Cotton Xenomorph is a literary journal produced with the mission to showcase written and visual art while reducing language of oppression in our community. We are dedicated to uplifting new and established voices while engaging in thoughtful conversation around social justice.

Boychik

by Marilyn Schotland

Hollow everything out &
          fill it with new bones;
                    prayers to wax ribs, kisses on collarbones.

Cut hair: heat, let it curl & swim away:
          the final heat mangling departing.
                    Let everything announce the new nervous system,

a conglomeration of fluttering,
          monarchs, jagged fingernails in gut.
                    I’ll float to the surface & skim myself off the top.

Boychik: the word curls around teeth & clicks through
          tongue. an early 2000’s boy band patched together:
                    sk8rboi by way of shtetl.

Half a boy, half a name called girl.
          i’m having my ba_ mitzvah at twenty;
                    there’s a first time for everything.


Marilyn Schotland is the co-founder and poetry editor of Bombus Press. Her published work has appeared in L’Éphémère ReviewOcculum, and Eunoia Review. At present, she is twenty-years-old and studies History of Art and French Language at the University of Michigan. 

30,000 Pound Lullaby

2 Poems: White Privilege & My White Self Tries to Imagine