MARIAM BESHIDZE
She sat down at the table with her coffee mug, squeezing it with her little hands and absorbing the warmth that she desperately needed. Under the table her leg swung back and forth erratically. …Continue Reading Untitled
Category: Issues
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
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
introduction with no end
MEL ARTHUR
2. / Sometime in late, / i fragment at my being, watch my body turn itself up in the shape of a palm that claws at my feelings, marking my gut with heaps of silence that ever so often bursts into sound….Continue Reading introduction with no end
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
Toe Rotten
MIKAYAH PARSONS
I am just a body— / A body with words inscribed, / With meanings taped over my mouth, / And phrases to my thighs….Continue Reading Toe Rotten
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
The Maw
MIKE ROSENTHAL
The sorrowful keening of the crowd pierced the clear, dry air on the plateau. They huddled together, staining the dusty ground with their crying and the clear air with their wailing….Continue Reading The Maw
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
Properiamphimetaphysics
PRISCILLA LEE
In the beginning, God took the greatest dump of all Time, squeezed time and space through the white hot speck of what would be the universe. …Continue Reading Properiamphimetaphysics
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
Voided
RANIA ADOUIM
As a kid, I used to lock myself in the bathroom and try to imagine what death was like…..Continue Reading Voided
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 —
Falling Awake
SARAH WU
Waking up is like falling down a rollercoaster. In the crowded amusement park, this is what I tell my brother and mother and father. …Continue Reading Falling Awake
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
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
Resurrection Ferns
SONIA CHAJET WIDES
waving forests carpet tree branches / trunks, Dragon scales and hair sprouting / sometimes so dense that the bark is made invisible / the tree / becomes a tower gorgeous / fractal ferns…Continue Reading Resurrection Ferns
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
প্রণাম (Blessings)
By TAPTI SEN Kneel. A light touch on your temple. Rise. Kneel: Touch your head to their feet. Your knees sting against the cold marble. Your fingers brush their toes. Seconds pass. Hours pass. You hold your breath, trying not to look at curled up toenails, worn with age. Laughter up above you. Shoulders tremble….Continue Reading প্রণাম (Blessings)
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
The Perfect Man
MACKENZIE DUNSON
A row of homes. Perfect homes, like they were pasted from the pages of a catalog. Sprawling white picket fences ran over the hills, connecting the houses in a puzzle, endlessly together…Continue Reading The Perfect Man
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
Island of Reverence
WILLOW DELP
The dictionary is wrong. The dictionary is written by parents and upright magistrates and kings all ill-acquainted with true reverence, the reverence that makes you sob and beg and wail and grove…Continue Reading Island of Reverence
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
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)
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
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
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
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