Constructing Transness
I’m scrolling through Reddit (strike one). I soon find myself fighting the urge to respond to every comment written by cis people who just can’t understand (strike two). “I wanted to play with boy’s toys, so I did – it doesn’t mean I’m a boy!” I keep scrolling. “I don’t feel lik
Postcard from Dún Laoghaire’s West Pier
A fat seal drags itself up the harbour To gnaw on fishbones. In my dreams jaws clamp Round my skull, bring brittle bits of me back Down towards the seaweed, sludge and slime. I see it as I feel it. Troops expected France but spilled out of ships Here, at what was then Kingstown, To […]
The Story of a Superlova
i. Step into the moonlight, beacon boys, the hour has come for us to write. Leave those starless shadows at once; come feel my pulse; the corners are no longer yours – dance, and look into my eyes. Take some time, come sit by me. Let us tease infinity: if we can dance the night […]
Ersatzwörter
Berlin, November Today the U-Bahn wasn’t running so I took the Ersatzverkehr, and it made me think of you back home, two summers ago, when we were friends again, and sitting in a square of June sunlight on the floor of David’s room. What I can’t say with words I try to say [&hell
Meditations on Morisot
To my mother, who taught me the language of painting. Berthe Morisot (1841-1895): Impressionist painter, woman, mother. While her counterparts, the Impressionists, became known for their radical paintings of landscapes and Parisian nightlife, art history portrayed Morisot as a mother. Over the years
Casual Tea, Seattle Man
Casual Tea Last night I dreamed I was running across the craters of the Western Front. The enemy had retreated, and the doctor told me that a Body had died. “All are buried or home for tea, but a doctor works in between. The war is won, and I am done. And so It […]
The Age-Old Enigma
Staring at my reflection, I wonder at which point wrinkles began to ambush my smile lines and frame my fatigued eyes. As I paint Maybelline’s ‘Instant Age Rewind’ over my dark under-eyes, it dawns on me that my intense concentration frown increasingly renders me a Hagrid lookalike. My phone li
Sally Rooney’s Musical Marginalia
Spotify is a virtual shelf-space upon which to stack year upon year of old playlists – to offer, in my case, an audible narrative to my late teens and early twenties. In the corner of Spotify occupied by the bibliophiles, I would scour for content, seeking new additions to my somewhat pretentious