Light Year // Cayleigh Brown

The sweet tang of summer bites my skin like mosquitoes.
I become hyper-aware of the scalding steering wheel
and leather seats and the nod of his head.
The cusp of summer is bittersweet.
His cologne smells like daisies and cedarwood,
making it suddenly harder to breathe.
His movements are slow and lazy
and I drink them up on an empty stomach.
Flickering passion morphs into a supercut,
blurred into flashes of light and his voice.
I am only familiar with inconsistency
and the crackling hum from the broken radio in his car.
Days stretch into each other, yellow road lines
burn into my palms.

I came home to the hum of my dad vacuuming,
and my mom waiting behind a door to hear all about it.
The door burned too much to reach for.
2 AM asked me to sneak out, but I declined.
The sunrise of the morning was proud I didn’t run away.
The sunrise he wanted to steal me into,
the sunset of the night he didn’t kiss me.
I wanted to spill the night over him, into his lap,
into his drinks, onto his body.

I remember the shadowed silhouette of a bird
spinning pinwheels overhead,
red Jolly Ranchers stained my tongue.
The shadow on his lips when I watched him
whisper, “hawk,” his neck tilted back.
The shadows spilling down over his spine.
The shadow of bruises on his knees
and a single cut, blood staining his best tee-shirt.
Unbreakable, benumbed, sparkling in the sun.

The Petrichor of September 13th // Cayleigh Brown

Palms, supple, sway.
There is chaos in the starts and stops of rain.

Heat-soaked and breathless
and we hide under the playground.

Boys with whiskey smirks
and wolf-blood.
They run their fingers against splintered wood and I think they’re brave.

My rubber fingertips grip the swing.
I stare at space wanting to be softer than the sky before it breaks.

All this breathing fools you to think you’re alive.

I feel tension in the silence.
Every noise makes me flinch,
look up
then check the sky.

C.E. // Rachel Hales

When you ask her what’s her music taste
She’ll say that profound shit,
The stuff the makes you cry and think;
The kind that makes you realize it
Is all for nothing and for everything and for yourself.

It’s music, but it’s poetry, it’s Raymond Carver off the shelf
Don’t mention the classics,
She knows them all by name.
From John Milton to Pearl Jam,
She isn’t any summer’s day.
She makes her life a mystery
And yet she’s an open book.
She is anything and more,
You only need to look.

She is honey in a fire.
She is reading as it rains.
She is laughing ‘til you’re ugly.
She is consciously insane.
You’ll never understand her
Even if you’re just the same
Because of all the states that she could be
She chooses to be Maine.

Hot Sauce Boy // Jaimes Wishon

I wake up to my roommate’s alarm, she sleeps through the gentle chimes. When I roll over, I bury my face in a pillow and wait for sleep to return. The border between thought and dream begins to blur as I picture his chest in the pillow I rest my head on. A dream fog takes over and I imagine him telling me we could be something real. I start to argue with him using the words that calm me down when loving him hurts my heart too much. I tell him “When I asked, you said it would be too risky. That we’re real enough. That we’re very good friends.” He interrupts—my thoughts interrupt my protest like a thumb on my lips. Together they tell me I’m worth the risk and with those words I’m reminded it’s a dream.

When I’m awake and he’s real and I have to shove down the “I love you”s like peanut butter in my throat after he says things like “I’m not the arbiter of morality” I have to remind myself of the risk. When I have the flu he makes me miso soup and takes my temperature on a strict schedule. He combs out the knots in my hair and kisses my ears and I pretend my tears are from the pain of the fever. When he texts me a picture from his anatomy textbook of retiform purpura and tells me it’s beautiful, I wish I was covered in an intricate patchwork of red, purple, and black. I remember that if he were to settle down it would be with someone who shares his interests. When I’m twisted in his sheets, still and sweaty, and I’m urged to make a desperate plea to be loved back I hesitate. I consider the structure of our relationship, what our two bodies and minds are made of and I kiss his cheek instead. He looks at me with a smile that’s sad like mine.

When we are walking through campus in the snow and he stops to climb a tree and he hangs down from a branch to kiss me like Spiderman I remind myself that he is a penny in my ripped pocket that I can’t afford to lose and every time I check that he’s still there I tear the hole wider and give him a way out and he gets down from the tree and grabs my hand and tells me “We’re very good friends.”

