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icon art by @n0castle
cover art by @kaqalia
art by @chorklle
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/d0e474ea9e.html#page/13
See page 12 for “folie à deux”
the poems are meant to be read aligned as in this image, as lines starting in “your fool (reversed)” often continue over into “i, the fool (upright)”
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/78f8c33106.html#page/1
See page 24 for “he wasn’t the one, but”
it started out with a smile and a wave every morning, until his and my footprints walked beside each other’s every evening indenting the sidewalks on my way home; it bloomed with a shared laugh and a “see you tomorrow, take care” a little whisper inside, “i want him”
my eyes turning away from his blue to your brown as i stumble onto the doorstep we built that lonesome night when we only had each other’s hands to hold and my heart saw no one else.
you open the door for me, i feel your arms coil around my ribs and your breath brush upon my ear you bury your face in my shoulder, i stare over yours and watch the dust collecting on the fireplace of our home i once adored. my trembling hand caresses your curls, with dread at the words on my tongue but i bite them back with a smile and a kiss to your cheek and a “how was your day?”
it ended an hour later with a question and your watering eyes your grip loosening around my fingers as i let my tears and the words tumble out onto our moonlit bed, “i’m sorry.”
and tonight i’ll watch our home burn down to its skeleton with you still trapped inside, grieving two years of watching the crackling warmth in your gaze whenever you’d look into me and guess my every thought, something his ocean blue could never provide.
month after month, i’ll leave your favourite flowers to wilt atop your grave, and still i’ll feel your ghost stare through my regret as i marry the wrong person and hold the wrong hand.
my fingertips will trace the lines of the bark the wind will be given voice by the leaves, whispering its secret tales in a language foreign to my ears the earth will sink the soles of my boots into its soils and i’ll kneel to brush my fingers through grass blades, stirring up the fluttering faeries hidden between flower stems of poppies, and i’ll wonder if bones rest beneath my nails as i dig them into the mud if ghost candle will-o’-wisps shine by the ends of my hair brushing upon the dead leaf carpet of the forest floor if a flurry of eyes watch my every move through the twigs of the oaks towering around me if those eyes belong to hamadryads, chained to the trees they derive their blood from the sap of, never able to feel the dirt in their toes and see the sky past the small window openings in the thick foliage of their own outstretched fingers forever paralyzed above the decay of their fallen sisters struck down by the zeus’ thundering fury, or humans’ chainsaw greed.
Read Barrel II: Whispering Woods
https://soundcloud.com/paper-cranes-literary/silly-teenage-dream/s-1kHBATTPI39
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Read Issue I of Paper Cranes Literary
Buy Issue I of Paper Cranes Literary on Amazon
the home of my contraception pills lies in my old dollhouse under a rooftop coated in dust where my mother will not venture to see. i reach through the miniature windows every night my memory often fails me, so my boyfriend texts me at nine p.m. his part in ensuring no life blooms in me.
but all i long for is a child smiling, cooing, adoration in their eyes i’d give them the same dollhouse to play with animal figurines and toy trains run my fingers through their dark curls just like their papá’s their childhood a replica in clumsy crayon of mine but left out of the painting, are my parents’ muffled-angry voices in the living room ringing in my eardrums from age four to sixteen.
but middle-class north american girls don't have babies at sixteen with their boyfriends. so i take my pill at nine p.m. like the good daughter i am peek in through the crack of the front door of the dollhouse fantasize about the family i will have gathered around the miniature fireplace and i dream.
we’ll form flocks of same-feathered birds, nudging out ugly ducklings and clawing our way to top dog, calling each other snakes and hissing collectively at the lone wolves, because that’s the law of natural selection.
i’ve catalogued years of studying different species of human minds, jotting down self-advice on how to assimilate into their animal kingdom, but i must be a sheep in a shabby wolf disguise, for eagle eyes of classmates, coworkers, & strangers will see through my faux fur and dark wool and find a deer in headlights in the face of social norms & facial expressions & tone changes pin me down like a butterfly on a corkboard upon which i’ll flutter helplessly, wondering where my mask slipped off.
Read Issue VIII: The Human Experience from Rewrite The Stars Review
my being weaves a rainbow of threads my skin is a quilt of attempts at naming myself, patchwork of queer identity stitching together bi, pan & gay from cis to trans to fluid
gender fluid; coursing through pink veins spilling out the gaps in red embroidery on wrists and legs and arms. my drawers are filled with pride pins rusted metal from rainy days spent over months of clinging to my backpack from middle school to college, now stored away like a butterfly collection, and inside i’ll know each of the hues of purple and blue made sense to a smaller me stored in the folds of my brain.
Read issue 2: pride of Bitter Melon Review
“confused” was the name you collared around my neck when i told you i was a boy. “pretender” was the title you appended to it when you asked how my day was and i said i kissed my best friend, the blonde from my birthday party; you’ll call the name i chose “ugly” but refuse to choose another because you raised a girl in a girl’s body in girl’s clothes, walking and talking like a girl still but how can you know the colour of the glitter that shimmers upon my heart? today i’ll wear a dress to make you smile but instead you’ll bury yourself in a dusty basement storage bin stocked with pink sequins on t-shirts i last wore when i was twelve.
