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Image Description: Contains two photos. First photo: A purple crochet bunny sits in a slumped position with button eyes and oversized plush tears from one of their eyes. Second photo: On their back they wear a backpack filled with knick-knacks with the words ‘Kick Me!’ crudely sewn on.

Image Description: A square quilt with an aqua trim with four sections, arranged in alternating blue and black squares. Various stitched hearts cover the quilt. Two white stars are sewn into the quilt, one on each of the black squares, while the top-left blue square has the stitched outline of a star. The bottom-right blue square contains the stitched words “Home Sweet Home” with the O’s replaced as hearts.

Once the sun sets, the desert air is frigid. Chills ran up his back from the breeze. Dark green sand flew around his ankles and into his boot, lodging itself underneath the sole of his foot. It chafed against the rough skin. A pack of blue-horned jackals howled in the distance. Oil slicked up his arms, dirt caked under cuticles and into metal joints. Whether they were tense and slow from the cold or overuse, he couldn’t tell. His body probably needed to be rewound after so many units standing, but the work was invigorating. It was his own well of energy both mental and physical, a personal heater of determination. Green dunes, green circuit boards. There is green- viscous, gelatinous- blurring through the edge of his vision. His fingers stalled, but he just smacked his wrist to loosen them. He is exhausted, searching for that well of persistence once so abundant, now lost far behind, ahead, floating in where he is not. Gooseflesh is lost halfway down his spine. Stuck, he is stuck… The sky nettles sing sweet songs every dawn. Deep tones reverberated through his eardrums, flowing through the hallways he called home. The corridors were massive, decorative white-steel amphitheaters with pearl moldings. As he ran, footsteps echoed loud, the uneven beats of small feet zigzagged across open floors. Harsh metallic footfalls come from all directions. Mother took her coffee on the opalescent balcony, to watch for the pale-pink tentacles weaving around each high-rise tower. Her mug’s sickly-sweet scent carried through the light breeze, more vanilla cream and sugar than coffee, the color of the liquid practically melted into the porcelain. She would sit behind him, running perfectly manicured fingernails down his shirt as she hummed in answer to the nettles’ call. A whispered mantra, as if she could speak it into existence, My baby…my sweet…my baby Ista…my sweet baby. Her hand came up to cradle his, one cool palm against chubby, sweaty fingers. Soft flesh met soft flesh. His knee twitches, but the clang is muffled. He can’t move, surrounded by a thickened prison forever a second away from pooling down his throat and into his broken lungs. There is no running here, and the smell is a toxic brine. Stalling amidst the galaxy fills the cockpit with darkness. A neglected cup of coffee sat to the right of the console, dark black inky sludge. There is no vanilla here. Metal fingers drummed odd rhythms against inoperative switches, dim buttons, titanium panels. Taptaptap…tap…taptap…tap… Gravity had no hold on an object suspended and made minuscule in the expanse of space. It must have been a slow spiral. A bored spiral. He was stuck sitting with the knowledge of failure. It’s bitter. An object, a body, a conscious left lying in sludge. Viscous. He let his eyes fall closed, and the whirring of the new mechanism in his left eye vibrated through his skull. He lays here for hours. Days? Years? Nanoseconds? He sat until the life-support alert trilled throughout the ship, ringing through his head and across his wires. A static ringing is just beyond his ears. It is muffled. He stood up, and popped the control panel to manually restart the core. But he can’t move. Can barely peel open his eyes. To faint blinking lights. Green muffles them all. Arms are weighted. Legs frozen. Mind buzzing. Tap…taptap…tap… He’s just exhausted. The faint hum of an engine at the corner of his mind keeps him from sleep, no matter how much the green pulls him towards unconsciousness. When the engine stalled, he couldn’t escape the vitriol at his own failure. Now the stall is constant, a ceaseless restart, always ending in another eternity of failure. I’m sorry I’m so bitter, Mother. I’m just tired.

