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gliding across blue-lit screens, Cursor labors alongside his User, determined to learn J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and wondering where he can procure pixie dust—perhaps Etsy, or Amazon, that Bezos fellow seems to have everything— and he knows the impracticality of particles bestowing a flying capability to those who’ve obtained both faith and trust, and he typically doesn’t ponder silly possibilities like Tinker Bell but another headline broke today and User had known it needed Read more…

She whistles in his ear, a stonelike tune, lying amid delicate sunlight, flickering in three-part harmony with glistening shards of grass, whirl-pooling across shared space— an apology laced in borrowed melody In lyrical exchange, he strums a weary lyre, catching words she cannot voice, nylon chords humming with unreleased tension and lost declarations She fingerpicks frayed strands, watching them undulate beneath nurturing ministrations, soft touches their motivation to dance Fading lyre notes, silence rings where Read more…

Sixth grade taught how to twist tongues into thoughts but my mother says I learned to lie, not that she would know and when asked if my tongue was tied, she denied the accusation, the one time I wasn’t trying to place blame, promise— but won’t swear—and words never carried the same, weakened by hollowed-out bones in pinky promise fingers snapping under endeavors to talk and nullified words now only twist syllable-sharpened daggers in deeper, Read more…

Nobody said righteous was synonymous with perfect, for I am nowhere near the latter, or either, in my opinion, yet still, they call me “righteous man.” They are cold, unfeeling, pure — heartless. Their very essence shines white-hot, scalding, blue; Full of grace, yet lacking in mercy. All evidence of my falling apart is gone; They — he stitched me back together, brushed over the scars and tears in my skin, healed the blood-slicked wounds Read more…

you’re the one film in my mind’s cinema, on an endless loop, and yet, i never tire of it. you’re the creased, tear-stained letter i pretend i haven’t read over and over again. of all the cars that pass under the stoplight in my town, it’s only ever red for you. you’re the fingerprint on my window pane i always seem to miss, one that stays for weeks. until i stubbornly rub it away. you’re Read more…

She’s so pure, that woman with waxing moons for eyes Floating through the kitchen constructing her craft Her eyes, they ask, so I reply, “You are.” “I found it for you” she’s told me From the floor, she’s picked it for me: “Thank you.” Eventually, the kitchen floor sprouts small evergreens. She no longer glides through her domain, She is stopped by the trees They talk of ability and value but She longs to trance Read more…

My days fluctuate in a sinusoidal manner, sometimes a day with glistening green and brilliant blue is just out of my view. Others I profess its beauty like it’s my country’s banner, and being unable to bear the beauty seals my corpse with a screw. Now this corpse knows life, The arduous carpenter bee and the pop-up piano player playing with passion made sure of that. So this corpse’s mockingbird sings selfishly yet meets resistance Read more…

But I want to understand the power of this phantom that stretches and shrinks in your life but avoids mine like the plague I worry for you and pray that you can know when to say that you are not okay Its not my place to worry so far as to ask how you are because we just met and that’s not normal, I struggle to a magnitude of maybe a fourth of you yet Read more…

My life used to flash by In dark smears I could hardly remember Everything meshed together Creating an endless ocean of fabric A dark velvet Deep, beautiful, but muted. Some days stand out Like pearls embedded into the infinite cloth Close your eyes and caress the fabric You’ll be sure to find them. The ones I love are sequins Bright and glittery Stars in a never-ending night sky They perch high above me Smiling down Read more…

I sit at the dinner table My plate heaped with chicken and rice I eat it all in the blink of an eye And reach for another serving But my parents look surprised They let out little laughs Don’t eat anymore they warn My dad extends a hand to pat my stomach I shrink away I am 10. I laugh and play around with my brother My cousin is babysitting us She watches us with Read more…

if i only exist to you when i’m naked then let my clothes decorate your room.   let my Led Zeppelin shirt adorn the wall  next to your band posters.   let my black pants compliment the  overflowed hamper in the corner.   let my lacey, white bra blend in  with your colorless bedspread.   let my underwear enjoy the company  of the other 17 pairs it found in your drawer.   my socks are Read more…

