SERIN HWANG
some songs make me think of you. / earworms till through my brain matter, / electric guitar leaving earthen grooves in my body. / i retrace lines like i would retrace my steps in an old forest,…Continue Reading brainrot
Archive
Twin-Sized Beds, Weather Conundrums, & Starry Smiles
SIANI-SIMONE AMMONS
Typically, he swipes up & I think he’s a sonnet-eyed Robin Hood. Who/ am I kidding? I am a romantic who believes time intervals between text / messages sent & how quickly he doesn’t respond & how…Continue Reading Twin-Sized Beds, Weather Conundrums, & Starry Smiles
Space for Decay
SOFIA AHMED
I had to be called home, then dragged when I didn’t comply, to eat something. I was too happy, too alive, how was I supposed to remember that I needed food when I was this content? …Continue Reading Space for Decay
Kingdom of Compost
SONIA CHAJET WIDES
Ella loved when you could hear the sound of corn husks at night. Some people wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from the rustling of leaves on shivering trees.
…Continue Reading Kingdom of Compost
A Tick
SYDNEY L. HARRIS
Eyes snap open, gazing up at a white ceiling. You breathe in and out deeply. INHALE EXHALE INHALE EXHALE INHALE EXHALE. It came again — the dream….Continue Reading A Tick
The Great War
SYDNEY WILLIAMS
Before the Great Self War of Identity, there was simply Sydney. As a young girl, I was an avid reader. I loved getting lost in the worlds of stories and following the adventures of young heroines. …Continue Reading The Great War
Behind the Walls of a Rotting House
TIIA MCKINNEY
I look at the house in the center of the neighborhood, / The first house that ever went there, / The house that my parents struggled to build. / My mother’s eyes often flutter in bitter memory …Continue Reading Behind the Walls of a Rotting House
Unpeel
VENUMI GAMAGE
The edges of my mind are lifting up — / there’s dust and dirt settled in so no matter how hard / I press and smooth my fingers over the peeling perimeter, nothing I do will…Continue Reading Unpeel
To Rot
WILLOW DELP
To rot is to join the raspberries in my fridge (so sweet, so short-lived.) To rot is to resist preservation; to be boldly, maddeningly temporal. …Continue Reading To Rot
Seeping
ZOE ALARCON
i once thought my body was / empty of me, other than the light / buzz of energy, unease // until I learned the weight / of remembering could swallow / me if I didn’t swallow it…Continue Reading Seeping
Spring 2023
By SARAH WU, MEL ARTHUR, and GABBY AVENA Mel Arthur:I advocated for this theme within small circles of conversation partly because I know what it is like to feel reverence so profoundly, it becomes part of everyday existence. In reverence lies the essence of awe, of wonder, and as the dictionary adds, of respect. But…Continue Reading Spring 2023
Remembering infinity (maybe)
CAELEN MCQUILKIN
This past January, I spent a lot of time reading children’s books — Pete the Cat, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goosebumps, Blueberries for Sal. Turning through their brightly illustrated pages of blueberry bushes, ghosts and monsters, and the hungry caterpillar’s array of food, I remembered doing the same thing as a child…Continue Reading Remembering infinity (maybe)
Wonderful
ANNIKA BAJAJ
Swinging my legs in technicolor, fourth-grade, all-purpose classrooms with history on one side and “World Weather Map” on the other, I stared down the boy sitting across from me…Continue Reading Wonderful
My Achilles Heel: Intro
CAROLYN THOMAS
I lay in bed with my eyes shut as the prison alarm assaults my ears. Nothing serious is happening. The warden just wants us to know that it’s 6 am and time for us to stop laying on our asses and start doing our jobs…Continue Reading My Achilles Heel: Intro
Drawing lines in the sand
GRACE ESCOE
I draw a line / My finger digs deep into the sand taking out a nice long straight line / That isn’t really my own even though I made it / The line that I cannot cross / The line that keeps me from making…Continue Reading Drawing lines in the sand
