ghoul

By mud howard

Issue 37 • Spring 2018 • Poetry

i wake up in the morning. stomach empty from the nightfeed. the twelve hour

dream churn of violet spears. i am pregnant again. and again. no one knows.

sex is a dry wave i surf with two hands. i would punch the mirror if i was

a violent person. my mom used to say. the beach boys lift us up where we

belong. i use the dog tooth to sculpt my own joy. i am no witch but i curse

men anyway. i have a father who won’t say sorry. i witness people grow

everyday. calling an orgasm a spiritual experience doesn’t make you a decent

person. you have to burn the house of your trauma to the ground. you have

to dive into the murky oil of your pissy mood and find pearls. you have to make

secret allegiances with yourself. baby the sky. make him crawl to you.

it’s okay to transform everything you touch.

mud howard

mud howard is a non-binary trans poet from the states. mud is co-editor of the blackout queer zine project pnk prl. they write about queer intimacy, interior worlds and the cosmic joke of the gender binary. their work has been published in THEM journal, The Lifted Brow and Cleaver Magazine, for which their poem was selected for The Best of the Net 2017. they are currently enrolled in a Creative Writing MA abroad, but you can find more of their work at www.mudhoward.com.