori. He loves listening to maretu. A lot.

The lord’s prayer.

Our father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Consecrated bullets

Raining down like acid,

Concentrated into streams of party popping streamers.

Consummating with their husbands.

Hallowed be the parabellum.

Hallowed be the .223

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Is heaven filled with bullet holes,

And are the clouds actually tufts of smoke and shrapnel?
And are the flowers we walk on casings and gunpowder?

Heaven is being done on earth.

Heaven is no different from hell, I presume.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

I guess food in heaven is tasteless

Because what are these MREs we have to eat?
Meals Ready to Eat-

We need meals ready to feel!

Ready to be able to eat readily,

And not just for sustenance for a war that’s not ours.

“Ready to Eat” but we have to burn stuff for it-

Stuff that I couldn’t find in the packet.

Stuff that came from the bodies around us.

Bloodied uniforms and clothes used as a makeshift flame.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

“Delivering us from evil”.

More like delivering evil to us.

I’d leave a tip, but you never show up.

Five star rating

I mean, the delivery was on time!
Your job is done there, isn’t it?

Because now it’s up to us to eat it all.

It’s so tempting to just-

die.

For thine is the kingdom,

And the power,

And the glory.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

And heaven itself falls to earth.

God nowhere to be seen.

Angels everywhere, however.

All dead.

Who could have done this but a human?
After all, humans are the only living beings created in God’s image.

Where did you go?
But the mud under my feet.

The hatred in my heart, the blood on my hands, the shrapnel in my veins.

Forgive the times when the daily bread tasted of ashes.

Forgive, for in delivering you from evil, the hand guiding you around the fire led you through it.
Forgive, for this Eden has been corrupted.
Forgive, for I am dead.

Ecliptic Romance/Water and Wine 

By Jacky Hazan 

Jacky Hazan is a 16 year old poet from Miami, FL. Her work explores themes themes of love, passion and self expression. 

little woman,

 big girl.

 a pool of fondness,

 small world.

gentle hands

 attempting to hold the water—

 it slips through my fingers.

 i fail,

 because i am my father’s daughter.

big woman,

 little girl.

 the chainè turns

 were once just twirls.

they didn’t have a name,

 weren’t a competition—

 just a game.

a game that’s turned to shame.

the little giggles

 have become big cries.

 the mirror tells me

 i’m still a little woman—

 the mirror lies.

bad poet,

 good woman.

 good poet,

 bad woman.

good poets have true thoughts 

good women live in drought 

my father married a bad poet 

four years ago

and divorced a good woman 

when i was two 

he expects me to be william mcgonagall

i think i’m margaret atwood 

or jane austen

both women never touched water—

only wine

they were never afraid 

to cry

respectful girl

 ambitious woman.

 quiet girl,

 loud woman.

she takes a dip in the pool,

 her head beneath the water.

 she finds an emerald jewel.

once she let the water

 be free of her hands,

 she became free too.

 she had turned

 from cardinal red

 to powder blue.

the emerald

 in her now not gentle,

 but powerful hands.

it sparkles beneath the moonlight—

 this was

 her own

 ecliptic romance. 

At a Distance, I Pray 

By Azhaar Khair 

Azhaar Khair is a writer and translator based in Indonesia. She writes in English and Indonesian, and enjoys learning languages such as Arabic and Spanish. You can send her your thoughts on her stories to arata.khair@gmail.com; she appreciates it. 

At a Distance, I Pray

Usually, it would be a string of stories. Where she was, what she was doing, who she was with. Which city, what breakfast, whose event she attended. The pink and yellow colors of the platform would light up the border of her profile picture. On some occasions, it would be a post with two or more photos of her at a medical conference at several universities, local and abroad. In rare instances, it would be a reel showcasing her most recent adventure to one of the thousands of islands in Indonesia. In the past, when they appeared on my feed, my heart would skip a beat, and my thumb would fly toward her profile picture to open the stories, or it would click ‘like’ and ‘see more’ to read the caption.

These days, I wasn’t as excited anymore.

Although it was quite strange that her profile hadn’t lit up in a few months. No stories, no posts, no reels. She was the kind of person who, at the very least, would post an update once a week, never absent from the queue of stories at the top of my timeline. Curiously, I clicked on her profile and checked her highlights. Saved in the first highlight were the two stories she posted in January of this year. The first story showed a table at a restaurant with small food portions on big, white plates. The second story was a single snap of Jakarta’s starless sky.

