1 25 15 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/81174/archive/files/33ea9ccc77a8bba144066e15ee668620.pdf?Expires=1792022400&Signature=b9xjP2UuVGkrqaw5INdvCl6KBoqzd-TQwlgPsixui0QS6JSvzgNITLsngK33ml3DfCRcFQ%7E03QDlkDJL-yD21iKVPLrL68fQ0GnRpV24rQKwhKn18ElCQINMRL-IZ4837OKsY1sevCI3C9-3%7EDOKHjfllw2T5OzTh4ZNK-2ZT%7EO8AIuQVdSkrlHHDvVsfkhyXLvcZfe5SAA6u9PqQoTI4vy6%7E2tV--ClgQbzjrFQJ%7ENH1WNFT2yWbcmdgVuGvFoSvUGLR0xzze76xNyiXtl8vIosYJYqjkxspXgNdDMg%7ERtV3d-rEpllfix041KMv5VScYFwxUbwsBGE0Eg-PbqloA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM af8e37f1289fae55b7267a847526a13c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document Preface I grew up on folk tales, not fairy tales at bedtime. a whole different set of stories and ways to tell them. different expectations. different lessons (I learned). my bedtime stories spoke of women finding ways not to be sacrificed. what I learned was people will leave you on the cliffside to wait for a monster who is coming to devour you—for their own peace what I learned was people will think some things are too big to fight and the way to get by in their shadow is to let women die to sate it what I learned was most of the time, you save yourself. you find a way to be clever or fast or loving enough to stop the monstrous cycle right before its jaws close around you. what I learned was not to expect to be saved but to know that if I was good enough at the right, constantly-changing things, I could save myself, most times. this carries through. still doing it. just learning now how to maybe stop playing this story out. I am tired of having to find the right way to be good enough to be allowed to survive. to claw out my own place with the paw I struck from the monster you left me out to feed. tired of the blood running down my body, from my body, leaving my body, leaving my body curled and confined in the softest things I have, but still, the nest I make for myself feels some days more like I have padded the trap I was set in as bait. lined the metal teeth with batting. they’ll still bruise, you know, through that. can still break an unsettled bone. some days it feels like there is no way I leave the trap and it doesn’t spring. Chapter 1 a quarter moon is a half moon, there are two ways of thinking about it. a full moon could be called a half moon, on the logic of a quarter moon – halfway through the cycle. there is no half moon, officially. whatever that means. which officials. sounds like there are two half moons to me. Chapter 2 I see half of the face that faces me. we call it quarter because of the cycle, the whole cycle of new moon to new moon, and this half-face marks the one-quarter point. but reading up on quarter moons, looking at diagrams of moon cycles, her face emerges in a new way, and the quarter I see is the quarter of the whole spherical moon, she round in every dimension. that far dark. calling her half-lit face quarter an answer, maybe, to the half we never see. this is what persuades me to quarter moon over half moon. all we can ever have is half the moon. and quarter moon reminds us that half the time, all we see is just half of that. Chapter 3 autism gave me words for things I was already doing: like masking. it applies elsewhere too, though, has shown up so many places in my life full of nooks, full of places someone else wants to forget. this is when, masking is when, you feel safer hiding who and how you be because the society you live in has convinced you (often accurately – this part stings the most) that if you do not hide you, Bad Things will happen. to you. around you. because of you. and your not-hiding. it says do not show your autism. your adhd. your POTS, EDS, the other three, or what ill looks like in your body. do not show the way joy needs to fizzle out every finger when you get overwhelmed with it. do not show how some sounds, like the sound of the scrape of that knife on the ceramic plate, sizzle through your brain, pain searing and shaking you from the inside, literal pain, do not show it. do not show how hard it is to walk during a POTS episode, how hard it is to walk with long Covid, how hard it is to walk with two feet injured from your connective tissue disorder. do not need a wheelchair. do not look how you look when you need a wheelchair and don’t have one. do not look how you look when you need. do not let the expression drop fast from your face when you run out of the energy that holds it on. do not hold an expression (out of habit) past when you feel it. but do learn to fake the expressions that make other people feel comfortable. like the ones that make them feel like you’re listening because it’s how they listen, but keeping up the Listen face takes all your focus and you don’t hear a word. learn to hold these faces all day: at school, at work, around strangers, around people who insist that you’re friends. do not let these expressions drop. no matter what you miss. do not let them drop. Chapter 4 before I learned what masking was and what I really