Rebecca Stoner was born and raised in New York, and spent six years living in Chicago. An MFA candidate at Rutgers University-Newark, her work is forthcoming in the Black Warrior Review and Palindrome.
Read moreA Lack of Birds by Eric Cline
I had accepted that I would never see you againbefore you ever died. Still air, or was the fan turning?You asked what you were seeing when there was nothing to see.Animals at the end of your hospital bed, but whatkind? I have never been good at seeing what is not there,much less what is. A […]
Read moreSafety at the Knife’s Edge by Thistle Dunsmuir
Thistle Dunsmuir is a non-binary writer and editor from the West Coast of Canada. Their work focuses on themes of queerness and neurodiversity, celebrating and exploring their identities of autistic, non-binary, aromantic, and asexual. These identities provide them with a fresh perspective on the world, which they explore deeply in their works. They can be […]
Read moreImmaculate Mary by Livvy Linz Winkelman
A man of God told me once that self-mythologizing is the greatest sin. He asked me what I prayed for and I could not answer, from my paper mouth. It became a fig tree, blossoming, rooting me in depth and height distractions. The fig tree was God but the tree was me but the tree […]
Read moreDon’t Swallow Me Whole by Thomas Kneeland
I can’t remember how long it’s beensince I’ve sung a whole song, painted a whole picture, written a poem wholeenough to make me love who I am & all the while, my throat is fullof broken notes small blue-winged swallows. They stab at flesh […]
Read moreElegy for the boy afraid to write queer poems by MJ Young
How could the moon have been likenedto cheese—wedge?—hardly appropriate.Possessing the delicacy of an orphanedeyelash, a demure sun-inspired stature,the moon is perfectly placed, not forced. Why was that easier to write than the title? It’s not that I’m bored of Ode to the Moonbut why would I read it when I can readOde to his Five […]
Read moreSelf Portrait as Roadkill by Teddy L. Friedline
Teddy L. Friedline (he/they) is a transmasc queer writer in Pittsburgh. He was the recipient of the 2022 Sophie Kerr Prize. Their work has appeared in Hood of Bone Review, Fauxmoir, DEAR Poetry Journal, the lickety~split, and elsewhere. He is an MFA candidate at Chatham University. You can find them on Instagram and on Twitter, […]
Read moreRationality by Emma Zhang
after Jenny Qi the point at which we swallow ourselves again & againuntil negated, oceans of spacetime measured (in meters)by a single blue vase. if rational: a gap. if linear: a reachingwe part to fill. crave nothing as preferred to emptiness.undefined, inescapable, if not an end, i want an awakening.shake the point from which i […]
Read moreAugust, Beyond by PJ Carmichael
Highway hypnosis. Dozing off in the centerlane. A chicken crossing the road. Fulltank of gas. The incomprehensible divinityof this moment. Route 2 and the roadwestward. Natural beauty of NewEngland landscapes. Laundry hangingon a clothesline, drying out in the Summersun. Permanent vacation. A state of mind.The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Forbetter or for worse.) A weekend cookoutwith […]
Read moreSpell for the Skin Underneath by Asia Nichols
open wounds, let me in, i am the words that wraparound your incisions, closingthem up so insects and other pestsdon’t fuck with you in this raw phase.i am the words that suck outall the pus, infecting you from pasttraumas and misunderstoodmamas wanting to school youon the realities, the uteralitiesof life, forgetting—you gotta live it and […]
Read moreIn Sickness & In Health by Audrey T. Carroll
Audrey T. Carroll is the author of What Blooms in the Dark (ELJ Editions, 2024), Parts of Speech: A Disabled Dictionary (Alien Buddha Press, 2023), and In My Next Queer Life, I Want to Be (kith books, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Lost Balloon, CRAFT, JMWW, Bending Genres, and others. She is a bi/queer/genderqueer […]
Read morei spent 3 hours by Maeve Vitello
watching a YouTuberdocument the history of Minecraft speedrunning. another day my date tells mea dream of studyingfilm archival workso she canpreserve porn. we go to a museumof postersand learn about a viral ad campaignthat predates my birth. i am transported. my primary partner describesan appalachian horror podcast i keep meaning to listen toand we watch […]
Read morePercoset Prescription, 11/16/23 by Ryan Clark
For now the sun cliche-like has risenin full view of my living. For now our cats lean and rub live-bodied my feetas light opens slow to the room where I feed them enough to help them remain.For now I forget slash set aside this need to close forever slash I mouth phrasesand none are for […]
Read moreFractured Love Song by Calvin Jones
It’s cold without you and I’d rather you left me rawcurl against you I’ll try not to scream watching you smile as you rip away my skinI think it’s nice it’s really hell I start to dread being aloneevery second without you A BLESSING I say I want you gone from my lifeAfter you kiss me I am a hollowed-out shellI smile through […]
Read moreRebirth (after Frank O’Hara’s “At night Chinamen jump”) by Jessica Hsu
Jessica Hsu is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, where her poems have won Hopwood awards. Their writing has been published or is forthcoming in VIBE, Passengers Journal, HAD, and others.
