Tag: Issue 5 Spring 2016

I.   smaller wider people in a smaller wider world, we were combing life for seashell miracles and coming up not empty-handed at its end a lantern in the cool night grass between root beer cans and unprompted smiles   how much higher could we aim than to stay yearning to crack the eggshell sky,

it was one of those rainy days when you remember that one subway train you were pushed onto in new york city, and the man with dreadlocks playing music through his headphones so loudly each moment was a meteor shower. you remember your hands, how you tried to bury yourself into the creases, because falling

I want to dig myself into the earth of writing and never come out, construct a cave of words, sturdy enough to hold the ceiling and hide away. I want to delve into the darkness that lies below each of us and forget all the noise. I want to find the earth’s beating heart and

Black woman, the crown is in in your name do not sleep on the centuries of wisdom and strength dormant in your bones our warrior’s spirit passed down along with battle ploys inherited from the sages before us   Black woman, the only error is the system your existence is resistance your anger flows with

so what had happened was this: you were earnest and i thought that meant truthful so i opened the trunk and pretended to look for something i lost they filmed that movie on the basketball court and we traced the lines on the concrete (it’s not usually warm in san francisco but up there it

4:15. You polish sunlight through the bottom of a glass while I fold napkins and tell me about the mountains scrapping across Telluride blue, the girls you dated in college, that dream you had last night. The usuals come in before rush, mudflats and seventy Julys caked beneath their nails. The sauvignon-blanc ladies get your

I hated my indigo prom shoes and the way they rubbed my blisters. An empty Starbucks cup kept them company on the floor of Connor’s car as I sat on my knees and tugged countless bobby pins out of my wilted hair. Connor’s aqua dress shirt clashed magnificently with his fiery hair, which glistened even

papa you didn’t remember me the past few years i was a ghost in your mind a shadow of the girl i used to be papa you remember the war you remember sitting in your shame as you read the signs that reduced you that told you that you were less than you were a

On the third floor I told my professor that my essay was going to be late because I didn’t feel like I could do anything that week. On the second floor I went on a date with a boy who brought me a mocha in a mason jar and listened to me when we talked

i am fed to pretend that i believe in ghosts they want to make a terrified thing out of this great dane like we the same species do you know how it feels to eat yourself out of fear they feed them to shaggy too when he gets scared ever been fed to your master

My foot taps out every ticking second on the clock. Popcorn rattles off machine gun fire behind the counter. Los Angeles is roaring quietly in the background. It’s 5:27, and any moment now you’ll walk in. You’ll carry with you a baseball cap, a pack of microwaveable Kraft mac ’n cheese, and the weight of

(Where can you find a place to keep her, with all the huge strange thoughts inside you going and coming and often staying all night.) – Quote from Rilke poem, first elegy I. We’re running together, Time and I, through the streets of our city. Our once-white sneakers squeak down the polished sidewalks and I