 Juliana Tattoli I read a Pima creation story that began, “In the beginning there was only darkness.” I saw a shooting star leap from one end of the Earth to the other, waving her long tadpole tail, her giant head leading the way to burn-out. So close, it could fall into my lap. I met a man named Garth with praying mantis eyes who lived off the land for thirty-eight years in a teepee. Large gemstone rings on every finger, he told me the secret to life is to ‘keep it simple.’ The Cholla cactus can produce new growth from any part of its ombre body. Luminescent light yellow tips caught the afternoon light, beam out amongst a cloudy deep gray sky. Spiked round stems taper off to red, then orange, then lower on its body become auburn, and finally at its base, completely black. The Yucca Moth works from sunset to midnight when Joshua Tree blooms spread open like summer windows receiving the warm night. She deposits a small amount of pollen collected onto the flower’s ovary so it produces the seeds she needs to feed her larvae. How will I bloom fruit from emptiness? “Keep it simple” he said. I descended from primal jelly ooze Jennifer Lothrigelis a poet and artist in the San Francisco Bay area. Her chapbook 'Pneuma' was published last year through Liquid Light Press. Her work has also been published in Arcturus, Deracine, Rag Queen Periodical, Peeking Cat Poetry, We'Moon and elsewhere.
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All of the women poets who committed suicide stab my chest like wheat spikes to my calves, like nails to the cross, like forget-me-not thorns if forget-me-nots grew thorns. My belly sleeps like snakes, which is to say, it is always on guard. My sides bleed the color of poppies and I’m wearing a corollary of half-lit Universes on my back. The fire burning you from within never lights up your footsteps at night – shadows, however, pounce on your pupils and devour what’s left of your iris. Madness that smells of musty rooms isn’t my kind of madness. My kind of madness are open rooms at a house nobody inhabits anymore air leaking through a broken window and pinning petals in vibrant colors to the knobs of doors nobody closed. The flight of the birds leaves a trace of daytime dreams. Flying is overrated – us, for once, we want our feet on the land and land somewhere else but on our eyelids.
One night I rode her through Los Angeles. There was an older Turkish woman seated behind me, gently humming, feverishly knitting a blue scarf with shaky hands. Seated next to her, a woman with her shirt pulled down under her left breast, was feeding a baby boy. An androgynous teenager swaying their hands back and forth like a river and following them with their neck sat beside me. Soon, the teen leaned their head on my shoulder, I leaned on their head, I joined my right hand to the back of their left hand, we flowed our hands back and forth as one invincible fish. The Turkish woman, fumbled the unfinished scarf around the mother and child, the loose threads resting in her lap. Jennifer Lothrigel is a poet and artist in the San Francisco Bay area. Her chapbook 'Pneuma' was published last year through Liquid Light Press. Her work has also been published in Arcturus, Deracine, Rag Queen Periodical, Peeking Cat Poetry, We'Moon and elsewhere. God   Lie Down Be Holy“Where are you going?” asks the angel, and I don’t normally stop walking and take a headphone out for just any street vendor but here we are/ “Home.” I say, and bring the headphone just a little closer to my ear as incentive for them to hurry up/ “That’s a long walk.” and I know I never told them where I live but sometimes angels say things you just have to move on from/ “Yup.” and I start to walk away without putting the headphone back in my ear (I consider myself merciful for this)/ “I have wings... and halos!” they shout but I don’t trust stolen holiness so I step back into the flow of bodies and continue walking, ignoring the twin scars on our backs// Kel Massey is a non-binary writer from Baltimore currently working on their bachelor's degree in English. They enjoy strong coffee, big jackets, and crying over actual play podcasts. You can find them @knife_orange on twitter. it gets harder to breathe with each passing day heart beating faster, flooding the veins that feed my brain, my blood wrapping its goddamn suffocating hands around my throat and reaching up over my face, a tender embrace i never asked for this never asked for all the heartbeats and the breathing never asked for the warmth of a pulse, see no one gave a thought to the cold when they made me when they reached in and reached out to find me and when they put a collar on my soul and handed the leash off to whatever still lurks behind me driving me they never thought they were doing a bad thing they thought they were helping they thought that when they took me from nowhere with nothing and put me somewhere with something they were working miracles because making something out of nothing is a miracle, right? is it a miracle or is it just blasphemy? they thought they were helping they thought they were god but to pluck me out of stars and cage me is no godly act life could’ve been so beautiful but i’m stuck here pulling at the leash fighting against the rope around my throat so hard that i can’t fucking breathe and i can barely see but i’ll stay on my feet because i won’t go back to nothing i’ll take this misery, this loneliness, this burning in my chest i’ll take this blasphemy and turn it into something freed because you must also know warmth to feel yourself freeze i’ll show them what a goddamn miracle is my miracle today is that thought it hurts to breathe i puff my chest out anyway. i may have never asked to be born but now that i’m here i refuse to step away. step down. no, i refuse to die.
