Our aim for this issue is to reflect on how we at Expanded Field, and most likely you at home, have been feeling all year, and to emphasise that you are not alone. We also hope to remind you that being alone does not necessarily mean being lonely, as many of the authors here are examples of utilising the time and space given to us all for self-reflection and growth.

one part dust
one part mud
fill with shadow 
flood

Here we go. Softer and fast, sporadic mine, my mind mine, where did you go now? Only a shake in the background. What are you counting? What are you clicking? No, no, no, you’ve got it wrong, I am only here to keep time. I am only here to give the rhythm to your mind.

On the fifty-fifth day of containment

God’s porridge tasted of ashes and soap.

Last year on Ayahuasca,

he took selfies with a jaguar.

They say no stop

How can you pass by as the flowers are such red 

How don’t you stop to this tree hidden to itself

My eyes too much to pass

I grew up with three memories of my father. Thirty-two years after his death, I found one more.
My memories are all from before the age of three, the age I was when he died.

All I recall from that day are shards, fragments.
The rumbling train ride to the eastern city.
Hans’ height, the gentle hunch in his back.
Ria’s tight hug around my waist, those cerulean eyes

Nobody ate, the sins.

Mal du siècle, I thought

only in fifteen lines at least.

Does that make sense?

THIS DOCUMENT DETAILING THE EVENTS OF */**/17 (OMITTED) ACCORDING TO MY EXPERIENCE WHICH WILL, I HOPE, BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN YOU, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

SILENCE: THE SOUL OF TASTE. PINK PANTHER. SPORT.
CHARTER. CAPRICORN. MEMPHIS. DIVA. HONEST YOU: BEST
CREW. MALE MONEY. TRCTIC. NAÏVE. THE REALIZING STUFF.
DUANG. SKAT. SNOOPY.

Every day, I wake up and look at the mirror

I remember the rice turning into sand

in my mouth

as I try to swallow.

Ready to have a coffee together on campus

(Cindy's grandparents; those roaring 20s).

Ready to go on an improper trip across the Nevada desert.

Ready for the intellect, to foxtrot, and to shock sellers.

Mamma had always had a love for other people's possessions. When growing up, other people’s possessions were all she had. She told us about the endless stream of hand-me-downs. We used to joke about how her house was the first recycling plant in our country.

Cantaloupe rays interlace

     morning’s moist fingers

for an unhurried saunter.

     Each day seems the same

The house had been in her family.

Its back yard now a cut-through

fences pushed down flat

garage wall a graffiti canvas.

“‘Teacher, how do we know that there are no other humans outside the walls?’

He was dying, that much was clear. Rivai knew that these were the incomprehensible mutterings of someone already far gone.

Not onto the white cliffs of Dover

but from the tunnelling black

into the scrutinous spotlight of industriousness

I became Europe’s bruised children.

Pa, can she have her ocean back?

It was thrown down my throat

when I asked you if I could land

on your words and not on your hand.