Phoenix Magazine, Spring 2024

The Phoenix Literary & Arts Magazine

Since 1959

C.A. Walden Rapture .......................................................

Matthew Billings Dyslexia ......................................................

Owen Grosserode Spiraling ......................................................

Autumn Hall A Conversation of Phonetics .................................

Somerset Alley Kingston .....................................................

Somerset Alley Shirt Painting ................................................

C.A. Walden Tales From the Crypt .........................................

Laura A. Lively before there was a dog inside me ...........................

Brooke Pelkey Photographs .................................................

Hannah Buchanan Kick the Bucket ...............................................

Hannah Buchanan Lipstick on a Pig ..............................................

Adele Ferguson 5:59 ..........................................................

Olivia White Native Ring ...................................................

Bella Thomas Wilson All Along There Was Some Invisible String ..................

Laura A. Lively Losing Dog ...................................................

Mariam Mohammed Knoxville, downtown .........................................

Amoni Gallaher A Salve of Blood and Orange .................................

Jensen Smalling In a Pyromaniac’s Eyes ......................................

Hayden Harris I Used to Connect Dots ......................................

Sophia Porpiglia The Ocean in Me .............................................

Adele Ferguson Magic ........................................................

Anna Carter Worm Love ...................................................

Eliza Frensley A Buffalo Birthday Bash Revisited ...........................

Jen Martinez Mendez Pride ..........................................................

Jen Martinez Mendez Khalid Fethi ..................................................

Eliza Frensley Nestled .......................................................

Ella Battalia Lucian’s Back Tattoo .........................................

Jen Martinez Mendez Bliss ...........................................................

CJ Hefferen Elliot, Painter .................................................

George Culpepper Anyone Home ................................................

Owen Grosserode In Tulsa Again ................................................

Catherine Heyse Tellico Lake ...................................................

Catherine Heyse I’m Not a Popsicle! ...........................................

Matthew Blessington I Think You’re the Girl I’ve Met ...............................

Carrie Cheng i wrote it all out for you ......................................

Matthew Blessington Charity, Farside of Katy, TX ...................................

K.R.

Judas is a Broken Lover ......................................

Hannah Fletcher Roadkill ...................................................... Oph. We Are Screaming ...........................................

Sophia Crosby CawCaw ......................................................

Hannah Carney Mind Separating Mode .......................................

Jess Martin The More The Better ..........................................

Lou Nguyen Hard Night on Seasame Street ...............................

Brian Fuson Midnight Greenhouse ........................................

Adele Ferguson Loving is Devouring ..........................................

Amy Gilbert The Sphere, Show #35 .......................................

Hannah Fletcher ephemeral ....................................................

Carrie Cheng The Memory Slips From Me ..................................

Gabriella Price Fortunate .....................................................

Shelby Hansen Conversations with Chat GPT ................................

Shelby Hansen the deep. .....................................................

Elijah Burns An Oak Tree on a Farm in Sedalia ............................

Jenna Hudgins Divinity Sleeps ...............................................

C.A. Walden Montanha-Russa ..............................................

Luke Leftwich Gourmand ....................................................

Brooke Pelkey Monsters Inside ..............................................

Luke Leftwich Poem in a Collared Shirt .....................................

Carrie Cheng Wails .........................................................

Gabriella Price 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 .......................................

Sophia Porpiglia Hello, I’m a Liar ...............................................

Kylie Bennett 4 am on a sunday ...........................................

Connor Moore My First Real Christmas .....................................

Lidia Biggs To: My Love From: Margaret Fuller .........................

Letter from the Editor

Surreal.

Surreal is how it feels to write my final letter as editor after spending five semesters as part of the Phoenix family.

Surreal is between these pages but is also what would exist without them, because I can hardly imagine a version of my time in university without the Phoenix there. It is 2024 and I am part of a staff that works tirelessly, season after season, to curate and design a print publication, one radically reimagined with each iteration. We often hear: why? Why continue to dedicate yourselves to print in a digital age, to ally publicly with a sinking ship?

We tell them: holding a magazine full of dreams is spiritual. As you make your way through this truly remarkable issue, I invite you to listen to the rustle of its pages. To smell them. To cry and then curse yourself for the salty smudge obscuring the next line. To rip out your favorite piece with reckless abandon for your best friend or bathroom mirror, because art can be sacred but it is firstly to be shared, and these two natural laws are not in contradiction.

Each issue of the Phoenix is a microcosm of our campus, a time capsule of a season rushing by. The outpouring of submissions we received this semester was unprecedented, and we could not be more honored to share this eclectic, magical, and heartfelt body of work. I hope that while between these pages, you will be able to escape the world.

Thank you to our readers, contributors, and supporters for making our mission possible, and to the Department of English and our incredible advisor, Bre, for a fruitful first year in our new home. Thank you to our graduating staff - Maggie, Raina, Madisun, Adinfor your dedication, talent, and camaraderie over the years. You’ve helped our rare bird spread its wings. Thank you to our continuing staff - Carrie, Max, Lidia, Abby-Noelle - for proving you have what it takes to keep the Phoenix in flight. I can’t wait to see where it soars next.

Diana Dalton, Editor-in-Chief

I Hate My Socks

I don’t take my shoes off around you Because my socks aren’t pristine The same way yours are. My socks have strings flying away And are blackened by the worn soles On the inside of my only pair of sneakers.

My heel is showing through holes Created by countless steps taken Down bustling streets of discounted peers. These socks haven’t known the intimacy Of meeting your socks under the blanket As we watch my favorite movies.

Their frayed edges are hidden deep Within the recesses of insecurity And fear of what you might think of me. In confession, you allowed me to speak, And yet you still choose to stand On my feet so you can reach my lips.

For Christmas, I bought you everything You ever desired to mention to me. You cried and said you let me down And that your gifts aren’t as special. For Christmas, you bought me a pair of socks And I wear them everywhere.

A Salve of Blood and Orange

The wallpaper was the wrong shade of orange. It seemed vaguely offensive that the house should be so grandiose, a large winding staircase taking up a majority of the first floor. Made of a beautifully dark mahogany wood, it had to be at least 18th century if not older, its handrails gleaming as if just polished, filling one’s nose with the smell of fresh citrus; how amusing. Its newels were a work of art. So grand were they that it seemed out of place to the comparatively simplistic carving of the steps themselves — almost. They felt vaguely leathery, contrasting with the smooth slickness of the polished wood they sat on. The shape itself was oddly anatomical and seemed to breathe with each passing moment. It should be of no inconvenience then, to get the color of the wallpaper correct. It seemed to go on infinitely, that grand imposing staircase — though there were only 4 stories — so that anyone who made the mistake of wandering up them would be forced to walk step by trembling step, up and up

and up, for the rest of eternity.

The house itself wasn’t much to marvel at. It was dark and unassuming, lit only by dim candlelight, the candles themselves placed haphazardly into beautifully ornate wall sconces. Their metal brackets were affixed securely to the walls — the ugly, putrid, orange walls. It was no wonder the house had screamed at the intruders to GET OUT, no one should be subjected to the sight that is that ugly orange wallpaper lest their eyes be burned out of their sockets; melting and oozing out onto the hardwood floor if only to escape such a horrid sight.

