Poem

Writing

heat stroke

By Anna Schmeer

wet grass
we are living on borrowed time
the green of spring will soon fade to browns
struggling to breathe and blaming it on allergies
blood is pulsing through my veins and my fingertips
this isn’t my bathroom floor this is real life
there is no second chance


Homegoing

By Sasha Watson

sister I am trapped, my body weighted 
by morning, when I woke
birds were calling till my heart stammered 
this time gives meaning to suspended


Hope

By Barbara Matijevic

All is good, good is all
All is good, good is all

Is it?
Yes, it is
At least . . .
I need want to believe it is
It’s my hope,
For my sanity

All is good, good is all
All is good, good is all


If We Should Need a God

By Sasha Watson

the first thing is to wait for the rain
to soften
our skin so that
might easily peel the surface
away
and still the blood stays
clinging in our veins
like the fly to
a horse
pulsing and swaying
to stay the rippling body
veins
the blood inside preserved


IN TWENTY TWO BILLION YEARS THE UNIVERSE WILL END

By Caroline Stickney

and then maybe i can stop breathing in counts of fours,
as the matter in black holes is reduced to nothing but fragments of time, and
impossibly cold remnants of stellar light implode like spiders in the sky.
how is light reduced to remnants?


liberation

By Richard George

spectra of light shine in and out of
view a rainbow of emotions envelope the
mind as the music pumps harder and louder and faster
computer static is in my ears like bugs
piercing my eardrum drums faster and harder and louder as tears
fall.


Life in the Shape of Loops

By Elise Gimpert

—Begin again,
With an unconscious adoration
For perpetual repetition.
Life in the shape of loops;
Generation after regeneration.
Comfort in conclusion,
Because it is also conception.
Sacred symmetry, familiarity,
Time’s curated conventions.


loop pedal

By Ava Shropshire

reverbs of rhythm surround me, and
the aftermath of melodies float – circling my existence.
my thoughts are still, as my fingers
gently pluck the strings of my fender strat.


Love like stardust

By Erinn Fent

You waltz by
Zipping through my stratosphere
Leaving almost tangible trails
Streams of fog and particles of water
Falling slowly down to my earth
You come in and out of orbit
Following a reckless collision course
Sometimes I could reach out and touch you


Mystery

By Hanna Cochran

What if the tides bent out from the shore;
Waves broke from themselves, curling out
and up, scraping the sky,
rolling back.
They would collide into each other in the middle of the sea
and then fall, plunge
into some slit of darkness, of magma


New Hymns

By Caroline Stickney

we sink
& choke on our own want
& decide it’s enough
& pull down our own quiet
& swim in swallowed songs
& follow our own wounds home
& peel back our skin
& look at the mess we’ve made
& love all things but not at the same time


No Longer Under Atmospheric Pressure

By Julia Truitt

Leaves look up to the rising sun
A bird sings its song, letting anyone hear
Dewy grass drips with sweet sugar water

My eyes gift me this
The clouds know I don’t deserve it
My body was put here and for what?


on the top of the cathedral

By Anna Schmeer

as the clock strikes the bell tolls
clang
clang
clang
the steeple has never looked as high as it does
when you are standing on the tip
looking down at the cobblestones
there is no room in the temple
for the sinner
who does not repent
the
clang
clang


on watching a jellyfish cam in a dark room

By Caroline Stickney

i watch jellyfish billow on the screen like souls floating across skies, their bells blooming as gracefully as bloodstains in bath water, and i reach through the pixels toward some form of salvation, some return that promises in the next life i’ll be something softer, something expansive, wounds


Paradise Drive

By Kayla Brethauer

Turquoise vinyl siding
a green darker than any Carolina marsh.
Twenty steps up to the front door.
Fifteen more to the bedrooms.
Will the luggage make it to its destination?


Persephone’s Plight

By Adrianna Brady

A Prodigal daughter never returns home
She may enter its walls after her respite,
but is always a guest
to the ghost of her mother’s daughter


pretty enough

By Chloe Chou

something breaks in the frozen night 
    tearing / you sit up and i stay

right here in these warm sheets
    you say i am pretty only because the word beautiful


Quota

By Wyatt Vaughn

Decorating a Christmas tree, 
Lights cast taught.
Seeing beads of light – asymmetrical, imperfect.

Grease in my hair and oil on my face, 
Piercing uncleanliness.
But sharper is the ground leading from bed to shower.


Saturday Laundry

By Sophia Emerson

Over and over and spinning and spinning
The beiges are dancing in the machine
I sit on the dryer and wait so patiently
for the load to be done and restarted again.


seeds of life

By Jessica Wang

at the end of the Earth
there is a dandelion plant
the corner of the sky rests on its bosom
our world relies on its strength


Silver

By Anonymous

in girl scouts, they teach you sayings
ones you sing around the campfire
they’re supposed to teach lessons
“make new friends but keep the old
one is silver and the other is gold”
except no one remembers the silver
the second-place trophy
the insignificant


Solemnity

By Barbara Matijevic

In the evenings, 
  Following sundown
     I observed you
        However,
            I never saw you


Sonatas for Diana

By Marisa Oishi

New

We wake up and feel the absence of warmth.

*** 
Waxing Crescent

Slowly now, we embrace
the blossoming light all around.
Was sleep an absence
from the world, or an immersion
in it? Eyes open, the lights
offer us their hands.


The Allure of Home

By Nitya Dave

Salty wind pushes at the falling tide.
Blue serenity veils the town as a 
melancholy buzz flows through the idle docks.

A boat pushes through the harbor:
It drifts along, 
lazily down.


The Life of the Party

By Catherine O'Connor

the purple lights start to fade, the crowd dying with them.
     your eyes once hidden in the crowd glow vermilion,
     failing to camouflage themselves beneath the shadows


The Walk That I Walk

By Cameron Newsom

Every day,
I walk a walk
I walk in the hot,
And in the cold,
I walk on grass,
And on the road
I walk under trees,
And under buildings.


to the crab nebula and back

By Anonymous

I vividly remember
the rough feel of my closet’s carpeting beneath my fingers
as they traced lines and circles and stars
like the ones that filled the sky that night.


TURRITOPSIS DOHRNII

By Caroline Stickney

In a rare process called transdifferentiation, the turritopsis dohrnii 
(known as the immortal jellyfish) can, in response to physical danger, 
leap back to its first stage of life as a polyp. The born-again polyp 


Werewolf

By Sophia Emerson

I am a werewolf.
Waves of pain
Bitter transformation
I bite back
When nothing is wrong
Queasy ramblings
Crying in the bathroom
Clutching onto my stomach
I pray for forgiveness
Fur on my body
Shaved and prickly
Pushing down my nature
I spit out my humanity


What i want as a teenager is to

By Anonymous

come to you in
cyclical relapse
with each syllable
escaping

muzzling silence
be tempted to borrow
its imprisonment and speak in
dialogues conversed by

friction of skins.