90

Viral Sensation [41]

Murder in the House [42]

Untitled [44] Mycology [45]

Triple Sonnet for Miley Cyrus and

Microwave Dinners [46] Incendiarism [50]

Anna Roth [48] Desert [49]

choose your own adventure [51]

Plane Ticket Fantasies [52] The Last Normal Day [55]

Snake [53] Owl [54]

Labels [58] Glass Study 2 [59] Windows to Self-Portrait 1 [62]

My Twisted Cupid [60]

unanswered [64]

just passing through [65]

Quietchild [66]

McKenna Tietz [68]

8 / 90

a coffee outing

McKenna Barker

i sit down across from myself and exchange nervous smiles with her. we exchange pleasantries, and then we begin the date, gripping our cups of tea as we probe what's our favorite movie? we ask. i watch as she draws a blank; she can't remember. we shake it off we try again your favorite color? her eyes drill into mine, desperate to make me happy with the choice as i stare at her, praying i can answer correctly. we sit in silence, eventually send our love to one another and rain check for next week.

The Art of Silence

Noah Bello

Charcoal shavings define my boundaries. Sullen fingers trace my purpose.

Monochrome movement, colorless life. Trapped in portrait, carried in his hands.

Erase my conviction and flatten my depth. Holding such power, he blends reality.

Cover my tracings, slather colors with neon hues that fade my dimension.

Saturated canvas; a parched soul caressed by brushes, they leave no color.

Life without contrast, passion without texture. A painter and his painted.

Hands separated by one-way motion. Listen to his movements, master the art of silence.

NOW!

Caleb Carr

The Hope Only of Empty Men

Alexander Elliot

This is the way the world ends Not with a bang, but a whimper. A sobbing chorus of "please, stop" muffled by a hand, or fear A curt reminder that the dinner table is no place for politics The gurgle of overflowing pink water, or saliva, the shake of the pill bottle The muttered slur, to the crickets going quiet after the five, ten, twenty gunshots The whistling of the bomb as it falls from seven hundred billion-dollar grace The quiet death of another species And another And another And another Until it's our turn.

This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang, but a whimper.

I Love Thunderstorms, But I'll Trade Them for a Home

Rowan Evans

It was at Miller & Carter, Union Street, Aberdeen, AB10 1BD, United Kingdom, my fine cuisine the day I sailed from Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Aberdeen over a period of 12 hours & the medium rare steak with a glass of Merlot Oyster Bay, that I fell into Scotland with. A bittersweet carmine atmosphere cluttered with ochre highlights and caliginous corners. Have you felt freedom of another country? The languid moments, bruised feet over cobbled streets, reach the old war outpost by the North Sea, come one, I can make it, passed up through Tillydrone, just to climb up crumbling stone bricks to look down at the stranglers, the three little children peering up at me, mother warmsoft and amused.

Ought I to breathe you in again? Cradle the sea— take me back, wide eyed.

It was Caffé Nero, 73-77 Union St, Aberdeen AB11 6BD, United Kingdom, served the richest hot chocolate, diagonal from Marks & Spencer, down the road from Primark, I found cheap, quality clothes, cozy two floors, I’d house myself on the first floor, second floor for you Americans, sipping, delving into a croissant side by side. Leather chairs, pale wooden floors designed to capture my new white & cream Primark trainers, fence in glaring windows, soaked pavement, clouded skies, escape into the drizzle. Have you embraced nit picky weather of another country? I’ve strayed to the seaside off King street, a mile of shoppes, miles in Scotland, it was 11°C

& mint ice cream doesn’t taste as sweet as it did against salty sea spray.

Ought I double back home? Cradle 2am stars—

bring me back, free, please?

Atomic Prayer / Holy Delusion

Charlotte Gutzmer

When the sunlight dies, I taste it like a hammer through my teeth. I can’t seem to tell where the dream ends and I begin—a sleepwalker tied to a cadaver; ribcage, cracked skull, wings that take me nowhere. I live in the liminality between realities, but I could never forget you. You, who tied bells around my ankles and promised me a song. Sing me an atomic prayer, a holy delusion, and maybe I’ll remember to wake up. In the dream, we dance under neon lights and spin backwards until we’re out of breath. We’re surrounded by beautiful things we’ll lose in the morning: glass hearts, watercolors, fireworks, chances. I spark over the cement and forget the sound of my name, fragments of waves that slice through static and scrape my knees. I can’t bleed here. I can’t feel here. Scraps of skin and bone remind me what it’s like to hurt, what it’s like to wash the dirt off your tongue. This narcotic celebration of never-ending, of ink and of snow. You know, I was once real, and you were once stardust, and instead of dreaming we could scream to the sea until our voices died in our throats. I can smell the sweet rot of the cadaver, feel the bones pushing through the flesh. Wake up, wake up. Were you ever here with me? I’m onstage now, reciting words that don’t exist for an audience of ghosts. They’ve been staring through me for centuries. Halfway through, I cut the tether.

