Venus Alemanji is a Cameroonian writer and software engineer currently based in Austin, Tx. She studied Computer Science and Creative Writing at Rice University. Multilingual in spoken word and code, she has always been fascinated by how computers, no matter how complex, ultimately speak in ones or zeros, binary, and humans, no matter how simple, often exist in contradictory, ambiguous states. She writes about queerness, lives whose very existence trouble binaries, the loop of love and grief, and renewal. Habanero Peppers is her first published story. You can connect with her on Instagram. Habanero Peppers As Antoine’s aunt informs him of his father’s death, his eyes water, tongue sags heavy, sweat pores spill from the thought of habanero peppers. If Antoine knew one thing about his father, it was his disdain for the peppers. He disliked heat in general. A hint of paprika created an awkward chew. Jalapenos, he barely touched. Habaneros and above? Whewww, war. When his mom cooked them, his father was nowhere to be found. This disappearance Antoine saw and applauded as an act of resistance. A resistance sweetened further because although the peppers spun his senses dizzy too, being a child, Antoine could not run away as freely as his father. After his aunt drops the call, Antoine sits on his bed naked, ashy, in need of heat. His aunt called shortly after he got out of the shower. Before him lies a floor-length mirror. He examines his face, his father’s really. Mama eh il resemble son pere, he was often told. The eyes and hands observing him were usually tender with wonder. A few times, though, he caught confusing hints of pity and sorrow in them. He’d later find out it was because he was an out-of-wedlock child, the result of an “unholy” union, as such a hollowed, dirtied thing to some Cameroonians. This wasn’t painful so much as astonishing. The hypocrisy of it all. How many of them were even married according to the laws of the Christian world, how many of them had children outside of those marriages, how many of these marriages were skeletons glorified by bored metal? Mama eh il resemble son pere, from the caterpillar brows, nosy eyes, generous lips, moonlit skin, to the swayed walk that suggested sin: him, his father. Even down to those confused toes, damn it. - Tears finally rain loose. Antoine leaps for that thing pain always makes us seek. Thinking about this childhood admiration for his father, he tries to joke, little me would kill writing my dad’s obituary. Listen, my dad was an anti-pepper activist, ok… His resistance taught me to draw boundaries early… Rest in- He stops abruptly. The variables of the joke—death, a little boy, albeit him, and his father—remind him he can’t run away from his pain. A galah flies onto the ledge of Antoine’s window stealing him away, gratefully, from the mirror. The bird used to belong to his neighbor till it escaped. Occasionally it reappears; the subject of many theories in that household. Antoine’s favorite is the explanation of the neighbor’s 12-year-old son—maybe he comes back to say hey I’m good, just checking in, hope there are no hard feelings. The bird has this beautiful rose-colored body, which after its departure, shifts Antoine’s mind to the floor where a skirt of the same color lies. He had planned to wear it today. Where the color is bold, the silhouette is simple, chic, a savvy advertiser might say. In this piece of thrifted cotton lies a portal to a person Antoine had been wanting to meet—the woman in him. Lord, his father would be turning in the morgue if he heard this. - When his father caught him at 15 with another boy’s tongue in his mouth, Antoine convulsed, begging the air to swallow him before his father’s wrath could. After flinging the boy down the stairs, he turned to his son, body shaking, voice steeled, are you the man or the woman? Wow, that question confused Antoine. His father repeated, are you the man or the woman, stepping closer. Man, he instinctively vomited what he thought the weapon before him wanted to hear. Oh my son, so that’s your source of pride? When