Suddenly, I felt the urge to send her a message. I found myself typing messages like: 'Hey, how are you?' or: 'Hey, long time no see. How’s life?' Then I realized that I didn’t have anything else to say, so I stopped midway and just deleted everything. Besides, wouldn’t it feel awkward since we haven’t talked to each other for so long?

How long has it been since we last caught up with each other, anyway?

I scrolled to the bottom of her profile and found a picture of us in front of the tall building of the National Library. It was taken years ago, when she and I were in high school. We were in different classes, but got closer due to the library club. We bonded over books, photography, and a hobby of traveling by public transportation. We used to arrange trips by train to Jakarta with a couple of other friends—a routine we did every few months or during school holidays—to attend programs in places that piqued our interests.  Book discussions at the National Library, sightseeing at Kota Tua, trying out new foods at Blok M, art exhibitions at the National Gallery; our friendship flourished inside and outside of school. Photos of our excursions adorned each of our social media accounts.

She was bright, both in personality and mind. A consistent contender for the top spots in the school rankings, she received a scholarship to a top university. Frequent study sessions with her during our third year led me to get accepted to the same uni. Shortly after entering university, when we both had empty schedules, I would walk a long distance from my faculty to the gray, somber buildings of the Faculty of Medicine to visit her. She would wait for me at the faculty’s canteen and we would buy some food before going to an emptier part of the building to sit down. And in that short time, we would talk.

Sitting side by side, we spoke about our days that were so foreign to each other. When we were in high school, we talked about the same classmates we knew, the same teachers who watched over us, and the same tests that we dreaded. In university, I groaned about my exams that she would never do, and she praised her professors whom I had only ever seen on the seminar banners in front of her faculty. Books, photography, and traveling were still in our conversations, but we both admitted we were too busy with our studies to do them as often as we used to. And maybe because we had become adults, our conversation started to touch on topics related to things like employment and marriage. One day, she mentioned that she wanted to have her wedding at a big venue—maybe at a hotel ballroom somewhere—because her family is huge and she would love to be able to invite every one of her friends.

Invite me too, I said back then.

She patted me on my back. You just sit back and wait for the invitation!

And I think it was after that conversation that we got busier with each of our things. Never mind hanging out; she would reply to my messages only after a few weeks, and most of the time wouldn’t answer at all. I found myself sending long paragraphs about how I had been during the time we didn’t meet, only to be met with nothing in return. A year turned into two years, then three. We eventually reached our final year and graduated, only knowing this fact through stories we posted on each other’s social media accounts. I replied to her story, congratulating her. And despite my uploading of my graduation pictures, I heard nothing from her.

Was I the only one making an effort? I had pondered.

Despite no communication, I could still see her through her stories on social media. A few years ago, we would sit side by side, talk about almost anything, and laugh at each other’s jokes, but now, I only see her through these stories—these small, ten-to-fifteen-second glimpses and still images captured from her life. I know this person, but at the same time, I questioned the word ‘know’ when it comes to her.

One thing I noticed was that some type of conversation happened a few times; a repetitive set of dialogue every time I managed to send her a message and she replied. I remembered one of the times I replied to her stories a few months after we both had graduated from university. In the story, she seemed to be going through her internship at a hospital somewhere. So, I sent her a message:

Where are you?

To my surprise, she replied two days later:

Bandung.

I sent her another message:

How are you? 

She replied in a few hours:

I’m good! 

I replied in a few seconds:

Great to hear! What are you busy with right now?

And, end scene.

Days, weeks, months; the conversation never went beyond those lines. She never asked me how I was doing; never curious about what was going on in my life. It was always me who initiated a conversation.

Eventually, I became exhausted. And a tad bitter.

Why was she like this? Or was there something that I had done? Was she upset with me? Various assumptions and possibilities were eating me from the inside. Maybe something was going on with her, or something was wrong with me. Or maybe it was just time. As time moved forward, we, too, advanced, busy and distracted. Without us realizing, our connection loosened, and we eventually forgot how strong it had been.

Yet, I realized: it was not just my connection with her, but also my connection with several others. In the same vein, many friends from the past I had been close with were now no longer a call or a class away. And it took me one look at my chat logs to see that I had done the same thing; that I had not replied to messages several friends had sent me from months before; that I forgot to reply because I was too tired and busy with work to open the messages at the time. And oh, it hit me hard.

We are humans with our own lives. Whether or not we prioritize each other was up to us. I have met a lot of good people all my life, but some don’t stay, even when I want them to. It could happen with anyone in my life—not just her—no matter how close I was with someone. It is a reality that I need to make peace with.

Now, to me, knowing that my friend is happy is enough.

From our picture, I scrolled through her other pictures all the way to her latest post. She looked happy in all of them, so it was enough for me. Good for her.

