Tell me that the kids don’t know where potatoes come from. Tell them it’s from the earth and they might not eat anymore. Kids don’t eat enough dirt anymore. Me? I’m about as butch as a girl-child making a mudcake. This is how to play house. We’re all the mom but you can be the dad. There’s a dog that’s also a cat. The children are all well fed. There is a rosebush and also a clover garden. One bedroom. This is where you can keep your things in my life. (In the bottom left drawer.) Fold it next to my boyhood and I will hold it against my chest when you leave. This is where I keep my toothbrush and you can keep yours next to mine. This is how you time travel. This is how you look back with feeling. This is how to open the garage door from the inside. Teach me how to drive and I’ll teach you something about poetry. This is how to find the center of gravity. It’s between your ear and your chin. It’s the distance between us October-June. This is how to do laundry together and yes, I will remember the dryer sheets. I know about the oat milk in the morning, the reality tv before bed. This is how to be a boy. It requires a lot of blush. Add mascara to your mustache. This is how to be a girl. I know a thing or two about it. Tell me about the girl from high school. Tell me about your name and I’ll tell you about my mother. This is how to lick the floorboards, Andrea Gibson. I’m on WikiHow every night figuring out how to tell you. This is How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, Kate Hudson. This is how to. This is something I can’t explain in words so let’s transcend language, let’s press our foreheads together, let’s call it even.
Neither, Both
Tell me that the kids don’t know where potatoes come from. Tell them it’s from the earth and they might not eat anymore. Kids don’t eat enough dirt anymore. Me? I’m about as butch as a girl-child making a mudcake. This is how to play house. We’re all the mom but you can be the dad. There’s a dog that’s also a cat. The children are all well fed. There is a rosebush and also a clover garden. One bedroom. This is where you can keep your things in my life. (In the bottom left drawer.) Fold it next to my boyhood and I will hold it against my chest when you leave. This is where I keep my toothbrush and you can keep yours next to mine. This is how you time travel. This is how you look back with feeling. This is how to open the garage door from the inside. Teach me how to drive and I’ll teach you something about poetry. This is how to find the center of gravity. It’s between your ear and your chin. It’s the distance between us October-June. This is how to do laundry together and yes, I will remember the dryer sheets. I know about the oat milk in the morning, the reality tv before bed. This is how to be a boy. It requires a lot of blush. Add mascara to your mustache. This is how to be a girl. I know a thing or two about it. Tell me about the girl from high school. Tell me about your name and I’ll tell you about my mother. This is how to lick the floorboards, Andrea Gibson. I’m on WikiHow every night figuring out how to tell you. This is How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, Kate Hudson. This is how to. This is something I can’t explain in words so let’s transcend language, let’s press our foreheads together, let’s call it even.
Issue 11
https://manyworlds.place/issue-11/ashton-freeman/
Ashton Freeman is prone to believing in magic. Brooklyn based, they are a writer, educator, and visual artist. They are the nonfiction editor for Waxwing Literary Journal and a poetry reader with Pigeon Pages. Freeman’s work has appeared in Foglifter, Milk Press, Screen Door Review, and Love & Squalor. In 2024 they were nominated for the 2025 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. To find their work– search under rocks, in your sock drawer, and the late afternoon, and at ashton-freeman.com.