babyteeth winter '23, issue 1

winter 2023 issue 1

Hyphenation –coming before a noun that boasts an idea– The fusion of two gametes into a double-helixed, pent-up prenuptial product.

A pillar of potential– there are ensuing ideas ensconced in the folds of the uterus– a multiplicity of the self, and self, and self and somehow, after enough vivacious lovemaking, a newness bubbles, eeking fresh grow-marks into a world with its belt on too-tight.

Drew Rodriguez-Michel

What do you do when you learn something about someone that you wish you hadn’t? Someone you used to be really close to – who you thought you shared your heart and soul with? I have. In a moment, a stained glass panel through the centerfold of my mind split along the colored lines. What do you do if these cracks start to bleed grey fog – maybe the truth revealed was one that extends far beyond just you? Every time you think about it the morass thickens.

What do you do when a story must be told that isn’t yours to tell? Honestly I wish I knew. Maybe eventually I’ll know. anonymous

karl olson

untitled submission anonymous

solid

Sophie Lenzer calculated, recalcitrant, calcified into some bruised, aggrieved girl whose youth might just have left her the moment she entered maybe i feel too much my body isn’t meant to let things go but i’ve been told that i’m a force, so i forced and still, food, words, memories, shame they all weigh me down my lips, exonerating words that i’ve broken myself over hundreds of times long-forged swords that never make it home from battle maybe no one can see me under the armor my hair, battered and split and broken at the roots but softer at the ends just like me my shoulders hanging low hunched over escapist books and unsent speeches my dancer’s posture long gone after two decades of carrying all that i am my stomach, there to protect my organs and all the other toxic things coursing through me doesn’t lie flat like it should isn’t confined to its predetermined amount of space just like me my legs, strong and unyielding don’t stand elegantly or cross and uncross luxuriously and neither do i maybe i’m just separate from all of it maybe i’m haunted by this thing that i have to hold in front of everyone maybe all i am is gone

olivia ho

images of animals

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