Self-Portrait of My Body as Herbert Bayer’s Body in 1932 Joanna Clark oh No! There it goes again — the nose before the face & the face before the mouth & the mouth before the teeth & oh No! There goes the breast & beneath the breast the liver & beneath the liver the soul. I always forget that gelatin can be made from bone & I am made of bone. I only remember when I see my mouth & its strawberry tongue & its bony teeth & it’s so easy for a tooth to be like me — chomping eager cells who lose themselves — little classic sculpture with broken head & arm & I always forget that those sculptures were once colorful too. oh No! not the elbow & behind the elbow the mind, behind the mind a laugh & beside the laugh an ache. I always forget how easy it is for a world to bring the stomach to the toes, soft pouch of swirling acid to small bones & gelatin joints, degenerating generous self, coming when called. Bow house of body & bone, collapsing. Steady down now. It always starts again.
A Forest Soon-Logged Joanna Clark The grass in this false spring is full of swooping blue birds, russet breast, and belly full of drowned worms. The forest is a euphonic foundation built on communicative roots and sun light. It holds no language for capital or the groan of an excavator digging up the dirt. Until, land owned by nothing but the ocean of leaves drowning the sky in fluttering sound, sells. Now there is brumal hush, anxious warning through the mud. When such woodland is razed what becomes life but absence and escape. Left hoping, when the machinery breaches such dense and long-abated anger, the steep slope of hills — untouched by mundane hands, or metal movement — snags, and intertwines the groaning, selfish heat.
an ode to (what i got from) SZA’s “garden” Angela Smith me and you two souls smacked against each other by fate’s mischievous hands a collision so perfect that there is no other explanation for why our heart’s beat in sync but perfection is nothing but a miniscule element in the eyes of insecurity in fact, it’s fictitious impossible as the chance that someday i may find a love as mutual as it is true but you and me two tiny specks of dust wandering space and time well, we could never work because you look at me and see a girl who doesn’t exist outside of anyone’s minds tell me, love is that why your eyes sparkle when they gaze into mine? how crazy is it that you stare so adoringly at someone you could never possibly see… and i’ll let you know now, baby me and you two helpless ants meticulously placed together by the infamously childish bully named destiny i’m sorry but we could never work because i know my insecurity will inevitably come to squash me to make a gooey mess of someone you never even knew existed you’ll never see her at least not how i do when i gaze into the reflection which glares at me through shards of glass left behind by broken clocks maybe its better this way that something so simple to you could exist in such a paradoxical nature for me so run away now and if you don’t then i will so you dont see all the things i know like the fact that happiness could never exist between
you and me
Caleb in May
Sophie Scott
After all of the students and teachers drained from the rest of campus into the cafeteria for lunch, the three of us snuck off to the chapel. Inside, everything was silent except for the creaking of the old floors beneath our footsteps. Father Fitzhugh wouldn’t be back to teach theology for at least an hour, but we climbed the groaning stairs to the second floor–which was more like a balcony overlooking the first–so that we would be hidden from his view in case he returned early. It felt like the whole building trembled a little as we sat down in the aisle between pews. I sat cross-legged, with the pleats of my kilt pulled towards the front of my lap to cover between my legs, but in the process leaving my ass bare to the scratchy floors, which I can still imagine today–the red carpet was rough like the tough side of Velcro.
Emily had gotten all of the supplies for the ouija board from the art room. She said it didn’t have to be “a fancy wood board like in the movies” that a piece of paper would do just fine. She pulled a white cylinder of paper from her backpack and unfurled it into a rectangle on the carpet. Out of the three of us, Alex had the best handwriting, so she added a YES, NO, HELLO, and GOODBYE to each corner of the page, then filled in the center with the letters of the alphabet. She also added numbers zero through nine. We used a clear plastic paint cup as a planchette, turned upside down so we could each rest one finger on its surface. My legs were falling asleep underneath me when suddenly the cup began to twitch across the page towards YES. We all swore that we weren’t playing a trick on one another. The cup gained speed in its movements as we settled into belief. “Is there somebody here?” Alex asked, and our fingers traced a quick circle swooping away from YES then back. “Do you want to tell us about yourself?” NO. “Do you still want to talk to us?” YES.
