DEAR READER, Sometimes medusas aren’t laughing– they’re writhing. Though the word is not specifially mentioned in accounts of Medusa’s gruesome death by Perseus’ sword, the visual evoked is one of violent, physical discomfort: our Medusa, writhing in pain. Even the brightest of days this year often seemed overshadowed with the tinge of all-encompassing destruction, and the sudden loss of the familiar evoked in many of us a visceral reaction. Like Medusa, we are writhing: squirming in discomfort at the sudden destruction of the familiar and at the anticipated exhaustion of the task of rebuilding. This year highlights our interactions with this pain–this redefinition– and the various ways we work through it– by loving, hating, grieving, and, in the midst of it all, creating. If something in this world makes you writhe, pick up a pen and submit to our zine next year. In the meantime, submit your polished literary fiction, poetry, and art to The Laughing Medusa – our 2021 spring publication – by emailing bclaughingmedusa@gmail.com.
cover art: cinematic nightmare, natasha zinos (she/her)
metal mouth my eyes are swollen and hot and all you want to do is take the padded flesh of your index finger over the wrinkles. am i old to you, i’ll ask, drunk off a smile and high on a shifting ego when people drink me in as fast as a shot. because that’s all i’ll ever be. throw back your head for the cake slice of an exposed throat. this is inescapable, i am tantrum taught, soaked in a sodden tea bag twilight, a forgotten nothing nobody to disregard, and i can’t stand on the table anymore. because i’ve got tarantulas crawling up my esophagus like acid reflux and i can’t help but gag on the therapy—but the hands come and go, nights stretch into the carpet, rock climbing my knees and i am skinned. to the bone. they know my yeses are nos but they convince themselves that maybe i’m just a silent sleeper strangling my neck to make it pass faster— you said it was okay you said it was okay you said yes— claw out my hair and say yes on twisted record repeat and ask what they want—i want you to want it— then i want it. it never matters, i’ll get off on the metal teeth tomorrow morning because didn’t you know? i’ve always been a biter. izzy baldwin they/them
boaz, blood moon (post-op) hopped-up on hydrocodine, two less wisdom teeth in my troublemaking mouth, i stumble down the porch steps, walk around barefoot in the yard. chiggers begin to bite and i don’t care– the blood moon is full and rising; coyotes numerous as leaves stir in the distant thickets; listless i pace over roots and ancestral bones ache with potential, loneliness and later, vow to learn arabic the precise moment i prick my tongue on a potted cactus (it’s important to try everything at least once, my mother would tell me at the dinnertable). i taste the metal in my blood and long for magnetic, electric, to once again be imbalanced isotopically, be obviously fucked-up so people will believe it– blood pouring from my mouth, arm purple from the IV & messy, spattered on floor, spikes stuck in my tongue, moral compass nipples poking east&west, believe it, believe it now, here is my heart, body, blood, poured out into a tall iced glass for y’all and now i’ll proceed to save everyone but myself and resurrect tuesday morning as a humble gardener and mary martha will cry until they realize who i am without the blood and thorns and run to get the others and when they all come to see
i’m gone crossing the desert in my bare scarred feet teaching a coyote to love thy jackrabbit enemy every night after my dinner of cactus heart and roasted locust. the porch light flicks on and momma tells me to come back on in, there’s all those dogs howling and they can smell blood, which, good lord, what’d you do to that lip, honey, where are your shoes, would you look at that moon rising.
