It bubbles and gurgles
flipping and turning
not breathing but still living
wonderful species in the vast blue
It goes to a school, not to learn, of course
but to explore the plants that look like colorful trees in the blue.
hoping that it won’t find itself in a steaming hot situation.
It’s an illusion that you can start over.
When I was a kid, my brother had a lego set
of Taipei 101. I wonder what it’s like
to be the biggest thing in the world for just five years.
I fold up silly thoughts like these in thirds and
stack them in the playroom closet with other excuses
for calling Mom, because “I miss you, I love you,
I’m sorry,” still aren’t enough for me.
You still don’t understand me?
I learned what betrayal meant at nine years old;
not through tapes of Japanese baseball games,
though I’m sure the Rangers were losing a game that night.
I remember when Nelly Cruz broke my heart in 2011
and it’s easier to say he’s the reason I can’t trust men.
I’ve lost count of how many times
my sister has seen me at my worst.
I’m leaving.
A man in the movie says “That used to be a vegetable store…
now look at all these cars here.”
I wonder what the Northwest version is of “I remember
when there was a cornfield there, but now it’s a Walmart.”
What used to be in the ground beneath the Safeway,
if the sky is hazy with dirt from digging up the old Tacoma
or smoke from Canadian flames.
Not tonight.
Gambling’s for suckers and deadbeats and
I think I must be both because
I’m betting on myself the way the singer
on my new CD bets on losing dogs,
the way my uncle bets on pocket aces with pink Starbursts
and my friend bets I’ll love this movie he loves.
Not everyone can be a winner, I suppose.
I’ll get confused again if I stay.
There was lightning last night
as I drove south on new tires and dark pavement,
fog that turned the streetlights dusty gray.
Sometimes I want to drive eleven hours
to the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts and never come back,
but my steering wheel still veers to the left
even when I’m driving straight. I should get that fixed.
I need to think clearly.
Maybe this poem is too specific, but please tell me
has ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD ever found themselves
in Olympia, Washington, of all places,
maybe wearing black Converse or Eddie Bauer jeans or a leopard print top,
snotty nosed and red eyed over nothing in particular???
Maybe you bought a present for your friend’s birthday
and ate pizza outside while reading a book you’re scared to finish.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes lately.
I’ve never been to Taiwan but I’ve stood on rooftops with boys
I might have loved but shouldn’t have.
It feels gross to admit but I’m grateful to them
because they all loved movies (I guess I have a type)
and now I love movies, maybe more than I ever
could have loved any of them, or anyone else
ever again.
Nobody warned me.
I miss my best friend so much it hurts sometimes.
I know that’s just a thing people say,
but sometimes when I’m crying in a movie theater,
my chest feels so heavy I can’t move.
And if I had her there to hold my hand
the sad scenes might be easier to bear
or at least I’d have someone crying with me.
I need to think.
The calendar on the wall will say November soon,
and Marilyn Monroe deserved better, and
Shelley Duvall deserved better, and
all of us deserve so much better.
she/they
twitter: @sorryimaleo
for Greta
The stairwell by the doorway
bears your scent
& all the colors of the rainbow
light under my lids
How lucky am I that this
synesthesia is a present one
That even in my 21st year
I needn’t recall, only exist
Michaela is an EFL teacher based in Vigo, Spain. Her work has been published in Laurus Magazine, The Fourth River, and The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative. You can find her on Twitter @mikienbrown.
What is not built in stone does not last. In the north, the woodland was a wash of old growth atop the corpses of tens of thousands; the bog as much blood and spit as marshwater. The depths, deep within its inexhaustible woodland, perched the modest tower rested upon the piles ashes of wars past that once made his home. There was his name. South, the land of sun and open field, where men wore honor as plate and women courtesy as dress. He would confront the father who gave him life and return nameless and pure to the one who gave him honor.
He knew by the road that where merchants wore steel, no good man was safe. Winter had reached the spirit of the land well before the seasons brought it. The woodland was dotted with the ruin of recent exploit—torn palisades, charred keeps, leveled holdfasts all. What is not built in stone does not last.
Summer days basking in the creek, sparring in the shadow of the tower above. Autumn scents, canopies of oaken green turned to fiery bronze, the chill of a lasting wind that no stone nor flame could stave out, save for the flames of war. The cane, the buried mother, the bruises born from the man’s cups. The forest ate what it could kill, as any man did for its prey. The lessons of his father the northerner, which ebbed to his surface. The thought of his coming salvation and disownment, which warmed his heart against the bitter cold.