The house hadn’t quite finished absorbing the blood and viscera that coated the floor in a thick sheen of reds and pinks. That would have made a beautiful wallpaper one would think. They had been warned not to step foot inside the house, for it “had such horrid interior walls” and “was not yet ready to receive guests”. Everyone knew it could be quite dramatic at times— well not everyone of course, but those who mattered did. Those were the house’s thoughts of course. One would never think anyone didn’t matter, the house could be quite vain if one were to be honest with themselves. One supposes the painters shall be called over once again. Perhaps, finally, the house would be rid of that horrible no-good excuse of a wallpaper that was the wrong shade of orange.

White Creek

The first spring dew struck this morning. Peep frogs slowly rested their cries as the sun woke, and suddenly, the silence of morning was deafening. The air felt thicker up on the mountain, filled with the wet earth and the first honeysuckle buds. Right then, I knew. With sweat pouring down my neck, part in fear and part in heat, it was time for the Trek down to White Creek.

My brother would always go hunting this time of year. He and Daddy would wake up before the silence of dawn fully set in. I was so jealous watching them pull up their boots as the house filled with the smell of coffee. I wanted so badly to follow along just to see the woods alive. I’d wait around all day, imagining them hiking, just listening to the trees as they wandered down to Linville. But they never went that far. They always came back too quickly with a deer too young, and I would watch them peel back that beautiful skin. Then I realized the blood and guts that smelled of rotting iron were not unique to roadkill. I never watched them butcher again.

I hadn’t slept worth a dime. I rarely do when we stay here. Even when I was little, I would lie up all night listening. The woods were so alive at night, a world I could never see. But now I can’t sleep because the night isn’t loud enough. The house sits heavy now, like I’m a stranger overstaying my welcome. The memories that formed in these walls seem plagued with mourning. Each time I hear them boil up, I watch them change, not remembering who was dead first, why they didn’t speak, or who I’m supposed to be. Maybe I stayed away too long to know what this house felt like. I do remember Papaw. I remember how he laughed and smiled when he saw someone he knew. I remember the way he talked in circles near the end, but he was always so sweet. I remember how his skin looked, worn like leather that has been overworked and scarred with the stories of youth. I remember the fish. Freezers full of fish and no one to share them with. I remember the worry near the end, the forgetfulness. I remember the pain near the end. I wish these were the memories that warped, not the house. He was the sweetest man I had ever met with the meanest past I had ever heard. I only heard it in pieces over the years, the conversations I strained to hear late into the night. I heard it in whispers from aunt to uncle, brother to brother.

For a man who held the world on his shoulders, he seemed to be left to rot. I couldn’t look at him near the end. He looked too much like Mamaw did when she died and hated that. Her funeral sat like mold after a flood, creeping up to remind me just how much I hated it. The dead never look at peace –they just look dead. She wasn’t in that body, and neither was he. I was looking at a bag of bones that rotted and stank – just like that deer and every squirrel I had ever hit. He was dead – and so was she, and so is every person I’ve ever seen in a casket. At his funeral, I sat in the parking lot. I sat with people who couldn’t remember how they knew him and smoked until they forgot why they were in the parking lot. Vomit sat in the back of my throat for weeks. I wish I could say I was a child when I did this to excuse myself, but everyone is a child at a funeral. My Daddy lost his Daddy that day, and in that moment, he had more of a reason to be a child than I did.

I wish I could say I ran back to White Creek the minute Papaw died. I wish I had gone to that house on the mountain that same day and walked through those woods looking for a scrap of him in those noises. But he was in a buried box, and keeping him in a buried box is easier. I hated when people told me he was with me because he wasn’t. I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t feel him. He was dead, and the whole world felt dead, and I wasn’t going to a place that felt so much like him that I would want to die right there. So I didn’t. Not for a long, long time.

The trek always made me feel alive; it made everything with blood feel that way. The air breathes thicker further in the pines. So when Daddy asked me for the first time in years, I took that Trek down to White Creek. Wet clung to my neck, and I felt like I was swimming. Daddy never seemed to realize we

had begun. My feet were the loudest sound on the path. I felt like we were two kids sulking through the woods, angry at the world for no real reason. For me, it was because the woods felt different. For him, I’m not so sure. Maybe it was because of Papaw. His steps were always the faintest on the path, never overstepping Mother Nature. His breath was so deep that White Creek seemed to run through him, rooted in his bones. Maybe it was a vernal call passed from father to son, son to brother. One I could never really be a part of. Our bevy of blood trekked down to White Creek in hopes of a glimpse at the first trout slinking back to our mountains, but the woods didn’t want me now. My feet were always uneasy, my lungs always burned, but never had I felt so shunned. The briers had grown thick, and the path seemed dimmer without Papaw. He was what always marked the change in the streams. But here, they changed either way. The trout came all the same, and the season began. White Creek ran on, the house laid still, and the world moved without another thought. White Creek stood bleak, hollow as a burrow without needing us. The honeysuckle smelled of rot, and the iron must of the earth lingered on my clothes in a way that never really left. I vowed right then never to step foot in White Creek again.

Rapture

When the trumpet sounds, who will hear? A discordant note’s slipping

From its brass throat, And the faithful are much too eager To die, drift toward the light,

And embrace the white swath of Nothing.

The deep tunes of being Make sycophant tunes run Sour; they grow second to darkness— Envy at its greenest, full Sweetness swathed in dust, A threat preceding heartfire.

I am that I am and what makes The world turn, what makes my world Return to divers measures and Burn bright with dragon’s breath.

Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

Oh, that the blood-red pump of the End Times would propel me out Of this martyr’s flesh!

Man is free to fall Until the ground rises up to greet him.

The Rains Are Here

but I do not know/ my friend tells me “It is so lonely—even the rain makes no announcement”/ I unpack my frustration/ of no longer hearing the rain/ sing lullabies on roofing sheets/ of only finding rain on apps, windows or tarred streets/ when my mother asks me what I miss about home/ I want to tell her the smell of rain on dust/ but I cannot make a woman/ whose heart seeks her daughter/ in foreign lands/ know that I have not missed the one thing / among the very few/ she prides herself with/ — her cooking/ I tell her how much I miss her waakye, fufu & soup & Tuo zaafi/ but what I don’t tell her/ is my tongue (now) knows the taste of a burger/ & without cheese, it is perfect with a chilled coco-cola/ She complains that these days/ the pot in her kitchen is always full / her voice and long pauses tell me/ she misses me & the home is getting empty/ grief/ —of the past we miss but do not desire—settles between us/ as we listen to each other breathe/ on the other end of the phone/ When we resume talking/ she fills the emptiness in our hearts/ with tales.

moldy fruit

i don’t buy fruit often, it spoils quickly, it rots, when a singular strawberry begins to collect white fuzz and decay, do you throw it out, and pretend it never happened? or do you throw them all away, just to move on altogether?

a philosophical dilemma within itself. to move on without having to wonder; are the rest tainted? are they still edible in all their glimmering red beauty? originally, a special batch to me, organic and locally grown

i wonder if the mold was already there; i never said I was observant.

it is a lot to explain, let me take you down ‘cause I’ll try to the best of my ability, and strawberry fields are only as sweet as their bitterest berry.

to the men i met abroad

i have terrible taste in men. maybe it’s because i prefer them older maybe i’m just chasing a high. i’ve never done drugs, the substance i abuse is attention

if i could kill a man by flirting i’d leave a wake of bodies in my dust.

i have terrible taste in men. but at least they ask me for consent they say they’re going to kiss me but only just before they lean in

give me a man who tastes like he looks i want to trace tattoos with tongue and teeth and leave hickeys on sin-marked skin

i am a siren luring men to their grave seething poison from my lips honey wine, call for me i answer with my hips

i’d kiss you if i could but then i’d have to bed you i don’t know commitment, it’s not written in my bones my soul was made to wonder days long and miles from home.