One drop in a sea of red and black. A vibrant mural of meaningless psychology. Art is inconvenience. Despite all the games, I wanted to write. Still I’m a garden of construction and experience. Savannah Thornton is a senior double majoring in English and Entertainment and Media Studies. Her hobbies include reading, overanalyzing Netflix shows, and buying seven-dollar lattes. She has a passion for storytelling whether that be through prose, poetry, or screenwriting, and wants Read more…

My voice deepens as I grow older  reminding me of the throaty sounds she made when we still laughed together    When I use my most authentic voice and she pours out my mouth, I  press my lips together tightly to stop the flow    I look at myself in the mirror and  see the slow morph of time on my face bringing it into the same likeness    How the lines and contours of Read more…

Seventeen short years, I followed the prints That I never thought  Would fade from firm sands.   And before the moon Moved the tide up the shore, Erasing fast the marks Of our future and past,   You wondered over water To the horizon far, While I, unbalanced by breakers Realized at distance:   These dying sunsets, At the crumbling edge of time, Burn their brightest images Into the heart’s mind.   Brooks is an Read more…

a belief in silence and a belief in distance   a small space set aside for  breathing on monday morning   build your house here and dig a grave for each ex-lover   let flowers grow from their bones   grey sunlight and unspoken apologies and, every hour, another war   another name to add to the list of innocent victims and it will be your job to memorize them   it will be your Read more…

Jumped overboard before me, leaving me to cry the 3 rivers dry  from the tidal estuaries of—  Brudenell, Cardigan and Montague,  rivers that flowed into Saint Mary’s Bay. I spent the happiest days of my life  with my chest puffed up like Captain Bly,  getting my Boston Whaler underway across  the bay to Boughton Island. She stood at the  bow, her hair flowing in the wind, moments  before she exclaimed to me: I will wait Read more…

Such repose. Such calm. Such peace.   If only I were an enlightened one, and not some guy trying to get by.   If only I could take the noble eightfold path and not the commuter bus.   If only I could reach the sphere of nothingness and not have to work for a living.   If only I could teach  the misery of clinging to transience and weren’t actually living with it.   If Read more…

—but unwelcome, the Pacific barges  into private spaces, like the many voices  of your mother while you’re making love.    How the waves under which I entered you  enter harder the holy homes of our good kin— waste away our neighbors’ wealth, however makeshift—and their hearts—and televisions  pieced together, restaurants, homes of driftwood  stilts and corrugated steel. Gone their photographs  of baptisms: children, adolescents, everyone more  underwater now than they ever would have been.   We make ice Read more…

The candle burns alone as a forgotten light in a heavy darkness, painting shadows around ceramic saints and angels placed upon my grandfather’s bedside table,  as final offerings for a lost ram never humbled by the shepherd.   I was not there when he died, but a silent prayer was said by his wife of sixty-four years who knelt over the fresh corpse with whom she had nine children, his sagging brown skin  the color Read more…

Stay    a minute  longer let’s  talk    about  the bees  and    how it  feels to  know  someone I    could make  coffee    the way I know you’d  like it (too    bitter)  the acid of it will eat  away at    our flesh  while I  show you the   staircase that winds up to no-   thing  it was  where I   went  pretending to be alone Savannah Jane Williams is a Read more…

The flowers that line the valley streams, Rhodendrums that kiss the rivers. The mist that hid your eyes: You were the north side of the mountain. I huddle in the mud and rotten leaves, Telling myself how much I love you. Yet I can’t help but be afraid of How icy you make me feel. Chin deep in clear cold water, I hold myself under. The feeling of numbness Takes my body, Feels tender. This Read more…

I will be Prince when Autumn comes. A rusted diadem will fall upon me when the world turns brown. And when the wind gets colder and the older things decay I will be crowned with the tired sound of falling rain. And I will set the house I build deep within the field of the harvest, thick as snow, where the measure of the yield Is counted by some long-forgotten straight-and-narrow way that I tried Read more…

Led by two nuns with brown steady hands, the faith of novitiates, she stepped  into the cold water.   An old, frail woman at 33, the red mask of Lupus stained her face.  Crutchless, she was willing to believe in holy water,   miracles great and small.  But she surprised herself, astonished God.  Who wouldn’t ask for firm tissue, the connected threads                                                  of marriage, children, years and more years, instead of a lonely porch, Read more…

