 Sanna Wani lives between Mississauga and Srinagar. She loves daisies. Verisimilitude after Rankine  Dorsal after Mitski 
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 Raphael prefers to go by Ralph, as he feels it suits him better and he’s heard every Ninja Turtle joke ever uttered. He is a native of Detroit, Michigan currently residing in Kentucky with his Boo-thang and their four-year-old boy. He is a chef by day and an essayist, poet, screenwriter in his dreams. He, like Issa Rae, is rooting for everybody Black. His work has been featured (or is forthcoming) on his mama’s fridge, his close friends’ inboxes, Hobart, 3 Elements Review, HASH Journal, Frontier Poetry, and All Guts No Glory. Follow him on twitter: @RALPHEEBOI I wish Jordan Peele could have released Get Out 400 years ago
to serve as a warning to all the humans who would become niggers, to let them know they have reason to fear the arriving ships, to let them know our bodies are honey- laced diamonds ripe for pillaging, to prove the drinking gourd won’t lead us home, to show them our blood still waters the cottonseeds, to help them choose Olokun’s mouth over this land of loss, as their savior won’t know us, their fields will choke us, our tongues will be blanched in bleach, their law will disembowel us, their dreams will wring us broken, our cities will wail as tinder, and we’ll never be done drowning in their western civilization Grandpa’s Detroit #1 A shack deep in a thick wood of elm becomes a sanctuary when duh moon high. Mistuh Bandleaduh counts off somethin’ swingin’ in A-minuh & duh prettiest gals you ever seen, conk-laid cats in arm, high-step onto duh dance floor in ten-dollah suits and handmade gowns danglin’ ovuh sticky tiles. Duh brass gallops along wit ‘em, one trumpeter is sweatin’ but leanin’ on his horn, makin’ it bark somethin’ wild. He make it swang round duh room like a loose firehose. He give duh music all duh winds in his body. Doctuh Bass-man pluck his walk in 3/4 while Piano Jim teach duh keys how to keep duh people feets on fire. Duh sweet name of Jesus ain’t too much called out in’nis church, but duh’kasional Lawd a’mercy!! sho’nuff will get heaved up to duh smoky rafters when duh horns’ wangin’ & Mistuh Bandleaduh’s raspy holla’ touch on someone just right, make em’ sing back. Dis a holy experience, got all duh same moans & spite as dem hymns duh fields taught our folk, but we swapped the blood in ‘em wit beans & hot watuh co’nbread, added some jazz & built us up a house to hide it all in. You wudda loved it, boy.  Daniel B. Summerhill is an Assistant Professor of Poetry and Social Action at California State University Monterey Bay. He lives in Marina with his wife, Quianna and daughter, Genesis. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Obsidian, Rust + Moth, Califragile, Button, Cogs, The Hellebore, The Lilly Review and others. He holds an MFA from Solstice of Pine Manor College. bouquet
when we thought the world was ending, flowers began blooming -w.j lofton if not a revolution, a broken window-- an angiosperm in my hand, a bouquet of flowers in front of me, the shards glisten half yellow- half opaque & arresting like freeze tag, i am preserved & anxious all at once the body always knows how to signal pain, vivid colors don’t call me hero, i am no hero, i am a white blood cell standing in front of this store, smoking & amber, watching the spring bloom in defense of survival i don’t know but it’s better than not having nothing to fight for again, my homies die & they label those of us on deck “survivors,” in the longest stretch of the word as in, we entered this world dying & count our blessings each time god takes our friends instead pardon my audacity, not even small prey desire to survive  Ava Gripp is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She focuses on poetry and travel writing. Your Grandfather Had Secrets
Without you in the mountains another Midwest mostly East, body of water “Keep it cheap for me, Chief. Will ya?” Any bartender smiles mirroring your tight Irish grin another region missing you again I lost you in the winter considering the canyons considering your slapstick I'm riding with you to be alone A Sportster or ‘Dina riding with the Angels they look like you with their leather on The tailpipe said, “Fuck You” and your windpipe sang Moody Blue I went down to the river to feel for a moment I dipped and slashed and drowned to hear you sing your songs once more and you said, don’t go to hell for me, too Plastic septum accessory oxygen earrings catching Closing eyes dreaming of a sixth gear you say Revving, laughing, yelling booooooooom With you in the hospital driving away Only you lived for one more week You had addictions and we all do I count the trees passing in obsession One, two, blinking to see in the California pines But there is no rest there is no miracle Fish in the water that I cast my net to maybe catch you but The Bells have Tolled or told me that you are gone So go on ahead before me Singing another memory Telling another story Please One more story  stevie redwood is a disabled sino-jewish neuroemergent introvert genderpervert homotrash littledreamer bigmouth freak living & dying on Yelamu Ohlone land / San Francisco, CA. they like shittalk, porchsitting, leaflitter, & riffraff. find them trolling yimbys on twitter @trash_whisperer abolish the dead