sounded like inside, with the filter of everyone else scrubbed off and my flesh close to bloody from it, before then I only ever showed a quarter moon. it was all I felt allowed. Chapter 5 there are two quarter moons: first and third. quarters. one is easy to see, it’s an evening rise, visible around sunset. the other, third quarter moon, is up when we are, most of us, asleep. the full moon is so bright with sun that the details get lost in the glare. this tenth-bright half-face quarter is where you see the relief of craters. I am told even binoculars will get you there. and see, when it is just the first quarter moon you see, that sunset staple, you will only know the ridges on a single side, one half of the moon. [interjection – one quarter. still half her face is always back, back away, you will only see half a half. it’s simple math. you may never see the other craters. and that can be okay. but you may never know that’s all you have. and not knowing is a different story.][whispered: you did not realize I was missing so many essential somethings.] Chapter 6 one eye cannot see the other. on a human face, on a moon face. I didn’t know I was missing the other half, the other half a half, either. it’s these past few years that have retaught me myself, the selves I found and then lost as a child, a tween, a teen, a twenty-something. even in private, I did not have me, not— not even close to the way it is now. this gift of my own fullness, access to a more actual me, one of the many strange presents illness has left at my door so far. I am glad I chose to unwrap. Chapter 7 but where did I really learn to hide? who taught me the world wasn’t safe for me? an inventory of me in the context of this country provides a case for hiding: my tribes survived based on how well they became invisible to white eyes the statistics for women receiving violence remain shocking a recent trip to australia drove this home: I noticed myself telling men when they were doing wrong and yelling at them when politeness didn’t work and for once, didn’t fear for my safety. a miracle. on returning home, I told a female friend about it. she said it sounded like an alternate universe. the time, less than five years ago, I had to hide in the basement of my house while my drunk, violent neighbor hurled homophobic slurs at the front door. last fall, when I felt a new foot injury burn into life, but was walking home alone, late, and remembered what they tell young gazelles: they pick off the weak and the sickly. do not look sickly. do not limp. you have to look strong enough to fight them off so they don’t try. and how much worse the pain was when I got home / from bearing all that weight. I’m not ready to tell strangers the inventories for being autistic ace both chronically and intergenerationally poor I’m not ready to talk about the intersections but another strange gift of illness: all this extra time I spend at home is time I’m not being harassed. Chapter 8 I don’t fault myself for hiding. I celebrate learning to come out anyway. I would like to get to make only that decision, to feel safe enough to always choose it. here is my request: consider—have you taught me to hide? you. every you. it can be smaller than you think. smaller than you think you can see. but I promise you can learn. wake up for the sunrise to see that other half moon, that other quarter, in detail. you will notice the craters. no microscope. no telescope. they are so visible when you look the right way. I have already shown you so many, close up. like this. Chapter 9 my love is one of the first to really see the back, the proverbial dark side of the moon, the half that gets forgotten when you call a quarter moon a half moon. she said she wanted to see whatever was there. I finally believed that what was there was worth loving, could be shown to the right people. and she was willing to walk around, to the side you can’t see from here, and I want to convey how sincere this is and how much that mattered. to someone who has been taught you hide whole selves to survive or be loved. it was old and it was recent. and she said “I want it all” and I said “I wouldn’t want anyone who wouldn’t” and these are why it’s different this time. Chapter 10 all the years of hiding and pushing through, saving yourself and finding the ways to be good enough not to be killed, living by the merit du jour, these will run you into the ground. my bedtime stories would always end before the heroines could get the chronic illnesses we get when we overclock ourselves to survive. illnesses we then have to hide. the phases are a cycle. new moon to new moon. have you ever seen the whole face? — <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/752" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Arianne True</a> Note: “Bedtime Story: the girl and the quarter moon” first appeared in ANMLY #39, October 2024. Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. illness medical trauma violent imagery lack of acceptance Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bedtime Story: the girl and the quarter moon Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arianne True Author Tag: activist Author Tag: American Indigenous/Alaska Native Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: indigenous Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: polyamorous Content Notice: illness Content Notice: lack of acceptance Content Notice: medical trauma Content Notice: violent imagery https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/81174/archive/files/e938e650e075595ed0d9f75c4374216d.jpg?Expires=1792022400&Signature=UD5T4I-nNrKC0mRrQvRRI1nmgt-1DaFlCdMjtEn3WlOuiCY9CUkv0dnNBlszSeOgFwGQygL8GDIlpdEK96VeKnMCg-jB3ZiTROoKH2tN%7EsxOrLiklDts5cUuXPL2v36%7Eg5XhZHKELHwfjjirAZGLH4p5aUmXG-kOmATmBrWZ5Ya3mhElkiK7MQJ-SMoc-3-D5jsKZ5GfG%7E57tGj9SWB7g60QMwtqieDA4oUejlc13SCWwdZezDx45y570fDjwT6SFqJ2c-J5U7GvQggRJo6veCBQ5kuWUMptwxoMehvm%7En5oGp6fPFe9ffPq80F8yhTvpZHHFsUWlY3D0Hhnk4njoQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 06e9c6f549b8854ae6e1d60003b2f59f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document 1. We all fall out of cars when we’re three— when the excitement to climb down ourselves puts our center of gravity in front of our skill level, our little forehead in front of our feet, out of windows in Moscow for talking trash about Putin— and that’s why we don’t live in Moscow, off a bicycle at least once— it’s a rite of passage impossible to avoid. We fall from grace no matter how hard we try, from pedestals too high—elevated by another’s need. We fall into the wrong crowd when our parents aren’t looking. We fall out of favor, out of fashion, or all over ourselves to prove a point. We fall in love and out again; we fall apart and start again. We might fall clipping a sandal toe on the edge of a sidewalk buckled from the heat or by slipping on black ice lying in wait under a dusting of snow, or we could lose our balance stubbing a tree root along the path— a full-frontal faceplant. Lots of bleeding, but by grace, the very same we fell from, nothing breaks— not a tooth, not a nose, not a lens in our brand-new designer glasses, nothing except our confidence. Blood pouring from our nose into our hands, dripping off our chin where a flap of skin now dangles, proceeds down the forearms in search of an elbow. We’re exercising every blood-stopping skill learned over years of practice— as a kid, with our children, for an aging parent unexpectedly fainting in the kitchen. Finally, the last drops fall. We look as if we’ve just torn open a small animal with our bare hands and feasted on its heart for breakfast. Disbelief gathers up presence of mind— we get up. Sheer determination steps in to escort us back to the car. We don’t give a second thought to what’s happened to our confidence the confidence left lying in blood-soaked dirt no ceremony, not even a good-bye. 2. Snow falls, leaves fall, water falls over a cliff. But unlike snowflakes, or leaves in autumn, or waterfalls diving into pools far below, we’re propelled by an intrepid resolve to get back up. Falling off your bike at seven is a temporary setback on the road to mastering balance on ever bigger bikes. Falling face first at seventy is a turning point—a switchback where independence takes on hiking poles and Life Alerts dangling around our necks. Ask the once free-flying, twirling snowflake how she feels ending her journey face-first, nestled in a snowdrift— each one with the only confidence they have left they’ll never twirl like that again. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/729">Karen S Bonnell</a> Photo credits: Mountain photo by Ainur Khakimov on Unsplash, Snowflake photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. visceral body imagery violence violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Falling Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Karen S Bonnell Author Tag: compassionate listener Author Tag: Family law change-agent Author Tag: grandmother Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: mentor Author Tag: parent Content Notice: violence Content Notice: violent imagery Content Notice: visceral body imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document my body is the temporary beginning in the flesh of my carrier/carried back into the depths of The Mother— unrelenting dissatisfaction bleeds cries of despair wishing to transcend into the ideal Other; once/within youth, pulling the fabric of my skin [spot the deformity] my body is an object so dump me within the confines of your arousal, entangle me in deception/let us engage in deadly symbiosis for the lies of love pull me into the fix of ease my body is a placeholder so tell me what to do. make me perform for your reward; ignore all possible manners i am nothing but your Servant/determine my survival my body is a memory inviting a dive within the depths of my grief... enter my time capsule: see/hear/feel/touch the scars and wonder How Did You Survive? my body is inscribed with the