I sit next to your son, Who sits next to your daughter, Who cries at the priests’ words. Fast talking Spanish and occasional mumblings of “amen” are barely registered. All I can understand is my mother’s sobs and wheezes.   Cars whizz by and drown out the priest and my mother. The Floridian sun shines brilliant and hot. My mother clutches her brother’s knee. A tear trickles down his cheek underneath his sunglasses. He stares Read more…

they said we were spoons in the drawer our curves could never hide teeth never burn never puncture but our reflections came back upside down and they never saw how we snared them in the vines twisting down our necks Terra Peranteaux is a student at Utah State University. Her poetry also appears in Sink Hollow Literary Magazine. She enjoys travel, playing music, and writing.

Once a sentinel for a wedding gift— Ladon the Dragon wrapped himself around the trees in the Garden of the Hespérides he swished his hundred heads a hundred voices roared a hundred warnings threatened he guarded golden apples His blood, lacquer red against Hercules’ death sword, dripped into the soil liberating dragon trees with stiff dense leaves crowning thick trunks As glitter thrown to the sky Ladon the Dragon became the stars of Draco encircling Read more…

Keep them wide open child, those eyes of yours hiding beneath the lashes for you know not the hour of your death and it would be unfair to not see when it comes. So, no blinking, keep them wide open even on this journey called life the hour fast approaches, keep your eyes wide open. You’ll appreciate all I speak of when you see him appear calling your name a poem or two to spare. Read more…

“A frozen hen can hurt you,” my wife says, plopping the Cornish firmly on the kitchen island. The first light of a Boston spring makes precise and stylish lines on one wall as I lift up the hen, holding it like Hamlet held the celebrated skull of Yorick. “This can hurt you,” I say, thinking more of the world than I should be and setting the hen back down, gently, as if it were alive. Read more…

From my mother I learned To pick words clean, To tear at sentences ’til they were chicken-bone smooth, Split open, the marrow of their meaning oozing out. From my father I learned Thinking is all well and good, But a fat lot of good it’ll do you in the real world! The meaning of life won’t teach you how to grocery shop. Abigail Ryan is a filmmaker, bibliophile, YouTuber and musician. You can usually find Read more…

Although her departure was thought long due, Over the house descends a surprised hush. Though home’s populace shifts from three to two, Relieve grief with memory’s poignant flush. Remember the time she chewed my toothbrush To shreds the morning of Carmen’s wedding; And the thunder that compelled her to rush For cover in the basement’s safe bedding. Did you tire of her incessant shedding? Or were the rug’s wayward strands a welcome Sight to your Read more…

I feel like three identical brown squares in a diagonal line. I feel like I get more and more illiterate every single day. Cool story, man. What’s the difference between regular black and blackest black? Trademarks. What makes colored squares on a wall into gallery art? Pretension. I think it’s a dog shape?   Alex Cross is a third-year English major from Marietta, Georgia. She hates robots, the ocean, and deeper meanings.

The wall of pull-tab machines says you’ll be lucky for a change. I listened, April 10, 2010, lined dollars on the bar and played. The bartender   loaned me a table knife to scratch the tabs (the game: Undead Minotaur) and I started to hit on the third or fourth— a ten, a twenty, one hundred dollars—   the bartender checked carefully, it was his watch, and I watched carefully: it was my luck running Read more…

They are but minor cases they say when we tell of dying children with hungry mothers, of pot bellied fathers and empty pockets, of slim cases politicians point out. Preserve your strength for the elections for then we will pack you food and fill your pockets with change. So, we wait– Four years on four, it is then our angel touches the water, to stir one Naira into our palms. Of slim and minor cases, Read more…

In silence I stand, before all that stare spine melting I bow for my sins are little and great. In silence I stand, as Papa speaks to him chosen ‘You will take her with you, give me just a bottle.’ In silence I stand, my little feet weary of the escape I tried, still, I go with Akpan the driver primary for forgotten Abasiama Udom is a poet and writer with a love for all Read more…

