Size / / /

Content warning:


For Melody Nova

For this comet's path I chose it, carved it
to be our temporary castle. In the act of opening
I let its secrets leak out into the starlight,
exposing this pocked and hissing water-ice
as blue as your seven elder sisters.
I shaped it to us till it shone. It is not terraformed
(this is no earth) but transfigured: a chiselled, burnished fluid.

You descend, shimmering darkly.
The scent of you, of alien metals, diffuses
into my atmosphere of breath and frozen dust.
And of desire: you, nebula-born, you empyrean beauty,
I would see you nova-bright and radiant,
pulsing, brilliant with every cosmic hue.
Yet I have tumbled through so many skies,
and found none to be your match. I have no stars to give.

I hold out my empty hands. As solar wind strokes the ice-wall
into light, into life, my reaching fingers glitter with their gift:
We are the void. (I touch your cheek.)
We hold the stars already,
and we burn, we burn.



Toby MacNutt is an author, dancer, and knitter living in rural Vermont. Their work in all media draws on their experience as a nonbinary trans, queer, disabled, and neurodivergent person. Toby's poetry and prose has been published in various magazines and in their collection If Not Skin. Find out more at www.tobymacnutt.com.
Current Issue
4 Nov 2024

Djinndroid 
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}
Departure: New Selene Station 21:56 
Lunar enby folks across here
The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part One 
The 2024 Ignyte finalists for Best Novel collectively exemplify the “vibrancy and diversity” that the awards seek to celebrate.
The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part Two 
The books shortlisted for the 2024 Ignyte Best Novel Award emphasise the role of co-operative action in addressing the problems faced by their characters—and their readers.
The Butcher’s Heart 
“Did you know,” the witch says, “that a witch has no heart of her own?”
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