VAGABOND CITY

MERYL D’SA interviews KAREN THOM

Tell us about yourself. Where you are from? Hi! I’m Karen Thom. I’m Canadian and currently live on the gorgeous southern west coast of British Columbia, Canada. I’m reminded daily by my picturesque surroundings (and the news) how truly fortunate I am. What are your passions and hobbies? My first passion is my family and […]

Creative Nonfiction, Everything, issue 38, Prose

OTHER GRANDMOTHER by IVA KAROLY-LISTER

Purple and sun-worn, supple and tired, you hold me on the couch in my parents’ living room. Where I cry into the space between your breasts and mine. Half-asleep, I pat your chest to shape a pillow. You belly laugh yellow into the overcast. We drive across the midwest, eat steaks marked by signs that […]

Creative Nonfiction, Everything, issue 38, Prose

DREAMING MOTHER by ROBIN W.

where she sits on the front steps of the nyc townhouse i will own someday and spouts nonsense, says do your science homework, sweetie. says what matters more, what you say to yourself when you lose or what you say to yourself when you win? repeats c’est la vie. c’estlaviec’estlaviec’estlavie until my ears bleed so […]

Everything, issue 38, Poetry

WHITE PICKET FENCES by PRITHIVA SHARMA

You told me you had your first kiss at Papa Chinos by the bushes I was awestruck that a Papa Chinos exists where they have bushes I wonder what kind of a neighbourhood you grew up in Was it a brownstone one, with houses lined one after the other or was it a scene […]

Everything, issue 38, Poetry

LET ME by GRACE GALLAGHER

my mother stands in my driveway holding two grocery bags like twin babies. i crush my cigarette under my foot and say mom, let me carry those for you. i tell her i’ll stop smoking when i’m pregnant and she says i already am my own baby. what i want more is to be my own […]

Everything, issue 38, Poetry

ROOM 402 by ANNIE MCQUADE

i watch as my grandmother, with bordeaux painted arms, listens as my grandfather tells her about the routine details of their shared household: a squirrel that keeps trying to get into the birdfeeder, a new can of pam cooking spray has been added to the pantry, a leak in the roof their son came over […]

Everything, issue 38, Poetry

BACK HOME by JULIA TRAVERS

My body is my home, but I shuttered it awhile back, and I’ve hovered nearby like a tangled kite, a drunken bird. Now I look through the windows, knock on panes, trace ledges. My hands follow mossy walls. I see how the roof points to the sky, and I want to live in there again, […]

Everything, issue 38, Poetry

TOPOGRAPHY OF A RETURN by SAQUINA KARLA C. GUIAM

Coming back always makes me aware of my space: the pale islands making up an archipelago on my legs, the dark trees encompassing many forests on my arms, the open caverns dusting my face; and dividing me from the continent I call Home— a land mass formed from centuries of tradition but nursing weeds of […]

Everything, issue 38, Poetry

BIRTHRIGHT by NATALIE WEE

Of all my inheritances my father’s appetite pulls heaviest the translucent ache licks my joints sweet a mouth without a mouth begging not for fullness but to be rid of absence a man who praises water’s return to shore transforms my […]

Art, Everything, interview, issue 37

MERYL D’SA interviews LIDIA TOMASHEVSKAYA

Where are you from? What kind of work do you do? I am from Saint-Petersburg Russia, but live in Israel now. I work as an illustrator and graphic designer. When did you begin illustrating? Could you tell us what your process is? I began illustrating about 6 years ago, after finding a modern illustration catalog […]

Everything, issue 37, Poetry

SNOW by RACHEL EGLY

She lies back on the bed while he watches the snow outside settling softly like the skin in the curve of her back. With the curtains and his attention drawn back inside, the soft machine of his body reminds her of the streets after the plow comes through. She sighs and thinks a mouth is […]

Everything, issue 37, Poetry

PARTING POEM by KIT ARMSTRONG

After Brad Paisley, “Ticks” Every atmosphere you bottle to your lips was the other half of an idea. Let’s get out of drive, find a moonlight, kiss a path I used to […]

Everything, issue 37, Poetry

KELLY DRIVE by KHALIAH PITTS

molten time // or perhaps memories, wet with windings and wanderings, wondering and the wariness and weariness the waxed (and waned) songs the many psalms sung and hung from expectant arms beings of ground pulled from homes soused with the whispers of living ghosts i came to give offerings at the place where trees come […]

