I LIVE A LONELY LIFE

Emma Gonzalez Cueto

(things i think of in bed): i lay at night a lonely night in the presence of absent light,,, and feel alone. it’s nice safely, nicely, i retrace thoughts from the past thoughts being born; where were they conceived? i live lonely nights in the comfort of my own home; soft blankets of red and grey and the sheets I never change and the pillows made of memories, absorbing all my dreams — of the life i don’t have and the feelings i can’t shake — the sometimes cat and the heart that always aches when it’s gotten to be too much and I know my thoughts now all too well i choose to go to sleep break away from the peaceful pain of the anxiety that kicks in right before I start to dream to enter a world where anything can happen, and I’d come out unscathed to wake up, forget it all, and do it all over again

One. Two.

Making teardrop tea

Eva Markham Select your finest vessel preferably some kind of special plastic cup From five years old, ideally it would wear a handle, Something strong for you to hold and

Keep it handy: can be kept up on a shelf, or in a cupboard, Maybe better yet, you keep it by your bed, and let Dust hover: a particulate blur, hummingbird, a soft cover Noncommittal enough to depart when you blow, now

Three.

Wait for the storm. Or wait for a wind at least, breeze, Check the trees and make note of the leaves, but you’re well rehearsed And you know when it’s coming Or maybe you don’t, and it sometimes feels sudden, but either way,

Four.

Vessel to cheek. Handle in hand, holding strongly, and oddly? You might find your storm has resigned, maybe changed his mind, Maybe put off by the process, the stockpiling Maybe in making objective collection, you’ve baffled your storm out of being upset so

Five.

Time for decision. First:

You can take your cup back to its sitting position, quit bitching, transition Accept that you’re fine or accept that you’re missing some Critical system, some nerves, or your verve, maybe worms have infested or Second: Maybe you’ve managed to catch just enough

To invite your resident ladybug up In which case it comes to me highly recommended That you tell her, straight forward, the origin, of what you are pouring her Ladybugs are known for their notorious compassion So you shouldn’t feel embarrassed by your tear-for-tea transaction

It’s normal. Like Yogi but affordable. Absorb and Analyze Your Crying through this Five-Step Tear-Tea Guide.

Holiday Rosa

God I’m so tired

But I don’t think I can sleep

It’s 4

444444444444444444444

Fuck 4

I wanna ruin myself

I wanna pull out my veins and tie them in my hair

Pretty red braids

A thin red bow

I could wear my ovaries as earrings

A fistfull of guts

I’m going to redecorate my room

Bloody fleshy

But all mine

White red hot

Hot pink pain

I’m going to be Barbie

After I shave off my thighs

And shatter my feet

Mattel might sell me in a little cardboard box

I’ve already got the tits

Twist my leg right around

Like a pencil snapping I imagine

Nothing so insidious as sepsis

Or infection

No this is art

I’m going to literally rip myself apart

I wonder if I’m capable of it

Or maybe I’m just trying to vomit

Maybe I’m trying to make myself so sick I can’t take it anymore

And I go mad

What the fuck is wrong with me

I’m reaching into the pit of my stomach

My knuckles are slowly being digested

Fingers prodding into liver and kidney through my stomach lining

It’s a feat

I’ve shoved my own arm down my throat

I’m choking on my own fucking elbow

Digging for some kind of pain

IV. A Saint Asa Gutow

1. Martyrdom

A tree. Branch, root. I am You, I am watching you From the roof, Looking down on you. I am Your lover watching you, Loving you, loving The rope binding you, Holding you, as you Love to be held, as you Die. As

If I Did not love you.

2. Martyrdom

A tender, tending. Lover, Loving. Noun, Adjective, verb. Living, Saint, Dying. You will not be

If you do not die. You Will be.

3. Martyrdom

Yes. Death.

4. Martyrdom

Be held. Be holy. Behold: You. I. The holy city: She, a wound. You, a wound. You, my wound. I, hers, Yours, only

Bleeding. Only The blood.

All Fours

Adrien Wright

These nights I am on two knees or fewer — one in the desert, one in the mountains. I am a man in a wood with a shotgun and a good eye: one for the hoof, one for the teeth.

For every collector there is a collection: a magpie’s nest, a black hole, miles of corkboard heavy with moth wings in some basement, choked of light. There’s a way these things are done. Nudge the legs down and hold. Twist the arms up and beg.

For every collector, there is someone trying to make a thing look alive. You and this body are in a war that has nothing to do with me. You are trying to drill wells in this body and I am trying to bleed free of this body and my body wants to stop being bombed.

I know how it feels to tell something to stay alive. Feels like warming it in your hands, looks like snow on the airfields. I keep throwing myself into the sky and landing back under the skim of desert. I have seen your freezer weighed by hundreds of moths in tupperware, pulled and stretched, eyes glazed upwards towards the blue light.

Inchydoney

Skye Newhall

after David Whyte

Go now to where you can feel the cool embrace of clouds and the valiant churning of wind.

Go now to where the chilled ocean waves leave aural footprints in the wake of your conscious and haunted mind.

Stand as sure as the ground on the shore when you defy your reluctance to be yourself.

Open to the greater conversation between all the elements of existence: wake into this unutterable now, present to this river meadow and current amidst your sunrise over the waking horizon.

Measure your absence from the world by your presence in the tide; ebbing, flowing…

Bitter Spring Valley Sunrise acrylic on wood (skateboard)

Ayuna Lamb-Hickson origami still life graphite

Asa Rallings

Time Flies digital photography

Daniel Seo

Summer’s Greens digital photography

Emma Nguyen promontory (me & you) earthenware

Henry Tyson

Carmen Quintos

One Gladiator vs. An Enigmatic Duo digital

Hound and Bug graphite and watercolor

Taylor Sibthorp digital photography

Daniel Seo

Lotus basswood

Andrew Banker take this to your tomb (loutrophorus) clay

Henry Tyson

Inferno #48 acrylic

Noah Hanson

Modern Additions (Saint John the Evangelist and Two Pigions) ink and marker

John Gross

Intimate Detail digital and ink

Nicholas Lobaugh

All the Lovers in Saint Paul

Chloë Moore

after Aracelis Girmay

you are who i love, bringing your dog to the coffee shop every morning, and welcoming touch-starved college students to love her as much as you do, and later, tacking a shakily written sign to the notice board, announcing her passing, and i love you, the responders to that same eight and a half by eleven sheet, saying, thank you, and we miss her already, and we loved her as much as you do you are who i love, making conversation with the people next to you at the front row of the concert before the show starts, talking about this band and the other, saying “see you around,” after the band leaves, making promises that we will meet again, not wishes or hopes but certainties, that yes, our paths will cross again, maybe at a different venue in another month you are who i love, you throwing a birthday party in your front lawn, inviting everyone who drives by to HONK! TOM IS 40!, and tom smiling shyly and playing cornhole, and tom, i love you too, and had i been in a car i would’ve honked, but being on foot i only waved you are who i love, drunk in the bathroom and complimenting everyone’s hair, and stumbling out of the fluorescents back into the hallway you are who i love, taking photos of the river and realizing you’ve caught friends laughing in the foreground, and airdropping the small moment, how the smiles transcend cyberspace you are who i love, bustling metropolis of neighbors, sharing saline solution and ridesharing, lending quarters for blue gatorade from the vending machine, commenting on the weather, holding doors, you, who i love, making each day a little more bearable for the ones coming up after you