You can’t win in a world not meant for you, so I’m offering up the In Another World Issue as my attempt at creating some other option. We’re presenting you with the ways that bright, thoughtful, ferocious people are creating their own space. Worlds within and outside of this slippery one, full of answers and questions and buoyant hope tunnels.

There’s a staunch Puritanical and traditionalist bent that persists in New England, now resulting less in atrocities like the perennially invoked Salem Witch Trials and more in people being doggedly polite: here, that means ignoring each other in public, not making small talk when you can be direct, and extreme propriety around personal questions to the extent of depersonalization. It can leave a queer kid uninspired, and in communities where, for better or worse, coding is still a vital method of communication, it can make the world feel small.

When it comes to my queer desire, my favorite feeling is a juicy lack — I don’t have the person or thing I want and that tastes like salted caramel perpetually not in my mouth. The distance is not only enjoyable, it’s my edge, but sometimes it feels like there’s something missing.