Everything, issue 37, Poetry, Prose

AT BEITEDDINE, SUMMER 2018 by JESS RIZKALLAH

i’m from the overlap on the clock where wild dogs and roosters crossfire. the ambiguity of stars or satellites is where i wash my hair. ankles crossed, i forget that it is rude to forget about the margin between my knees. i wore jeans to avoid the reminder from men. still, he considered a handful […]

Everything, issue 37, Poetry

YOLK by CRIS IACOPONI

I would bang the egg of my forehead against bathroom walls Sunday mornings. ✝ My parents would drop me at Amy’s then over coffee cake and orange juice they’d whisper “We sure do love her, but—” I had a dream last night Amy. We were holding hands walking by the side of Route 55 […]

Everything, issue 37, Poetry

BLOOD TIES by LAETITIA K.

here are the mountains— even though Ma said that the highest mountain we have in this wretched place is a hill— that I awed at from Pa’s shoulders, resting on hollow bones and shaky foundations. […]

Everything, issue 37, Poetry

NATALIE KORMAN’S DAY OFF by NATALIE KORMAN

In this treatment, I am Cameron Frye and my old man, that’s me too, I am the interminable clang against my skull, making a charmed life a nightmare, making an exquisite home a hellhole. I am trying to evade consequences of freedom. It is so dirty and so frightening, I recoil. Freedom dings and puts […]

Everything, issue 37, Poetry

THIS GROUND by NELL SMITH

For a time, I forgot the skin of white pines, chapped from Maine winters, their sap seeping through the bark. I forgot, by loving the dogs of Guanaja that barked from the docks of stilt homes as I passed, parting the water in a dinghy. By loving snow crowding a spit in Alaska, the stones […]

Art, Everything, issue 36

MERYL D’SA interviews RAMONA RUSSU

Where are you from? What kind of work do you do and what materials do you work with for each piece? I was born in Romania and I am currently living in Corsica while travelling around the world. My work is mainly illustrations, drawings, paintings that feature The Girl with Black Hair – a name that […]

Creative Nonfiction, Everything, issue 36

FABRIC WOUND AND UNWOUND, by TASNEEM MAHER

Sometimes I wish there was some kind of unit with which to measure change. At one point, I tried to measure change in habits – in the things that carved my days into shape, in the catchphrases I used, and so on. This method worked for about a week until I realised that it didn’t […]

Everything, issue 36, Poetry

LOOKING OUTSIDE MY MINEOLA MODERA WINDOW by CLARA BURGHELEA

I count the days that pass into dusk, each one making me a victor of small favors and ticked-off things. This sleepless city won’t hold a stranger. Have I just entered the fresh middle time of my life or simply boarded a one-way off-peak midnight express? At times, I see my face stuck on every […]

Everything, issue 36, Poetry

I’M A SHARP KNIFE by VANESSA MAKI

(title inspired by “Blue Light” by Mitski) i was never born to be a dull / kitchen knife / i was born to be a sharp knife / that slices thru / whatever i damn well please / to slice hearts open / & call myself a heart breaker Vanessa Maki is a queer […]

Everything, issue 36, Poetry

ENTROPY GIVES BIRTH IN A SMALL ROOM by AGUNBIADE KEHINDE

“They told us we could chase any dream And then we died in our sleep” – Sadistik Somewhere in a dark room I tuck my face into the seams of my torn shoes; The world is a body of two hundred miens: Each one is a metaphor for foisted entropy- Spectrums of mirages in the […]

Everything, issue 36, Poetry

SHELF by BARA HLADIKOVA

we drove to the hardware store before we went bowling. You had to buy screws. You wanted to install a shelf. I make due without shelving, cluttering rocks with spice jars, souvenirs, old cards. maybe a shelf is a good idea, maybe it’s salvation. Instead, I go to the bakery and eat a Long John […]

Everything, issue 36, Poetry

TOKUNBO by OMOTOYOSI SALAMI

it starts in America, this year a shift has occurred I see some Black Americans embracing African cultures, Yoruba culture in particular some use it for aesthetics, spell “Orisa” as “Orisha” for the first time ever I don’t say I’m a Black American. I walk up to a priestess and tell her I’m actually Yoruba. […]

