Size / / /

Content warning:


You will not find us on the six o'clock news,
two kohl-stained lines artfully staining our cheeks.
We do not stare doe-eyed from behind curtains
of silken maize hair. No one makes movies of us.
They call us Medusa's daughters but she
is merely the first and oldest of our hideous sorority,
bastard children of our virgin mother. We who dared to say
"My life is my own."

There is nothing more monstrous in our gaze than
a mirror. Look into these eyes and be paralyzed
not by our curse but your selfsame necrotizing corruption,
knowledge of your complicity feeding us to
the monsters at the gate, throwing us under the bus,
then nailing our scarred visages to the lintel,
a cautionary tale for the girls who got to be good.




Saira Ali grew up in the deep south of the US and has still not acclimated to New England winters. She is both an engineer and a poet, and rejects false dichotomies in all forms. She has published poetry in Mythic Delirium and Stone Telling.
Current Issue
4 Nov 2024

“Did you know,” the witch says, “that a witch has no heart of her own?”
Outsiders, Off-worlders {how quickly one carves out a corner of the cosmos, / claims a singular celestial body as [o u r s] in the scope of infinity}
Lunar enby folks across here
Wednesday: The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part Two 
Friday: A Place Between Waking and Forgetting by Eugen Bacon 
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Issue 2 Sep 2024
Issue 26 Aug 2024
Load More