Issue 01
December 2018
poetry
visual art
Interiors
My heart is a bright, round pomegranate
that’ll stain your fingers if cracked open.
These days, the world exists only in shades of red and orange.
Autumn’s chill sleeves my forearms in goose bumps.
The wind funnels in my ears, carrying with it
the smell of pumpkin intestine
and the taste of bittersweet chocolate.
Lately I’ve been feeling the way a moonbeam tastes,
light leaking through the cracks in my teeth:
like the spotlight that cast a yellow glow onto Joni Mitchell’s skin
at Wembley Stadium in 1974,
even though all of her songs were about being blue.
I play “A Case of You” on loop while walking to class;
it makes the sight of leaves falling off the trees
a little more bearable.
I legitimately think that the world is bleeding
because all I can think about right now are bears getting ready
for hibernation.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence:
if I haven’t raked the leaves off my lawn yet,
how am I supposed to tell the difference?
The electric color of someday
is splattered all over my bedroom walls.
I am as soft as a tsunami.
I take naps on clouds and go fishing in volcanoes.
Little Jules watches it all through telescope eyes –
and in a few years, those telescope eyes will become glasses,
and those glasses will become contact lenses
because she can’t stand the thought of having a tortoise shell-rimmed soul.
Objects in the mirror are never not oceans away.
L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
A pomegranate serenades me with lullabies from the kitchen counter.
I pull out the cutting board
and hack a knife through its abdomen,
expecting seeds; instead,
all of the songs of yesterday and tomorrow and forever
come spilling out of its gut.
Julia Shapiro
Magicians Hands
as they were known to steer pencils over paper or
ruffle and flip and twirl poker chips all because they could
palm basketballs and shoot them too and didn’t
you see them swipe candy from the checkout or thinly flick a
lighter than nothing really only a few afternoons of
practice until they figured out how to paradiddle and pick locks
or strike black keys here this is how you stick a jab
and fold pocket jacks but they’re stubborn and curling
their fingers wilted into fists that can’t fish salmon
out of a strait they will age as well as chain-link fences or
jazz that performs through eroded relics of surgeon fingertips
with a familiar melody one that once belonged
to someone who knew how to throw darts properly and didn’t
you hear them press the years together like steel guitar strings
please tell them on Sunday to try their best and write again
Underneath
on days that gray, neither mist
nor shine, my bones ache
for banana leaves, cigarettes
and roasted pork belly.
she takes me by the hand, and
with a rich vibrato, hoists
me up by my once tanned skin,
now turned olive and dry.
odd words that echoed Mother’s
from the kitchen, coaxing
and comforting, the air thick with
broth from stews and rice.
I reach out, concrete and bricks
at my fingertips, but her
notes strike within me a yearning
for salty winds and straw.
my heart longingly sings along, to
an audience of a thousand
islands far away from my room;
my key lacks understanding.
it lacks the right inflections, forgets
to greet aunts and uncles
on the cheek. my key wants diners,
not adobo or sinigang, yet
I still sing with her, with every ounce
of sand I have left in my
bones, every seashell for a tooth,
to a home that,
once in a while,
sings to me.
Greg Estrella
Fractured Self Portrait
Collecting Coins
Skull
Dog
Crista Esposito
The Baby Is Sleeping
Even when the air conditioning breaks in the middle of August I can’t sleep without a blanket. To feel swaddled enough to slip into that vulnerable state. Unless it was truly crucial, evolution would have done away with sleep centuries ago. Lion cubs stolen from their mothers’ dens, soldiers’ throats sliced in foxholes–all under the light of the moon. I slept so much as a baby my parents worried. Sometimes, still, after I jump into the deep end, I let myself drift for a second, or two, my feet above my head–I am merely a blurry projection on a screen, an idea in your head, a something of the future. Support her neck when you hold her–pretending I am safe again.
