Size / / /

Content warning:


Wire-bound creature, you were.
You thought it was
a strange damn way to love,
neurochemical, blood
under flesh, over bone.
Biology has a wet mercy.
You could understand everything, except
that some things can’t be—
there’s an element of randomness
to all of it, the 1s and the 0s,
nerves tangled on nerves
lined up against slick muscles,
built right in a universe
of crooked orbits, spark
and misfire.

Ours was a relationship
of unresolved bug reports, toothpaste
and machine oil, running hot,
running cold, running. Yes, the fan
in the bedroom so you could lie
under the blankets at night.
Yes, the charging port under
the kitchen table, so we could eat
together. I loved the way
you fixed everything—the leaking
faucet, the broken fan, the weird
clicking noise the fridge made—
until the morning when
you looked across the table
at the one thing in the apartment
you couldn’t adjust to operating
standards—I, strange creature,
malfunctioning enough
to let you go.

 

 

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from Risa Wolf during our annual Kickstarter.]



Rachel Linton (she/her) is a playwright, poet, and law student at the University of Chicago. Her poems have previously appeared in Cathedral Canyon Review, Queer Toronto Literary Magazine, and The Quarter(ly), among others. You can find her online at rachellinton.com.
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