don’t ever tattoo a name, names change you can get a drawing or a symbol or a phrase but never a name, names change don’t take my name, don’t make it yours, don’t make it say who i am or who i’ll be, that’s not my name what’s my name? you’ve never known it so don’t you dare tattoo my name hear my complaint, i’ll say it plain don’t ever tattoo a name, names change you can get a drawing or a symbol or a phrase but never a name, names change who you think i am is not the same as who i really am, in my brain reach down the sink and ask my heart, “what’s your name?” it’ll say “who are you to ask for such a thing? that’s my creation, my impersonation my identity to maintain i’ll never fake it, never tell you ‘til you promise not to take it nor mistake it for an open door, for conversations through the floor. don’t say my name.” so don’t you ever tattoo a name, names change you can get a drawing or a symbol or a phrase but never a name, names change
Undellastare blankly towards the sea maybe remember how much beauty could divide you from your love hear waves wash ashore broken shells that its currents tore as you yearn for the home you have my love will find you but i don't know if my touch will for this monument that calls itself sea is a spiteful beauty and i will never know if i will be strong enough to swim its miles just to hold you but maybe just stare blankly towards the sea and remember how much you long for me before you know it my love will find you FanboyHold on, let me recollect myself
I'll gather up my clothes and words before I start Take it all along with breath and put it in a shelf Then I can finally pick myself apart Now I'll myself slip in a few words Try to hold on to a squeal and then to a thread Hold on, let me recollect myself Before I stand in front of you, trying not to be dead Since I've been waiting for so long, the hair has grown long too I guess now is the right time to say "It's so nice to finally meet you" unstoriedI would like to be divested of this idea of narrative, that the plot of my life has turns it should or will make, that I am arcing upwards as if toward a summit. Let me instead be as directionless as a tree, like pines flicking their feathery plumes outside my window, whose thoughts are so large and voices so long we cannot discern them, who move so slowly no one can tell, and move only to better taste of the sun. Story is a tyranny: this getting things done, how one event begets another, a logical sequence, how end & meaning & purpose are the same. Let me lose this word meaning. I desire obsolescence, or to have a purpose incidental, of which I am not aware; as a tree bends to wind & searches for sun, and soothes us, speedy beasts, with the blessing of being silent, and living, and emphatically there. THE RODIN EXHIBIT, Peabody Essex, Salem, MAHere we have, among folds of fabric, a single hand. In this glass case, an arm. Notice the natural articulation of fingers. My lover adds more than the placards tell, happy to use his first degree for something. I honestly think it would be nothing if I left. I rest my chin on my hand and pull a serious moue in front of The Thinker, one of who knows how many. Rodin made molds you know, and cast and recast every image. The materials could change-- bronze, marble, plaster-- but the fingers are the same, the relaxed gesture. I've no makeup, and my fat shorts on, a faded tee from the Film Festival, but he'll use this image as a screen saver for months. Camille cast this arm again and again; her lover fused it to her body, or another woman's. I'm replaceable, you see, a human of a certain form, and another of the same mold would do as nicely. Calves and feet. A repeatable head. I'm indistinguishable from another.
