LITANIES TO MY HEAVENLY BROWN BODY
by Mark Aguhar
FUCK YOUR WHITENESS
FUCK YOUR BEAUTY
FUCK YOUR CHEST HAIR
FUCK YOUR BEARD
FUCK YOUR PRIVILEGE
FUCK THAT YOU AREN’T MADE TO FEEL SHAME ALWAYS
FUCK YOUR THINNESS
FUCK YOUR MUSCLES
FUCK YOUR ATTRACTIVE FATNESS
FUCK YOUR SHAMING ME FOR NOTHING
FUCK YOUR ACCUSATIONS THAT I PRODUCE SHAME
FUCK YOUR READING ME AS A CARICATURE
FUCK YOUR DESTRUCTION OF MY PERSONHOOD
FUCK YOUR MARGINALIZATION OF MY IDENTITY
FUCK YOUR JUDGING ME FOR SELF CARE
FUCK YOUR ABILITY TO BE ASSERTIVE
FUCK YOUR LACK OF SOCIALIZATION TO BE A SUBMISSIVE
FUCK YOUR ASKING ME TO PRODUCE SAFETY FOR YOU AND NOT MYSELF
FUCK THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT I EXERT TO GET LESS THAN ENOUGH CONSIDERATION
FUCK THAT THE AMOUNT OF SPACE I TAKE UP IN THE WORLD IS CONSTANTLY QUESTIONED
FUCK THAT PEOPLE THINK I’M A SLUT
FUCK THAT YOU CAN DEMAND ATTENTION
FUCK THAT I’M WILLING TO GIVE YOU WHAT I CAN’T HAVE
FUCK THAT YOUR VALUES AND YOUR ACTIONS NEVER MATCH UP WHEN IT COMES TO ME
FUCK THAT I CAN’T EXPECT ANYTHING FROM ANYONE
FUCK THAT THE AMOUNT OF WORK I PUT INTO THE BEAUTY OF MY INTELLECT AND MY TALENT IS STILL NEVER ENOUGH
AMEN
BLESSED ARE THE SISSIES
BLESSED ARE THE BOI DYKES
BLESSED ARE THE PEOPLE OF COLOR MY BELOVED KITH AND KIN
BLESSED ARE THE TRANS
BLESSED ARE THE HIGH FEMMES
BLESSED ARE THE SEX WORKERS
BLESSED ARE THE AUTHENTIC
BLESSED ARE THE DIS-IDENTIFIERS
BLESSED ARE THE GENDER ILLUSIONISTS
BLESSED ARE THE NON-NORMATIVE
BLESSED ARE THE GENDERQUEERS
BLESSED ARE THE KINKSTERS
BLESSED ARE THE DISABLED
BLESSED ARE THE HOT FAT GIRLS
BLESSED ARE THE WEIRDO-QUEERS
BLESSED IS THE SPECTRUM
BLESSED IS CONSENT
BLESSED IS RESPECT
BLESSED ARE THE BELOVED WHO I DIDN’T DESCRIBE, I COULDN’T DESCRIBE, WILL LEARN TO DESCRIBE AND RESPECT AND LOVE
AMEN
Pluto Shits on the Universe
by Fatimah Asghar
Quantitative Reasoning
by Chen Chen
On February 7, 1979, Pluto crossed over Neptune’s orbit and became the eighth planet from the sun for twenty years. A study in 1988 determined that Pluto’s path of orbit could never be accurately predicted. Labeled as “chaotic,” Pluto was later discredited from planet status in 2006.
Today, I broke your solar system. Oops.
My bad. Your graph said I was supposed
to make a nice little loop around the sun.
Naw.
I chaos like a motherfucker. Ain’t no one can
chart me. All the other planets, they think
I’m annoying. They think I’m an escaped
moon, running free.
Fuck your moon. Fuck your solar system.
Fuck your time. Your year? Your year ain’t
shit but a day to me. I could spend your
whole year turning the winds in my bed. Thinking
about rings and how Jupiter should just pussy
on up and marry me by now. Your day?
That’s an asswipe. A sniffle. Your whole day
is barely the start of my sunset.
My name means hell, bitch. I am hell, bitch. All the cold
you have yet to feel. Chaos like a motherfucker.
And you tried to order me. Called me ninth.
Somewhere in the mess of graphs and math and compass
you tried to make me follow rules. Rules? Fuck your
rules. Neptune, that bitch slow. And I deserve all the sun
I can get, and all the blue-gold sky I want around me.
It is February 7th, 1979 and my skin is more
copper than any sky will ever be. More metal.
Neptune is bitch-sobbing in my rearview,
and I got my running shoes on and all this sky that’s all mine.
Fuck your order. Fuck your time. I realigned the cosmos.
I chaosed all the hell you have yet to feel. Now all your kids
in the classrooms, they confused. All their clocks:
wrong. They don’t even know what the fuck to do.
They gotta memorize new songs and shit. And the other
planets, I fucked their orbits. I shook the sky. Chaos like
a motherfucker.
It is February 7th, 1979. The sky is blue-gold:
the freedom of possibility.
Today, I broke your solar system. Oops. My bad.
1
I don’t know how much more coleslaw I can take.
2
& I love coleslaw.
3
If Brian is traveling at 71 miles per hour & Ryan is traveling at 74 miles per hour & a dog is barking at another dog for 7 dog minutes, when would be the best time for me to visit you?
4
My boyfriend Jeff routinely gets his younger sister’s age wrong. My mother always mixes up my two younger brothers in their baby pictures. These are the mistakes we like to laugh about.
5
Which amount is greater?
A) The electrons in your left foot B) God’s pinkie finger
C) What you wished you had room for last week at Old Country Buffet
6
I find myself envious of Jeff for getting to have a relationship with my mother that doesn’t involve the last twenty years. They can just talk about cats & how to bake different things better. Then I think of Jeff saying that it’s a good thing I met his family now. After all the divorce & marrying new people & buying new houses.
7
It’s never too late for someone else to have your happy childhood.
8
To determine how old my father is, I always have to add five years to my mother’s age. Plus five years of the hair dye I will probably use, too.
9
On a scale of 1 to lenticular cloud, what is the median household height of a lonely child’s imaginary friend, a friend whose name has remained a well-guarded secret, even after x as well as y amount of years?
I Dream of Horses Eating Cops
by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
i dream of horses eating cops
i have so much hope for the future
or no i don’t
who knows the sound a head makes when it is asleep
my dad was a demon but so was the white man in uniform
who harassed him for the crime of being brown
there are demons everywhere
dad said
and he was right but not in the way he meant it
the sky over san bernardino was a brilliant blue when the winds kicked in
all the fences and trash cans and smog scattered themselves
and the mountains were on fire every day
i couldn’t wait to die or be killed
my woman body trapped in a dream
i couldn’t wait to wake up
and ride off into the sunset
but there isn’t much that’s new anywhere
the same violence swallows itself and produces bodies
and names for bodies
i name my body girl of my dreams
i name my body proximity
i name my body full of hope despite everything
i name my body dead girl who hasn’t died yet
i hope i come back as an elephant
i hope we all come back as animals
and eat our fill
i hope everyone gets everything they deserve