This wasn’t like playing Bloody Mary in the elementary school bathroom–during which nothing ever really happened–this was happening before my eyes and under my touch. “So the afterlife is real?” Emily asked, and we followed the cup to YES. I felt electric with wonder and also, momentarily, immense relief, knowing with certainty for the first time that I wouldn’t just disappear after death like an extinguished flame. “Your turn, Mallory,” said Alex. I hesitated at first, but finally I asked what any fourteen year old might ask: “Who will be my first kiss?” We read the letters aloud together as they came to us. “C-A-L-E-B,” which was the name of a boy we all knew. At that point my curiosity breached its dike; I could ask any question about my future and get an answer, so I did–I asked our anonymous ghost friend everything I could think of, before fifth period rolled around.
By sixth period, the panic had set in like a swarm of wasps fizzing from my stomach through my throat up to my brain and out of my eyes. That’s it? I thought to myself while the history lesson droned on. I know everything that happens now? Down to the month of my first kiss and the year of my death. I wanted the mystery back again. I did not want this curse of knowing everything for certain. The curse was lifted, however, when Emily gave me my first kiss, one month shy of Caleb in May.
Ado, Annie Charlotte Gimlin
A step-ball-change and an A-line skirt Biggest worries: ● Boys. ● Cowhands. ● Boys with handguns. Heavy blonde braids slapping her back, Smile stretched from freckle studded ear to freckled studded ear. The music swells. Palms first, her uncalloused hands rise towards the heavens. Her golden light—too bright to be the Sun—clicks off. Sitting on a roof in need of a good power washing, Still in gingham but now A dull ache throbs in her lower back and there’s a pounding in her head. Sucking up smoke, Holding it deep within her lungs It rolls within her, Foreign and suffocating. She looks out over roof tops that will never be her own. Tuggin’ the bows from her hair, Snapping. Their ties tangled in sweat and split ends. We’ve both been spun ‘round Passed from hand to hand, but her, Her. She’s never twirled through open fields.
After The Questioning Phase Shade Ayeni After the questioning phase
I thought d o u b t, either disproving itself or, having been ignored long enough, went away. Only Away is nomadic— straightening scenes in my fantasies, or occupying an absence in between my legs.
Away never strays too far from the most impressionable part of my psyche, returning for d o u b t to shapeshift into s h a m e, a fugitive misinterpretation of d o u b t’s initial departure, a stillbirth twin fighting to live, while I birth r e m e m b r a n c e:
her sexuality is mine.
So, if I am ashamed of myself,
I am ashamed of her, and everything I have written using her as my muse.
Cyclops Driving Caitlin Gerrard
I wonder why it is held by geometry As the reflection blisters off Of water and of Me My eyes are Milked dry until The black comes more Briskly Briskly! Briskly! I tear along with brisk energy Foor qualifies a decimal— a spherical degree Pressure on the Pedal vital as it heaves Until leaves all Around are lacerated green An unseen color comes Slowly Sundering the window— a Peaceable blaze Steering— greeting my Lungs with a graze A pigment of white Hammers the glass entrance through For laughs and wails and sun to shine Anew I am Blind round and round Rolling towards the Stop Life on toes Aslant— in doubt— Dying! Something so fast Something unseized And the only thing I can See at this speed while Existing
Electrified Lucky
the word ELECTRIC serves one purpose and that is to kill me violently, extremely a SHOCK applied directly to my brain my heart makes my hair stand on end. a word related to POWER a control over me a fear of it i let it have its way with me i let an EIGHT LETTER WORD ruin my days. but this word is not meant for me. it is not said to captivate me, it is not for me to enjoy, but instead everyone close to me everyone i’ve once loved, everyone that can’t be mine. everyone who hurts me the most loves the word ELECTRIC and i do love it and even more than that i hate it just like i hate loving all of them sickening.
