Safe Space: a monosyllabic rewrite of ann cvetkovich’s an archive of feelings

Amber dawn

“Indeed, the power of the notion of safe space resides in its double status as the name for both a space free of conflict and a space in which conflict and anger can emerge as necessary components of psychic resolution… the pain and conflict inevitably unleashed when safe spaces are established, should be considered signs of success rather than failure.”

– Cvetkovich, Ann. An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public Cultures. Duke University Press, 2003, p. 87



all we think of is safe space we sing it in a round safe space
queer space, our space, dear space we slant the streets, we cry out “safe space
yes and yes, we want it and now!” we chase time, we ask when was safe space?

each night we dream of safe space it is far off and still strange to us
but at the edge of our dreams stands the house of safe space
it is a two room house both rooms are grand
the front room is for rest the back room is for fire

in the front room soft cots rim the walls we can strip down in the front room
not a stitch, here our skins are lit what bliss, this dream, we can love
and fuck in the front room we can spread our legs
we can kick and spit we can tire our selves out
it is safe to be tired here in the front room we can sleep

in the back room ash dots the air flames lurch and hiss
we are prone to fear the back room but we need to burn
the felled trees of our past we need the heat
to sweat out the old rot from our own bones
in this dream, in the blaze and awe filled back room
we will hold smoke in our arms we will give
each flame a name and make fire our kin

when we wake, and the sharp world takes shape once more
we will ask our selves, what did i dream of?
and all at once, we will say, “i dreamt of safe space
you dreamt of safe space
we dream of safe space.”

Lez Prophéties

amber dawn

For forty years the rainbow will not be seen.
For forty years it will be seen every day.

– M. Michel Nostradamus, translated by Alexis Lykiard

I

To dream of a snake is good luck.
To spit on a fire is bad luck. To spit
on the sacrosanct asshole of the universe
arouses something beyond fate.


II

The prophecies of Nostradamus missed queer
orgasms altogether. Sad astrologer foresaw
disasters and disasters, meanwhile I have learned
to read sweat marks on bicycle seats.


III

Divination by clouds—cumulus means that within
this confusing panoply of beauty and misfortune,
you still matter. Stratus predicts that soon
your ass will be as swollen as aurora gold.


IV

I scry the last sip of water in the glass
left on her bedside table. Her spit is a kissed mirror.
A dream keyhole through which I enjoy peeping
sacred babes slip out of their Orphic eggshells. 


V

The two-thousand-year-old dildo on display
at the Roman Vindolanda Museum is our inheritance.
The empire once used disembodied phalli to ward off evil.
Fortune is nothing but a cock hatefucking fallacious time.


VI

The footprints bunking up the bathroom tile after I
jerk off under the facet’s gush reveal the future.
Ichomancy. Our firstborn will be the slattern, a chosen one
who will gooch gwank us into an new era of salvation.


VII

Spodomancy is our shared practice, our innate gift.
All queers can predict the future by studying soot and ash.
We know fire. Loss and renewal and loss and renewal
is the original non-normative life cycle.


VIII

My gag reflect is a gift of grace. The ghost
on my tongue lowers a lifeline to the ghost holed in my throat.
Dark passage. Heaving echo. The weight of fear is a rough haul.
Her cock is the light at the end. Irrumation rebirth.


IX

Fae-jack your lover under the full moon. Once charged
and consecrated, turn her splayed legs towards you and read.
The cum sludged on her left thigh will show you your past.
The cum sludged on her right reveals things yet to happen.


X

Spilt sugar means new love is coming.
Spilt wine means thirsty ghosts may have a sip.
Cum spilt on the floor of a filthy bathroom stall
bestows good luck upon everyone at the queer bar.

Amber Dawn is a writer and creative facilitator living on unceded Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver, Canada). She is the author of five books: two speculative fiction novels, two poetry collections and a memoir. She is the editor of three anthologies, including Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry, co-ed. Justin Ducharme, 2019. Her third poetry collection Buzzkill Clamshell, which explores themes of sick and disabled queerness through bent mythmaking, is forthcoming in Spring 2025.