Twisted

Caroline Hehir

CA R H EHI R OL I N E

Coveting the Disordered & Tossing Hands with the Giants

Rowan Evans

(CW: knife imagery, blood, sexual assault insinuations)

L INE

E HIR

I heave tangled memories onto chipped cutting boards with fossilized

callouses, dicing centuries into squared pockets of my own

legacies. They tumble to linoleum as I try to draw back a

rotten, infested fist of crumbling onion skins, charred & of dyed

misplaced & keening knife: I’ve peeled my skin & left the onions to simmer

on the stovetop skinned black, I wish to sell my aged stories backwards in time.

There comes an eon, in some decade, where folks like me, clothed in the

1600s, forget how the spice trade bought lives as a pastime, lily-licked corset

vested men when we wake, gold crusted layers sizzling. Caramelized

onions are chopped with quick care, & should be served with the depth of

emotionless tears be forgotten, the heaving of tattered pages from my flayed

years as a plaything for stained CEOs. Can’t encourage looming, cimmerian hands from

snapping my shredded lips shut, ‘shh, be still, no one needs to know or else we’ll take

out shame & guilt for exposing our normality.’ Onions leave tracks down my sealed face,

but it shifts my backwards orientation on track & I’ll rake ruddy shutters close

before keening knives come to cut their losses. If I had the momentary

chance of a twenty-sided die, I would cast again, for viridity, for demarcated life,

fling chance into a pan with my crying onions, cauterize & clean & chuck

away the rancid color palette of mis-gotten experiences, mis-gotten

lullabies for warmsoft children not-mes. I am done with your filth,

shove the damn onions in the rubbish, cake on makeup

& pretend to give a damn. Salt your burns, crush cayenne peppers into

summer-night-long lacerations. Onions, for god’s sake, onions:

there are blood-streaked tissues I couldn’t help but cry back then; muster enough energy

& dig with a steel spoon for a cocaine-laced cereal

to find rest on my tongue. Dashing, careening in wild worn scenes delineated

with magical words, lonely alliterations are littering sidewalk cracks &

there is ire for sake of strength, behind the curtain you canting people desperately tug into place

as an aborted attempt at inconsistent faith. Abort yourself & I’ll cut-throat kitchen these listing parts.

Consider my macabre, my pulchritudinous: saunter & slip down

peels, lateness lacquer. Dicing up my life into neat cubes for consummation

yielding cocaine-induced night terrors turned delectable dreams of chipped

cutting boards. Taste stingy, fried, call-uncle onions to unlock true faithlessness I endeavor to

eradicate, I sing tunes, Rattlin’ Bog slinging words about, slink into tapered crooks no more,

no more, phrases I repeat in case I roll a D20, I requested for lengthy sentence of no more, of please, no more.

I heave thinly sliced memories onto refreshed cutting boards, a price, my forfeiture, oh, for god’s sake: the onions.

08. 18. 20 until next tuesday

Caroline Hehir

C AR O LIN E HEH IR

08.18. 20 waiting on tuesday

Caroline Hehir

Rule of 3

Abbey Jones

“Now, darling, you must remember the 3 Rules,” she paused, signaling with a gesture that it was Hina’s turn to remind her okāsan, it seemed, of what those Rules were.

Hina sighed. “Rule 1: Do not get emotional.”

She recited them as if they were etched into her skin with ink.

“Rule 2: Do not get hurt,

Rule 3: If Rule 2 is broken, then I must run from people.”

The last Rule made Hina feel torn apart, like she was a mutilated, clawed to shreds kind of monster. That she should not be near people. She wanted so desperately to prove her family wrong. Recalling her past, Hina wiped angry tears from her eyes. She was weak. Hina quickly shifted to her side and reached up to her knotted braids as if to fix them, a decent block from her okāsan’s watching eyes.

“Good!” her okāsan exclaimed, and she faced the door, smiling to Hina’s younger sisters. “You must also remember dear,” she said as she looked over her shoulder, “that you mustn’t leave here today. The rainfall of yesterday has stuck to the grass and stone, making it slick and treacherous. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Or the house again,” the youngest pitched in, smiling and pointing ever so dramatically to the ceiling.

“Oh, really? Maybe I’ll hang out in your bedroom today.” Hina’s angry tears had stopped and were replaced with humor.

The younger two ran up to Hina to give her a hug goodbye, telling their older sibling that they would be back by night. Hina loved her sisters, and they knew. They had witnessed the pain and rejection she suffered from her own physique. They had seen firsthand what occurs when Hina does not follow her 3 Rules. Her okāsan, however, had always made Hina feel small. Entirely incorrect and that Hina should never have been born. Her okāsan believes it is because Hina was cursed while still in the womb, when her okāsan ate a wrong kind of mushroom, which made her sick, and made her child come out amiss. Whatever the reason, it is not normal, therefore Hina knows she must not leave home; she mustn’t do anything. But with the blossoming opportunity to slink into town quickly, she couldn’t tell herself no. The crowd terrified her, but she was drawn to that kind of chaos.