Trigger Warning: Violence, murder, body horror, manipulation, and sexual assault ENTRY XII: I’ve been found out. My shed has been burned to the ground and everything lost… that is, except my hidden writings. I can’t prove it was Ego, but I can’t fathom another explanation. It had to be her. And the fact that my journals are still safe gives me at least a semblance of comfort. I’ve still got a shot of finding out who I was before Ego. And yet, I find myself at another strange crossroads. Today, I saw her use her research to create the most magnificent serum: a cure for everything. She explained to me that releasing such an invention would make the world’s economic structure implode, but that she would find another solution. I’m starting to question what her intentions are. Is she a practitioner of chaos, or does she have a noble cause she’s striving to fulfill? Does she see her experiments in life and death as inherently good or evil? Would she even care? ENTRY XIII: How long have I been here? I have no idea. ENTRY XIV: I don’t like the medicine she keeps feeding me. ENTRY XV: I wish I could go home. ENTRY XVI: I don’t have a home. ENTRY XVII: My memory of the past few months is fleeting. I’m trying to piece things together from the anecdotes I was able to jot down, but I’m not making any sense. My recent writings are all gibberish. I returned to my earliest entries, reading through my recollections about my brother and a life I don’t know. It stands to reason that I’m further than ever from recovering my past, now that I have more recent and pressing matters to remember. Alter Ego has me in a strange limbo between love and hate, though admittedly, I can’t figure out why. My feelings have always eluded common sense, but what I feel toward Ego is particularly baffling. Her studies are becoming less and less repulsive to me, and in turn, so is she. I know the direction I’m being pulled in, and I know it’s not for the right reasons. I don’t want to love her. She will kill me. But I can’t stop myself. ENTRY XVIII: We drove out into the neon city at night, letting the colors glide over the gloss of the Trigger. Ego drove, slowly and tensely, as rain pelted the windshield. The car started to make a low and ominous hum, causing Ego to grow frustrated. She pulled the car into a dark alley, and motioned for me to stay inside as she got out to check out the noise. Comforted by being alone for the first time in ages, I drifted off to sleep. The walls smelled like mildew and the floor was sticky with beer. An awesome sound radiated; a stack of Marshall speakers started to make the whole room shake. I pointed my fingers out to the small crowd of about seven people—a completely captive audience—and shouted into a mic. “We’re the Fuck Objects, and we shoot motherfuckers like you!” A cataclysmic sound of rock ‘n’ roll permeated a New York basement. The heavy vibrations shook me down to my core, as I felt a song pour out of me. It was next to impossible to hear the lyrics over the speakers, but some did come through. “...And I, I know a place Where no-one is likely to pass! ...Oh, you look so tired… And if it’s the last thing I ever do I’m gonna get you!” I started to recall these words from somewhere before, and I was violently swept out of my vision. When I woke up, I felt my whole body shaking. Ego was still outside in the beating rain, pouring a strange metallic liquid into her car. I curled back up, embraced by the heat of the interior, and drifted into a dreamless sleep. I have new information to look into, and am finally making progress again. ENTRY XIX: I found some time away from Ego, and returned to New Jersey. At the record shop, Boogie’s, I started a conversation with the shop owner. He was an older gentleman with a bit of a hunch, but moved quickly and lively through the store, carrying a crate of records he was stocking. “Would you be able to help me find a song?” “Sure, kiddo, what artist are we talking about?” “I have no idea, I only have lyrics.” I took out my journal to show him. “Ah, that’s a Morrisey song. Didn’t you used to cover that before you got signed?” “Signed?” The man stopped in his tracks, and looked me over. He frowned slightly, with a distant sadness in his eyes. “You’re not Gary Gaa, are you?” “Sorry, I don’t know who that is.” He set his records down. “Part of me was hopeful that I was seeing him again. Gary was such a great kid, but I suppose it has been almost a decade since he’d gone...you look just as I remember him.” The man sifted through a row of records, and pulled out a 7” vinyl with a beat-up sleeve. He told me to “take this into the back and listen to side-B. You’ll find Gary’s vision.” I put headphones on and placed the needle down. There was a thunderous sound, and a sickly-sweet voice came over the speakers. His voice was a vision in white and gold: an angel with a jagged-edge dagger. I sobbed, even after the track ended and the ambient sound of static took over. I felt someone stand in the doorway, and heard the old man speak to me. “You can come here and listen to that any time, kid. You won’t find that kind of sound on any other single in the world.” ENTRY XX: I’ve been returning to the creatures in Creation Forest during some of my free time. My favorite place to go is the lake at night, when it glows fluorescently against the dark of the woods. I wonder if Ego’s creations find it as cathartic as I do. Recently, I’ve watched Ego do a lot more experiments on aliens than humans. I’m not exactly sure how she obtains a lot of these creatures, but she works on them just the same. She is most often dissecting them to store their different body parts and organs in her massive walk-in freezer. I can’t say I’m particularly looking forward to our next inventory, with all of these new items to document.

He stands in the red hall, Follow his arms, asking you to complete the tasks in his call. He builds up a high wall, Worship his charm, the only thing you need to know is his law. He watches you through ubiquitous eyes Respect his guide, no one gets a place to hide. He confronts you with fabricated lies, Honor his pride, even if he never hears your cries. He demands that you love the land beneath your feet, Exhausting your life, only traitors will flee. He is the eternal obstacle in your fight to be free, Struggle until you die, while he still stands in the red hall. He dedicated his life to the revival of the nation for years, Only, No country could be rising in swears. No party could be as great in fear. No people could be revived in tears.

