The Rail
Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our favorite emerging writers
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11/26/2021 0 Comments Officially, Legally by Rachel LeónDear Readers, We were so excited and overwhelmed by the stories we received for our Intimacy chapbook that we had to share a few on The Rail! We're so pleased to publish this story by non-binary queer writer Rachel León. Whether you spent your long weekend with family, chosen family, or in solitude, we're certain you'll love this beautiful piece about the intimacies and intricacies of "unconventional" parenthood. Keep an eye on Derailleur Press's social media for upcoming announcements on our chapbook releases, and of course keep an eye on The Rail for more brilliant writing each week. Happy reading! - Derailleur Press  Adrian can’t sleep, his mind running through the list of preparations: he picked up the balloons and cake that afternoon. The invitations were sent two weeks ago — digitally through social media and fifty-three glossy photo cards for close friends and family. Did he go overboard on the invites? His attorney said he could have as many people as he wanted. But he’ll probably need more ice for the party… and would there be enough to drink? He bought eight cases of soda in varying colors, caffeine levels, and diet-friendliness. Plus, water; people could always have water. But maybe he should grab some juice, too? He will when he gets the ice — a couple jugs of apple juice should be just fine. He wants everything perfect — tomorrow, Adrian will officially, legally, become a father to his son and daughter. *
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Dear Readers, We were so excited and overwhelmed by the stories we received for our Intimacy chapbook that we had to share a few on The Rail! We're so pleased to publish this eerie speculative story by Spanish writer Santiago Eximeno (translation by Alicia L. Alonso). While first reading this piece, I was drawn to the uncanniness of it all. Like a vivid dream, every absurdity of this story feels too real to be true. I'm positive you're going to have just as much fun reading this as I did. Keep an eye on Derailleur Press's social media for upcoming announcements on our chapbook releases, and of course keep an eye on The Rail for more brilliant writing each week. Happy reading! - Derailleur Press  I need a hug.
This was the first thought that crossed Elena’s mind when she walked into her doctor’s office. She was lonely. Peter had insisted on staying home with the girls, believing that they were too small to go to the hospital with her. They would get nervous and bother everyone, and they - Elena and Peter - would end up getting angry as well. But what Elena really saw in her husband’s behavior was fear, lots of fear. And selfishness. The same selfishness that made him avoid talking about her disease in front of the girls, as if not talking about it could make it go away. As if mentioning it would tarnish him and the girls. Elena, after all, was already tarnished. As she sat alone in the small waiting room, Elena felt – not for the first time - unconnected to her family, a family that valued fighting and playing games more than hard work, the kind of work that had to be done every day so that everything they thought they were entitled to would prevail. It was not because Peter got fired from his job after fifteen years in the same company (always the same job, always the same tasks and responsibilities, zero willingness to prosper and get a raise). It was not because her husband wasted his time at home sitting in front of the computer or television while the girls were at school, or because he would not share his time with her when she came home from work, or because he simply forgot about the girls when Elena was home. She didn’t even care about the offhanded way he administered his severance pay (after all, they did share one single bank account; when they got married they had thought it romantic), as if a tomorrow of scarcity and shortages was not lurking in the shadows around the corner, waiting for them. It was because of the shared giggles at the kitchen table that now excluded her, the gossiping, the mouth-to-ear whispering on the sofa, the girls’ looks of concern that turned to cackles with any inappropriate joke their father improvised. It was because she was sick and they were not, because she was isolated from their happiness, denied an embrace when she needed it the most. Did she have a shorter fuse than some years back? Of course she did! He did not have to deal with a boss who wanted to fuck her – and, may her daughters forgive her, she was starting to think it was not such a bad idea – and who didn’t even bother to hide it in front of their colleagues. His body and his hormones had not been ravaged by two pregnancies. He had his Sunday game cards with his friends, yes, but never found a moment to leave the kids at home with a babysitter and take her out to dinner. So fucking selfish. 