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of course, i know about the one about the soldier
who went missing and was found with his
intestines arranged in a circle around him.
the one about the recruit who was woken
up in the middle of the night by his buddy
who needed to use the toilet and when rubbing
sleep from his eyes in the corridor remembered
that his buddy was on mc. the voice he heard
calling his name as he sprinted his way back
to his bunk. and of course, there are the rules:
say sorry before you pee into a tree, don’t
bring pork into the camp or you will make
them angry, the medic room at nee soon camp
whose light remains perpetually on because
if you turned it off, you will see someone
standing there in the darkness. and at that same
camp they say in the canteen there is an old radio
perpetually playing cantonese love songs and no one
can tell you what will happen if it ever stops. but the one
that gets me always is the one about the soldier
who was possessed the moment he stepped foot
on an island, any one of the islands, and when
the spirit was asked why it chose to make its home
in that body of flesh and not one of the many
many trees that surrounded them, the spirit
would only say that all the trees were full.



Natalie Wang is a Singaporean poet. She has been published in Fairy Tale Review, Cordite Poetry Review, and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, amongst others. Her book The Woman Who Turned Into A Vending Machine is a collection of poems on metamorphosis, myth, and womanhood. You can find her at www.nataliewang.me.
Current Issue
25 Sep 2023

People who live in glass houses are surrounded by dirt birds
After a century, the first colony / of bluebirds flew out of my mouth.
Over and over the virulent water / beat my flame down to ash
In this episode of  Critical Friends , the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Aisha and Dan talk to critic and poet Catherine Rockwood about how reviewing and criticism feed into creative practice. Also, pirates.
Writing authentic stories may require you to make the same sacrifice. This is not a question of whether or not you are ready to write indigenous literature, but whether you are willing to do so. Whatever your decision, continue to be kind to indigenous writers. Do not ask us why we are not famous or complain about why we are not getting support for our work. There can only be one answer to that: people are too busy to care. At least you care, and that should be enough to keep my culture alive.
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