You ever listened to Roy Orbison? That voice. That fucking voice. Cuts deep into you, slicing you bit by bit. Until you’re just chunks of meaty, exposed flesh on the ground. All that remains is the pain you had before you started listening to one of his songs. Been listening to him a lot lately...
Gallery
[nectar names] / [white stripe]
seafoam sours beneath my tongue spills over in the speaking of a name a tide in my throat, a surge of syllables the gravity of the words i swallow turns my body inside out tears my teeth from my mouth. secrets dissolve in my mouth drops of nectar spear my tongue to my jaw, i speak without saying...
A Sexual, Religious Coming of Age: A Review of Carellin Brooks’ Learned
Reviewed by Micah Killjoy Carellin Brooks, Learned (Book*hug Press, 2022), 120 pp., $20. “Don’t you ever want to disappear?” asks Carellin Brooks’ Learned, a collection of bildungsroman poems that explores the world of a girl-turned-woman living as a Rhodes Scholar in mid-90’s Oxford. Learned’s...
The Juggler
After the painting, The Juggler, by Spanish surrealist, Remedios Varo (1908-1963) Yesterday a great many pellets of graupel shot out of the low grey sky— bouncing ice-balls! Spring’s thunderous shout muffled by its cloudy facemask. We have been too knotted into death counts & pollen counts...
Centerpoint Mall Doesn’t Know
Centerpoint Mall doesn’t know the fate that awaits her. The dust that will soon rise from her roof, the way her shadow will shrink from the parking lot. She thinks what we all think about our bodies. Imperishable. Centerpoint is an immigrant mall full of immigrant things. Baadeh. Cameo...
Pretend That Giving Up Avocado Toast Will Save You
and aspire to something that looks like love. Or is it just the margarine version? Try to do all the things originally on your five-year plan. Pretend they are still achievable. Pretend they will make you happy since what makes you happy can change within a single unexpected glance. How what you...