11/12/2021 0 Comments The Thicc, by Christy AdmiraalDear Readers, We were so excited and overwhelmed by the stories we received for our Intimacy chapbook that we had to share a few on The Rail! We're kicking off the series with a delightful story from Christy Admiraal. While editing this piece, I was particularly enamored of its warmth and humor, not to mention how the two characters felt lived in and distinctly human. In Christy's words, this is a story "loosely based around the concept of intimacy, but mostly about kissing" and I'm positive you're going to love it as much as I did Keep an eye on Derailleur Press's social media for upcoming announcements on our chapbook releases, and of course keep an eye on The Rail for more brilliant writing each week. Happy reading! - Derailleur Press  Nico would never call himself a baker, though, by definition, that was what he was. Yes, he had a semi-fulfilling day job in marcomm, he ran five mornings every week, and he possessed a borderline encyclopedic knowledge of cult movies, but baking—baking was different. Baking was solace. Whenever he had to work past 8pm, he made a pan of blueberry muffins with lemon zest and browned butter. Whenever things went south with someone he’d seen a glimpse of a future with, he perfected the crust of his key lime cheesecake. And whenever he had to run interference on a petty disagreement between his mother and youngest sister, he returned to his absolute favorite recipe: a chocolate chip and oatmeal cookie with the darkest possible brown sugar, best served with homemade vanilla ice cream on the side. He called the cookie Layton’s Folly, after his own last name and the fact that adding chocolate chips to oatmeal raisin batter had been a complete fuckup on his part. He couldn’t argue with the result, which tasted nothing like a mistake, and he’d been baking and eating or freezing the fruits of his labor ever since. For tonight, he’d baked a batch of lemon bars. Jenny had told him they were her favorite when he asked—not out of pure curiosity, but because Nico knew he wanted to bake her something, and he wanted to be sure she’d actually enjoy it. He liked to make a good impression on a first date, especially one he was excited about. And he was excited. But he was also annoyed. 11/6/2021 3 Comments The Only Way Out, by Taylor Scott I guess I’m going through something.
Don’t you just hate it when I say that? All my emphasis on guess like I’m not a reckless monetary liability from weeks of wasting paychecks on front row seats to viewings of my life burning down-- my own old Hollywood sideshow. I guess it doesn’t matter much, you’re not listening nearly enough to hate what I have to say anyway. You’re stuck like a kid in a sandbox and too big a fool to know that I know better, that I know next to the oranges in a chain grocery store in the desolation of some backwards hick town, another poor girl will pluck your bruised ego from a bushel of disappointing men and you’ll feel electrified once more. In your current state, you find yourself distraught-- that’s the truth. Distraught! Over a girl and her inability to mourn you “properly”. Well, die first—exit my life with some class, leave me with memories worth mourning! Between work and crawling around on my knees for a god that threw me to the wolves, I guess I could spare a moment to mourn you “properly”, but I won’t. I ran three thousand miles away seeking safety and grief is anything but safe. When I fled across state lines, I ran into a daydream—or so I thought. Every day I wake up to find him still waiting for me-- it’s as real as your arrogance. This incidental happiness with this person that waited to see me smile, with this person that I’d drop everything for-- you’re better off calling him “Replacement”-- he could give me a real reason to mourn. Kindness without the strings, manipulation is uncharted territory—he refuses to dim my glow. I’m not putting it all on the line with him, I’m not putting it all on the line for him. There is safety in his presence. I watch his eyes when he sees me-- they are simmering soup on a snow day. While you crawl into a bad mood stew, I forget the way joy fills my lungs, how it feels when another person tends to the garden in my veins. You wouldn’t understand that-- you evicted your dignity lifetimes ago, there is no room for concern in your profile. It’s how I know you’ll never think about mourning me. Don’t you just hate it when I make everything about me? I guess I’m going through something but the mourning process is not it. 10/29/2021 2 Comments Bath Time, by Jo Garwood Like some great crushing snake filled with the burning