Everything, issue 36, Poetry

CAUSATION VS CORRELATION by CATHERINE WINDHAM

i eat chocolate chips for dinner the first night i notice my clock’s stopped working and it could be a coincidence but i don’t think it is. the first night the clock stops working is the first one that i don’t have the energy to brush my teeth or set an alarm. i write a […]

Art, Everything, Issue 35

MERYL D’SA interviews VIŠNJA MIHATOV BARIĆ

Tell us about yourself and the kind of artwork you do. My name is Višnja Mihatov Barić, I was born in Zadar but I live and work now in the capital city of Croatia, Zagreb. I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and after that I worked as a graphic designer for […]

Everything, Issue 35, Poetry

MATRYOSHKA by JEFFREY ZOU

She tells me how in Russian, Nesting dolls are like onions, layers unraveled To reveal more layers Slowly Slowly Her mother whips the shaft of a cane on the dance studio, Splintering […]

Creative Nonfiction, Everything, Issue 35, Prose

POET: DATER BEWARE by SHELBY HINTE

They say insanity is defined by doing the same thing and expecting different results. An ex once left this line in my voicemail box. This was back when we still referred to them as mailboxes. Most of my first boyfriends were poets because, well, I was also a poet. To be honest, I don’t think […]

Everything, Issue 35, Poetry

GASLIGHT by CHRISTIAN J. COLLIER

I wrote about the assault a year after it happened once, converted reality into a short fiction piece for a class in college & a week later, my professor, in her critique, told me that the way I’d described the act was not plausible, that it could not occur in the manner in which I […]

Everything, Issue 35, Poetry

AMERICAN ROT by DANIEL TOBIN

When I’m with you I feel clean mother-made-your-room-clean I am a 50’s diner clean I want to throw everything out my window the bed, my speakers, books, high def televisions, to choke on the empty with you naked and crosslegged […]

Everything, Issue 35, Poetry

REVOLUTIONARY LOVE by OLEANDER VENZON

have you ever noticed that the moment before we kiss is made up of the tension before a riot? air filled with both nothingness and hope molotov lips hot and unholy and burning for attention; together we make a lit match– a real fuckin faggot– together, we burn western civilization to the ground // i […]

Everything, Issue 35, Poetry

JAZZ by SARA MATSON

long dark body wave hidden under regal mythical blood + sex /// i am a love child of punky teenage dragons + fucking serious art over the moon i wait besting key rings between knuckles / obsessive fantasy gibbous / cackling blonde wigs curled like a weapon cautiously interrupted by a charming romance […]

Everything, Issue 35, Poetry

VAMPIRE by MAYA MALDONADO

i got called a “sexual vampire” once and i think he meant it as a compliment. he doesn’t know i am the worst kind of vampire the real kind, the bone kind, the steely fanged kind, doesn’t know i have power crackling from the tips of my fingers, doesn’t know i peel my skin off each night […]

Everything, Issue 35, Poetry

STRAIN by SALLIE FULLERTON

It’s a chain link all the times I told myself to dig in and forced a simpler phrase my muscles are sore and stringent and you ask me what the hell this means it’s a system of grabs and takes eventually you learn to move in tune to smaller steps. A night falls on you like […]

Art, Everything, interview, Issue 34

MERYL D’SA interviews QIANQIAN

Tell us a little bit about yourself. My name is Qianqian Ye, but I go by Q. I was born in China and moved to the US in 2012. I went to architecture school and graduate school. After graduation I worked as an urban designer and public art consultant. I’ve been interested in art since […]

Creative Nonfiction, Everything, Issue 34

TO SEE AND BE SEEN by EMILY YIN

How easy it is to forget. You’re in the therapist’s waiting room, the hospital, the throes of a panic attack—and then you’re not. The nurse calls you in and the doctor sees you out; the darkness lifts and the sun begins to shine. These are just things that happen in passing, and reality has no […]

Everything, Issue 34, Poetry

BUKOWSKI by CARA NEEL

In the winter with buried fists and breath held the bodies seek one another as the ice cracks open sidewalk and skull and the night stretches on past morning flesh shivers itself full. bones drawing close in the endless dark spaces warding off the chill and smoke drifts in and out of mouths a flush […]