Mary's Bench // Abbi Freeman

for the dearest of Mary Botkins

A woman’s independence
still stands proudly
on four legs,
made by The Work of Her Own Hands;

Each nail hammered in with quiet confidence

and loud echoes that carry like the strike of

church chimes,

each stroke of white paint

smooth, neat, and thoughtful,

it extends a genuine invitation to

come and rest for a while

In the Mouth of the Sun // Caroline Kimbell

She sits in the mouth of the sun,
Giving out gingersnap kisses,
—Wantonly, gaily, openly—
As though they did not come with a price,
Did not demand the love you already give to her so freely.
She floats on her throne,
The highest of all the craggy, mountainous peaks,
Descending in a veil of virginal aptitude:
Quiet, serene, and simple.
Drowning deliberately in purity;
Denial in its truest form.
She smells of orange blossoms,
And heady spices,
And sex,
And sunshine in the shade.
She clouds the mind,
No

—Is a cloud—

Free as a whisper breathing worldly secrets in your ear,
And strong as the eastern wind.
She rests in the dip of the mon’s curving hip,
Flicking away a star with a laugh,
Spinning it end over end
Into nowhere,

Still more nowhere.

And good God,
I wish I was half of what she was.

Another Train Station from Gothenburg // Jesse Maltby

On the rocky shores of isles unknown
I found my peace, battered by the waves of a silver coast
I biked by the gravel driveways of golden homes born out of a catalogue nightmare— in my
superfluous day dreams
And found my resting place in the gold mines of a nudist colony with wheat tickling my thighs
I wished you were here to see the granite cut the tide in two and search shallow waters for my
token to take home to mamma
My suitcase wasn’t large but it felt bottomless with the stories I’d soon forget no matter how
many times I said I was homeless with nothing but a memory to leave behind.
Swedish rain cleansed my tired neck as I looked over the bay
And I realized that the ferry might just leave me behind
I could almost forget that I was unhappy with the place I called home

drinking a rise of ice // Arthur Cleary

drinking a rise of ice, our cloud sips on
in spite. who swallows whole in pride.
melting friends are hollow poem pipes.
cigars are silkworms of yellow smoke,
a trace through the grace of stolen gold.
smelling some oil, fingers eat from soil,
wafting these scenes for forest stories.
nausea overflows as rivers of gushing
green flow over the vomit of wine
tasting trees.

Legends // Claire Funderburk

The world is his stage and its people his audience. Singing to the fire and all its children while he kisses the hands of young women, he would tell them which part we played on the atmosphere’s silver screen. He was a performer. Dancing from dawn till day in the starlit festival, ruling the night. She asked which part she would play before the red velvet curtains guarding heaven pulled to a close, but he gave no answer. No rhyme or reason to the drama. Just for the sake of living, they jumped into the icy river and screamed through the city. In little Venice, they counted the bridges one by one, and day by day they turned into legends without realizing what they’ve become. While they went on living outrageously, the world couldn’t keep up. Before too long, they became the stars and were blissfully intoxicated by the night, watching the joyful madness of the festivals beneath them. Their bare feet stomping on sands of beaches across all time zones, wishing to feel the grit from sands on the beach of another moon. For centuries the mortals worshiped each other and each deity oblivious to their prayers. All she wanted was herself, and all other talk became banter among the insects crawling around her. Meanwhile, he fled, whisked away by death in the midst of old swamps, now finding that his wet skin was only refreshed by the fire. Today he saw he was becoming a child, listening to songs from when he was a star. So, he danced, and she watched the last performance.

Be the the flame is completely out after use // Lyndsi Pointer

As if the hospital walls hadn’t shared a pack of Marlboro Reds with my mom
when I was squirming to get out of her belly.

He made me stand on the other side of him.
He said he didn’t want me to be caught downhill with the smoke.

I say it’s disgusting
that he makes out with lonely girls when his solitude becomes too much to bear.

Like brewing coffee
Out of your dad's ashes.

He doesn’t disagree. He throws me the lighter. I like how warm the flame is against my skin.
I peel off the warning label with my nails.

