Vagabond City Literary Journal

for and after Kevin Bertolero Do you remember how it felt to be boys in the grass? Staining our every-thing, our nowripped jeans we wore through the knees? It was so big then, possibility; love waseverywhere and for everything. We rode our bikes to the base of the hill where theprefect tree was, we watched […]

Home Improvement Amongst the implied violenceof the chain and rope aisle at Home Depot,I am emboldened to make let’s-fuck eyes at strangers.Then the soft amber of the lighting fixture sectionwrings me out and I want someone to please comeand pick me up, pluck me from a mean girls’ sleepover,drive me home and put me to […]

Earth is a ringed planet. A teenage faggot is a body orbiting low atmosphere The ground and its people swing them up like discus, but not enough to break Escape velocity. Thousands of blue-haired children float in the solar breeze Like a Kubrickian slide. The richest men on Earth launch garbage into the stars Like […]

The things that saved us are the same as they ever were.The spring irises glazed with rain, puppies learning to walk,the feel of his hands in yours or his skin,or your own skin, soft against the bedsheets.The way water cools the throat and slakes thirst,or how a good meal softens and rounds the belly,the way […]

It says “remember when you lost a tampon inside yourself?” It says “scratch your head.” It says“open your eyes.” It sends memories I’d forgotten. I’m forced to wonder what forgetting means,if I can be reminded so easily. My moon puts me back in my body when I have dreams aboutlevitating. When I was younger I […]

The neurologist tells me I’m intriguing, a specimento write about in her research.  She’ll change my nameof course.  It will help legions of doctors.  Tegretolis shaped like baseball diamonds and tastes like grapes.  After the seizure, I could not speak or type.Day one of Tegretol I float in space.  I bump into walls.Day two I […]

And some of the other times and the volleyball girls in milkglass socks beating reddened hands on rival eyes, well the orange tree is right there and if ur so hungry lie beneath it with ur mouth open catch some flies swat summer in the face and the sunset will go blushred fences in between […]

I was reading about solar energy And the book said the sun is the most abundant source of energy available on earth And the sun said you mistake my everything for nothing And I said fuck And I said I know how that feels And my ex boyfriend looked down and said fuck And my […]

a plant does not have thefunctional capacity toknowingly self-destruct; their chloroplasts do not choosewhether to accept the sunlightfrom which they photosynthesize— the sun, simply, says, “i love you,”and the plant says, “thank you,”and they continue on with their days. the plant does not apologizefor the support it accepts. itbreathes in, breathes out, and gives what […]

when the world said sink I sankI am in this way ordinaryI put pasta in the water watch it bloatevery time I think I’m new the old comes back like a stray I once fedimagine a well-read strange man I never get tired of my same storyI’ve tidied up my roomand left my inbox openin case he […]

Dreaming of Alaskan Islands we wound up in Dubuquewhere hills of inedible corn stretch into our vast American nothing. In sunlight and my day dress,I am your favorite burdenbuckled sweetly into the passenger seat,Our hands sticky as you pull yours away to make a left-hand turn. There are no canyons here. Still,I am probably luckyeach day […]

high water i think i’ll live forever because that’s what sharks do. i wanna dive into myself like an ocean bleeding out on the shore, splitting sand down into sand. i wannamiss class because i’m waiting for the bus with youon it, the morning shape of your face all ears & rosyeyelids. how much i’ve forgotten. it’s […]

I wish I were deadis a perfect example of subjunctive mood.What most people don’t realizeis how to conjugate the bodyto expose how it feels to hold onto improper objects. Psychologists call thisintrojection. To engage with a man, I must deny any sign I want to touch him. If I were to tell the truth,I would explain fewer peopleknow […]

on the drive back home      i ask if the moon is following us      an eyelash on my cheek my mother      tells me to make a wish      the moon isn’t following us      we’re circling around it      at five i drank tea from a saucer so      i don’t stay up at night      my palms orange henna an […]

Lucas Peel is a big mouth moonlighting as an adult.  He is a negligent plant father and can also have a little salami as a treat.  His work is forthcoming in the next software update of the iPhone 7 notes app.  Lucas lives in Honolulu, Hawaii and sometimes tweets @lookchrlz.  We don’t know what he […]

& on Saturday, before we squished plums in our fists and rubbed the color on our mouths—as if we could afford to replace our hunger with a bruised beauty—and took pictures of ourselves with so much flash our mouths looked like flowers in the parched desert of our bodies, we walked to Chinnamma’s home that smelled like girls and sweat. She […]

                                    (after Taylor Swift) This week my whole body has rejected reality, an apocalypsewithin an apocalypse, and I know better than to ask for help. I lived so long walling myself in with cassette tapes, frightenedof the madwoman beneath my own skin. I don’t think I know what crazy means anymore but certainly you know […]

The worst part of the video:The wasp laying eggs inside the caterpillar. A small thing, aDefenseless thing, limbless,And a sharpness on top of it–Its beating wings, itstwitching abdomen, the footage playingDouble time,As to show the process quicker,As to not bore the viewerWith a death as slow as this. In my dream you came out of […]