Haley Mullen
peliCAN
rock
joshua boulder
Hannah Rickertsen
A FIELD OF MARIGOLDS
Mackenzie Ling
walk with me
where the sun never sets
i want to be
where the flowers are
blooming
take me to a place
where honey thrives
in the air and in
the rivers
i wonder what
it is like to be
a dandelion
standing proud
in a field
of marigolds
Lemon water
I dream of lemon water and thunderstorms;
Hiding inside thinking of you.
A lemon seed stuck in my straw
Stops the flow of water to my mouth—
If only my flow of thoughts would
Stop coming back to you.
Five Mississippis between light and sound.
Light like the flutter in my chest; lips soft on mine.
Thunder like when you look away; you kiss her.
Porch light on outside
I watch through the window.
Mirroring the trees—shaking—under attack
By the vicious sky.
Rain. I shake, trying to release you
Damp, I drink my lemon water.
Choking on lemon seeds; light, sound, you—
His fault or mine.
Memory entangled in my neural circuits.
Here for good.
Kathryn Nicolai
Jam (MP2)
Olivia Shermen
Waffles
Sierra Meggitt
Sexy Interface
Yeeesss – turn me on with a single touch,
Hooo, my gears are turning, my screen is lighting up.
(Please enter password)
Ugh, press my keys and fill me with your numbers and words. I want those small black balls in
my password bar.
Oh! Unlock me, use me for your needs and more!
I want you to jerk my mouse,
Up and down, side to side, diagonally both ways.
Move in a circle for me! UGH!!!
Click me! Click me faster,
LEFT CLICK, RIGHT CLICK! I WANT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.
I want you to take your big thick fingers, and roll them across my scroller.
Mmhhhhhhh!
Shift click my keys as you write your reflection on Abraham Lincoln, using you heavy and
massive vocabulary. More more I want more! Pull your iTunes on and play me that slow jazz!
Tilting my face a little higher, Show me your beautiful brilliant eyes.
Push your USB into my hole and unload your data! Open my files as you download your illegal
music,
I like my users naughty
Turn on your private window, and search me for your pornographic films!
I want you to CAPS lock me down as you Download your viruses and penetrate
my firewall without any protective programs.
End the day with a romantic autoplay of Grace Helbig and Jenna Marbles. Frank isn’t the only
on getting filthy today. You are the only Tube I need!
YAHOO! Your undying questions of suspicion. It’s okay honey, the government may be
watching, so let’s give them a show to watch. What happens here is between you and me, your
body and my system.
Let’s get it on, with that sexy interface.
You google drive me up the wall with the heavy pushes of my arrows. Up, Down, Left, Right,
push them harder! harder! harder!
IM SPAMMING!
Save 15% or more on car insurances.
The snack that smiles back, goldfish.
*sigh of resolution*
Control alt delete, the memories of your laptop, cause I’m the only personal computer you need.
Tyler Luong
Revert to Nature
Beatnik Van
Atlas
Zack Seger
The Ash on my Shoes
The ash on my shoes isn’t mine
To begin with, or ever.
The wispy remains of smoke aren’t mine
To breathe in, to taste.
The twisted metal isn’t of my roof or car
To plan to fix.
The hug your mother gave me, isn’t mine.
She would have hugged anything
Warm, soft
And issuing empty condolences
made music
with a muffled sob,
The dirge that isn’t mine,
But a son’s
As it should
Whose shoulders are kind
And give in to a pat,
And feel damp,
And frail,
But relaxed.
I want to know
But I can’t ask
Did you call him
Pop?
Maybe Dad. Or Sir.
Certainly you cried
If he hit you,
Yet when he died
Did you
Remember the days he held the handles
And you learned on two wheels?
Or when he let you drive
At fourteen around that one empty lot?
Or did you forget?
And let the sadness melt
Into relief.
Among the rubble,
The skeleton of his .44 Magnum
Lies impotent
And bent
But you grasp its once wooden grip
And twirl it for your friends.
