1. Sipping: See; Water 2. 3. Anytime I read someone else’s writing, there is the sudden knowledge that the fonts I use are out of style. There is a sort of lake-water cough-up sensation, no saline cleansing, no ion-clearing, no tart and French-fry-esque taste like a desperate attempt at clearing throat pain, just a Lake Ontario-stylized musky sort of Loon smell. The bird not the coin, but it also tastes a bit like metal. Local metal. Sudbury metal, maybe. There is the sense that Garamond is out now , and Comic Sans has made an ironic resurgence that will be tired and passé once I finally break down underneath enough beach glass to attempt it. I They don’t use numbers, not like they use numerals. A boy lays, some sort of prostrate on my couch, as I write and rewrite the same sentence, some sort of putting on a show that he keeps on in the background as he does pull-ups. Do grown men still do pullups? I dream of having the sort of nose I could look down. I dream never of seeking and usually of being sought. I would seek the boy on my couch, but he’s already here. He’s pulled up. He’ll do his best to pull out. There’s a very specific sort of being sought I seek, and to do it, I have to hide for most of the evening. So i debate capitalization. If it’s to be numerals, it should be lowercase, shouldn’t it? ii There is a perfection to his body that i don’t enjoy, and a goofiness to his face that ii much prefer. There is a lack of study to his eyes that iii trust, and a confidence in his hands that iiii do not. Upon reading someone else’s writing there is the sense that they wrote it in one take and the celluloid simply never caught, no matter how many cigarettes they smoked and eyes they rolled and necks they bit. iiiii don’t think they tried even for a moment, and it breathes through their pieces without ever tearing the edges. No one could ever accuse me of not trying, of not seeking. They’d probably call it the cardinal sin of my writing, rewriting that sentence for an audience. They’ll only seek when iiiiii stop being sought. is three sections too biblical? How many eyes does it need?

Madi Morelli (she/her) is a queer woman from Toronto with plans to publish a
romance novel, a poetry collection, and a play in the next ten years. Her work can be found in Wild Greens Magazine, Commuter Lit, Spell Jar Press and The Passionfruit Review. She can be reached on Instagram, and she is currently singing in public.