Size / / /

for Victoria Liao

We play out our fantasies in real life ways—
some sweet taboo silhouetted against red temptation,
a captured snake in a hot meadow, all stretching hydraulic
with the language of lust and peeling skin from fruit:
the tight-fitting black truth of my narrative shunted.

You give me energy, you make me feel lightweight;
when I’m chained collecting fresh lava for my daily brink test—
how long I can go without my face to the sun. As if
from a store display, as if I was plucked out among other
smooth dolls, mindlessly miming beauty, red-lipped, black-eyed,
your bumpy hands pressing pinpointed targets,
siphoning memory like gas through fishnets,
stamped on wet inner thighs, folds of flesh.

Send your location, come through—
this time, direction betrays my home body, the flight.
I traipse nets of red teas and spiny shoes in the dark, the truth
at the bottom of the grave growing songs more delicious
than your maps, eking out my phony domain. In another
life, I would open my throat and black pearls would drop.

We’ve all been there some days.
You don’t really deserve a warm body to squeeze.
To steal blood from stone is dark magic; to warp
hell into a nest, a feat. Love, this mortal plague,
crows in vain at my new escape for the portal.
You’re pouring your heart out. I am lied to
for the last time. The right dance sets me free—
when I push against the dead earth, the earth pushes back.

 

[Author’s Note: This poem was inspired by, and uses lyrics from, Doja Cat’s “Streets.”]



Terese Mason Pierre is a Toronto-based writer whose work has appeared in Fantasy, The Walrus, FIYAH, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for the Elgin Award, the bpNichol Chapbook Award, the Pushcart Prize, and others. She is the co-editor in chief of Augur Magazine and the author of chapbooks “Surface Area” and “Manifest.” Visit her website at www.teresemasonpierre.com.
Current Issue
18 Mar 2024

Welcome New Fiction Editor! 
Strange Horizons
We are very happy to welcome Dante Luiz as a new fiction editor on the team! Dante is a Ignyte Award winning author, and has been with Strange Horizons working as an Art Director for the past several years. We’re stoked to bring him on to the fiction side and have him bring his wonderful insight and skill to the fiction team.
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in my defence, juggling biological and artificial, i tripped over my shoelace, and spilled my lungs empty of the innocence that was, before guilt.
Aviary 
the birds, / who carry with them / the many names of the dead
Feeder Fish 
Day in and day out, the rough waters of the Pacific slam themselves against the protrusion of sandstone the locals refer to as Morro Rock. White streaks of bird shit bleed down the rock, a testament to the rare birds of prey that nest in its pocked face overlooking the bay.
Monday: Twice Lived by Joma West 
Wednesday: Overlap: The Lives of a Former Time Jumper by N. Joseph Glass 
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Issue 1 Jan 2024
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