Confession;
anger is what I hold
at all times
it is my claim to power I envy
those who are simply born
with it
slicked onto their skin hair
irises lips like they earned
it the scariest the most
subtle are the ones who
don’t even hesitate taste it dripping
off
of their tongues how
powerful it must feel to drink
mouthfuls of blood and taste
Honey.
Extending a Proposition to Those Who Surveil Me by Carter Welch
The relevant winds mechanize me, and I decided,
if there is no pain, I will rise. There is pain,
so, I will contradict myself and walk to the kitchen while
the spring mornings express their particular greyness.
One morning I ask the wind why he must carry himself so harshly.
His whistle on the windowpane sounds like a rebuke to a ridiculous
line of questioning. I retreat and press powdered beans into the cauterized
needle and watch heat arise from faraway power lines until
water and oats and sterilized antioxidants rest adjacent my hand.
This again and again now that I don’t send the
sputtering steel eastward in the mornings across
the idiocy of broken asphalt. Again, and again,
not pressing warped wood into the palms of yesterday
nor
do I insert film into beckoning silver and plasma
when it prompts more from me and begs more of me
until I offer more and more and never stop dividing pieces of myself
into a tin alloy bucket somewhere east.
In the mornings I measure the accomplishments of yesterday
and ladle them into the tablespoon set resting in the counter drawer,
though I often wonder whether my measurements are correct.
Mornings forever arrive. They bang the windowpanes asking for
something different, but I serve one teaspoon of vanilla
again and again, and though they must change, so I can alter,
they lie inseparable and seep turbid air into my capillaries.
I petition for the absence of pain
yet it remains, adhered, and delves into my legs alongside
every semblance of Michigan and I feel my accent surge back
and know I can stray yet never change.
Isn’t that what Dad would always tell me?
Yes, he responds, wooden on the living room end table.
I widen my eyes at this newfound chameleon
and implore the Michigan cold to take it from here.
Bildungsroman as Immoral Extra-Relational Fantasy / So Love Isn't So Simple? by Rachel Hsu
It was interesting the first time,
but now she just wants to banish the butterflies,
mail them away to someone else,
give them pretty feelings to try on.
Anyone can appreciate physical gorgeous in the dressing room
for the first five minutes, anyway. After that, it’s just unfair
to check the mirror & meet the same vision every time.
She turns the lights on & off again
in hopes of seeing something new.
Love, like candles & maybe hurricanes, blows over sometimes.
Girl can try to inhale it, savor the foul aftertaste, call it “smoky”
or a nicer word for “shit,”
but, honey, that’s just honey-
coated secret, hiding the undeniable scent of broken.
Outdated sweetness, wind from a window naturally left open.
Not everything is meant to linger. It doesn’t always have to be
somebody’s fault. Still, Girl wonders,
that doesn’t make it right, does it?
Like the orbit of Mercury, or
the inevitable crescendo of any hot emotion,
sometimes the breaking just happens. Things get old,
it’s natural to want something new. Trouble is,
love asks for a fair trade. Old bones for new wings.
Break the glass, set the mercury free. If she’s crafty enough,
perhaps, Girl can act like it broke on its own.
Today, the glass isn’t thick enough for Girl to feign innocence.
Today, the glass cracks, & the bleeding out begins that way,
like a crash landing: semi-saved by the ocean but ruinous, nonetheless.
Today, the best Girl can do is catch herself drowning,
just before she does something stupid.
Sometimes, the only thing Girl can do is live in the past
& keep living in it. Clasp metal to brace her body against the future,
walk backwards to avoid touching the truth that will eventually step her way.
Until she’s ready to move on, she stays like this.
It is safe to live the same, safe to linger in detritus love.
It is safer to smother the butterflies than to accept them.
Yet, even trapped, even mangled, some things refuse to die.
Sugar-Mouthed by Hilda Friday
Your wind chime voice,
words falling like oranges dropping to soft mud
heavy and dark under blankets and echoing off pillows
Autumn catches up, stormy skies raining out
You wanted the flood worse to draw it out of your chest
wishing Studio Ghibli water, you seeping pomegranate poison
and run the pads of your moon-round fingers
hard-collar bones and star scarred skin
Can’t you feel skeletal hands catching you by the hips now,
Death having tossed you up in the air
as one would a child, and now you are coming back down
Can’t you feel your head on her arms, cradled,
thighs tangled in your own
holding you inches from bones
Sugar mouthed and sweet tongued,
glazing you over and you burning up from inside,
heady sunlight filtering down through the smell of fruit,
laying on dry grass below eager yellow wasps
golden girl
in cat eyes and puppy dog bounce as you look at her,
in morning orchards and witching hour mist,
in pining lonesomeness and oaken promises,
you know Eve never met Lilith
Harbor by Hilda Friday
Fuck it, let me be your harbor,
Though ships aren’t meant to stay forever,
Let me hold you in my arms cold and deep,
Each time you return from sea,
Come to me when you seek sleep,
Let me wrap you in my quiet fog blankets
below sailors and the steam of their tea
Darling, rest your creaking wood and wait out your storms
soft whispers between your hull and my surface,
waves rise and fall and the tide my kiss in her form
my own lungs drowned, and me wordless
my crackling finger joint docks reaching for you
hoping you’ll stay someday forever
and honey don’t I know that your skeleton
will one day fall beneath waves so far from my reach
You see, my sketchers just don’t light up anymore.
