Dry earth splits with repulsion

There is a paradox in the crying shame that a dehydrated cell forgets how to soak

It’s a crying shame that any devil can conceive an awakening

I’m comparing swelling to an eviction

There is a paradox to­­­­—

I never wanted an open plot until one was thrust upon me

I watched an orchid blossom beneath the hem of my skirt

And I’ll tell you what

It’s in the petals unfurling that I fall in love

A tendril scrapes me clean

And, I do

I fall in love

I am the chasm

I am the crimson rush we love to forget

I am in love with the building up of an orchid

Until all I want is open plots

Twelve summers can tarnish the bed

And I’ll tell you what

A finger buds slower than an atrium

I water the blooms with a blood-letting

Next summer, there’s always next summer

And still the new orchids weep

I'm thinking you were probably hoping for some little and giantess stories, but I actually make this fetish content and get paid really well for it, so I got excited to just talk about it! Sorry in advance if this is not meeting the challenge in the way you were hoping.

It's not a personal fetish, but it is a very interesting one to me. Any fantasy type of fetish is really intriguing in my opinion because of the implication of escapism entering into any fetish or kink.

In my experience with being a SW content creator, a large majority of folks' kinks stem from some sort of trauma (big or small), sometimes without them even realizing it. I think that opens a very wide conversation window that needs more exploration outside of academic circles if we want to create a more open and comforting environment for our intimate partners. Sex and erotica is such a taboo topic that many of us aren't even comfortable actually discussing it with our life partners, and sometimes exploring these fetishes and kinks is the most healthy way for someone to work through traumas and not act on intrusive thoughts.

i heard we should stop writing our dreams

but i dream we’re all safe wrapped in arms

all safe behind plastic curtain

all mint condition

i dreamt the way a nose crinkles

the way the night was always shorter

when

you looked from the angle of the day

we say the word snug in a whisper

i become tachycardia

watch the oxygen leak

your eyes glint white in moonlight

i dreamt the taste of your teeth

dreamt your mouth tripping over

the word goodnight to settle on

goddamn we’re running out of time

i dreamt the exit with a sigh

woke to sunday on high

woke to midnight at the table outside

dreamt the way your tongue slipped in and out

of hazy goodbyes

*excerpt from my forthcoming book lamb/&/slaughter (Fifth Wheel Press 2024)

I have been MIA because publishing is a busy business (plus I got Covid for the first time & had two of my own books picked up this year).

So, how are you? Who should I be reading? Who has new publications off Prose out in the litworld? Who has questions I can help with (as an EIC) about publishing?

Full disclosure, I am not paying for a subscription. I paid for Gold for a reeeeeally long time even when I was not using the site, and it's not in my budget anymore, so please don't send me anyone behind a paywall.

Mine is a reference to the E.E. Cummings poem, “I like my body when it is with your” I picked it like ten years ago now, but it stuck, and I use it for my photography and art as well. Here’s the piece -

i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite new a thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

i like your body.  i like what it does,

i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones,and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz

of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

I owe a couple of you Querencia contracts, and I have some new posts to read.

I got really exciting news today and decided to take some me time to celebrate in light of that.

I received a scholarship for a Sundress writing fellowship this summer for only 14 authors with only 3 scholarships being awarded!

I should be catching up on all press stuff tomorrow. Thank you to everyone here for being my community for a long time now.

I am incredibly saddened and disappointed at the responses to this challenge. I don’t think calling someone cisgender is a way to “hate on them” unless you believe the opposite—that calling someone transgender is a way to hate on them.

It is very straightforward term with no opinion and only fact behind it only meant to distinguish someone who was assigned male or female at birth and relates to that gender as they have grown into the person they have become. There is also Intersex or Eunuch, etc.

I am cisgender because I was assigned female at birth and it is the correct gender for me. But there are people born with both sexual organs whose parents arbitrarily pick a gender for them who could say the same. But if they were assigned female and identified as male despite having the biological anatomy they would not be cisgender. Cisgender doesn’t mean “biologically” male or female and I think that’s a really important distinction that it seems most of these challenge responses are leaving out.

