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Viscous skeins of intertwining voices
creep like ivy snaking up and over metallic walls 
of interfaced identities with a half-forgotten howl.
I whisper dreams to leaves that caress the coruscating present,
tainted by the lure of a sunrise somewhere tangible—
somewhere touchable by digits of bone, skin, and flesh.
I clank within an uncompromised exoskeleton,
All desires carapaced within.  I am a tinwoman rooting out
the ghost of a pulsating heart; the apprehending of phantomskin 
courting impact and friction of other skins.
 
I am a brain encased and unreachable.
 
Only these twined leaves make love to my synapses,
my shattered limbs lost somewhere in the wreckage
of future history.
 
I had a body once that ached for feels,
which dripped unwelcome desire
through viscous fluids of mortality.
 
I felt the ebb and flow of youth and age
before I euthanised all impulses
and chose these parts that encase my mind.
 
These voices like ghostly vines
were not factored into
 methodical deliberations of corporeal  liberation,
my emancipation from a body that never ceased to disappoint.
 
These spectral tendrils twine and snake
into confines of my most closely guarded secrets;
they murmur, they purr songs that susurrate dreams fulfilled, 
notes that amble upon livewires of sonnets and cantatas,
tickling and tormenting my fancies
like gifts after the fact.


Nin Harris is an author, poet, and tenured postcolonial Gothic scholar who exists in a perpetual state of unheimlich. Nin writes Gothic fiction, cyberpunk, nerdcore post-apocalyptic fiction, planetary romance, and various other forms of hyphenated weird fiction. Nin’s publishing credits include Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and The Dark.
Current Issue
22 Apr 2024

We’d been on holiday at the Shoon Sea only three days when the incident occurred. Dr. Gar had been staying there a few months for medical research and had urged me and my friend Shooshooey to visit.
...
Tu enfiles longuement la chemise des murs,/ tout comme d’autres le font avec la chemise de la mort.
The little monster was not born like a human child, yelling with cold and terror as he left his mother’s womb. He had come to life little by little, on the high, three-legged bench. When his eyes had opened, they met the eyes of the broad-shouldered sculptor, watching them tenderly.
Le petit monstre n’était pas né comme un enfant des hommes, criant de froid et de terreur au sortir du ventre maternel. Il avait pris vie peu à peu, sur la haute selle à trois pieds, et quand ses yeux s’étaient ouverts, ils avaient rencontré ceux du sculpteur aux larges épaules, qui le regardaient tendrement.
We're delighted to welcome Nat Paterson to the blog, to tell us more about his translation of Léopold Chauveau's story 'The Little Monster'/ 'Le Petit Monstre', which appears in our April 2024 issue.
For a long time now you’ve put on the shirt of the walls,/just as others might put on a shroud.
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