colors of atrocity. chanting the horrors of “unwanted child”, staining the sense of worth; of self; of deservingness; [the misfortune of being birthed in this form] my body wishes it wasn’t— unsure about how much more it can take (beating the sound of discomfort) “let me out” x3 my body LIVED IT LIVED IT’S LIVING IT IS ALIVE my body does not forgive —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/712" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Juno</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. grief mental health family trauma or domestic violence violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource an indictment of my Body Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Juno Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Asian or Asian American Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: transmasc Content Notice: family trauma or domestic violence Content Notice: grief Content Notice: mental health Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document I was a fingerbreadths from love. Then I got lost in the snow. Love me from a distance or not at all, love me through the window, love through the locked door, love me from across the country, over state lines and timezones- love me three hours ahead. There's only so much love I can take before I start to be seen. We can only get so close before we start to merge into one creature- grotesque with desire, our exposed and fractured rib cageholding a single rotting heart It’s cold out here, is what I mean. It’s freezing, the hum drum dullness, rain on a roof and the rumble of trains, sensation and sound and- skin, split open you can see is just another organ. The clouds roll in. It’s looking like another storm, but then you press knife to chest and heart bursts out- here is my devotion, staining your sleeve. Love is a disease, it’s a contagion. It lines my lungs in with mold- touch me and feel your fingers sink into my skin, soft with decomposition. Love me too much and with too many hands and I'll swallow you whole. I don't want you to see the gaping maw inside of me, the emptiness behind my skin, all decay black and thin blood, I’d rather let you think I was clean and not hemorrhaging devotion. I’d rather you not see the bloodstains. You were never supposed to stay, is what I mean. The archeologists who find us won’t be able to see us as anything but one strange creature- bones intertwined and preserved tissues melted together. I suppose with contagions there is little to do other than burn. The thing with burning is that it purges the parasite, sure, but where does that leave you and me? Dust and ash and begging for it to stop? It might be better with this: me curled up a few steps from the porch and you inside. Me, freezing from tongue to teeth to lips curled in the shape of your name. You, asleep in bed, finding me in the morning when everything that needed to be said has already been spoken out loud. There’s a hollowness at the center of me with room for two. I’ll keep the door locked and let you believe I'm whole enough to love, but in thousands of years when my bones are exhumed they’ll see that love is an infection that consumed me down to the marrow. I’ve heard heaven is cold to the touch, is what I mean. I’ve heard it’s always snowing and the angels are all made by children and the fingers are always blue. I’ve heard it's cold. You wake up three hours before me and I’ve been dreaming of you the whole time, your blurry face an echo across the long stretch of land. Your name hitch-hiked thousands of miles to crawl into my mouth and rest heavy and bitter and burning on my tongue like stomach acid- if we’re not careful it’ll kill us both. I dream of you and swallow down the poison of longing and do not rest easy. You built me a home with no windows, is what I mean. Build me a city too, call it holy land, hallowed land, church cemeteries house enough corpses that I can’t be lonely anymore. I’m tired, is what I mean. There’s food on the table but it’s rotten. There’s knives in the kitchen but they’re dull. I’ll love you forever, I mean. But I won’t get close enough to touch. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/707" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dove S. (they/it)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violent imagery visceral body imagery mental health suicide or self-harm (including ideation) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource I’ll beg for love and in the same breath beg you not to touch me Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dove S. (they/it) Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Aromantic Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Content Notice: mental health Content Notice: suicide or self-harm (including ideation) Content Notice: violent imagery Content Notice: visceral body imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document God’s blessing***whispers from activists past***forget-me-not Memories gift***a white