Off Menu Press: Emotional Algebra

OFF MENU PRESS

JANUARY 2021

EMOTIONAL ANAIS INSPIRED

ALGEBRA

FLASH

NIN ISSUE

“Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.”

ANAIS NIN

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The 15 pieces in this collection were curated in response to the following prompt: Around this time of year many people are making resolutions - personal promises to better/change themselves. However, resolutions are not just a personal promise but they can be a promise we make to the world, resolution as a path to a more just future.

Write a piece that offers a world that is kind to you, a resolution that celebrates what we already have, what you love about the way you hold space for yourself in a world that is so harsh.

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EMOTIONAL ALGEBRA

PIGEON they called her a shy cat, but now she drapes herself across our laps. all confidence. my wife and I indulge her in turns, in these small gifts of holding each other close.

C. ZHANCHI HO Twitter -- @CZhanchi

ANIMATED TO RESOLUTION i am being wrung out by a story i cannot call my own their epiphany is hiccuping through my throat trying to dislodge a small part of my body that can step off my retreating tongue hand in hand with a protagonist animated to fly LUCIA LARSEN Twitter -- @mslucialarsen Instagram -- @lucialarsen

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OFF MENU PRESS

A CARNAL WORLD In my world, there is a place where intimacy and sex is viewed as the norm. The labels of vulgar and whore don’t reach my ears when they’re full of sounds of pleasure. From the sensation of fervent movement in me, to hands around my neck, and stolen kisses pressed against my face, I think: this is what’s it like to love and mourn a loss.

NOOR Instagram -- @redwineclouds

When ; remember ;’m a surv;vor / though ; am (scar)ed ; refuse to th;nk these jagged edges are all ; have to offer So ; wr;te to talk to ghosts / because ; am unf;n;shed “Dad, where do ; go?”

“You don’t want to be dead (yet--) p;ck up your penc;l.”

ASHLEY FOX Twitter -- @gingernamed_ash Instagram -- @gingernamed_ash

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EMOTIONAL ALGEBRA

WE’LL LEAVE IT FOR TOMORROW The phrase “But really, they’re not a bad person” Is such a slippery fish We lay on my bed, toes intertwined, and laugh at owning the libs, giggles in our stomaches for the deep state My comfort that doesn’t deal in facts and logic Just for a minute, let me think in black and white, good and bad, it’ll help me sleep, my love SAM STEELE Twitter -- @samsteele246 Instagram -- @gingersam724

I wake up and fill the blankness of day.

Nowhere is home.

There is safety in this absence.

HAYLEE MILLIKAN Twitter -- @hayleelujah Instagram -- @hayleelujah

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OFF MENU PRESS

I will carry the force of my ancestors With bleeding cuticles Matted hair And a clean plate MIKAYLA HUBERT Instagram -- @mikhubert

I THINK MY THERAPIST MIGHT FINALLY APPROVE I want to live in the drawer with softer things: fuzzy socks, experimental sixties folk records, hope. Every other street there is open only for pedestrians and their dogs. All the meals are soup, served at outdoor restaurants with long-stretched bottles of orange-tinted rosé and oversized umbrellas when it’s sunny or weighted blankets in the cold. The conversations come with sides of steady eye contact and warm transparency, the kind where the word “appreciate” actually means “to recognize the full worth of.” I can breathe in this space; everyone can. And on the exhale we can start to sort out whatever it means to just be.

RACHEL A.G. GILMAN Twitter -- @ rachelaggilman Instagram -- @rachelaggilman

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EMOTIONAL ALGEBRA

POOLSIDE PRAYER For Christmas, I want nothing more than nighttime swimming, pool-side mixing, rum and sprite into cool sweetness, stars piercing quilted black sky reggae fading quietly into boleros streaming palm trees and wind gold lightning inches above grass chlorine stings my eyes mourning the water too clean for a bath.

MONICA MONTELONGO FLORES Twitter -- @DrMonicaMFlores

ACRYLIC The gallery of life compels me to be the canvas I am resolute in my conviction to be the paint HELEN SULIS BOWIE Twitter -- @helensulis

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OFF MENU PRESS

RE-ORCHESTRATION manmade imprints, botanical scars, netted veins—to thank my body, earth, humanity for assuming the shape of burrow nests for quilting safety from threads of yarrow and wonder for birthing light into locked attics for crafting cities out of endings for leading me home AMANDA KOENIGSBERG Instagram -- @petalfolk

TALISMAN (winter fingers, half-thawed heart of slush bleeding cherry-syrup sweet lover’s lies at the crossroads, I buried holly-sharp hurt and headed for forgiveness the stars sleeping, dark, and dead, and the embers of my faith hoping to kindle their corpses; I burn my words to light my way and promise: in these parentheses I will always find the truth) BLUE Twitter -- @Bluie36415252 Instagram -- @bluie.writes

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EMOTIONAL ALGEBRA

PROMPT FOR 2021 this will be the last of giving third chances, the ending of art becoming callous at birth. make room for your next poem to form in the hollow of your clavicle. It will summon softness—peristeronic basin.

SARAH HILTON Twitter -- @hilton_sarah_ Instagram -- @sar_ahhil

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OFF MENU PRESS

OCD My mind is making hands that are maps to my mouth; Smothering deftly, but oh, do I taste.

My tongue wets, a love note in a sweating fist; This world behind my lips does not exist, but I feel its earthquakes.

PASCALE POTVIN Twitter -- @pascalepalaces Instagram -- @pascale.francoise

HELLO. A GENTLE REMINDER unsaturate the clouds from your eyes, don’t forget to blink every once in a while. if you look, you might see the galaxies beside you, the stars stacked into smiles of the passers-by on the bus.

SONA POPAT Instagram -- @sona.popat Twitter -- @sona_popat

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