Size / / /

Content warning:


For the animals, half a billion

Among us there are many, singing
Lullabies of thunder and ash, waiting
for the sleeping spring, stirring
beneath the dust and embers,
the fevered blaze of backyard brush fires.
Between us, there are threads of doubt, unwinding
Spools like spider webs across the scalded earth, whining
and snapping in the warbling heat, spinning
across the land that we have beaten blue and bone.
Winter will not come, at last we say,
For all our efforts to stretch the skin
of summer, we are reaping the harvest
of animal bones by the billions and
Fields of corn and dandelion dust.
Death by water or by patience
rolls in on warm and placid tides,
for we have left unsaid the spells
which might have saved us from this fate.
Minutes pass like drunken dancers,
lost in the liminal void of lamentation,
dreaming eyelid movies of the past,
and dance we did until
This very moment when
The bells tolls for the yet unborn.
Today, they said, an entire continent
is set to sink in darkened waters,
And instantly, I thought of you,
Bleeding out in numbers like
A picture book left out in the rain.
Between us, you and I,
and every child born among us,
there are hopes untethered
Sweetly drifting
On thick tides of oil and pennies
And we wave at them
As they float by,
A generation of sinking passengers
upon this great and broken ship.



Camille Louise is a perpetual student and high school English teacher from New York by way of the South of France. She lives with her cat, Breakfast, and her snake, Abraxas, in New Orleans, Louisiana. You can find her writing at camilouise.com and milktogin.com.
Current Issue
18 Mar 2024

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.
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.
in my defence, juggling biological and artificial, i tripped over my shoelace, and spilled my lungs empty of the innocence that was, before guilt.
the birds, / who carry with them / the many names of the dead
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
Load More
%d bloggers like this: