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Of course they lied that there was a
cishet god of fear in wild places, as if
fucking,drinking, hunting, feral dancing
isn’t universal as forest. Nature fluxes,

gobbling bloody maenad genitals,
bulldozer operators, overgrown boys
demanding Mars to rule. Desert saguaros
sing dirges to long life chopped short for

Potemkin border walls. The anima mundi
gathers discarded needles, jams them into
billionaire homunculi: brain, kidney,
tender flesh. Green one grows kudzu

fortifications; deep face drinks glacier melt,
shark tears, fuels tsunamis. The reckoning arrives,
forces marshaled for climate Ragnarok.
The fear settles on those who know the stats,

while everyone else sleeps, like there’s
never a margin call. Volcano explodes,
angry that the Kingdom of Hawai'i
remains occupied, furious at tourists choking

Indigenous lungs with gas fumes, naval fuel
in the drinking water, haoles claiming birthright
on stolen sand. The New Madrid hums
with fracking, ready to explode. Panic will come

for every fuckwitted one of us, remind us
that we are small, lack claws, world never
our fiefdom, and soon in fear of forest,
field, and fire, they will remind us why rabbits run.



Elizabeth R. McClellan is a white disabled gender/queer neurospicy demisexual lesbian poet writing on unceded Quapaw and Chickasha Yaki land. In kan other life, ka is a domestic and sexual violence lawyer. Ka can be found most places online as popelizbet and on Patreon as ermcclellan.
Current Issue
17 Mar 2025

Strange Horizons will have three open fiction submissions throughout 2025.
In this whole ocean, not a single reply.
We are men making machines, making men.
The customer shakes me until his disc drops into the bin below. Please take your receipt, sir. He kicks me in the side and says, “Thanks for nothing, you piece of shit vending machine!”
Wednesday: Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan 
Friday: Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen 
Issue 10 Mar 2025
By: Holli Mintzer
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 3 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Feb 2025
Issue 17 Feb 2025
Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
Issue 6 Jan 2025
By: Samantha Murray
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 23 Dec 2024
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