Category Archives: Uncategorized

by Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick First thing’s first. I want your body. I imagine a door. You are in the room making jokes about how absurd you look in a plain t-shirt. We haven’t seen each other in over a decade. I want the Danube to part and reveal our bones, delicate curves of mollusks. I want the BlackContinue reading “IF I WROTE THIS IN THE BLACK FOREST, WOULD YOU READ IT?”

by Sierra Laurin Parsons Maybe it’s the caffeine,but when you speakto me, you look into my eyes and I notice. You point out the sky,say there’s a stormbrewing. At first, I think I am the storm—but when I drive home,the lightning strikes,and all I want to dois call you and say,come find me. I fall in love everyday, butnotContinue reading “Pearl St.”

by Sarah ChristianScher I built your brother wings:wax and feather they were,white as cloud they were,and he flew away from me.Until, sun-scorched, he felltaken by the sea. For you, my son, I built a cage:wire and driftwood it is,white as bone it is,and you will remain with me.Until, time-withered, you falltaken by an endless sleep.Continue reading “Daedalus’ Second Son”

by Kiran Bath 1Google: How early do girls masturbate? in her eighth year / maybe earlier / low tides birthed: a lotus / splitting legs / to conch shell murmurs / she swirls / her lotus / chews mattress / her lotus / bends pillow / her lotus / rubs its cheek / against raggedyContinue reading “Waning Gibbous”

by Laura Cronk I wish I was a priest.I wish I wore buffalo hornsand an ivory orbas a mitre on my head.High holidays and timesof despair-what to doand more importantlywhat to weardecided,unyieldingly glam,form untraceablebeneath the pooling blue.I wish I had that far off look,holding up a white flag to the crazed fertilitycoming between meand the great,Continue reading “Rest”

by Fargo Tbakhi borrowing a line from Walt Whitman because there’s always one week where there is a nightmare. because the boundaries of a city are the friendships we made along the way. because i don’t like my thighs. you do. because the vending machine gave me an extra missile. because someone kisses my cheekContinue reading “Reasons Not to Die”

by C.M. Crockford That taste of sour-red-sweet             as seeds stick                      to                                     teeth: sun hazes over naked legs. You eat more, flush, the ripe burst of summer.

by Chelsea Bunn Outside my therapist’s office, three men are planting ferns, pruning bushes, cutting back the tangled vines           that twine across the building’s bricks, covering them in green, and when I reach the door one of them has risen, and nods his head, and it seems a nod that verges on pity, as ifContinue reading “Forgiveness”

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”