vagabond city

in dreams a      wherea hole      should be      a bodypregnant      with ache, withwords      don’t meanyou, what is      whoand where to      find, fixthe shimmer      wind lickedprismatic, amphibious      lung-tied but fervent     for gills, waterbound      but wingedthe […]

We made Arrested Development-esque chicken imitationsat the restaurant– bakawk, cheep-cheep, wakka wakka– being young, I thought that was the language of love.We always laughed across the chasm of the room when we shut shop, squeezing soap rags into heart buckets,wiping fresh clear streaks on mahogany tables. I vacuumed pita crumbs and invisible dust, emptied bags […]

Laying stillhas ripped opena thin, temporal levity on a morningit is snowingmy own worth revealed to me again & again, againan    incandescent    nothingness. Aiyana Masla is the author of the chapbook Stone Fruit (Bottlecap Press, 2020).  Her work has appeared in Cordella Press, Field Notes, West Trestle Review, in the collection So Many Ways to […]

i.An angel came to me the otherday, said “Wanna make out in mycar?” I’ve not been so keen onthat sort of thing sincedysphoria set in, the guilty teethof wolverines sliding scalpel-sharpin the space beneath my breasts. Butthis wasn’t a beautiful command, norwas it the word of God:The angel pleads like 50s loungesingers in with the […]

A girl on the plane says, I was stuckwith all these crazy people and I wasnormal. Incredibly, I say, Same same.It was not I who pulled madnessfrom the water. My arms are my own.But everything I’m saying is true:nothing real has changed. Thesewhiskers, these black eyes were there all along—what am I becoming, I say, […]

Each morning I watch the world Through two layers of glass Check for signs of my cold breathIn the winter air of the internet— Am I living? Can you remind meWhat that looks like? Is it enough To lie in my room with the fan slow Shifting in compression socksAs light crescendos towards day With no further […]

every morning, it sings – but it is not pretty: bird’s nestinstead of hair, purple accordions lacerating the thighs. if icould make a wish: winged, angelic, anything but the meat. one slight adrenal mis-calculation leadingto rogue, to roam, to in-visibly dis-abled: if my mother had known. had slept on it. but imperfectly to perceive, to […]

there is the world and there you arein it. tired for years. you drive northeaston a cloudy midmorning. the air hangsheavy around the car. the car hangsheavy in the air and clings to its staticframe. space sinks and stretches. onceyou were a child, you imagined your adultbody. the space between your eyes anddangling feet. the […]