Andrei Bucaloiu
Icarus
My ears are a polaroid
A snapshot of distraction
A screen porch on a warm night
The sound tastes bitter,
Like something that caught you by surprise
Elon is a horse
I hate the horses in Goshen
The living room is soft rust
Bella’s crying, but we can’t figure out why
She wants to sink through the ceiling
But trips on the Milky Way instead
The repetitive Buddha is there again
Talking to someone in a voice I can’t hear
I long to be a spotted zebra
Like the ones that don’t exist
I love the horses in Goshen
Riding the wind like Icarus
The wind falls and I fall with it
Why do sounds swim better than they run?
פה סגור בבקשה
They hate when I say that
But what can I do?
The polaroids are still there
As if they’re nailed into my brain
I long to be a spotted zebra
Or trapped in another book
Grey light, black ink.
The carpet under my feet
The smell of dead chickens
And no sound at all
I uncover a mine of eggshells
What I remember
The click of my fingertips
Vibrates through the air
If I hit the keys just right
It’s feels like playing a piano
You used to play Piano Man
Your fingers made noise with more than one note
And you would cry
When I would tell you it was bad
I can hear you singing Amy Winehouse
Throaty and off-key. Your nostrils would flare and
Your fingers would rise like hot air balloons
But that’s all I remember
That and
The pancakes we used to fry
You told me they were vampire pancakes
Red with stale food coloring
Have you ever loved someone
So fiercely
That when you spoke to them
Your computer almost broke?
I try to talk to my little brother once in a fortnight
But he’s playing Fortnight.
Do you remember
Building forts at night?
The staples still in the wall
Are buried under copper paint
We were the world
Before the earthquake
Before the earth
Cried so loud it moved
And so did we
I thought you were dead so I left
When I think about you I hurt
I stare at the one sided window I carry
But all I can see is
Poor connection against gray light
Layla Gordon
Thrift store feminism
Hannah Sicignano
Kaur
In response to "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid
Cover your head when you enter the gurdwara—what have your parents taught you; the white
boy is not your boyfriend but just a friend; this is how you suck in your stomach; no pain, no
gain; go to mom if you want to be emotional; you are supposed to understand the subtleties of
the unspoken human language; this is how you smile through pain; this is how you set the
example; try and look pretty; you are falling behind—try to catch up; this is how you hold your
tongue; this is how you let others win; this is how you share with your brother; this is how you
give in to him; this is why you are the badha putt; this is how you let others make their own
mistakes; this is how you break yourself down; this is how you come close to ruining others; this
is how you hide; this is how you make your boundaries known; you are not a blade of grass–do
not bend with the wind; this is how you fix starvation amongst the elderly–humor the old ladies
by answering their questions. Their hearts can’t beat without gossip; don’t let your spirit wilt; if
they don’t want you, they never deserved you; this is how you’re forgotten; this is how you thrive
in the shadows; Jo bole so nihal; wait for your applause–it is coming; Sat sri akal; waiting is
overrated.
Jasmine Minhas
Yellow
Shadows writhe on familiar walls
that’ve held you in for all this time.
Insufferably together.
A flame dares to pierce the dark
between you. It lights up her face–
a blotchy, tired thing.
Yellow paper-skin rips and tears
around her swollen cheeks and sunken eyes.
She won’t look at you,
so she watches the flame.
Her mirror eyes glow and burn,
determined to un-see you.
Her trembling fingers curl absently
around a bottle that isn’t there.
You think of asking her
to smash it against the wall,
and thrust those jagged glass ends
right through your gut.
But she’s already gathered the shards.
She cups them, gently, in bruised palms,
and swallows them one by one.
You both know it’s killing her,
but her insides are done screaming.
So are you.
When she’s finished
she smiles a wide, toothy grin.
For a moment, she is Mom again.
But her smile is different now– farther away.
She extracts a glass shard from her liver,
and holds it out to you:
a peace offering from the woman
who doesn’t love you enough
to try to love herself too.
And, goddamn her, you take it.
You name it Resentment,
and you put it in your pocket.
With a breath she doesn’t have,
she blows out the flame.
You leave and take Resentment with you.
And later, you hold it tightly in your hands
when you’re alone.
You rename it Longing.
You put it back in your pocket,
and think of yellow.
Alyssa Kirby
FlowerFace