Everything, Issue 34, Poetry

I’M THINKING OF SHAPES by OPPONG CLIFFORD BENJAMIN

the shape of a sea is a shipcarrying bodies of frightened boysto where they can kiss boys without having to run into obituary posters on Lagos walls.the shape of hopeis a wooden cabin of the shipwith a windowthat reminds the boys of stories their lovers told themabout boys who wear their skin like it’s the […]

Everything, Issue 34, Poetry

MIDSUMMER RESOLUTIONS by CARLY HO

we name every year the worst year. resolves into view an unhappy portrait: the youth in the chair still, unsmiling. brights of nursery greyed with time. was there ever happiness here? I just think of cicadas, in summer. The worst year, maybe, but: the only one they’ve got. and so they rise like lazarus into […]

Everything, Issue 34, Poetry

EVERYTHING IS LOVE by DASCHIELLE LOUIS

you undo me::braids and sanity cord wrap around your fists and with the snap of your fingers i am good girl::grandma fills the basin with plants uprooted from the backyard, and although i itch, she reminds me that i am home::it seems easy for you to take the galaxy on my shoulders and make it […]

Everything, Issue 34, Poetry

SAW-DUST BLENDED WITH SPIT by SAM FROST

isn’t glue / that doesn’t mean I didn’t sit in his car and wonder what it would be like to love calmly / man-made chemicals burn tongues / he leaned over and licked my lips / saliva can kill Sam Frost lives in Los Angeles and spends most of her time binge drinking green […]

Everything, Issue 34, Poetry

BOMBSHELL PLANCHETTE/WHY CAN’T YOU MANAGE PLATINUM? by JESSIE JANESHEK

Makeup makes the lie and I’m afraid of your bleach my legs/the trees open. To motivate myself I dream Kim Novak white lights in the clouds the self-control suicide note. Memory is a construct and you make it complacent say I’ll fall off the high dive break my […]

Everything, Issue 34, Poetry

DEAR by JODY CHAN

you point your tongue at my flaws twelve glass girls slide off a shelf in my chest one for each year| I’ve committed your voice to my mind’s breath I think too much of myself & not enough of family you say loneliness is just a cold soup of wanting overturned onto the empty bed […]

Art, Everything, interview, Issue 33

MERYL D’SA interviews PRIDE NYASHA

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, my full name is Pride Nyasha Mapfumo. I am a Zimbabwean male artist and expressionist painter whose art mainly explores the dynamic nature of love and relationships. I studied art in high school and have continued as a self taught artist. I received a degree in Architecture […]

Everything, Issue 33, Poetry

MAUSOLEUM by JUSTIN KARCHER

there’s this dream I’ve been having: a shiver of supermodels digging through my grandpa’s old stuff and telling me I’m not man enough when I wake up I put on some Kid Cudi and smoke the day away hey Mr. Rager they pump you full of parties then turn you into a constellation of mortgages, […]

Everything, Issue 33, Poetry

MILLERSVILLE by GABRIELLE MARTIN

There comes a point where every small town in Pennsylvania looks the same but this one is mine: like dirt stains on the side of a row home on the end I am ubiquitous, familiar. My toes catch the dust falling through corners cracks, I am a heifer, staring wide-eyed at the sun (cows will […]

Everything, Issue 33, Poetry

HONEY by YVES OLADE

i was born at dusk \ & some nights i still live there \ some nights \ it’s my body in the river \ & my hand reaching up to the moon \ keeping the sky together. \ but honey wants fragile, \ wants sweet. \ he wants something with its mouth wide open \ […]

Everything, Issue 33, Poetry

FOUR LEGGED WORK by JENNY MACBAIN-STEPHENS

your forehead airplane angry baby naked gardener broken break up ceramics recycled trash fiction empty wine bottle the crane we didn’t know what it was allergic runny eyes questionable stain on a trench coat stolen gem ring at the gym salmonella dead deer by the side of the road that dream about that jerk boy […]

Everything, Issue 33, Poetry

BREAKFAST POPSICLES by MAIA KACHAN

It’s monday and I eat two lemon popsicles as a start of the week meal replacement. I calculate the contents in my disordered (eating) brain and you tell me that popsicles aren’t food. When I call you mom and thank you for your concern we laugh in smiling eyes about the way we fucked the […]