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i can’t be trusted / around my own blood / say garden / say grotesquerie / say yes / laboratory / lobotomy baby / before i was a body pillow / i was a god / grieving the summers i spent / in the hot mouths of men / brilliant flashes of teeth / before nothing / skirt hiked up higher / and higher in every parallel universe / say / wind-up girl / why must you rewire your scent / to suit their tastes / tinfoil / tuna / tantalizing / bones blown into chandeliers / see my other selves / trapped in some mad scientist’s electromagnetic field / of flowers / o avant-pop princess / o oracle / artificial bride / anna may / she-machine / recalibrating the speed / of your body’s rot /  i can’t be trusted / not to crack open my own circuitry / to mark the skin / with another woman’s bite / to cry / only when there’s a man in the room / to watch me / sucking in my cyborg stomach / on the empty stage / metal scraping metal scraping skin / tectonic touch / my eyes / any color you want / orbiting yours / eyes that orphan mine / my body hacked up / into parts / say pearl / say grain of rice / i’m aching all that’s left / of my half-lidded lifetime / let’s touch / base / no flesh / but steel dyed the shade / of spider lilies / lurching all of me onto the train / returning home /  o dark unforgiven imagination



Stephanie Chang (she/they) is an undergraduate student at Kenyon College, where she received the $60,000 S. Georgia Nugent Award in Creative Writing. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Adroit Journal, Offing, Penn Review, Waxwing, and Asian American Writers’ Workshop. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the OROTONE Journal.
Current Issue
25 Sep 2023

People who live in glass houses are surrounded by dirt birds
After a century, the first colony / of bluebirds flew out of my mouth.
Over and over the virulent water / beat my flame down to ash
In this episode of  Critical Friends , the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Aisha and Dan talk to critic and poet Catherine Rockwood about how reviewing and criticism feed into creative practice. Also, pirates.
Writing authentic stories may require you to make the same sacrifice. This is not a question of whether or not you are ready to write indigenous literature, but whether you are willing to do so. Whatever your decision, continue to be kind to indigenous writers. Do not ask us why we are not famous or complain about why we are not getting support for our work. There can only be one answer to that: people are too busy to care. At least you care, and that should be enough to keep my culture alive.
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Issue 7 Aug 2023
Issue 31 Jul 2023
Issue 24 Jul 2023
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