I had no questions
After three days all I knew

was how beautifully thin
I was My pants slunk

from my hips which
jutted out like wings

My ribs were sharp
and caught on corners

My torso long and ropy
with no respect for my neck

It rained I wore boots
and had thigh gap

In the cafeteria
my pretty nails

brittled onto the tray
Talking with doctors

my teeth loosened
My elegant cheek-

bones split my skin
My golden hair fell

out and I knit it into socks
I couldn’t shit or

remember who I hated
I was magnificent

 

Jacqueline Hughes Simon is a writer living in Berkeley, CA. Her work has appeared in Written Here – The Community of Writers Poetry Review, Poecology, The Cortland Review , and others. She is currently an MFA candidate at St. Mary’s College, California.

 

When the bell tower chimes,
throw me off the roof.
Crocheted into my wool
cocoon. With all the almonds in Calaf
gathered illegally by peasants in the night.
To make pastries and carve them with little angels’
chainsaws. Breakneck death
strolls beside me, a lightning storm.
The wheat rolls off in gritty balls
like the ancient walls of the town.
Men with guns,
hired to live in the turrets of the villas
and shoot each other,
shoot each other.

 

Matt Broaddus is a Cave Canem fellow and author of a chapbook, Space Station (Letter [R] Press, 2018). His poems have appeared in Fence, Foundry, Sundog Lit, and Black Warrior Review. He lives in Lakewood, Colorado and works at a public library. Sometimes he tweets @mattbroaddus.

The Mother finds me washing my hands
with lavender detergent in the employees only room.
“The washer ate my dollar,” she explains lifting

the lint crown off my head and the lint veil
from my eyes. I follow her, and root my hands
through its intestines, pinching out each quarter:

“Do you want me to scrape the dirt off those
with my teeth?” She shakes her head, so I place
them in her palms. “Why is there a sea turtle

painted on your window?” I wanted to be constructive.
I say, “I feel unfurnished without it.” The Child watches
me from a metal cart. He’s not supposed to be in there.

“He’s not supposed to be in there.” The Mother hushes
me: “Be constructive.” I want to be. She gets another
washer going. I pick apart the crown, make gloves instead.

 

Elise Triplett is a writer from Dayton, Ohio. They have been published in Black Bough Poetry and interned with Mid-American Review. They can be found on Twitter @TriplettElise and elsewhere, probably.

I employed a molten owl
to deliver my braids
to mailboxes

all along the street
where you lived.

As you watched, foxes jumped up
onto your shoulders—

delicate and wild,

shining fur waving
from the wind.

There are fragments I remember
like costumes
under clothes.

Tell me there’s more to life
than you
and trees.

The trouble is confusion.
I’m always waiting to stay.

This mouthful of years tastes
too sweet.

We built a fort behind the stream,
held down with sticks and rocks.

I wonder if it’s still there.

Pieces of it,
anyway.

 

Alana Saltz is the Editor-in-Chief of Blanket Sea, an arts and literary magazine showcasing work by chronically ill, mentally ill, and disabled creators. Her poetry has appeared in Occulum, Five:2:One, YesPoetry, LadyLibertyLit, and more. Her debut poetry chapbook, The Uncertainty of Light, was released in February 2020. You can visit her website at alanasaltz.com, and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @alanasaltz.

When Kelly Clarkson won American Idol, she squealed
into a microphone and America felt that shit hard.

I am American, but more TV than reality.
I am more idle than Kelly. A cat hurls
his body over my own as I type and I squeal,
but it’s not the same. If I’m being honest,

there is no space at the judging table
when I’m around. I kick everybody out,
go on with the heavy business of singing
into an empty room.

A montage of every time I’ve loved someone appeared
as Daniel Powter sang you had a bad day, the camera
don’t lie and America changed the channel before I could
give myself any credit.

I am American, but I do not believe
in auditions. If you pause before you say my name,
I know you’re going to say it. I know
I’m never going home. I know home
is a stage with no exit left.

When Kelly Clarkson won American Idol, she sang
into a microphone some people wait a lifetime for a moment
like this and I didn’t believe her. Not for one minute.

 

Micaela Walley is an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. Her work can be found in HuffPost, ENTROPY, Gravel, and Oracle Fine Arts Review. She currently lives in Hanover, Maryland with her best friend–Chunky, the cat.

Beloved, so much around us was remarkable,
I forgot to mention I was in love with you.
While fires rose in me and boulders exploded,
I mistook it for the tenacity of constipation.
My vanity, my bastion of resilience gave away
to white hairs & chalky scars when you left.
Besides, I only call it love to quarantine
the helplessness any ambiguity can cause.
It’s embarrassing to admit I have dreamt
about crashing your wedding, then eloping
with someone else. I know, I know.
It isn’t something I expected of me too.
There were days when news of you breathing
far far away was enough for me not to stop
breathing. At least not from my own
perpetration. I must tell you I’m coming to visit
this fall. For the liquids in my joints prefer
vulnerability only in a climate of moderation.
Even now shy seas of green celestial rot
claw at my shores every night a moon carelessly
disrobes. I have already made a note to hide a moon
in my underwear. Glowing like a ball of deep
goodness, trying to make the animals in me
worthy of you. Don’t you remember: how en route
to the Lord’s asylum, we strutted along, your hand
in mine. How the stars glanced at us, my neon
crotch. And in that moment I knew what
to do―from the light I compelled from their zodiac
lamps, I slanted into a shaft of brilliant pheromone.
But the planets never understood this― I only did such
a thing so that the stars wouldn’t look at you. Did you?

 

Satya Dash’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in Passages North, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Florida Review, Pidgeonholes, Glass Poetry, Prelude, amongst others. Apart from having a degree in electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has been a cricket commentator too. His work has been twice nominated for the Orison Anthology. He spent his early years in Odisha, India and now lives in Bangalore. He tweets @satya43.

of the pigeon in the courtyard last week. How what I first thought was confetti thrown in celebration were feathers ripped from a body. How the seagull cornered her. How he made it seem quick. How the stalking started miles before the meet. How my colleagues call it natural selection. How girls of fourteen are forced brides in North Carolina. How biology states I am of animal that cooks offspring in a womb. How fellow mammals count my eggs and debate them over breakfast. How scrambled still makes a good dinner. How the crane fly was beguiled by my kitchen light. How it flailed in an effort to escape my stale apartment. How it snuck back in through the cracked door and flew directly onto the stovetop. How blue the gas burned. How its wings singed up like paper. How another grave could’ve been the cocoon of a spider. How the spider asphyxiates and curdles the organs of its prey. How sticky and trapping his hand pets my thigh. How there are seemingly endless species. How, of all breeds, Carolina Dogs are his favorite. How this touch binds me and burns me to wingless.

 

Madeleine Corley (she/her) is a poet by internal monologue and loves the color of nostalgia. She currently serves as the Poetry Editor for Barren Magazine. Some of her work has appeared in The Hellebore, Twist In Time Lit, Moonchild Magazine, DARK MARROW, as well as others. You can find her on Twitter @madelinksi, on Instagram @wrotemadeleine, or on her website www.wrotemadeleine.com.