my friends ask, I will say, ha at least my son doesn’t get fucked in the ass, he is the one fucking. That’s what you gift your father. You are no man. You are an abomination, not even worthy of my violence. This is how his father left him. Never did they exchange words again. - The fourth toe on each of Antoine’s feet climbs over the third, pushing it down, the way the absent father is said to suppress Black men like him. When memories like these suffocate him, he is grateful for the absence, though. For many years, the wish that his father would fly back and say hey how are you, just checking in, hope you’re good, like the rose-colored bird, according to the boy, stung him. As he grew, he came to conclude that his early feelings for the man was a mirage in an emotional desert. In truth, their shared hate of peppers was as close as they’d ever get. Even in the idealized version of his childhood, where he was no excuse for his father’s flight, the man still loved vanishing. This is why big Antoine can not write an obituary for his father. They shared enough time to share a face, not feelings. Silence, not prayer. Politeness, not love. It has been too long to hate his father either. He is stuck: there are no funeral manuals for ambivalence. - Though Antoine does not believe his parents dignify that stupid phrase “opposites attract,” his mother did love habanero peppers. When Antoine helped his mom in the kitchen, she would sway to her favorites—Ben Decca, Angelique Kidjo, Tracy Chapman, and memory, telling him stories about her mother’s famous pepper soup. It made the other children sweaatt, she emphasized, smiling. But I enjoyed it. I was always excited to go to the farm to pick the peppers with my mom. On cue, Antoine would crunch his face. She laughed, Tu es commes les autres enfants. It wasn’t so much the picking of peppers; I enjoyed it cause my mom would tell me many stories during our breaks and when we were finished she would always buy me something special. These peppers, joyous in the kitchen’s imagination, were weapons steps away on the dinner table. When Antoine’s father had crossed too many lines, his mother cooked them to draw hers. And like eucalyptus oil to mosquitoes or garlic to the vampires in her son’s cartoons, they repelled him from the house. - When, on his return home, Antoine sees his mother rubbing habanero peppers on his father’s lifeless clothes, he assumes, then, this bizarre act is one of revenge. He almost smiles because this woman, expected by her world to roll and somersault cause her husband is dead, has some right to seek her own pound of, if not flesh, cloth. Maybe he does too. She performs this new ritual seated on the floor of her bedroom with a dignified stoicism. Tired of watching her through the crevice of her bedroom window, he enters. She turns around startled, but importantly not startled the way a child caught in a bad act, acts. There is no worry in her eye, no lunge to cajole him into keeping some secret. I know you're worried, ‘Ntoine, she says. Your dad was evil. I didn’t love him. You’re a man now, I won’t lie to you. But I cared about him. These habanero peppers...Quand tu mange les habanero, tu recontre ce qui passe. Your eyes water, your tongue sizzles, mucus exits your nose. You release. You heal. Your father never ate these peppers because he didn’t want to release. Control was his only love. Anything that took it away, he ran away from. I don’t know where your father is now. Be it the Jewish man’s hell or our ancestors’ spirit land, he is suffering for his sins. In the absence of his body, we put these habanero peppers on his clothes so he may release. Release all the people whose destinies he ate. So that they too may release all the righteous hate they have for him. Release so that his spirit may someday heal. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Her poetry, academic papers, and personal essays have been published in anthologies, literary and online Sina , her first novel created after challenging herself creatively to grow outside of her first love, poetry

