faith in strangers

Joel Bautista

Immortalized Karina Aslanyan

feelings wander, thoughts they prey on, they are lonely, broken shells.

feelings prematurely born to mothers whose abortions failed.

feelings run away from, after or towards the sky, the sun.

feelings look to left, to right then, feelings jump in front of cars.

they are infants that shall die soon, they are babies that won’t live, they are hated by their mothers, they will soon be turned to myth. feelings pass, they are forgotten, but the art, it stays behind, your infanticide corpse rotten on a canvas, i will find.

2116 Tim Pulster

Why did it have to be you?

Emanuela Gallo

with your soft hair and melodic smile, a sweet tone bringing my name to your lips a sunset’s reflection in your indigo eyes, a look of love and home— you, sitting there by the water with the gentle way you squeezed my hand, beloved by those who love me and friends who winked at me whispering with a smirk, he’s a keeper.

I think back to those earlier times— three hours to get ready, shaving cream and eyeshadow gently spreading moisturizer across my skin until I’m bouncing out of the house, putting my tan legs into the passenger seat your eyes do a quick look over me I know the power I have I feel the rush — so new, so freeing — of being in a boy’s car, something I’d waited for, but never had but there you were in my arms, in my heart a love that’s good, it’s right, it’s pure

I think back to the harder times— grey storms of emotions keeping us up until 2:30 am, thunder not letting us sleep, winds making my hair fall out of place and furrowed brows lock in framing hardened faces, our lips betraying our worst selves, instead of kissing goodnight our hands slamming doors when they should’ve intertwined picking up swords, instead of laying armor down the rubber band stretched too far, i thought its elasticity was stronger than it really was did it have to be you? of all the boys who could break my heart of guys with tattoos and snide remarks or boys who painted over my blue skies the ones who never would have paid or given me a reason to wear a little black dress the kind of boys with wandering, wild eyes with secrets and staying out all night or boys who would use their words like knives casually cruel guys with fire in their eyes and unbridled strength wrapping around my body like barbed wire draining me dry until I had nothing left to give men whom I could look back on with regret a twinge of satisfaction a sense of freedom, fueled by my friends’ assurances that I suffered no loss I never liked him anyway, they could have said, my broken heart forgotten under the swell the pride, the newfound independence so why did it have to be you? you, who gives me that same overwhelming regret not at having you but at losing you it had to be you? you, who left me a sobbing mess in my bed — so numb, so devastated, so disoriented ripping down the blue walls in anguish and inviting in the dark grey I never felt such envy for lovely brides basking in a golden glow cause their ‘good one’ stayed — that could have been you did it have to be you? you, who denied me the grace bestowed on women who disentangle themselves from a bad man too good to be true why did it have to be you?

Stupid Questions

Kenneth

Fremer

If only I found myself on the right clearing in hot metal: flaming, copper bridges like sabers. Foregrounded over chilled, pearled-white ocean and rip currents, its pedestrians winded.

I shine golden, too, in the sun, burning too easily, brilliant and too pretty to trot over.

But I still walk myself under: painting in broad, gruesome strokes, like a murder, blunt wet pigment whipping, reluctantly clinging to taut leather skin, too willing to tear.

I can depend on so much: Where the colors land, and what you might make of them. In gossamer nightlights, bloodlines, and streaking citrine yellow skyline.

And the cracks of our past that bled lives, rapt in their anger, and bred into every word that was lectured. Too easy to be patterned into texture.

But I realize I have been everywhere, where every view could be perfect, at least once.

Not wiped out in skylines or over windswept, open prairie. But in every pedestrian’s step, plotted painfully, and purposefully, primal in the peace of their intention.

I try to tell myself that, actually, there are stupid questions. I ask myself about them every day.

Flowers Pile Up In The Worst Way

Emanuela Gallo

i always knew what these words meant, but i didn’t know what they meant until i saw it: red and white roses that had once lined the walls of the room now laid on the sidewalk; the curb in front of the black car, its petals torn from their brothers and sisters, limp stems scattered in disarray, stripped of the dignity they once had.

i thought about what these roses went through to get here: to begin as a sapling, to fight for water and sun to grow against all odds until its leaves blossomed on a summer’s day, cheek-to-cheek with the sun, and its petals curling around each other— growing together in a warm embrace, perfectly fitting like puzzles in place, bringing a sweet scent to all that had the fortune to put their nose near and beauty to all whose eyes were blessed to see them.

i thought about all of the joy the roses brought to the world just to be snipped by a sharp blade that reflects the sun but does not absorb it unlike a rose during its cycle of life— the cycle it was ripped away from, just to be handed off from person to person and delivered to the dreaded room.

roses that could have been destined for moments of bliss, given by one lover to another, with happy tears in their eyes instead were given by a son to his mother with different kinds of tears.

instead, the roses were destined for a moment of pain, yet arranged so beautifully: stuck into styrofoam and laced with ribbons, stapled with touching words— roses made for tragedy and anguish, made to travel in the black car.

some roses ended up in the hands of loved ones who clutched them with tears in their eyes, sisters with arms linked together and wives clinging to husbands.

roses meant to be placed on the black box slipped from shaky fingers onto the cool metal acting as a last goodbye.

but the roses that didn’t make it here stayed outside, piled up in the worst way, as the sun overcame the wind and the rain shining through the clouds in all her glory and now, we know — the roses are at peace.

