Category: VOLUME VII

Illuminated, Ava Fojtik Popped off my knees like bottle caps & became a boy Daddy crushed Diet Coke cans & I became a boy   hands goldfished in the creek—colorful pebble feet Don’t feed her too much or she’ll grow into a boy   Flag pulled down from its perch—waved laughing upside down The monkey…

Bright Nights City Lights, Jackie Phuong Ta the first time i heard cicadas, singing to one another in the dark canopy of trees i thought it was my father snoring, the heaviness of his sleep shaking the walls between our bedrooms & i thought he was alive then, thought we were there home, only. only we…

Late Onset Adolescence, Breck Hickman On fire I’m unfuckable, I’m war bridegroom, the knife piloting the wound. I’m the eye  bleeding sight. The screen scabbing over me, the camera angled for entry. I hook you like a lure. I storyboard origin: where a girl grows from god’s side  wound & my mouth  mentors her pleasure. Turn…

Rise, Meg Jenson I. lichen, cold mornings, earth, my mother, sleepy afternoons, songbirds in canopy II. i have been driving for miles & miles, always this back & forth between us, i want to tell you that the yellow flower-weeds have started growing in walkway cracks again III. i am blissful in sitting, in sitting around…

I Believe in Laundry, Julia Tasho I don’t believe in God, But mother tells me to pray We don’t go to chùa or burn red marks on our backs. But we must believe in love.   Ancestral love leans forward expectantly Peeking into our cities. Hushed tones undercut loud gongs That beckon them to come in.…

Illuminated, Ava Fojtik Fuck the heal-toe method.  This rebel flat-foots, ‘n’ pancake-slaps  the shit-zoo out of her sidewalk. Balancing herself over the concrete edge, like some acrobat holding her lover’s hands while she tumbles through the thin air. Pausing only for a half-second to catch her breath, She’s a left out-fielder runnin’ with her tongue…

Girl, Azure Arnot     After Sally Wen Mao All I remember is the glare  of cameras. Every mouth I’ve met is a flight risk which is to say that no one will kiss me  offscreen. Instead, I am propped  up against a slick of women.  Men like me most this way: a duplicate, voice…

Bright Nights City Lights, Jackie Phuong Ta     I woke up to the cooing Of a warm voice, That reminded me  Of my mother And felt a chilliness  Of a hand on my  Feverish forehead. So cold.   I imagined I was twelve,  Holding my mother’s hand  Late night at the bus stop  Under the…

We Sleep the Same, Kate Drakulic     What magic there was in eating your green beans that made you grow through the night as you slept sweet and curled into dark like cocoons—   I am in love with that trickery, love is not love but trickery, whomever is willing to be coaxed toward…