“Holding Up the Circle” by Jordy Lynch

Posted on by forumccsf

Here is a preview of Jordy Lynch’s Holding Up the Circle, which will be published in our Spring 2013 issue. Jordy read the piece at the release party for Forum‘s Fall 2012 issue, video from which can be viewed below.

Holding Up the Circle

by Jordy Lynch

I looked up.

Clouds spread out across the sky, covering any blue the atmosphere usually reflected, resulting in a range of dark and light grey.  The mottled sky peaked through treetops and around rooftops.

I was walking to the lake, the usual sounds of gunfire absent today. The gun range across the lake was only open on Wednesdays and Sundays. I think it was a Tuesday. I always wondered why the lake in the city would have a gun range attached to it, but the lake absorbed any missed rounds. Plus the water acted as an excellent surface for the gunshot reports to travel on, and I enjoyed the periodic noise of the firing range.

Continue reading “Holding Up the Circle” by Jordy Lynch

“White Matter” by Natalie Enright

Posted on by forumccsf

Here is a sneak peak of Natalie Enright’s White Matter, a story of love and loss, which will be published in our Spring 2013 issue. Natalie read the piece at the release party for Forum‘s Fall 2012 issue last Friday, video from which can be viewed below.

White Matter

by Natalie Enright

His alarm sounds loudly. She barely reacts. She was already awake. The sound of waves crashing outside their window and wind swirling reminds her of a childhood memory; a day at the beach when she lost her beloved stuffed animal. The memory ends as soon as it begins. It was just an image of a little girl in a bathing suite crying next to a woman holding her hand. The smell of brine precedes the sun peeking through the open window of the tiny room. The smell comes through the screened window down the bedroom wall across the carpeted floor and up the mattress lying on the floor, up the other wall and out the window back to the ocean. She is never up this early.

He exhales as he lifts the blanket off his body and then lifts himself up and to the edge of the bed, then turns the alarm off on the floor. The blanket folds over back towards her and a breeze from the open window kisses her exposed thigh. He stands up and leaves the room quietly. She throws the cover over herself and slips underneath. The bed is cold without him. Her body follows a current of sheets moving towards the foot of the bed. She finds a spot still warm from where he was lying and rests her body in the space he left behind. She is listening to him getting dressed and then him moving his things down the hallway to the front door. She wonders if he noticed that she was awake. She feels the undertow of her sensitivities and hopes it will pass and lead back to sleep. Instead she resurfaces to the edge of the blanket at the head of the bed to listen to him leave. He opens the door and carefully carries two bags with him. His keys jingle as he turns the lock and then she listens to his footsteps fade away. It’s too early to say goodbye.
Continue reading “White Matter” by Natalie Enright

“Queer Kids” by Nic Alea

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Queer Kids

by Nic Alea

i wish i was open apothecary fluid solution
graced across your forehead,
i could have watched you grow
like the backbone to a raven,

a summertime storm brought raging
into square shaped bedroom,

grandfather clocks gone ancient
fox tails wrapped up in your gloves,

i do not know what you did to your hands
but your arms were all cut up

every inch open up
like you needed all the secrets to seep through,

shape shifter you,

you know, child,
it’s easy to rip open,

no intention of getting sewn back together
blind folded coffin and a stack of letters

to be burnt by the writer of your eulogy,
no one should have been at your funeral this young,

this year, this age, too young,
before queer could turn golden,

before faggot could turn reclamation,
before pink triangle was a prison symbol,

before it all,
you were gone before it all,

you were just a baby
with a key hole mouth,

spit on and shoved out,
stampede and a body full of live organs,

i saw a woman with all your names tattooed onto the back
of her legs, buzzer but no ink

just scarification of you and you and you,
and the way they preyed on your bodies

prayed like the forest was howling
your coming out story,

while they grew teeth
to rip at your throat,

often i didn’t know
often i couldn’t have told you that,

you are not safe just because it’s san francisco,
you are not safe even if you wrap your growing limbs

around the base of their violence,
i can’t summon anyone here to save you,

they need to rewrite the textbooks
with clean cursive and a method of action,

you were young with skeleton closet already
dust caught all up in your throat,

you weren’t taught in school
that there are others like you,

we weren’t taught in school
that there are others like us,

i wasn’t taught in school
that there are others like me,

they don’t teach the queer kids
how to be brave in school,

they teach the queer kids
how to hang themselves from
creaking rafters in their parents houses,

they teach the bullies how to sharpen
their weapons, vocal chords and

how to tie noose knots for
the soft part of your neck,

they need to rewrite the textbooks
to include all the invisibility,

they need to teach
that there is no reason to think

we are any different, they need to show us that
being bent isn’t an open invitation to get beat up,

because our hearts are still all full of blood,
doesn’t that account for anything?

i’m going to try to come to you
bearing thread and a pocket of thimbles,

i can’t promise you anything,
not even red roses to make your swollen lips smile

as you pull wilted hawk feathers
like the silence that’s still shoved down your throat.

Nic Alea is a poet, student of life, seeker, femmefag, gender witch, introvert, stone collector, feminist, crafter, always and never. nic co-hosts new poetry mission: the new shit show 2nd and 4th thursdays at viracocha sf.
Audio of “Queer Kids” can be found below.