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My crumbling walls are etched with voice:
hieroglyphs depicting song, wisdom, cruelty,
fusing cries and screams not hers.

Bodily fluids stained my floors as paint,
dark joys sealed, lacquering her soul.
Six hundred fell by her hand, she who loved me.

My grounds hide now, as they then, aging bones.
I became my lady's prison after trial,
restraining her desires, ensuring desolation.

Praying for revenge and light, she sang
and rambled as though they interchanged,
twisted dark with salvation water.

When the sun casts egress shadows on my face
she remains, silhouette searching, insatiable,
gazing at the village below.

No women from nearby come as tourists,
though some may be curious to glimpse her
just in case rumor is fact.




Jennifer Ruth Jackson can't draw or act, so she writes poems and short stories. Her work has been published in Star*LineFlashes in the Dark, and Kaleidoscope Magazine.  When she's not writing, you can catch her playing video games or making jewelry. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their houseplant, Hubey. Find her on the web at http://www.everythingitntales.blogspot.com.
Current Issue
13 Apr 2026

...fury tongued, we lash the breeze with our foxing song
From my broken streets and crumbling towers; Sterilized my self-haunted hospitals
Every single time, the Skiin™ gave me a rash. I scratched. I scratched so deeply that I clawed through the aug and into my own skin and then I tore out chunks of that too.
Friday: Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures edited by Joey Eschrich and Ed Finn 
Issue 6 Apr 2026
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Issue 23 Mar 2026
Issue 16 Mar 2026
Issue 9 Mar 2026
By: Lio Abendan
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Strange Horizons
2 Mar 2026
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Issue 2 Mar 2026
Strange Horizons
Issue 23 Feb 2026
Issue 16 Feb 2026
Issue 9 Feb 2026
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