this is not a metaphor

By Juls Macdonell

i am selling my panties online to strangers
now privy to my spotting schedule
the fickleness of my iud
the way i bleed more
if i go for a bike ride
that scent
even i barely know. i imagine it
as tomato stems or marigold
floral in a technical sense alone
and needing to be broken
to release its heady sun-stench
of where the heat goes
after a long-houred day. still
i have no fruit, so do not call
it a blossom. it is at best
a giving away under
the slightest pressure— 
rot-soft—the sort of soft
we hate to touch. 

---

apparently

By Juls Macdonell

those of us who crush cold potato salad
not cold like fresh, cold like fridge-cold leftovers
eaten standing, and with a quiet reverence
 
watch a video about a rich tiktokker
i mean billionaire tiktokker who’s allowed
because she was rich before she showed off
 
her meek voice, soft-spoken, animal-loving
wholesomeness. those of us who eat double-cold
fermented beet greens watch becca bloom
 
explain that she doesn’t want to overwhelm
her cat with too much caviar topping
and apparently, we like her
 
for the baby voice she wears for her pets
for her velvet-laden wedding invites
for her necklace worth a house and
 
for her dog-on-a-diet, just a little unhealthy
with love like us, and called happy.
what a good dog
 
to ground the viewer like that.

---

twitter talked a lot of shit

By Juls Macdonell

about sagittarius men.
players, cheaters, just plain
stupid, but a sagittarius woman was a goddess
(not as much as a taurus; in 2020 nothing says sex
like a matching pajama set and your scorpio lover
cleaning the shower drain of your hair)
 
so what is an agender sagittarius but another traveler
who may or may not be taking part in infidelity;
and a bigender sag, a goddess who cheats but everyone loves him for it,
i suppose they exist;
and genderfluid, or are we asking too much?
 
i told my grandpa i was tired of digging
all those holes on twitter before i knew
what was to come. now
i don’t know what they say
in that corner of the internet still watching the stars
but i am more sure than i was then
that in all the constellations, half a man and half a horse
remains anomaly, but half a man and half a woman
can never trust a horoscope.

---

​Juls Macdonell studies and works on W̱SÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən lands. He received the 2025 Lorna Crozier Scholarship for Poetry and the 2025 Philip Pickering Award for Poetry at the University of Victoria. Her work is found in or forthcoming in Prairie Fire, Contemporary Verse 2, HAD, and more.