heat of the hottest hot water bottle you’ve ever known. Enveloping you so slowly at the start, that you barely notice, like that story about the frog in boiling water. And the heat becomes blackness, sadness, great mounds of soil filling your mouth, but warm, not cold or damp, so perhaps it’s sand or space. You turn on your side like a foetus, like some pale, pulsing pulpa or a great inflated larvae in a too-small cocoon. You’d been reading poetry, quietly, toe in the tap and a flannel on your forehead, ignoring covid 19 successfully for the first time in nine weeks, feeling a great feminist fire in your belly. No bubbles, no razor, not even soap or shampoo for your hair, just hot hot hot water up to your ears, and cuts from new knives on your knuckles. The poetry was flinging the door open for you to stare down the long corridor, back at yourself, and peer into old classrooms and feel that first feeling of Plath and Frida and Maya Angelou. It was reminding you of all the fights and fists, the protests and the tiny wins and the huge great stinking victories which have come before you and then the book felt like a bomb in your wrinkled, puckered mitts. And your anger flushed and bloomed and grew from the small, hard walnut in the pit of your stomach, into your lungs, your heart, into the pulse in your hot hot hot neck. And you vow that throughout and after this time which serves up horror upon horror, you’ll remember: the fights not won, the fights not won, the fights not won. Not yet. Jo Garwood (she/ her) currently lives with her partner in Brixton, London. By day, she works for a large charity giving advice to the public on a range of problems, from debt and housing to legal and consumer problems. She has been writing since childhood and was thrilled to get 1 of 13 places on the BA English with Creative Writing degree at the University of East Anglia after leaving school, way back in 2001! Since then, she has continued to write fiction and poetry and also enjoys lino cutting and printmaking, DIY queer film, LGBTQ activism and collecting penknives.
10/27/2021 0 Comments Change of Scenery, by Kevin Camp He arrived in great haste, remembering to turn sharply off of the paved road where there were no lights, tears streaming down his face. Words had been exchanged once again with his father, and though he didn’t really need the money, a crisp $20 bill had been thrust aggressively at him. The meaning was clear: take the money and leave me the hell alone. He knew instinctively that one doesn’t pick one’s parents, but sometimes that wasn’t consolation enough by itself.
Inside his yellow vinyl backpack was a compendium of gay pornography, magazines mostly, purchased downtown at the so-called “adult bookstore.” He always had to laugh at the word choice employed to disguise its true purpose. There wasn’t a single book on the shelf to be sold, but on the racks was a compendium of pornographic magazines sitting upright on worn wooden bookshelves—three packs in the shrink wrap. Behind them, against one back wall, was a collection of dildos and vibrators encased in thick plastic on hooks, and then more shelves—brand-new tapes stacked up neatly with cardboard sleeves still in the shrink wrap, ready to be sold. 10/15/2021 1 Comment It's the Days, by John Tustin It’s not the myriad prisons
The walls that are everywhere The men of terror The women of no sympathy It’s not the calls unreturned Or the mirror spitting back at you Even the sparrows falling to their deaths On fallow ground Beaks broken upon the weeds and the dust How the music becomes nothing But memories of something With the decades listening It’s not the alcohol It’s not the job The search for work That grinds one down To paste It’s not the rituals Of eating, earning And losing With The piss dribbling At 4AM From a middle aged cock With a middle aged prostate It’s not even the vacancy of emotions Meeting the logjam of words That coagulate in the river Tepid with nonchalance Meaning nothing As we count shekels And lose them gambling On luck On love It’s not even the inevitability Of the death Of a star No It’s the endless days That become nights Of threadbare sanity That Decimate the soul Alone Whether solitary Or in a crowded room It’s just The days And how They keep Coming Toward us Alone As we draw our cards Waiting for the shreds of love Among the scrapple In the slaughter Waiting for love Waiting for the end As failures And killers of love Waiting for The death Of a star Scrambling For the shreds In the scrapple  I’m wrapped up in your arms, wearing nothing but a thong Every time we move some part of me ends up in your mouth. This time it’s my nipple and you suck on me like you need nothing else. I hold you and savour the feeling of being worshipped. Your body is a temple, I’ve heard people say. And when the heat rises