September 2022
trite
devotion is a full time job with no training and i’m a slut for romance. well if it sounds TRITE that’s because it is: powder blue fountain with mossy innards, poorly swirled mustard on a hot dog, pale overhead lighting – not for the faint of heart.
this is the litigation that keeps the heart pumping and how can you tell when it’s love…or who cares? chlorine in the fountain dims the coins’ shine yet they’ll mark the wishes made here last week
anyway,
by Christina Svenson
Christina Svenson is a poet from Panama living in Oakland. Her first title, dollop, is available on Nueoi Press and Today’s Special with Melek Zertal is forthcoming from Perfectly Acceptable Press.
playing america in summer
an electric boot
sitting apple
with friends silent
you order red
vodka no soda
a day to go to play god
woke me up today
and says ive never
met an Indigenous person
it is an honor and he gardens
the tomato
time out abov e scape a cowboy
in despair opens
unopened can
i am tired of me
as the world wakes up
and down
your desire in food
the dampness of strangers
we tipped your dream last night
and see your hair ember tomato
the only indians in brooklyn
are painted on walls
i am painted by
general electric
•
what does it mean
to drink big beer
on monday
is it a leaf
or a rat
my child
my scraped apple
in season
bruised by
paramount ash
come out
one leg
bruised by
missed america
•
can your country
be found
in williamsburg
catching a need
take a generation to go
time is moving something
delighting violence
you get bigger
and ive remained the same
im alone and you
are with me
there are three gangs after me
and two are in my head
by m.s. RedCherries
m.s. RedCherries is a citizen of the Tsėhéstáno (Cheyenne Nation) of Montana and received an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
It is early morning. The buildings penning us into this corner of the city are so tall that the sunlight has not broken over them yet. It's broad day out there somewhere. We are so inside of this thing. Waiting until it's overhead to see light.
There is only this fine, particulate laden mist.
Sometimes there is a funnel cloud that appears outside the window this early in the morning, and I like to watch it moving. People like to watch me move sometimes. It goes like this: A columnar spiral extends slowly out and then reaches across the horizon, quickening. It’s tapered to a point that sways slowly and deliberately as it progresses. Its motion resembles an animal tongue. There is something muscular to its movement. It passes closely in front of me. It's smaller, eroded, now the circumference of my waist, and I wrap two arms around it. It does not feel like anything to hold it.
I let go, and nothing has changed. I am so happy because there's nothing here I care to change.
Later on, we go to the coffee shop downstairs, a woman is talking. She says, It’s like the pain has been transferred to the objects surrounding it, and we all feel this. The room is silent yet we know. How true, I say in a serious voice. And a scared little boy sounds just like a woman on the verge of climax, she adds.
The sun is overhead now, and today the high is 98. With the humidity it feels like 102, according to the heat index. Microscopic superficial cerebral veins are contracting and expanding, contracting and expanding in my skull. They are like little sperms mechanically fastened to each other human centipede style, I imagine.
It's finally time to think about why I am here. It's around 11:45 in the morning, and I'm waiting for a bus.
The seat I've been perched on is so hot. But the heat feels good and I can feel the outline of my ass seared into the bench. Or is it the other way around? I'm suddenly infantile. Someone said I didn't have a lot to say.
It's hard being here like this with you. There are too many people.
You are so nice. You are going to pick me up and take me somewhere nice. You touch my hand and lead me to a darkened room in the back. The hallway is very long, and I know why. I am not scared because I don’t know anything, and I am helpless to change.
by Lily Jo Bix-Daw Lily Jo Bix-Daw (b. 1999) is a writer and artist based in Western Massachusetts and received a BA in Painting from University of Massachusetts. instagram: @glass_buny
I rub my face on solid ground and pretend that it’s you
i bled myself blue trying to be cool for you
i want you to come to me, i am in hiding, i am overflowing
i need to find a bed of salt and dissolve
shuddering with heat lightning
falling hard the long way down
we have been together for four seasons now
you who never loved anything more than the world
you who never committed to anything but love as a disembodied voice
you the alien
you who never learned to love never got it right
you who lost the music and couldn’t afford to buy any more
you with your iPhone nearly silent pressed to your ear
playing love songs
you who know no language
your eyes closed
you lonely ghost
til the phone runs out. So it goes.
i need to open it up and find the source of the bleeding
like how we only say i love you in times of desperation
my eyes are wet like leaky faucets
you say, why not do heroin?
i want to be wracked with joy from the very core of me.
i am hungry to eat the whole world. So it goes
i will catch the spiders
and you will make the bread rise
we have cold fights and warm forgiveness
quicksand, night vision
one night you told me you loved me
on accident. So it is. So it goes
four seasons of us we’ve been trying
we’ve been crying
we’ve been licking at nostrils
and picking our toes
we’ve been playing in the sandbox
you always push me down. So it goes
by Sarah Bloom Sarah Bloom lives half in this world half in one of her own creation. you can come if you want. instagram: @blissscat
untitled
ive been looking at
words to dye black
at williamsburg club
my little head
did trivia and is
ashamed to answer
the next
but the twist found
bartender had
my architecture interesting
my impulse missing
for two days
dragging eager
across your finger
my shorts my shot
welcomely spent
time on metropolitan
staring at you
i order beefeaters and
understand
the lid on the bottle
you in green and
i on green and you
in green and i on
g and if you
see your eyes please
see mine
when i walk
water hitting
above you
pushing me
against the street
your body still standing
my hand still shaking
by m.s. RedCherries
home improvement
it’s easy to be called darling
hold it close under my skin
a glowing marble
beating with every step from the
train into the world
wet dogs on the street
insomnia trails me like a lost lover
a day alone with you would be
so short so
circular a
hot bracelet clamped
around my blueing wrist
I’ll make it more than it is I am
incorrigible I will want you
I’ll slurp your soul like a first martini
I’ll grasp your limbs like wet ropes
I’ll make myself shut up
I’ll buy you dinner and feel grown about it
I’ll plant herbs I’ll read as much as you do
I’ll burn the memories of my youth
I’ll blank-slate it
I’ll kiss the day off your palms
I’ll sit down when you ask me to
I’ll buy new clothes but sneakily
I’ll be home when you get back
I’ll learn the names of wines
and constellations
and birds
and trees
I’ll let you hold me with the lights on
I’ll let you say it
I’ll say I know
I’ll say I’m sorry
I’ll mean it less after a while
I’ll smash my secret into conversation
like a big wet messy egg
I’ll leave when I’m not wanted
I’ll get really good at chess
I’ll stop having to google references
I’ll try on silence at the movies
I’ll look you in the eye for once
I’ll keep looking
Yes?
Yes?
You do?
You do?
You would?
You would?
You would?
by Isabella Willms-Jones Isabella Willms-Jones is a poet and copywriter in Philadelphia. instagram: @bellaivanawj