Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 34 i Popshot Magazine

When I think of censorship I think of burning books, George Orwell and the way even our thoughts can be policed if a civilisation is so inclined. Being uncensored is the opposite of this, but we need the framework of censorship for us to understand how groundbreaking it is to speak out. This issue is all about the raw realities of our experiences and our thoughts. From the moment we can talk we start to censor ourselves. White lies to prevent others from taking offence. Yes, when we really mean no. Thank you when what we want to say would make the air turn blue. Censorship is about making ourselves, and our experiences, acceptable. But, there are parts of all of us, that are not. The theme of uncensored has…

Dear Wife,I want to be honest with you.It can’t go on like this – we both know.I really do love you, but you issued me an ultimatum – you or my books.I know I’ve got a problem, but we all do, don’t we?I didn’t take the easy way out. I almost did it, you know.I’ve packed my books into boxes. All of them. There were many.The place looked empty, without a soul.You said, home is where your heart is.But how can I stay with you, if my beloved belongings are not allowed to stay?I’ve decided that my books will stay!If you leave, please return all the books I gave you! Sincerely yours…

I surrender my hands. I know you won’thurt me. You’ll listen, Won’t you?There are so many things I want to be innocent of. Let metell you about the orange juice and the blood in my mouth.How some things don’t leave when you want them to.They just follow you around Like strange dustand then you can’t stop sneezing and wanting to be nakedOf remembering. I got so angry and scared that dayI scratched the sky. I still can’t seem to wash the blackFrom underneath my fingernails and I’ve tried like, seven different soaps.Look, I know you’re the one who’s here but really I’m talking to Christopher forgive me.There are some things I must keep to myself.…

Yesterday upon the stairI had a thought that wasn't thereIt wasn't there again todayI hope it didn't get away It's just below my consciousnessdimmer than light and soft as breath,I'd like to drag it to memory,for the things I think, I like to see I know it's hiding somewhere near,but feels it won't be welcomed here,it isn't cool, nor is it hot,it's too un-hip, and woke it's not Maybe I shouldn't have thought that thought,maybe it's error, illegal and fraught,upopular ideas are met with hate,I'd best forget it – but no! it's too late! That daring thought has broken freeand settled in my mind, a part of meI'll keep it safe, away from the crowdIt's okay to think it, but not to speak aloud…

Not night owls, they close at dusk. Some call it an eyebut I always thought it a whiskered mouthsealing on beds of shaky water, taciturn blooms of night circuses Pouts twirled inwards to dreaming seasonsdistorted mermaid flowers, stars who once sang epic sagascelebrated by the wild audience of trees Pelted with roses and whistles and tissuesby doves and rats and centipedesuntil some sad secret Stole their voices and they becameforgotten in the wild unknowncursed to cool the sultry air But when morning comes it all hangs outPearly petals bared, yellow taste buds stretched and raucousThe life and noise, the daydreams, the living princes…

We don’t hear much about the rageof Little Red.Her fear, yes:tip-toeing through forestwith baskets of apple-cake,quick, uncertain, keeping the path.And her gullibility,of course,buying his performance;that tatty faded shawl and grandma’s dustyrouge a poor disguise not fooling many, yet our girl -our girl fell.Her shameis implied.But her rage(as he rips away her hood revealing creeping blush on cheek)her rage(as his teeth sink in and her life bleeds out and she screamsand he snarls and she swoons)her rage(as he tears into her flesh and she is what big what big what bigwhat big what-)her rageis alwaysforgot.…

Tight shirts graspmanufactured flatness:eight hours of comfort guaranteed. Chafed raw, skinpinched and constrictedbruised shoulders and bleeding armpits. Fine print: do not wear over eight hoursrisks include: muscle damage, skin damage,difficulty breathing. Your first binder embraces you,pushing your shoulders back and holdsyour spine straight. It presses your chest, flatterthan any bandage could. You pickedfull vests, for beginners. It’s not comfy, but comfort comes when you passfor the first time, and the bus driverdoesn’t call you luv.…

