issue-16

You wash ashore,    cheeks sun-bleached,half-obscured              by a burst    of barnacles                 as brine rushes in           the gash             of your neck, and out. Unbodiedmust feel like living anew. If I pry                 the shells open, is there anythingbeneath the undulations           on your eye? But there is nothingto worry about; ugliness    is not a fault—to exist,            undesired,                 unbothered. Within,         let go of your needto squelch            through folds among folds        for the algae bloom.How many nights       have you longed for a body              of land never claimed, oncethe wasting flesh of the old had drowned?                                       Was it ever            a dream that youwould be                                    a muse,sprawled over a beach towel;                                    a beloved,bikini untied in the heat of summer;                                    an image,couched between horizon and shore.You would have been        unharbored elsewhere.   Of course, let us     be honest, you are regurgitatedby the ocean herself,         a skull of what remainsof a siren’s call. Here       you are, and here I am, lured                   by how appalling you are.   Rayji de Guia is a fictionist, poet, and illustrator. Her work can be found in Asian Cha, harana poetry, The Pinch, and elsewhere. She was a poet resident…