008. THE FIRST BURNING.
death and rebirth.
Welcome to ISSUE 008: THE FIRST BURNING 🐇
Last month, I found a rabbit frozen to death in a snow pile along the side of the street. It had been suspended in time and space, its mouth frozen open in shock and its eyes black and empty. At first, the sight of the rabbit shocked me. I looked away, afraid of the horror of its death. But as the weeks passed, I found myself returning to the spot on the street with the rabbit. I would round the corner, lock eyes with the rabbit, and get comfortable with the absurdity of it all. My frozen, dead friend. I felt that it was my duty to make his acquaintance, to observe his death and to take account of it.
Now, it is April. My rabbit is rotting. The sun has melted away the snow pile and revealed his soaking wet fur, his skinny body, and his decaying face. I wait in anticipation of the neighbourhood crows finding his body and scattering his remains as they make a meal of him. In this way, they honour my rabbit, allowing his body to feed the earth the same way the earth fed him. I find myself compelled to be present for each stage of his death and to watch over his decomposition, no matter how disgusting he becomes. I remind myself that I am like this rabbit, fragile, made up of fallible skin and bones, and subject to the will of nature.
What I mean to say is that spring is gory, bloody and brutal. The cycle of death and rebirth wraps its arms tightly around us, forcing us to watch. I am transfixed by the rotting rabbit decaying in the sun, a testament to nature's relentless march, now a grotesque reminder of my mortality. I steel myself against April, I watch in awe as life around me blooms, knowing that someday I will bear witness to its death and destruction. We are but spectators in this endless cycle, bound by the dictates of a nature indifferent to our pleas.
This month’s poets write of sickness, desire, tenderness, and turbulence. “I’ve gone to the seaside to get well,” writes Siobhan Lowe, setting a scene of “cold salt winds” and “rotting shells and carcasses,” a place where “tears in the sea are moot. Salt is salt.” Later, poet Jasper Kerr remarks that “I have inherited my mother’s tears,” while Vice Sullivan cuts to the bone: “I am taking a meat hammer / to my own legs to become / tender.” In short stories, Kyra MacFarlane writes of barbed wire hugs and paranoia, while Vasundhara Singh writes of death by burning. The issue is accompanied by stunning visual art from Rose Rainbow Lanning, and we’d encourage you to view this issue in your browser to appreciate the full quality image.
We hope you enjoy ISSUE 008: THE FIRST BURNING. Hold on tight, grit your teeth, and bear witness.
Cait Barlowe | co-editor
Alone in Cornwall by Siobhan Lowe [Poetry]
Spring is for burning women by Vasundhara Singh [Fiction]
Turbulence and Tumble by Jasper Kerr [Poetry]
Mystic Rattlesnake by Rose Rainbow Lanning [Visual Art]
Vivisection by Vice Sullivan [Poetry]
Dismal Diaries by Kyra MacFarlane [Fiction]
Alone in Cornwall by Siobhan Lowe | Instagram | Substack
I’ve gone to the seaside to get well.
Not from consumption.
From being sad living in a city.
The sea cures all.
My melancholy feels warm.
As the cold salt winds burn my cheeks.
My hair and lips become sticky.
Sticky with the sun and sand.
The washed up kelp is ochre and amber.
Tears in the sea are moot.
Salt is salt.
The gulls attack the tide pools.
Rotting shells and carcasses.
Arrange a scavenger’s cornucopia.
My skin is tight and dry.
The waves humming and bellowing.
Create a loud quiet.
Spring is for burning women by Vasundhara Singh
Every Sunday afternoon the women gather in Rabia’s courtyard. The Semal tree in the center drops its blood red flowers onto the concrete. Suhani, the oldest, massages her scalp with fenugreek oil and hums an old tune from a Rajesh Khanna film. She says, “I can still smell the smoke.” Parvati, the young wife of the Sub-Inspector, spreads pieces of jackfruit on a yellow bedsheet. The February sun is perfect for pickling.
Rabia offers the women salted pistachios and says, “my devrani sent them. Her husband has opened a new dry fruit store in the city.” Parvati remarks that the pistachios are a little soggy. Suhani mumbles while braiding her hair, “was it a Sunday or a Tuesday?” Rabia tells them about her devrani’s husband who bought a three bedroom apartment near Zaveri market. Parvati says, “Didi, that market stinks of fish. Who would want to live there?” Rabia calls out for her twelve-year old daughter. A moment later, a skinny girl in capri pants emerges from the mesh door. “Heat up the sabzi and rice and take it to Abba’s room.” Parvati compliments the girl’s long dark hair.
Suhani walks to the Semal tree and picks up a flower that is slowly turning a faded orange. She says, “Rabia, I sometimes see a ball of fire on the road outside my house. I see her after midnight.”
Rabia and Parvati exchange glances. “Didi,” Rabia says, “It’s been three years. You have to forget it. After all, it can’t be the first burning you’ve seen.”
Suhani gives her a startled look. “It was. It was the first burning I have seen. You know, she was a graduate.”
Rabia rolls her eyes. “Parvati is also a graduate. It doesn’t mean anything.” Parvati goes to check on her jackfruit.
Rabia offers pistachios to Suhani but she shakes her head and says, “do you remember what she screamed before they burned her?”
