Serpent

By Gracie Healey

As I am now, I may never be again;
And how wonderful it is to be such an unattainable mystery.
Forever a sum of my parts, I wander-
Not quite aimlessly-
Through jet streams and city lights and tracks for trains of thought;
Existing.
I shed a skin under each set of eyes that I catch in the hopes that I may become
A dinner conversation,
A memory,
A dream,
Immortalized within the grey matter of somebody else’s mind-
The retina’s of somebody else’s eyes-
Swimming,
Just as they are to me.
Existing.

Garden #6

By Sam Ferland

There is someone towards the back,
amidst the rain.
Their lengthy hair is soaked;
presumably they’re a woman.
No umbrella, no bike,
no car, no face.
Just the back of the head and the posture,
kneeling before the rusty, metallic cross.
Deserted from the other gravestones,
but it’s dispatching has no purpose.
Unlike the woman,
who’s purpose seems like it should be explicit.
But it is nowhere to be found.
It’s just the non-existent shade (because it’s cloudy),
that is being thrown on her by the trees.
The lack of animals that perpetuate the
sound of the rain hitting off the granite.
However for her the rain is hitting off the cross and none
of it seems to be a bother to her.

Points Made Fast Asleep

By Jacqueline Modugno

There is something beyond the organic
And only when we realize, do we shrink from the sky
[We collapse into ourselves]
Drawing up blankets
To shield from the ether

[Questions that ring without answer]

So now I ask:

Who [on Earth]
decided that a star should have 5 points?
Two photonic arms
Two legs
And a head
Unimaginable fuel condensed to human form
Everything that escapes us, compressed

And he lets gravity take him
[When work threatens what luminescence is left]
And she entertains the thought of embraces
[to outshine reminders of death]
And their breathing falls in line with the minute hand
But they all fall asleep

With

Their

Arms

Outstretched

And all the sheets are out of reach
When entropy pulls them out of bounds
To the chasms of air-conditioned-smooth
-hardwood floors
That sinking, inky plane where they sleep now

Yes, if you were there, you’d hear light breathe
With its arms outstretched,
And no concern of quantity
[Yesterday’s wine]
[has already worn off]
[Tomorrow’s coffee]
[is not enough]
For where it sleeps, there is no need
To idle on interests in store
But even in that latent plane
Where the limitless succeeds, again and again

It is somehow, always,
asking
for
more
I called out into my room, asking What is it all for

But 4:00 am blinked in no response
And there was only a glass of water to reassure
And I drank and I drank
Until I was full
I drank as if each sip could stretch time
But the waterline reached the bottom
[Sparked existentialism sequestered]
And I returned to the darkness as if it were mine

And now,
I’d like to rest in watered-down salt
And let the brine take back
every. single. molecule.

That animates my form
Be the echinoderm looking up
[Allow the spears of light cast down from the atmosphere
to be my emerging galaxy]
from that restful ocean floor

And

I

Want To

Be

A Star

We all become one, eventually

We all become one, for sure.

Piggyback Crossing in November

By Anson Wang

This country exhausts me early into the afternoons but
I don’t mind it. Even those predicaments that produce
shame, being a foreigner among a people I blend into.
In time I will learn to coexist with the seasonal gloom. I
had thought I was beyond feeling apologetic, but these
encounters with strangers who don’t need to notice,
yet still do, mean I can probably learn to start letting the
shame in.

I visualize the semester’s end. I couldn’t yesterday. The
construction of the shifting present is a beautiful thing,
I marvel at it like I do clouds from an airplane window.
Their assembly something pleasantly shocking to
behold.

I don’t dream of you enough, and I’m so afraid of taking
you for granted. That my arrogance will reveal an undis-
covered closet of flaws from my blindspot. And that by
then, it would already be too late.

Last semester I had a beautiful dream that I couldn’t
make sense of until recently. I dreamt that we were in
conflict, lying together in that bed, the sun and moon
clocking in and out of the room while days passed.
Something you had said was bothering me; I still don’t
know what could’ve wound me up like that, and when I
went to reach for your arm, you pulled away.

Further and away the dream took us. I think that’s the
best way to characterize a dream. How there is never a
setting, just the motion itself. The happening.

It was a winding road now, and we were high up, but
the walls of the vessel wouldn’t allow us to see past the
brim of what encapsulated us. All that could be seen
was the sky. We were going fast, I thought.

Before I could log the scene, it shifted again, and you
were on my back. This time the motion was trudging
from my boots, up, uphill on that bridge overlooking the
highway. I clutched at your legs wrapping around my
torso tightly as the cement blocks under my feet rear-
ranged themselves, contorting in all directions. Purple
flowers bloomed to the right as cars whizzed past our
coordinates below. The tension had changed, some-
how, because you were crying, and so was I, digging
my nails into the undersides of your thighs. Details of
the turmoil were lost in the discord, but I think we were
fighting to keep walking, to keep moving forward, up.