Those backwoods years.  Shooting bullfrogs big as your head on the old farm pond- Watching the bullets skip   Rabbits melted by the shotgun. Stew in their bones- The scent of thyme  heavy in  summers heat-   Bluegill and sunfish Bask in their glory on  the bottom of the boat Moonshine in their eyes, Formaldehyde in their veins-   The .22 positioned religiously Bound in holy matrimony to the cartridges  and shotgun in the trunk- Read more…

Inspired by “Eurydice’s Footnote,” by A. E. Stallings I Be careful when you speak the name Of Orpheus; For though I hear he’s everywhere— In bars, on Broadway, and in beats Of poetry, both yours and mine— He’s still owed some respect; He’s still owed some contempt; Are you not furious that he Just had to trust Eurydice, but Couldn’t, didn’t have the faith; And what’s a faithless love? What’s love unless someone could walk Read more…

The perfect blend of the purple sky meeting the deep blue of the ocean puts me at a loss for words. I am entranced, enchanted by its beauty. I begin to notice the sand creeping in between my toes and the water slowly lapping around my ankles, seeming to gently beckon me farther in. Deep blue, vast unknown You enchant me, terrify me You have the power to set me free, bring clarity Let me Read more…

The worms sleep in the silty loam Until their tunnels fill with rain They wriggle up through mud and bore Trap doors to rooms inside my brain Once in, they wriggle and they writhe Those pinky-wide digesting tubes Just a mouth, body trailed behind With sole purpose and no intent They feed on rotted leaves and grass Clippings stuffed in my eyes and ears They make rich the mind with their cast- -ings and feed Read more…

Is this what the boar lifted life out of the ocean for? Did he know that one of the cells on the Earth he pushed up with his tusks would turn into me, another still, into you? Because I am here, playing with coffee stirrers and you are there, avoiding my eyes. You send me a message, concealed into the sugar you spilled on the table, Hidden in the folds of your cardigan, Morse-coded in Read more…

Guilt fits underneath every one moment of calm, A lull in the squeaking Contains perforated promises Of Scotch-taped brokenness Concentrated clouds of Warm, oiled air Can’t remove the layers of dirt and dust and skin who lay under there To water a velvet fern is not to establish roots To carve a half-circle Into a copper urn To color it yellow With purple hues Is not to feel the sun Your green thumb, Alchemical delusion Read more…

In perpetual dusk and curls,            skeeters are a thing       ’round here, but they won’ bother you if you dress in the colors of the sun or the patterns of Granma’s curtains and are a ma’am or missus or, better             yet, a miss                         because they will mistake your pale smoothness Read more…

You get to dance freely while I curve my body forward, not knocking into things, not talking in bold and italics underlined; revised and stamped for approval to leave my lips. I stand out enough. I can’t be the misplaced font on that white page. I have to leave enough space so you don’t feel threatened. Sydnee Banks is a junior at the University of Georgia majoring in English and minoring in Sociology. Her future Read more…

Lift the bowl with burnt out wood, pick the fronds of the of palm to sweep for Bari; your God will not visit no, not a dirty householf the angels bearing seed will repel lift the bowl, wipe the floor keep ready my child. Be ready. I have called, the angels come see them carry babies beautiful. Which do you desire? She who sticks her fingers between her lips Or he who shrieks in your Read more…

this is my home, i said, and the smiling photos hanging on the stairs seemed to concur. it comes back to me: child i was— dirty fingernails, twisted teeth— exalting in summer storms thrumming against my window, or weeping over dead fireflies in a jar and panhandlers when my father kept his wallet closed, or clambering along the magnolia branches, green and tender footed. i learned: lemonade. dandelions. laughter. (remorse. shame. disgust.) still so little Read more…

Nine years too long and stale have gone since I Last pranced and ran upon these sparkling hills, With my spirit as wild and tender As the fiddleheads that sprout by the creek. A fond and hazy dream of summers past, These memories have become, yet still filled With all the cluttered and confused joy of A child whose teeth and bones and soul are Not full-grown. There stands an oak that shadows The barn Read more…

She remembers the first time A boy bought her flowers. Hydrangeas, blue — Funny thing, hydrangeas. Their color can shift between pink or blue Based on the soil where they grow. These grew out of sourness, acidity That turned the petals to ice. The meanings change as much as the color Does, and blue can express regret, beg forgiveness, or even call the recipient frigid As a subtle slam for turning down a lover. The Read more…

