M O O N
C O L A
P R E S E N T S
IS 1
F E B R U A R Y
SU
E
2 0 2 2
Contents 4 - Mouse Trap B Lewis
5 - GOOD VIBRATIONS Alex McIntosh
6 - MOON LIKE SOUR CANDY The Ophelias
7 - IMMORTALITY OF A WRITTEN KISS Gabriela Godinez Feregrino
8 - Appalachian Love Song Calista Malone
10 - ONCE BURNED Rachel Pittman
12 - LOVE LETTERS Reese Menefee
URHEAR IS S U E 1 : S O
TS
Our inaugural issue contains sour candies made with love and heartbreak. The editors of this zine asked poets for candies that could break your jaw or melt your heart.
3
Here, whatever There's no use hiding the dirt on the napkin Wiping myself down inch by inch Bold and in capsule Sweet toothed Transference is sad no matter the object(s) Regardless of how we hate cliché everything we said meant nothing and it filled us up like bread before the meal In another place I promised I would treat you harshly but In this place there's cream all over my face New tongues kicking with secrets Her plan to spy it was obvious Feeling so much until we feel sick I'm Tom You're Jerry In an endless chase scene The happiest horn notes
4 - B Lewis
Go
od
o i n t s a r Vib
I hurt my feelings again. Called to listen to him talk about his ex. Driving by the river, the road is dark before me, dark water beneath the trees. I hang up and sing with The Beach Boys about vibrations, invisible currents between us. Brian Wilson, as a child, was afraid of themthe imperceptible waves that make dogs growl or wag their tails. He wrote the song on LSD, matched the pitch to horror soundtracks. Driving under the bridge I remember a high school friend pointing to a dead fish. The immense body shone and we pulled over to look. What to make of this impulse to touch dead things? To poke at them with sticks, watch the skin dip and rebound. Even as my chest tightens, I step closer.
Alex McIntosh - 5
MOON LIKE SOUR CANDY Moon like sour candy in your mouth Our conversation are heading south I am getting caught up in your movement Resisting stagnation, I'm trying I'm trying
6 - The Ophelias
Wearing corduroy for four days straight I get confused when you say my name Skin is flaking harder in the winter Reach out to your mother, I'm crying I'm crying
You can only like me when you're drunk The sky is open, my stomach stuck Tongue like bubbles floating down my rotten skin Don't worry about it, I'm trying I'm trying
Immortality of a Written Kiss
I wonder if his tears are sweet, When he cries from his blackberry eyes, His quiver was a myth I confirmed and conquered, But the legend of his tears I never discovered, I wanted to paint stars on the bridge of his nose, So that everyone else could see just how bright he glows, He wasn’t interested in shining, He didn’t care about being noted, But had the nerve to kiss me, So now he’ll live forever
Gabriela Godinez Feregrino - 7
Appalachian Love Song If I never let my teeth clack against yours as if they were tap shoes, following the time-step of the movie-like midsummer make out sesh, would I have driven quarter-country to borrow your artistic ear for this poem for this memorial of the
8 - Calista Malone
teenagers we used to be? As kids, love spun out up and down like yo-yo, coming back to us faster than we could keep up, lopping off the heads of long-time boyfriends, presumptive prom dates, and fast flings that never got off the tarmac. Not in the way we had, from Indiana and Florida to North Carolina, though metaphorically California, remember that song about California? I sing it in my sleep sometimes like a zombie mumbling memories from their last life. It is a last life really, one that I have died from and won’t come back to. I still reach for Fraser Magnolia leaves and big bottomed blooms to remind me of that summer. Bug eyed, I was lovestruck with Appalachia’s hemlocks and mouths rimmed with Cheerwine. If there were ever a poem for us, it would start and end with the sourwood flower-heads hanging like gummies, puckering their petals at us for all of June and July. We might have hung onto August. But it came and went, dying a sudden death like all teenage romances do.