living binary :: i’m supposed to be :: grateful to habit :: a body it means :: i think :: i am :: alive :: like everything else :: a live :: continu :: um :: how much :: living in order :: to cheat being :: dead :: how ordered :: until the binary :: body how dead :: before the body :: unliving how bodied :: until becoming :: you think :: how living :: until you :: unbody your body :: how grateful :: you body :: how body become :: how are you :: undead :: you how :: you living :: how disordered :: before unbecoming :: a binary :: how disordered until i un :: bi :: nary the body :: & how are your dead :: & are you alive :: & i am :: here still :: becoming :: disordered :: abolish the body :: a body i am :: still dying :: still living :: become :: be :: come :: abolish the dying :: a body :: come :: be :: & body the dead :: unliving :: the binaries i am :: supposed to :: be alive if i bother :: a body :: i think :: it means i am :: grateful :: i am :: the living :: the dying :: am i :: alive am i :: still :: here i am :: disorder :: still dead :: be here :: what is unbodied :: am i :: what is :: what is what :: is :: what :: is the body :: what is :: what is what :: is :: what :: is the body :: & what is :: the body :: what is :: what is what :: is :: what :: is the body :: & what is :: the body :: becoming  Ariel Clark-Semyck (she/her) is a poet from Chicago. She is currently an MFA candidate at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her poems have been published by Heavy Feather Review, Grimoire Magazine, Witch Craft Magazine, Yes Poetry, Occulum, and elsewhere. productivity log
isolation has been challenging but rewarding. during this time, i have taken the opportunity to assess & restructure my past methods of suffering, all while developing new methods that might prove their usefulness in the months ahead. i leak menstrual blood across the bathroom floor & let it harden. i double over in pain, slide along the walls, ricochet from doorway to doorway, shout oof! oof! oof! alarm the cat. i role-play waterlogged ophelia & take a bubble bath face-down in my finest nightgown. i shake my hand with my other hand. i fast-forward through brokeback mountain to get to the kissing scenes, a giddy tear tumbling down my cheek. i shine a flashlight all over my body & spend hours on web md. i stare at the deer in the backyard, touch my fingers gently to my heart as if to ask who me? i practice drifting out of consciousness with my hand resting on my forehead, palm up, like all the old paintings by the greats. i practice dreaming of you. i practice dreaming of you dreaming of me stranded in the desert with the tumbleweeds going in the background. i practice dreaming of you dreaming of me waving a handkerchief & calling out to you yoohoo! in your dream, we are gliding across the green screen of a spaghetti western on a beautiful dappled stallion, my arms around your waist, my pigtails whipping in the wind, your ten-gallon hat flying off to reveal a full head of hair. i practice waking up in a cold sweat. admittedly, there’s been a learning curve. sometimes my suffering can get sloppy. sometimes i speed ahead of myself & i don’t even mean to. sometimes that sky swaps its purple for pink for blue for gray for blue for gray for blue for pink for purple again & i move so slow i can barely stand it. tasteful nude all yolks run together in this afternoon sun. the sky yawns as fur spikes up from the earth. a daffodil opens like the palm of a hand, yielding its sex to ask apocalypse now or apocalypse not with each petal pulled. white blood cells furrow my fox-brow as i watch the space cadets fake-kiss & drink coffee in their brightly colored lofts. gray matter floods my pelvic floor & grows whiskers. if i bounce my thigh against my thigh just so, someone’s square jaw will appear to argue with my alone-time. i vortex into the pea hiding between the mattresses. i spew royal jelly & get glued to the springs. i told you not to leave me out so long— any longer & you could cut through me like butter.  benedict nguyễn is a dancer, writer, and curator based on unceded Lenape and Wappinger lands (South Bronx, NY). Their writing has appeared in AAWW’s the Margins, Brooklyn Rail, Diacritics, and Pank, among others. In 2019, they created the multidisciplinary performance platform “soft bodies in hard places.” They publish a monthly-ish newsletter “first quarter moon slush” on substack and are sometimes online @xbennyboo. bezel bleed