The foot of the hill that led to his tower. The human carrion, the traces of raid, the weathered sight of a forgotten battle. The peak of the hill of his holdfast, sky unobstructed, unmarred by the intercession of towering, drab stone. “What is not built in stone does not last,” his father had once said. He buried him, consigned the skeleton that wore his sword under the earth to meet the bog, to join the tens of thousands and to feed the wood that took him. The forest ate what it could kill, and wasted nothing. Not even stone could last the wood.
Twitter @rlcolem.
Ryan is a hobbyist of the pen & student in philosophy, writing for his local paper and in prose for endless hobbies that serve his career in no way whatever.
steamed egg pudding vanilla yogurt
chocolate protein drink pink smoked
salmon white toast shredded pork
topped oatmeal cheesecake sautéed
beef noodles caramel swirl ice cream
isn’t it remarkable that after you remove
the bones and seal the bubbled blood
everything still tastes like flesh
like the body knows what to miss
Erika Jing is a student & writer based in the east coast suburbs despite her love for cities. Her work is featured in Eunoia Reviews & forthcoming in sinθ. Twitter: @erikajwx & Instagram: @erika.jxw
At 11am I muttered my
Goodbyes ‘cause I couldn’t
Be in the room when you died.
At 1pm a tired ICU nurse gave me
A soda and a cookie to snack on
In the beige, empty room of waiting.
At 3pm I heard the quiet cries of
My Mom from around the corner.
And that’s when it became clear:
You’re gone. My Dad’s really dead.
Kayla “El” J is a disabled poet studying writing at her university in southern Georgia. You can find her work in Heartbalm Lit’s forthcoming issue “Echoes and Bellows.” Twitter: @kaylaemedia
Why did you
smash the plate?
It’s curved
edges cracked, smashed,
exploded into tiny,
little shimmery
pieces of thorns.
On its shelf,
recently cleaned,
it could have stayed.
Alexis Crafts is a third-year university student from Western Massachusetts. She has words in Ice Lolly Review, Celestite Poetry, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @crafts_writing.
Sometimes I meet other parents in the children’s hospital who make me feel like my son’s leukemia is a blessing, who would trade away their souls for his odds. They hover like ghosts in the family kitchen where I go for coffee. Always different parents. They say soon they’ll either be taking their child home or following the body to the morgue. On my next coffee run they’re gone, and I never know which thing they did.
So I tell myself they took their child home, glide back to my son’s room, force on my ghost’s smile, my ghost’s gratitude.
Dustin Michael and his wife share blogging duties at https://phinphans.blogspot.com, where they write about their son, Phin, who was recently diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
Wood smoke, coffee and Kenny G. These are the keys, to the caverns, to the depths, to those most holy of places unsullied by consciousness. Here I sit, as the tastes and smells slowly, oh so slowly fade away. Phantasms dance before my eyes, faster and faster, savagely, frantically, celebration is in the Air.
They are afraid, these wraiths, for the night ages fast. They dance on, aware, oh so painfully aware, that when the first light comes, they must fade away. So here I sit, wallowing but helpless for dawn approaches and reverie fades away.
Alex Tamei is a writer who almost always has his nose buried in a book and only ever looks up to admire the passing beautiful things in life.. He blogs at manenoz.com under the moniker tea&Insanity
At the old camp in Dollar Bay, before any of us were old enough to legally drive a car, we could be left to our own devices for a day or two at a time. My mother gave us boys’ and girls’ tasks. I had to dig in the garden and pull up the weeds, plant the flowers, load the dishwasher, vacuum all the rooms. The boys cleaned off the roof in the winter, set up the boat dock in the spring, changed the oil in the car, fixed anything I broke. I wanted to help, wanted to do anything they could do.
We all pulled the waterlilies clogging the shoreline, it was boys’ and girls’ work, apparently. I let the boys handle the shovels to pull up the stinking roots and I tossed them on the shore, on the dock, in the inner tubes we’d tethered nearby, our lake shoes sinking in the muck. We picked around the frogs who enjoyed the weather on the bay. Every summer, they got used to us after a few days, and we left their favorite waterlilies alone. I wanted to keep as many of the pale pink and purple flowers as I could, leaving them to petal open on the dock. We argued about what shade of purple it was, lilac or lavender, but mostly we spent too much time together to talk all the time, just listening to the water and complaining about the lily roots and waving at the boats that rolled by.
