Author Archives: voicemailpoems

by Warren C. Longmire And here’s to disastrous news and the grace of each arc of decay: An ejaculate of oil burps from a crack in the earth. Some laughter pierces a distant uncle’s funeral, harsh and young. Your boyish spectrum blooms through jean skirts. My toy microscope was stacked with grass, scab and boogie slides. Later, high,Continue reading “Bitter Offering”

by Chisom Okafor In memory of Akin, beaten to death on 17th of February, 2017 for being homosexual At the end of my sufferingthere was a door.─ Louise Glück. He starts with a riddle, as with all mirrors and cars:‘objects in a mirror appear closer than actually their distance. Tell me. What objects? What mirror?’I haveContinue reading “In Praise of Open Doors”

by Anthony Moll After Lars von Trier My favorite apocalypse starts with an orphan planet starts with a wedding starts with a star somewhere south of where it should be My favorite apocalypse knows sadness refuses to work for circumstance but who wouldn’t want washed in lavish sorrow to spend The End tucked in taffetaContinue reading “You Cannot Save Here”

by Gisselle Yepes name the blood. after your ex. allow it to spill everywhere. listen to it. your instinct will write her name in red paint. read it over. do you trust it now? the miracle is not that you are alive. it is that your body knows you should not be here either. it will bring your gut toContinue reading “When You Bleed for One Hundred and Five Days”

by Brittany Rogers This song is for all the women out there that been lied to by their men and I know you all been lied to over and over again. This is for y’all; yo, maybe you didn’t break the way you shoulda broke, yo but I break – Kelis Strep throat caught meContinue reading “The Year ‘Caught Out There’ Became My Theme Song”

by Rasheed Copeland We learned from the book of our fathers’ silence how to speak of young girls in the way old white men speak of game they’ve hunted and mounted on trophy walls. The same book that taught us how to make young girls fake orgasms and mourn their lost virginities while handling littleContinue reading “The Book of Silence”

by Kevin Kantor Romeo + Juliet but this time juliet doesn’t text back,romeo embraces his bisexuality,he + mercutio kiss a lot+ no one advises a young girlto drink all that nyquil Taming of the Shrew but this time no one is expected to laughwatching a man starve his wife,+ in the end, our fierce femmeContinue reading “Rewrites”

by Kolawole Samuel Adebayo Before Boko Haram guns sank holes in his skull,He was a lively boy, he was a sprinter, he was his high school’s champion. Before he became the reason for familial grief,He was the origin of my mother’s smiles.I cannot say “our mother” because Bashir is dead. He is now dust,Grasses haveContinue reading “Ode to a Lost Brother”

by Lauren Licona we’ve spent all morningstaring at the water stain onyour ceiling, until it grows into a homeland we have no name for but “here”. i mean today, i live without knowledge of my borders. i learn to unline myself.we are no longer someone’s stateless daughters. i have forty-nine cents to my name & i cannot be whittledContinue reading “Lightness Has Never Been Our Concern, But Today We Are the Opposite of Heavy”

by Rodrick Minor On a cherryplanked floor in Durham I twerk my soul          into the weekend I sweat out my devils over the crooner’s voice   An exorcism in the wee hours  Hips gyrate allusions of Jazz June in a beehive of celestial beings  Fingers pranced in air          as if the Holy Ghost graspContinue reading “AIN’T WE LUCKY WE GOT ‘EM, GOOD TIMES”