Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 33 i Popshot Magazine

In one of the many double rooms along the long hospital corridor, she finds him lying in the faded blue gown, his body disappearing into generic sheets, his face the same as always. He doesn’t speak. She holds his hand. He reaches toward her, a hug, not something they are used to giving each other, and all the more awkward because now she can tell his legs don’t move, that they are dead weight from the thighs down. That his legs aren’t working, when it’s lung cancer he’s got, makes no sense. She comes back each day of the long holiday weekend, with her husband, with her children. They spend time on this side of the curtain, crowded around his bed, not knowing what to say. The children bring artwork,…

I try to pull the glove onto my hand. Too small. I tug it off my fingers, not wanting to tear at the seams. These were my mother’s gloves. My mother’s hands topped with oval nails curved like polished shells. Dainty, even in old age – so unlike mine; square and ruddy like my father’s.“Honest hands,” she’d say, holding them in her own. My mother’s hands grabbing hold of my coat as I ran down the cobbled bank, arms outstretched, the wind at my back, sure that I could fly. They pull me back just in time before I overshoot the pavement. My mother’s hand slapping sharply at the back of my legs, leaving deep red scratches leaking beads of blood as a truck rumbles by. My mother’s hands deftly…

I lie on the floor of the living roomin my family home to play with mytwo year old niece who calls my father nan dad my sixty year old father calls herprincess i’m five when father calls me sissy for wearing wellies on the wrong feet father puts her in a pink dress the human eye can distinguish ten million different colours father teaches her not to colour outside the lines humans arethe only animals who can draw straightlines father taught me how to draw stick men in black and blue their heads empty white spacethree point five billion different men arealive suicide race hate their biggest killers father reads my niece a fairystory which ends happy when the boy getsthe passive girl I’m ten when father calls me a…

She lays them out with care. Every night the same task: his watch, his wallet, his keys. Each morning he searches for them. Wakes her up with cursing. He is sure he left them just there. She lays them out with care. Every night the same task: her hopes, her dreams, her love. Every morning she searches for them. Wakes herself up with screaming. She is sure she had them somewhere. His watch is next to the remote control; his wallet with the whisky. His keys, he eventually finds, in his coat pocket wrapped in a hotel receipt.…

“The family – that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.”– Dodie Smith, Dear Octopus I used to cup the perfect, shiny belly of my bodysuitto gauge how soon a pregnancy would show. A grape, a prawn, a floating seahorse could stay undetectedby adversaries; my secret smile might not. I flew with nausea,I kept my torso safe when there were blades or tentacles around and left all devastation on the hour just to shoot myselfwith FSH (break vial, pinch up and stab) holding the music in my head, the love for what will comeafter the combat’s done. Each cycle, I would knock the obstetrician right out coldbetween my knees: the sedative no match for Zip! Zap! Pow!, the torturous…

After thirty years, I’d forgotten that I’d once owned a gun. It looked comical to me now. I remembered it as an alien-crusher, metallic and cold in the face of slimy invaders. Something so useful that I couldn’t live without it. And now, it was nothing more than a Super Soaker, brittle plastic, abandoned, bound for the trash—another way to kill something else. My sister, Blair, laughed as I held it up. “I’ll never forget when you and Dave Tidmore got caught shooting the heads off of Mrs Park’s zinnias with that.” “We didn’t get caught. You ratted us out.” “You didn’t let me play.” “A little sister in the middle of a war?” “I think that would be a comfort. Most people lose their families in wartime.” “That’s an…

He ran out of the maternity ward sofast, that he got to the finish line beforeI even opened my eyes for the first time. And every man that came after himtreated us like it was a race but theloser was always my mother. My therapist says this metaphor isnot healthy. But the thing is myfather really was an athlete, he played professional football for a smalldivision Portuguese team, so maybemy mother was the pitch, and I was a goal in the back of the wrong net.Maybe instead of a hat trick I wasa foul, a red card, a stretcher at half-time. I don’t really know muchabout football, or about parenthood.But either way, my father was offside.…

Your first sight is a human face, backlit by a bright cold light. “Oh!” says the human face. “I think it’s online—hey, can someone grab the director?” You rise and survey the surroundings. It is a grey room. There are three humans in it. A fourth human is leaving through what you identify as a door on the other side of the room. There are five windows in the room, three on one side and two on another. The room appears to be a laboratory. The fourth human returns with a fifth human. Both their faces register as both joy and surprise, which is a satisfactory combination. “Oh wow, it’s super cute,” says the fifth human, kneeling down a bit to look at you. “They really stepped away from trying…