jennessa bryson she/her
monotize me megan stephenson she/her
la malinche malintzin, malinalli (c. 1500 – c. 1529) your world will paint you in your native colors on one side of the page only to find the reverse in shades of european barcos in your irises. the silver of steel bound weapons mixing with your dress, an ivory huipil draping your figure. you will always be a victim and a traitor, claimed as the mother, the translator. they will always remind you of the son, the child they think you dared to have, the mestizo, the conqueror, the new bloodline you formed with your tongue. the priests will remind you that you are not a mexica god, not coatlicue, not anything other than a woman. and what is a woman, you’ve wondered, if she is not a mother and a stepping stone. your voice has always been your most powerful assent, but history seeks to place your weaponry between your legs. you try to hold your son in your hands, but the man who sowed his seed into you threatens to take your child away from your homeland, out of your arms. your son’s café con leche skin was flushed. wide black eyes that gazed up at you and you couldn’t imagine letting him go. and then, as you’ve sorted his fine curls that surround his face, he’s gone, shipped like semi-precious stones back to the land of white men and royal lineage. you’re left behind, bound to another man. history does not remember you well. they brand you malinchista, traitor, disloyal. la chingada for all time. you toppled an empire with just the air in your lungs and words on your tongue. but you are just a woman. nahua and a doña. malintzin and marina. ghosts with cacao skin and obsidian eyes bound your hands and left you to watch as your land was looted for its open veins of plata y oro. Izzy De Palo Garcia Perez she/her
Military Alphabet Alpha male? Strong and sturdy? Bravo! In the midwest they’re cornfed and called Charlie. If they saw the ocean they’d part it like some great river Delta. Big man dams water! The applause would Echo for miles and miles and the president would throw a party and the young man would Foxtrot, with some young women and marry one, and then, without her, happily play Golf. A weekend of work, he swears, honey! And in a Hotel he sits with briefcase and mistress and calls India, some business deal to screw everyone else. “My Juliett!” Through the front door, kiss wife on cheek, Kilo-ton of gifts but she smells the perfume. Lima beans for dinner, served cold, not quite revenge. Mike, nice guy, good neighbor, leans over the picket fence to talk, “November soon huh? We got our guy running!” New dog next door, they named it Oscar. He cost 2k but he’s not housebroken so they’re taking him to the pound. “Papa!” someone wails. Mike departs, but leaves the Camels with a wink. Quebec. Another postcard from her sister. Her husband is outside reeking: tobacco and Chanel. Romeo died somewhere on the honeymoon. An older postcard looks at her from the fridge. Sierra Nevada. She thinks back to their best big night: Tango, rose between teeth, White House, war heroes in Uniform. Husband, wedding, she was the triumphant Victor. Too late she realized, not winner but won. Trophy. Stuck and gathering dust. Whiskey in front of the TV every night. She brings it to him. Superman has X-Ray vision, and she is invisible. He cheers Nixon and curses the Yankees and does not notice. He can not see. He does not realize: Zulu versus British. David beat Goliath. He should not get so comfortable in his well-worn chair. katherine ovoian she/her
Activism lauren foster she/her
the global south attends the marriage of gigolo Carlotta sucks my plates clean, Her brillo pad tongue lapping up mezzanine charcuterieShe eats my teeth with madagascan honey, breaks Her china skin with fractured roses when i ask how to spin my clots into velvet rope veins, tells me success is for the ancient something or others and i can barely spell anthropocene. She plucks my eyes out so i can learn how to read Her mind is the tomato in my hand Too ripe for the reapingShe speaks of green assets with wombs for eyes and voids for wombs. Her gaze is melted chocolate in a vacuum. you can’t eat during intermission. She hums the body electric, She’s selling me the orchestra. from the pits sucks cherries i picked from Her breastmarks stages and places hang the rest, this is Her global theater. what’s a producer? the words retire in bali or the alps, as She skis down my throat. invisible hands wind my curtains into fists, platinum cuff my sleeves at the wrist, militarize my outfit (I’m performing). She calls me her coffee bean when She grinds. drinks me liquid with Her tea, cake and lady fingers sliced, whipped, creamed. burns whale oil sweat in Her heat. i’ve never seen the box seats; i am crushed by Her chandelier torrents. a standing O and She can’t even give plaudits. evie robins he/they
dinnertime jennessa bryson she/her
Ghazal: Reflections of A Woman Unbloomed daffodils mimic garlic sprouts: an unstated woman. My first love wore such disguise - I unwittingly dated woman. Second try: we both left previous loves lost to melancholy. You’re silent, blithe, reek of good habits; I am updated woman. Sprawled like a tree in search of sun, you shun the fog of sentiment. I censor my bubbles, flash-mob tears: mind your crazy state, woman. Need your sanction to share my bleeding, my desolate desire. No permission to push you out, gushing blood, by a great woman. Have I ever known you, or men? Assumed too fast same native star. Sip on that draft of enlightenment: graduating late, woman. shi yinuo she/her
