Hound Dog

By Violet Russell

Skin—snub velvet tightened around an Irish harp—
Every movement is weary of the next, limp dog limp.
The brook is beaten brass, the color of warm cola.
Lap it up, paw print in the mud, all four fingers
and a thumb, I left a bit of myself a ways back,
on the steamy cement, my ghost limb has memories,
denaries of rorschaching ravens savaging what little I was.
It’s quickly forgiven, the violence, the scrapping,
the plucking of soft tendon cords, there is a small blush,
a kick from the heart, something had wanted you.
Here comes a van, rubber rumbles against the road.
I’m waiting for Godot, this hounddog is shameless,
Flattened ears, hanging gray tongue, penduluming tail.
This isn’t the first time they’ve come around here,
and I can’t help myself, going back for my routine beating.
Cough up my stuffing, warm, sticky, red behind the ear.
Tonight, I’ll swallow up all that missing sawdust,
Self-cannibalizing, hopeful to turn into something new,
and leave no one seconds, like a good beggar should.

Some Type of Regret

By Violet Russell

A hound dog gnaws on my
funny bone and I can feel
ravines wash down those
calloused cowhide hands
It’s a painful twist of fate
a Dundee knife vexing the
soft spot of my inner thigh
Choke down some ibuprofen
a clown smiles hello in the
overflown sink—it’s gotta be
plugged up with some type
of regret—chunks of ground
pork and red thumbtacks
and it goes churning ‘round
my washing machine stomach
I wish it would all just stop
Bubbles of hysteria work up
through my lungs—I can taste
my rancid laughter before it
pops from my lips

Abandona Puesto

By Saint

Espero que implosione,
Allá en lo hondo,
Y en tus últimos momentos
Mis manos en tu cuello,
Agua llenando el vacío.
¿Acaso no te acuerdas?
Cuando la llovizna cubría
Nuestras caras,
Sudor en la frente.
La última vez que me viste,
Sentados en mi cama,
Ya sabias que te irías
A lo profundo.
Abandona puesto,
Y al final,
¿Que has echo
Con lo que palpitaba
Dentro de mi?
- Dentro de mi pecho?

The Vivisection

By Jameson Gillihan

When I met the doctor, thinking nothing wrong,
He promptly diagnosed me. There was something wrong.
Let me feel your heartbeat, he said, let me hear its hum—
Recognize the reticent resounding of its drum—
Shouldn’t it seem stronger? Shouldn’t we hear more?
Are you unfamiliar with the rhythm of your core?
I have the solution. Put your trust in me;
Correct your constitution and you’ll be who you should be.

Well, harm me handsome, doctor. Make me work like new.
Help my heart to do the things the heart is here to do.
I signed the consent form. He wasted not a beat
and set a surgeon’s date night with the heart he hoped to meet.
Feeling all aflutter, I anesthetized myself
and woke up bruised and bloody on the path to perfect health.
I received instructions from the doctor for my care.
I made no deductions of the doctor or his care.
He wrote I may manifest some pulse- or piercing pain,
that healing’s halfway mental, that something in the brain
would have to intertwine the old nerves in between the new—
through this agonizing process, my heart would be debuted.

Time passes so slowly.
I couldn’t wait.
I had been so
wholly
impatient.

I couldn’t take it.
I needed pain.
I needed to know this all wasn’t in vain.
Invested in this injury as proof that I had changed,
I dressed in scrubs and surgeon’s gloves to operate again.
Sharpening my scalpel, I carved into my chest,
I opened, operating, I was bleeding, I was bled—
The wound unfolded freely, the blade I barely felt;
The place he’d cut to cure me was the place I cut myself.
Perhaps this was my treatment.
Perhaps I’m built for pain.
Perhaps what hurt me once gave me the means to hurt again.
Now I was left wanting. I spindled strands of vein
to part the chains imprisoning the precious flesh he’d saved;
Squeezing fists of viscera, I squinted to compare
this body with the one I’d been before the doctor’s care.
Would I know the difference? What was there to find
behind the ribs I pried apart to witness his design?
I grasped it in my fingers. I pulled it from my chest
and freed the famished muscle from my penitential breast.
Rich and ripe for harvest, ravenous and raw,
the organ oozing in my grip hitched wide its dripping maw.
I recognized it readily. This heart—
It was wrong.
This heart I knew at once though I had never known my own—
This heart—
It hungered.
This heart beheld a feast.
In my palm pulsed the surgeon’s heart—
Finally released.