Twos Lucky Everything in your life seems to come in twos. You’re a twin a gemini, even You pick the two timers Two times they’re the same as mine. I’m writing this at 2pm on the 2nd of the month two more twos as I’m thinking about you, so this must be the right way to go about it I think for you always having a pair means you lose your individuality If your whole meaning comes from two, how could you comfortably be one? You were my first best friend the only one I had ever found and stuck with for more than a couple months. We always joked about how we were the same I could read your mind because it was the same as mine And then it turns out we had the same taste For such picky eaters we sure knew how to pick the worst ones, huh I felt like I couldn’t blame you for anything because I felt the same way If I wanted him, how could I blame you for wanting what I wanted too? It was almost flattering, knowing that my desires were not mine alone It made me feel justified in having them It gave us something in common Something else to share We often found ourselves switching roles with him Whether you were seeing him, or I was, we were still, the two of us, his I left him so you could have him Until I got over the fact that it seemed like he wanted you more than me Then you left him so I could have him Because you couldn’t keep seeing him in good conscience Knowing your best friend fucked him behind your back Twice And I can’t blame you for that, But I don’t blame myself either I knew I needed him as much as you did
Our minds are the same so shouldn’t you have known that too? But maybe we were just the same because you feel lost alone And this whole time I was just friends with a mirror of myself Because for the second time we’ve switched roles And I’m forced to feel how you felt, and you how I felt the first time it happened But you’re not a mirror of me anymore because you never see me to check how your reflection looks I don’t read your mind anymore Because we don’t share one so far apart So maybe we couldn’t have avoided this If I’m not telling you what I’m thinking...but I did Maybe you felt like you were losing me and you felt like the only thing we could have in common was another guy But this one wasn’t the same He was progress. He was care. He was opportunity and growth. As far as I knew, he wasn’t in any capacity Yours I was proud of that for both of our sakes But you knew I needed him for myself Because I knew I couldn’t do the first time over again But it seems like you could! I can’t even say his name without feeling sick And you still can no matter how many times I've asked you not to Even after you told me it wasn’t going to be like the first time again Days before And for two weeks I hear nothing of it Were you really scared to hurt me? Or just scared to get caught? I think if you were honest you were really just the second Because if you didn’t want to hurt me you wouldn’t have done it Or at the very least since we can’t change what you did You would have told me when your mind changed Because I did tell you it would be okay if you did it and that I would understand I have these conversations with you to avoid feeling like I do now You told me only when you couldn’t avoid it anymore And it came off like it wasn’t a big deal So why would you hide his name and make it seem like it was more than it was
If you didn’t think it would hurt me as much as it does? So I guess we could just call this getting even. After all, two is an even number.
Cage of Love Saoirse Farrell I’ve only recently become aware of my ever increasing shortness of breath while the sealed walls close in around me it has become dark in our little box of a house what has become of my independent spirit dressed up like the dolls I never played with our barbed tongues trade words as the walls get closer the sound volleys higher and higher till it disappears and my body is pressed against the walls, enclosed like a hummingbird attempting flight in a cage
The Poisoning of Peony Saoirse Farrell The precocious peony plays all day. With the whispers of the wind, the blush colored peony turns ever more red. Red and red like my cheeks after a day in the sun; the peony is red with those whispers of the wind. Whispers so scandalous my mother would clutch her pearls, if she were in the fifties and the type of person to own pearls, but she’s clutching something nonetheless. Her delicate sensibilities perhaps? Perhaps the virgin white of her church cardigan? The precocious peony plays by herself. Herself, alone with the wind and its naughty little whispers. Alone with her thoughts, the peony is poisoned. Oh! Those whispering winds, not appropriate talk for a darling little girl. Dear little girl, precocious peony, don’t listen to those whispers, that madness red, red, and red again the poisoned peony, no longer the color of an innocent little girl, no longer the blush of childhood, is a red so dark many think she’s black the whispering winds have poisoned the precocious peony, turned her from blush to red-black but let’s ask the peony, Do you wish to be rid of the whispering wind? Do you wish for the beauty of your delicate blush? No, says the peony, the whispering wind is a friend and blush was never my color.
Look! Sarah Stegner Somebody put the apples in the freezer Spontaneous slowing of molecules Limit the cacophony of crispness Oh, how I wish I could cut my ears off Delicately stitch them onto an apple To hear your continuous crunching static Containing Crackles for cautions Bites displacing hurt Static enveloping my mind To see a Red delicious on the teacher’s desk Red ink bleeding through the pages Red eyes from an unnerved body Tediously typing Through a Macintosh With words chewing a blank page Energy lost from paragraph to paragraph Enter the supermarket Bins of apple that bruise easily Possibly picked with care Must wash and beware To the city You are a subway
Bussing people back and forth Allowing different lives to intermix for just a moment Here I see An apple close to tree Granny smith goes to Fuji Your eyes and then mine Oh, how I wish You would allow me to listen a bit longer Until you bite into the core Revealing sprouted seeds to begin anew Yet I cannot provide the same Frozen over, muted bites Ruefully I will sew my ears back on I am so sorry Leave me out for a few hours Maybe I can loosen the molecules To change phase And just be better.