man shoves someone like me in the street***a treasure The flower of my lover's birth land***waiting to be stomped out***blood and ink stain my skin Fondly known as scorpion grassess***the royal blue of a man fucking another man***thriving in the bitterest of colds Trivial little thing clinging to friends on the vine***the neon lights of every club shot up***a petal for each stage of grief “Remember” you are not alone***I stand upon the blood and bone of those before me***I have your back An herb disguised as a flower***I do not wish to be Adam and Eve***an apology from god. The brilliant gold of youth***the man in my bed is not your concern***masked under a blue so deep I swam in it A kiss upon the lips of legacy***of course I went to church on Sunday-ten years ago***grown in the tracks of American history Eternal love***bullshit***remind me of my place —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/427" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SJ Larsen (they/them)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. erotic (explicit) violent imagery violence lack of acceptance grief swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ode to the Forget-Me-Not Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource SJ Larsen (they/them) Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: nonbinary Author Tag: white Content Notice: erotic (explicit) Content Notice: grief Content Notice: lack of acceptance Content Notice: swearing Content Notice: violence Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document I keep reminding my students: it’s not lead, it’s graphite - bears more composite connection to diamonds, to them - not lead, different stone – pulled from different earth - soil soul, soiled by gunpowder. Lead leads to links of homo phones, graphs, nyms; leads to lessons on meta phor: foreign fatalities, familiar frictions. No, friends, your writing can’t poison you, not like that anyway. Yes, there was lead once, in the paint, the yellow shot through, as they say, pumped full of lead. I wish I could promise the world was softer now. Graphite is the gentle carbon dreams of. Wish I could tell you we replaced all the lead in the water, the air, the bodies, returned to the soil, teleported out as easily as paint - I wish the only thing that could harm you were words easily erased, replaced, taken back, trans/muted to something more like gentle. Pens may brag of strength, hold their own in battle, held the way we love anything that takes the world down with us, links through destruction, wounds wound tight together, but this smudge is so much more promise, potential, not like lead, “the opposite of a gun is whatever it's pointed at.” Remember, diamonds are forever, and isn’t that a kind of air, I mean oxy/moron, whatever you choose not to undo is what will last, isn’t that better than just what knows only how to end? —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/680" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">R. Thursday</a> Note: “the opposite of a gun...” is from Brendon Constantine’s ‘The Opposites Game.’ Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Putting the Meta in Metonym Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource R. Thursday Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: Asian or Asian American Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: Christian Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transmasc Author Tag: white Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document I had your palm read, sliced it clean at the wrist while you were sleeping I was told I am the embryo that refused to grow fast enough to be a pure daughter I paid good money because money is bead and string and i have plenty Mother, she said you struck dark already I am to follow you like a ghost mule into some dead-end country where we will sit like seed hunters fingers mining the earth our words lost to task the light forever at our back our stories pleasing no one I kept your hand in mine, held it the way home I decided her words were wrong the dark doesn’t know you —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/534" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Megan O'Patry</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mother, you struck dark already Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Megan O'Patry Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: queer Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document the coral forest ghosted in sagas. in ghosted forest coral, the graveyard’s brittle twists level, twists brittle. graveyard’s ancient phalanges. rotator phalanges. ancient cracking bone spines wilting & deified & wilting, spines bone cracking. dotted pockets, oxygen. dewed oxygen pockets dotted petrified mollusks, empty husks rise sexes. rise husks empty mollusks. petrified in stasis. wet sediment. rotor sediment, wet stasis. in oceanic grave’s salty devived. salty grave’s oceanic cacophony, slowing in noon. in