Later, we’d wash off our pruny fingers and the boys would check the fireplace, I’d make sure we had food for dinner. If there was trash to take out or wood to gather, I might act as if I were about to lift the bag myself, or I’d look sideways at the woodshed, or the axe.
“You’re kidding,” the boys would say. “Be smart.” Or, “Ah, little weakling, we won’t let you do that yourself.”
I’d go back to check the lilies I’d left on the dock, but I’d often forget and find them picked at by passing, curious birds—one day, a treat for a curious bald eagle—or they’d be wilted, then crisped by the sun, decorating the dock like it was leading somewhere.
I never had to ask to be taken care of, my main task was to tend to the small, beautiful things. And the way the boys took care of me, it was clear that their task was the same.
Katrina Otuonye (she/her) is a writer and editor from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She is working on a memoir about grief and silence. Twitter: @katrinaotuonye; Portfolio: katrinaotuonye.com
When we met, he asked me why I played piano with the lights off. It’s how I focus, I said. I didn’t say then that it felt like falling, dropping into that space between the keys and the sound once everything else went away. I didn’t say that it kept me from tearing my skin off. The notes escape their notation. It’s playing hooky from gym class, running instead along the lakeshore, leaping roots and stones, letting branches hit your outstretched fingers as you go. Good game, good game, good game. But without imperative.
These days he listens to me pull myself apart song by song. I can sink beneath the surface but I can’t keep myself there. I don’t know how to ask him. But he kneels behind the bench, wraps one arm lightly around me, and rests his chin on my shoulder. “My love,” he says. “Let me help.”
I nod. I lift my hands from the keys and let the sound go.
I kneel on the bed. He ties the knots with intention, guiding the twin lengths of rope so that they lay parallel against my skin, wrapping my chest and pinning my elbows behind me, each cradled in the other. My breaths slow and lengthen and push against the tension in the rope. I smile. He looks back at me, tethering me to him. In one hand he holds the blindfold, and with the other he leans me back against the pillows. I sink into the dark.
June Drake is currently writing about grief and memory in the Pacific Northwest. She’s on Twitter as @basketofkisses_.
Sometimes she thinks she can still feel him.
It’s the quiet moments that make Ryan wonder what her life would be like if he were still around. It had been two years since she’d found Trevor, and yet his presence wrapped around her, like a blanket but also like a chokehold.
She struggled to light the cigarette in between her fingers. It was hard to pinpoint if the drugs or her nerves made her hands so shaky. But Ryan was too focused on the task to think too much about it.
“Let me.”
The sound of his voice grabbed her attention instantly. Too many times had she looked up to find no one there, and yet Ryan was willing to risk the heartbreak every time.
But this time, he was there. Her expression softened instantly once she gazed into her ex-fiance’s honey eyes, his long brown hair tousled like it always was given his refusal to brush it every morning. She watched as his fingers, still wearing the chipped black nail polish she remembered his mother requesting be removed for the funeral, gently grab her lighter and hold it steady for her.
She lit the cigarette and waited for him to fade away like he always did when she was in this position. It was almost as if the same thing that was supposed to distract her from thinking about him also managed to tease her of a future that would never come to fruition.
“You’re not going to say anything to me, Ry?”
He smirked. She blew a cloud of smoke in his direction and focused on his details. The bags under his eyes, the way his smile was both bright and tired at the same time. Unlike every other time she saw him, where he was wearing the clothes she last saw him in, Trevor was wearing a pair of ripped black jeans, his dirty white converse, and a t-shirt from when they went to see his favorite band. She still couldn’t listen to Rilo Kiley without feeling sick to her stomach.
“I wish you’d just disappear already.” She said finally, instantly regretting the words as soon they left their mouth. Ryan turned away from him, anticipating Trevor to leave again only to feel the weight of his hand on her shoulder.
“Is that really how you want to spend this time together?”
His reply felt like fighting words. Something physically snapped inside of her. She dropped her cigarette, put it out with the heel of her boot, then lunged forward.
“I fucking hate you!” Ryan yelled, balling her hands into two small fists. She threw the first punch at his chest. Then another. Then another. Then another. Despite feeling the brunt of her anger, she couldn’t help but notice Trevor was still looking at her. His smirk felt like a taunt.