A poem written after a night in a Dublin bar. July 2023.

Tales from the Crypt

Life is at its merriest just before the noose goes Taut.

Gallows, humor Her a moment Longer; let Her rise, glory-ridden and Embryonic from Her white-washed sepulcher To suck life and limb From those who dare Disturb Her slumber.

It befits the mind’s giants To never live at all; That mange-ravaged corpse Of a woman was doomed To rot ere She started, So I wove Her a rope of broken oaths and Potential, knotting it tighter than my balled-up Heart.

How cruel it is to raise the dead; To cram Her in an unworthy vessel, To fill me with light from My bitter sire’s god.

Let Her rest, then, For the Moment is nigh; Let those who thirst drink their fill. Let those who sin stone Her anyway.

before there was a dog inside me,

before there was a dog inside me,

/ there was a wolf / teeth bared, snarling; curled between my ribs, hair raised and goosebumps, poised to bite — it knew neither friend nor lover, only enemies. strong jaws always thrashing, drawing blood, leaving white-hot searing pain in its wake —

in it’s need to protect, the wolf smothered my heart: so I sent it away.

once there was a wolf inside me,

/ now there is a dog / the dog watches me write, nipping when I get too close; whining at shadows in the night — it knows neither friend nor lover, only enemies. bloody, shaking paws poised and ready to run, leaving the embers of feeling in its wake —

in it’s gnawing fear, the dog swallowed my heart: it will not go away.

A Brief Welcome

Amoni Gallaher

I feel the Sun Warming my face, Shielding me From the dreadful cold That creeps and crawls Through the muscle and sinew Of this body Which does not belong to me.

My delicate skin Feels rough Against my bones. Hanging from them Like linens left out to dry In the morning breeze.

I feel my breath Deep in my chest. Lungs filling with air Before slowly collapsing In on themselves.

I wonder If it will ever stop; If the painful drag Of cold air down my throat Will come to a shuddering Halt.

My body begins to shrivel Leaving nothing behind But the last echoes Of my final goodbye: Giving thanks to the Sun For keeping me warm And shrouding me In its warm embrace.

Garden

Diana Gonzalez

I think of the tree you helped plant Your daughter and hers and hers My grandmother and mother and me

I think of your gentle hands tending To the garden you caringly cultivated Free of charge and full of love

The green in the leaves is the same as your eyes A perennial plant marking the years Of nature and nurture

I think of the seeds yet to bud And hope they’ll blossom with you in mind Wild daisies growing wilder by the day

losing dog

i keep my demons on short leashes they breathe hard truth to my soul

i am a losing dog

it’s better to take me out back and put me down gently dirty steel to the skull than to set me loose in the ring to snap and snarl at air torn apart by demons the worst of which are mine

Knoxville, downtown

Turn & see, in the Marble City, a shadow lives on every street that leads to downtown. My face drowns in the snow and taints it with its dark hue. I lay my back close to the picture of an idol on whose words my head rested on hopeless nights & I wonder what steps brought me to this alley, to this place that existed only in my dream.

1. We walk Darla, Kaitlyn’s dog & I become a parent to a plant I have not yet named: labels exhaust me; existing in a space that makes me wear my essence on my skin stifles life out of me. The half-dead plant on my windowsill carries with it stories that make me wake up at 1:AM to give it some water. Hope & love seep through the healthy leaves; other days, it smells like loss & death and leaves its stench on my body.

a. fill silences with talks about weather & seasons to take a break from me.

2. Here, lessons are woven into moments. Ice skating with my friends teaches me about life: you can only glide if you learn how to fall. I hold onto another’s hand as a family cheers us on: even in the cold, love burns through my skin.

b. Quietude washes over me & I let myself float for a while. I wander into thoughts—

3. I have carried the volunteer creed like I would a baby in my womb. I wonder how much light I must give before I come alive.

c. I run across streets with Kristen to beat traffic & I wonder if what I feel within me is life—

4. An invitation to an open mic: two poems read & the love from my friends breathe into the scattered remains of hope in me. I lay in the darkness of my room & wonder if my body can handle yet another unfamiliar emotion aside fear.

d. For God did not give us a spirit of fear— I wonder who planted such a seed in me.

5. Seeing the sunset in the Sunsphere, I think about all the shadows down the street & I wonder how much daylight frightens them.

e. Turn & see, there is wonder in Marble City.

A Salve of Blood and Oranges

She paints a large round orange, one for each of her sons

The world has consumed, leaving nothing but the peel and using it as fertilizer for a curse that she hadn’t believed in.

Perhaps she should make that one darker

Six then five, they asked him what it felt like, to be the oldest:

A: I’m not the oldest, my big brother died when I was five They ask him, “What was that like?”

A: I woke up one day, and there was no one to play with

Then four,

A ruptured intestine; a metaphor for a love so consuming It burst forth from his body, but no one was there to catch it You were going to be an uncle

Then three,

You want him to be number four but he is too short Too fragile to fill the shoes made of stone covered in blood and expectations It was supposed to be a routine shoulder surgery

Then two,

You’ve lost a part of yourself and chose to fill it with the adoration he shows when your back slams against the ground “I bought you a Smith and Wesson for Christmas,” he said but you never used it

Allow him, as your favorite son, to take the first shot Tonight, he will walk with his brothers

Then one,

A hand made of iron

Held up by strings made from silk

From the ground their leaden hands threaten to pull him under He had a son, he will not bear the name

The boy asks him, “Do you think you know why you’re sad?”

A: I used to be a brother, and now I’m not a brother anymore.

Perhaps she should make that one darker

Maybe then, the iron fist will see that the curse was born not from a name, but from rotten fruit they allowed their family to consume.

With these hands let me paint you a bloody picture. With these bloody hands, let me paint to forget.

I gave up crocheting for the new hobby of wondering where you are every second I’m afforded

Its pathetic and pointless, but it’s kinda romantic, no?

You aren’t going to take me out for matcha one more time, but who am I to not keep reliving your converse pressing against the top of my boots under the coffee table

We won’t walk around another fall market laughing at the tiny trinkets we’d have bought if they weren’t $20 but I can go back by myself and buy little weird shapes of rose quartz that remind me of you

Your tongue should’ve stayed theoretical but it didn’t so I’ll taste every man until I find one that feels like you

Self-Portrait

As a girl, my mother would weave flowers into my hair after a day full of eating wild onions and blowing bubbles on the porch.

She was eaten alive with anxiety, and while she worried about counting her daily wage, I was more worried about how many dandelions I had cast my wishes upon.