You leave your ice cream cone melting into gravel
hurrying to the glow of warm mothers-golden-porchlight
The hum of mosquitos no great trial as they flit at the
corners of the screen, kid-noses pressed up to taste salt
Small world, small circle, needing nothing
nothing further than ten footsteps away
your ears warm beneath the curls of your hair
soft press of kisses on my knucklebones
how do I pay that forward? How do I lace up your shoes for you
light the candles on your birthday cake
rub the goosebumps away from those bare arms.
I’ll stroke the hollows of your brow till you fall asleep,
honey don’t you know you’re safe in my cradled hold
Blanche by Shaphnah Mckenzie
Satin suffused with
the scent of flowers, a
garment spun from the
spray of a waterfall
spills down her body
and puddles at her feet,
limbs of congealed milk,
silky soles in silver shoes.
In winter air she breathes summer
clouds; they rise from beneath the
pearls, the pearls which rest on a
bed of white sand, against which
the frothy waves of her laughter
crash; from the seas of enamel
shimmering under the light of the
stars in her eyes. Blanche.
Beautiful. Radiant with purity,
made from the substance of angelic
voices.
In the horrific, ecstatic night by Carter Welch
Skies, open your gaping mouths and scream!
We’re on board with the rain and maybe with the wind
but they can’t comprehend how the fields of wheat demonstrate life’s
suffering.
The corn sways and it’s obvious the oaks crashing into the
shore barrage their neighbors with hollers.
Rapturous the lakewater accepts them and rushes over with a cold
embrace.
Then the boats churn foamy, alabaster water against the boulders while
rock shards in the faraway city refract the sunlight and shove leeward
so that on this distant shore, our bodies become temples of velvety orange
memory.
Mirages amid rippling waves and the dune grass always swirls in the building,
incoherent wind. When the nights warm these souls of ours, we cannot help but to
rejuvenate the crevasses of our fingernails and the scales upon our elbows!
Now in the summer we baptize the red polyester in the sea and feel
the sugar of the soul collapse all around us in transparent, thin pudding.
The Sun Unbridles our joy—cascading silken daggers.
Our laughs and the chants of tomorrow echo long-edged along the cacophonous,
singing bluffs of sand.
Voices of today roar in anticipation and perhaps they croon a swansong to the
remote mirages of civilization. Even though there doesn’t seem to be much of that
here.
Foreboding arms stride long up and over the horizon; could they possibly
reach the maples?
Swimmers of the sea weave in tight, wet patterns… trails of figure 888
converge until the water can reconcile its incongruities
The arms stretch into the second half now, so
a seaside alarm blares red and horrific and “fuck you!”, it declares?
The cragged fragments stab their toes into the sand and into the pier and
they can only shatter and tear the joints apart, I guess you cannot fault a sentient
being for its nature. We remember seeing the mirage, but the arms’ hands reach for
our faces. Whether it’s there or not holds no significance.
In this late, warm evening we almost suffocate
until the cries of fire and glitter and crackling laughter propel skywardand the arms ignite, retreat, and burn into sizzling black ash. We respire; we
look to the horizon. Nothing lies there except the chilly pool of ink in the
horrific, ecstatic night.
Cascade Mountains by Halla Hafermann
Soft brushstrokes of pines sweep the hills
Painting the ridges in infinite greens
Lacy veils of rain grace the valleys
Shyly staging a dance of light and shadow
Snowy ridges eagerly snare the sun’s light before hurling it skyward
leaving behind only a brilliant white gleaming on their proud faces
And cutting, unswaying, into the playful clouds
rise the spires of stone cathedrals, the fierce spine of the earth
Born from catastrophe and the collapse of what had always been
their broken bones,
their cracked ribs,
their shattered lines,
are worn with strength and resolution
They bear no exception to the laws of time;
not even these mountains are invincible
But right now, they stand
and it is enough
Old Phone Number by Sabyne Pierre
The old number was going to expire
so I thought to save it. I
could not even recall the
last time I uttered those
digits but I remember
It belonged to a high
school freshman with an
overly enthusiastic voice
mail and some pop song about love
she’d never experienced
as her ringtone. Then, she
could text her friend
who stayed three blocks
away to see if one of
their siblings could take
them to the ice-skating rink
on Friday
she could put in saved
contacts of restaurants
and businesses she’d probably never call
but saved just in case
she could play back the
dozens of voicemails her
mother would leave—
phone shuffling around in a
pocket. The Dodge Durango turn signal flickering
and maybe if she listened
long enough. You know, really
listened,
I just keep getting stuck up on this dream I had. Mom is speaking to me, or trying to, and I am not close enough to hear her
I look in the mirror
my cheekbones rise like
crescent moons, just like hers
did And I am afraid to admit that
Maybe now, more than ever, is when
I would need her most. So, I save the old phone number
At least then I still have these voicemails.
"hollow stages" by Sabyne Pierre
Hollow stages make
For excellent bedroom sets
Here lies an intimate scene I said goodbye to long ago
It is as if I inhaled and I am still waiting for the cue
Waiting for the blinding lights,
The pregnant, long overdue silence, the pent up nerves
Vibrating every corner of my body
An empty stage still looks just as beautiful, I imagine,
Not too long
So,
I wait