E-Book Content
The Asexual
A EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Paramo
LAYOUT EDITOR Michael Paramo
Copyright © 2017 The Asexual
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The Asexual
To whom it may concern, I began The Asexual in October 2016 with some concerns, regarding both my limited experience as well as whether anyone would submit to this journal, yet remained hopeful. I have since been overwhelmed with the response, having now received a varied collection of poems, prose, personal essays, and more from writers who identify under the ace umbrella. Some of these writings are included in the subsequent pages of this first issue in addition to a short piece by myself. I would like to thank everyone who has submitted their beautiful words for this debut issue as well as anyone who has supported the journal on social media and elsewhere. I aspire to continue this project and develop it further in the future. With love and appreciation, Michael Paramo
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The Asexual
TABLE OF CONTENTS Disbelieving
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Michael Paramo
The Silent Pond
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Shunya Ta
Sheath
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Shunya Ta
In the Forest
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Amanda Amos
Consuming A
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Shannon O. Sawyer
Philophobic
14
Moira Armstrong
Pink Lipstick
15
Moira Armstrong
The Couple
17
Maribel C. Pagan
It Was
23
Kenyatta JP Garcia
Consuming
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Kenyatta JP Garcia
Ace in the Hole
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Gregory Morrison
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The Asexual
DISBELIEVING By Michael Paramo
We all have flaws and weak knees. For me, it is in the man’s arms, his face, his chest, his hair, but never his penis, if he were to even have one.
It may as well be a snake. Are snakes that small? No, and they are much more beautiful.
Dick pics are such a turn-off. Let my man be clothed, at least, down there.
Disbelieving.
For I could love only as best as I could, to be classified as incomplete, either from hatred or pity, some sorry form of recognition.
Most often though it is just nothing. “You’re just gay.” “You’re just a faggot.” I’ll show you a faggot.
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The Asexual
Michael Paramo is a queer non-binary asexual Latinx master's student in California. Their academic work has been accepted for presentation at national conferences, such as by the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association as well as the U.S. branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. Their research interests include queer studies, intersectional approaches, media representation, romantic attraction, gender identity, and asexuality. They also deeply enjoy the pleasure that music brings into their life.
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The Asexual
THE SILENT POND By Shunya Ta
I have no desire for wo/men for a thing or being. I have contemplated in solitude and meditated on my body to direct desire towards words, objects, and bodies yet my body seeks only death like silent water in the night gazing at the stars wary of the day’s pollution the washer man's obscene touch and the nakedness of animals invading the sphere into me all over me.
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The Asexual
SHEATH By Shunya Ta
There is no thing my being that you can grasp to grasp your own ground. You may move around your senses like a hand grasping the other body through the cloth. Yet, beyond cloth beyond the body lies what you may never grasp whether living or dead. I, a (wo)man, splurge my inner blood and mucus onto the sheath of reality to show you that Man bleeds without being attacked the body burns without any fire.
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The Asexual
Shunya Ta is a non-binary demi-sexual being who re