Phoenix Eli Hiscott if you say a word enough it loses its meaning can i do that
if i stand in front of a mirror (always a mirror always
a mirror) and re peat
girl girl g i r l gggggggrrrr girl , , , girl GIRL GIRL girl. girl. girlgirlgirlgirl like magic. or is it like an incantation like bloody mary here to kill you [me] seeping oozing aching bleeding bleeding (it makes you a woman you know) I (want to) refuse to know. I re FUSE. re work re wire
re emerge as a phoenix (I burned my own self
down not caring if ashes would shift and re form. flames re flect) do you have to tear down to re build? “I did I did I did” TEAR down. TEAR up. when the phoenix re becomes
does it keep its name
does it remember yours
eternally dying and becoming the same. same. same. is it worth it little bird? molting golden feathers
cast away and re become a mirror image
is this architecture new? or is it jeffersonian which is roman which is greek which is old old same same same (nouveau is always ugly. is it worth it to be ugly? to be new to be unbound) the mirror reverses. when i transverse what will it make of my flipped around mixed up body funhouse mirror stretching and shaping and ageing and giving and taking can you ever own can you ever own a body your body if you pay enough work enough if it’s your hands that inject the needle that tug and pull and after all that will I be the same will the mirror insist eternal that i am the same no matter how many how many how many times I burn up in hopes of re birth
It is Summer in October Ryan Winegardner “The Joker and the Thief in Bas-Relief” rtw my dad always told me “they can make you grow old but they can’t make you grow up.” Well now it is summer in October, and the rain is warm on my skin, and when I was in quarantine in February the snow came and went before I could hear it crunch beneath my feet, and in March, when the world first came to a screeching halt, it was 4:21 AM and I was driving to work (it was deemed essential that people had their coffee), and I saw a white Extra-Large Suburban strike and kill a 2-point buck. my roommate the poet said that long ago, when Noah was gathering pairs of God’s creatures for the ark, he chose the most manly buck to follow the doe. However, the buck’s 24-point spread wouldn’t fit through the ark’s narrow door and the buck had to shed his antlers at the feet of God so that his line might propagate the earth. My roommate actually said it like this, in one breath: The buck – losing his antlers – enters the ark… My roommate said this I think, because every morning for the previous two weeks I had awoken hungover, on the floor. and now it is summer in October, and the warm rain continues to fall. Samson’s haircut,
or Absalom hanging from a tree… The dawn is green, and heralds a beat tattooed by the march of four horses descending ancient hills.
Quintessential Ryan Winegardner there is something quintessential in all acts: the boy Ganymede dancing under Zeus’s throne, while Calisto, Europa, and Io stare through drowsy lids; an ox yoked to the field, dying as he was born and as he lived; the syzygy of five celestial bodies in space, and the girl watching through her telescope; an arrow in mid-flight, destined to strike true; three buzzards circling august skies; the trees like fire in October; the slosh of the bus’s tires on melting snow; the softness of spring grass. in this world, there’s sometimes something special; it’s awe; it’s quintessential. it’s like the feeling when I’m up all night, thinking about you.
Smart Boy Maggie Collins you’re a smart boy aren’t you? well at least you think you are, they thought you were, campus caught you and now you’re a big fish. or at least that night you were big enough. you’re a smart boy, huh? you’re a big boy huh? a big boy with a big brain that likes small women. but does that big brain think? it’s full of plays and scores and press conference lines, but what went down that drain on that night? you’re a smart boy, huh? but not smart enough, to know the difference between a grin and a grimace, a body and a playing field, a yes and a no? you’re a smart boy huh, but did you think of me? did you think of her, of what she felt, not what she felt like, but what screamed behind her eyes and under your smokey jean jacket that night. you’re a smart boy huh? but you steal, you take, you plunder, you burn. she was mine and you took her still. sad eyes speak no words but they tell stories that songs are afraid of and they fade away as i run toward her. year after year the race is run farther and further from me, and i stand still i watch what you set in motion. alas that damn broke like each before it and the water the tears
the scratches the pain hurtle down from places that heaven fears, and i catch her body before it meets something more solid but smart boy, listen here: those screams never stop, that locked car door may have opened but it holds her still. can you hear her screaming now? smart boy, i hold the light before her eyes, and back we build her, brick by brick by brick, and the wires of your cage may fray, but you still stole. know this, smart boy, your denim jacket still hangs in her closet, mingling with the dust bunnies that her big bad dogs chase away. but you don’t care do you? the sun says you never will because what do you have to learn?
