Taylor Feld When the dog died, I saw it. Stillness on stillness, animal to object. We outlive. I stayed in that room examining death — where they put the needle, where the eyes look. Empty frame, lend me lycanthropy. Let me bark and bolt on four strong limbs beyond mortality. Keening dog-sounds when I see… Read More the dog on the ground / the boy in the box

Adaeze Ogbonna My nation’s in a season of separation, degradation fueled by devastation The autumn leaves fall black from segregation Black. Segregation. It’s the root of our nation. Windswept tears trickle down the eyes of my oppression Depression, succession into the arms of the unmentioned Coldness creeps into the hardened of hearts Winter bleeds the… Read More A Seasonal Devastation

Evan Neiden we turned at the sign by the edge of the highway down a road to a field that stretched out forever underneath a warm grey sky i don’t remember where we were coming from,++++++but ++++i remember ++++++++the drive. ++++++++we were listening to skeeter davis sing ++++++++sweet and sour standards on the radio. ++++++++i… Read More the end of the world

Evan Neiden We Come To You Now With The Evening News. a man struck a match in a cemetery the other day ++++++and lit a line of gravestones on fire. ++++++++++++as the flames rose high and candy-cane red, ++++++hand after hand began to burst up from the soil ++++++++++++++++++with skin peeled back and bones like… Read More The Evening News

Shelby Schultz There’s an arch on the top of my eye that disappears when it closes. It looks like the edge of the sun when drawn on the corner of children’s pages. My eye captures light until tears warp and cloud it; the marker bleeds on the page when water spills across it. Red, yellow,… Read More Zuihitsu: October 31 Attacks

Shelby Schultz Life is a fucking talking point when it’s hers ++++++++++and it’s lost +++++++++++++++++++++and it’s lost on you Calling on us to use thin blue lines when they demarcate +++++++++++++++and separate ++++++++++++++++++++++++++and raid our bars To us, bars are home To you, they are cells To us, cells are life To you, life is… Read More As Bill Clinton Addresses Public Safety March 10, 1994

Ginny Ip When someone compliments you are you supposed to say thanks! not thanks? but thanks! Yes dear, with some oomph exude confidence! (but not pride) and if you are a woman, complement it with a smile, that’s complement with an E, not I never give a compliment back (it shows low self-esteem, that’s why)… Read More How to take a compliment

Ahlaam Moledina Her eyes dark charm ‘twere vain to tell, But gaze on that of the gazelle, It will assist the fancy well; As large, as languishly dark -The Giaour, Lord Byron i suppose i would have to start with the pink – all those pinpricks poking flooding flushing through cherry tomato cheeks you are… Read More if we wrote poems about white people the way they wrote about us

Zoë Huettl Across the windshield The scraper screams. Even the dove-gray morning As it rises Can’t strike back.  Burnt breakroom coffee Streaks The Styrofoam cup— Lumpy with grounds and undissolved sugar. But it’s something To sip while I slather petroleum On my feet to stop them Blistering. Under the angry yellow Fluorescents my skin is… Read More Hecuba

Victoria Benefield when i was nine i dreamed of paris streets like jagged jackknife nicks on pine and the seine, like the stream down my driveway from the sprinklers to the gutter RATS, my grandma said, paris is dirty and full of rats you wouldn’t like it there maybe i didn’t like rats but i… Read More paris