She // Cameron Socie

with a hot flash and a sharp inhale
she’s right here, right next to me
rotoscoped, mimicking my movements
oh, she can dance
spinning like sunflowers
though I don’t know the steps

The Cloisters // SK Osbourn

even though I had food poisoning,
I found it all beautiful.

the coffins, the ivy, the fruit trees
curling into themselves in the rain—
I wanted it all.

my heart was splattered on everything
like my guts outside the apartment.

why did you still sit with me on the train?
offer me space in the bed? hold my hand when
it reached for everything else?

love is holding someone’s hair back,
buying saltines and soda, sitting close by
even though you’re so afraid of germs
that no one is allowed to wear
shoes inside.

I rested my head on your shoulder
as you pointed outside the stained glass
window. my stomach churned for
so many reasons.

dear god, isn't everything
so beautiful?

Mommy // Amelia Rhodes

I’m gonna grab the
milk
for you
She spoke between shards of sharp
daylight
Crooning in the
Dusty morning
air
She’s told me a million times the
particles around me aren’t
Bugs, but
I don’t think I
trust her.

Between twisted damp bed sheets
She spoons me porridge in between puffs of
Irritation
I think she’s sweet but also
scary
They say her words are supposed to be like
honey
Slow and thick, lovely stories
But to me they’re always thin and
airy

She takes me in the car,
Seat belt tightly wound me,
Radio on, a
country song
She’s not like the others i know
No songs about dressed up
girls and upside down worlds
She likes dragged out tales of
Happy men and
foolish ladies
Beer cans and
wasted nights

I read her magazines
When she doesn’t see
Leaf through loose
pages,
Pages that slide over my hand,
Words that go in and
out in one quick
Breath
She doesn’t seem to
worry,
Makes runny
mac and cheese
Pans and bowls that never quite get
the crumbs out
She doesn’t mind, she’s not
like that

I’m gonna grab the
milk
for you,
She says in my
dreams
Going to sing you to sleep
And
be with you
Let my
tears
match yours
Tonight I’ll
wrap you in my
warmest embrace,
Speak the
words you
so long to
Hear
beyond this empty world

But dreams are meant for
night,
And day brings what it
may
You are not the
beautifully painted woman on the
Television screen
You’re broken and afraid
You’re my mother

A Childhood // Amelia Rhodes

When I think of you
Will it be like silt?
Mixtures of all the gritty and soft?
Like when I was
Looking in your mirror
A foot away from you
I can still see you
Putting your pearls on,
Dusting your face with the reddest of
Rouges
Lipstick kisses that stained my bed sheets
The creaking door and
Steps
Along the hallway
Outside

When I think of you
Will it be like the lullabies
They tell in stories?
With moons and balloons consuming the
Rooms
And dreams of astronauts and planets
Everything beyond our world
I can hear you whispering to me
Late into the night
Past
My bedtime
I can hear each click in your
Voice.

When I think of you
Will it be like day and night?
Where one means home
And the other means stuck?
I can hear you coming now
With every clip clop
With all the blue and grey of winter
Woven into every crevice of your
Face
Read me some of your magazines
So tired of children’s books
You peak at me behind fingers
Making a curtain between love and loss

When I think of you
Will it be like taking and giving?
The time you dressed me up all pretty
For the men that waited outside,
Quiet yet giddy
Or more like
The time you took the doll from my sleepy grasp
And told me it had run away
The pills you got the next day
Money from your thievery
Tears that didn’t leave my face for
Days and days

When I think of you
Will it be like dying?
Letting go so I don’t see what’s all gone?
Seeing you lying on the ground near where
I slept for
So many years
I never liked the way your voice crackled like a dying
Flame but
at least then it hadn’t yet burnt
Out
I called for the doctor but
God’s angel had already taken you up.
Light didn’t come back to me much.

When I think of you
I think of winter time
The time when it’s bitter
And the time when it’s soft.
I think of drafty floorboards
And strewn Christmas lights
I think of fancy clothing,
The kind for getting a reward,
The kind for looking in the mirror.
I think of cigarette smoke
Fogging up the windows
Like a crisp, wrapped up kind of day
When I think of you
They aren’t all good things,
But some things just aren’t meant to be that way,
Mom.