Alexandra Gipson & Rae White

Image ID: A person in the nude turned right side to the viewer, on hands and knees rendered in blues, white, and red pastel. The figure is mid movement, one hand coming through from right to left (front for back to the viewer), the right leg outstretched as if ready to brace. The colour shifts from white to blue from light to shadow. Red borders and details outline the image throughout.

SOLILOQUY IN THE MIDDLE OF A HIGHWAY

What am I really but a fusion of collagen and calcium,
and the desire to exhale a deep breath
without my lungs flickering like dying lightbulbs?
To carve my name into this earth
that laughs at the idea of immortalization
for a body that is but ash scattered by the wind?
These feeble bones know no strength.
Each time my heel connects with the ground,
my fingers curl around a glass that lifts to my lips,
pieces of bone detach themselves from me
until my skeleton is full of holes like clothes 
forgotten in an old wardrobe, until 
my legs tremble with each step I take
and I am not enough for this world,
who strikes me down and demands I rise.
So I place each knee on the yellow lines
that race down the middle of the asphalt,
fling my arms out, splay my fingers like false 
feathers, and shout at the sky,
cursing life for its failure to capture 
the intricacies of the design in the finished product;
imagine that my blood carries the shards
of my bones back to their origins, 
snaps the pieces into place
so I can reclaim mobility
and test my bare feet against the pavement  --
so I can take this life I was given
and fly directly into the sun.

Rae White lives and works in Toronto, Canada on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. They have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa and a Certificate in Pre-Animation & Illustration from Algonquin College. Their work investigates body and identity as a place of mythos, navigation, construction, and becoming. They can be found on instagram @half_headed or at raewhiteart0.webnode.com

Alexandra (Ali) Gipson is a writer from & living in Pittsburgh, PA, who holds a BA in English from Seton Hill University. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Sampsonia Way, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Parhelion Literary Magazine, Buck Off! Magazine, and others. She is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, works as a legal writer at an immigration law firm, enjoys reading, alternative and rock music, and Penguins hockey, and is on Twitter as @aligips.