STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
CARSON ELLIOT
I imagine the world like a window and step through to the place where the four year bullets don’t ring like mourning bells / where I don’t remember the taste of the sea that comes with drowning / I have stepped through the window and seen the shape of your fist when it is not clenched around my sister’s collar / hovering inches above the floor / I have stepped through the window and found where my mind can trace the maze of aftermath / learned not to run from winter freeze / where there is joy in a world of snow and electric cold in your lungs / I have stepped through the window and run like my mother through miles of a life / where I could be painfully selfless like her and let the cancer eat at my bones / my breasts / my womb / my lungs / allow the lingering dark to become me like a wedding shroud / I have stepped through the window and chosen the place where I get the whole package / the husband / dog / 1.5 kids / picket fence kind of happy / I have stepped through the window and let the warmth of my body lull people to madness in leather / and latex / and damp warm want / I have stepped through the window and forgotten shame / and food stamps / and the hushed car rides to safety / I have stepped through the window and never learned how not to be touched / I have stepped through the window / and the window / and the window / and the window / until I am a world that knows joy like the lines of my palms / where my face is a mirror / where I can look myself in the eyes and dare to recognize the thing looking back / the thing that has forgotten the sweet hum of grass that sings syllables of your name on my tongue / that whispers a life that could have been / if I had learned to live a bit better.
Carson Elliot (they/them) is a poet and educator living in Nashville, TN after spending many years in the quiet corners of Northeast Ohio. Their work focuses on the intersections of transness, spirituality, the natural world, and questions of becoming. Their work can be found in publications such as Samfiftyfour, Pile Press, Third Iris, Fifth Wheel Press, and New Note Poetry. Carson lives with their cat, Toast.