Read moreBEAST by Colette Reed
i wore my early days warm as bearskin, spinning out and into the sea. i told her that i wouldnever fall in love and she said just you wait, sweetheart, and guess what? i entered every room through the crack below the door, i licked clean plates to markthem mine, soft as i could, hated […]
Read moreThe Green of Your Lungs by Shaw
After Alessia Di Cesare the pine trees stayed the same shade of green and the thing is that i love you again.it’ that it hangs in my throat until we have glitter on our feet and sand in our eyes.that it was me breaking sticks and watching you shoot arrows, that i tried to tell […]
Read moreIn Which I Transition Without Any Medical Intervention by Jasper Kennedy
after Jenny Tiskus The first day with the stethoscopethe thought of eyes catchingon my buzzed head and refusingto let me listen to the child’s heartbeatlands like a winch hook behind mysternum, reeling me up and awayfrom the rancid culture simmeringin parental guts before I can evenpress the tiny belly, find the hurt.Years on I am […]
Read moreReturn by Dingzhong Ding
Dingzhong Ding (he/him) is a writer from Shanghai, China. His work has been recognized by the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio and Yale Young Writers’ Workshop. You can find him on Instagram @ddzhxng.
Read moreBrumation by Macallan Lay
All mental collapse happensin the winter. The brief pop of red tree leaves before dropping. That’s it. I was enclosedin my bed when I marked the distancebetween me and spring. Flashlight under the covers with a mapof my head in my hands. I fell asleep for a long time. A brain is like a spider’s web,shaped for protectionbut by […]
Read moreMy Gender as a List of Things I Don’t Understand by Shaelin Bishop
metaphysics celebrity worship when to arrive at a party fashion trends the point of gambling dark matter how to look a stranger in the eye who decides when a war is over and who decides it’s begun in the first place how to take an outfit from day to night and what is the point […]
Read morebalcony / break by Michael Russell
Michael Russell (he/they) is coauthor of chapbook Split Jawed with Elena Bentley (forthcoming from Collusion Books) and mother monster to chapbook Grindr Opera (Frog Hollow Press). They are queer, mad, and overflowing with anxiety. Currently, he has a craving for chocolate chip pancakes with bananas and thinks you’re fantabulous. Insta: @michael.russell.poet Michael’s previous piece: sadcore […]
Read moreantonyms for fucking w/ all the lights off by Liam Strong
leeks,bulbs lit of pencils,of expulsion,space between shared space ;commonality,cataract a similar sounding moan,cascade from precipice|picked up a hair tie on a hiking trail the other day,burst thereafter,then morning;trillium & sumac–we ’re less animal than we expect,tapetum lucidum,mammalia of the mirror| amatoxin in amanita verna;aversion of blood type O to all else:lover stay back,i don’t know […]
Read moreDavid Bowie doesn’t carry my ex-boyfriends in his arms down the street anymore by Liam Strong
Liam Strong (they/them) is a queer neurodivergent cottagecore straight edge punk writer who has earned their BA in writing from University of Wisconsin-Superior. They are the author of the chapbook everyone’s left the hometown show (Bottlecap Press, 2023). You can find their poetry and essays in Impossible Archetype and Emerald City, among several others. They […]
Read moreSONG AGAINST MYSELF by Zachary Bond
