VENUMI GAMAGE
My fingers trace the smooth blue tile on the wall as we walk in together, catching on jagged line after line of grout. This is how I would map your body, catching on and pausing at every next new tile of you. We swing our balmy limbs onto the benches, like synchronised divers; in this moment we are perfect score, perfect twins. …Continue Reading Ode on a Warm Sea
Tag: '26
who gets away with living forever?
SAM HUANG
imagine this: a murder mystery where everybody knows
who the killer is but me, doomed from the start. everybody has
already identified the guilty party, throwing this party–is this fun
for you?…Continue Reading who gets away with living forever?
The Story of Else and Jacob
In the middle of a dense forest lived a young woman named Else and her father. The father, a lumberjack, was finding it harder to chop and replant trees as he aged. …Continue Reading The Story of Else and Jacob
Evergreen: The Voices That Do Not Wilt
SOFIA AHMED SEID
It was a peaceful morn at the foot of the mountains. The sun looked coyly radiant, slowly rising from behind the hill. I must have been sitting on the cement steps because my derriere was going numb from the cold despite the warm embrace of the morning, filled with the chirping of birds and the delicate ringing of tiny bells at the fascia of the church—bells that danced with the gentlest rustling of the wind….Continue Reading Evergreen: The Voices That Do Not Wilt
Elegy for the Evergreen
WILLOW DELP
Evergreens watch throughout the bitterest winters: unchanging, unsympathetic. The weather strikes down its peers: thick snow weighs down their branches until they sink, limping underneath the pressure, and eventually succumbing to white blankets of frost. …Continue Reading Elegy for the Evergreen
Words Unsaid
EMILY WYKOFF
You are full of empty promises / Lies hidden in kind equivocations / I’m tired of running in circles, chasing my tail / Trying to chase you …Continue Reading Words Unsaid
DRAG SELF-PORTRAIT ACROSS JUPITER & ALL THAT COMES BACK IS IN NYX EYELINER & THE FEAR OF DYING NOT EVEN GORGEOUS
AIDAN COOPER
In all my experience the boy /
has what it takes to break / away, unfurl the tootsie roll / lollipopped in the cherry
…Continue Reading DRAG SELF-PORTRAIT ACROSS JUPITER & ALL THAT COMES BACK IS IN NYX EYELINER & THE FEAR OF DYING NOT EVEN GORGEOUS
A Collection of Life
GRACE ESCOE
I have never understood the want to / Live forever / Be ever young / To never age / Evergreen…Continue Reading A Collection of Life
From the Porch
GEORGE HENRY
From Aunt Zell’s porch, I see myself etched into clumps of baked coral that have clambered out of the sea & up this hill
where they pretend to be rocks but only fool themselves…Continue Reading From the Porch
Returning to the Christmas House
CLARA CHIU
The worn trail of your back and forth, lacing floorboards with footsteps, with a premonition that rattles the interior. Shiver and call it awe, please and thank you. At the hearth, the chairs arranged to watch evenings arrive; a domestic tableau we enter with practiced distraction. Here is the firewood, halved into silence….Continue Reading Returning to the Christmas House
Mango
BEA AGBI
I didn’t want the mango. I didn’t / want it I was full Just let me have a bit / but my mother said no bites, / peeling and putting it / into my hands, yellowredgreen soft / and malleable in its ripeness, eat / the whole thing. …Continue Reading Mango
Bite-Size
WILLOW DELP
She is seventeen years old, and she has mastered the art of cruelty. She brings people close enough, lures them with her sweetness — her fair skin, her honeyed voice. She emanates not just a sort of radiance…Continue Reading Bite-Size
In Lieu of Language
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
Bringing
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
One More Bite
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
Fragment #2 (Lysis)
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)
Teatime
VENUMI GAMAGE
Ginger tea to cure a cold. Ginger tea with a heaping of honey to fix a sore throat…….Continue Reading Teatime
Honey Cake
KATERYNA HAVRYSHCHUK
The oldest among them, Ryta lit the match. In a blink, gas swallowed the heat and burped out a blue holo around the burner. A piece of butter in the pan began to soften. A clump of honey, however, didn’t rush to lose shape.
…Continue Reading Honey Cake
Gouda-locks and the Three Éclairs
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
REMEMBERING…SNACK TIME
SOFIA AHMED SEID
There was once an interlude in our days we called snack time……..Continue Reading REMEMBERING…SNACK TIME
STANDING IN THE DOOR
ELIZA BECKER
On Sundays I work the eleven to seven shift and see Louie…..Continue Reading STANDING IN THE DOOR
It Will Rain
JORGE RODRIGUEZ JR
Did it rain last night? No, but it probably will today…
…Continue Reading It Will Rain
A Christmas (Eve) Story
CRAWFORD DAWSON
It was freshly Christmas Eve, about two hours into the newly born day. In my memory, it was snowing, but a piece of me now doubts that….Continue Reading A Christmas (Eve) Story
Dear Diary
MADI SUH
these days all my thoughts have begun to feel like letters to you / sometimes it hurts to think. talking to you is easier. / and so, / hi. / i have not been creative as of late. / lately you have begun to take residence inside some part of me; in particular, you do spend a lot of time in my head. / hi….Continue Reading Dear Diary
Tell me if you’ll answer, and I’ll remember how to ask
NICOLE ITKIN
When I reach out, what am I reaching– / for? / (my) / Flowers blearily / stare out the windows, / Orchids: at midnight, red-robed
They kiss
the glass, lips pursued,
smudging the Clear
they’ll forget about;
Soothing,
forgetting…Continue Reading Tell me if you’ll answer, and I’ll remember how to ask
Peanut Butter
AIDAN COOPER
Where the chunks notice childhood / behind the awning of our mouths. How we’re domesticated dogs / with teeth sharp only for peanut butter. / Move me to the place you learned the crust carries …Continue Reading Peanut Butter
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
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
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