Bio: Joanna Galbraith is a short story writer and (burgeoning) poet living in Tuscany, Italy.

The Messiah  Remember when we used to wake before the sparrows even sensed the light, and our breath would unite in wired celebration because we realised our skins were about to ignite. Remember when you said to me that you thought religion had been invented by insecure men to control women whose desires they could not satisfy and I lay beside you, too shy to speak, thinking I had just been laid by the Messiah. Remember when I bled into the sheets, and I felt so ashamed, but you kissed my head and bundled that bloody mess under the bed. And when I returned later your fingers were scrub torn, and I couldn’t quite tell if it was love or erasing. Remember when you left me in that blank square. My green-patterned dress and unbrushed…