AustLit

'I've felt like a penguin dad lately—even more so than usual—ever since the government announced the postal vote on marriage equality was going ahead. I sometimes tell the Voiceworks editorial committee (EdComm) I would balance them on my feet, like an egg(comm), beneath my soft downy belly, and trundle to the edge of the Antarctic if it meant protecting them from glacial winds. I’ve come to accept I overuse animal metaphors, and all metaphors. They serve the purpose of letting people know my human feelings without the drawback of being properly human-style vulnerable.'  (Introduction)

'Recently I was interviewing a rabbi for part of my master’s thesis. I asked her how she imagined God, and she provided me with a list of concepts from different theologians. The one that stood out to me most was the idea of God as a vessel that catches overflowing emotion. When you feel so overcome with joy or sadness that you can’t contain it in your body, it flows out and God is there to hold it. She also talked about the body as ‘the house of the soul’. The combination of these two concepts was immediately soothing for me, not just because they imagine God as tender and caring, but also because they imagine the body and the self as something porous, not a finite, closed-of thing. Too many feelings? You don’t actually need to hold onto them all at once. Too many conflicting facets of identity? No worries. Just put some of them outside for a bit.'  (Introduction) 

'The bell rings. It's recess. Kids swarm the front office, looking for confiscated phones and basketballs. Some request to see teachers. The office ladies mostly ignore them. One boy stomps to my desk and addresses me as 'Oi! Miss' before being ordered to sit by one of the vice principals. He slumps down in one of the plush empty chairs outside my office, defeated. Accused of starting a punch on, he's sullen. 'I didn't do it,' he insists loudly. He sinks down so low in the chair so that his waist hangs over the edge and his feet lay sprawled on the patterned carpet at odd angles.' (Publication abstract)

'I am drunk on public transport again. A woman sits a few seats away from me, head resting on the pole behind her. Her face is a barcode, reads like this: forehead, eyebrows, eyeliner, the rim of her shut lids, and then the tears slipping from underneath. She has headphones in. I think she's crying to the music. She looks whole and beautiful, and I feel bad for thinking this. The tears keep slipping out. There is a man standing in the aisle who is more interested in flexing his biceps in the fluorescent lights than comforting the beautiful crying woman. I am angry at him for not caring for a few minutes, before I get distracted by his biceps. He gets off at the same stop as me and I fantasise about him following me home. He doesn't.

'When I get home I steal one of my housemate's Zooper Dooper iceblocks and eat it in the shower. I stay there until the hot water runs out...' (Publication abstract)

'On the evening of Saturday 20 August 2005, a few hundred people packed into an assembly hall at Centenary Heights State High School in Toowoomba to hear a debate about their town’s future. A local activist group, Citizens Against Drinking Sewage (CADS), had organised the event to build opposition to a policy recently announced by the Toowoomba city council: recycling the town’s sewage as drinkable water.' 

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'The typhoon starts with a murmur. It finds us in the sky, waiting. Then, as we leave the South China Sea, it starts to scream. Inside the plane there is silence. It waxes and wanes, stretching across carpeted floors...' (Publication abstract)

'In BIalystok, Poland, during the summer of 1906, a procession of men dressed in gowns walked solemnly through the city centre to commemorate the building of a new Russian-Orthodox cathedral. Though the town was mostly Jewish, the atmosphere between Jews and goyim had been strained since Pesach the previous year, when local gossip began to spread that Jews killed Christian children and used their blood to make matzoh for the holy day. The police chief, Derkacz, had sent the police to stop Russian soldiers from attacking Jews in the marketplace. He was the seventh man to have held the post of police chief that year. The other six had been murdered on orders from the Russian government, or had stepped down from the position out of fear. Derkacz had heard the stories from nearby villages of what was happening to the Jews there. He told the Jews in Bialystok, 'It will not happen here.' My great-great-grandmother (I do not know her name) heard him say, 'Over my dead body.' He was murdered in June on the orders of the Russian commissar.'  (Publication abstract)

''Siktir!' I'm spitting. Swearing while experiencing pain allows you to endure it nearly fifty percent longer. All skin, except probably mine, is slightly acidic: pH of 4 to 6.5. That's called the acid mantle. I reckon my skin's above 7 because of how much time I spend handling soaps and undiluted ammonia. I'm getting an A in alkalinity. It hurts, of course, but the pain is just chemicals getting pinged to warn me. I know what I'm doing - I am cleaning...'   (Publication abstract)

'In bed I stroke my lover's hair. Smooth, freshly washed. Their skin feels good against mine and though my body is sore, I am relaxed. We are talking about work.'

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'Today I messed up a parallel park and ruined my entire life...'  (Publication abstract)