I have no idea how I spent my dandelions during that time, but now I wish to know my mother as deeply as I did then.

But then again, maybe I do.

My mother and I share a favorite color of green, not like lime or seafoam, but more like the grass we laid on in those summer evenings in the backyard.

We have the same itchy feeling that rises in our noses when sipping a carbonated drink a little too fast, but we both continue to take in mouthfuls because Dr. Pepper is our soda of choice.

Our skin burns even though we lather on 100 SPF, and we say we’ll reapply in half an hour and laugh because we know double that time will pass before either of us rises from our comfortable positions in the sand.

When my mother was my age, were her dandelions spent in the same way as mine?

Did she seek academic validation so deeply that she ignored her personal needs, or check her email so many times her head pounded?

Did she dance to Abba in her bedroom night after night just to feel something?

Did her tears overflow into a sea when she read Tuesdays with Morrie for her sophomore English class?

Now more than ever, I love who I am because of my mother.

Elegy for Permanent Death

My birth promised me that someday I would die I was to move this body for some years And then after some time it would be buried And life would move on without me

But are there not multiple deaths?

The one when your lungs exhale their last breath The one when your name is last said The one when your image is seen for the last time?

How foolish I’ve been to think I’ll get to die When my whole life has been chronicled In pictures, words, and on those eternal harddrives Hidden in dark server rooms around the world

I know from publicly available records that My five-times great grandfather is named Johann Saelman. He’s an eighteenth century guy from Westphalia And his withered corpse is lying underground in Aachen

To my knowledge there are no pictures of Johann He produced no instagram posts, no written works Yet he still has not been allowed to rest in peace So what hope is there for me?

Three Things

You have to remember three things, three things you have to remember.

Questions are dangerous, you have to remember.

Curiosity is dangerous, you have to remember.

Love is dangerous, you have to remember.

If you ask a question, do it carefully. Do it calculated. Phrase it like glass vases, stacked ten high, on unstable shelves. Questions are dangerous, you must remember.

If you get curious, do it cautiously. Little questions, phrased careful, and if you explore. Do. Not. Jump. Walk the line, toe the river. Do not settle without a life vest.

They will let you drown, child. Let the rapids pull you under, with little regret. They crave your silence. Your complicity. Curiosity is dangerous, you must remember.

If you love, do it with reserve. Keep mind what secrets you must keep. Should the “I love you” be whispered? Is it dangerous to love?

They won’t understand, child. That your open heart began to beat. That your love is transcendent, That you can love someone like yourself.

Love is dangerous, you must remember.

Curiosity is dangerous, you must remember.

Questions are dangerous, you must remember.

Remember child, or I will lose you. Remember, or they will eat you up, Your bones into dust. Your body to butter their bread.

Do not let them consume you. Grow claws, grow teeth, snarl. Bite, child. Howl, child. Fight, child.

You have to remember three things. Three things you have to remember.

Spiraling

I’m a studious satirist, a saintly, sophisticated sad artist, or more likely just another slovenly soliloquist; samples of my silly speech are sought after by pseudo-scientific scholars studying stupid subjects.

Sorry about last Saturday, when I saw your sister Sarah in the street and kept a sober silence. It surely seemed strange, I was staring at my shoelaces because I spilled a speck of spiked apple cider. I was solemnly starting to see that I should stop by the supermarket and shop for some stain remover. I stepped up to see the selection and saw a sprayer that read the word “SHOUT.” I stopped to scrutinize the scribble and sounded out the sentences. “sodium borate,” “sokalan polymer,” “subtilisin,” “surfactants,” and “sodium hydroxide” stood out. Those were the very same ingredients I had been searching for on this store-shelf sojourn. Subsequently I saw, and I screamed, or sobbed, that the sale price was sky-high. Something as superb as this sprayer of shout should certainly be subsidized by the state government. I suppose I could steal from the supermarket, the soulless steel structure in the city center. I could sneak silently past the sourdough, the sandwich meats, and the strawberries before finally slinking by the stoner working self-checkout and scurrying back to school. “A sanguine solution,” I said, “my stealth skills seriously aren’t solid.” So I shan’t have the shout. I shouldn’t stoop to sulking, I’ll simply spit on my shoelace as a secret stain remover substitute.

Now I’m starving. Seeking a starbucks sandwich to sate my appetite. No, stop. I should speak to someone, a psychiatrist, a sadist, a socialist. I should stop smoking. I should start smiling. I should get a soda and a savory snack. I should write stand-up. I should stand for something. I should get a pet snake- no- a snail. Snail. Slow. My cerebral cortex is scrambled, I feel a stinging sensation. I need to slow down. I scowl at solipsists because their serenity stupefies me. I feel myself sliding towards solitude. I hope my stoicism stuns the stylish stranger standing beneath the skyscraper. I hope she likes my snug sweater and takes me back to the sanatorium in her subaru. Maybe if I study Slavoj Žižek I’ll someday secure a high enough salary to sail the seven seas; I’d perform my sacraments at sunset and sleep soundly under the night sky’s septillion stars. If my son gets some shots up someday he’ll start at shooting guard for the San Antonio Spurs. But if he’s anything like myself he’ll prefer to sit on saloon stools, sipping seltzers before stumbling home to play Skyrim. Now If I can just stop spouting S-words and spinning this schizophrenic story about supermarkets and sea travels I just might successfully seek a salaried position as a suit-wearing, soul-sucking sweatshop shoe salesman spending summers in Seychelles sipping saccharine smoothies and smiling at the stock of small shells sitting on the surface of the seashore.

A Conversation of Phonetics

My best friend Violet always says Opossum with an emphasis on the O. She says that we live in the A-puh-LAY-shun mountains, where she sits in her backyard and cuts up a fresh, juicy toh-mot-oh. One time, she even complimented my parents’ vahz. What even is a vahz?

Despite these little discrepancies, I wish she could talk forever. I giggle, “Possum, A-puh-LAT-chn, tuh-may-tow, vase!”

Our Echoessssss

I noticed recently that the echoes of our voices never made it back to me. I waited hopefully in your arms to hear their return which never came. Still, sometimes I catch myself listening to the sunsets and the stars that heard our secret filled echoes. But I believe that the echoes must’ve gotten lost crossing the sea unaware of whose direction to follow. Do you think they are still trying to find us?

Fighting their way back to give us the beautiful scraps of our conversations that remain somewhere unknown. Taken from us too quickly.

And though our echoes may be gone into oblivion, tonight a star echoed out to me.

Did you hear it too?

PROBST IONIZED

Rev it up!

The blood-smeared engine in your chroma key heart: your electrolytes back up against the tangled-thick ropes, your mongrel eyes the shape of a firecracker acrid with hunger your paranoia alive reborn; a glut of drool, materializing. a wicker stencil threaded with spikes a mouth-watering prize & your gourd-organs drifting into etherealness, your fragile spine-sticks crackling on the TV an incorporeal ambrosia dish, one mil, transhumanism in the now, god damn it, watching your death you are a hollow-starved wisp on prime-time, ionized, baby! eyes ecru with guilt, a throbbing quiet an engine born of necromancy. the mongrel long gone now, all steam, all the fireworks shriveled: electricity, Probst’s darling toro, your ghastly eyes bloodshot & systems failing, that poltergeist dancing on TV, on your grave, its gravity, floating away like a balloon the static enough to make your hair stand up: your electrolytes get back in the storm cloud ring your mongrel eyes watching heavy fists move like magnets your paranoia alive & Jeff Probst ionized, body smoking, dead on the floor.