This is a moveable constellation, a bagof stars loosely attached and advancing through time. Sometimes, I am bornfirst, sometimes you are, and mustwait a decade or two, to meet my new iteration: I have been yourmother, daughter, father and more,many a time before, and recognise you from a distance: at the office, the park, in between trains,among the commuters, in fall, winter – wherever we are due to reconnect this time. And bringing in my wake the restof us: my grandmother, now ourdaughter - how we swap roles, names. I have not solved you yet,nor you solved me. Let's give it one more try, and be: a family.…

Fifty years later, the hearts of the people buried in the woods grew back as apples. Kasia told me she could hear them beating at night, naked and swinging on their branches. The sound was like a thousand harvest festivals, she said. She called me on the last night of spring. “Come here,” she said. “We miss you. Honestly. The apple thing’s really weird. Grandma’s going completely insane. She says she’s hearing voices or something. And Mum’s… Mum’s worried.” Her voice cracked for a second, and that’s when I realised I no longer knew who my sister was. The Kasia I knew never stuttered. Her first word had been “yes”, and ever since I heard her say it, I’d been jealous of her confidence. Everything she did, every breath she…

you have become easier to saynow you no longer existI have your pearl and amethystyour woolly jacket taken from homewhilst you lay dyingI've tried to wear it–but it's as if I'm wearing you sometimes I think I am youI catch myself in your winnie-the-pooh stancecrestfallen, dumpy and abused(sweeping the floor, shrieking obscenities, sighing over the sink)my girlish figure spreading into yoursat times like this I almost understand you it's not as if I want to forget you(that was easier when you were here)I'm still trying to get you in perspectiveput you in a place in my mindI can reach without painto understand your lifein relation to my ownto accept your timing I think I have the couragefor almost anything but memoryhow the past pulls on me, back and downyour shrivelled…

Pour me a self-care bathFill it with the eyeballs of the crowd My invisibility cloak is gift-wrapped and waitingSo I need a stranger to fuck me with one glance The bloodhounds are sniffing out fresh, underpaid talentWhile the Chelsea dermatologist waits with her needle My Uterus sits empty so my insecuritiesClamp their grubby hands all over my sensible thoughts You may think I’m patheticWith my overwhelming need to be liked But the voices of our generation are all under thirtyThen overnight motherhood becomes our most important job Don’t patronise me by telling me it’s all bullshitI’m more than aware of how I’ve been shaped I can’t help but want to smooth out my Play-Dough bodyAs I mould myself to match your mistakes…

A cow and a bull come walking up to the tiny cage where I have spent my entire life. Eating and sleeping. Getting bigger. Finding out that crying makes no difference. No one will ever come. The bull looks at the ground and mumbles, “Um, I'm your dad. Or whatever.”The cow gets as close as she can to the bars. “And, I'm your mama.” “What?” I whisper. A human in a blue jumpsuit is walking down the aisle, unhooking the doors to every pen. The human unlocks mine and I'd back away, but there is no backing away. My cage is exactly the size of my ever-increasing bulk. The cow walks forward. Licks my forehead. I have never been touched before. Never. I fall forward on weak legs with the…

We were picking over the bones of our relationship when Elaine mentioned Christmas.“What about Christmas?” I replied in a distorted echo of her out-of-the-blue question. “Well, it is only a week away and your parents are expecting us.” I took a deep breath. It snagged on the way down. “I’ll call them.” “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” Elaine said, "not at short notice.” I looked at her blankly. “You still want to go to my parents for Christmas? Even though we’re not together?” “Well, Tony… yes!” she replied. “You want me NOT to go?” She shook her head. “They’re expecting both of us, remember. So we both go.” “As what?” I asked, angry and confused. “As a couple, numbskull. You have to stop being so insular. You need…

When I first saw you, I swore that I had seen your face before, but that was probably in another life. How is it that you picked me out of all the others? It does not matter. In this life, we have met again. I know that I can trust you, even though you are not like me. And you know that I love you, even though I am not like you. I sometimes have flashes of memory from that previous life. I think I might have been a human and I believe you were, too. I remember holding you in my arms. You were smaller then. The scent of lilacs fills my nose while I dream. There’s a soft breeze and I hear you laugh and I feel so…