By LILA SCHLISSEL
She will bring me gifts / teeth and black licorice lips cradling some / bird / with hollow bones / and lay / it / in my lap / unscathed, if confused / and / covered in a little spit…Continue Reading Bringing
MADI SUH
in lieu of language, / i stuff my mouth. / i do not know how to say the words for all the banchan. / i only know how to eat, / how to be hungry, how to ask for more….Continue Reading In Lieu of Language
By TOBY ROSEWATER
Peeling floral wallpaper covers every corner of the senior center’s game room, wilting like an unfurling flower come springtime. The room holds five round tables, and every Sunday, the Austin senior card group fills every seat. …Continue Reading The Game Room
By MIKIKO SUGA
Every summer is a tradition of disappearing. There are times to be corporeal, and other times to dematerialize. It may simply be a matter of traversing impermanent boundaries, where one simply consumes what is in front of them. There is no need to contemplate too deeply, because something is always at risk of breaking if I do. …Continue Reading konbini
By ELLA LIN
and she peels me / another mandarin. i imagine / we must look strange, / our mouths dripping juice like broken faucets / into the night. her black hair / falling further, with nothing below. the broken mirror hanging / above wet paint on bathroom walls….Continue Reading mandarin
By SARAH WU
I learned to be wrapped from a young age. Underneath a Christmas tree, I sat below their pine bottoms. Dangling lights brushed my forehead. Taught how presents should be dressed in lovely colors. Taught to be an object, paper wrapping hiding the curve of the natural body within…Continue Reading CHRISTMAS GIFT
By ELSA LYONS
Does the orange want to be peeled? Tenderly / I push my fingernail through her stubborn rind, // reveal the bulge of her white-veined flesh. / She’s almost throbbing with juices. They’re almost // circulating through her. It’s almost music….Continue Reading Orange Me Open
By AIDAN COOPER
You river your fingers, / I dip my toes in, water us // until lotus flowers ring / the space between our knuckles….Continue Reading Fragment #2 (Lysis)
By GABBY AVENA
A hold unto our- / selves, hidden under blankets / that color the air // red is the evening cupped in / eggnog and projector light…Continue Reading Forticus, the Blanket Fort
By OLIVIA KELLER
Every day is the same. / Wake up, go to class, do work, go to bed. / Like clockwork – tirelessly stuck in a loop going tick by tock. / Boredom sets in and my thoughts wonder….Continue Reading One More Bite
By RUTH ZURAW
Our morning-stretched shadows / graze, overlap on the pavement— / heat curling around calves / in gentle waves. …Continue Reading Rose Colored Boxes
By MACKENZIE DUNSON
The last thing my mother made for me was an apple spice cake. She always took pride in it because of the expansive apple tree that was the luminary of our backyard. It has always been the most beautiful thing about our house. The branches reaching for the sky, leaves and breath filling my own lungs, its fruit filling my stomach, and its blossoms filling my mind….Continue Reading Spiced Apple Cake
By FEDORA LIU
So sugary sweet / It rotted my teeth // Back then there were boundless pools of sap here / I thought I would never go hungry // I thought I would live forever….Continue Reading Growing Pains
JENNIFER CUI
Dearest,
I’ve been thinking a lot lately; my life, your life – us, the world….
…Continue Reading Dearest
MARIAM BESHIDZE
When I was born, my father put his hand inside my chest and took a hold of my tiny heart…….Continue Reading EAT MY HEART
AIDAN CAHILL
One minute, sunlight. The next, and rain poured in sheets through the trees…….Continue Reading NATURE WALK
SIANI AMMONS
it’s a nameless Thursday & i feel my footsteps…………Continue Reading love poem that ends & begins at Amherst Cinema
MEL ARTHUR
I tell my therapist with a mouthful of
squirming tree branches & …….Continue Reading [WORKING TITLE]
ALEX WOMACK
My mind is hyperactive. My surroundings — a dull classroom, the homework on my desk, the suburban view from a passenger window — remain in my vision…Continue Reading Scene
MYLES KAPLAN
Looking up, the splendid clamor of
silver utensils……..
…Continue Reading A TOAST TO AVARICE
KATE BESTALL
feed me love & i’ll crack it
open like a sunflower….
…Continue Reading mutagenesis
ELIZA BECKER
On Sundays I work the eleven to seven shift and see Louie…..Continue Reading STANDING IN THE DOOR
BEA AGBI
I didn’t want the mango. I didn’t
want it I was full…
…Continue Reading Mango
SOFIA AHMED SEID
There was once an interlude in our days we called snack time……..Continue Reading REMEMBERING…SNACK TIME
LAINEY NOGA
Long ago, in a world untouched by the erosion of decorum, Gouda-locks, a young pastry chef…….Continue Reading Gouda-locks and the Three Éclairs
EDWYN CHOI
There is an old folktale in this village. About a dragon who claimed the forest and devoured men…….Continue Reading THE NAME IN THE SNOW
MIKE ROSENTHAL
06:43 AM: You clock in. Seventeen minutes early—very safe, but you should have done better…….Continue Reading A Late Night Snack
JORGE RODRIGUEZ JR
Did it rain last night? No, but it probably will today…
…Continue Reading It Will Rain
PRISCILLA LEE
She opened her mouth and I knew her immediately, tiger-stripe highlights, grown-out gel nails…….Continue Reading MMM, NOT TOO SWEET
CLARA CHIU
And in those gaps that mediate truth, I’ll wait for you in the field we talked of,…Continue Reading The Moldau