Mindlessly, I refreshed her profile, and my eyes widened.

A new post appeared!

She uploaded three photos of what looked like a wedding.

She was in all three. In the first picture, she was dressed in a beautiful white gown, standing with a man whom I might have seen once in one of her stories, showing the rings on their fingers. In the second picture, the couple stood with whom I think are their families—I recognized two people as her parents. In the third picture, the couple was with their friends, some I recognized from the posts I had seen—probably her college friends. The photos were all taken in a huge ballroom decorated in soft pastel colors. The caption explained her disappearance, saying that she was busy with preparations for her wedding.

A wedding I wasn’t invited to.

And the tinge of sadness came back. Even after making peace with my feelings, a slight bitterness would appear from time to time. I quickly reminded myself that it was fine—that I was fine and had accepted what had become of our friendship, and continued to read the caption. She wrote that she was happy with her husband, that his family and friends had been very good to her. I scrolled through the pictures once more.

She was smiling throughout all her pictures, exuding a certain warmth and joy I once felt when it was shown toward me way back then.

And my sadness was suddenly washed down by relief.

She looked happy. She wrote that she was happy. And it was enough for me to see her embraced by happiness and all the good things she deserved. After seeing these new photos, I myself was engulfed by an unspeakable and odd feeling of happiness, so much so that I decided to leave a comment below her post:

Congrats on getting married!

A short comment that did not reflect all the things I wanted to say.

I’m happy to see you are doing well. I miss you. Thank you for showing me that you are happy. Thank you for bringing me happiness despite you not being by my side. Thank you for the time we spent together. Thank you for being a part of my life. Now, at a distance, I pray—for you, for your happiness, and for the chance to be by your side again.

To my surprise, I received a notification: a reply to my comment—the quickest reply from her in years:

Thanks! It’s been a while! Let’s catch up!!

I stared at those words on my screen, baffled. My brain scrambled trying to come up with the best way to respond.

Slowly, my fingers typed in an answer:

Sure!

As I clicked ‘send,’ I let out a chuckle, thinking to myself that it was okay even if we never ended up catching up at all. Then my phone rang.

Her name was displayed on the screen. 

The blackberry bush that killed me 

By SJ Devereaux 

A short story on queer love, in connection with familiarity and the process of getting older through growth of a blackberry bush thorn. 

SJ Devereaux (they/them) is a writer from Las Vegas, Nevada studying English and Film at UNLV. They are primarily a short fiction and poetry writer. 

The first day that a blackberry bush pricked my finger while I was in the garden was the

same day that I told my parents that I’m queer. I went out to the backyard to pick some

blackberries because my mother insisted on it and I adore the way that the berry stains the colors

on my fingertips and lips, so I obliged and went to the garden to pick the sweet lovelies. The

bush pricked my finger so badly that blood gushed from the top of the finger and down onto my

hand, I quickly grabbed the fabric hanging from around my stomach and twirled it around my

finger to stop the bleeding. Instead, I stained my shirt with blood. I went into the house and told

my mother that I was bleeding and she took me to the bathroom and dunked my fingertip into hot

water, which turned a clear shade of blush cheek red from the blood spreading into the liquid.

She told me not to be a stupid girl and to pay attention to where I was putting my hands. I told

her I was sorry, I was distracted. She told me to never let a distraction hurt me again.

That night, when she was cuddled up to our sweet dog in her bedroom, I knocked on her

door. Cracking it open, I saw my dad lying on a nearby armchair, reading a book and smoking a

joint. His eyes were red like the blood from my fingertips, from the burn of the weed, he looked

up into my eyes and saw pain, or maybe he sensed the pain, I don’t know. I sat on the bed next to

my mom. She looked over at me, down at my finger, which was covered up and safe.

“Mom,” my voice echoed with pain and fear.

She looked over at me and frowned, she heard the pain, “What’s wrong?” She placed her

arms around the sides of my frame and pulled me in as I began to sob into her body. My father

got up and sat beside my mother, holding her as she held me. My mother cried. She cried hard. I

Devereaux 2

don’t know when the words escaped my mouth, but when I told them, they just cried. Not

because they hate me. Not because they’re afraid of their daughter being a dyke, not because

they think that it is wrong. But, because they know the fear I would have to hold in my body

until the day that I am taken away from them, and they didn’t want that for their child, but they

didn’t want a child who is dishonest and disloyal to them. So we cried together, instead of

separately.