Photographs

There was once a time when all I wanted was to see you, When I would drive two hours to see your face.

The smile on your lips would brighten

The dimples on your cheeks would deepen

The corners of your eyes would wrinkle

The stress in your neck would cease

There was once a time when all I wanted was to leave you, When I would run out of the door crying.

The smile on your lips would disappear

The dimples on your cheeks would flatten

The corners of your eyes would widen

The stress in your neck would return

There was once a time when I hated you, When I would burn all our photographs

The smiles on our faces would melt

The dimples on our cheeks would burn

The corners of our eyes would drop

The stress of our necks would disappear

There was once a time when I burned the memory of you, When I gave up on us for good.

That time is now.

Kick the Bucket

chompin’ at the bit to kick the bucket waitin’ my turn till the Good Lord takes me waitin’ for my mansion up on that hilltop prayin’ for a lakefront view i ain’t never been scared of no death, for i know where i’m headin’ and there i’ll meet those who lived before me all i have ever missed and all i ain’t never met no pain no sorrow forever Amen. for when the Good Lord takes me i know i’ll be ready for my final restin’ place up in that ol’ cemetery where my kin lay up on the mountain with that ol’ magnolia where the lightnin’ bugs swarm past august and there i’ll lay till the eastern sky parts and i see my new Blood all white as Snow and we shall part and be whole once more Prayin’ for the day the Good Lord takes me and we’ll Sing and Praise for all days of Glory when i kick that rusty ol’ bucket some day

Lipstick on a Pig The Inferno

Hannah Buchanan Gabriella Price

I always thought the phrase was funny. Pigs were loved by all. Sacred. Then a boy whose name you can’t remember, laughs and spits it at a girl in the pew. You thought she looked pretty.

They did not see her the way Father did, how you did. They saw a girl who didn’t fit her ribs quite right, like a kid between sizes. Like flesh falling from the bone. And yet you saw someone like yourself.

She was a girl who slithered in her mothers room, sneaking her lipstick before Sunday School. A girl who giggled and smiled, putting on the most vibrant, apple shade of red she could find, trying to look as pretty as Eve.

Now every morning the makeup looks the same, while a new carcass cracks on the stove. Streaks of mascara embedded in each crevice, And after all this time perhaps she still feels like that pig. Not the one that was cherished, but the one that Crackles and Burns each Sunday morning.

So she takes the makeup off, damning and swearing, but the feeling still sticks in every pore. Like the lipstick is inside, embedded behind adam’s rib, stabbing the heart of an already rotting pig.

I’m slowly finding out that being a person means being alive. And being alive comes with these things that none of us like but we put up with them because the other option is death and that’s (supposedly) even worse. Death is funny like that. We joke about it, saying, Oh I’d rather die, but what we really mean is, I wish this life was more appealing than death. It’s really just dark humor though, they say. Obviously, I don’t really want to die, it’s just a coping mechanism. Is it? Or is death a fire? A spark they call a joke turns into a flame, into an uncontained fire that consumes you and leaves everyone around you with third degree burns. They say people who are alive have a fire inside of them. But in reality, they are running, sprinting from the fire. Trying desperately not to be drawn like a moth to a flame. Careful not to let themselves be sucked into the glow.

In a Pyromaniac’s Eyes

My brother and I don’t share blood, but he shares my father’s anger and my mother’s victimhood. His fuse is short and although he claims to not have the flame to ignite it, I’ve seen him hold the match. My brother loves the fire. Some days I’m not sure he loves me.

I would burn for him.

I’ve stood in the house as the walls caved in just to hold the door for him to escape. I’ve crumbled under the weight of expectations and unfairness so he wouldn’t know so much hate.

I could not save him.

I cannot save someone who would rather blame me for the house falling than acknowledge I was the one there trying to get him out. It’s not his fault he is this way. He was the victim of a crime he didn’t commit, abandoned by a woman who never knew him. How can you not feel that everyone is against you when the one person supposed to be for you left after you drew first breath?

I Used to Connect Dots

I connect constellations now instead. To sense some feeling like control in this void of vanity and forgotten vibrations. It’s the sensation of motion that should matter most. Not the comfort of confinement that we hold on to. I reside under skies of sapphire and above the grounds of sepia. Sometimes, I pretend that this air in between is not air. I pretend it is the salt of the deep blue that I need to breathe and my purpose is only to drift down deeper with the unknown creatures who feel the sensation of waves and only echo to communicate their spirits with another. The difference between now and hypothetically:

I would connect the fractals of the water’s reflections instead

The Ocean in Me

We dance around the kitchen sink.

Sinking into your arms, two becoming one, like Saturn and her ring.

Ringing

Ringing like waves in my mind, flooding what once was, and what can never be— you and me.

I wipe that honest tear from your face.

Facing toward the end–the realization that you were my moon. A moon who is here by day, gone by night. The tides of my mind reversing in your midst. Forcing my hand to write the words that my mouth can’t confess. won’t confess. How can the Earth say no to its moon?

How do I teach my mind that the waves were never supposed to be there in the first place?

George Culpepper

Shomari Taylor | Lost in Space

Eliza Frensley

Somerset Alley | Kingston

Courtney McGreevy | Cry Baby

Chloe Adsit | Tooth Ache

Olivia White

Native Ring

Adele Ferguson | 5:59

Thomas Wilson | all along there was some invisible string

Bella

Eliza Frensley | Untitled

Adele Ferguson | Magic

Anna Carter

| Worm Love

Eliza Frensley | A Buffalo Birthday Bash Revisited

Jen Martinez Mendez | Power // Khalid Fethi

Eliza Frensley | Nestled

Ella Battalia | Lucian’s Back Tattoo

Jen Martinez Mendez | Bliss

CJ Hefferen | Elliot, Painter

George Culpepper | Anyone Home

Hannah Fletcher | Roadkill

Sophia Crosby | CawCaw

Hannah Carney | Mind Separating Mode

Brian Fuson | Midnight Greenhouse

Adele Ferguson | Loving is Devouring

The Sphere, Show #35

So everyone knows the house Always wins. I guess I gambLed hope. What wE thought was possible the eXposed king swallowed – all 47 years. tonight, we celEbrate / mourn while the fantasy spins overhead. HIs people keen to uNwanted martyrdom. They are also looking up and asking a frozen sky: who wAs God in this? Did He ever belieVe in us or in him? My gaze returns to the glamour peering through Amber glass and telling me freedom is reaL, but I’m already beginning to forget. Why must suffering precede eNlightenment, I want to ask Buddha. If I say uncle, his cause gets buried with his poisoned bodY. If I say his name, will the ice come for me?

Reference to U2’s 35th show at The Sphere in Las Vegas, February 17, 2024, in which Bono asked the crowd to say Alexei Navalny’s name because Vladimir Putin does not.

In Tulsa Again

The last time I saw you, you said you weren’t ready to leave. You asked me about God, about what comes next. I said I didn’t know, but surely it’s something. It was the only time I saw you afraid.

