[A Literary Magazine]
[ Issue #2 ]
Liam Strong
self-portrait
take a selfie
in the mirror
with him.
take a picture
of the mirror.
stick your
tongues out together.
his head is a head
above you. a reflection
is a lack
of creativity. what’s a faggot
if not a series of
errors & trials. what’s a faggot
but a gathering of little
birds flapping toward
the sun. what’s a faggot
without a ministry.
oh. that’s right. just
another matchbook
waiting for fire or friction
or both.
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​
what my father & i don’t talk about
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​
family recipes passed
down from your great grandmother
(i had to ask my aunt for them)
what we look at when we look out
the window of your Dodge Ram: for you,
shoddy vinyl siding
jobs, places to hunt, a new
wife;
for me, the boy on the other
side of the road, tight
dark jeans, clean shaven, femme-
stepped, femme-chisel, femme torso
like a matryoshka doll spindled
onto another body
how we like our eggs
cooked
my new fashion style, why my voice
changes for some people,
trilled like a dark-eyed junco
why you can’t buy new clothes
for yourself, why mom used to buy your wardrobe
from Dunham’s why
your house is blue
why i don’t say our house anymore
how i can’t be a bitch because of
my penis
trust me, i’m a bitch
(& so are you)
how we’re not all dicks
if we don’t use our turn
signals
the phrase “straight as an
arrow”
the phrase “scared straight”
how i’m only scared
when in your vicinity
how i’m only
straight when in your
vicinity
how the arrow never fails
its target
why my sister accidentally calls me
they instead of him
how your chin swivels like a reclined
office chair at this vagueness
how there are actually many of me,
dad
look, there must be a way for me to explain this to you
you don’t even have a bible, but we definitely don’t talk
about it either way
if god could have three forms, can’t i have more
than one
ghosts
yeah, ghosts
how you’re not superstitious, but totally are,
because our silence fogs up
the windshield, prevents us from seeing the fox
in the road we’re about to make
a funeral out of
how you’re always hitting me with your truck,
its rusted hulk undamaged somehow, how its
your baby, a vehicle as old as me, how
the truck is you, how it’s never been
replaced, how it’s so stuck in two-wheel drive
that you can’t remember what
the other settings feel like
how you snarl at rainbows
in a flag
but not at the sky
maybe god, maybe
mom, maybe what’s the difference to you
how you feel about mom
killing herself
i know how you felt about her,
i know that much
how the farm roads
are filled with blood,
weed-whipped grass, cairns
of cherry pits,
how i want more than black tartarians
blotching my thighs
how i’m the unholy
ghost, dad, i’m the miscarriage, i’m your
fear, your not-son, the college degree
you never had,
your fag
how i’m not the one
who’s a pussy watching
horror movies (it’s you)
it’s not the blood i love
it’s the blood i want
to love
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Liam Strong (they/them) is a queer neurodivergent cottagecore straight edge punk writer who has earned their B.A. in writing from University of Wisconsin-Superior. They are the author of the chapbook everyone's left the hometown show (Bottlecap Press, 2023). You can find their poetry and essays in Impossible Archetype and Emerald City, among several others. They are most likely gardening and listening to Bitter Truth somewhere in Northern Michigan. Find Liam on Twitter and Instagram: @beanbie666