Category: Issue Ten

Dear Reader,  This edition of MQR Mixtape is dedicated to disorder in many forms—physical, mental, medical, social, linguistic. It explores the ways we impose order on messy lives and broken bodies so we can continue to exist inside them. Casey Smith puts a needle through her navel. Daniel Pope takes a car ride with Suicide.…

in defense of piercing my navel: after Karla Kelsey i am trying to love my body and myself even though we are both bad at our jobs. listen i need to be feverish about something again. the world exhaled now i’m all alone again. i never got to be 17 i’ll always be 17 hello~…

Into the After *content warning: addiction It was on Twitter. A question that poured like honey from soft shade. Can somebody please just tell me what is going to happen?  Soon everyone was asking the same question to anyone who would listen. The question echoed and rounded the planet, asking, asking, asking: How does it…

Two Poems for Jordan *content warning: suicide If I sat in the Grand River Target parking lot again, I’d gag. We called your Chinese boyfriend on speaker and asked him if Taiwan was a country, then we told him someone from Taiwan was in the room for fun. Wet wet hair. I always have to…

balance after Danez Smith’s “it won’t be a bullet” the dsm says bipolar breeds aggression. holy shit. i used to bite off polly pocket’s clothes & spit the slobbery rubber back in her face. i stripped barbie dolls bare and waterboarded their heads in the sink— egg-cracked faces like mine. jesus. christ. i couldn’t keep…

for when there’ll be remembering in our futures for your hope she’d said her daniel went to become a god for those who’d never seen one hope’s daniel began with poison took a right to their world and then left to the edge to escape her name’d been hope told you from his sin to…

Linda is a Lizard Parisa Karami is an artist living in the Hudson Valley with her family. She has various ongoing projects such as Reyna De La Tierra and Cinema Scenes. Recent works can be seen on media outlets such as McSweeney’s, Northwest Review, Aquifer and Drunk Monkeys. For more information you can visit www.parisakaramipaintings.com.

Body Images *content warning: eating disorders, body dysmorphia The Google Image search for “Egon Schiele self-portrait” lingers among my browser tabs. Working in Austria primarily from 1907 to his death in 1928, Schiele inked dozens if not hundreds of self-portraits. In them, he is often naked, his body dark and twisted and his brow low.…

the knowing *content warning: mention of suicidal ideation I the lamp hangs swaying — my father seeks cover in bedsheets on the couch and it reeks in here. I love him and it reeks in here — of murky waters of bread of I tried but couldn’t of dampness of clothes — II my feet…

meat One afternoon in March the god-fearing wife of Farmer Crouch was making soap on her porch when she heard slap! slap! slap! so on the ground she looked down not 40 steps from her house—and then and there the sky was red, red meat falling from the clouds, three whole minutes of red meat…