In the greasy morning mirrors I barely even acknowledge myself And I can’t remember how to sing Songs I used to know by heart Surely what’s wrong with me is not The same as what’s wrong with you Surely I comprise a special case When I pace the apartment I know I’m practicing for future […]
Read moreDISTRACTION MEANS “TO BE DRAGGED APART” by Zachary Bond
For some people I suppose distraction is a respiteFrom life’s hundred million enigmas they daily fight- Or-flight or, finally, try to crackThe codes to. And, sure, I feel that. But for me it’s the reason I first felt self-hate so hardI saw a window not as a thousand painful shards But as a way out—I […]
Read moreThe Longest Summer by Alex Carrigan
After Alexandrine Ogundimu I had to scrap my memoirbecause too much of ithad to be redacted. I could talk about thestupid Doc Martens I woreto my retail job every daywithout a cease and desist, but to talk about what myfather said to my motherwould put me against a wall. My father would tie a silk […]
Read moreWild = Wind by Alex Carrigan
About what’s past, Hold on when you can, I used to say,And when you can’t, let go,let the wind blow through your heart. Like a leaf clings to the tree,I lived, in those days, at the forest’s edge–You must keep what you’ve promisedvery close to your heart, that way you’ll never forgetis what I’ve always […]
Read moreI Was Put Away Because It Was Not My Season by Valerie Loveland
Valerie Loveland’s book [unsolved mysteries theme song], poems about the TV series Unsolved Mysteries, is coming out in 2023 Valerie’s previous piece: Jose Chung’s From Outer Space (Issue 65)
Read moreReturning Home to the Place I’d Never Been by Natalie Korman
I can’t find my footing on this sliver of a sidewalk. I curse whoever slappedthese streets onto this hillside, tipping the contents of the steepdriveways into the streets,tipping the streets down the slopes into the valley.The main plaza is cleared and flat so the grand buildings can stand,but the streets start climbing immediately all around […]
Read moreLines by Katie Cameron
The new mask doesn’t squeeze, scrunch my ears.End of day, indentations where it pressed against my facein the staff bathroom mirrorlike marks around my eyes after swimming, unclamping my goggles, lines—here, my skin said yes, here no. I am jealous of the way my body asserts legibly. Wish it could etch how I feel about returning to the pool, starting […]
Read moreI love this TikTok Era by Claire Rychlewski
awe-struck at our smoothbrained lexiconspeaking in diluted idioms (esperanto is giving failure)which is beautiful in this Dark Age apocalyptic way, we’ll soon begiving monk, we’ll be monkbossing intothe sun, and she is just like me for realour very own Hands Across the World are people still playing songs backwardslistening for secret messages? i feel hot and gauzylike i’ve been set […]
Read moreThe Future Holds Us at Gunpoint by Jen Gayda Gupta
after the Highland Park Shooting on July 4th I feel safenowhere at all.Not in my tiny tin home. Not driving through town–bleached storefronts, red caps,flags waving blue lives ahead. Not hiking through the forest,camouflaged a target,deer lurking, hunters licensedand hungry for a kill. They claim the fear of bulletsis a fear of the humanwho commands […]
Read moreConey Island by Soje
Soje is a poet and the translator of Lee Hyemi’s Unexpected Vanilla (Tilted Axis Press, 2020), Choi Jin-young’s To the Warm Horizon (Honford Star, 2021), and Lee Soho’s Catcalling (Open Letter Books, 2021). They also make chogwa, a multimedia zine that features one Korean poem and multiple English translations per issue.