Planktos [πλαγκτός] is an adjective with varying translations depending on where you look. Among them: “drifter”, “wandering”,“errant”. One of these is an apt name for you. It’s hard to say what size, shape, or color you are; if your trophic level is photosynthetic, carnivorous, or recirculatory; whether you are a massive colonial organism or just a singular microscopic cell. But, there is one thing you know. There is no control. You move only where the push of the water takes you, and what is your life beyond that? First, a drifter. The word implies a slow ambiance. A kind of peace, even in the way it is said: drifter. Soft and gentle. Here, there is warm water, light in salinity, pulling you away from its cold, dense counterpart lying below. These currents cover you like a warm blanket. In a sleepy haze, you can let their natural movement take you wherever. You can float on for endless days, and the sun fills you with its bright-green nutrients: delicious. It's like lime juice-fresh squeezed and tart across your body. It’s hypnotizing. You don’t know how long you’ve stayed like this. Two weeks and five months feel practically identical. It’s probably a good idea to try and actually plan something, find out when your lease expires, or look into an actual long-term job. But phosphorescence is just so nice; the panic fades away so much easier as long as you don’t stop. There is the faint realization that if you were to snap out of it, everything would come tumbling down. You’ll end up surrounded and lost, eaten, broken down by foreign digestive enzymes until no trace of you even remains, and your legacy lives on in nothing but oxygen and unfinished google docs. You don’t know, maybe that’s just what it’s like in your early twenties. Next, the wandering. This one suggests a calling of sorts. But you can’t quite figure out where it’s coming from. Horizontally, you are still at the mercy of whatever direction the universe decides. But vertically, you start to get the feeling your routine is a little more stable. Up and down, up and down…the surface is not always a myth. You see it in the corner of your vision, meaning a change is coming. You exist only in the twilight - that comfortable bubble of darkness that has provided safety all these years. The best thing about this twilight: it lets you feast. Gorge yourself on those smaller than you happily in the assurance of your own void. It doesn’t matter what you’re consuming, for all you know, it could be your lost children you’ve never met. After all, you were once a smaller being fighting for survival in the darkness. This food, as delectable and choice as it is, means what you once feared most is the reality for another. You could still meet the same fate, there’s something bigger than you out there. And something bigger than that, and something bigger than what’s bigger than that. There’s an entirety of a vast unknown that could engulf everything you’ve ever known in a second. To your right, there is a speck. Or a star. Or a snack. You can mosey on over and find out which. Lastly, to be errant. It’s harsh, both its consonants and implication. You are incorrect. You have strayed from the proper path, and are now bound to be forever traveling. Now, it is not solely the wafting of the waves or the cosmic wind that controls you, but the search for an adventure. As each new day rises, you pull shining armor over your parapodium, and hold your sweet circlet close to your aortic arch, treasuring the delicately interlaced turtles and true loves. As you stare at your one true possession, you let dreams fill your mind. One day you will be honored and remembered for noble actions, not lost potential. You will be traveling no more and return to a beloved home. In a room hearth-lit and warm, you will rest your weary body in your favorite soft chair, long faded with use. As your eyes will grow heavy, your love will kneel down beside you, snickering at your eternal sleepiness. You will gently hold him, enfolded in your arms, and you will kiss him with all the kindness and courtesy you know. Upon his head will shining glint the interlaced doves. He will give you all that is his, and you will return all you have received to him. Your ocelli open, revealing the cold eternity of your surroundings. Oh, Sir Gawain, sweet little worm, today you must float on. Upwards there is space. Downwards lies the oceans. Equal and opposite mysteries, each their own dark pressure cookers of the unknown. Specimens of the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans have survived years of extraterrestrial exposure. So really, who can say what is possible? Are there anglerfish swimming among the stars? If we stare long enough at microscopic worms, will we see courtly love? To think that you know where you are, what you are, and where you are going is a lie. You just move where the water takes you.

Each room is a miniature for some larger doll house. All pleasure. Every room is devoid of air—just objects—not lived, but performed. Used. Every appliance does a thing when used. The heater turns on, the stove turns on, the coffee grinder turns on, the faucet turns on. Sensations—nothing special about that. It is as if the power were to go off, she too would be halted. The singular track connecting each room suddenly there. Kitchen stuff. Bathroom stuff. Bedroom stuff. Living room stuff. The hallway—nothing happens there except her. She happens to walk. Oh yes, that is a possibility. The couch—she happens upon one afternoon. To sit. No joy because a potential too mighty for a small purpose: which is to relax. . . . That is a possibility.