The second day that a blackberry bush pricked my finger while I was in the garden was

the same day that I had sex with another female. I remember the ways that her hips crashed into

mine, while I kissed her neck and she lightly mumbled my name into my ear. My hand was

wrapped with cloth to stop the bleeding from the blackberry prick, the same hand that traveled

the length of her frame. It was dark and damp, underneath an overgrown tree covering, next to a

bed of branches. Her hair tangled into a loose bun that hung by the tips of her inner shoulders,

she smiled and laughed at me in a harmonious way of clean waves and whispering not even the

trees could replicate.

I was in love with her, she was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. Her lips were

cherry pink and red without needing any form of unnatural coloring, she was just like this. I

loved her for the way that she talked to me, for the way that she talked to the earth. One moment

she would speak the most stunning lyrical poetry, and the next she would be stripping down to

her skin and running into the river, feet first and hair last. There was something so perfect about

the way that she held me in her hands, the way she kissed my forehead when I would come to

her house and we would sneak out to the backyard and smoke my dad's weed that I snuck out of

his bedroom. He never noticed because he was always high, so he never knew how much he had

and didn’t have.

Devereaux 3

We would sneak out to the river and have sex and then swim. I would trace her body and

then she would chase me into the water, all of her body exposed to me and the earth. She would

run and run and run, and I would love her, and love her, and love her. I snuck into her bedroom

one night and had sex with her in the bed for the first time, and then she washed me and watched

me escape out her window, turning back to kiss her on the lips one more time before I would

sneak back into my own home and hold my heart close to my chest, feeling the pounding of

secretive love and secure fantasies.

She killed herself. One day. In her backyard, the same one we’d smoke in. She decided

that God hated her, but God never said anything to her, they left her alone. Her mother found her

dead body and called the police. The letter said that she loved me, but her mother hated her and

she couldn’t bear the thought of being gay and having to marry a woman so she killed herself

instead to be closer to God. She hid a joint underneath the pillow she slept on every night and

placed it in a bag with my name written on it. Inside was a note telling me she was going to die,

but she was always going to love me, but she needed to love God more.

I fought a personal battle after she killed herself, one where I found myself in the

confession booth asking God for forgiveness. One thing that I noticed during these confessionals

was that the priest would call God by him, but God is not gendered, God is not linear, and a

priest should be the one to know this the best. God does not hate me, and they do not hate her for

killing herself. I snuck out of the booth and into the back of the sanctuary, finding the

communion wafers and wine and I fed myself communion from the body and blood of Christ as

forgiveness because that is what Jesus would have wanted, but they killed him just like her and

they placed thorns onto his head, like the ones that punctured my fingertips and bled onto my

mother.

Devereaux 4

I met her mother and she told me she hated me and what I made her daughter do, what I

turned her daughter into. I assured her that I did not make her daughter gay, and she told me that

I was going to die just like her daughter did. I told her that she can’t speak to people like that and

she told me that I have never lost my daughter by suicide, but she has never lost the love of her

life because of society's pressures of heteronormativity.

The third day that a blackberry bush pricked my finger while I was in the garden was the

same day that I decided to leave the safety of my home because the safety was not there with me,

it did not grasp me by my shoulders and hold me tight around my waist. Instead, it pushed me

onto the ground and allowed my lungs to be eaten by the animals lurking in the forests and along

the beachside, not a strum of the guitar or a hiss of the harp. My father found more sexuality in

his joint and my mother found more pleasure from an affair. My heart no longer beats from the

security of a home but from the freedom of not having one at all.

The blackberry bush pushed so far into my finger that I found myself at the ER. It was

here that I found out that I am allergic to blackberries. She took her life because God didn’t love

her how she wanted, and my life was taken because I wasn’t being honest with myself. I did not

die from my own hands or the hands of another person, or because something happened to me, or

because I am allergic to those damn blackberries. I died because she did, because of the soul tie,

because of the poetry that she wrote, because of the depth of heartbreak, because I needed her,

and she needed me. And maybe God will love us in heaven because the people on their earth did

not love us the way that they could, so why not be closer to God to celebrate our queer identity?

The last day that I went home to visit my mother, my father had left because he found out about

the affair. I held her as she cried, knowing she made the mistake, but she was in love with

someone else and that could not be stopped. I didn’t tell her how I knew the feeling all too well,

Devereaux 5

instead, I asked her if she craved blackberries. I took her hand in mine and pulled her into the

backyard, where our blackberry bushes were. We stood there, hand in hand, as we looked

directly at the bushes, which were completely dead, not a singular flower blooming out of the

branches. She wrapped her arm around me while I wept into her body. We had both lost the love

we thought we could get away with, she died and so did I that summer day, and the blackberries

did not prick me another time.