The girl next to me strains as though she’s on a quest, not an elliptical. Constant sweat, an occasional groan. She keeps murmuring, “Oh God. Oh God.”
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Clementine | Laura Mayron
“We’re going to be man slayers,” you told me, fox eyes glimmering. We were nine, on the playground. I knew you would be, with your sharp, fast grin and trickster ways. Already you were revolutionary. You moved through the woods like a sprite daring and limber among the sweet-smelling eucalyptus as we searched for fairies […]
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2 poems | Johannes Punkt
Inner Thighs sext: I hesitate to use the word beautifully to describe the way you open yourself like a coral-reef in bloom to me, but I’m prismatic too; I fuck you like an oil spill.
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Eden | Grayson Herrgott
Sometimes I sit and stare at the coils of the bunk above me tracing their weaving pattern as if they were some sort of pathetic man-made constellation. And I think of all the ridiculous ways I compare you to others.
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What I Imagine You Taste Like in Bed | Lora Mathis
Like all of your ex-girlfriends swirled into one The Hippie becoming the Shaking Limbed The Almost But It Never Happened becoming the Fantasy Like your mother offering you a tangerine
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Wondering | J.C.
My first crush was in love with Patrick Dempsey. So I used to watch Grey’s Anatomy so I’d have something to talk to her about.
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An Almost Woman | Emily Nash
There are thousands of poems by women who were misunderstood with fears of either becoming an old maid, or of marriage.
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It must have got lost in the mail | Susannah Betts
The sweatshirt still smells musty at the third wash and my thong still in the corner of the laundromat floor where I left it. Does spandex decompose? I didn’t like the look of someone else’s blue detergent on my red so I couldn’t own the thong after I saw it. Thongs don’t get adopted though […]
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—moLt ShEd | Rebecca Y. Lee
Most mornings, I wake and imagine myself lizard— nails running over rust-gray puckerings, peeling centuries blood into dust when the old skin wears too ancient I never know if I’ll emerge— sloughed-off history showing soft new smooth, breathing fresh or when my mask will slip—reveal monster underneath: past deeds etched deep within each canyon crinkle If I […]
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3 Poems | Andrew Wetmore
Cancer We laid on our backs and pulled shapes from the sky like reading the letters out of porno magazines. You had all your vaccinations and went to Sunday school every Sunday. You memorized your catechism and realized you were witnessing an execution When I walk down the street widows throw signs warding against the […]
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Annual Well Woman Visit | Victoria Massie
I. My arms stretch to the heavens pre-destination lengthy torso stunted by chicken legs The nurse begged me stand tall; wall and back kissing; head and neck reconnecting inward like best-friend secrets. “Five and three quarters” It takes women in my family incessant earth-moon rotations for them to fall down permanently in love with the […]
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3 Poems | Kelsey Schmidt
conversely she was my saturday night my bathroom stall drug the cigarettes butts on my back porch. you are my sunday morning my lipstick stained coffee mug bleary-eyed kisses that taste like toothpaste left, right, you left again. i lost all desire to be your/china/doll your sixAM/hotelroom/smoke little bitch, don’t call me ring/voicemail/ring/hangup rinse, repeat. effloresce i am full […]
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3 Poems | Venus Crow
Home. Come home my love to gentle rains, where fire hearts breathe you in. walk among the feathered pines with me at your side. Be blessed by love’s tender touch swim with lost memories of days swiftly flown and scattered upon the breeze. We miss the sanctified song of your soul exalted among mere mortals. […]
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Majid | Maj al-Yasa
Majid from your wine-stained lips meem alif jiim daal م-ا-ج-د you print the letters on my palm and close my fist around the syllables. ت-ح-ب-ن-ش you love me like the Prophet –salaam– loved Fatima –beloved– and I love you as a brother. ت-ض-ح-ك you laugh. be my wife. و-ق-ف habibi, I […]
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2 Poems | Patricia P.
Futile Morbidity I imagine my funeral to have a punch bowl of regrets and scarcity of people the place would be drab, not much different than my own life my mother would burst into tears every second or so and my sister would be handing out tissues that would end up unused I hope the […]
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California | Lily Cigale
california did you forget scratching off your skin on the floor of your parents’ shower, home from a chilly vacation with a warm girl? a text at three am: “I’ve peeled all my skin off do you still love me? can you still love a mess of bloody muscle, viscous trails, teeth, teeth, teeth?? things […]
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Out of An Ant Hill | R.K. Gold
Out of ant hill, rolling over itself in unison with the white grains of sand was a green caterpillar. I’ve seen the desperate search for a home before. Reflecting off its eyes and down its cheeks hoping its tears will dampen the sand enough for a child to build him a castle. Only to have […]
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5 Poems | Šejla Srna
Salesclerk i feel like i am fading away everything irritates me the sound of my space bar at 2 am is my worst enemy right now and the fact that this isn’t a poem but i’m still making it look like one is making me sick to my fucking stomach i just drank a can […]
Read more2 poems | Paul Alzate-Moreno
The Calculator So careful, full of measure, You weigh me against myself. My good faces off Against the darkness, And I want my champion, The white knight to win. My heart sighs, Which sways your scales. Your math exercise: Perhaps you do it From fear of calamity. Or you serve some goal Beyond what I […]
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VAGABOND CITY 