I woke up next to you, in a cold sweat. Dawn light
reflecting off your blinds, turning the entire room gray.
Clothes strewn on the floor. My shoes tucked by the
side of the door, next to your shelf.

I am trying to return to that room. I am trying to return
there.

Street View

By Julia Thompson

Loading...

I’ve been here before,

but not by pressing a
button.

The road has always been noisy,

but the sound usually isn’t my parents’ fighting down-
stairs.

Everything has always been too far to walk to,

but I can usually go further than a 360-degree rotation.

There have always been lots of birds here,

but they’re not usually frozen in the
sky.

The house has always been here,

but it’s not usually split
in two.

I’m here,

but I’m not really there.

Exit Street Mode

Mariposa

By Ori C. Li
After Danza de la Mariposa (Valerie Coleman)

I am born anew from sinews of sleep.
The earth, before me, my home of leaves, and crawling
Dreams, behind me. I used to think I was
Burdened with yesterdays, memory-fled, embarked
To forget, to loss. I used to think I was
Set down in dissonance, dusty with ash.

How foolish I was to fear myself! I take
To the skies upon spring flowers, merry yellows
And gentle pinks wave in the sea of grass.
Children make a dozen crowns. This April
Day, momentous eternity, those birds
Entranced in lively song, the wind a cradle
Of time of lands untamed—
I dance!
Fleeing my shell, I chase the moment now.

Reclaimed Clay

By Jacqueline Modugno

My love for you found itself
Sitting in the birch tree whose branches
spanned into the heavens when I was a child.
Splintered sheets of bark that I now realize
Only lean a few feet above
the blades of grass.
Though I value the presence of that tree like a pulse on my wrist
The knocking of my own heartbeat against my neck
begging me to speak for it.
My love for you found itself in a bucket of smashed forms
Masterpieces that held attention for a moment’s notice
before malleability won greater appeal.
Reclaimed clay within my consciousness
Because what is not worth keeping the first time,
Can often be reduced to its fundamentals
to be formed again.

Ode to a Mouse

By Avery Cox

Happy new year to the mouse under the dish machine

Skittering feet juxtapose my frozen shoes and aching heels

Food scraps offer sanctuary to gaping claws

Damp, unlike my hands so dry and cracked

Where words offer relief to idle fingers

Burial of My Past Self / The Woods And I

By Alex Crowthers

I can feel my breath, my chest e x p a n d i n g and contracting like the softness of wind that
traces through the rambling ivy I know so well. I’ve fallen in love with the shadows that paint
my skin and mimic my freckles, and suddenly I am blessed by my timbered, towering friends
who shield me from the glowing sun.

I often wish myself a quiet burial within these saplings, they know her from years ago. I’ll loudly
announce “I no longer recognize her”, despite my flesh that remains the same — weathered, but
the same. The woods know her and respect her more than I do.

(I ought to make note of that)

This weathering is comforting evidence: My change doesn’t stray too far from the wood’s. It’s in
the bark that stretches farther, the branches that reach taller, and the roots that dig them-
selves deeper — building networks I could not break down, even if I tried. I look to the woods to
remind myself beauty is never stagnant, no, it plays on a cycle of know-nothings, assimilation,
and a never-final flourishing. We have more in common than I remember, And I know my eyes
are not the only ones that pleaded comfort here,

just for help through to the other side.

Soothe

By Erin Winship

lay me down on the itchy green grass in the
middle of a wooded path where i can look
up at the sky and watch the clouds and
stars dance as the wind blows comforting
and cool air around and past me and as i
lay there please let the creaks and groans
of old trees keep me company as i wait for
the animals to come and finally take their
share of my nutritious skin and organs and
when the feeding has begun let me feel the
sharp teeth of the red fox tear into the meat
on my right arm ripping a large strip of skin
and chewing loudly and messily near my ear
and i dig my fingernails into the packed dirt as
the small rabbits who lay on my torso slowly
tunnel though my liver and stomach and as
the cardinals rip out my hair for their nests
i lift my hand to pet the gray squirrel’s head
as he sits on my collarbone while eating away
at my chin and i squirm as the slimy earth-
worms find their new homes in the cave of
my ear and snuggle into my plush eardrum
and when i look down at my body to see
blood and torn flesh i can only smile and
slowly close my eyes as the beavers tear my
bones from their sockets to use in their dam
and i slowly close my eyes as i let the animals
take as much as they need and let me feel
every pain and sensation from their feasting.