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The Afterpast Review

A Feminist Magazine

Facing Up by Lynn White

3/13/2025

 
You’re looking past her
avoiding her eyes,
the eyes of the woman
in the front line of the protest
the one who reminds you of your mother
or your mother in law
or your grandmother
or all of them together.
​
You don’t need to look at her,
don’t need to meet the challenge
of her eyes,
you have the power
you have the choice
to look past her.

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Hellfire Safety Precautions by Katie McCall (England, 33)

3/13/2025

 
Fingers of smoke unspool across the hillside, reaching up to gunmetal clouds above. Charred, sunken beams mark the place where the roof of Boyd Whitefield’s house once stood, blackened giant’s ribs collapsing onto cold soil. In disbelief, I stand in silence; unable to comprehend the ash-covered scene. A shiver of guilt moves through me, and I pull my thin woollen shawl around my shoulders—perhaps, in another scenario, people might stare and say it’s unwise for a young girl to be out on her own, unaccompanied, but the flock of sleep-deprived neighbours peer instead at the decimated building, worrying that a stray cinder might jump from the wreckage and ignite one of their homes. The exhausted firefighters have nearly finished extinguishing the last remaining embers, which sizzle and hiss in protest. ​

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Forgetting by the Lake by Akshita Himatsingka

3/13/2025

 
Renata’s family picture showed parents, two kids, and a pet elephant. She invited me to visit her family’s house and I agreed because they lived by a beautiful lake. They owned hotels which gave them the opportunity to socialize with foreigners. Sona, their elephant took daily baths at the lake except in winter, when instead, water was heated and poured over her. All visitors went home with stories of the majestic yet friendly elephant.
    “Is it true that elephants never forget anything?” I asked Renata on the train. The emotions I suppressed were forcing themselves through flashbacks. No, she was a girl, it couldn’t be real. “No, it’s just a common myth. Although they do have strong memories” she said.

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A Pretty Thing Like You by Elizabeth Stark (Idaho, 22)

3/13/2025

 
I can count the number of times I’ve done something right on my fingers. The number is zero. 
Actually, can nothing be counted? Do you count zero or do you count from zero? I suppose it would depend on the perspective…
​

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Wish upon a Star by L.R. McGary

3/13/2025

 
    My protective shell was ripped away. The energy I had built to the brink of explosion—suicidal supernova—surged out. I ought to have been angry, but to be unconfined, feeling the space I flew through again, was glorious. 
    Alshain? Tarazed? Vega? I called. Who in my family had missed me enough to force contact? I would not forgive them right away, of course, but to finally be accepted…
    My light was caught as it left my surface, tangled and wound together like the gravity-birth of a star. Not my family missing me then—this could only be the Celestial. 
You are too late, I said. I pleaded last century. Leave me be. 



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Diva’s Razor by Evan Witmer (New York, 30)

3/13/2025

 
Crafting a compelling drag persona is not about idealizing or mocking the opposite gender. It's a fusion of one-part flash and two-parts ego, a character designed to become a living legend—the captivating stranger you'd eagerly encounter during a night of revelry, where memories are both forged and sometimes forgotten.
    While not every Arkansan may entertain the thought of spending a night with a drag queen or a drag king, Eureka Springs stands out as a community that fully embraces diverse and inclusive experiences. The renowned establishment, The Black Catastrophe, draws a significant portion of the gay community to Eureka's main street. Within these vibrant walls, the drinks are skillfully crafted by none other than Diva Demise, given name Walter Cousins, the original winner of Ms. Fierce Arkansas back in '89. As long as she was behind the bar, she was always in costume: a jet-black bouffant, porcelain foundation, and a velvet nightgown with little bat wings on the back.


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Pineapple Clouds by Emily Moore (Tennessee, 19)

1/5/2025

 
Mr. In, is there really no other way?
can a canvas not, at base, at heart
be that wall across from that glass lamp;
glares emanating from the forbidding rule of touch.
Must you come in with your bleach and cloth
on bended knee, on a dozen pills for that line on your forehead
and curse wax for its sticking
and color for never staying put.
The child, small, cannot reach
The place where you’ve locked their crayons away;
You believe the key gift enough
You’ve never believed in pineapple clouds.
​

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Heroin Journey by Ghazah Abbasi (Vermont, 39)

1/5/2025

 
All that time spent getting over you,
all those years spent flirting
with the notion that I could replace
you, the man I loved,
with a familiarly reminiscent jumble of
male academic charisma.
Anyone but you, any other pain
than the one you gave me
was something I could take.
Alternating between dominatrix and dominated
in my one-woman theatre,
I geared up in Western black vegan leather
and spun like a Turkish dervish in my dungeon,
divinely orchestrating my next emotional torment,
all in the name of advancing my
heroine’s journey.
​

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don't look by Lex Marie (Texas, 26)

1/5/2025

 
Trigger warning: words relating to violence and death. Alludes to homelessness, Palestine genocide, mental illness, and the state of this country. 


the sinking feeling my my chest
informs me
that we are doomed
bright lights
smart phones
happy pills
just turn it off
i can’t

go outside
pay your bills
that pregnant girl doesn’t look older than 15
don’t look
the streets are crowded
cars rush in urgency
it is Sunday
i know you looked at me
you
didn’t
stop
do you see anything?
​

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A THEORY ON WHY MY MOM DOESN’T LIKE SNAKES by Gaia Lauretani (Italy, 23)

