Spring 2022
A Chance Meeting with the Divine
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
you, like worship
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
Engendré
Sahibzada Mayed Hi! I’m Mayed. I’m a designer and fashion enthusiast. I love making “useless” things from quirky AI chat bots to computer-generated art. I’m a huge fashion nerd and recently started exploring the intersections of fashion history, colonization, and White supremacy. In my copious spare time, I love to experiment with new creative forms.
Lunch
Alijah Hill There are lovely little lilies lined around the pond. Peaceful, I sit and eat my lunch, sunken into the bench. The sun shines so softly on my skin, perhaps I hear Robin’s song? Do you see that over there? There! Across the water, there! Tiny little children playing in a sandbox, the picture… Read More Lunch
Learning with Succulents
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
Funeral Preparations
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
A Dead Sparrow
Katherine Hessler The city possesses zodiacal light./ I climb along the red edge of day: a cliff with a punch drunk jaw./5:00 am a phoenix fills the sky over the strip mall lot,/and the crumbs of God’s baking flutter to the eaves,/but a sparrow with a broken wing hops & drags itself to fall/over the… Read More A Dead Sparrow
Midwestern Blues
Yash Markendey I sat there, passport in hand, hopes in another. This wasn’t my first voyage overseas, just the first alone. “You’re going places, I know it.” To the synchrony of the seatbelt signs, my eyes darted towards the world outside my window, avoiding the masked stares around me, clouding a homely smile… Read More Midwestern Blues
Mother / Tongue / Slanted / Song
Roy Zhu / 朱若忆 A bloodline’s length of longing And a losing silence. A cherry tree in bloom And a balding cypress. A woman sits at work And a child gazes up. Poison in the pipes And poison in the blood. Waking to the rooster Crying just enough. Sleeping while the train Rumbles on above.… Read More Mother / Tongue / Slanted / Song
I scrub trashcans/my Father cleans the kill floor
Katherine Hessler Amongst the cadre of the filth drain I trust that Marquez understood time as a ring of water. The broken potatoes in chemical soup. The sea which boils to kill the fruit flies of corporate trashcans. Black specks flying off black monoliths like periods off a page. The hose spits out hot spells… Read More I scrub trashcans/my Father cleans the kill floor