Worth Maggie Collins everyday i try to remind me what i have to offer, that although i give, there is still some to take. i plod on with a heart so heavy that my corset groans, but still i remind me that the treasure i hold inside means more than what’s under my skirt, they tell me of my worth. but worth….. worth… what is she really? does she change as i do, or does she stand still as i plummet through the chasm that my life has become? is she hidden in the map that is my skin, changing, morphing, fading with every new freckle, line, roll, and wrinkle? does she hold my hand, does she hold me back, does she whisper to me as i lay awake at night? does she remind me that words don’t damage although they hurt, that thoughts can’t break my back, can’t bind me down? does worth stand behind me in the mirror, does she wave at me from the corners of my mind? if she stays with me, why is she so hard to see, why is she so hard to grasp? sometimes she’s there, often i hear, but although she whispers, her voice is soft and often i lose her pitter patters altogether. if she never leaves my side, why is she so hard to find, to know, to hold? oh worth, i work hard to earn you, to keep you, i stand staring at every arch, every curve in the mirror of the gym bathroom looking back at me, searching for the things that make me ME, searching between numbers and his sheets and theirs. oh worth, take me home. i miss the soft colors and warmth, but oh, the tears are my blanket now. oh worth, the hole grows wider, but i look for you still, in puddles, in dark rooms, in yards full
of solo cups and egotism. she may be here with me, holding my hand, but sometimes i’m reminded i don’t know you.
Sketch of an Ox Jonah Garces-Foley A contained cloud speaks: A cusp of milk, hung in air, An icy ox breath. My eyes are a mellow pool: topaz in a tar pit. I exist on a great plane, Shared with many beings. Ox fixes forward, snout plowing furrows in the empty plain of snow. My body is a dark star: glass marble in a blank arctic blanket. I take up a form, And inhabit empty space. A clash of language: Ox crushing ox in courtship: Brutal ceremony. The voice is a violence: the way we penetrate space. We speak to other beings, and we rip ourselves around the meaning. My virtue is forgiveness. I am rejecting my inner social boundaries To experience violence like cold wind. When the ox shares space: Iron hoof is planted in wind Sentinel footstep.
Red Bud Tipping the Branch Jonah Garces-Foley I am seeking acceptance and I am finding my voice. This sidewalk slope holds a rhombus space of sky. The radiant blue is acceptance, And the jutting buildings are my voice. The golden fleece clouds Are fading to coal black; The afternoon accepts them, And they speak with mellow rain. In winter, the branch accepts bare stillness. The still, bare branch Has forgotten its voice. In spring, a moment of being cusps the red bud, on the verge. I am the winter branch, still accepting and the red bud tipping the branch.
The Desert before Meaning Jonah Garces-Foley The first dawn broke when we named it my fish legs bleat, my croaking goat horns Emerging from liquid sand, newborn I start to march the form of a line The sun walking on the Earth. This landscape squeezes into geometry for us We trace hieroglyphics in the Earth the dawn-sliced dune we march my dragging steps are a wedge Our legs stretch the shattered dawn Our wet feet indent the desert sand Our prints reflect us and shudder This was the first judgment.