Calista Malone - 9
10 - Rachel Pittman
The insomnia nights and guilty mornings—
and sister. I’ve been searching for ways to unremember all the rest.
coat in November, the names of your brother
eventually I will forget the texture of your lips, the smell of your
across the pond from the third floor windows—I know,
If I could just erase the library where we watched the ducks sail
where you first kissed me, leaning against a stranger’s car.
where we met would evaporate, or at least the parking lot
you helped me take it off. I wish the college town
the shock of heat: how you spilled coffee on my shirt, how readily
the red one with the cracked handle. And I refuse to relive
when I make coffee, I will not picture your favorite mug,
a bed you have never touched and never will. In the morning
I will gather every fragment of us and shove them under my bed,
Once Burned
Rachel Pittman - 11
even after the coffee has cooled.
my scalded tongue still stings
refusing to be lost, lingering the way
the most fragile pieces persist, tiny slivers of glass
But,
monsters I used to fear as a child.
the memories keep shrinking, occasionally vanishing, like the
wished they could kill. Under my bed,
your eyes? The careful violence lurking in the pupils. The way they
voice stung my face. And when will I forget
How words fell from my mouth like so many broken keys, how your
discovered the text messages to your ex while you slept.
how shame held my mouth closed against prayer. The day I
Love Love Letters Letters Dear A.R, The morning I realized you were gone, I folded my naked body into itself like a pile of dirty clothes. If I inhale until my chest hurts, I can still smell you on my pillow. Your violet scented shampoo, vanilla perfume. You left strands of long, brown hair, braided through the fibers of my sheets. I flick them away, try to feel angry, make a wish, imagine white dandelion fuzz. I wish we’d never met. I take that back, hold my breath, taste grapefruit and lavender, the last breakfast I watched you eat. Flowers clung to your mouth when you bit into pink fruit and I swallowed bitter citrus. II miss your balmy exhales fogging the curve of my shoulder, good morning texts, when our quiet was comforting.
Dear A.R, I curl up to beginnings like a cat. Ours was in August. I miss all things warm.
12 - Reese Menefee
I took down the photos on my fridge. You, in your lilac swimsuit. Me, in my sunburn. I replaced them with chamomile flowers, tied up and dried out. Their centers are the same color as your eyes. Or maybe, I’m remembering wrong, still filling your palms with lightning bugs, still painting you in shades of gold. I am trying not to think about how you scrubbed my peeling shoulders in the shower, ran your hands through my wet hair, kissed the scars on my wrists. My bathroom held our laughter like a rainstorm. It is January now and I feel bloody as the late summer moon. Dear A.R, I dried tangerines in the oven, tucked them between the pages of the bible in your nightstand, strung garland over my bed. They are a metaphor for something, but I don’t know what yet. Outside the bar, your voice cracked in sheets of ice. Your arms embered like
Reese Menefee - 13
a hemlock forest. I was small and goosebumped in my black dress. I was a river begging to be held, flooding the space around you. Dear A.R, I am drunk and eating sheet cake because you called it sick-sweet once. I baked a pie for your birthday last year. The candles left holes in the crust, reminded me of crabs. I hope winter in Ohio is as bitter as the rhubarb you grew in her dead garden. I hope it rains gray sleet on your farm every day. I hope your red pears rot and your chestnuts crack. I hope your sage tastes like my lips and your irises come up black. Dear A.R, I dreamt you died, had a panic attack in my sleep. I keep going for walks through the suburbs at night. The baseball field at the park has the same chalky scent as it did when I was a teenager. I lie down in the
14 - Reese Menefee
center and stare at the thin moon, listen for the skitter of deer, the hum of toads, some kind of apology. When you held me, the sweat from our limbs made our skin stick. On my walk home, my boots smack, steady and as lonely as a heartbeat. The wind is harsh and lovely.
Reese Menefee - 15
Moon Cola is an art and literary zine dedicated to all things darling, charming, and full of rage. This sweet and fizzy zine will send you to the moon and bac back with all the wonder and complexities that come with such a journey. We believe in experimenting and having fun. Follow us @mooncolazine on Twitter and Instagram. mooncolazine.tumblr.com