“What?” Rabia says, “‘I am a graduate?’” She and Parvati break into a cackle. “She screamed for help,” Suhani says, “she screamed, ‘bachao.’”
Rabia’s daughter returns to inform her that she has served the food and Abba will nap till four in the evening.
“I heard her,” Suhani admits, “but I did nothing. I just sat up and smelt the smoke.” Parvati walks up to Suhani to caress her back.
Parvati explains, “Didi, they wanted a car but her father married her off with a bike.” Rabia joins in, “Bilkul! They had asked for a car from the very beginning but her father ignored their demands and gave them a bike. He was in the Railways. He could’ve given them a car.” “Didi,” Parvati says, “no one can beat destiny. It was in the girl’s destiny to die in her husband’s home.”
Rabia says, “Didi, cheer up! I heard the girl had one arm shorter than the other. Her family hid this from her in-laws.”
“What is written cannot be erased,” says Parvati.
The sun slips behind clouds. In a few weeks, spring will die, taking with it all the red, white, yellow blossoms, their scent and their promise. In a month or two, spring will die, taking with it the smell of burnt bodies.
“Did she really have one arm shorter than the other?” Suhani asks.
“Yes!” Rabia exclaims, “and if truth be told, her smile was crooked.”
The women burst out laughing until Rabia reminds them of her napping husband.
Turbulence by Jasper Kerr | Instagram | Linktree
If you are there, God
I am at your total mercy.
If you are not
I remain at the total mercy
Of everything else.
To go down–
a blazing ball of
fire above the Atlantic;
my jagged
ear-marked time
foot over nose
into the wide-mouthed scream of
an analog ghost–
black and white television static
tucked away in a valley
of words and their lack
still with no say in anything.
Tumble by Jasper Kerr
Are you ready for it? Through a singular panel of brown overturned blind the blue contents of the outside tumble out of the sky betraying every secret save one; I have inherited my mother’s tears My father’s rhyme and reason. I now understand why she always cried at the dining room table; mistaking her disposition for sadness, she was watching the blue tumble in through our white bay windows.
Mystic Rattlesnake by Rose Rainbow Lanning | Instagram
Vivisection by Vice Sullivan | Instagram
I am taking a meat hammer
to my own legs to become
tender. Now I can’t walk away,
and I am laying on butcher
paper, bandaging my brain.
My heart has forgotten how
to be sick, how funny is it
we all want to be sick
with wanting when desire is
an ouroboros, swallowing
itself with no room for air.
I wonder if I could fit myself
into my stomach, if that
would make me ache sharply
again. I am taking a knife
to my own ribcage to pry
it open. I am tired of being dull,
dulled, right-side-out, opaque
skin built up on me like the wall
of an apartment that has been
painted over every time
someone moves away.
I need to be spilling over.
I need to drain my old wounds
out between my teeth.
Dismal Diaries by Kyra MacFarlane | Medium | Instagram
She gave me a hug of barbed wire. A metal meant to bend when it should stay. Blood leaking from the wounds. The stinging pressed against my bones, and spread to my skin, which I thought of as a tarp. My body, stretched and deformed, a cover of a Stephen King book. Everyone asks me why I’m so morbid and mistaken – the world is cruel, and as someone so attuned to my surroundings, I feel the pressure to be paranoid.
My eyes are doing their laps, rolling around in my head. There is a lot of room in my head. No brain to protrude exponentially. Bits of brain swimming around like pig slop. “How are you?” My dad asks.
“I know you know they’re still hunting for me. It’s a lifelong curse, and I can’t imagine it will ever change. They can hear my thoughts, you know?” I answer. I’ve been told it’s episodic. But this surely doesn’t remind me of Seinfeld.
“I won’t bore you with the details –” I started.
“The devil is in them though!” my friend insists.
“Precisely why they deserve complete ignorance.” The details:
1. I am a schizoaffective person
2. I am a lesbian
3. I live in my head but my bones won’t stop bleeding
4. The spies are coming to find me, and then my bloody
bones will break I’ve watched enough Reality TV to know that I’m living vicariously through them. Their main complaints are familial divorce, or that they are perpetually horny (sorry, their “love language” is physical touch.) Why can’t ugly people populate our screens? I’d finally have a spot in popular culture.
Humorous essays just don’t hit the same way they did in Fran Lebowitz’s haven. I’ve tried many times to connect with people. Though, being constantly incoherent, this has been a challenge. I used to be a poet but now it’s like a diary entry drowning in pretentious alphaghetti. The only way I can communicate is small injections of verbal vile. It’s not enough to kill a person–just enough for someone to tolerate my populated personality. Vicious voices inside of me. I am a Courtney Love apologist. Aching wrinkles deepening the divots of devotion. Her attitude was so crass, yet so righteous. I strive to be more confident and less inhibited like her.
I’ve noticed that I want to be anyone but me. To be fair, people like me were probably not made for this world. On my once-soft feet are now visible cracks no pumice stick could erode.
Self-deprecation is no longer in style. Though neither am I. I tried stand-up comedy once. After my first attempt, women approached me and wanted to “workshop” it. They say there’s no true finished project - an essay is always a work in progress. Absolutely not. Write, wrote, writ.
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I loved this issue! Also in love with the visuals 😍
My favourite issue so far!