The Cave beneath Language Jonah Garces-Foley “Do not mistake me for an individual; I know how to love.” These are the first words I understood I could not hear you until we met under the ground I left my language to dry in the sun The endless black space Is a spacious vulnerability My trippy fingers grow around yours, The fractal sculpture of my past decisions. You can feel what I want What I want is a type of pain the glow of a candle, a bubble in the dark Pain that affirms my body is here And ruptures me into a phoenix Like carbon pressed into diamond
Untitled Lizzie Burrell my friend is a witch she thinks crystals can conjure the divine or the devil or whatever once she offered me an apple I took a bite and the inside was yellow: highlighter fluid worms wriggled in its neon flesh one emerged and blinked three times before staring at me and whispering with the voice of a sick child: run she has a mirror which she consults daily; it has a tendency to misguide one night she snatched me and stepped through it as if reflection were a soup of reality we emerged in a dank room where sick children dance their feet to the bone and smoke their lungs into stone their bodies harden until petrified caught forever mid-sway, listening to the songs of Medusa’s garden last night the witch visited me in my dreams, silver tears streaked
her cheeks like shooting stars she sobbed: the problem with love nowadays is the way people stargaze; no one has faith in the stars anymore Our fate is sealed in the stars we believe brought us together that night. Is it foolish to have faith in their continued dance? A synchronized shuffle in the cosmos of chaosunfathomable. I place no trust in a beyond that’s boundless. I embrace any agony that awaits: my heart splattered across your canvas like a fly swatted against the window through which your ghost looms a shadow to remain tethered by fibers carving fissures in my flesh like the leash which hangs from the lone dog lumbering through the street paws raking against shattered glass shards which fell when the sky splintered and its fractured fragments like hail pelted earth momentarily, they hung suspended ceasing to fall as time was in a stupor
until time turned, jolting sand grains to descend like sheets of rain, but the
unwatered vine had already withered away it’s bony roots shriveled and decayed parched and rusted red like my blood strewn out in streaks across your canvas
On Bowls With Blue Tulips Helen Do My
two lips
sweat and sweet potato
sorta sordid syrup
murmured, mommy, wade me in purpled velvet along my
two left
and it’s
okay
blue river veins
if my wisteria-laden wrist looks more bruised than if you
perfect
say
No, I may whimper but won’t wilt with weather whether water wind word world would, and they would, I will go on anyway That is
to say
I may-be more than a little want tulip tattoo
a little
Like Real People Do Helen Do No, I don’t want a love like I’ve seen in the movies Fiction is excellent for escapism and imagination But I don’t watch enough films to think anything of it I watch people, though And the fact of the common presence of couples Makes love seem plausible, obtainable. If they can do it then you can too, Maybe Maybe it was how I was raised I don’t know, Maybe it’s my glasses Are the wire frame and lenses really such an impenetrable barrier to connection? Either way, I’m not giving them up until I save up for contacts Plus, I’ve grown to love wearing mine and I’m proud of that Maybe I don’t open myself up to meeting people for love Because it’s scary And I don’t care for chastity, in principle But by instinct, my body is a temple and my mind a fortress that only I should have power over Like, I want to go over there and sit with you And say how are you And flirt And strike up a quirky conversation But I can’t, won’t Because it’s artful, and playing hard to get will make our union all the more potent and passionate in the end? No.
I tell myself that, but it’s just fear Just fear of anything that isn’t the normal I know I’m kidding myself though, if I think that doing nothing will get anyone anywhere Okay, let’s get this out of the way Romantic norms can be wonderful but kind of suffocating And that sucks Like being serenaded? Heartwarming, but overwhelming Holding hands? Another touchy subject Cute on elderly But uncomfortable and unnecessary Maybe it’s PDA that I can’t get behind But these opinions are subject to revision, rewind Same with my standards, which can’t be too high? An effortless conversation bouncer-offer is where I stand I’m kidding myself if I think that’s all about which I care It’s not But it’s one of the main things Because it’s more than good, it’s rare. Cheers To when the exchange of ideas, jokes, and memories was not forced But mutually exquisite and free With us bubbling to the brim with excitement over how cool it is That we get to exist on the same plane, right as rain I think that everyone who’s had the chance to love like this The humble and unbreakable Solid ground, sealed bubble dome Home between us and only us Despite everything outside of this Togetherness feeling Knows it’s thrilling And unlike anything else
So, I concede, it’s true. I want a love like real people do.
A Seasonal Sentiment Sarah Stegner My brain is a babbling brook Filled with troubled trouts And lined with overly conscious cattails No, there is beauty in it This I know But the cold slows the processing New water waits to replace the old Stressed salmon lie stagnant, resting No, there is value in it This I know Melted snow will refresh the reservoir New moments will combine with the old The past promises it won’t always be this cold.
