this regret machine

    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...