After you were dishonorably discharged from Elijah’s
army of occult figurineists and compact disc purists,
we each underwent a surgical procedure.

By no fault of my own, I operate heavy machinery,
and you were on the construction site. Elijah slings groceries
for a living, which is more than you can say

for yourself. You are lucky to be alive. You asked me
to send you our songs. Upon misunderstanding
your request, I sent a certain hit by Elton John.

Last summer, you worked an entry-level job in
Midtown Manhattan through a successful interview process. I worked at
a sheep rental operation in Eastern Pennsylvania

through the mother of a friend’s friend. We both value good sex.
You visited me in Vermont two years ago and we
went swimming in Lake Champlain. I brought you a peach

and you laughed at it, describing the fuzz and the
intricate supply chain process through which I came to obtain it.
Please stop sending the emails with useless attachments.

Because I used to cut myself, I like to say me and The Cure
go way back. Boys don’t cry in baseball. I always mean to ride
my scooter all around the local little league complex.

It’s all very precarious, but when I say my heart is in the right place,
my heart exists entirely. These fancy phone applications can’t touch playing
sudoku on a little paper notepad in the backseat of the rehab minivan.

If you ever want to treat someone well, buy them a candle
made of soy that smells like something good,
and that comes in a small planter to use after it melts.

You hate me because I’m the pig girl,
which was disgusting of me. You hate me
with your life. I do not leave the tofu alone.

Gold Carson Sánchez is a poet, artist, and musician from New Jersey. Their chapbook Live Action Capitalism was published by Bottlecap Press in 2021. They are a member of hotbed collective and the winner of an Academy of American Poets University Prize. Gold is a Leo of queer experience & Afro-Dominican descent. You can find their work at goldcarsonsanchez.cargo.site and their tweets on Twitter @g0ldnews.

Best known for her visceral gouache paintings of ephemeral landscapes, Maysey Craddock examines the dualities and mysteries of nature and those relationships to space and time. Through saturated earth tones and translucent elemental layers, she depicts the spaces in between and what happens beyond the grasp of human control. Based on her own photographs of wetlands and other fragile wild spaces, her process layers intricate drawings and painting onto sewn together paper bags - a conceptual regeneration which mirrors the geological processes she depicts and references the way we seek to both shape and preserve what we see in nature. Maysey Craddock currently lives and works in Memphis. She received an MFA from Maine College of Art, Portland, ME and a BA from Tulane University in New Orleans. She has participated in numerous solo exhibitions across the United States and Germany and has received awards, grants and residencies, including the Tennessee Artist Fellowship; an Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the Tennessee Arts Commission; Artist in Residence at Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany; Artist in Residence at Maine College of Art; and sculpture and painting residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She is represented by Sears Peyton Gallery (New York and L.A.), David Lusk Gallery (Memphis and Nashville) and Cris Worley Fine Arts (Dallas).