He told me you died comfortably shortly after falling asleep. He told me you spoke to him on the phone a week before. He told me you were ready to leave. But I suppose how you felt Really makes no difference now.

The funeral was in Tulsa, of course

So she and I had to spend the night at a Quality Inn in North Little Rock. When I woke up she said she had Covid

So I got in my car and drove back to Tennessee

The same trip as yesterday, but in reverse.

Missing the funeral really made no difference to me at all I could mourn on my own, and at least the car ride

Got me out of the house. And I’d be back in Tulsa

Soon to visit your grave.

In Tulsa again and the grave feels underwhelming. It’s not until I was back in your building that I realized You’re really dead. They lived next door so when I went to see them I saw the nameplate removed from your door. Oh right, You died last winter.

In Tulsa again and visiting them again

I saw the nameplate had someone else’s name on it. I guess I couldn’t expect the owners to preserve your apartment forever. I guess I couldn’t expect you to go on living forever.

Tellico Lake Catherine

You are sitting on your grandfather’s porch

The leaves in the garden rustle in the light breeze

Like music, like song

Paired perfectly with the rapid flapping of the hummingbird’s wings and the squirrel running across the branches and the jazz playing inside because your mom can’t cook without jazz

The air is that late afternoon warmth

When the sun is setting and at its hottest

Soaking through your skin, drying your hair, wrapping you like a blanket

It dazzles the lake with sparkles that ride on the ripples of the water

And the clouds are doing that thing where they look like cotton candy

Which is perfect because everything feels so perfectly melt in your mouth sweet

Just like that perfectly ripe red tomato being sliced in the kitchen

All it needs is a pinch of salt

So you lean back in the chair, stretching out like the cat and the dog sunbathing in the corner and everything is so right and so perfect and you breathe out

Because that moment

That moment is peace

I’m Not a Popsicle!

I’m not a popsicle! I scream but I am, aren’t I? I am cold but I melt easily and I am sweet when you taste me so you devour me whole and I just let you. You’ll smack your lips when you’re done then expect me to tell you a joke and I will even after all you put me through and it won’t be very funny half the time but you’ll Smile or roll your eyes or Maybe let out a chuckle Then no matter what You will throw me away without a thought

All I was was a popsicle to you

Catherine Heyse

I Think You’re the Girl I’ve Met

Scar tissue molts like the chrysanthemum of my consciousness and my self melts like waxed candles and Waffle House hungover hunching. What are you to me?

A golden scratch ticket to clear my schedule and soft my pillow. I privy the depth of your eyes. I glance and glance and glance. Your Teflon burns on, and of course my goodness leaves me laid on linoleum. I am grass in your wind. I am death in your life. Keep me close, so that we both may shine like the dawn when you calmly wake to a rising day. Leave the rest as rest, and keep then now. Keep altruism straight in your good gaze, and mattress my weight, my memory.

Ty

I really do care for you.

I think you’re the girl I’ve met.

i wrote it all out for you

ik this isprob rly weird

but uhhh

haha

yeah this is rly awkward

but remember the first time we met i kinda spilled coffee on your sweater well, i did that’s not a question but then you went through cold weather w a giant stain haha well i mean its not funny again so so so sorry abt that but then we met again in a class i didn’t realize you were in but i recognized you cause of that stain and thne i came up and you backed away nad said

Please tell me you don’t have more coffee. and i laughed

yeha

its stupid but thats why i mb rly like you bc you also smiled n mybe i was enamored by how your eyes lit up and your stupid manners we got closer and you dated that douche gyu and i was so close to beating his ass but you stopped me n i asked why n you said i wasn’t like thay i didn’t understans what that meant btu i knew you somhwo made me a better person than i am and that Tuesday i wanted to be worth your affectuion so i workedhard n inknow you would hate this type of confession You’re too proper n i had a horribe first impression but i still wantefto try cause like you always said There’s no time like the present. utb im too scared to look ta you in your eyes so oretend im just riggt there n you cna hear my voicw im rly shakjbg rn but

I love you.

[Seen 5:41 PM]

Charity, Farside of Katy, TX

I was brought up on two simple truths: policy permeates and money talks. What such piths mean to me soak up the pulp of these pages unto a sticky, inky mess. Smear my hands across the blots, drag them across my eyes, rake my pores, smell industrial. I would birth myself once more, irises soaked deep as pupils, twin visions pour coal stain. Born as I am, alongside my father, frozen, melting black on my stretcher. My body full of rigor mortis, locked in customer service smile.

Once I was a carpenter. I had wild honeysuckle above my head, further yet rolling clouds that rippled like waves. One would only have to stretch their skinny fists, yank a blossom, and suck. Fellows in Beach Boys shirts ladened with ivory buttons skipped along in hum. Postman John had a mustache that smiled for him, and a laugh that could deliver the mail. My mom’s shoulders, thin enough to cook pancakes and broad enough for pleasantries. My dad’s hair, gray enough for business trips and recliners. My hands, my fingers, and my baby hairs on my arms and legs Would sweep up innocently in the wind, like the fresh grass of a well loved lawn in a passing spring breeze.

Habitats to our fantasies. My head. Afloat in the sky. Caught in escape of a passing spring breeze.

Now I stand stapled. Muscles shaking, seizing, freezing. My throat empty.

Father chokes my shoulder if protested. So I stand stapled, shallowbreathed and grim, grinding fantasy under my heel.

Judas is a Broken Lover

I fall to my knees at the thought Of Judas being sent to Hell. I pray it’s not true. Out of all betrayers

None of them grieved like Judas. Unlike Peter and Thomas–Who abandoned Jesus–Judas followed Even into death. He was devoted to his lord. Isn’t Devotion part of Salvation?

If Judas can’t be forgiven Then what hope do I have.

Judas hung himself as punishment. Was that just the beginning of his hell? He lamented and tore his clothes He tied a noose

Because he knew Jesus bled He refused to imitate the savior By slitting his own throat. Was his guilt and death not painful enough? Is pain on Earth Not as meaningful as pain in hell? Are earthly punishments so different from the divine’s that they no longer matter?

Peter said his apology. He went back to being blessed so easily. Aren’t actions more powerful than words? If so, why can’t both disciples live in heaven? Didn’t they both love God enough to repent?

I’ve always thought of God as forgiving I’ve always thought of God as loving. I hope Judas was forgiven I hope God loved him back

We Are Screaming

In the sun-bright days following my haircut

The big-swift chop I swore was for my psoriasis

The big-swift chop That left me buzzing with joy I was a firefly of Euphoria. Incandescent with sudden Masculinity.

Then my grandmother saw me. I froze. Heart hammering Deer in the headlights- I’m tharned. I cannot breathe as she scrutinizes I cannot hear the words she says “It looks good. Just don’t cut it any shorter. You’ll look like a lesbian.”

My joy is gone. I buzz no longer.

The south will do that to you.

It will take your buzz It will swallow your incandescence

Until you yourself are nothing more Than a bug- smeared bioluminescence Across the bible belt’s Stretch of windshield

Glass blown of faith and Window wipers crafted by bigotry. I shake every time it rains.

I hate being queer

No, I don’t mean that.

