this regret machine

  I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to change my mind. ...

  What are her insides made of? Are they technical? Too technical to comprehend or take apart? Why does your curiosity have to overstep somebody’s boundaries? Are they intrusive or intuitive? Where does the soul come into the mechanical? How does the soul affect the mechanical? Where do the two intersect? Where do you learn that by questioning it, you’re still indulging this way of thinking?  Worst, and best case scenario, I admit, I think I have killed you. You’re there, sitting idly, watching me panic over you. I’m pacing confusedly about your assumedly dead body. You are fine. I will be fine. Your body is dead. The soul of you remains, patiently not yet reanimate. All things inanimate are full with soul, and this soul is built from the carbon of patience. I hate how you wait. Find something better to do. Don’t look at me with dead eyes, I’m busy. I’m making myself busy. I have things I want to write. Femnist literature output, high frequency. Nonsense writing, aff...

    Their body chose to wake up. From billions of shattered and fleeting fragments, consciousness came back to her like liquid honey, sticking to her gums, spilling through their throat, sickening in her stomach. Their skin became aware of itself, the sweat and the quiet and the space they all filled. Breathing came next, a slow, needed exchange between the body and the bedroom. The air was heavy wet velvet on her tongue. She was awake, breathing, and real.  This year was the first year I started working. Properly working. Full time, seven days a week, zero hour contract work. I’m living the student experience, tossed between three jobs. The hours are nonsensical and shifting. From January to June, I would have a 05:00 start, 06:00 walk, to make it for a 07:30 start. On the same day, my shift could end at 16:00, and I’d start another shift at another job at 17:00, until 20:00 before walking home.     Too, fitting seminars, lectures and reading into this lab...

  [We sat down with Hailey O’Gorman to discuss their publication, you know the drill, school girl . She materialised from nowhere, and refused to blink for the duration of the interview. This piece was written as an assignment,  but still works as a discussion about their first externally published piece] Hi. Do you mind telling us about your writing, maybe explain the piece a bit? Fine. you know the drill, school girl is a prose fiction piece about being a transgender teenager in a time of misrepresention, legislative repression, and trans exclusionary radical feminism. Could you go into more detail? Well, you know the drill, school girl outlines the consequences of transphobia toward transgender youth. It is intended to expand current global and literary perceptions of trans youth, while showing the impact of trans exclusionary radical feminism. I want to broaden the ever nebulous ‘trans experience’ in literary fiction.  Okay, so what happens? ‘School girl’  cycl...