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BOYFRIEND VILLAGE

BOYFRIEND VILLAGE

The Fox Boyfriend

Tender Grapes

Helen Armstrong

“Not all boyfriends were foxes, but all foxes were boyfriends. All foxes belonged to somebody, and it was up to that -body to decide what to do with their fox. Except when it was up to the fox // people get killed by their boyfriends all the time.”  

And yes I will
have this act again

Emilie Menzel

“I will see it through like a whimper, cold shoulders in the pond, its scent decomposing too strongly odored like a fox, this flesh, unruly.”  

A Beast Needs
to Hunt and I
Must be Caught

Elaine Hsieh Chou

“My huli jing has a fetish for human flesh. He thinks we are playing a game. He douses my hair in fermented bean curd and anoints my teeth in pickled gingerroot. How we root and root!”  

from GULF
EPISTOLARY

Erin Slaughter

“Dear P:

There’s nothing new to say about the ocean, that grotesque centipede. It’s ugly, sloshing prayer—
which is the noise of us, and is in us.”  

Second Nightingale
#22 & #60
 

Lo Kwa Mei-en

“Me and my body, which was, in the beginning, a generosity.”
*
“Rivered by waste, baptized in blood—if a man had also gone under, he carned / My devotion, its three hearts plattered and heaving on the busted mirror.”

Let (((This Be The Verse)))

Elana Lev Friedland

“You get involuntarily committed because you can’t stop thinking everyone is talking in code.
You end up in the hospital.
You are in the psychiatric ward and everyone is speaking in code.
You end up in the psych ward and everyone speaks in code.”

Amends 

Rage Hezekiah

“You taught me   to foster rage   momentum

      on the inside    of my woman body

a vascular anthem.”

Take My Hand
for the Wild Hunt
 

Kathryn McMahon

“My fox is English and looks like Elizabeth Taylor on a skateboard. When we know each other but don’t know each other, we share a hotel room for a friend’s birthday getaway. I don’t yet know my roommate is a trickster.”

if the problem persists,
restart & how
to move states

Kinsey Cantrell

“Upon deciding to live again the body doesn’t. tightens. shrivels. it’s almost funny this missing / of the memo. the limbs numb, are dragged. the appetite ceases. the thighs are given a vigorous / shake. come back to life, says the shaker.”

The Two Princes

Jaime Alysha

“After a most terrible thing, I met a man in the dark.

but first you must slay me.”

Sounds

Sharanya Sharma

“if we cock our ears just right we snag my 
mother’s tongue spilling over. waterfall  
of ecstatic shrieks. demolition chants  
crack glass windows.”

from THE MOAN WILDS

Caroline  Rayner

“Shut the porch when I go out and ruin another fucking dress. Gravel this time. What does / 
magnolia have to do with it. What does mimosa.” 

Soba

K.B. Carle

“Buckwheat flower veils the hand of the black woman in the window. She draws the attention of crowds who leave fingerprints upon her reflection. Gaze as her hands form cylinder towers she destroys with her fists.”

True/False

Matthew Mahaney

” ___    The shadow of a farm is perfectly cast.
  ___    A digital forest will always be audible.
  ___    Weather tables are coded in threes.
  ___    Any contagion can revert to its cause.
  ___    A mother’s script will always slant.”

Lucinda 

Uma Dwivedi

“Lucinda is a great girlfriend. She tells me I’m pretty. Always, darling, you’re so pretty. I go red. No one has ever called me pretty before. I say thank you. I touch my chin to my collarbone and stare at my hands, folded in my lap. She glances over at me from the driver’s sea and laughs. I look up at the way her hair falls on the pale skin of her shoulders. I love looking at Lucinda and Lucinda loves how I look at her.”

featuring art by:

Mariah Bell 

Wine, 2016

Untitled, 2019

Untitled, 2019

 

Masthead

Editor, Boyfriend Village: Sammi Bryan

Editorial Team: Mark Galarrita and Jackson Saul

Fox Illustrations: Grey Lajoie

Design: Sammi Bryan