issue #1: musical golden shovels

GHOSTMEAT / WHEN I'M IN WITNESS WHEREOF

29 April 2026

that backyard is mysterymatter on memory lapses, and i am trying to level with the unknown. but what if i don’t rewind it into being? whose responsibility does it belong to when it wastes to translucence? what a curse time is, to autopsy amnesia as a means of separation from anyone who’ll tenderize me to ghostmeat—              i am strewn across the porch like air, so far from my body,              when you joke that you might kill me someday, so i say,              “i love you,” as you drop your affect, faceblank, as you say it again,              until i see my limbs fade to nothing, to concrete, and              the whole of me is just a pair of eyes.

Notes

After “David” by Lorde.

0:00 / 0:00

about the author

tommy wyatt blake is a multi-nominated Pushcart and Best of the Net poet. they have several books, including FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT! (Troublemaker Firestarter), Mutually Assured Destruction (Ethel Zine), CRASH (Vinegar Press), Trick Mirror or Your Computer Screen (fifth wheel press), and others. their work often navigates topics such as trauma, queerness, popular culture, time, and disability. he is currently synthesizing digital archives, space voids, and confines of the body. you can find him online @tommywyattblake.