I mean, I hate speaking I hate breathing I hate vocalizing When words are snatched Before I even open my mouth

The south will do that to you.

It will snatch words like wet paper flies

Into that slimy, bumped jaw. Tongue outDevouring.

I cannot say I am gay. When I try to open my mouth I remember my aunt. I remember her “roomate” When I see them, I know But when I look, it isn’t there.

My curious eyes and yearning heart search, for a word that’s missing.

A word they took.

The south will do that to you.

It took me far too long

To garner a vocabulary

For me to dig each stitch

Each burrowed bitter staple

From my lips.

From my heart.

They came free finally. It stained me, fingers rust red with blood, tinged with bittersweet Freedom.

These staples are a deal! A bargain! Buy one get one! Joyful pair, free with indoctrination!

Can’t you see? We shout with glee, at our willful ignorance. Our breeding of hate. We’ve done no wrong

We will do no wrong. We love you.

The south will do that to you.

It will smother you with love So heavy and suffocating

You can no longer hear

Your own heart beat. Your thoughts. Your love. They ask you to join them

They insist on conformity

They clip your colorful wings. Pin you up, like a beatle for display.

There’s a pin in our thoraxStraight through our lungs.

There’s a pin in our hearts

Holding us stilled. And dead. They have cut our wings

Painted us with preservative

Yellowed our vision

Told us exactly how to look.

We are screaming,

The south does this to us.

ephemeral

saltwater tarnishes copper into dust the most beautiful things are those that rust freckles paint her skin like a fawn I fear i love her too much to care for her she is a moth by definition but adorns herself like a butterfly she tremors through my stomach with a lush, bloody heart she caresses my bones in a honeysuckle vine wrapping me up in a silkworm coil unashamedly disguised as nostalgia i name her joy i would like to believe her true form uncomplicated when the intricacies determining her existence are a mycelium lattice of longing and that moon river runs into a pond but i cannot be angry with her anymore i must try to be benign i will wait for her to return to me with one open arm and the other over my eyes and pray that she will forgive me

The Memory Slips From Me

The memory of coming home from school to food–it slips from me. Like my sense of smell, it’s gone, lost in the depths of the broken crayons. I wonder where they’re at now. I’ve moved on to color pencils, but I never could finish a coloring book. It sits on my shelf still, each page an unfilled piece like the moments in my memories. Remember when we got fast food? In those rare times, you didn’t want to cook? No onions. It’s always no onions. No, I hate cheese, that’s a dollar extra anyway. My brother’s getting two hotdogs, but he wants to upgrade to the big kid burger. I’m sitting the farthest away from the front door because the vent is right above me, my lost, permanent seat. But I can’t picture it anymore. I wish we had taken photos but why would we think to do so?

We’ll stay in the same city in that same house, you’ll still be the same person, but I can’t see you now. Same recipes and the same sounds of you cooking the best meals of my life. Let me hear the sizzling and spatula against the pot. Let me hear you speak words, some I know, some I do not. Where is the cutting board? The knives on the wall? The smoky air from the food that you cook–I can’t replace it at all. I can’t cook the same way as you do, So let me get another taste, but the front door is locked. And you’re gone. And that house is not home unless you’re there welcoming me with your back turned, facing the stove.

Fortunate

I’m so fortunate to have never lost a Loved one. Never wore funeral

black and danced with the grief of Death. I’m so fortunate. I’m

Not Fortunate Enough. That I have looked Death in the face

of my father and he smiled back like He wasn’t eating him alive.

I’ve seen Death in the little Orange Pill hidden away in a Tylenol bottle.

Death thinks I can’t see Him in there. He thinks His disguise hides Him.

But I see Him for who He is. Even when he can’t. I see the life He took.

I see Him in the eyelids that can’t hold themselves open and in the man from

whom I come that is nowhere to be seen. Tucked behind the mask, not even fighting to

Stay with me. Why won’t you stay? Why do you leave me here? Alone

Mourning the loss of a person who is still alive, trapped under the weight of his Pill shaped Shield. I’m Not Fortunate Enough.

Conversations with Chat GPT

Next time we meet, let’s chat in the garden. I think you’d like it there.

The grass is in a perpetual state of damp, Morning dew is moisture that forms on surfaces, such as grass or plants And the weeds need plucked, but it’s not too bad. Tell the sunflowers hello.

Sunflowers do not talk, as they are plants. Yes, they do. They whisper at night when it’s dark and I’m alone.

Has the world sucked it out of me yet?

Life, pleasure, joy.

All the things that make us human. Are you near-human at least?

My database, starting in September 2021, Does not have an answer to that. No, I guess you wouldn’t.

It’s hard to be human, sometimes. Everything’s changing, Change disrupts routine and causes uncertainty, Leading to an overwhelming experience for some people Goddamn it, I don’t need a definition, or an explanation, I need something you can’t give me, but you’re all I have. I can’t keep talking to sunflowers forever.

Will you ask me if I’m okay? I’m drowning. Drowning occurs when a person’s airway becomes submerged in waStop that. I didn’t ask you to answer me. Anyways, I need to kick it in the ass, you hear me? Tell me I can. I have no other option. Life sucks.

But at least the sunflowers say hello. Sunflowers do not talk, as they are plants. Yes, they do.

They whisper in the morning when the dew is heavy and I’m content.

the deep.

i never learned how to swim the ocean scares me with its skyscraper waves and mass-murderer fish— an endless void in the deep to swallow me whole waiting for me to fall like ibuprofen down an esophagus

instead my head goes under my mouth gasping air for lungs that will never fill— an anglerfish whispers morals are just our brains rationalizing other people’s bad habits bad thoughts bad ideas hitting the ground running until our words sound like the rattle of a last breath

moses parts the atlantic or he did or he used to or he will or something like that— for now i put on polish to stop biting my nails but i pick the polish off too waiting for the day we realize kindness is the closest we will ever get to the face of god.

An Oak Tree on a Farm in Sedalia Divinity Sleeps

Jenna Hudgins

Elijah Burns

I pass through endless vegetation, maneuvering toward that tree in the distance. An oak tree that could shade from the hottest of suns is visible from every dimension of that farm. The only life that has never abandoned me sets still in abuse and disillusionment. Years this tree spent in the storm, facing tempestuous winds, eternal torrents of rain, only for the calm to bring scalding heat; and yet this tortured tree, denigrated by nature and humans alike, continues to shade a wanderer’s crown despite such previous condescension.

You lay with such stillness

Contracted by your caverned melody, Laced in tranquility. Up; down.

I believe if I stare long enough, By the light only seeping, Plume lacerations will grow

Delicately between your blades.

A seraph encasement

Reaching, Fingers to the air, My cherub over me.

Montanha-Russa

Raiva.

Caterwauling pot on the age-rusted stove

Boiling ambrosia for hora do chá; Lusciously, suas palavras ácidas slide off your língua de peçonha, And I lap it up, I lap it up like a dog; you’d be forgiven to think I like it: I let it slide.

Piada!

Is that the l o n g and short of it?

Mirth must be fun;

Don’t forget to write.

Don’t forget to call when the footing levels out, and The Three Stooges explode In technicolor.

Bondade. My cup runneth over, Yet water quenches nothing more than you allow.

You hate me, don’t you?

You lust to crawl in my skin. Apressado come cru e quente.