Morning Sun, Edward Hopper, 1952   Loneliness is the strangest of emotions, longing to feel the warm, intimate touch of another and somehow terrified to let anyone close enough to experience my pain, as if my instability will flow like chilled water into their bones, it perpetuates itself and perpetuates itself and perpetuates itself. (It never occurs to me that this could be a two-way transfer, perhaps their stability would flow into me like warm Read more…

Living among drawn out summer afternoons, When the southern heat sticks to my skin and adds weight to my hair, And the two pm sun seems almost promised to last forever. Fixating on passing fancies that keep my mind at ease, keep me floating long enough to forget what makes the time slow down and the sun so pervasive. Capricious tendencies leave me searching. Searching for a home I’ve never known. Home, which never seems Read more…

I’m surrounded by visuals so I can’t hear a beat I’m surrounded by individuals who know who they must be And I can’t seem to hear the music that they see This town is idyllic, but it won’t be a crutch It won’t tell me what I must do It only encourages me to pick up a brush I have no skill, I can only use my words But a whisper in my ear tells Read more…

If you feel the weight of the relentless Speed Limit pressing upon you, Walk five under it for goodness’ sake Let your eyes ache with the beauty Of the images that used to blur In front of the now-bleary windows Press your head and nose into Love’s loves until you smell all but else And your heart shows pomegranate red Instead of thinking about not thinking about what your tears say about The face they Read more…

Those spectators are gone to another Zoo to glare with the weight of iron On an as yet free, mild wilderness Be it child or me or otherwise, They change the nature of it by pushing, Grasping the sifting crowd of selves, Not knowing that love lies not In newness or answerable questions. Ripping the spectacle to carrion They entomb it in harshly with their Sudden and thoughtless stone of Marching, marching, marching away. The Read more…

We say we like to be pretty. We like to wrap ourselves up nice. We say we want joy. At Christmas we sit around a big dead bird and we talk about ourselves. What are you doing, Uncle Jack. How’s it feel to be sick, Cousin Sam. We walk, like to the grocery store before making a meal, like to work and we talk and smile and nod, like we are. A pleasant assumption but Read more…

Heat bubbles up and cloaks this whole place until I’m taking stifling breaths and wiping slick sweat from my forehead as I pour over pages. Even the faded cat won’t raise her head or let me pet her. We’re tall but the shelves with their gray-smelling books loom over us sort of like hugs, sort of like thunder. There used to be a song all the little girls could sing that made a novel seem Read more…

Jessica has long brown hair and a well-earned tan as she disappears into Coronado High School (Go Islanders). She walked through the courtyard to the stairs and up to her class covering her eyes when she walked between the shadows of the palm trees. She hopped over understated black and white chalk art of Marilyn Monroe drawn on the ground. By all appearances she is very, very average. Frances has short black hair and a Read more…

Who am I when you find your Oxycodone?   and when your face is not disgusted as you hold in your cigarette smoke for a few seconds longer.  It’s not melancholy, it can’t be. It’s lavender you cut with your hatchet and broken bones.  It’s a new form of artistry, you built it on your own from your dirty laundry and keepsake dried flowers.  My subconscious is expecting to find a tilted lampshade in your bedroom Read more…

I want to tell you, but I can’t I’m scared to death, so I recant I’m about to leave So we shouldn’t become “we” This is a secret I must keep But being in your presence makes my will weak We talk about how we’ve both been scared I let you into my heart, shattered and marred Confiding in each other And we weren’t afraid to uncover I didn’t see you like this until now Read more…

My friend says he doesn’t like poetry, unless it’s about a man talking to the moon. True love has crawled into the wormy dirt, and dissolved in the loam as Bayer’s aspirin in water. He thinks that the empty and high conversation between Man and Moon that desire drags from the parted lips of Man is the only true confession of love. Anna is a horse girl at heart, does standup comedy when she’s not Read more…

Swallow your dagger. Show teeth. Check – offer appendage into mouth of Doe. She grazes your palm with feigned indifference, and the stars watch – breaths bottled into shapes of eggshells – about to break. The Doe grins with eyes too wide, So, this is a deer in headlights? and they never leave mine as she appraises me without fear for oncoming impact. Her mouth opens and she lets the words drip from her jowls Read more…