Read morei redo my tarot and decide it is actually all going to be ok by AG McGee
i have decided to stop swearing. instead, i will sweat off love foreverand wake up each day swimming in gentleness, kisses to the napeof my neck, declaring i need you and i want this and lets stay herelouder and louder for the people in the back! until even the sun hearsme and winter starts coming […]
Read moreI talk to Tiktik Maria Labo after joining TikTok’s “POV: you stopped dressing for the male gaze” trend by Zoe Dorado
The Visayan urban myth of Maria Labo goes like this: In another country, an Overseas Filipina Worker (OFW) is gang-raped by a group of men. She survives by turning into the flying half-woman-half-demon, Tiktik. Newly transformed, she rides the sea to return home…only to consume her children, get hacked in the face by her husband, […]
Read moreApart by Nazifa Islam
a found poem: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath I have long wanted someone to think aboutwhen sleep will not come and exposed time—born to takewhat it can—scratches me so I crack open with sorrow. But I—with my rottingdepressed mind with all my tortured experience of the world—have no one. I am different from other […]
Read moreNIGHTHAWK by Lee Varon
Some pictures in my bird book(c. 1949) are missing. You’ve been missingfor a long time. Even when you were here you were missing. I bring back no words from my sighting of you at nightstumbling down 72nd street. In my book, the nighthawk is missing.The nighthawk is constantly in the air. Flyingin a zig-zag path. You, sleepless […]
Read moreSmokestacks by Luis Torres
I I look out the window and seemyself looking out,the mountains blue in the rain, my profilea cliff under the lamp’ssilver arch, and there’smy forehead,a landscape burned by the moon. II Saturday’s wine tastesof last year’s forest fires.My footsteps go sideways,I hit the hallway mirror andrun into myself on theother side. He adjuststhe frame, exits […]
Read moreChrysalis by Mason Stewart
Churning sea of goop,The broth that is left of my body. Primordial soup That I will emerge from againThe way I decomposed long ago. Vulnerable, Even inside the walls I constructed. Walls that protect me, Walls that may be my doom. I lay in wait,Waiting for the door to open,The threshold that I cannot cross, Yet. Learning […]
Read morei tried to write a poem about my body. my body wrote a poem about me. by Eleanor Ball
i am an aries so the tips of my fingers ache raw from biting my nails down to the quick with a pisces moon so i take four to six aleve a day for headaches and cramps and everything i own is blood-stained with an aquarius rising so the lines in my irises are an owl’s broken legs so i pop […]
Read moreof all the quesadillas in all the world by Wanda Deglane
January, I spill my heart out to you.the last time I met you I was rotting in my bed,melting into my own skull. only flower-flavoredice cream and mother sweetness brought meback to the land of the living. do you remember?I try so hard to forget. to move on. I’m afraidI’ve never moved past a single […]
Read morewho would you even be then by Jill Khoury
although the morning glory flashes its pink striationsalthough the sweetness of spiced cream in the morning cupalthough the lone gull creaking in the copsealthough garden lanterns spin like paper satellitesalthough you laugh when you drop lettuce in your lapalthough one crow alights on the jetty and then anotheralthough your palm presses carrots into velvet muzzlealthough […]
Read moreSummer ’22 Bangers by Shivani Kumar
Overstayed my welcome again buzzedanother light body half empty convincedmyself it is brimmed half full enough for another round to oscillate back and forth play words on loop.If you want me, I’ll be at the bar. Contort myself into an itch you will scratchwhen the needle nestles into the vinyl grooves of a smooth bar classic warning me […]
Read morepoem in which you can’t hurt me by Annalisa Hansford
in this poem, you don’t hurl my body against gravel as my memories of you bleed into grief. my blood staining the stones your favorite color: my hurt. in this poem, i scream and someone hears. when i’m released from your grip, your fingers don’t leave imprints on my body. in this poem, there is no reminder of the […]
Read moreClimate Change With You by Haro Lee
There’s no AC and there’s a heatwave in Seattle. Experts say it’s the hottest, sweetest day on record. We’re two creatures drunk on THC, held by the floor, sung to by the wings of plastic fans. We take turns wiping sweat off each other’s temples. The earth is dying. I love passing away with you. […]
Read moreTHIS IS AN END OF THE YEAR POEM by Lucas Peel
which is categorically the best kindof end poem. Not by choice; by absenceof leaving. This year, we learned aboutdetritus, Tik Tok algorithms, how to tracethe leavings-behind of extra ordinarycreatures. Our oldest cat, oncea neighborhood apex predator, hashad her butthole shaved for hygienic.Let the new year grant us all some kindof discretion. Last night, I followeda […]
Read moreFracture by Jillian Clasky
Jillian Clasky is a writer from Toronto. She currently lives in Ottawa, where she is pursuing a BA in English and creative writing. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Claw & Blossom and Polyphony Lit, and she was commended in the 2022 Adroit Prizes. She serves as Managing Editor of Common House, the University of […]
Read moreoverdose deaths of five children by Nathan Erwin
with Images & Phrases from Shakespeare’s sonnets for C.M. Nathan Erwin is a land-based poet who was raised on the Allegheny Plateau, the northernmost tier of Appalachia. An IAF and Harvard-trained organizer, Erwin currently operates at Boston Medical Center to prevent overdose deaths and at the Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust building healthy futures for farmers and […]
Read moreFor Passing Down to Daughters by Emily J. Mundy
The cedar chest lives in the living room. I am six, cracking its polished skull open to the lightasking Mom why it smells so funny— Cedar protects the delicates like fabrics and old papers from being eaten by moths keeps everything dry from mold, fungus, oils, fumes. You know this part in the story. She doesn’t come back. A […]
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