when i was five years old, i had a loose tooth. i pulled it out, my fingers shaking, mouth filling up with blood. i could barely see the baby tooth peeping out of all the blood and pulp and gum. it felt right. when i was older, i went to a dentist. she pulled it out swiftly but gently, soothed it with cotton gauze. and she asked me something important— do you want to keep it? i said yes. she gave me a plastic capsule and i kept my tooth in it. tiny thing, rootless if i had a moment to myself in this fleeting world, it would be the tease of tonguing at a loose tooth. the fear of pulling it out and the relief, the gum, the baby tooth and everything everything everything i was as a young girl. if i had a moment to myself, it would be poolside, swimming under the night sky, the isolation, the stars and water flowing over my outstretched hands. if i had a moment to myself, it would be alone, my bicycle and the gentle rumble of the trains moving by. the tracks and the shake of the earth. me on my knees and the moss and feeling like i’ve been cheated out of everything. i don’t have coherency these days. i just have books i haven’t read in three years, my heart feeling like a freshly squeezed kumquat (do people even know those). strings and strings. i keep everything i ever remember backed up on this 500GB hard drive. it’s never been enough honestly. i’m raw and i say that all the time, but i always mean it. i’m raw as bitter neem twigs, as unripe mango, like pineapples. (kadva) i feel like tunnel vision. i feel like grabbing words by their shoulders and beating them into submission, so they'd say what i mean, so they'd tell other people how wrong i am, everywhere. so they promise me a backbone, promise me scaffolding, a brace, all metal and steel. even in the afternoon daze, i feel alone. blazing bright suns but nothing nothing stays. i’m grasping at straws. if i look into the mirror i don't see myself. i see red and the visible silhouette of ache and loss. what do you want? is it my black heart, shrivelled and love-guzzling. or is it my tongue, too sharp for the cold morning. you never make a sound, i can’t tell when you sink your fingernails into the rungs of my ribs. the earth is too cruel. she snaps at my ankles and i let her. maybe i shouldn't dwell on the loneliness shrouding herself around my shoulders, squeezing my eyes shut but it's hard not to when it pressed at all the gaps in me. all i taste is the rush of faint ringing in this bright room, the sun illuminating how wrong i feel all the time. razamand, i wear sanata over me like a coat. but i’m flotsam. i’m the sound of calling out into an open field and hearing back your lonely voice in return. i’m the sound of waves cresting over rock formations, of earth shifting. the sound of white noise when you switch to that one channel on cable. i’m still rootless, after all these years. i can feel my wisdom teeth right under the surface, stupid sharp, painfully sharp. mean. i can feel them cutting into gums, hard right under the thin skin. maybe i’ll have to pull them loose, torrid and sweltering, malevolent and bloody. maybe i won’t. maybe they’ll still, and i’ll be still. kadva— bitter (hindi) razamand— will, agreement, consent (urdu) sanata— calm, tranquil silence, stillness (urdu/hindi) Vaish Peddapalliis a 17 year old student and occasional poet. Vaish has been writing poetry for nearly 4 years now, and infrequently dabbles in prose. She loves analyzing poetry and appreciating others' works. Vaish usually is found taking photos of the skyline or jotting poetry down on her Notes app. Her poetry collection, Teeth and Bone, debuted this month. 
Cold, under falling snow, the graves are unchallenged.
If I could, I think I should like to smile To dance among Draco and Cassiopeia To feel my tears leave to become stars themselves Dotting the sky with my memories With hues of white, yellow, and blue To have happiness as my eternal companion Would be a wonder I could never ask for. And yet I keep wondering how I turned back that day And anatomized the pain How I learned not to mourn a bed of dying ashes For it was something that once lived I wonder How I found myself How I found myself in you I wonder Why the jays follow me in song Why I curtsy to the flowers and dance in the rain And why I find that pain, Pain is something I can withstand I wonder at my luck That because of you Terra no longer means just earth Ebony is no longer just a color That my words hold meaning My kindling, My reason for living Because of you Because of you Je peux
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