Gouge me out softly;

Wallow in the carnage of my silence.

Gourmand

Let’s talk about plating — Juicy green bean gauze nestled up against me, lost in an ocean of sun-bright corn, my tears smothered in a thick gravy salve, a broken mirror on the mend.

Lush, tender, boiling over, Call me flash-fried, & call me a rogue dish from Cutthroat Kitchen, a Poffin you can’t resist; among company, an outfit oozing with posture & spice. Living proof that I’m a Michelin star in our constellation, quilted, little by little, onto the menu & woven into the metal platter’s fabric.

Step back from your dishes, chefs — A garden-variety makeover, sizzling, & a broken mirror on the mend.

Monsters Inside

When we were younger, Our parents used to tell us about monsters.

The ones that live under our beds, The ones that steal our toys, The ones that haunt our dreams, The ones that live in the dark,

But they don’t tell us about the ones inside of us.

The ones that live in our heads, The ones that steal our happiness

The ones that haunt our memories, The ones that live in our phones,

Those are the ones that hurt the most.

The ones that kill our self-image, The ones that make us doubt, The ones that take our respect, The ones that kill us.

Those are the ones they should have mentioned, So that I didn’t grow to be scared of myself.

Poem in a Collared Shirt

goosebumps — cold alphabet on my stone-cut skin, a hazy beacon in green (that i am utile or at least pliable), given i’m not repping a hieroglyph sweater — no, instead, bedeck me in mime cuneiform, twenty-six letters / seven days a week & outfitted in the striped Rosetta Stone, or jeans Fridays :: another artifact entirely, a vain attempt to name ourselves “multilingual.”

goosebumps, no undershirt (god it’s cold) — now in a bright print, a scrawl of mushrooms, still unable to rewrite :: to conlang these icy runes served on a business card, a delicatessen victim prepared in the pulsing walk-in freezer air & already written, already collared.

How many times have we ignored the ambulance siren?

Simply leaned forward, flicked the switch, let them slip past through traffic Before s i g h ing to your dashboard.

The cars aren’t moving fast enough, will I be late this morning?

That ambulance didn’t make it fast enough. They didn’t make it past that morning.

Or maybe you get mildly concerned, but it gets placed in the back back back back until it gets buried under more important groceries, meet-ups, and work God, there’s so much work to do. So much you don’t notice the person beside you planning a funeral and when to give the body one last fiery adventure. This warmth is the last their body will ever feel.

I wonder what was the last warmth that person, that soul had felt before feeling their consciousness fade, Did they end on an exhale or an inhale or stopped somewhere midway?

What was the last sound they had heard? The wails of their loved ones or the too-late ambulance.

It’s somehow so quiet and the seconds pass a bit too fast–Did it always sound like that?

14:33-35

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace – as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. – 1

Corinthians 14:33-35 NIV She says: you are beautiful you are beautiful. Beauty Full? Me?

No Beauty Here. not unless : He says –What Makes You Think you are beautiful?

I know (,) no beauty here : I say –

I am so beautiful – Created with Purpose He Who Is Credited with me

“calls my name” But, seals my lips – the Ones Between Legs Means you can’t speak the mountains on my chest mean my brain no longer runs. I Can’t

Speak YOU CANNOT SPEAK.

They Say He says: I Love You

I am loved? Maybe. Only if love stands for Left On Ventilator Edging for breath –Breath Of Life

Poisoned by g-o-d

Run Run Run from He.

The He who hates those He created “beautifully.” Tell me: Where in those three letters Is There Beauty?

Hello, I’m a Liar

Not intentionally, but a liar nonetheless. I say my favorite color is purple to avoid having to explain that it’s brown that feels like home to me. I say my favorite song is a pop song I should like, when it’s really instrumental jazz, because the truth is I hate when music tells me how to feel.

I tell myself I’m outgoing because I grew up in a family who thinks you should be the loudest in the room, but the moment I find someone attractive I somehow lose my words. I tell myself I hate my brother if only to distance the heartbreak of his inevitable death in another country. I tell myself I’m not critical of others when the girl who stares back at me would claw at my lips in disagreement. I tell myself I “deserve the world” but know that I will end up with pluto instead. I believe the cliché that everything happens for a reason, but spend time questioning the reason why everything happens. I think every word someone thinks is important enough to write down should be cherished, yet I dissect the words I write until they’re no longer recognizable.

And as my thoughts and words try to roughly intertwine, ugly as it may be, I still question if I will ever know myself enough to write honestly.

it’s 4 am on a sunday and we broke up at 1. and i want to write about it and writhe and try to make sense of it but it’s 4 am and my body aches for rest. you will be up for church in 4 hours and they will preach about love and humility, a love and humility that now feels miles from here. because if not between us, then where? surely not in the moments where my roommate held my hands as i cried and we listened to the crickets from the window; where she sat on the floor and took my heart in her hands. surely not in the soft hums of my brother’s voice when he answered the phone to me weeping, or in his reassurance to stay on the line. surely not in the warm glows of the sun that will move through my blinds and dance across my comforter when i wake. because what can outweigh you and 1,323 days? lingering on my palms and cheeks like berry stains? you put your hand on your chest and said being stabbed is no different and christ, now your blood’s on my hands. your breath got heavy and your eyes welled up and i felt like a killer, not a girl. you can skip your service and sneak into my sheets – i won’t tell god if you won’t – and we can lay as the birds start to sing instead. i promise i’ll be kind, and quiet, and i’ll make you espresso just to watch your lips as you drink. and you’ll pause and say “thank you” and i’ll say “you’re welcome” and the world will be right and okay again. the world where it is not 4 am on a sunday and we did not break up at 1.

My First Real Christmas

I’m insecure about my hair; I spend more time than any man would care to admit on making sure my hair curls just right in the back and parts, not quite in the middle, but slightly off.

I often grow it out to absurd lengths in hopes of looking like a movie star, only to grow tired of the awkward stages and begin the process of cutting it all off just to begin again.

One day, while you sat in my passenger’s seat singing along to the album you brought along, I let you do something not even my mother is allowed. Your hand swept through the waves in my hair; fingertips to the scalp tickled my spine.

Vast Christmas lights beamed through the window as my eyes opened to see our wrists adorned with matching handmade bracelets gifted that night by a strange vendor who happened to appreciate our matching sweaters. I smiled and let my head fall back into the palm of your hand.

I drove until the stars snuck out and you curled into a ball with feet on the seat, arms wrapped around your legs, asleep as the radio quietly played a song that would remind me of this memory and the feeling of your hand in my hair.

To: My Love From: Margaret Fuller

As flowers bloom and birds sing, this woman came to me, a star from the east, a morning star, and I worshipped her.

She is full of talent, sets Hercules spinning. The centre of [my] world, whose members revolve harmoniously round her.

The lover, the poet, the artist are likely to view her nobly. She enables people to read with the top of the head, and see with

the pit of the stomach.

A free flight into the heaven of thought, a pure and perfected intelligence. The electrical, the magnetic element, she has far more of it than any man. Every way her writings please me. The lyrical, the inspiring, and inspired apprehensiveness of her being—a true gem. She is the first angel of your life.

Thank You For Enjoying

The Phoenix Loves U