Hymn
ELEANOR WALSH
And when I hear false my tongue twists G-o-d / But in street lights I see / The moons all around me / Foxes follow me home to you / I pull the Priestess / Your lips are red / The ring I lost months ago…Continue Reading Hymn
Veneration
EMILY WYKOFF
I’ve loved and lost and respected you / Things I never thought I’d say / I never wanted to love you / Nonetheless, the adoration found a way // They say that love is a choice / But, for you, it felt like falling…Continue Reading Veneration
Orphic Overture LXXXI
FAHIM ZAMAN
I met him the night before / In that signature diner / Where all the cars go to die / Where green stars hide inside / With the man who wears the suit. // Who has milk and cookies, and waits till / The Beatles plays on the radio …Continue Reading Orphic Overture LXXXI
stuplimity
GABBY AVENA
the tree kneels / at the pond the tree / kneels to touch the / pond touch neither the / tree nor the pond / which the tree wants / touching your fingers / which cannot touch…Continue Reading stuplimity
The Water’s Not Waiting
GABY WEAVER
His home sits on the edge of a cliffside. It had once sat a few feet further from it, but the sandstone has eroded in his lifetime. He rests on a rocking chair, the ocean view unobstructed in front of him…Continue Reading The Water’s Not Waiting
girlhood: BLK edition
AWA DIOP
My makeup bag is full of shades of brown. Before me lay my brushes sprawled out and richly coated with this palette: my foundations of ebony, expresso, deep mahogany. My concealers of mocha, chestnut…Continue Reading girlhood: BLK edition
Starry Night
GRACIE ROWLAND
I feel cleaner, my fears farther away, after staring at the stars in their great cosmos. / They allow me to find beauty, allow me half a moment to forget my sorrows…Continue Reading Starry Night
How to Teach Your Younger Brother How to Fly
SARAH WU
You scream the first time you fly. This is only okay if you practice in your own room. You start from the top of your dresser and jump. That way, only the walls stare at you as you bloody your knee…Continue Reading How to Teach Your Younger Brother How to Fly
Improv Tragedy and Laughs Afterthefact
AIDAN COOPER
i squirrel away my hurts into peanut shells that i hide at the root of my knurled spine, / all my snot-bubbles, all my stubbed toes, / all the times i let my teeth ferment in my spit without brushing before bed…Continue Reading Improv Tragedy and Laughs Afterthefact
Transcription of a Virtue Inscribed
JIHYUN PAIK
this language this tongue / the habits the manners the attitude / learned // from one to one’s own to one’s own / a legacy a heritage a birthright / inherited // by strike of word by grace within…Continue Reading Transcription of a Virtue Inscribed
Joy
ZOE ALARCON
at this time is relinquishing i / fall up my throat and pray, / to non-thoughts of non-time, / to hardly grasp // i Blaze and remember i’m / Free to remember / Free to press myself against the fire of action…Continue Reading Joy
A Secret Door
KAELA LIU
We crossed the corner into an unfamiliar cul-de-sac. I had long since lost track of where we were walking, preferring instead to mindlessly track the rhythm of my pace with respect to my brother’s…Continue Reading A Secret Door
Salted
KAREN LEE
Crinkled sheets and cascaded shadows / Oh sinful sun, I gobbled it whole / Rolled around my mouth, underneath my tongue / Silken days were no longer / Underneath starlit skies because back then…Continue Reading Salted
Palm
M. LAWSON
The assembly line continued: the other angels carded the wool, dip-dyed it pink in the great tin pot on their table, and fed it into the spinning wheel, which they wound on a cone that F— knit…Continue Reading Palm
lone goose
RUTH ZURAW
how lovely to be alone / to trace a winding route in / piercing white. // how lovely to crave / to yearn for wood paneling and grimy tile / that failed to grace your bulbous eyes. // how lovely to creep and crawl…Continue Reading lone goose