Queer Little Nightmares

by David Ly

MONSTERS THAT CONJURE FEAR AND FASCINATION in me will always be my heroes. Vengeful spirits have every right to be pissed off. Vampires know how to have fun. And Godzilla is the monster we deserve.

The thing is, my brain isn’t busy. There’s this tender emptiness inside me. Like a bruise that doesn’t turn purple, still I feel its ache under my skin.

“Oh yes,” they hissed. “We know all about the waiting. There are so many of you here waiting to be claimed. Stay, then, and join the guardians of these grounds, but know that you will be confined to the shadows. The daylight will reveal your true nature, and you will be hunted.” “This is nothing so new,” I said. “I was hunted in the daylight for my true nature in life. Why not in death, too?”

ask Eve how she became a monster and she will say Adam gave her permission he gave her a body with legs to the chin a god complex and a breath of life with no regard for it he said the worst thing

we are the daughters of witches that they could and did burn we are the daughters of witches that they are still burning & you know in my dreams, a woman keeps whispering: keep going maybe in the next lifetime we’ll make it to the water

still I am nothing without a haunting

god should have made girls lethal when he made monsters of men. —Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds