Soft Shame Anthology
Anastasia Dale (she/they)
Anastasia is a queer writer, artist and student. They have been published in a few Aussie & international publications, and they like to dance. Anastasia’s practice is informed by her belief in global decolonisation and the dismantling of systems of oppression.
Images by Lee-Francis Evatt (he/they)
Gadigal Land
fasting
you are rich
you are filling, you are edible
you can taste
on my tongue i can taste on yours
you find me
as beautiful as i find you
our leg hairs in the summer sun
tiny pieces of tinsel
for our private christmas
our names are hallowed ground
i know everything proliferates, yields
you’re able to harvest
mildew from my pores
(and there you are)
And there you are.
my mercurial woman,
pressing my face up against
the glass of the world
deified
as bread blooms in my stomach
the animal unfurls itself along
my body i begin to forget
bark beneath my palms
sadness slops out like syrup;
visit the relics,
cross the lines of control,
feel yourself entering a fugue state
one wherein
the only extant is touch,
sound, the eyes of others
so
time runs thick and heavy
this is contact, the
current of our connection
electrifying your elocution
the past is rhyming with the present,
you’re not sure how to tell the moment it has passed
either
We are sandwiched together and pulled apart to form a butterfly made of paint.
Blink and stutter, splutter up at you.
Warmth of summer sun stays on your skin. I remember it would burn you and tan me.
Putting on natural gooey lip balm out of its tube.
Splotchy birthmarks on both of us, mine on my back.
Splashing in the water on a black-white night, you looking up at me, your swimsuit your skin.
Shimmery butter smoothest ink.
Gossamer gauze scarves curling around my eyes, your neck,
my face in your neck.
Cool thin smooth easy water running down.
Shipwrecked on your duvet.