December 27

About the author

Yasmin Smith

Yasmin Smith is a poet, writer and editor of South Sea Islander, Kabi Kabi, Northern Cheyenne and English heritage. She was shortlisted for the...

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Everything you could possibly imagine

FictionJoseph was one of the only patients I’d truly enjoyed interacting with, which for the weeks since his arrival had helped me cope with the ward’s sense of monotony. His beard was like a cartoon lumberjack’s, descending into a fine point and thick enough to hold objects if they were stuck into it – which, of course, we’d tried. His eyebrows erupted like old-growth forest across his forehead, almost demanding to be touched – which, of course, I hadn’t.

Psychobabble

Non-fiction ONCE, ON A first date, a man asked me if I knew about attachment styles. He caught himself before he finished the sentence and...

It’s only natural

Non-fictionI often feel that we have landed in the worst of all possible worlds for women when it comes to breastfeeding. We are subject to an ideology that argues for its singular efficacy in generating infant attachment to the mother, making an inviolable and exclusive bond. We are also expected to breastfeed to repudiate the maternal industrial complex that fills our supermarkets with formula in shiny tins.