Winslow, Homeric an ocean, drowned (to dye) hunger a salt in her captor’s fungiform papillae, that palette knife- paring splatter- spliced splashsputter out A saline cough and a gasp (crest bereft of crash) organza orgasm, her textile texture crushed (velvet) into canvascoercive capture, a rape, incomplete in (tele-) scope. Finished stroke, a strike at the soul of the seascrape linseed licentiously, artistic licencing brackish at best (oil and water), this art of franchising fleeting turbulences (tantric tyranny, trophy trough)fetal aphrodite, aborted autonomyinstant impression, enslaved eternity. essence of a consciousness, The Gulf, Streaming. evie robins he/they
Our Bodies, Ourselves lexie slotterback (she/her)
Red Days Brimming with hot wine, yearning in fear. writhing for your come-hither, convulsing, but in tears. Flooding like an abandoned cave, with no mortal to submerge. Would you dip a toe in these waters plagued? Embrace the stench, the iron-red rust, these pungent innards no longer clean for consumption like a restaurant oyster? My expert teasing finger now summons memories of your cold duality crashing like a metallic sea. Failed to conjure faith. These tartan sheets are austere without your taut pinewood scent. shi yinuo she/her
i lied too when you dragged your cement-caked feet across my hall i should not have praised the stability in your step, should have known that you would never allow yourself to cure. rotten apple boy, skin decaying you begged for someone to believe in you. i held your fragility in my palm, wishing to crush it beneath my boot when it whispered, “always.” i should have asphyxiated it, forced it to beg as i did— should have known that “forever” sounds best rolling off a liar’s blackened tongue but now i sit, knowing you, thinking of the lies that i told too. that you were destined for something more than sand castle enterprise and papier-mâché stars. should have told you that the second you were able to build up your ambitions they would crumble around you because you should have built your home on rock or faith or fucking cement but you couldn’t commit to the permanence. your stars are not exploding or expanding there is no message between their lines. they are staring, stoic— waiting for your next mistake before they crumple up at your feet. no foundation, no fate just a boy who thought he could convince a girl to believe his callous, to disregard the soot and sorrow he tracked across her room. but i will dissolve you from these halls, let my acidity keep you from returning, and smile knowing that you will always be sticky, half-cured, and unloved. lexie slotterback she/her
knit one, purl two jennessa bryson she/her
Divine Femininity No ves como Mujer, but Abuela this is The first time I felt comfortable in my skin, in my body, was when I did not have an inch of hair on my head. This hair does not define my being. I was born a woman, But grew up trying to find phrases that identify me but time showed me, That I would go through phases like the seasons, ever-changing, never bound to norms. So, yes, femme not woman, because I am not here to wooo a man. let’s be honest, Why would a woman wanna live in a man’s world? We dressed up like you, worked like you, only to be treated as less than you. think y’all were mad we did it better than you. Excuse me? No, you cannot tell ME how to dress, or how to act, I am not a docile body, or little doll to play dress up. What’s messed up is that you thought I asked for your opinion.
Since you feel entitled to yours here is mine, Keep telling me you think This isn’t “normal” My expression wasn’t here to make an impression, on whatever norms you needed me to fulfill. My soul is boundless, creating fields of opportunity, for my gender to show all of its colors. .
I might be masculine, but at least I can say that I do not live in the mask you live in So yeah, that “tomboy” in me thrives, every time I assert my dominance into every room I enter.
I will not paint My face to pleasure your picture I am more than my figure yet your words strain my waist to fit your ideal size jeans turning hips into an hourglass wondering attempting to obtain possession this temple holds jewels that you may never treasure but it’s been a pleasure Remind you that: I am my own. I did not ask for your opinion, putting limitations on my demonstration
of Divine Feminity gabriela jimenez-thompson she/her
unkempt crying natasha zinos she/her
Hair-Hacking at 4 A.M. It falls, heavy & compliant, demurely curling, cupping my collarbones. None of it’s necessary. The first snips fall like childhood silkworms munching in unison, black droppings descending a blank abyss. A face of indigo scans my mirrored blubbery form: apple-round gut, transiently supple skin, breasts anticipating my navel, squatted thighs diffusing fat. My lips: a simpering red. Ashen skin stretched, jowls sag from frowning and ice cream. I hide the leering pebbled teeth, tea-brown or yellow. Blade in right hand, dark tresses choked by the left. It’s harder to part with than it seems. Strands swish away when the blades close in. They evade cutting, singing ultra-physical pain. I peaked at fifteen, my hair a typical Chinese bowl, not yet attached to this womanly bull. Still careful, render it fixable. Why, what for? Why, blossom for a rabid panel: a human resource! Arouse, like a toy, the flesh of some detached churl! Begone, this servility! Begone, blighted filth. Trim it to the roots, scalp it whole, end this dawn in a black downpour! It is nice and ugly now. Uneven and numb, like a piece of dog-chomped silk.
Am I now allowed to cry? shi yinuo she/her