#@devinsturk

[araekniarchive]

@mnvart // Kaveh Akbar, 'Calling A Wolf A Wolf' // @PinkRangerLB on Twitter // @kosmogrl // @devinsturk, '15 Proverbs for the Fellow Chronically Ill' // Jasmine Deporta // Anaïs Nin, House of Incest // the gentle wisdom uquiz by @inkskinned // Rora Blue, 'Sweet Dreams' // Hala Alyan, Dear Layal

[devinsturk]

My latest poem has just been published online by The Baltimore Review! You can also access an audio recording of the piece read by yours truly.

Junk Drawer by Devin S. Turk

I keep a collection of keys that unlock nothing looped together, tarnished neighbors on a lanyard and I imagine that they floss their metal teeth with junk drawer gossip. Sifting my fingers through the jar of spare buttons, I wonder if they whisper to each other in plastic voices and reminisce about the favorite shirt at last Thanksgiving’s dinner before the incident involving splattered cranberry sauce. I think the Monopoly piece holds a grudge against me, still considers itself a thief’s prize, but it is the only battleship I can hold in the palm of my hand, so it stays. Once, I inherited a pocket watch with a broken latch and I treasured the thing, would hold it up to my ears as a kid just to listen though I knew it wouldn’t tick. I suspect that when I turn away, its timeless arms reach for one another.

Devin S. Turk writes from personal experience about Autism, transness, and madness in the Mid-Atlantic United States, often with a cat in their lap. They have work published in Short Édition’s Short Circuit, Strange Horizons Magazine, and Disability Rights Washington’s blog, Rooted in Rights. Links to their writing and social media can be found on their Twitter, where they are active @DevinSTurk.

[devinsturk]

Strange Horizons Magazine recently published my poem, Statue of David with Top Surgery Scars!

"I see the smooth dip in surface where pectorals meet a ribcage and I envision into existence two scars perhaps still fresh with stitch marks. his stone sling slung over one shoulder, a colossal right hand curled around a mystery, David is the essence of an enviable masculinity: delicate gesture and curve, polish and poise in contrapposto. a sculptor pitched bits of rock by mallet and chisel to free a man and myth from marble so that he might stand self-assured as stone. there is something queer about this intention— something intentional about this queer— and while I have never been to Italy, in a daydream I break free from a mob of gawking tourist types, rush past gallery guards and duck under velvet ropes to David’s feet. armed with a bottle of polish I paint his toenails. but he does not glance down at me— a mere mortal of pinkish flesh, my own sutures long dissolved— he stands still and cool, eyes forever cast toward Rome."

Devin S. Turk is a poet and nonfiction writer creating from personal experience about Autism, transness, and Madness in the Mid-Atlantic United States, often with a cat in their lap. Devin has work published in Short Édition’s quarterly review, Short Circuit, and Disability Rights Washington’s blog, Rooted In Rights. They are on Twitter @DevinSTurk.