I am not anywhere, Somewhere in the south. Somewhere in the south, You said I’d be a good mother. That, And another, still. Holy, Pouring from your mouth. Holding me, In the red of my room. God, I want to fuck him. God, I want to destroy him. Exclamation point. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is my country of pain. This is God’s Country. I am just a woman. I always have been. Some things are always there, In God’s Country. I give in a little too easily. He picked me up And slammed my head into the mattress. It would have been the wall If that’s where the wall had been. On Orthodox Easter I get up at six to cook. I pretend he’s coming to eat. YiaYia doesn’t cook anymore It’s up to me. But I am not anywhere. Somewhere, In God’s Country.

I think a lot about my funeral When I was a kid, I had a ridiculous fear of death - Which I later discovered was a symptom of childhood trauma– Anyways, I remember being as young as a toddler when I cried to my mom about how scared I was to die. "That's not gonna happen for a long time, sweetheart," she'd tell me And I would always reply that you can never know. I’ve seen multiple people from my childhood pass on already and I'm not yet 21. I'm grateful that there hasn't been anyone too close to me, but it still comes to my mind at least once a year that there are people who I played with on the play- ground that are no longer here. I try not to think about it, and I try not to bring it up because it's depressing, and people don't like to talk about depressing stuff; especially when it's not about someone close to them. But I can't help but think about mortality these days. I think the scariest part for me is the implication that I could cease to exist. Like, I hate existing for more reasons than I care to disclose, but I'm here, existing already. I want my existence to be on my own terms, you know? Not because of circumstance, or freak incidents, or when my body decides to give up before me. I don't know. I guess it's something you just eventually accept. Or not. It will happen either way. You can never know. Maybe I'm just a control freak. I don't mean to accidentally offend religious folks or anything by saying all of this. But last year, I read somewhere that death and funerals are performative because everyone says they're for the deceased, but they're for the living. It's a comfort to see that people will be sad for you, for sure. I don't know. I want my flowers now. If it's for the living anyways, I want my funeral to be a big party. Maybe I can get a few more good memories out of the little kids who will have to come with their aunt.

There is an intimacy to collecting the pieces of a life. Fragments, letters, journals — narratives split and divided. Truth in small moments connected through time. Time folds. Time binds. Time collapses. One moment strung across a sea. Change exists within fragments. An empty cocoon. A child’s toy left in the garden. An unfinished quilt set over the back of a couch. We take note of fragments. The small moments. We notice when our friend stops wearing the pair of earrings they were given last Christmas. We notice when our child becomes too heavy, too old to keep carrying around in our arms. We notice when our patterns change. Our bodies are split in time. I write to myself from past to present and present to past, all with the future thrown in for good measure. What does it mean to imagine a future? Is it sleek skyscrapers or dusty, desert roads? What does it mean to imagine a past? Is it candlestick holders stuffed into a single suitcase? Or a photo filled with people whose names you can’t quite remember? Our futures and pasts are not just our own. We share these things with our ancestors, our descendants, our kin. We do not exist in a vacuum. We are linked. Across time, across that sea. Or maybe we are a single being split into a family line. Time collapses into a moment, a single fragment. Time divides into generations. We stitch it back up with letters and words. We look for patterns and embellish them with memory. But everything collapses eventually. Fragments are thrown into the sea. We are left to paddle in the waves and build something new. Our fragments, the little moments from our lives, wash up on a shore. Glass tumbled through time, catching the eye of the sun. Sooner or later, a child will pluck a handful of these fragments from the sand. It will be their turn to hold the past and future and present within their fingertips.

I wish there was a boy to write poetry about me I wish I were a boy to write poetry about

We were still children when we learned about boys and girls. She told me that she found out how babies are made. Mommy’s and Daddy’s kissed, which is why boys are so yucky. “Boys aren’t yucky!” I told her. “Of course you would say that,” she replied, “you're a boy but you aren’t a yuck- ie boy. You can't get me pregnant.” “Yes I can! I'm a boy.” Then she looked at me and said, “Mmm maybe, but you don't have boy parts?” That was one of the first times I felt true absence, an absence that never really left. At times I feel absence when I look in the mirror. I never saw a Chinese face until I looked at my own. When I realized that, I started to seek out my mother tongue The words fall into me like water flows into a stream; only, when I open my mouth to give them physicality, I feel their absence. A s if there’s love that I have never been able to touch. Like the ghost of a mother holding her son. Or maybe the linger of a grasp that I was pulled away from. I have felt as though it’s been hard for people to see me in color. In this space where nothing is supposed to exist, I am there. Not because I want to be, but because I have always been. And I know nothing else. I may think to myself, should I try and change this void’s definition? Not because I want to, but because I have to? Am I allowed to try to make more space for myself? Not because I have always been strong enough, but because I’ve always had to be. How did I go from being a little boy to someone who must ask for permission to exist? Who am I asking?