The small number of steps leading to the bustling town was full of a kind of muse for Hina and it was intoxicating. It reeked of sweet matcha donuts, Nikumaki Onigiri, and savory Yufuhana Crepes, the kind filled with sweet edible flowers. The town echoed with thrills of laughter, horse hooves pounding the stone path and children crying for sweets. Sounds that jarred her, shaking her weak resolve of only entering the bookkeeper’s shop, to grab some more pretty parchments. Hina craved entering the tea shop with pink and red flowers blooming at the entrance, the sugary and fiery smells of soaking flavor made her mouth water. Oh, how she adored the town's glasshouse, which resembled nothing comparable. Hina clutched the worn wooden podiums, where lit lanterns always hung, and a tangle of black hair came loose from her tight braided bun, as though it knew her true attitude of today’s venture.

If only I don’t get hurt, Hina thought to herself.

As she looked down at her layered kimono, she exhaled and hiked them up as far as she could. Hina took additional restrictions to get up this wet staircase and she wore her heavy boots, the ones her otōsan made her so she

wouldn’t slip as often. In one hand, she held the charred wickerwork basket her sister made years before their old house caught fire; it held a flask of water and a few yen. With the other, she hoisted the skirt to her ear and pinned it between her head and right shoulder. Hina giggled as she believed she must look ridiculous, if not a little silly, and slowly padded up the stairs.

Although it was a little cooler than expected, the tears that escaped her eyes were not due to her breaking Rule 1; the wind simply nipped at her eyelashes.

As long as I don’t get hurt, Hina chanted internally again.

With her head tilted to the side, her left eye saw the bustling market first, and when she caught sight of the overwhelming colors, smells and sounds, Hina simply forgot who she was. It was a captivating sensation: that Hina wasn’t dangerous, that she hadn’t ever set their old cottage on fire, and that she didn’t have hundreds of old scars on her skin. She was merely a normal child covered in blue fabric, a hue that matched her complexion. She reached the top of the stairs, and as a whiff of fresh Kase Kuchen strangled her nostrils, she inhaled deeper as if asking it to live there permanently. The cheesecake made her mouth water and although the streets were still a bit damp from yesterday’s rain, the people still came out to enjoy the hustle and bustle of it all. Hina smiled, and lifted her head, dropping her skirt to its rightful spot.

To her right the market swayed in chaotic ecstasy with people yelling out sales prices, and neighbors discussed the town’s drama through their open windows. Laundry hung between the stone buildings, flapping in the chilled wind. Hina wondered if the clothes would freeze if they happened to be damp. To the left of Hina, the town wasn’t as busy, but it was still crowded filled with afternoon street performers. A man in a bright red suit was doing a handstand atop a skinny hula hoop and Hina was curious about the spectacle, so she walked towards the left to get a better look. But as she was turning, someone bumped into her, causing them to drop all their possessions.

Hina was startled, and in that instant, she quickly remembered who she was. The instant terror flooded her veins and the overbearing worry rolled

quickly into heat and panic. Her breathing shifted, becoming shaky. The anxiety of showing the people her true identity, of being a disgraceful monster, had already started to get to her.

“Are you okay, miss?” The young lady asked. She was on the ground picking up her spilled items.

Hina ignored her and turned around, right back down the sleek staircase, still wet from the drenching rainfall. Hina reached into her basket. Pulling out the flask, she could feel her skin forming the pores where the steam escapes. “Oh no, not right here.” Hina pleaded to the fire in her blood. She chugged the water desperately, hoping that might cool her down, but when it hit her throat, Hina screamed, slamming the flask into the stone. The water had begun to boil, searing her throat, so she cried out for help. The people on the stairs looked at Hina like she was that crazed monster and scattered. Hina ran down the stairs, dropping her basket, the yen coins flying out and clinking down the pathway. Unfortunately, one of them found its way underneath Hinas heavy boot, causing her to slip. She felt the wind for one second, free as a bird, then she slammed her ribs into an edge on one of the stairs. She cried out when her boiling blood hit the air. The pool of gore forged from the slice under her bones, boiled and scorched the stone so fast that the flames started almost immediately. Catching on the rain-soaked trees, the impossibility of it all was nothing compared to what Hina felt.

She has broken all the Rules. Her blood boiled outside of her skin and suffocated her heart to inconceivable levels. The citizens around her yelled for help, it seemed something else was happening. As she looked to the side, a young boy’s shoes had caught fire. He desperately kicked them off his feet, the skin bubbled and burned underneath, and his cries vibrated in Hina’s head. The burns and scars that encompassed Hina’s skin from before were opening again, the chilled wind assaulted her raw skin.

