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“Secrets Hoarded”, written and photographed Birdie San Martin

There are parts of us that are entrenched in our very being. Some of these things we will try to hide, keeping them close to ourselves out of fear, embarrassment, confusion, or anger. If we were perfect vessels then they would stay inside us. Hidden truths sitting like water in a hollow glass ball. Shifting, splashing, but never leaking. If we were perfect vessels then we would never be exposed. We are not perfect, however, and the glass we are made of is cracked. Dripping, dripping, dripping out, the secrets we have hoarded will come to light, creating a spectrum of humanity.

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Happy Trans Visibility Day!

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“Witch-Wife” (The Clock-House) by E.M.

She had already succumbed to world-weariness, though it wasn’t quite noon yet. I was sure she hadn’t left her house. 

“Come in already and close the door,” she said. “The hot air is getting in. I’ll suffocate.”

I shut the door softly and leaned back against it. There. All the heaviness in my body, lifting away in an instant. All of it, left out in the sun to dry. “You probably won’t,” I said.

“Always barging in like you live here or something. Completely shameless.” Faye was across the room, stretched out on the sofa. She was fanning herself half-heartedly with her hand, her head cushioned in the crook of her arm. Everything she did looked jaded and sophisticated, like how actresses in old movies looked when they told you they didn’t love you anymore.

“Who’s the shameless one? You drunkenly propositioned me when we first met, don’t you remember that?” I sat down across from her in the armchair and she smiled at me. Not really a smile at all—the quick, ghoulish flash of her teeth.

“I was sober,” she said, swinging her legs around. Her left eye, so inexplicably darker than her right, so practically black, glinted strangely in the light from the window. It was an eye that looked everywhere at once, reflected everything at once. No reaction of any kind could ever be discovered in that eye. Faye stood and caught her hands behind her. “Now that you’re here, you’ll have to stay for awhile. Stay for dinner. Please? Just this once.”

“It’s way too early for that. I keep telling you they’re off.”

“Off?” she asked. She blinked at me. Her eyelashes were so long, weren’t they? Soft-looking and thin and see-through like goose down. She would laugh at me if I told her something like that.

“The clocks,” I said. “They’re all off. I told you before, didn’t I? The times don’t match.”

Her clocks obscured the walls and the sound of them was distant and intimate all at once, like insects screaming through the screen of your bedroom window on a summer night. I wondered how she could stand it, this noise. It was never quiet here, not even when she was alone.

“You know I just collect them. Who cares, as long as they tick?” She shrugged and chewed softly on the knuckle of her finger. “It doesn’t really matter as long as they tick.”

“Not here. It doesn’t matter here, you mean.” I watched her cross the room to the grandfather clock near the window and trace the grooves in the lacquered wood. Her back to me now, I let my eyes follow the line of her fingers to her wrist, the jut of the bone there, the line of her forearm to her shoulder to the place where it became her neck. I thought about how her teeth had looked a moment ago, white and sharp against the dark soft of her skin. “Whenever I spend time with you, somehow the day just…gets away from me, slides out of my head.”

She turned her face halfway toward me, smiling coyly. “My, ever the sweet-talker.”

“Not a compliment.” Then again, it wasn’t a reproach, either. In this place, I often couldn’t seem to remember the hour that I walked in or the hour that I left. I was only aware of time as something always coolly, easily revolving back on itself. More than just hearing it, I felt the ticking of the clocks—the hands of them snapping into place, into place, into place—as I felt my own heartbeat.

The grandfather clock chimed, its sound trembling in the air between us, and for a moment I could almost see the shape of it: glass-clear, swelling up like a balloon.

Faye knelt down beside my chair. “The clock is chiming,” she said, and her eyes were wide and bright with pleasure.

There was a pale shimmer like light reflecting off of water and the walls collapsed inward, as they did whenever the sounds of the grandfather clock echoed throughout the parlor. When the room appeared again, Faye and I were in another place altogether. A place that was all glass, and with sunlight streaming in from everywhere, though it wasn’t hot. Here in this house, whatever its shape, whatever the season or the weather outside, the air was always cool. The air of somewhere else. Though the lady of the house did seem unusually sensitive to the heat, so I supposed I could bear with it.

We sat at a low table, and Faye, who never seemed to miss a beat, poured tea for us into fragile-looking cups on saucers. I was afraid to touch even the handle; it looked more delicate than eggshell, than spun sugar. Flowers beautified every corner, overflowing their ceramic pots. Their thin stems twined together wherever they touched.

“Why don’t you drink it?” Faye pushed the cup toward me. “It’s peach blossom tea. It’s good. Relaxing. I made it myself.”

“I’m not really thirsty.” I eyed her for a moment as she sat back in her chair and sucked on her lower lip. “What’s in this for real?”

She struggled to contain herself, turning her face away and pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. “Darling, just what do you think of me, anyway? You think I’m some kind of witch? That I’ve been drugging you with my magic potions?” She rose and walked around the table so that she stood just behind me. “I guess I can’t blame you for that. You’re still trying to figure it out.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Why you keep coming back here. Why you can’t neglect me.”

Her arms slipped around me and she dropped her cheek on my shoulder. “Well.” I felt her breath, just a little bit, a small exhale. “Maybe I am a witch. Just a little bit.”

Her body was cool, as well. My own body felt blotted out where she touched me, not any temperature at all, taking up no space at all. Darling, she’d said. More startling than that had been my own small shiver of delight.

“You’re heavy,” I said, glancing at her.

Her face almost touched mine, and her dark left eye was so hard, so flat. The pupil had gotten lost somewhere inside of that unyielding color. “Emma,” she murmured, still leaning against me. “Emma, have you told anyone about me?”

“Of course not,” I said, thumbing the edge of the saucer.

Ah, she was in there, inside the teacup. The outline of her. “Yes, that’s so like you, isn’t it?”

I emptied my cup without answering her. The tea had already grown cold.

She took the cup from me a moment later and peered at the remnants. “Since I’m a witch, I should be able to do it. Divine your future. The leaves will tell me all of it.”

Why was she always so… Well, it was my own fault for letting her rope me in, for indulging her strange moods. The truth was probably a little pathetic, that I liked her more when I understood her less. I had never met someone so erratic in my life. She was completely unreserved and completely unreadable. She was sometimes cruel, sometimes tender, and dealt both in even portions, without warning or apology. She could coax anything she wanted out of me, and I could always count on her seeming a bit like a stranger.

The ashy bitterness of the tea was in the back of my mouth now. “Well, by all means,” I said. “Divine, then.”

A terrible little grin flickered across her face. I liked that part of her, too. She studied the cup’s contents for a moment. “Yes, I see it,” she said. “You’ll definitely stay tonight. You’ll have dinner with me. And, of course, as if you can’t quite help it, you’ll fall swooning into my arms—”

“You’re pushing your luck. And it’s still only noon—”

“Not luck. It’s in the leaves,” she said. “It’s all prophecy.”

For the first time, I noticed that only dark shapes were visible through the greenhouse walls, uninterpretable shapes. Sunlight was coming in from nowhere in particular. I looked at her again. She wasn’t breaking character at all, was she? I couldn’t see through her any more than I could see through the walls.

It didn’t matter; it was night. Of course, it was night. It was almost time for dinner. I hooked my finger over the rim of the teacup and stared into it.

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“february flowers”, photo by e.m.

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“lady”, photo by e.m.

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Oh, nice!! Looking forward to seeing your awesome art!

How do you submit things? I was curious if there were rules too. I figured submitting through the submit box was what you wanted but I had to ask first fjgidickricib. Feel free to Tumblr DM me too if that’s a preferable communication methods?

Hi! I’m gonna go ahead and publish this ask, if that’s alright. Just in case other people have the same question. The answer is, yes! Please feel free to submit creative work through our submit box. 

As for rules… I guess the basic philosophy behind what goes on this blog is: We love and encourage artistic/creative freedom, but there are certain lines we have to draw when it comes to content! For example: Content that’s NSF/W is obviously a tricky thing to navigate. We don’t wanna sanitize anything, but at the same time Tumblr is….fussy about it these days. (And potentially triggering content is, of course, also tricky. For stuff like that, it’s a case-by-case basis. There will definitely be warning tags.)

Whew, that was a lot of info I just threw at you. Thanks so much for your question!!

[living-room-zine]

How do you submit things? I was curious if there were rules too. I figured submitting through the submit box was what you wanted but I had to ask first fjgidickricib. Feel free to Tumblr DM me too if that’s a preferable communication methods?

Hi! I’m gonna go ahead and publish this ask, if that’s alright. Just in case other people have the same question. The answer is, yes! Please feel free to submit creative work through our submit box. 

As for rules... I guess the basic philosophy behind what goes on this blog is: We love and encourage artistic/creative freedom, but there are certain lines we have to draw when it comes to content! For example: Content that’s NSF/W is obviously a tricky thing to navigate. We don’t wanna sanitize anything, but at the same time Tumblr is....fussy about it these days. (And potentially triggering content is, of course, also tricky. For stuff like that, it’s a case-by-case basis. There will definitely be warning tags.)

Whew, that was a lot of info I just threw at you. Thanks so much for your question!!

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Hello! Welcome to Living Room, an online zine for and by queer voices.

The name of our zine comes from the title of a 1985 collection of poetry from June Jordan, a Black, bisexual, feminist poet and activist. She used her writing to discuss matters of race, gender, sexuality, and—above all—love and community.

With this zine, we hope to celebrate LGBTQ art and illuminate the threads of creativity that tie us together. Please feel free to submit work! From writing to artwork to song composition, any original creative work is welcome.

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“That Unknown Thing” by Birdie San Martin

Satisfaction is term without true meaning. Like when you read a word over and over again until it stops making sense, like when you're learning a new concept that everyone but you seem to fully grasp, Satisfaction is something I know exists, but I cannot find it in myself. Theoretically, People look at themselves in the mirror, and think "I like that. That is me." But it is a struggle To imagine my body as a loved thing. To see it as a temple I shouldn't deface with fractures and slits. Hypothetically, People wake up and get out of bed in the morning, and think "today is going to be a good day." But it is a pain To move my body and face to face another day. To find the motivation to live a life that drains me. Allegedly, People spend time with family, friends, and acquaintances, and think "these people like me as much as I like them." But it is inconceivable To believe I am wanted by others. To think that I am anything but inconvenience. It does not feel realistic for me To imagine To find To believe That unknown thing. But I want to know satisfaction.

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“Sprout” by Rian Van Tassell

I did not sprout up through the Damp mountain soil of Newfane, Vermont Instead I Scraped my way out through a crack in a sidewalk In downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma A flat, flat land Watered by a Broken Arrow creek I grew But before I had put out leaves I was dug up Transported to a pot outside a home in Centreville, Virginia Not a very pretty thing And I have yet to put out a flower Though every summer I bud When my pot is carried from Alexandria to Townshend And I believe that I will finally bloom When I am planted in damp Vermont soil Where there is no longer rough concrete and Too many billboards