The Tower Lucky i am the tallest person in the world with every fragment of time i perceive i am pulled further and further apart demons grasp my ankles angels clasp my wrists i am shackled across the widest chasm of being my body stretches beyond my imagination with each choice im forced to make, their grip tightening with every thought i generate ive grown out of all my clothes my skin will tear at the seams my spine wont stand the strain ive always been scared of heights i used to wish my eyes were on my feet so id know its really not so far now i just close them and trust im still on the ground i go deeper below higher above its as much worse as it is better when i decide who i am theyll let go but by then ill be old elastic i just wont fit anymore it will never be that simple again
Susquehanna Maria Rahmouni At dawn, we waded through shallow Susquehanna water
Caught crawfish with bare hands and gave them the same names from yesterday. At noon, we rested against the rocks Listened to the northern swallows And greeted the routine fisherman as they passed. We would whistle and then raise our muddy Arizona Tea cans So as to say hello friend, we too are fish of the river. At three, a kind man offered us a ride. We scrambled to claim our seats on the back of his worn boat. For hours, we caught and released unimpressive fish. We welcomed the sun’s burning kisses on our noses As a rite of summer. Later, at the dock, he would forget four beer bottles Fallen in the mud And we would let him. And now, as the day spills into the horizon We carry the bottles and ourselves Carefully along the riverside Barefoot and hungry. We press the bottles to our lips and introduce the beer to our tongues. It staggers its way down our throats and settles weightily in our stomachs producing a warmth you would forever crave. We drink carelessly and finish quickly. We silently bury the bottles in the mud. The owls bear witness as we lay to rest our youth in the banks of the Susquehanna.
By dawn, the crawfish will have forgotten their names. The fisherman will not scan the riverside For our raised tea cans. The Susquehanna will swell over the rocks Claiming the memories of who we once were as if to say Yes. You too are fish of the river.
Bathroom Walls Isabella Salcedo aka anonymous advice column written in permanent ink from the same position I am in right now, tell me I’m beautiful. Tell me that everything is going to be okay and also, YOLO, and maybe I’ll fall under the brief spell of the stall and write back to the one who searches for answers from wise, strange humans who for some reason, whether by fluke or fate, have brought a pen to poop. You’ve called upon the right people for your stall-seat confessional, entrusted in those who know best, or could potentially know best. I’m impressed you knew to find me here. After these past few months of running, of not even daring to dream, you caught me by surprise. “Here’s a shooting star,” you say, and one blooms among the words, “one flush = one wish.”
And so I make one.
Welcomed (Found in the Silence) Isabella Salcedo When I listen really hard, sit so still my toes numb in their socks and my back stiffens in its socket, the wind doesn’t always talk back. Sometimes, I think it's just a quiet day, a day off for Mother Nature. On those days I can turn to the mercy of a poem (page 52 is still just as heart breaking as the last time) and be grateful that humans have spent so much time pondering death and the other Big Questions with the foresight to write it down, type it up, format, print, publish it, so that I can feel a little bit like I own Death, and not feel so lonely when I can’t come up with answers.
Long Term Care Olivia Keenan The sun rises when I pass out breakfast. If it weren’t for me, no one would see it. I strip beds and open blinds, striped light hurries into the hallways. In her tea, she prefers two packets of sugar. She also thinks I am her daughter, but she always knows when I short her, (or when I use splenda.) She collects napkins and headbands Wears ten at a time because she can’t remember where she put them. They are big and colorful and leave a trail of glitter behind her wheelchair. It is the fifth time he has asked me, so I write down: “Hello. My name is Olivia, and I am your CNA today.” He reads it, holds it so as not to break the handwriting. Says that this, this, will help him remember today. I pocket the paper when he isn’t looking. The television is muted so we sit in silence. Her daughter comes in on Sundays to play hymns on the sunroom piano. It is the only time she does not look out the window. I know she recognizes her fingers, their fingers. They hold hands when everyone else leaves. She looks back out the window. My coworkers and I laugh, usher wanderers back into their rooms, bathe worn bodies, wipe noses, wash our hands until they crack. we groan, lift more than we should, break the law when we call them by the names they know how to answer to:
mama, grandma, my dear, dear friend. everything will be okay. The memory is fragile, and so is the skin, the body. The nurses say they often die in threes. And at night. I work during the day, so I always learn about it in the morning. a hollow hymn, glitter scattered, the paper in my pockets, reminders. Still the sun rises and I pass it out.