I think I’m losing my mind How can you see it and I cannot? Let me know because I want to believe That we are not moving just aimlessly That this will not start just to fall apart Convince me, show me, that we could get lost In our own space and time Take me out of my thoughts But right now it just seems like a pointless shot in the dark That I cannot Read more…

There was a time in my life when the loss of innocence would have broken my heart – pulsing with ache and sadness for the sweetness of naivety, crushed under the weight of knowing some things can never be regained.   Loss doesn’t happen all at once, you don’t wake up one morning to find it gone – though, sometimes I think it would be better that way; rather it’s stolen in small moments, disappearing Read more…

I will let you know how you’ve let me down; Across an achingly empty pond I’ve had nothing to fill with, you stood there with her simple garden hose and one hundred words of how we could fill it. One nightfall is all we worked. But in our early morning it was dry again my head rolled off of your arm and into your mattress I crawled past the stuck doorknob to greet a flooding Read more…

Like a desperate man in horrible need for a drink of water You push every one of your scorpion feelings aside to extend to the plentiful river of my lips and what they have for your starving love All your loose scorpions have stung me You’re so selfish Kaylyn Venuto is from a small suburb in Massachusetts who moved to Brooklyn, New York at 18 years old to attend art school. She transferred to the Read more…

She sits with her legs crossed. Her faded, stained jeans hang loose on her thin hips. Wrinkled bare feet tingle at the mountain breeze, grey curls tangle down her slumped spine. The wooden swing rocking back and forth, back and forth her mind contemplates jumping into the shallow river a few yards in front of her as she drinks the old bottle of white wine nestled in her lap. She forgets whether the sun is Read more…

My mother’s soft smile always lingered with the smell of cigarettes she always let me sleep with her stained sheets placed on the stone floor as she watched the window her short hair clinging to the nape of her sweaty neck My mother’s hands always shook while she would stroke my back reading the Hebrew Scriptures each morning the light peaking through that sweaty window I lived until I was nine always expressing gratitude for Read more…

Silky white a canopy blossoming, dangling over her eyes to the sky above her hands in the earth below, intertwining with the spry blades of green sprouting. The intoxicating scent swirling in her nostrils, wrapping around her swelling brain and squeezing Beautiful camelia Lilting white flesh dotted with insects, crawling out from her heart, spilling from her core Bruised petals where eyes should be, dark marks like hands ‘round a throat White petals stained crushed Read more…

You said you wrote about dancing And I think that’s a lovely sentiment To note those moments where you lose yourself to someone else or the freedom found within the movement The steps one after another Or the careless foot placement Carefree nonetheless Sometimes we dance in circles or boxes and other times in lines, But you and I danced in between them. We danced and danced around it until we couldn’t any longer Dizzy Read more…

Cold, broken heart like the  icein my glass,Melting with every moment spent beside you.Father figures turned to ancient stone to last forever while Fail-fathers live on, hated in their vice,falling blind into adulthood; Past innocence and ideals stamped on the heart. Tattooed on the skin.Hands shake, stomach clenches, eyes and heart bleeding. Kiss on the hair meant to heal a comforting friend;Even the listeners need consoling. People rush by like ghoulish open-mouthed trout.A woman laughs Read more…

I miss you. I had to start with that so the hands of nostalgiagripping my neck would loosen ever so slightly.It has given me the voice to compose this prose,so onward we go.I hope you at least remember me.I know you have many a passengera constant stream thatebbs and flows but neverstops. You always keep them coming backlike my father, even though he has no hope in everreaping the benefits of hours spentalone; him, your Read more…

Was it stupid to think I would end up with you? Or maybe selfish? But you never knew I should have told you and now I’m second guessing But it would be too cruel, and I can’t keep messing With your head and your heart I won’t curse you from the start I couldn’t admit it to myself I just wanted to hide you away on my shelf For safe keeping You’d always be there Read more…

Laura is about to graduate UGA in the Spring. She has retained the Zell Miller Scholarship throughout her college career. She spends her free time reading everything she can. She enjoys as much time as she can with family and friends. 

