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I am red-lipped
and you are naked and submerged.
My hair is sun soaked and dusk stained
brown lit to red like flame
and you are beautiful like a punch to the gut.
I am bent over,
gasping.
Beautiful like drowning
(how do you breathe down there, my nereid?
I struggle not to drown in the air
above you.)
You stare starfish eyed
and solemn
and I want to curl my tongue around your teeth
taste your insides
like glass and sand,
like saltwater.
But would you have me?
I am fierce but shysoft
witch queen and fey
and you are gold in the waves,
ocean stained.
I am wind coarse; touched only by star
and the wild.
When we kiss my lips shatter like bleeding glass
salt bloody
and I lick the drops that stain your chin.



Hester J. Rook is a Rhysling Award and Australian Shadows Award shortlisted poet and co-editor of Twisted Moon Magazine.  They are often found salt-scrunched on beaches, reading arcane tales and losing the moon in mugs of tea. Find Hester on Twitter @hesterjrook and read more poems and fiction at hesterjrook.com.
Current Issue
16 Dec 2024

Across the train tracks from BWI station, a portal shimmered in the shade of a patch of tall trees. From her seat on a northbound train taking on passengers, Dottie watched a woman slip a note out of her pocket, place it under a rock, strip off her work uniform, then walk naked, smiling, into the portal.
exposing to the bone just how different we are
a body protesting thinks itself as a door out of a darkroom, a bullet, too.
In this episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li to discuss her foray into poetry, screenwriting, music composition and more, and also presents a reading of her two poems published in 2022, 'Ave Maria' and 'The Mezzanine'.
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
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
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