over us, you prostrate yourself before mine Bend low and drink deep from my holy waters Like it gives you vigour purpose life. You tell me we don’t need to leave this bed. We skip classes calls meals showers. We follow each other to the kitchen the toilet the mirror Unable to bear a moment without skin on skin. Your eyes linger greedy all over me. When I begin to cover up you peel the cloth right off me And when you stiffen for the hundredth time in these past few days? weeks? months? It is my turn to worship. I make offering of myself my soul my blood And rapt, you accept. No other possibility exists. You can’t imagine a world in which you would give this up. We drain our bodies into peace every waking minute. A moment finally comes when the peace lingers even after dreams. You take up my hand and we know. We feel it A shaking dread. The honeymoon will soon be over. In absolute defiance we go out and you finger me in the cab. We barely make it through dinner. You slide your tongue over the sashimi, I squeeze my legs together in an almost painful anticipation. We wonder why we ever left the warmth of your bed How we can ever stand the separateness of the outside. We make no conversation. There is only baited silence, Desperate, longing gazes and whispered promises of the ecstatic undoing to come. We decide to walk home and the moonlight washes over us in a cold relief. Suddenly we feel powerful, like it’s us against the world and there’s just no contest. When you’ve faced demons alone, one trusted ally is an army. We amaze each other in tiny moments, simply because we’re paying attention. Maybe the end of the beginning won’t be so bad. Maybe our luck changed when we met each other. Maybe we’ll make it. The long haul. You gulp and I shudder. It’s too big, so uncertain. Can the path of shooting stars align? Or are we facing collision? A stellar explosion. The stink of fear rises from the river and we quicken our pace. Wind whips my hair and pulls your jacket open. Why did we ever leave? We turned this fantasy thing real. Too real. I look up at you, scared to see. Don’t regret me, I think. You look back at me and something surges in your chest. Fuck, you think And you kiss me. You call me beautiful, and the dread lingers between us. It circles casually around our fingers between our hearts But it reminds us of what’s here and unspoiled And now it’s even more urgent To know and feel everything everything everything. We race inside before real life can steal any more from us. We cling to each other and burn But now there are pauses that hadn’t been there before- Uneasy flickers. We swallow them. It makes us sluggish. It forces us slow. The deliberate motion is new It entrances us. Something else is different. A notion conceived. Something about a slow burn or a slow fall doesn’t seem half bad anymore. Christie Borely is an attorney and emerging writer/poet from the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Her multi-ethnic heritage is made up of East Indian, West African, and French Creole ancestry and is characteristic of the ethnically diverse population of the Caribbean nation. She aspires to tell vivid, poignant stories that convey a philosophy of inner peace and strength in community. Her short story Grass is Greener has recently been published in Rebel Women Lit literary magazine. She loves meeting new writers and readers. Find her on IG/CH: @christieborely
10/1/2021 0 Comments Sunlight on Flesh, by John Grey Sunlight on flesh - the blood knows it’s there – even the marble statue thaws a little – (did her naked toe just move?) – your kiss - similar effect – even the memory, that shopping aisle of enjoined lips – the rose garden of fluttering color and thornless stalks – or the ascending stairs where the room at the top reaches down to pull me up – one shadow slinks away – another dissolves – a departing bird leaves its song behind – the field is free for me to sing it. John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Lana Turner and International Poetry Review.
9/24/2021 0 Comments Jesus went to Hell, I hear, in Sunday, One day when I'm dead I'll go to Heaven, & One day I'll be dead says my Sunday School, by Gale Acuff Jesus went to Hell, I hear, in Sunday
School, I mean that that's where I heard that but He didn't hang there long, He worked His way out and up to Heaven and I wonder if when I croak I'll do likewise, go to Hell for a space even if I'm lucky enough to score Heaven, which I doubt, and have a look-see maybe at the torment and torture that might have been for me, then an angel whisks me away to Heaven and if I know me then in Paradise I won't be able to get out of my head or mind or but most likely soul Satan and Hellfire and losers and Perdition. Maybe the best Good Place is back on Earth. |
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