Tonight I will rewrite
music I will unfurl
a feeling out

of an old one
like any sea witch
I sing lullabies

to bring you to sleep
a long one my love
is a devastation

I pray I can be
the villain I am
scared of all

I’m becoming tired
and less patient
wounded irate

and certain
a siren accustomed
to water I knew

what would become
of this Island that
loving you like

this is a fear
of the self I don’t know
who I am or how

anyone could know
me I create a home
to prove no one

can survive it—you’re
drowning you do
as the moon

does a pirate you
control the tides in hopes
they’ll save you

but you are tethered
above the water—my home
ocean holds memory

I don’t want to pretend
I don’t know what loving
you does you bite

down and wonder
why they all leave you
my blood is holy

water I was not meant
to cut open—no escape
you are so heavy

on the ground you were
wrong to see a body as water as
romance as limerence

me as an anchor—the love
of your life has a rope
around their neck

stop tugging
I don’t want to choke
and mislead you

Victoria Mbabazi’s work can be found in several literary magazines. “Chapbook” is available with Anstruther Press and “FLIP” is available with Knife Fork Book. Their full length collection “The Siren In the Twelfth House” is coming out in Fall 2024 with Palimpsest Press. They’re currently Canadian in Brooklyn, New York.

MaryKate Glenn (she / her) is an an artist and performer. Her work explores the unconscious through physical expression, and documents intimacy through and with people she loves. She takes film photographs, plays with clay, moves her body often, and occasionally turns into other people (is an actor). Currently based in Los Angeles.