YANG LIANTING REDUX by Celeste Sea
October 10, 2021
After the first time we fucked, she pissed on me. A whim. It had felt sacred, hot and vicious, and we’d laughed as the piss slid down onto my waiting tongue.
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X-R-A-Y LITERARY MAGAZINE | COLLECTION VI | DAISUKE & LIZ’S SPECIAL QTPOC ISSUE
October 9, 2021
Stories by Celeste Chen, Marilyn Hope, Luz Rosales, Ali Raz, Elias Chen, Stella Lei, and Jiaqi Kang, edited by Daisuke Shen and Liz Crowder, with art by Bob Schofield. click the image for the PDF
YOU MET DEATH ON LEX by Vi Khi Nao + Jessica Alexander
October 8, 2021
and asked her to meet you at a hotel in Brooklyn You would not meet her in Vegas where the sounds of your mother’s movements came through the walls between your rooms Meanwhile, in another state Death courted our brothers on Uber and Grinder As you removed one blind eye from the invisible pocket of your black bra You realized that your memory of your brother had an invisible purse With its zipper sewn on its side and its contents were pennies or wishes So when they hit the surface of your eye the world you knew rippled Back then
ZAC SMITH on Normal Life with REBECCA GRANSDEN
October 7, 2021
What is an ordinary day? With our days increasingly under analysis, it’s a reasonable question. Everything is Totally Fine arrives at an opportune time. Zac Smith’s stories are permeated with seemingly mundane events, actions familiar to the everyday, the stuff that makes up life. And life is strange. What do we feel when we think of ordinary days? Nostalgia? Longing? Resentment? Relief? As Zac Smith sat down to write these stories, maybe he had some of these in mind, or perhaps he wanted to forget about them. His ordinary days gave rise to a collection of stories, something he didn’t
GARIELLE LUTZ on film with REBECCA GRANSDEN
October 5, 2021
The way we talk about film, how we digest it, is worth a thought. We “capture” images, we “take” pictures. For those oldest reels, where life skitters in shades of black and white, it’s tempting to view the images as a record, as a window or portal to another time. There is a truth in that. Pointing a camera at people unaware their image is being taken, in that between-time when the medium was new and its nature not widely known, has an unnerving quality. When animals are presented in these infant days of moving image the issue is somehow
KERNEL PANIC by Rebecca Rubenstein
October 1, 2021
When his mind went blank, Benno walked to the water store. Smack-dab in the middle of a strip mall a block downhill from his apartment, it was the kind of place that didn’t pull punches. It sold water, and vessels with which to hold water, and that was it. Water cooler jugs lined the walls on one side, and empty aquariums formed a barricade on the other, and the floors teemed with pallets of imported bottled water—glacier runoff from Iceland and Switzerland and all the lands. Metallic shelving flanked each side of the store, and on those shelves sat sturdy,
TELOGEN EFFLUVIUM by Brooke Middlebrook
September 29, 2021
Is when your hair falls out from stress. Your hair’s heading for the exits but the name rolls off the tongue. Perhaps it’s because I take scalding showers, or I eat too much Annie’s Macaroni & Cheese. Sure, it’s organic, but nothing good for you comes as a powder. The best part is the bunny tail you press to open the box. External forces cause follicles to enter a sleep cycle. Hair loss, when inherited, is called alopecia. The old nature vs. nurture question, like we’re not all tired of that debate. Someone I know is laying in an ICU
HOW TO PRONOUNCE BON IVER by Holden Tyler Wright
September 27, 2021
The day after New Year’s, my neighbor—who strummed his guitar at 2 in the morning singing tone-deaf Beatles covers—asked me for a ride. My other neighbor, Isaac, kept the TV on 24/7, just loud enough to be heard in the corner I pressed my bed into, peppering my nights with laugh tracks. Beyond him, Ruth stayed up knitting. I knew this because she made me an endearingly hideous hat and a too-short scarf. We were all insomniacs. I was the only student among us, and saw my living situation as a stepping stone into something greater. I wondered how the
YOU WANT TO HEAR A LOVE STORY by Ashton Russell
September 24, 2021
He flirted with you at work. You were 16 and he was 23. He would hold his hands behind his back to mimic how you walked away from the server board in the kitchen. Because you were uncomfortable in your own body. Your ass felt too big, the way you walked too bouncy. Sitting at the bar at work eating before the doors opened, he sat down beside you and pushed his hand up your thigh not saying anything. He followed you out to the parking lot up the hill where staff parked. He asked if he could drive your
ALBTRAUM by Corey Miller
September 22, 2021
I coax Mother’s wheelchair through Newark terminal to our United gate. I pray she knows where she is—where she is going. I can’t understand her anymore; sensing death she no longer speaks in English. She dreams of her hometown, Essen, Germany. Unaccustomed mother tongue, I download Duolingo on my iPhone to learn Deutsche. To decipher her code. Returning Mother to her homeland, I use all of my sick days from work, expecting to catch a bug at some point throughout the year. I’ve never traveled outside of America. My passport on the verge of expiring. Mother’s lips are as tight