Planting in Purgatory Emma Reilly where everything is slime green and smoking with radiation, I stood, rubber waders sizzling in the wind, turning the soil over and over and over, fingers necrotizing as they sifted through the black earth, before the bud pressed past some crack in the seed and burst, burning neon red and hopeful, into Spring. when Summer came, I taped the petals to the stem and ignored the crushed veins at the bottom of the blossom. I believed it was still beautiful. and maybe that was the beauty of it-the belief of it all, sensing decay and loving it anyways, fighting against the turn of season even as Winter laced her frostbitten fingers between my own. and finally, as Her frozen grip pulled me from the blackened bloom I saw it, clawing against the mossy green clouds, weeping with ichor: a flash of purple--a snow crocus, or hope tearing up through the frost.
We Will Not Get Married in a Church Emma Reilly We will not get married in a church. No vows to whisper beneath Jesus and His bloody hands— He made us like this, lovers of women and kissers of men My mother’s God tells us that love is whatever you share with another but the priest on the other side of the confessional tells us that some sins cannot be forgiven. We forgive the priest seventy-times-seven times and turn to find nails in our palms on the seventy-first-times-seventh. We wake with a crown of thorns around our heads. We taste the blood as it falls onto our tongue. It is not communion. It is not an affirmation of faith. We will not get married in a church. We were raised in these pews. Our knees flattened against the wooden beams, air stained with light, blood-oath written in the thin pages of teen Bible; our best friend does not believe in my mother’s God. Prays for forgiveness of our sins. We wish that we did not still believe. We wish that belief did not feel like a betrayal. We say our prayers before bed, ring around our rosaries— Our Father, who art in heaven, told us to love thy neighbor. Our Father is my mother’s God.
The God in this church would not consider us to be neighbors. Worse even than the tax collector. Worse even than the man with eyes blinded by lust and hunger. Worse even than the killer. We will not get married in a church. We ask the priest for repentance, for it has been far too long since our last confession. We know that the sin is always the same. We know that my mother’s God would not need to forgive us. We search for forgiveness anyways. We pray to Saint Andrew hoping he will find the faith we have lost. We light a candle at the back of the nave for a wedding we will never have.
Skipping RM 2:30 am the corner sleeps a worrisome rest choking on noxious fumes donning battered buildings as pajamas forests balding from the stress of its people by its people and for its people. her patience is in vain for despite our endless cries, shrieks and increasing demands always attended to by the earth mother somehow not all children get fed. the world collapses, invisibly, around us. nevertheless, we skip through the flames on the corners graying brick we hold hands and skip our feet gliding on the film of dust we eroded with the meter: left right … left right … left right … left right we become the corners new heartbeat all while forgetting that it was cold outside. the street lamps were lazy that night ending their shift early, unmotivated to give us the spotlight. nevertheless, we remained the center of attention. skipping fast, forgetting we were tired, too focused on one another we skipped an old couple on a bench
the lady laid her head on the man’s shoulder his head on hers both smiling enjoying the reminder of their youth skipping to the future, forgetting we’re treading unknown territory too focused on one another we skipped a couple in their 40s yelling at each other in the terrace outside a restaurant probably over something small, perhaps the bill. the woman stopped mid-sentence, gasped, fingertips on her mouth, tears welling in her eyes the man unfurrowed his brow, relaxed his stance, tears welling in his eyes they immediately kissed, tasting the others tears, and the chemical message that came with it: “how could we have forgotten?” skipping how it should be, forgetting we live in an insane world, too focused on one another we skipped a couple with 2 toddlers a boy and a girl who began skipping in circles away from their parents whom are now angered they have to bring order and teach their first lesson: “children, authenticity is a vice.” we were in space in free-fall stopping only at the force from another object in this case, blocking the crosswalk, a pickup truck at a red light. no matter, just another thing we skip like the drivers condescending sneer. his light turns green
and, of course, he gets home before us, officially winning the race. fishing for his cold keys which he inserts into the frigid doorknob even the squeaks of his shoes echo in the house there’s no need to turn on the hallway light for nobody is there to navigate the halls running to warm his hands. perhaps it’s about the destination not the journey because during our adventure we’re never thinking of the struggle around us only the vision and sometimes, it carries me away skipping class, meals, normalcy and i reluctantly admit it makes me hallucinate especially when chased with the taste of your gum, the smell of your shampoo, or the warmth of your waist skipping consciousness, time reality i’ll have to remember to not sink far into ecstasy because escaping the world, high off a poppy seed, means i might forget briefly about you, the flower from which it came from.