I am nobody’s first choice. maybe that’s what instilled in methe want to be wanted,the need to be needed,rooted in me relentless yearning for fixing what I cannot fix,healing what I cannot heal,what wants to stay shattered and strewnacross the floor. I wanted to be enough for you –I said I didn’t think I could be,and I was right.Always right. I loved being the first you called whenanxiety ate at your heart,loved that my voice Read more…

Chew me up  Spit me out  Gulp me down  Guzzle guzzle  Drain me  Muzzle me    They Pin me up On their wall Like some butterfly  Exquisite My wings spread wide against the cork They Gaze with a light smile  At my entombed corpse    I am a whimper now Among a sea of deep baritones Why didn’t you scream they said  I tried  But how could I compete   against your echo  your cacophony    Read more…

Loneliness renders me capable of everything. I alphabetize my bones, color code a wide expanse of breath, learn to stack my teeth neatly: nickels for canines, dimes for wisdom I get to know you through the essence of myself a city hand-sifted from ashes Maybe there is a life in the things you’ve touched maybe there is a bit of blood, a tear, sweat a human fossil record with an expiration date My footprints canvassed Read more…

I Let me drink from your lips the ancient words and modern prophecies Of all the light before us; Let me feast upon the bounty you will share, year after year: The peach and pear, that glow with summer’s gold; The apples red, that crunch like autumn leaves; The apricots, that fill me with spring’s joy; The vibrant grapes, that turn to winter wine. In silence you will laugh, and sing, and say ‘twill be Read more…

  Dane Tillman- of Valdosta, Ga- is a sophomore majoring in English and philosophy. He’s the rogue offspring of Ginsberg and John Wayne, left on the front doorstep of Foucault’s grave. That is to say, he’s the commie beatnik cowboy faggot of your nightmares with a chip on his shoulder and a notch in his eyebrow.

When I was seventeen, a little less old and a little less wise My father he told me to take this solemn advise: He said, “Son, there will come a day, when the road is running out, When all the paths you thought you’d take are empty, All dead ends. “You’ll find you a girl, and settle down somewhere, And grow old with the dying of the sun. You’ll raise a sweet family, on a Read more…

  Drawing By Kyle Drenner Fire Sermon The stage is set to spark a midnight trance, A dance to wake and slake a base desire To seek and know, to break and bare a chance To move as one and cast the stage afire. Burning, blazing, scorching shapes in darkness The dancers bathe in bright and take from night Blackened ink, a diamond light, whose likeness Of blinding sunrise mimics stars alight And night will Read more…

Elegy 3 Burn down the past, an order, And make a way for the newness That is nothing and is Wasteful Critical of then, Critical is Now.   Tether yourself to the future with Invisible strings of data and electricity. Information the new Confirmation   Do you remember what we look like? A face with skin is less real Because of today And tomorrow.   Quick, hurry along or you’ll miss the Future.   Cole Read more…

Lately a Raccoon A pile of wildly stacked bones and meat In the center of the lane Rotting in the sun, rotting   Smears of life mixed with smears of rubber Form the sacred monument — Testament to speed   The sculptor is long gone, his artwork completed But now it stands untouched Avoided as carefully as it was created   Avoided, but why? Avoided to prevent further disrespect?   no Avoided to keep the chrome Read more…

Ants in the Mail Dead on arrival, of course Makes it difficult for my mother Who spent the money to make me happy By ordering from the catalogue   Their brittle bodies crumble in the transparent tube They were shipped in Overheated, that’s what happened Sat too long in the mail truck and died   I told her it was okay, But I cried as I dumped the powder of Legs and heads and bodies Read more…

The Willow Queen   There stands a lady slim and fair Upon a hill by the silver trail    Her tresses hang to thinning ends Swaying like grass in a gentle wind   Beneath her leafy boughs we spy  A sweet figure playing, young and spry   Collapsing on the shaded earth With limbs splayed and a look of mirth    Eyes cast upward see green and brown  Render these soon a tree queen with Read more…

Rain on a Tin Roof   When the skies open their vault Spilling forth the purest gems When the heavens moved to tears Bestow their blessings down below When the chirping bird grows silent  At the grumbling of the clouds When the wolf delays his hunt  In respect for nature’s throes When the earth opens its throat  To relieve its parching thirst When rivers, streams, and lakes Prepare their boundaries to burst   Then in Read more…

