In his iconic Cream of the Crop promo, the “Macho Man” Randy Savage—a man so adherent to the laws of kayfabe that he remained in character even when relating his darkest hours—echoes a familiar premise: The cream will rise to the top. Then, later: I am the cream. Later, again: I am the cream—of the crop. And later still: Nobody does it better. Kayfabe is the grease we put on the lens through which we view reality; it is the gossamer through which we view the combatants and each certainly landed punch, the sheer through which we snap into any number of meat-sticks. All around us there is the low hum of wishful artifice. We perform. For whom?
In editorial circles, this notion of cream rising (from the submissions queue, in this case), once endlessly echoed in a sort of secular sermon—its own backstage performance, by the way—has more recently found itself problematized, in part due to a cultural reassessment of the endless factors involved in whether any given cream might in fact rise, of which inherent value and relative quality is but one variable subjective factor. Some cream, it’s true, has a longer way to rise. Forgive us, Reader, for professing: We want that cream too. And so, our editorial team, with thermometers and measuring cups, set about…churning? Whisking? Dreaming? The sheer wears thin. In any case, look what we have here: An issue brim-filled with cream, despite its debunking, despite that church’s lost congregation. An issue that rises like cream, as if cream’s rising—that so-called “cream of the crop”—were inevitable. Here is a truth that performs its lie, that erases its sketch marks. Thank you team, for whatever noun completes this metaphor.
And so, Reader, though each uncertain day we may find ourselves ensnared in what Randy Savage memorably calls unjustifiably in a position I’d rather not be in, we invite you to meet us there instead. You know where: I’m talking all the way to the top.
—Michael Hurley, Web Editor
Poetry
Iyanuoluwa Adenle
Even My Kinks are Unreliable
Maddie Barone
Dysphoria as Scenes from a Horror Movie
Sher Ting Chim
Anna May Wong As Optical Illusions
Hee-June Choi
Out of the Pits
Jeffrey Morgan
This Is Not A Poem About Your Grandmother Losing It
Lydia O’Donnell
I Want
Noreen Ocampo
First Reconciliation Abecedarian
Fiction
Clary Ahn
Cat is Dreaming
Morgan Canaan
Pillow Baby
Kelsey Day
Hunting Blind
Yukti Narang
Purse
Katie Henken Robinson
Recovering
Staff
Web Editor
Michael Hurley
Senior Editorial Assistants
Meredith Britton, Solara Campbell, Zoe Lavigne, Alexa Sutton
Editorial Assistants
Michael Alfred, Calvin Baxley, Sophia Beem, Hailey Berk, Katy Broadbent, Sofia Dominguez, Stefi Elizondo, Ryan Eviston, Nyx Melancon, Nicolas Muszynski, Rosette Pavkov, Mouna Penumarthy, Tom Rose, Russell Soto
Digital Art by
Michael Alfred