What connotation someone places on the word matters (as any word), but the word itself does not mean anything offensive and only helps affirm people who are living a very difficult lifestyle.

It is so easy for someone not affected by a problem to say something like “we don’t need more labels”. No one is upset when someone calls them able-bodied. Cisgender is a similar distinction to wrap your head around. Adding your pronouns after your name might not be important to you, but creating the ubiquity of it it can be the difference between someone spiraling into a suicidal depression from being misgendered and made to feel like their own self and self opinion is unimportant and disrespected.

be better to eachother

i.

Heat, press against you. Exit body, exit body. Emergency-exit fucking room. Steamed-breath, press sticky against windows. Swallow his request. Swallow his pushing. Exit body. Ignore his pushing. Ignore your softness. Ignore your heat. Ignore his softness. Remember the ache. Remember the matched heartbeats. Remember the hands pressed to hands. Remember when you wanted this. Remember when he wanted you. Remember it as wanting. Imagine it as wanting.

ii.

He took too much. But once he smelled like summer. Once he was the beach. Once he was warm breath colliding against warm breath. And he took too much. But once he was soft eyes. Once he was whispered secrets against neck. And I’m sorry that I always let him take too much. And I’m sorry I make him take too much. But imagine it as wanting.

iii.

And I’m never enough. He’s holding me-transparent, and looking right through. But remember it as wanting. Remember it as wanting. Imagine it as wanting.

on the counter is the mug with the chipped handle and a ring from the cup of ice water that I poured in the orchids, there is really only one orchid, but it felt better than saying that I split it with the monstera, that night I will not sleep, the bedroom door is painted in three parts Bit O Sugar and one part Lamb’s Skin with two packets of glitter to remind myself that I love the sunlight, the idea will clog up behind my eyelids, twinkle against the worry that I might forget these thoughts by morning, and both will coalesce with the sound of the fan and the sound of the wind, and I will bolt up from almost sleep and remember that there is a light I forgot in the violet room, it will be bouncing off the mirror, I will pretend to sleep, and the black sheets will pretend to be satin, there is still packing to do for the weekend, the floors are not swept, this is most likely not a poem, but you’re reading it, and I wait for my coffee with a headache

He licks his berry-stained fingers, sucking sticky sugar and who knows what else from beneath the nails.

“You know that’s filthy?” Clara’s eyes search his face. He’s all angles. With how easily he devours food you’d expect curves and rolling skin.

Heath leans back in his chair. Appraising. Giving her a once over. “Perhaps,” he pauses, slipping his finger back into the sweet filling pouring out from the crumb in front of him. He leans into her and feels her breath catch as he wipes the sticky mess across her mouth. Their faces almost touch, and she’s still not breathing. “Tastes good though,” he exhales as his tongue pushes its way into her mouth.

And he’s right.

It’s like eating light. It’s like drowning in oxygen. And she cannot stop. It is a hunger she could never describe. And she cannot stop. Her insides are bursting, but she cannot stop. The process of eating this cake has become her one and only need. And it never ends. And Clara must eat it all before he gets the chance to take anymore from her. She feels sick. She wants to stop. She needs to stop. She is suffocating. Food filling her so fast that her stomach cannot contain it. Red dripping from her mouth.

Heath holds her face down in the viscid expanse of sweet debris. “It’s alright, love. Keep going until you can’t. Keep going until your heart stops…”

And Clara weeps as the syrup fills her up. The sugar rushing through her veins, crashing into her heart. And her body cannot keep up. But still she wants more. And just when she thinks she will not fill until it is too late, he pulls her neck back. Her throat is exposed and her mouth is begging her to dig back in. “My turn,” he whispers and sucks every last bit of her out. And he keeps going until she can’t. He keeps going until her heart stops. Sticky morsels clinging to his throat. He keeps going because he can’t stop.