Art: "So close, that to draw your hand through you might catch them" by Ava Fedorov
Poetry: "Monsters" by Mea Cohen
We met as children underwater. Lake seaweed grabbing at our ankles. There are always invisible monsters.
You let me love you that night, let me hear how you breathed when you masturbated in the sleeping bag beside me. That was love, right?
I was still afraid of the dark then. We hid together. I plead for an end, for you to kiss me. You lit a flashlight beneath your chin, drew your face to mine in silhouette.
Our story is the same as others, we married, you grew bored, then fell in love with your doctor, and her prescription pad. I kept moving, kept the lights on, kept the lights on, kept the lights on, until I couldn’t stand the wattage any longer, and I was alone in the dark with all my monsters.
After you left me, I wailed for the monsters to come. Wished them wise enough to stay away.
Published October 12th 2024
Mea Cohen’s work has appeared in The West Trade Review, The Gordon Square Review, OKAY Donkey, Big Whoopie Deal, Barely South Review, and more. She earned her MFA in creative writing and literature from Stony Brook University, where she was a Contributing Editor for The Southampton Review. She is the Founder and Editor of The Palisades Review.
Ava Fedorov is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, educator, and activist. Using art as an intersectional social practice of bearing witness, creating a record, and standing vigil, she creates large, abstract paintings; multimedia installations; experimental books; and global performance pieces. Ava’s work has been exhibited, collected, and published internationally and her short fiction has been a finalist for the Pushcart Prize and a PEN America award. Ava is an assistant professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and is the founder of CICADA, an organization committed to amplifying the creative response to climate justice. Recent projects include her solo exhibition, Let Me Hold You As You Disappear, at Boston’s Laconia Gallery and an installation/performance, Sandbags Body Bags, presented by The Performance Arcade in Wellington, New Zealand.