after Jessica Alba, Awkwafina, The Bold Type, Ariana Grande, Vanessa Hudgens, Daniel Dae Kim, Gwyneth Paltrow, & Jia Tolentino @me_on_main It is up to me to represent myself I see me and I deserve to see me I want to help me solve I want to be an additive to life When I post I’m giving voice to highlight #representation starts both in front and behind the camera Paint over this screen with lit up pixels of your heart Bleed your aorta dry so story exists people feel less alone so people stay #woke Its hard to make a living That’s harsh reality of participating in these systems gain a little more freedom Use freedom to reject things you no longer need But keep writing write what you know #ownvoices An equal world is enabled coming together we can A journey to 100 likes too 1000 dollars begins with a single post a single # this is #art #resistance #ad @me_on_main commented: so my comments are being taken out of context It’s a crazy time this is NOT plagiarism this is a collage not a cop out this is my art this is my labor this is curation this is me thank me it is incredibly dangerous and selfish to take this situation that lightly people are going to die which is terrible but like inevitable stay inside @me_alt When u bleed over my screen with the lit up pixels of ur wet heart paint ur aorta so ur story exists don’t forget ur telling them what hurts u what moves u they already know ur blood type now they know ur behavioral type so take this message and whisper it in my ear sign it on someone’s palms write it down and pass it on find ur friends online if u rly must then log off forever unless new friends need to find u online too then log back on grow the movement between new accounts deleted accts darting beneath the algorithm that’s probably still smart enough to catch u doesn’t care u hate surveillance what else u do about it huh right something they already approved or tell someone how much u care and they scroll past anyway another representation rubs their attn as if they’re choosing anything tell them again nom nom norm Gorged on calories when hungry for the nutrition of ur sweaty skin ate so much i ruined my intestine’s inner cells with the ravages of modernity’s complex division of carbs, chew chew to stay sane mmm doesn’t even taste sweet so norm’ed i am to smol sucrose poured over factory dough i come to think it should all come like that coated in extra spackles tickle my palate flaky tension torn the psychodrama of my at home cooking show featuring eating have i ever watched myself watch someone watching themself pull their eyelid back to etch daggers on their lids wonder if they knew they were making soft pore porn conjuring the jagged wings of an angel if pressed for cash do i pay the worker or buy the eyeliner swoop past that pit of guilt keep spectating the stretch and pull of skinning pulling wrinkles tight and taut brush pat beat rub and most importantly blend into the surface, blur til its totalizing illusion cuts me open i too could be that a turn on the webcam, just a bite of dough, a dextrose brush across my chin, swallow what agony is there swipe swipe dab dab then bake til i glow full from within just powder mist to finish off my mask waiting for  Gabrielle Grace Hogan is a poet from St. Louis, Missouri currently pursuing her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been published by or is forthcoming from The Academy of American Poets, Kissing Dynamite, Foglifter, DIAGRAM, Redivider, and others. She is the poetry editor of Bat City Review and co-editor of You Flower / You Feast, an online anthology of works inspired by Harry Styles. Her social media and projects can be found on her website, gabriellegracehogan.com. Girls’ Night at the Saturnine Aquarium
down Red River & 7th the Muppet drag show spreads its legs boys fill up on foreskins before purple paint smears the floor i have never seen so many beautiful people insistent on not being in love with me there is a Miss Piggy in lingerie boys in dresses long as eulogies poor-postured animals kissed up against other animals the vice grip of a tongue latched onto a breast i think about it the goodness of breasts drag queens resplendent as Coke cans coax my innerer schweinehund out with cold sticks of butter it asks if this is how you get the girl no they tell it the butter is a mere distraction boredom brings genitals slumped against genitals i am thinking again of the baby squirrel orphaned to the sidewalk her eyelids not yet formed the drag queen removes her gloves & we see that her skin is not actually purple outside Elysium i crave to crave a cigarette i cough & out flies a little bug so cute i will be alone tonight  Devin Kelly is a high school teacher living in New York City. He is the author of *In This Quiet Church of Night, I Say Amen* (Civil Coping Mechanisms), and his work has been published in* Longreads, The Guardian, Lithub, Hobart, DIAGRAM*, and more. A SUN SETTING THROUGH A WINDOW or SEVEN LAYERS OF PAINT
