Johnny Tundish: ARSONISTA & UNRIPE PEACHES • Cleaver Magazine

Flash by Johnny Tundish
ARSONISTA & UNRIPE PEACHES

Arsonista

I set the AC to sixty-two, colder than normal. But it was exhaustingly hot, not hot really, only ninety-two degrees, but humid. Sticky air, not normal for the high plains desert in the southwestern corner of Idaho. Her face turned red when it was like this and she dripped from her nose after coming in from the yard, dirt under her fingernails. She fed me the little raw onions which were dirty too, and talked to me about her father. “I wish he had died.” and I nodded with my head and my eyes, onion skin and her finger tips in my mouth. “Sick things shouldn’t live for so long, I want to burn down his house.” and she gave me a peck on the lips and ran off towards the shower, taking off her sundress as she went. Without looking back, and naked now, “do we still have those matches in the garage?”

Unripe Peaches

I was eleven and on vacation with my family, staying at my grandmother’s house. I’d hunt for little strands of leather to turn into bracelets, little strips of cloth (like pillowcases I’d cut) to make skirts. Sneak outside at night and wear them, dancing under the peach trees. The peaches were unripe, but growing. Snuck into my grandmother’s shower and shaved my legs with her razor. In the basement watching the news, documentaries, and cartoons I’d mend the outfits. I’d leave the scraps of dress-up hidden under the cushions of the couch when I’d ascend and make small talk. I grew three inches when I’d cross my legs under the table. Grew horns when I’d let my wrists go limp with ennui.

Johnny Tundish is a trans non-binary writer hiding out in the Pacific Northwest. Their work is informed by a life lived in many different places, with many different people, having grown up the child of an ever-relocating traveling preacher. Johnny received an M.F.A from UTEP in 2024 and their poetry has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, West Trade Review, Allegory Ridge, Cardinal Sins, Triggerfish Critical Review, Ignatian Literary Magazine, New Plains Review, and more. Fiction by Johnny has won the 2020 Mikrokosmos Fiction Contest.