Size / / /

Content warning:


When I dreamed of the apocalypse, the end
came like a liquefying of the sky, the sunrise
and sunset palettes swirling all together, and
there was also a flood, of course, which reflected
all the colors so that as I looked out of the bay
windows of the tower I was in, all I could
see were magentas mingling with beige
and peach-tones, pale chromes and blues,
dusky pinks. It looked like ice cream
on a summer sidewalk. It looked like an acid
trip, or at least I thought so, never having been on
one myself, and now I'd never have the chance,
I realized, the world coming to an end and all.
It looked like melted Monet. I was gripping
the windowsill so hard it hurt; so, on the count
of three I let go, closed my eyes, reached out,
and dipped my fingers in. The stuff was chilly,
clung to my skin like gloves of quicksilver.
Or slowgold. I haven't been able to shake
that feeling all day: something gilding my hands
as I write. A wild mural I watched being
painted on the other side of somewhere.
That feeling of loss as I closed my eyes to one
world and opened them to another and felt
something slip through my fingers, slick
as oil paint, lucid as smoke, permanent as ink.




Lisa writes poetry and young adult fiction. She has been an editor, a yoga teacher, and half of a two-person traveling production of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Her poetry appears in Prairie Schooner, Measure, Hunger Mountain, and other journals. She is pursuing her MFA at Boston University.
Current Issue
25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
the train ascends a bridge over endless rows of houses made of beams from decommissioned factories, stripped hulls, salvaged engines—
Issue 18 Mar 2024
Strange Horizons
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: