Dignity comes at the end of life
︎︎︎ Leya Ivanov
︎ Jan 21, 2025
I had one wish so I made all my
ex-boyfriends real like they grew wings
and sprouted away knowing exactly
what to say to keep me firmly
rooted in place like a rhizome plant or
a bad achy tooth about to decay so
I’m not trying to convince you to
stay or even to say things to make me happy
I’m trying to tell you I’ll do my best
to keep you exactly the same
ex-boyfriends real like they grew wings
and sprouted away knowing exactly
what to say to keep me firmly
rooted in place like a rhizome plant or
a bad achy tooth about to decay so
I’m not trying to convince you to
stay or even to say things to make me happy
I’m trying to tell you I’ll do my best
to keep you exactly the same
Leya Ivanov is a writer. She's in Hobart Pulp and donotsubmit.
INSOMNIAC SON
︎︎︎ Ivan Genc
︎ Jan 16, 2025
Warm lights in the evening
Waxing crescent Moon
Blackout curtains over the window
3k run
30 minute meditation
Passionflower, CBD, chamomile tea
Lemon balm, melatonin, lavender oil
Hot bath
Feng shui space
Queen sized bed
Satin linens
No clothes on
Memory foam
Perfectly shaped pillow
All doors locked
No food in 8 hours
Light rain outside
White noise machine
Cool room temp
45% humidity
Weighted blanket
Another weighted blanket
Light masturbation session
A book chapter or two
A prayer
Still can’t sleep
Waxing crescent Moon
Blackout curtains over the window
3k run
30 minute meditation
Passionflower, CBD, chamomile tea
Lemon balm, melatonin, lavender oil
Hot bath
Feng shui space
Queen sized bed
Satin linens
No clothes on
Memory foam
Perfectly shaped pillow
All doors locked
No food in 8 hours
Light rain outside
White noise machine
Cool room temp
45% humidity
Weighted blanket
Another weighted blanket
Light masturbation session
A book chapter or two
A prayer
Still can’t sleep
Red/Blue/Vertical
︎︎︎ Liv Archer
︎ Jan 14, 2025
Q Where
did you find me?
A I was riding on the escalator. I saw a teenage boy taking pictures up a woman’s skirt.
Q Were you sitting in the food court?
A No, but there were twins and they were laughing at each other. And when they laughed, they took turns.
Q Like feedback?
A I think I’m just allergic to ideas that don’t include me. I was making it work by looking at the world through scales of red/blue/vertical.
Q That is different from applause. It’s worse.
A I have a backbone, I swear. You just can’t see it through my coat.
Q In a useful way?
A Hey, my peripheral is strong. I have three hearts. I know my shapes. My name is written on the back of a polaroid picture somewhere.
Q So you think you could love me? You think you’re good?
A The pain can be pinpointed as a figure-eight symbol in the right side of my neck, but I know it’s psychosomatic because I can chase it through my torso and arms. No wait, it’s not a figure-eight symbol. It’s two zeros.
Q I don’t think you’re lying.
A Because my hair is growing. When is it my turn.
A I was riding on the escalator. I saw a teenage boy taking pictures up a woman’s skirt.
Q Were you sitting in the food court?
A No, but there were twins and they were laughing at each other. And when they laughed, they took turns.
Q Like feedback?
A I think I’m just allergic to ideas that don’t include me. I was making it work by looking at the world through scales of red/blue/vertical.
Q That is different from applause. It’s worse.
A I have a backbone, I swear. You just can’t see it through my coat.
Q In a useful way?
A Hey, my peripheral is strong. I have three hearts. I know my shapes. My name is written on the back of a polaroid picture somewhere.
Q So you think you could love me? You think you’re good?
A The pain can be pinpointed as a figure-eight symbol in the right side of my neck, but I know it’s psychosomatic because I can chase it through my torso and arms. No wait, it’s not a figure-eight symbol. It’s two zeros.
Q I don’t think you’re lying.
A Because my hair is growing. When is it my turn.
Liv Archer is a writer based in New York.
Intuit QuickBooks Online Notification
︎︎︎ Jiv Johnson
︎ Jan 9, 2025
I’ll be signed out for security purposes if I don’t click the button.
The official color of said button is a branch of Quickbooks Green, Kiwi-80, #00892E.
The shade has limited usage, restricted as the
color for buttons only.
I wish I could tell Zamenhof or Bakhtin of our failures to establish a proletarian lingua franca.
Corporate graphic designers and marketing departments beat us out in record time. Born to lose.
It’s Tuesday in a dead dry city. I stare at the notification. It has a countdown attached to it.
The countdown is set in Avenir Next for Intuit. Their official font.
timeless, yet modern and contemporary, with a large x-height
and accurate proportions.
I write everything, too, in a specific typeface. Georgia, size 10.
Viewable to anyone with access to Google Docs.
Intuit notes they limit size selection for their font to ensure consistency.
I am not allowed size 10 in Avenir Next. I’m not sure what that means for the global proletariat or myself.
The design handbook for Intuit says very clearly: Don’t create new colors.
I try to create a new color but cannot. I try, too, to think of a new letter or word, but cannot.
Where does one go in their mind to create new colors? I understand that the occipital lobe sees.
I know this because of a Death Cab For Cutie song from long ago.
I understand that the hippocampus and temporal lobe store our associations of colors. The grass is green.
And so on. I know this from a high school classroom, also long ago.
I cannot recall, though, where one goes inside themself to create a new color.
With my failure to know, I allow Intuit another win. I do not know how to create a new color.
I cannot harm nor betray you. I think this to myself, in a spinny home-office chair from Amazon.
Corporate entity, what secret do you hold? How may I create a new type of green, to compete?
I cannot compete. I have to click the button. The affirmative selection says: I need more time.
And I do click it. And now it knows what I lack. And now it is better than me.
And it creates more time for me to lose. Which I was born to do.
The official color of said button is a branch of Quickbooks Green, Kiwi-80, #00892E.
The shade has limited usage, restricted as the
color for buttons only.
I wish I could tell Zamenhof or Bakhtin of our failures to establish a proletarian lingua franca.
Corporate graphic designers and marketing departments beat us out in record time. Born to lose.
It’s Tuesday in a dead dry city. I stare at the notification. It has a countdown attached to it.
The countdown is set in Avenir Next for Intuit. Their official font.
timeless, yet modern and contemporary, with a large x-height
and accurate proportions.
I write everything, too, in a specific typeface. Georgia, size 10.
Viewable to anyone with access to Google Docs.
Intuit notes they limit size selection for their font to ensure consistency.
I am not allowed size 10 in Avenir Next. I’m not sure what that means for the global proletariat or myself.
The design handbook for Intuit says very clearly: Don’t create new colors.
I try to create a new color but cannot. I try, too, to think of a new letter or word, but cannot.
Where does one go in their mind to create new colors? I understand that the occipital lobe sees.
I know this because of a Death Cab For Cutie song from long ago.
I understand that the hippocampus and temporal lobe store our associations of colors. The grass is green.
And so on. I know this from a high school classroom, also long ago.
I cannot recall, though, where one goes inside themself to create a new color.
With my failure to know, I allow Intuit another win. I do not know how to create a new color.
I cannot harm nor betray you. I think this to myself, in a spinny home-office chair from Amazon.
Corporate entity, what secret do you hold? How may I create a new type of green, to compete?
I cannot compete. I have to click the button. The affirmative selection says: I need more time.
And I do click it. And now it knows what I lack. And now it is better than me.
And it creates more time for me to lose. Which I was born to do.
Jiv Johnson is an accountant from Kentucky. He currently resides in New York City. He has a father, a mother, and a brother.
Also by Jiv: Plea to Great-Grandmother
I tripped over a child at the MoMA
︎︎︎ Nina Perlman
︎ Jan 7, 2025
He didn’t cry until I checked if he was hurt. His mother didn’t seem to care but I intentionally lingered as long as I thought I should. Sometimes the act of looking feels a little more contrived, and left to my own devices I’d be forever drifting through these spaces—from one image to the next, and going back. I wish that I could recognize the bliss of resignation, forces acting on me without feeling like their prey. Do you think cats keep their cool all the time because they trust, whatever happens, they’ll end up landing on their feet?
Nina Perlman is a writer, photographer, and photo editor born and raised in New York City. Her writing has been featured on Autofocus Lit, Write or Die Mag, and DIAGRAM. She also writes a newsletter on Substack called [A Scaffold].
Also by Nina: "I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is."