1/5/2025

 
Mamma was not happy
when she received news that I
her horrible daughter
had ruined my beautiful porcelain skin

Her bitterness only intensified
when she learned that I
her horrible daughter
had chosen to permanently etch
on my body one of the creatures
she hates most
a snake
​

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Performance as a Woman by Laurel Galford (Massachusetts, 29)

1/5/2025

 
Smudge your face with chemicals
that promise a permanent youth,
though your skin will eventually
rebel into aging.
​
Straighten your hair with oven heat
even when it burns your neck
pretend the marks are hickeys,
pretend that someone loves you.
​

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Old Wounds by Laurel Galford (Massachusetts, 29)

1/5/2025

 
I pick at the wound of you
without a second thought
just an impulse to hurt,
an itch I will scratch until bloody.

Hidden under the shame of night
I stalk your Instagram
checking to see how much
you still infect me,

examine my absence
like a reverse archaeologist,
question if the meal
tasted better without me,

            the ocean waves more scenic,

                            your life better.

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This Hill by Lauren Goulette (18)

1/5/2025

 
My grandma carries salt in her purse --
Seventy-five years and no wound-ups
in the hospital. An oil-tanker spilled down
I-94 when her collarbone shifted like
some kind of western fault. Two sprays at dawn
and two in the evening
— nasally vinegar-brine up
my cavities push down my spine. Food
is always salty. Let me wonder how long

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​​“A woman in the shape of a monster” (1) by Tara Hollander (Washington)

1/5/2025

 
“A hunger that food cannot fill” (2)
I.
A man cuts through her periphery
He cuts through the music,
Cutting through the soft, short hair
                            By her ear and
Removing her earbud,
Cutting through her time
                            And her thought
And her peace as they’re about to take off

Then he swipes through photos
                            His knee still inched into the side of her thigh
He cuts through the air with a cough
That interrupts the uncaptivating nature of his story
                            Swiped right
She found herself, not repulsed by the strawberry pink
Folds or the soft smatter of wiry curls
But rather
The way his oily pointer finger
                            ​Cut through both.

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Still Flowers by Chinemerem Prince Nwankwo

1/5/2025

 
ripped & opened, I pour into a poem half-stripped of me.
It is a girl story napped in oil-beaned skin.                                  maybe a rustic girl
crawling into a path her mother first knew blood.
         before me, & the body posed as fresh daffodils.
​perhaps, tender & mild like two petite breasts
finding expression.
like the soothing fragrance of ignorance.
& I held my body, the graffiti of a clean slate. & blood gushed

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birthright by Sabrina Hunter

1/5/2025

 
to lift this rock off of me was my birthright.
but you.
you found a reason to bury me.
every day giving me a reason to carry more.
i beg you to stop.
these rocks are too heavy-
ill drop.
the weight of everyone's world collapses-
onto me.

but i still plead.

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Flower Girl by Jane Dieadra Cook (Ohio)

1/5/2025

 
            ​I know this church well. The Walters, our family friends that are faithful church goers,
would drag me here after every sleepover. Us kids would run up and down the aisles when the
service finally ended; stealing the pastor’s keys and army crawling under the pews to keep them
from him. I’m crammed into those same pews now, the cushions on them are a gross mossy
green and the thick air smells like fading incense and Chanel No. 5. It’s not the old, ornate,
celestial kind of church. I think it was built in the 70s and hasn’t been touched since. The organ
strikes a heavy chord and we all instinctively rise.
            ​I tell myself so aggressively not to lock my knees that I wonder if I’ve whispered it aloud. My stomach knots and my heart speeds up. If I lock my knees, I know I’ll faint, or maybe I’ll throw up. The vomit would blend right into these ugly green pews. What a comfort.

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Castles, Books, and Submarines by Sarah Butkovic (Illinois, 23)

1/5/2025

 
SOMEWHERE ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHICAGO
         
​           May 12th, 1925. Dorothy “Dotsy” Elich was born under the sign of the bull and year of
the Ox on the Chinese calendar. If that astrological mumbo-jumbo counts for anything, I attribute
it to making my aunt the most stubborn and fiercest woman I know.

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A Natural Scene by Niamh Darbyshire (Scotland, 17)

1/5/2025

 
A pale blue belt, golden luminescence
Where the lily wilts.
Entangled with the vines beneath the surface,
Divine gift to Gaia.                                                   
The della robbia child.                                                    ​   The watcher observes,

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Sylvia's Lullaby by Jillian Flexner (New York, 34)

1/5/2025

 
       They were down to their last three dollars. They had sold everything they conceivably
could live without from their little cottage – even their tin silverware. Well, they called it a
cottage but it was really more of a hovel, left to only nature’s defenses. Now, they were
desperate. Sylvia stared into the near-empty jar sitting atop an old linen tablecloth in the middle of their kitchen table. Perhaps the harder she stared, maybe the longer she didn’t blink, more money would just appear in the jar. Not much, just a quarter or two, but if she tried hard enough, maybe she could somehow solidify the aching hope in her heart for just a few more dollars to make it through this dry spell.
       A solid kick in her womb pulled her out of her reverie. Sylvia looked down at her swollen belly and let out a long sigh. She felt a flutter, like bubbles popping inside her. The baby must bedoing somersaults, she thought with a tired smile.

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  • Home
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