babyteeth issue no. 3

issue no. 3 fall 2022

In cold moments on gray days I often sweat Tasting diesel I trudge up and down avenues Where rattling, laughing ghosts point at my feet besides themselves Everywhere, lawns and weedy lots ask me to spend the night Keep them company, tell them about the time they spent with Dorothy I’d rather not I tell them if I had possession of judgment day I’d still stroll And ask if they know when my shoulders got so broad And why I still can’t get my tears to taste like gin

Weak Coffee and Ramps loren friedman

this is for my friend gk sofia durdag this is only for my friend gk because i do not think friendship is one of those things you can peer into and see its center, like a snowglobe or a plastic jug of juice. friendship is a small, private room in the middle of a long, bustling hallway. friendship is a wrinkle in the universe only two people can feel. this is for my friend gk because i do not think you can love, and be loved, quite like you can when you are sixteen and have a best friend. but if i had to describe us, i would tell somebody that the boys in our sophomore year gym class thought we might be lesbians. it is hard to explain how much we loved and liked each other, how we talked and laughed and touched, so i won’t. you know how close-close-close we were gk, anyway. but to hear it back then i was mortified, because i wanted the boys in our sophomore year gym class who whispered about my ass in blue athletic shorts to like me so bad. but now, maybe it is a badge of honor, that they tried to peer into the core of us and could not make sense of it. this is only for my friend gk because i think we sort of created each other. girls do that, making and being made all at once. our senior year, we would go on long drives together, squinting in winter sunlight and imagining who we would be apart. it was so painful then, trying to untangle ourselves. i cried every day for five days after you left for school. in the summers, sweaty summer jobs and cold ocean waves, it is almost the same as it was. almost the same, because how can anything be just the same as when you are seventeen and share every class with your favorite person in the world? this is for my friend gk because you are far away right now and i wish you were close. we will be twenty and old women soon enough, and i do not want to forget us.

lorelei bogue