Assault on a Glass Door   There’s a caller come a knocking  He’s rapping at your door  Through the glass you see him A blur and nothing more   A streak of red announces The attack begins anew A trumpeting proclaims him This battle is not through   With pride and pomp abounding This visitor puffs his chest His jabbing strikes continue Pray your glass will stand the test   You can try to scare Read more…

G              O                N                 E Is the girl, I once knew She’s gone from the woes of childhood The swings, and wind blowing through her tight curls, The ones her mother took all night to set. The picture days and learning Spanish for the first time Walking down the street without a care in the world Read more…

sometimes i can hear your voice in the voices of un-stranged strangers. in between my forgetting my steel-headed self-truth, you wait. you tell me i’m far from home.

Outside my window Creeping across the ground Covering the trees there’s a early-morning blanket of Fog You hide behind a screen well Grey bubble ellipses Grey walls of apology Behind your glass and LEDs you tether together letters into words and words into sentences You craft paragraphs with grace But in presence you’re phantom Slightly more opaque than mist Whispers and repetition like you’re fingering a rosary Ad infinitum Apologies and reasons But you can’t Read more…

There is a stench in the air Aged cigarette smoke, maybe Soaked into ancient walls of oak Or is it pine?   The patter of rain on the thin roof above Dark figures in frames One on each wall What is this place?   A single candle illuminates the room It sits upon a coffee table in the center Made of teak I think   I can hear a pencil on paper A face shows Read more…

He was as grandiloquent as the word grandiloquent overly verbose and painfully engrossed in the putrid sweetness of his ego that he reeked of— “It’s a new scent by Dior” he told me winking, sinking his perfumed fingers into the fire of my mind.   But what pissed me off the most about that overdose of pompous words was how many of them I scribbled in my journal to define later.

The light dances along my fingertips And I curl my hand around its rays to Catch its golden stream.  From my hand it drips And stains the table with its yellow hue. I pull the darkness around me and wear The shadows and the nightfall like a cloak Stardust falls like snow and slips off my hair Crumbling into a fog of black smoke The sickly, ashen grey of dusk and dawn Coats the world Read more…

  I’m the girl who picks the tattered, grandpa-worn flannel over the new one Because it always seems to keep me warmer on winter days. If you come with me to Walmart I’ll hunt down a Crayola box Open it and touch its chiseled teeth Take in the scent of new, waxy pigment Just waiting to be spread across a page. I can’t stand a lonely cookie So I usually pair it with myself. Show Read more…

Sink into me like a grave I am the tired home you’ve made out of the pull and release of our Mother Earth that we mistake for waves. And I pray it’s not too late to remind you that it’s okay to let your filth into me; I’ll still be here anyway.

Darkness A deep breath Drops of sweat fall from my brow Eyes closed Silence Soft light Warming glow Heat radiating from above Staring at my feet White noise Spotlight Blinding glare Feet moving through rehearsed steps All eyes on me Chatter Fading Silhouettes in motion Judgement forming in minds A curtain call Applause Darkness A deep breath Drops of tears fall from my eyes Eyes close Silence

Something more tender than metaphor I can tell she’s looking for some thing more tender than metaphor—a shimmering textual cylinder, a shelf of self-help run thru a chipper- shredder, a New York Times best-seller — Ownmost i like any thing that lights up on its own— cats’ eyes, children’s sneakers, the sun— when the baby smiles, it’s not for you or me Local on the 8s wanna talk about the weather with me—i like to Read more…

Once I had a fascination with men fighting one another. Fists hitting cheeks, hitting stomachs. They would be fighting for honor, theirs or mine — it didn’t matter. But the animal that wins the dogfight does not curl up next to you and lick your wounds after it has just decimated a body. That dry dog food will not satisfy any of its cravings. Now it hungers for something deeper, bloodier, something that glows red Read more…

(1) pass me the remote, click the button or hand me the remote—do not point that at me it is dangerous—i don’t know my age but i am too young to change channels to open up the attic and find family portraits family members whose names disappeared shortly after they were buried before their names eroded off their  gravestones, i hope someone places my nintendo in my  suit pocket i hope someone remember to charge Read more…