Love me back—and if you can’t, then say so, and let me go with whatever peace I can salvage. Assia Wevill, “Ted Hughes, March 1968,” She did not sign the letter but, at the bottom of the page she drew a dying bird, with outspread wings,                                                                                                                             looking like a woman who had jumped from a […]

Yusuf Akman was born in Denizli, Turkey. They are a senior philosophy student at Boğaziçi University whose literary focus revolves around what having a queer identity in Turkey is like. Their works appeared in the online journals Trampset, Raised Brow Press, Resurrection Magazine and Cypress Press.Twitter: @Akman_Yusuf_

INTRO: these untitled pieces are from an in-progress but almost finished chapbook called “marbling,” which happens to be about absolutely fucking soul-crushing sorrow. the gray days are the most difficult;the days when nothing really feelsreal – least of all you. it’s a differentkind of quiet, a different kind of coldand both of them, piercing. time […]

The true church never died, I have found a sect ancient beyond ancestry: itinerant priestesses in ramshackle booths who listen through gauzy walls and tally your actions. In a tiny city stacked on terraces the citizens come each morning to confess, divulging their blessings as well as their sins. Absolution and indulgences cost the same […]

“Oh my god” Fuck time zones and fuck what hour or day it is the question should always be is the sun or moon up where you are?the answer will always be yes  An addendum: fuck the clock  Patti Smith wore it first, look it up. On Instagram she’s always posting pictures of her handwriting or coffee or the moon […]

My cousins had their own rooms. Each one ofThem; they lived in a big house. They went toSchool in uniforms. Had a dog. RowingPractice. Ballet lessons. They drank enoughMilk. Usually when one of them out-grewSomething, their mother would give it to mine.For me. Why throw it out when somebodyCould use it, right? They gave her […]

Lobster’s Predicament Lobster snails between  narrow avenues of sea  for the better part of his life. He refuses to seek out the challenges  above him, numerous  opportunities that have sunk  too far down to reach. Routine is his manacle, cocooned in a carapace on top of the shell he already bears. Little does Lobster know, […]

it was when it all started  dandelions and the crows  filled odes in notebooks, magic  mirror from the valley ushered in  new and useful tools of trade or commerce, rather this was capital, a valid argument speak up, say                   for the downtrodden                                         wasp: sing-songing honeysweet self                -care        sonnets what’s not to like        ?       share amongst the coven or                network                  in -crease your […]

I built a windowless house out of myselfat the edge of the cliff,where the front door drops,into the mouthof the ocean.The heavy waves keep comingfor me mercilessly; few more smacksfrom their belt, against the crumbling ground beneath,and not so long until they topple my walls.As they reach my threshold, the bird perched over my ridgesays […]

she slept,but her soul was not at rest.beside her, a drone. on guard, armedwith a gun, like a thornto a rose. a sting of wasps invaded her hive.and though they clipped her wings,her dreams propelledher escape. maybe in her dreamsshe met her future selfa sovereign womanconjured from the spellssticking to her Post-its. maybe in her dreamsshe worked a night shift where […]