Size / / /

Content warning:


i.
“What is a Monster?”
you ask Mother.
She wraps you in teeth, tendrils,
smiles,
and silence.

ii.
“Am I a Monster?”
you ask Mother,
carrion curdling
in the gaps between fingertips and fingernails.
You are old enough now to lick them clean yourself.

She is quiet
as her head probes the corpse-cave,
questing, searching.
Her scalp is bald,
lined with wrinkles like runnels.
Blood and viscera
are not what clog her ears
like honey,
like sweetened hope.

iii.
On her pyre
your tears, heavy with age,
dissolve her makeup.
Knife-rips, bullet-bites
older than your memory
smile under your grief.
“What are these?”
you ask no-one.
“Who gave her these?”
you wonder
as flames buoy her away.



Sharang Biswas is a writer, artist, and award-winning game designer. His nonfiction writing has appeared in publications such as Dicebreaker and Eurogamer, while his fiction has been published by or is forthcoming in Fantasy Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, Sub-Q Magazine, Baffling Magazine, and Neon Hemlock Press. He is the co-editor of Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games (Pelgrane Press) and Strange Lusts / Strange Loves: An Anthology of Erotic Interactive Fiction (Strange Horizons). You can find Sharang on Twitter as @SharangBiswas, or visit his website sharangbiswas.myportfolio.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
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