in another future,
standing in the kitchen with you

ALANA CRAIB

You come up behind me and kiss the back of my neck. Gently, because there is no bitterness. In the sudsy sink water there is a portal. It swirls around our dirty dishes. I stick my hands in, just to check, and am suddenly overcome with such an incredible, deep sadness and pity for myself somewhere very far away, stuck in a different world. Our heartache.

I choose instead to turn away; to face you. I wrap my arms around your neck, dripping soap down the back of your shirt.

What’s all this about, you laugh, as I kiss your eyelids again and again and again.

Nothing, I say. I just missed you.

Alana Craib (they/she) is a writer and artist from upstate New York. Her work is often concerned with matters of love, green burial, queer bodies, mothers and grandmothers, ghosts and memory, the kitchen, and the bog. Their writing has most recently been featured in Cleaver Magazine, The Plentitudes Journal, Motif, and Antiphony. Alana is a recipient of the 2024 Andrea K. Willison Poetry Prize. They hold a BA in Creative Writing and Literary History from Sarah Lawrence College. Alana currently lives in Providence, RI, where she is an MFA candidate in Fiction at Brown University. In their free time, Alana enjoys playing on the guitar, collecting sentimental objects, collage, and dozing. She has recently been learning how to line dance. You can find more work at alana-craib.com.