Growing Away

Solstice, Vol. 2

by Anastasia Spyromitrou

Evenings fall earlier and mornings already feel cold. I can’t bear losing another August. My knees weaken as my flesh recalls last September's bitter raindrops.

My taste buds still tingle with watermelon and roasted corn. Not from this summer, but from the ones when we Wove wreaths of flowers and rode our bikes, shirtless.

The combs in my hair are tangled with stories of clement evenings and noses stuck together with vanilla ice cream.

Still running with our scratched knees, Mosquito bites, pounding hearts, sweaty armpits and we kept running with the moon. Nothing could stop us on the village road.

Naughty giggles stained my lips

The dirt under our fingernails reversed french tips. We were the kings and queens of sandcas

I watch my grandma sitting alone on her dusty little porch. Her wrinkles, proof that she has lived. Somehow she makes growing old, less unnatural.

Her face tells me I’m not the only one to hear the ebb and flow of water and time pulling at summer freedom.

Rust

by Antzelina Viktoria Fykatas

Where are you?

I am not looking for you (I never was.)

But I saw you, You know.

Your presence never goes unnoticed, The danger in that sharp-toothed smile, The labyrinth you have carved, Into my bones

Like footsteps in a forest. Here you are again.

(Tell me,)

The red stain across my shirt; Is it blood? Or is it Rust?

I Should Write Something

by Alexia Sextou

I write poetry.

I put it in my application letter under the word hobbies false limbs

As if it means something

One time upon a prompt I wrote with insecurity fearing ingenuity –as if that means something I figured it may sound exquisite other than empty.

Words decorated with long vowels and French Really I

Should try to say something beautiful

I’m left with slit pictures and half dead flowers – I suppose I should say half grown

You see this is the thing with optimism (thing who writes thing?)

It comes ruffles and waves waves away

Perhaps I should talk about love again

Or about the old woman I saw on the street

– should I have helped her cross?

I write poetry in a longing attempt to feel something Really I

Have nothing to write about these days.