King

By Nightshade Lily

The king sits high
On a skeleton throne
He sighs a long breath,
In a kingdom alone,
The skeletons grab
The skeletons cry -
You mangled us here
You let us all die,
Now look at you sat
All proud in your throne
Gazing over,
a kingdom alone
we gave you truth
we gave you life
what has it done? -
they cry out in strife
the king stares off,
into unknown
as he breaths the last breath
of a kingdom alone

Rind

By Ava Mae

My wandering mind lands on a garden.

A place of plump peaches and peace.

And here I realize,

The rinds of fruit baskets leave much to be desired.

Beyond that flesh lies the tender meat

That is to be taken and tasted and told of its beauty.

And I am content in knowing,

I am the rind.

I am skin sought out to live in a garbage garden.

Gone is the pity placed upon me by this produce.

She is longed for,

She is loved,

I am lost.

Left to the dirt and damned dumpsters.

Her sweet songs sing bellies starved to full.

Her sweet songs sing bellies starved to full.

A gift I cannot give.

I am a girl.

While she is a god.

As Persephone to the pomegranate’s pearls,

Pomona’s abundant apples.

She is a symbol of so much pleasure and peace.

While I am only purpose.

Plant me to parent her.

Pick and part me

To behold her beauty.

It does not hurt, it heals.

To know beyond my bark

I am beauty.

I’ve made and mothered more words than I can speak.

And to know that is what lies behind these teeth.

That heals.

Helping harvest the fragrant fruit within me, too.

A Grave Image

By Grace Healey

The stone cherub in the garden is
An existentially petrified emblem of youth.
I remember the day we found it
Storm sodden,
Driftwood imposter in the sand of a far away beach.
Angel child doomed to drive home and sleep on top of my
Chocolate lab.
I’ve been growing up my whole life and it’s odd because it feels like stages but I know seconds
don’t hold hands as they walk away from you.
I lost the little girl I should have been at fifteen,
but I still feel pieces of her sometimes,
when I go out and water the garden.

Confessions of a Dead Bug in My Bathroom

By Sarah Flynn

Hello there,
You keep watching me like I will awake
That I scuttle when you’re not looking.
I trapped myself here
No dirt for me to be buried in
Only granite countertops and lavender soap

Who are you? Why do you keep staring at me?
I am stuck in this place
You, omnipotent giant,
Are the only one to free me
Please,
Free me at your earliest convenience

Sojourn

By Ishan Bhattacharya

Atop your ship the high sails flap as black clouds start to dance,
Great beams now crack and cold wind snaps, your departure will be soon,
To Scylla’s maw and Charybdis draw, by towering waves consumed,

On an olive tree nest nevermore to rest, no home return for you,
To banquet hall where lechery crawls and prowls from room to room,

Your valor spoilt, your riches gone, your clothes have turned to rags,
Your men are cleaved and torn apart by giants, beasts, and hags.

Rue the day of your depart toward conflict not your own, it was never for
you to feel the warmth of fire, hearth and home.

Why do you still venture on, oh hapless hero of old?
Is it not better to drift away in lotus blissful hold?

But be deaf to the ringing and sweet, sweet, singing of loss within your ears,
Let wisdom guide your very path and your troubles will be cleared.

For next time that you are harassed by sirens of your woes,
Remember now and always still, it is just flesh and bone.

Dry Ocean

By Emily Zielinski

The sea in its looming glory/shines brighter than any star in the Milky Way/
Its enormous figure/presents itself as microscopic/and i seem to be in the middle of it
I am lost at sea/waving to myself from the seaside/
I watch myself drown/as i wipe the gritty sand from my feet/
The ocean is dry/i feel its water fill my lungs and I choke on the tide/
The ocean is dry/i try to claw my way out/my fingernails bleed/i can’t swim/
On shore the land is dry/and the sun is hot/and everything is as it should be/
But the ocean is a god with no rhyme or reason/
I can make sense of it if i try/with my own twisted ideology everything makes sense/
But how accurate am I/if I’m on the shore/and i won’t even help myself/