“You finished?”
The dark-haired girl huffed at his quip. She unclenched her fists and took a step back, sucking in a breath before grabbing another cigarette from the carton in her back pocket. Less shaky this time, Ryan placed it in between her lips before lighting it.
She smoked in silence for a minute, her eyes gazing at her former lover. Even after several years, it felt as if no time had passed. A simple smile was an entire conversation between them. It hit her that it’d been so long since Ryan felt like she was back home like this.
She pressed her side against the roof’s ledge. The young man leaned forward, and Ryan felt her breath get caught in her throat as he did. But she remained in her spot, her body pleading for his touch despite her holding herself back.
“Do you really hate me?” Trevor asked her, voice soft.
“I don’t think I can ever hate you.” She admitted. Trevor took another step forward as Ryan felt his hand reach over to hold her face, and Ryan instinctively leaned into his palm. She still fit perfectly.
“I know. You’re really fucking dramatic, you know that? Trevor hummed, the comment making Ryan laugh instantly. “You know I won’t be here all night.”
She nodded feeling knots tie in her stomach. Ryan had anticipated him to leave at an earlier point during their conversation, and yet Trevor remained. Still, it felt like a cruel joke having him be the one to tell her about his own demise.
“I’m here for a reason though.” She felt his thumb stroke her cheek. “Tell me what that is.”
Ryan paused for a minute as she thought about his request. She tilted her head to press a kiss to his palm. “I missed you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t bullshit me, Ry. You know the real reason.”
Her gaze softened immediately, and suddenly she was vulnerable. Her toughest layer had peeled off, and Ryan felt raw. She hesitated for a moment, unsure if she could even speak into existence what she really wanted from Trevor at that moment. Rarely was she ever afraid to speak her mind, but he was always a sore spot for her.
“I think… I want to move on from you,” Ryan admitted. She waited for a reaction from Trevor. Part of her wished this was real and that he could be angry with her – she was willing to fight with him a thousand and one more times if it meant he’d be back in her life. But instead, he simply nodded, giving her the sign to keep going. “I feel like I’ve been holding myself back from just living my life.”
She avoided his eyes for a moment, feeling tears swell up as she wiped them with the back of her hand. Ryan felt the gentle touch of her former lover as he pressed his thumb against her cheek.
“Every time something good happens to me, I can’t stop but think what it would be like if you were here with me.” She reached over to grab his wrist, pressing his hand onto her face as her voice quivered. “ I think about every milestone we would experience together. I think about our little future together. I see you everywhere and feel so selfish for wanting to experience these things with someone who isn’t you. But I don’t… I don’t think I can keep living this way.”
Ryan felt her breath quicken as she spoke. Her chest beat loudly and fast as she tried to level herself. She shakily lifted the cigarette to her lips, then took a hit to calm her nerves.
“Trev,” she whispered. The dark-haired girl felt small for a moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she had said his name. She looked up at him through her eyelashes, her hands reaching to hold his face as she did. “Can I ask you something?”
He nodded.
“I just need you to tell me, would it be okay if I moved on?”
The weight of her question left her breathless. But Ryan was desperate. She searched for Trevor’s answer through his expression. The brunette man’s face was blank but still smiling. His honey eyes feigned no reaction, and his lips curved slightly upward. Every second felt longer than the last, but Ryan needed to hear his reply.
Rather than saying anything, Ryan watched as Trevor leaned forward and gently held her by her jaw. He tilted her head slightly upward so he could gaze at her. She felt her breath hitch as she felt the warmth of his lips on the left corner of her mouth.
She closed her eyes for a moment to soak in the feeling. As much as she wanted to hold herself back from aching for him, Ryan’s body was desperate for more. Her hands maneuvered themselves into a position that was habitual, ready to fit Trevor’s body like a lock and key.
But he was already gone. She opened her eyes half-full hopeful but ended up half-empty once she realized she was alone again. Ryan looked at the space where Trevor once stood.
There was no point in staying upset, she figured. Ryan put the cigarette back in between her lips and took a hit, blowing the smoke out at the sky. With the back of her hand, she wiped the left corner of her mouth, then returned to her party alone.
Ang Cruz (they/she) is a writer, filmmaker, and lavender latte enthusiast based in Southern California. Follow them at @angdidthat on all platforms.
Unstamatic 