CRAWFORD DAWSON
I watched the gentle rain patter lightly on the windowpane against which I had been resting my head. Each drop slowly flowed down the pane, coalescing into larger pearls, which proceeded to fall in turn to collide with other translucent pearls. The coolness of the glass had eased the heat, which was on the precipice of overtaking what constituted me….Continue Reading The Shella We Used to Call Home
Archive
The Hoarder
By VENUMI GAMAGE At times, I close my eyes, and the weight of my face dawns on me. Cheekbones upon which the cheekflesh sits, threatening to this time for sure slip right off and be lost. Too full a lower lip, and an even fuller upper, but what registers is always the way the corners…Continue Reading The Hoarder
Autumn Breeze
DAVIS RENNELLA
To the forest that is nearing its yearly dying and shedding its million leaves about the soil, the bodies of once living things. I decided to go on the day your favorite maple tree became bare and surrendered to the seasons. …Continue Reading Autumn Breeze
Why Do I Like My Poetry?
SHREYA HEDGE
I can see people’s desires hiding underneath trees, and I can watch the liquid confidence rushing in my arms. I can hide and tuck my emotions in the undersides of a wave. The ground sparkles, and my insides sparkle alongside because of poetry….Continue Reading Why Do I Like My Poetry?
Took Me A Whole Sixth Rewatch of Glee & Golden Girls
SIANI AMMONS
that Maybe it’s time I clean the silver veins from my bones / w/ Dawn Original Scent Ultra Dishwashing Sadness Melter & when it’s done, / heat my melted sadness, & try not to flinch at my reflection in the weeping…Continue Reading Took Me A Whole Sixth Rewatch of Glee & Golden Girls
Fertility
ANNIKA BAJAJ
She’s walking through the woods by her house. The trees grow whole trees instead of branches, and soon enough she’s clambering through sideways, upside-down, criss-crossing, tangled trees. …Continue Reading Fertility
The Inn
ELIZA BECKER
Izza and Mila were the only two Jews staying at the Inn. All the other inn-goers were in neat groups of four, of mother, father, and two dear children, while Mila and Izza were just the pair. …Continue Reading The Inn
All That’s Left
EMILY WYKOFF
All I have left are the things you said / That’s it, nothing tangible / No one would ever know you were here / In my too-small-to-be-a-single dorm…Continue Reading All That’s Left
Tell me what you miss
ELLA LIN
I miss lemons. I miss sun-baked milk. I miss heat. / I miss the melted wads of spit and honey / drying on rain-rusted brick / the chipped bits of baby bamboo / roaming through golden water….Continue Reading Tell me what you miss
AMERICAN SHOPPING LIST
CLARA CHIU
Before you leave, don’t forget the butter, the quart of chicken broth, the onions and parsley – we’re almost out of milk, too, and patience; we need thyme for seasoning and rosemary for remembrance, because when the silence becomes real, the creeping uncertainties draw you back: it’s the fact that a cookbook is a product of trial and experimentation…Continue Reading AMERICAN SHOPPING LIST
Notes from Nothing
WILLOW DELP
Hold it. Drop it. Shake it. Bite it. / Love it, hate it, leave it. Leave. It– / is fleeting; everything rots. / Nothing is forever. You will be the one to leave first….Continue Reading Notes from Nothing
Woven to the Senses
ALEX WOMACK
I hold it in my hands. My finger finds a thread and traces it, from white to gray to black, and marvels as it darkens. Is this color enough? What about the length – how many yards is enough?…Continue Reading Woven to the Senses
Fall 2023
By SARAH WU, MEL ARTHUR, and GABBY AVENA Mel Arthur:Rot, in simultaneous existence with crumble, disintegrate, stain, decompose, corrupt, sink, worsen, wither, descend, fester, and spoil. To inhabit the space of terrible beauty where the world and the bodies that exist within it circle around what has been made absent. Rotted as an attempt to…Continue Reading Fall 2023
to an evergreen who is me written by a self of mine far from here
AIDAN COOPER
there is no way to get you, not / really. // there is only marble column in rippling bloodstain — / the leaves are clattering, you clutch your breath and your coffee…Continue Reading to an evergreen who is me written by a self of mine far from here
Arachnophobia
EDWYN CHOI
Most people are unable to feel spiders, their spindly legs and round bodies. The species does not matter — recluse, widow, trapdoor; they all run and climb the same…Continue Reading Arachnophobia
Life after the phone call ends
JACKELINE FERNANDES
After the phone call ends the wet cobblestone beneath my feet zooms into focus as the cracks between the rocks partition my field of vision and I look upwards as the world begins to recrystallize around me…Continue Reading Life after the phone call ends
This place and the other
MADI SUH
It was on the corner of Wilder on the way to the 7-Eleven / that you first stopped me in my tracks, and I didn’t notice / the car that would have killed me…Continue Reading This place and the other
Red
SHREYA HEGDE
A Jet moved across the sky / a Meteor to hit the Sun awry, / yet it escaped unscathed / saving the Sun’s fate!…Continue Reading Red
Rot Girl Summer
TAPTI SEN
Decay exists as an extant form of life, or so they say. So even my rotting, motionless body must be continuing to live and breathe. Is it bearable? It could be, if I so wished it. Do I wish it?…Continue Reading Rot Girl Summer
Weathered to Sand
ALEX WOMACK
I came to visit today. / Claire told me not to, that it would only hurt me more. But even if my therapist is normally my first opinion, this time I just can’t agree. Why wouldn’t I want to see him?…Continue Reading Weathered to Sand
Prisoner’s Dilemma
ANNIKA BAJAJ
“I think I might be in love with you.” Y leans against the cell wall with hands behind his head, foot tapping against the cell wall. (The other cell wall; the cell was very small.)…Continue Reading Prisoner’s Dilemma
Shooba
AWA DIOP
Every Sunday at dusk, her moans dragged down our Sunday sun and beckoned it to set. The unnatural sound always rang too loud and plastered to every inch of space….Continue Reading Shooba
Ruby and Rose
BEA AGBI
It began around the time I got back together with Booker. They thought he was too simple, too easy to read. He wants what everyone else wants….Continue Reading Ruby and Rose
Under the Sun
BRYAN JIMENEZ FLORES
It was tradition that when I’d finish enough of my work I’d take the rest to the kitchen table and accompany my mom and the chores….Continue Reading Under the Sun
Saudade
CLARA CHIU
The envelopes began arriving over two months ago: blank white rectangles slipped through the mailslot at odd hours of the day. …Continue Reading Saudade
Haunted
CRAWFORD DAWSON
She bit her lip. What she was about to do was a felony, or at the very least, a crime. But she simply had to do it. …Continue Reading Haunted
Paralyzed Pole
ELIZA BECKER
Korris winced at the scissors’ first zip. Her ear had never been nicked while having her hair cut professionally, but she felt it to be probable, inevitable…Continue Reading Paralyzed Pole
Falling Apart
EMILY WYKOFF
Will this love die if unattended? / Abscising our petals, like peonies decaying / Feed for squirrels and worms and everything else / That wants to eat us alive …Continue Reading Falling Apart
Nine Lives of A Cat
FAHIM ZAMAN
Who knew behind the twelve trees’ / ceaseless tears of fiery leaves / and those hundred and one river / coves of green shade there were / only a lone pair of amber eyes?…Continue Reading Nine Lives of A Cat
I’m Sorry, I Need A Moment —
GABBY AVENA
I mean — I need a moment to move through — an image to see with — an orange on an altar, rotting on speedlapse…Continue Reading I’m Sorry, I Need A Moment —