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I am alone. I have brought my phone to the forest
Where the cells serve none but each other, draw
No power beyond the reach of leaves for sky. Calls
Drop here, constant, caws and clicks and whoops
And warnings that my booted feet mar the mulch
With trails, with marks like fanned tails, like ferns.
I miss the message implied in howl and cry; although
I am similar in bone, in blood, I have enclosed my
Voice in lithium, I’ve bound my mind to counted bars
And I no longer comprehend the crunch of branches,
The scrape of brush, the rush of fur. Here I will open
A hole in the ground and place myself inside; bury all
Images and imaginings and lists and reminders and
All the songs I once called my own that were never, to
Begin with, mine. I will not sing but in the trickle of
Rain; I will no longer cry but to bring my loved ones
Close, to hold them safe. My only contacts shall be
Sunlight, treefall, decaying signals, shade.



Sarah Grey’s poetry has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Liminality, Dreams & Nightmares, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in Uncanny and Nightmare. She lives with her family in California, believes life is better on purple suede skates, and travels whenever the world’s not on fire. She can be found at www.sarahgrey.net.
Current Issue
24 Mar 2025

The winner is the one with the most living wasps
Every insect was a chalk outline of agony / defined, evaluated, ranked / by how much it hurt
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Reprise by Samantha Lane Murphy, read by Emmie Christie. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
Monster of the Week as Realism 
Black speculative poetry works this way too. It’s text that is flexible and immediate. It’s a safe space to explore Afrocentric text rooted in story, song, dance, rhythm that natural flows from my intrinsic self. It’s text that has a lot of hurt, as in pain, and a lot of healing—an acceptance of self, black is beauty, despite what the slave trade, colonialism, racism, social injustice might tell us.
Wednesday: A Spectre is Haunting Greentree by Carson Winter 
Friday: Adam and Eve in Paradise by José Maria de Eça de Queirós, translated by Margaret Jull Costa 
Issue 17 Mar 2025
Issue 10 Mar 2025
By: Holli Mintzer
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 3 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Feb 2025
Issue 17 Feb 2025
Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
Issue 6 Jan 2025
By: Samantha Murray
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
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