TORCH has featured work by Colleen J.

Photo credit: Katherine Tejada Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi is a mother who writes beside forests and waters. She fantasizes about living in Anne Spencer’s garden and she strives to write poems that instigate action in service to world-building. Her work is forthcoming or appears in MAYDAY , Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora , Honey Literary , sin cesar , Elysium Review , Rise Up Review , and other portals. She is a fellow of In Surreal Life, Anaphora Writing Residency, and Pink Door Writing Retreat. Her first full-length collection, DREAMS FOR EARTH , is forthcoming from Deep Vellum Publishing. Travel with her at fatimaayanmalikahirsi.com or on Instagram @fatimaayanmalika. She wants you to scream FREE PALESTINE with your whole body. Tornado Sirens When You Have A Sleeping Baby a singing refrigerator / a baritone front door / the porch door / metal songs of a cabinet door releasing scents of cinnamon coriander cloves  QAnon in school boards / judges robes / Congress  any and all doors ever made / the creaking wood of the floor / silverware on a plate / the fall of Roe v. Wade / the metal top scraping a glass jar of peanut butter / baby birds nesting outside the chimney / a sneeze / a neighbor mowing or blowing leaves / a neighbor parking / Juno barking / the taste of sepia smoke swallowing sky / the kitchen faucet / the toilet flushing / a mouse exploring the kitchen / some rodent reading in the walls / sudden jitterbug of a fly / a phone you thought was set to quiet / a phone falling off the bed / fingernails scratching your head / the fall of affirmative action / Proud Boys / Women Talking / truths behind horrifying fictions / horrifying truths collections of collective griefs the gasp during that first new episode of Black Mirror where FATIMA  appears across the screen in Netflix Graphique / terms and conditions each time we sign / and haven’t they been doing this since forever / make it look like a choice / contracts in unknown languages / listen to them tell us to recycle as if in that lies our redemption / Google recycle plants near me  then find maps of race and wealth / this / everywhere / ours is the air they poison Cop City / 61 protestors indicted for waging love / SB 63 come to stomp on mutual aid your landlord bowling above in his living room / your shriek at reading news / silence about genocide from tiny town neighbors / this silence is a tornado siren / what is this world I give my daughter / what is this world / what is this world she wakes to each day / sirens everywhere ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Bev’s screenplay, PRINCE OF LAVENDALE STREET, was the feature winner in the 2021 BlueCat Screenplay Competition TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia

She is the winner of the 2016 Droste Poetry Award and a Best of the Net nominee. Her first poetry chapbook, titled Nostos Algos, is being published through Ethel Zine and Micro-Press

Her writing has appeared in ARC Poetry, GEIST, the Ex-Puritan, Carousel, CBC Books, Quill and Quire,

In 2023, Brandy was named a Hurston/Wright Foundation Fellow and was a featured playwright in the literary All about revolution and hookah and poetry and good vibes. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia

Alma Simba is a writer, historian, and experimental sound artist interested in both the potentials and failures of words in capturing the human experience. Her subject matter is ancestral heritage and how indigenous black Africans can communicate and explore this history through oral traditions, memory, and imagination. She is part of the Ajabu Ajabu audio-visual collective in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her writing has appeared in The Floor, SAPIENS, Myopia, and The Clare Market Review. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram. hungry he says i love you, but i know it is how i crust the bottom of the rice without burning it. dice fresh mango into salad of beef tomatoes curled parsley and water onion. a puddle of tears when i try to leave, the nightmare of waking up to a home that does not smell like rose lotion, lemongrass, hot cream, ginger root. who is to say, who is who, what is what. thin lines - attraction/infatuation seared coastline of fat on the sirloin steak. i drink wine after dinner, even after a week of him sending articles on the dangers of wild women. yet, cries when i pack my bags, cherry bark, basil stem, cashew butter and tonics for every day of the week. at the seaside barbecue burns, salt-air, memory: the door was hardwood, but i did not slam it closed, left it ajar, parted slightly. so the room could air out. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Damilola Omotoyinbo (Frontier XIX), is a Nigerian Creative Writer, a fellow of the Ebedi International Writers' Residency, and a finalist for the 2022 Writing Ukraine Prize. She has work published or forthcoming on Lolwe, Olongo, The Deadlands, Ake Review, Agbowoart, and elsewhere. In addition to writing, Damilola studied Biochemistry. Follow her on Twitter. miracle tongues entwined. fingers stroke every crooked thing till they become straight. palms cup turgid breasts and carve them into percussion instruments — a drum, a gong. tits morph into a harmonica. Aṣa's Be My Man plays softly, and every thrust, wonder that turns back the clock's hands. time slows — lit candles cast hazy shadows of hands caressing an hourglass. two souls stretched taut begin to float in space, they long to refract reality — to birth a surreal thing. their bodies search for the closest route to heaven. they cradle desire into a mould of miracle. listen to the music of horny groin — a woman moaning down the walls of Jericho. cleansing. purification. fanatics digging their way through fantasy island. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

She earned her BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University and is a current Poetry MFA candidate

Born on a Friday in December, Fatihah Quadri Eniola is a young Nigerian poet whose work has been featured in The West Trade Review, The Shore Poetry, Agbowo, Brittle Paper, Isele Magazine and elsewhere.