est. 2022
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ISSUE 3: NIMBUS
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SERAFINA CUSACK
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ALT TEXT
Serafina Cusack | Poetry
*me in 2015 laughing at David Cameron trying to explain why he sh@gged the pig* says a man in a hat looking at a computer screen, *me in 2023 listening to a group of anarcho capitalist millionaires explain why we should imprison Teachers and Nurses* says the same man in the same hat looking at a TV screen and referencing the general state of things, I see everyone doing this I feel like I should too, says the person holding iced plastic to her face, plead, probe, magnificent, no fvck them kids, says the person playing the drums on the train tracks, HACK to end your TikTok / social media addiction, if you’re like addicted to TikTok and you find yourself reaching for your phone throughout the day and you just mindlessly scroll I have a hack for you, says the person in your phone, i don’t know if kids are in my future, but you best believe that I’m making them a letterboxd at birth so that they know every movie they have ever seen and when, a school project says World Events, 2001, The twin towers got crashed in to, Shrek came out, two very different, but memorable events, a boy in a hoodie says testing TikTok Side Hustles so you don’t have to Part 27 (it’s vending machine ownership), Matty Healey, who is problematic in a hot way says, Don’t throw oranges on this stage, it’s not the 1500s, excuse me sir, the sir in the red beanie says, yeah, what are your thoughts on a 2 state solution for the Israeli Palestinian conflict, the sir in the red beanie says, double it and give it to the next person, and the lip-syncing girl says me to the guy I brought home from the club just to cuddle, we don’t have to take our clothes off (to have a good time is implied), pov: ur a child passing someone smoking a ciggy, Matty Healey, who is hot in a problematic way says, we support the union strikers, it’s simply how industrial action works, can’t demonise it, the person in the crochet bunny balaclava says, do you know who didn’t wish Paul Mescal a happy birthday, Phoebe Bridgers, she asks herself as someone else, do you want some, pointing to a grapefruit, she answers herself as someone else oh no i can’t I’m- WAR IS OVER, she, as herself can eat a slice of grapefruit because she is no longer mentally ill, lying down he says, every core core edit I’ve ever seen I react the exact same way, he gets up to change angle this time he’s looking down at us, he says, this is good, I like this one, save.
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BEST OF ISSUE
Curtain Call
Serafina Cusack | Poetry
Drowning out the noise of singing with drums so loud from a song so old it makes newly pierced earlobes ache, drums so loud they make piercings ring like the starting note to a high budget opera, full of anticipation, has not yet caught up, the sound of singing still punctures through in the cold moments between songs, empty and vulnerable, know all the words to the drums and to the singing,
Making eye contact with people loved and loving as if eyes met at the right mosquito frequency, the rest might just melt away, might just dissolve into carpeted seats, and if the singers haven’t locked eyes yet, it will happen, finding eyes locking one day on the way home, eyes will lock and the pitch will ring out, an epic opera almost about to start in a white and gold room, almost, almost.
Never did laughter sound so curdled.
Cold-sour and cramping the laughter dyes the air black and the opera is to begin. The almost obscured.
Almost (almost, almost)
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN BLUE VILLA JOURNAL
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Serafina Cusack is a novelist and poet from London. Writing in a unique, fast-paced style, she writes about terrible people from terrible cities doing terrible things. She won the 2022 Book Edit Writer’s Prize and has been published in Fleet Magazine, JAKE, Crank Mag, Blue Villa, From Glasgow to Saturn and Contralytic. She has recently graduated from an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow and is working on her full-length novel, This is Matty and He is Fucked.
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