Sperm Suckers - — Mayli

Mayli smiled. She wasn’t in the tank anymore. She was on the other side of the glass.

Mayli had never intended to become a collector. In the Queer Ecology Workshop’s zine library, tucked between a manifesto on mycelial networks and an ode to sea sponge reproduction, she found the term: sperm suckers . It wasn’t an insult. It was a biological reality for certain species of hermaphroditic flatworms and sea slugs. sperm suckers - mayli

She didn’t offer healing. She offered taxonomy. She named the feeling: the hollow, scraped-out sensation after a rival has not only defeated you but rewritten that you ever tried . Mayli smiled

She wrote: The sea slug doesn't feel evil. It feels hungry. It feels the emptiness where the other's sperm was and calls that emptiness 'mine.' Don't wait for the sucker to apologize. They think the void inside them is the shape of you. It's not. It's the shape of what they stole. Mayli had never intended to become a collector