Jooon Joooon. Hepsi sana verecem. I might be naive when I say we should hold onto this but why is it so wrong to want a sand timer love when it looks like our bodies papier mached to one another. Canım. Canım. Canım benim. I am impatient with improbability. All I know is right now…
Read MoreA Room Full of Us by Diamond Braxton
The visitation chamber fills with black men who take a seat behind the reflective divider. A lover presses her hand against the glass. A mother sobs into a crackling phone that’s bolted to the wall. Babies point at weathered faces that look like theirs. I am in a room full of mirrors as I…
Read MoreAn Introduction to American Pathology (Remix) by Alan Chazaro
I’m lost and wandering in a forest of blue gum eucalyptus trees and fog horns in San Francisco while listening to Baby Keem’s The Sound of Bad Habit. For fun, I think about which X-Men character I would be if I were a Caucasian male. But I’m not, and haven’t imagined hard enough. Instead, I’ve…
Read MoreMariposa by Erin Powell
The pain in my spine holds Foundation for my wings I have come too far in This storm to die by rain Erin Powell is a data analyst by day, and dancing queen at night. She is based in Chicago, find her on IG @eskypowell.
Read MoreThe maybe maze by Shiksha Dheda
She left my medicine on the kitchen table. She left my medicine in the same packaging that she bought it in. The same packaging that everyone outside touched. Maybe they sneezed on it. Maybe they coughed on it. Maybe they spoke over it. Maybe they didn’t wash their hands when they came from the toilet…
Read Morethe ritual of names by Ololade Edun
father does not like calling my name; he says it’s too long;& it sounds like boredom & sometimes like grief; & it makes his jaw hurt & he hates everything; & every time he tries to stress them properly, he bites his tongue & chew on his cheeks. so, i go about bearing it all;…
Read MoreThe sky is crying by Dawn Watts
my love is a thunderstorm a heavy-clouded heartache the sky is crying, opening angrily bodies of dark clouds rolling in colors of gray deepening thick set drops of rain descend on leaves clinging to corners as if there could be shelter from the onslaught wells of water fill each empty space until nothing is dry…
Read MoreTHE STORY THUS FAR by Kosi Dunn
Whose imagination birthed you? The handiwork of stolen books, a patchless quilt a stranger’s kindness resting on the shoulders of each patient lover. I got excellent taste, everyone I touch unmakes me. Perhaps there is a knack to this melting in a mouth, sniffing out the better God, settling for my highest self. I cool…
Read MoreThree Poems by Taj Burroughs
If If I had a dream, I’d tell Martin Ask him how it feels to rest beside God If he knows Langston or James Tell ‘em I said “hi” Ask him what he thinks If we’re doing a good job If we’re doing it right If he’s proud Ask him what the silence means between…
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Ode to Sham, The Yard Sale, Boxes by Dahlia Dandashi
Ode To Sham I cried for three months straight. I was wet and boredWith summer’s ubiquitous ghostHaunting me at every dikeniAnd every butcher shop. Talkalakh — Homs — Damascus — Latakia.I zigzagged from East to West, North to South,But the heat of summer hitchhiked to each city! I remember a young me,Ironed out on streets…
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