Colin and me was more at ease with each other – better chat, easier bants. All good. Col said it was like free diving – losing the clutter of oxygen tanks, and regulators and tubes and shit. Just us plunging down where we wanted – where we could. And we did. Yeah – like went places we’d never been before – found out loads about each other we never knew. Like, I dunno, how Col nicked booze from Sainsbury's all the way through Uni. Weirdest thing - he still feels guilty – cried when he told me. Yeah, Col – cried. Never seen him cry before. Felt good – close. He said he felt better after. It was a Tuesday – no a Wednesday when, er … We’d been saying…

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I write too many sex poems, he tells me.Too gooeyToo many metaphors and ill-fitting similesToo much dialogueNot enough actionand too much of my own trauma.We get it, he says.You’re lonely.Or maybe it was me who said that bit. It’s just thatthose breaking wavesand tidal pullssound so much more gracefulthan the juddering, groaning, terrifying realityof coming to completion withsomeone you haven’t had time to make insidejokes with yet. It’s just cringey, he says.Then again,if I was having sex as little as you,I’d probably complain about it too.…

I was born on a communewhere the assassination of my fatherhung like a flaccid dickhe died thirteen years later, unrelatedthough conspiracies stucklike grease to wallpaperI was bullied / ten years with a stalker – a police file against him /attempted rape / £30,000 stolen and that wasn’t even the timemy flatmate tookmy identity, and money too /I’ve been homeless though never thought it /I have BPD, PMDD, mild Asperger’s and what else not /Physical too, in the past, I couldn’t walk or bend my backMRIs, X-rays of athleticism duped /I’ve travelled the world, studied at the best – precocious little shit /I came back, became a wife, to the whole county of SuffolkNo fucking, just ignoringlike all my youth’s Nobel Prizes meant ash /I have a strange relationship with my…

“Nobody is coming.” Felicity sipped her G&T, ice chinking against teeth, fingernails tapping. Thirty years. Love had turned to hate. “They’ll come,” I said. It was twenty past eight and the house was ready. Plastic streamers hung from oak beams; the birthday banner stretched across the mirror above the mantel. Fifty today. No better off than I was at twenty. “Sorry,” Katie said, skipping down the stairs. “I didn’t realise the time.” She paused, glancing around. “Where is everyone?” “Nobody is coming.” Felicity’s ice chimed in her glass as she stirred her drink with a finger. I imagined taking a handful of cubes, ramming them down her throat. “They’ll come.” Katie reached for a sausage roll. “Don’t you dare,” I warned. Felicity scoffed, knocked her drink back in one. “But…

At the nurseryI wriggle my fingertipinto the mouth of a snapdragon,flexing its yellow jaw openand shut, open and shut. Everydayit's ritual, the samefor me: fingers gently caressingthe tender fascia from ear to throat, from cheek to chin.I never used to carry stressthis way—angertrapped under tongue, flame untamable,green in me be damned. But onward I pressand stretch,wresting free the griefbehind my gnawed bottom lip. It isa stubborn beast. Beside the hydrangeasstands a woman—carefree,teeth shining on display. I smile,eyes only, or try to, politely,reflexively, patience waning beneath my mask, smoulderingas a dragon, stillquiet as a mouse.…

Would you like to see my nudes? That’s how it began. Of course I said yes. Why else be on Grindr? That was months ago. Before you started spending the night, showing me how to cook, before we traded acne medicines and cut each other’s hair. We never agreed to see only one another. Or, you never agreed. That knife is still in me. I hear mum's voice when I dab the wound. “The person who is there can be enough, even if they’re not.” When we’re naked, I forget denial is hereditary. When we’re naked, you’re all I want.…

When the first bomb went off we thought it was masonry falling from a building site. The second blast smashed windows in our lab and a few of my colleagues were cut by flying glass. I checked they were okay, and when I was satisfied the wounds were superficial, I took my medicine bag and went outside to investigate. It was carnage. An elderly man was lying by the side of the road with half his face missing. Which side? The right side I think. I checked for a pulse on his neck, and started pumping his chest. I was embarrassed when the papers – The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail – called me a heroine. ‘A brave and beautiful Aussie medic was first on the scene,’ added some…

Excitement is like a virus: contagious and inflamed. I’ve never felt anything like it, the pull of the people surrounding me, the energy circulating between them. We were all waiting for the same thing. The only thing. The books were piled in the centre. Hundreds, thousands even. Covers of reds and blues, blacks and golds. Pages old and fresh, some torn, some never opened. Some words loved, some abandoned. There was a smell to them; a cross between your first step into the bookstore on the corner and the dust lifting off a hundred-year-old page. The crowd watched, entranced, as the match was struck. It was small, at first; the edge of a single novel burning. And then, it erupted. They went up like fireworks. The flames climbed high, and…

Hefting on my bra with the 38 double Dprosthesis tucked in its right-hand pocket,I stop to think of the occasional ogler,the glancing chancer, the frank admirerwho is fooled into thinking I am whole.I imagine a tryst, a moment of passion,his fingers unbuttoning my blouse, slipping into find precisely nothing but taut skin and scar tissue. I guessat his reaction, the hand snatched away,the instant dispatch of romance,the “Why didn’t you tell me?” Surelythere should be a Missing Parts manualfor those of us who have surrendered our hair,our teeth, a testicle, a breast along the way –telling us when to break the news,how not to frighten them away,teaching the polished manners of loss.…

Her eyes were as big as fists, they said, like blackplanets—her smoke-breath red when she stoodoutside with her cigarette. They wanted to takeher back in, x-ray her insides. “No, I'm normal. Always red on the inside.” When Daddy came, he didn't gasp orfuss. Run for your life, Daddy should have said. He should have kept driving until her eyeswere ice-blue starfish again. He pulled up to thehouse and kept the engine running. "Go on, he's probably sorrier than hell." She squinted through the slits, mumbledthrough purple balloon-lips. "Okay, Daddy."…

It feels like I’ve been standing here for years. Stuck behind the plastic ramparts, permanently besieged. Before, they used to crowd around me, thirsty with need. Now they’re more ordered. They come at me singly or in pairs, socially distanced, waving the bits of plastic that get them what they want. At first I noticed all the variations. The worried ones in expensive suits, always in a hurry. The students and hipsters, still able to laugh and hold one another’s hands. The old, squinting at the menu above my head, not sure what they wanted. After a while, all the faces were the same. Sometimes, at the end of a long shift, it seemed like they were melting, losing their shape, falling from the bones like overstewed meat. I don’t…

Memories bound up like a knot of itchy wool that I keep unravelling; examining each thread, pulling it apart so the strands alienate from each other, as lovers inevitably do. I give myself permission to slip back into us. I dig out the notes on my phone. The words don't offer me anything Monday to Friday, but weekends are my chance to submerge. I have an anthology of all our memories. Some people keep boxes of travel inspiration, but I revisit you. I go through calculations in my head that sting, and others that burn like a bruise rippling up to the surface. How did your mouth move just before you gave in and let me kiss you? Where did my hands first land on your crepe paper skin? Did…

8– Kayla Feldman is an Anglo-American writer and director for the page, stage and screen, currently based in London. Her poem was inspired by being accused of writing too many sex poems. 10 – Madeline Wierzal is from Chicago, USA. She has published poems in several journals, including After Hours, Ephimiliar and Aze. She also publishes work on maddwierdpoetry.com. 12 – Tom Neal is from Merseyside in the UK. He works as a post-doctoral researcher in polymer chemistry at the University of Sheffield, when he is not writing, drawing and painting. 14 – Dide Siemmond is an award-winning multi-disciplinary writer, composer, performer and artist. Her debut poetry pamphlet will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2022. 16 – Alan McCormick lives in Wicklow, Ireland. His writing has won prizes…