slowing cacophony, the minuscule, the sea rat; thriving, it stots. it. thriving rat, sea the miniscule. the stretching muscle’s fibrous steets. fibrous muscle’s stretching silicone anole, the corpus severed, de-revered severed corpus, anole. silicone flowing through graves. fin’s wispy alula, wispy fin’s graves through flowing specters. specter’s bioluminescent organs. tilt-lit organs, bioluminescent. specter’s specters. teeth gashing flesh made the blue redder. blue the made flesh. gashing teeth calibrating deteriorating coccyx. the reviver. the coccyx deteriorating, calibrating blast radius, metal screams from oil spewing radar. oil spewing from metal, screams radius blast, liquifying mammals marine brains in qubit stats, qubit in brains. marine mammals liquifying swimming calves, obliterating milk rubbery teet, rubbery milk obliterating calves, swimming, liquifying. mammals marine brains. in qubit. stats qubit in brains marine. mammals liquifying. blast radius: metal screams from oil, spewing radar oil, spewing from metal screams radius blast calibrating deteriorating. coccyx the reviver. the coccyx deteriorating. calibrating teeth gashing, flesh made. the blue: redder blue. the made flesh gashing teeth. specter’s specters bioluminescent. organs tilt-lit organs, bioluminescent specters. specters flowing through graves, fins. wispy alula, wispy fins, graves. through flowing silicone: anole the corpus. severed. de-revered. severed. corpus: anole, silicone, stretching muscles fibrous steets. fibrous muscles stretching the minuscule. the sea rat thriving, it stots it. thriving rat sea, the miniscule. the cacophony slowing. in noon, in slowing, cacophony oceanic, graves salty, devived salty, graves oceanic in stasis. wet sediment rotor. sediment wet, stasis in petrified mollusks, empty husks rise, sexes rise. husks empty, mollusks petrified. dotted pockets oxygen dewed. oxygen pockets dotted cracking bone spines. wilting & deified. & wilting spines bone cracking ancient phalanges. rotator phalanges ancient graveyards. brittle twists level. twists brittle graveyards: the coral forest ghosted in sagas. in ghosted forest coral. the </> —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/514" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">phoenix kai (they/them)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. visceral body imagery violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <deepsea> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource phoenix kai Author Tag: activist Author Tag: gay Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: Jewish Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: transfemme Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Content Notice: violent imagery Content Notice: visceral body imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document Colors I so love elude me, I am transparent. I was the void, and I held adoration in my chest before it bore holes like scabies under the skin. It was hot to bleed the ocean of space, All over everyone i loved, wasn’t it? Cigarettes keep coming back to me. When my lover sleeps there is nothing to stop them from re-burning those familiar circles. How am i supposed to live like this? An intruder of memories that feel like another’s; warped scenes of a childhood that couldn’t be mine- shouldn’t be mine. When did I lose the color of a house on fire? I don’t think it matters anymore. She wonders if it’s worth being the smoke of a gender reveal party if it means all of us are waiting for the forest to catch, and swallow the earth in the familiar. I don’t phlebotomize it out under searing water any longer, I beg for it to stop screaming. It’s just screaming into a new, opaque nightmare, Where nobody that exists can hear. Charlotte Isn’t living or dead, not in the void, with you. She’s an idea in a brain that is tired of hating itself, And everything around it. But she’s sweet and caring. She thinks about what she says. She’s full of love and fire, she is tall and confident. Her lungs are pink and her brain isn’t as dead as it feels. There is nothing below her, she is the burned remains of a slaughterhouse and the mushrooms are just now moving in. She is a Goddess in her own right, on the precipice of life and death, growing out of a body that has been rotting for 20 years. She’s starting to look... Pink. I need to love her more than i want to cut myself open. I allow her to grow out of me lethargically, and so now my bisection is nearly sedate, for her, miss Charlotte. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/352">Charlotte Bug Shelley (she/her)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. gender dysphoria suicide or self-harm (including ideation) mental health cigarettes violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource for her, miss Charlotte Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Charlotte Bug Shelley Author Tag: activist Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: Homeless or formerly homeless Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Author Tag: transfemme Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Content Notice: cigarettes Content Notice: gender dysphoria Content Notice: mental health Content Notice: suicide or self-harm (including ideation) Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document What is the nature of the emergency it is not desperation no one is leaning over the overpass the guardrail’s intact bleeding is not uncontrollable I can see with both eyes no one’s mother needs a call bones don’t protrude the dog still exhales from truncated tunnels of her belly nothing blew up today What is the nature of the wound for the first year after each time she left the house felt like a prayer asphyxiation more comfortable than breath bisecting arcs – one prism-seeking, one seeking merger with the terra the body scissoring the string that snares us What is the nature of the emergency when I place my lips against hers, I taste blood syllables strangle the sternum dis-ease blossoms unencumbered by forgiveness there is no deficiency of oxygen no febrile seizures sharp objects remain a safe distance from skin no one’s heart gave up here today What is the nature of the wound my fingertips friction my palm and I meditate at a gold medal pace my toes curl in my shoes but they will never spell I’m sorry What is the nature of the wound am I in the present moment or does this feel old keep a list old old old always old —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/287">C. Eliot Mullins (she/her)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. abuse or trauma violent imagery mental health Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wound Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource C. Eliot Mullins Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: parent Author Tag: Rural community member Content Notice: mental health Content Notice: trauma or abuse Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document rolling pin into flat into smashed into cant feel this way anymore muscles so tense exhausted from trying to remember not to clench and hold them into this shape thigh ropes of viscera taut as i type longing to be smoothed under hands no feet trample me scared takes the place of tense pain reminds i wont -be- forever drive of boot wondering do you know how fragile i am how soft i can finally start to stop crushed into powder that leaks into rivers of feelings escaped finally a nother way through painful tingling shaking hurt clenched splashes splatters seeps down earth vibrating with me until i quit shaking again rap me with reeds 'til welts cover my body red and thick giving me texture warmth sweat from rapture dripping tackle me down bound hand bound foot no escape then taped shut hood over head and thrown bag zipped wheeled unknown and dropped left forgotten gone split spilled punched abandoned discarded labeled cradled swaddled kissed mixed up fucked up where is this in love language literature this hurt me the way i like so i feel safe so i know you see me so i know you care all at once or please none at all degrade me just so sinew becomes lengthening revival becomes hope and love feels like love again <div style="text-align:right;"> — <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/281">sam krehel (they/them)</a></div> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. kink sensuality violent imagery swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource unnamed love language Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource sam krehel (they/them) Author Tag: activist Author Tag: American Indigenous/Alaska Native Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: indigenous Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: Two-Spirit Author Tag: white Content Notice: kink Content Notice: sensuality Content Notice: swearing Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document you are not your body i am not my heart pieces stitched together are not yet apart the real you does not hunger she does not rest nor thirst nor sweat the Soul is always living she'd hate for her flesh to forget they tear down fellow man depriving themselves of what they need rip through the skin and all our sentiments bleed but at the end of the letter of body-soul correspondence there's a red bottom line drawn by what is beyond us straight as a heart monitor since before the famous lamb the truth remains we all weigh 21 grams. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/217">Domino Leon</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource the weight Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Domino Leon Author Tag: queer Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document wolves began to talk and they said, we are very hungry books opened themselves to pages that read time's up time's up time's up and I broke my heel on the sidewalk when the sky filled with housewives wearing mink coats and hair straight out of Leave it to Beaver riding white horses and carrying just-baked cherry pies one of them adopted me she said her name was unpronounceable but I could call her Tiffany and we rode through broken forests hunting men and pigs who had not yet assumed speech as the wolves did Tiffany calls it the culling, says when we are making a pearl sanding frost-skin to find shapes underneath more pleasant less smoke and the wolves won't be hungry and the forests will split in two green again and again brand new —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/197">Jas Templet (they/them)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wolves Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jas Templet (they/them) Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: white Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document I’ll cradle my head in my lap like a bowl of pearls. I’m afraid of knife fights. In this way, I am a Dullahan or a rogue. I’ve asked to have my head removed by sword but no body obliges, no one ties my knots to bind them. So I work to build a mountain on which to speak softly. Walking from ear to center maybe this is the wrong plot for planning new ways to keep my head from leaving me and going over the ocean to find a new lover find a new place to rest dry lips. I hope that like Medusa, someday, someone will carry me in front of them too. Asking that I bargain marble pillars as an ecstatic occupation. They’ll hold handfuls of shield and hair and sword I can’t ask for, waving above us both like fire torch-light flash and hanging, cooing my red petal offerings like roses and roses and roses — <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/32">Tanya L. Young (she/her)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource In My Wildest Dreams Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanya L. Young Author Tag: activist Author Tag: adoptee Author Tag: biracial Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document I crossed my scariest threshold when I was barely a teenager. For the first 13 years of my life, I lived comfortably in the belief that I was a cis girl. Everything changed when I began to explore who I was. I’m trans. At the time, I didn't know how horrifying it would become to be trans in this country. There have been hundreds of bills introduced over the years, intending to wipe my community out. It is a genocide. They want to keep us trapped between who we were and who we are. Force us to keep pretending for their comfort. It’s exhausting. In 2022, I began my medical transition. I am extremely lucky to live in the state that I do. I’ve never had to face this reality head-on. I have existed in a bubble, made possible by people who came before me and people who refuse to back down, even now. I want to fight alongside them, but I don't know how. The downside of living a comfortable life is that you never have to sharpen your teeth. Thicken your skin. Raise your voice. You are shielded from the ugliest parts of the battle while feeling entitled to the rewards. You don’t have to wrestle for scraps when everything has been handed to you. Any time I speak up, I feel like I am doing something wrong. Why should I be allowed to lead the crusade when I've never been in combat? I am not the one to call for action or blood. That is not my place. I could join the fight though. I'm ready to stand, but I'm scared to stand alone. I need a helping hand. Someone to pull me into the light. To say it’s okay to be loud. Be fierce. Look danger in the face and not back down. But every day is a struggle just to get someone to hear us. For someone to fight back. To stand up, raise their voice, do anything. My siblings should not have to keep dying in the streets because of misguided fear. We should be free to live our lives. I’m crossing a new threshold. I’m stepping up to the plate. Making my voice heard. I refuse to be silent so that bigots may be comfortable. I will scream at the top of my lungs until they cannot ignore me any longer. I’m not backing down. Someday, I want this fight to end. I want us to be who we are without fear of being attacked or killed. And until that day comes, I will continue to march into battle with my head held high. I’m tired of being a target and a scapegoat for their fear. I am done being scared. Fuck their fear. I’m embracing my courage. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/31">Charlie Curtiss (they/he)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. anti LGBTQ hate violence death violent imagery genocide swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WA House Bill 1214 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Charlie Curtiss Author Tag: activist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: nonbinary Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Author Tag: transmasc Content Notice: anti-LGBTQ hate Content Notice: death Content Notice: genocide Content Notice: swearing Content Notice: violence Content Notice: violent imagery