Size / / /

Content warning:


You tell me

Oh baby we just need

To get it on

You tell me

Sex is what makes us human

 

I just need to try it

Again, perhaps,

If it did not work the first time

Again

Yeah, again

Sex is what makes us human

 

I made myself cry

Going into this

Is it not natural?

How can you say you do not want it?

 

There must

Be something

Wrong

With me

I get drunk and feel strong

I scream in rollercoasters

I cry at movies

I devour books whole

When I write I

Feel free

I am free

I

 

But sex

Our enjoyment of it

Is what makes us

Differ

From the animals

The animals

Rutting, mindless animals

 

I do not enjoy it

There must be something

Wrong with me

You say

There must

Be something wrong

With me

 

 

Well you see

I like the feel

Of a book’s spine

In my hands

Still unbroken

I like

The taste of orange

Bursting on my tongue

I like when I

Close my eyes

And see

Your face

I like

Wine on a summer’s day

 

Scott tells me

‘be virtuous’

Will tells me

‘to a nunnery’

Gustave tells me

None of it matters

Do you want to be made love to,

Or do you want to be fucked?

 

Neither, I say

And you scoff at me

I like

Wine on a summer’s day

The love of my life

Does not like rollercoasters

I do not push

I love rollercoasters

The love

Of my

Life

Does not like wine

Does not like alcohol

 

I feel

A freak

Going crying

From a doctor’s office

This Obsession

Everyone has

That I do not share

 

I joke

About it

Even to me

Sex is funny

And I am

Too

Smart-mouthed

To keep it shut

(it is the only smart thing about me)

 

Sex is funny

When it’s a joke

 

I like wine on a summer’s day

I like the taste of orange bursting on my tongue

I like the love of my life, their face, their voice, their hair

I like the crack of a book’s spine broken in my hands

I like when I see your

Face

 

Dear Mary’s creature asked

Is there none in the world like me,

And am I then a monster?

If I could only love

Despite my

‘defect’

If there was only some like me

 

If I could only love

(it is synonymous with sex

Is it not)

I say

To the love of my life

And they hold me

And remind me

It is not

And you can

 

And I do



Nikoline Kaiser is a Danish student with a BA in Comparative Literature, currently located in Aarhus and aspiring to make it big, or at least medium, in Literature. More of her work can be found at https://nikolinekaiser.wordpress.com/.
Current Issue
31 Mar 2025

We are delighted to present to you our second special issue of the year. This one is devoted to ageing and SFF, a theme that is ever-present (including in its absence) in the genre.
Gladys was approaching her first heat when she shed her fur and lost her tail. The transformation was unintentional, and unwanted. When she awoke in her new form, smelling of skin and sweat, she wailed for her pack in a voice that scraped her throat raw.
does the comb understand the vocabulary of hair. Or the not-so-close-pixels of desires even unjoined shape up to become a boat
The birds have flown long ago. But the body, the body is like this: it has swallowed the smaller moon and now it wants to keep it.
now, be-barked / I am finally enough
how you gazed on our red land beside me / then how you traveled it, your eyes gone silver
Grannies Against Oppression 
Here, I examine the roles of the crones of the Expanse space in Persepolis Rising, Tiamat’s Wrath, and Leviathan Falls as leaders and combatants in a fight for freedom that is always to some extent mediated by their reduced physical and mental capacity as older people. I consider how the Expanse foregrounds the value of their long lives and experience as they configure the resistance for their own and future generations’ freedom, as well as their mentorship of younger generations whose inexperience often puts the whole mission in danger.
Wednesday: Under the Eye of The Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda 
Friday: The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinan Antoon 
Issue 24 Mar 2025
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
Load More