Did you miss me?

Emanuela Gallo

It may have been a whole year but I stepped back into my routine like slipping into sleep after a long day as easy as closing eyelids heavy with the weight of exhaustion yet at the moment I stepped off the bus my eyes were wide open looking up at the towering buildings almost spinning around in circles with glee soaking in the sights and sounds like a kid in a candy store basking in the glory of it all, the privilege to be there in the flesh in-person, in the real world one can grasp so tangibly not only by my fingers but my eyes and ears too and so I walk slower than I used to, taking my time yet with purpose I commit to every step while not aimless I feel ostracized from the crowd, out of touch with the locals who step almost in sync with each other a rhythm of a clock ticking, reminding them of the places they need to be but not me

I have nowhere to be today it’s just me and the city I’ve missed you, did you miss me?

Rats!

Joel Bautista

Hourglass of youth Samantha

Rigor

I can almost remember the taste of bittersweet youth, I’m salivating for raw tenderness of the nostalgia I keep longing for, a time too far back never to return.

I remember how the sun rises as I begin to fall onto my knees from a defeat, wrestling through borrowed time.

I remember whenever the weather starts to mimic my limbs. My body is a tree with falling leaves, I step on my past and let the crisp and vulnerable memories crumble.

Maybe I’m on the precipice of change just like the seasons.

But I remember the taste of bottled death that made me feel alive, and the shimmering lights that mimics the heat inside me, burning with promiscuity.

But I will never forget all the lives I’ve neglected, all the lies I’ve kissed, that taste a little bit like strawberry chapstick.

All the never ending chaos I’ve created, destroying everything around me— I’ve become the eye of a tornado.

In the end, I realize that everything is never beginning or ending; memories stay alive within me forever.

Four times I felt absolute happiness

Samantha Rigor

I miss the sound of the shore that the sea breaks against. A moment of calm before crashing waves of chaos. That’s what loving you felt like, the ocean that inhales in somber exhales in helter-skelter.

I can feel myself flying when I stick my body through the car’s sun-roof. My body filled with adrenaline, from drinking the poison of youth, submerged in a world within myself, drowning in freedom

My arms are spread open. The crowd carries me away, I’m lifted from my uncertainty.

I’m swimming through an ocean of bodies. The music electrocutes me.

I’m crowd surfing through my pain, floating endlessly through life. Paradise is a room full of strangers dancing around without sufficient attention.

I close my eyes and I envision pure imagination. A world seized without care. Four walls caving in, I am in the center of this universe.

Women of Secrets Samantha

Rigor

I met a girl whose name was Knives, because she couldn’t tell the difference between the dead meat on the chopping board from the surface of her skin. Every time her mother would cut fruits it reminded her of how she would cut her own body as if cutting off limbs could remove her trauma.

I met a girl whose name was Stone. because that’s what she was made of. Having feelings wasn’t a function in her body. every boy she met would say how she was hard to break but changed easily. When she died, her tombstone read, “all come from dust, and all return to dust” from a bible she never opened, so, she never went to heaven.

I met a girl whose name was Rain, she would look at the storm outside her window wondered why her mother couldn’t name her the sun. The sadness in her heart could never represent light so, she memorized the water cycle because her tears were the same, evaporation, condensation, then the rain.

Changing Seasons

Close Range Relationships

Shelly Frish

Hard Truth

Johnny Inthachack

A city full of Amy Coopers, so-called allies to our eyes, but we are just other in their minds.

I took my White nephew and my Black Nephew to Washington Square Park

The White lady selling “Resist” buttons offered my nine-year-old White nephew a free button

But nothing to my thirteen-year-old Black nephew

At Trader Joe’s, the White cashier offered my White nephew a bunch of stickers.

But nothing to my Black nephew

My Black nephew was not sad but disappointed

I thought New York was supposed to be different he said Last week, In Park Slope, I volunteered to petition a Laotian candidate to get on the city council ballot.

I asked everyone that passed, but only a handful stopped, and less signed the petition

The White volunteer across the street played on his phone as dozens passed

But when he looked up to ask, people stopped and signed his petition without hesitation

I was scheduled for four hours, but after two I left In the span of living in New York for only two years, after leaving The South, where they are blatantly racist, I see that New York is slick racist.

Lonely Autumn