Hina cried. And Hina ran.

Boob Box

Madi Johnson

Mind Matter

Madi Johnson

Uranium Glass Glows Green Under Ultraviolet Light

Julia Kaeding

Unknown to me I am like the peridot glass that glows green with uranium, your ultraviolet light has burned and cancered me, human leftovers of Chernobyl, deformed, jagged and wrecked, I am sick with love for you. Tortured, I dissect my insides and find malignancies, malformations, my heart beating a beat or two too quickly out of measure, syncopated rhythms and clapping off time. The Animals say baby let me take you home, but the home I have has been razed and desecrated under your watch, explosions of magnitude and depth, I cannot keep myself away from the booming voice bouncing off walls I’ve built to protect myself from you, but lover, like heroin I find you in my veins again, heart now beating a beat of adoration, maybe I’ve got it all wrong. You’re a clean-up crew here to mend fences, patch walls, and lay concrete steps to the front porch, to pick shards of blood-glittered glass strewn on the Hollywood Boulevard of business and drama maintained in a messy life, no Band-Aid can cover the cracked knuckles and clotted fingertips from broken glass.

I’ve been self-destructing, unbelieved sentiments whispered from coral pink lips rot in my airwaves, you are beautiful light, ultraviolet, now seeing I didn’t accept the heart you’ve offered me because I’ve never held another’s heart before, unworthy, undeserving. I do deserve you; a helium neon sign, I am glowing green.

Personal Dwell

Madi Johnson

Triple Sonnet for Finding the Path of Least Resistance

Julia Kaeding

We still move with love in a world like this. We’re pacing the pavement, shoegazing eyes puffy protruding and sore, tears packed in puddles of the sunken skin under our lashes. Yet we walk without worry, weightless shoulders pulled back working our own marionette strings. Yet our voices sometimes waver, falter, fail. We are choking on the fermenting fires, rancid water, acrid air that plagues and suffocates our tired and withdrawn mentalities. With the passing of time, the calculated consideration of our forthcoming steps, we will move with love, realizing that what we choke on dissolves and absorbs

into our purple blue bloodstreams.

I discover bruises have bitten their way into any semblance of peace I had our eyedrop puddles painting the pavement, behind me, nearing precipice pitfalls, the excitement for life drained like bloodletting, trepanning to release the pressure.

In a world like this, delicate lives damaged, hardened heroes and virulent villains regret their own heartaches. Moving and molting bodies like bugs I change – we change, knowing with love we seek solace, sunrises we chase for a chance that our feet pick up pace, and our eyes rise skyward

finding clouded-over skies hides our efforts and we may nullify and wilt; what plagues us ivies and creeps in again. Like hibernating insects, cryptic creatures crawl at dusk and dawn, years between visits. Cicada shells pepper concrete squares like a chessboard, unmoving legs like lichen latched to oak tree bark. Our own exoskeletons, the exterior we calcify to protect our squishy delicate insides from plagues, is no equal to the ache and grief that comes ‘round like cicadas. Bodies and brains suffer because without an inoculate, the disease will ravage our hope. The fix is not in needles and vials; it’s unearthing within what makes us move with love in a world like this.

hot girl shit

Lexi Kane

not ur baby

Lexi Kane

Finding the Perfect Spot on a Dead Tree

Jacob Lee Knuth

Nature’s had it with us taking fabric not replacing half this wasted magic when it could be taken as average lake ‘n woods it has to be a dumping ground, a cesspool ruled less upon guiding principles instilled by Gaia stories, more like rooted in no moral grounding period—end of story, like it will be sooner than our children have children or worse, before our children have beliefs.

First, you go find a fallen over tree so dead, just not dead all the way—you want for there to be some spring left to its death that way when you take your first steps, you know it will still support the fork in your road where you were led to this ancient one here, that first step wields a flex of all your weight to test what it can take before it breaks way into the way in which it had came from the ground to the ground, seeds to be lain.

Birch bark peels fluttered on the trunks under their cover from the breeze versus the trees in the lead-up to a heavier gust— ’03 Kansas City sister twisters. I was in my uncle’s backyard staring up at that tree as it tried to tell me leave like it would from where it stood by me, the neighbor for years his name for real was John Deere up spinning on his tractor as far as I could remember, he flew.

Toes in sand by the mouth of a river at the foot of a hill rimming the lake, the moon hides its own face just as the tide raised goosebumps of stones, driftwood & dead fish where the wave leaves a mark that gently fades in the bank showing her curves like cursive oh, Mother of God, we don’t deserve her; mine her shine, drain her veins, curtailing fate the way we burn it all to waste future— she bides her time, lies in wait for the day.

IBM Punch Card

Maya Ledvina