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I suppose you want my wallet. No? My body then. Centuries of splintered glass went into these cheekbones. I see something in the curve of your aura that reminds me of someone I once knew. Can you step into my light? Reputations are made and broken in such places as this. If you say there are rats, I will believe you, though I don’t hear or see them. There is always a gnawing hunger driving them from dark corners. I used to fear them, before I felt their hunger. I can’t remember when I first saw you stepping into my shadow, biting the back of my heels. You were younger then and I was a body of water caught beneath winter’s ice. You know that feeling? Where limitation meets longing? So much of you remains in these doggy bagged bins. There is still starvation, even in this excess, saturation that can be held but not consumed. There is a dare beneath the lid, if you can stand the smell of it. Look closely. The contents change but the picture stays the same. You digest truth like last night’s dinner rush. Taste consequences like the rotting corpse posing as nourishment. Is every meaning cut as kaleidoscope prisms? You see my face in the slop of life’s leftovers but never recognize it. Everything you create is just me with soft filters, me with twelve fingers, me in all caps, in all language, all gods. My reflection is captured in blurred outlines and sharp corners, the angular intersection of humanity, gorging on what they can never admit was a beggar’s meal dug in fistfuls from rotten excess by a dumpster diver. But at least, I still see myself clearly. At least, I still look beautiful covered in your digital rot.



Lesley Hart Gunn is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, but teaches college writing at Utah Valley University where she lives with her partner and three children. She is the winner of the Fall 2022 F(r)iction poetry contest and has publications in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Uncanny, and others.
Current Issue
7 Sep 2026

Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons will open to general fiction submissions on October 1, 2026, at 3 p.m. UTC! This window will remain open until we hit our submission cap of 1,000 stories. Our maximum word count for this window will be 5,000 words. We offer payment of 9¢/word USD. We do not read simultaneous or multiple submissions. Response time: Our goal is to respond to all submissions with either a hold notice or rejection within eight weeks. We hope to send acceptances or rejections within one month of hold notices. This is ambitious, and we might fall behind schedule. Please be patient
iii. There are no protocols for plotting to kill the King, so Alise talks about killing the King, whispers her plan in the Queen’s ear while they lie tangled in the Queen’s marital bed, Alise’s fingers tracing bruises that should not be there.
missed his mouth; tongue slipped in
but to live in that dusty old apartment house... crawling with Satanists
In this episode of Critical Friends , the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, AJ Odasso and Electra Pritchett join Dan Hartland to talk about popular fiction.
We’re especially happy to announce some new appointments at the Reviews Department.
Wednesday: The Hunger of Those Who Built It by Wendy Waring 
Friday: The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang 
Issue 31 Aug 2026
Issue 24 Aug 2026
Issue 17 Aug 2026
Issue 10 Aug 2026
Issue 3 Aug 2026
Issue 27 Jul 2026
Issue 20 Jul 2026
Issue 13 Jul 2026
By: Aimee Ogden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 6 Jul 2026
Issue 29 Jun 2026
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