ISSUE 4
Riley Gable
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Blood Moon
On the lip of my fourteenth birthday,
roadkill littered State Street so dense,
it became a bike-less summer. Little raccoon
paws stiff-up towards sky, bodies bent
and bloating, god, the bloating, but
better bloat than burst, hot steam
baked the season sour. I spent summer break
indoors: squinting through the static
of pay per view to get glimpses of Girls Gone
Wild, little bits of topless blur through
packed black and white scramble,
clicking the remote “back” button
when I heard a creak of stairs. Despite
the strength of our A/C unit, I stayed sweat
slick, panting. Later, that winter, I would
start my period. That, of course, explained
the symptoms. The insatiable hunger:
shoveling semi-sweet morsels by the hand-full,
half of my animal face eerily lit by midnight fridge
light. The bouts of fury: stifled screams, mashing
my teeth against a pillow until my muscles
wore themselves soft. Mostly, I remember the
betrayal of my body: ensnared desire
coiled so tight it turned to bloat, it pleaded to burst.
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Riley Gable Fleming (she/her) is a makeup artist from Cleveland, Ohio. She is a graduate of Malone University where she studied Creative Writing, English, and Gender Studies. She has been published in Rogue Agent, Alt Milk Magazine, Dressing Room Poetry Journal, Local Wolves, and more.