after Matthew Yeager If you've said you were going to quit but didn’t. If sometimes even the largest room feels cramped. If you leave the ones you love to be with the ones you don’t. If you’ve built a house of fire. If you left the food in the microwave. If you forgot to fall asleep. If you woke to find a fly crawling the long crack between the wall & ceiling. If last year’s clothes no longer fit. If it’s not a question of size. If it’s always something else. If you’ve spent an hour looking for what was in your pocket. If you’ve collapsed out of sheer annoyance with the self. If you’ve wanted to scream but knew only the neighbors would hear. If you do not know their names. If you’ve cultivated a life of conscious avoidance. If you sometimes forget your mother’s middle name. If you do not always get the job done. If desire is your best kept secret. If it’s just one more cigarette out the window. If it’s just one more. If your friends are getting married. If sometimes you want to reject the invitation. If you think about joy the way a child thinks about algebra. If you’re just trying to figure it out. If it’s just another day. If you’re fine. If you don’t know what to order. If it’s another conversation. If you begin with I’m sorry, I forgot. If your friends say you worry too much. If you worry too much. If there’s gum all over the sidewalk. If the sign that reads caution, paint drying is five years old. If it seems everyone is throwing their furniture out in the rain. If you want to walk alone. If you don’t want to walk alone. If you want to say something about this life. If you don’t want to fight. If your pants are stained. If all your plants are dying. If you have no idea why. If you forgot to give them names. If there’s another life beyond this life. If there’s even tomorrow. If you hold your breath. If you’re holding it now. TONIGHT I AM THINKING OF EMIL ZATOPEK After the frost came, the cold stayed, & everything it touched began to hold a wind, like even the walls had holes. & on the subway this morning, two mice wrestling slid skidding on the ice between the tracks -- it looked like one of them might’ve been the other’s brother — & then the train came & they disappeared beneath it. Sometimes, in weather like this, I wonder what is going to become of us. It’s not the stuff of party-talk & banter. I can’t begin a conversation with the sound of my heart waking me up at night & how I stayed up in bed waiting for it to burst out of me. I get the feeling it happens to all of us but I wouldn’t say it. I’d say Hell I Didn’t Sleep Well Last Night & someone would nod, maybe, & say Me Neither & then the rest of the night would carry on. I think odd things when I’m alone. Tonight I’m watching videos of Emil Zatopek, who, after winning the gold in both the five and ten thousand, decided to run his first marathon at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. Ten miles in, he pulled beside the favorite, asked him what he thought of the race so far, & the favorite, thinking it would ruin Emil’s confidence, said the pace was too slow. It wasn’t. But Emil pulled away & the favorite collapsed to the ground & almost died. The favorite didn’t know then that, when it was too cold to run, Emil would draw the blinds of his apartment that looked out on streets emptied by occupation & fill his bathtub with water, soap, & dirty clothes, & run in place over them for hours until everything was clean. What we don’t know about us is what makes us. Because everything is approaching the infinite it is how we approach the infinite that changes our lives. I am thinking of what to do with the unsaid, of all the empty space caught between us that could be filled with me telling you I Love You, over & over again, each time for the first time. This is the story, though, of my life, the story I want to tell the next time I cannot sleep, how it has nothing to do with you, this heavy beating of my heart, but how I want you to know anyway, how the pace is not too slow, but too fast, & how maybe you feel like this also, just sometimes? The weather outside, cold. Your mind running for hours in the dark room of your body. Everything about the world both too much & too little, all at once.  Danielle P. Williams is a poet, essayist and spoken-word artist from Columbia, South Carolina. She is a third-year MFA candidate in poetry at George Mason University. She strives to give voice to unrepresented cultures, making it a point to expand on the narratives and experiences of her Black and Chamorro cultures. Her poems were selected for the 2020 Literary Award in Poetry from Ninth Letter. Her work appears in Hobart, Barren Magazine, The Pinch, JMWW, and elsewhere. For more, visit https://www.daniellepwilliams.com Yutu 2018
I think a lot about bodies that aren’t mine. Swells of blue bullies crashing into one another, shadows over neighbors homes like an anxious reaper. My Nana is a perfect example of how us Chamorro are not easily broken. The waves come and go and we are always thankful for what reminds us of the land our ancestors willed. This summer, I finally learned what it feels like to know you can’t get lost somewhere with only three roads. I wonder if anyone else in the world knows that after Yutu hit Saipan my family went three months without power. The ocean is a mighty mighty body, pulsing in the pit of our design. Reef and rubble in our lungs. Why is it that we love things that hurt us? I wonder if anyone else in the world knows we were born from water. It can never truly erase us. |
