vagabond city

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Dinosaur egg rocks, clefts and declivities. Virga daubs sky over mesa achingly. Acid-green lichen. I long to be the sun’s last rake through your hair. Candace Walsh is a queer, multi-genre writer in her fourth year as a PhD student in creative writing (fiction) at Ohio University. She holds an MFA in fiction from Warren […]

and polar bears are dyingon my laptop screen.Black ducks floating backwards, a back-bending sun, the see-sawing skyits bed. My iPhone tells me sunflowers face each otherwhen they can’t spot the sun. I’m eating peaches and living by the riverin my head; sparrows are hopping onto branches with last leaves. How much has changed with weather,much has changed and withered. I’m wearing […]

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 […]