[special_issue slug=”body_special_issue” element=”issue_header”][special_issue slug=”body_special_issue” element=”piece_header”]summer in shanghai | Chantelle Schultz i showered at my friend’s (my friend who would later grab my chest, without my consent (it’s okay because he’s gay)) and across from the shower was a mirror, full and wide. i did not recognize the body i saw. this body was not mine. i felt sick. and then i remembered, in the night, someone had crept into my room and changed my body with surgical tools, cutting into my flesh adding things i did not recognize and sewing me up again who was it? i try to remember i try so hard i forget myself and eventually, when i come back i realize that person was me. or was it you? my hands | Chantelle Schultz sometimes i forget that for more than a year my hands would shake, a cup would clatter in my hands, the foam spilling over. my hands keep shaking and i cannot make them stop. maybe i shouldn’t be trying to make them maybe i should coax them soothe them hold them love them these flower petals swaying, dancing in the wind. erythro | Chantelle Schultz i’m in the shower. this is where i feel safest. i’ve been here for a very long time, the water is burning my skin off and my feet are red red   red     burning         hot like my father’s. his feet carried him for decades before they betrayed him. i look down at his feet on my legs. if i could cut mine off and give them to him, i would.

inverted | Anonymous The lines on my body reflect the stories of my soul: A cry for self certainty of my physicality’s permanence. It must be that my ribcage that binds my heart and lungs, And the Body that binds my spirit, Harmonize for why fight against what is fighting for me?

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