monstering our splintered selves always on the cusp of something terrible waiting for us to enter waiting to enter us inside/outside/inside did you feed them? suddenly we are washed meat and the dress is clean     Jane Ayres...

      The Youth Pastor We are in the church, the space where we swayed, arms high, singing and crying and feeling the power of the spirit pulse through us and around us. He has been circling for weeks, his eyes resting on her when he preaches chastity...

          James Nixon teaches at Arden University and is completing doctoral research into the legacy of Arthur Rimbaud and hauntological poetics at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a former Royal Holloway Emerging Writer Fellow, a...

          benjamin cusden’s first pamphlet Cut the Black Rabbit is published by Against the Grain Poetry Press. His poetry has been published in the UK ; Canada ; the USA ; Brazil and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize & Live Canon’s...

      Melting Iceberg It’s no good looking at a shooting star with a fly trapped in your eye. You hear the yawn above the skin tide mewling and popping like a calved whale while you spell out the words: mastodon, sabre-toothed tiger, giant bear. But...

      Sunstroke I knew a man with suns for eyes, he blazed with sex and golden lies, a burning shitstorm in disguise. How slowly do the seasons turn. The solar flares of hot desire cannot cleanse a cheating liar. The glaring fact: you play with fire,...

    House, Coyo Atacama Desert Two men talking about sex, drunk, splattering words like spells – they'll bring in the culandero, the woman with fangs – Somebody has given herself prematurely. Somebody has fallen off a swing. Somebody knows the timing’s...

      TIME OF PAUSE I’m what’s left in the toothpaste tube when squeezing won’t get any more out. I’ve often felt this way before. I need to pause, to be the quiet on the underside of an oak leaf. Let the wind come. I’m going to pause. I don’t know when...