Sex with Strangers & the Politics of (Dangerous) Sex

by Esihle Lupindo PROLOGUE Sex is a vast language in which we’re all fluent across continents, dialects, cultures, borders, time, and sexualities. A universal language requiring neither translation nor translator. Sex is full of contradictions: so ubiquitous yet so private, almost as if it doesn’t exist. Despite any amount of danger or restrictive policing, it can…

An Echo of Voices

by Anathi Jongilanga Vumani comes to her often these days. His siblings are away: one is married, somewhere in eNgcobo, and three are at work in Kimberley, Cape Town, Jo’burg, and the money they send home hardly covers a month’s groceries anymore. Somewhere along the way, he loses his cell phone, therefore the direct line…

Dear Father

by TJ Benson I have been reading the Bible again, from the New Testament, to know how it feels now that I have abandoned the church. I read about the birth of Jesus and wondered about the shooting star that led the Magi to the town of his birth. As a child, I used to think…

Recipe for Marital Disaster

by Jill Michelle Level: Easy Total Time: 11 years Active: 5 Years Yield: 1 Divorce Ingredients:2 babies lost at 21-weeks1 father with early-onset Alzheimer’s1 father at 90, bedridden in living room hospital bed1 14-year-old witnessing all of this2 depressed spouses23.5 daily hours of silence between them0 meaningful topics addressed0 snuggling0 sex Directions: Fuck if I…

Palestine made me Muslim again

by Atia Sattar but it’s less a returnmore a re-calling because when I was bornthe Azaan was whispered in my earand still echoes within because I tuned out Muslim at eighteento the boom of hijacked airplanescolliding with steel, untrainedin mindful listening, untrained in self-love because “I was raised Muslim”wasn’t cutting it everlike I could just…

Editor’s Note | RAGE

Anger is loaded with information and energy. Audre Lorde Dear reader, This issue seeks to perform a chromatography of anger, showcasing its intersections with other emotions and social dispositions. We attempt to defend & redefine anger that may otherwise be shunned/stunted in “polite” society. How often must we restrain our rage to accommodate the “legitimate”…

Editor’s Note | Place

Dear Reader,  Often, our encounters with place can be misconstrued simply as background or setting. This issue seeks to redefine place in multitudes. Place, in this issue, is a rich texture of landscapes. As you peruse this issue, you will find yourself in mosques, tea shops, rivers, wild fires, filipino supermarkets, classrooms, garden soil,  homelands,…

Editor’s Note | Punk

It’s rare to find writing that convincingly represents the world of punk—of show-going and show-playing; of earnest and eager youth; how formative and life-giving it can be to sing and dance in a room of crowded people—but the pieces published in this issue engage with music in a way that feels reliable, lived in. Jennifer…