Ginny Lee Remember when your hand no longer looked like your hand? It was the middle of the night An aftermath of cicadas robbing you of your thoughts through their incessant hums And that blinding sliver of moonlight was your only companion For a month straight In a shoebox of a room Because even the… Read More July, Like the Back of Your Hand

Anna Xiao tongue to the many moons and summers past. ten years ago, i was plucked from the land of my ancestors: a village tucked between the mountains of fuzhou, a place i now visit in dreams         i have not yet returned. i taste half-formed words on my lips: forgotten yet familiar. they are… Read More i lost my childhood

Lalla-Aicha Adouim Tales from the old deen We speak not, lest we wish men with stones To happen on us, dragging us into Al-Jahim, For they will say we are wretched, cursed Because we did not forget the sins of old And the way the rivers bleed dum, The glint in the eyes of men… Read More Eyes of Wahaya

Marcelo Quesada summing up lots and lots we reach for handfuls of… we reach for handfuls of… (whisper here now, in my ear, soft and…) and you’re worried you can’t do this again, you tell me, backlit by television glow we live in movies we live in reels gags and cut! to the part where… Read More release! everything is consumed by something, sometime

Ryan Morton Rivers are bodies Drawn with a line: Thinning branching Like the riverbeds Before me I dry My feet Planted mud under Unclipped toenails Ratchet and bent I picked at a cut Now glowing red My fingers Dig in & scratch Open the wound Milky pus drips & plops like My tears soak Into… Read More There and Back Again

Claire O’Shaughnessy It happened when my back was turned I was one hundred girls in white Brazen blizzard of May snowflakes Flurrying and flying and fleeting Tippity-tapping patent leather toes on gray stone (There must have been boys in black, but it’s only us angels I remember) My own dress, a star Twinkling recklessly Stealing… Read More First Communion

Julianna Feit While the stars shone bright before the clouds rolled in, I trod between Éire emerald pastures on grey gravel ground toward enlightenment. The bleating of over-sheared sheep in the distant fields of my father harmonized my trek. My delicate hair I stuffed up into grandpa’s woolen tam to mimic the manly silhouette of… Read More A Chance Meeting with the Divine

Laura Ferrucci I liked the way you and your crisscrossed legs sat on my middle-school-ignorant navy-blue and daisy-patterned comforter, watching, the way your fingers crept towards the neck of my guitar while the magnetized look in your eyes drew mine and my own fingers fell slack in divine-driven intrigue, the way you and your eyes… Read More you, like worship

Grayson Welo I strolled behind her as we approached the table of flora. Smooth, iridescent leaves hid the slab of wood beneath. “Ouch!” I eyed the culprit that grabbed her attention — 1 inch wide, unstately in height, protected in a coat of prickly spines. It sat lopsided. A clashing concoction of muted yellow and… Read More Learning with Succulents

Beatrice Stewart i. My body makes snot instead of dopamine so I blow my nose and eat ice cream, cook myself soup. When I was eight and had the stomach flu, my father heated up chicken broth and the warm mug in my hands felt like it could be his touch. ii. When I was… Read More Funeral Preparations