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POETRY
My Socks at Night
by Celia Easton Koehler
i take my socks off, ball one inside the other, and tuck them under my pillow. i like that in the morning, i can put my socks on before getting out of bed. i dread feeling cold & the cold’s emphasis on maintenance or covering up, which is a form of separating oneself from the […]
Descent into Madness (in D Minor)
by Daniel Brennan
Descent into Madness (in D Minor) I’ve been doing more cocaine these days to keep busy but this poem is not about me. Oh, you know who I saw the other day? It was that boy, the one with a metronome for a tongue, who we’ve both spread open like warm bread though we’d never […]
FICTION
The Mother Part
by Siamak Vossoughi
The Mother Part At the Free Palestine march, Anil saw the sign first: If you are anything like my mother, Agnes Kimber, who says that Palestinians are animals, then you are my enemy too. We couldn’t see who was holding it. They were up at the front. They wanted everyone to know. “How about […]
Portraits of Uncle in Boxers
by Aaron Barreras
This story won first place at the MAYDAY 2024 Short Fiction Contest. I don’t know why I was chewing on my uncle’s arm, but I was. As a child I don’t know why I did a lot of things, so must find meaning from a memory handed down to my not-child-self: being small, and chewing […]
NONFICTION
The Pieces
by KM Kramer
**** Mrs. Beasley’s Lessons I. Mrs. Beasley: my mother presents her as a hand-me-down. I instantly dislike the doll for the stain, suspiciously pooh-colored, on her blue polka-dot outfit. So I toss Mrs. Beasley in my bedroom’s extra closet—the one that contains my mother’s evening gowns and dress shoes, which hang in floor-length shoe bags. […]
Cowrie Shells and Calico
by Conrad Pegues
I’ve known too many disasters to trust the world like they do. The boys doing traditionally boy things. In 1975, a girl on the stairwell in middle school stopped to say I act like a girl sometimes, a boy at other times. I never had the comfort of a closet. My masculine and femme get […]
TRANSLATION
They pass through, and see through us
by Christine Guinard, translated from the Spanish by Susanna Lang
They pass through, and see through us (from Ils passent et nous pensent) tu demandes sous tes pas c’est ton sol ? you ask beneath your feet is this your land? je n’ai pas traversé les Pyrénées je n’ai pas suivi la neige pas à pas sans demeure je n’ai pas demandé au ciel de […]
Rebellion
by Dragana Kršenković Brković, Translated from the Montenegrin by Aleksandra Nikčević Batričević
Dusk was slowly descending over the town. The rain had finally stopped, but the sky was still covered with heavy gray clouds. It was Friday, the last day of November. Even though Maya was cold, she still wandered around persistently. For a while, she walked along the trail by the Yser River. Her gaze wandered […]
REVIEWS
Review: tommy wyatt blake’s MIASMAMIST: a poetic display of egoist anarchy
by mk zariel
This review is a reprint. It was originally published by fsm. Review: tommy wyatt blake’s MIASMAMIST: a poetic display of egoist anarchy As the narrative begins, a nameless figure hands over their business card, yet no name or job title appears—instead, the card bears a grimly honest statement about the reader’s life: “trust me, i’m […]
Review: Fatemeh Shams’s Hopscotch
translated from the Persian by Armen Davoudian
by Mahdi Ganjavi
In The Beginning, There Was Translation Hopscotch (Falschrum Books and Ugly Duckling Presse, 2024) is a collection of 13 poems in Persian by Fatemeh Shams, accompanied by their English translations by Armen Davoudian, and a series of evocative photographs by Stefan Maneval. This collection delves deeply into the themes of exile, memory, and the internal […]
CULTURE
Please Don’t Make Fun of God
by McKenzie Watson-Fore
This essay is written by MAYDAY magazine’s Critic in Residence This past summer, my partner Michael and I attended the wedding of two of our friends. One of them grew up in a Y2K prepper cult in Eastern Oregon. Her now-wife is a Dutch gynecologist. The four of us will often laugh about the mirrored […]
There Is No Male Body Positivity Movement. It’s Time We Start One.
by Justin Kolber
This essay continues the theme of Men’s Mental Health Month, whose important message should be recognized all year rather than just in November. Eating disorders are a “silent scream.” According to Monte Nido, a specialized treatment center for eating disorders, “Millions of people are hiding an eating disorder every day.” Specifically, 29 million Americans today […]
