I think of the peonies. Not the unplugging of monitors and alerts, the white rose on the hospital door, the silent buzz. Not the tears trickling down his face. How He held my daughter’s hand, as she combed His hair and moistened His cracked lips. Not His last moment of coherence, when He sternly read…
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Self Portrait by Cameron Gordon
This is a “self-portrait” I made in 2003. Obviously, something is not quite right. Under the guidance of my teachers, I put paint to construction paper and conjured up a portrait, not of myself, but of a white face I’d never known. It’s easy to chalk this up to wild childhood creativity and a limited…
Read MoreDirective (after Robert Frost) by Warner Robinson
bring hennessy, bring hyacinths, bring poems.
Read MoreIf one wants to survive a hostile world, one must adapt by Chris Talbot- Heindl
While I’ve not seen it personally, I have heard it said that Alaskan Wood Frogs survive winter by allowing their body to become two-thirds ice cube. Some fish in Antarctica have developed a method of creating antifreeze that bind to ice crystals that form in their blood. The non-flatteringly named Hagfish release a gooey slime…
Read MoreLove That Does Not Bear Fruit by Kemi Omisore
You can’t talk about it. Some can, and can weather the pity, the forced sympathy, and the revulsion sitting underneath it all that greets them as a response. I can’t. Pity douses me like a bucket of ice cold water and clings to me like a dark stain on a white t-shirt. I feel like…
Read Moremariconcito IV by Jose Useche
IV. “I’m going to get with him, he’s cute.” T and I peered over at a grainy thumbnail of a boy wearing a purple v-neck. He wore glasses and sat perched on a bed in Connecticut. Behind him was a simple cream-colored room, and behind that were the clean white and blue lines of Facebook. Camp was days…
Read MoreBLUE IS NOT THE WARMEST COLOR by Nachi Keta
Azure looks out the window of her aquamarine car. A young dark-hued woman, in a blue ruffled sari, nurses her baby under a blue tarp between four poles, by the side of a highway in India, near the already occupied bus station, which has a blue poster of a movie called “Variants of blue” —…
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(Issue 3) Prose Feature: Taylor Byas
This month we’re excited to bring you a featured interviewed with Black poet & essayist Taylor Byas. Make sure to read her interview below, as well as her Creative Nonfiction piece Tiger Stripes. Taylor Byas is a Black poet and essayist from Chicago. She currently lives in Cincinnati, where she is a second year PhD…
Read MoreTiger Stripes by Taylor Byas
Content Warning: Mentions of Eating Disorders and Abusive Relationships While scrolling through Instagram, I come across a picture of a woman’s stomach, glitter painted over her stretchmarks in different colors. The caption reads, Love yourself. At first glance, it looks like colorful trees sprouting from the elastic band of her leggings. Inspired, I put down…
Read MoreMy Daughter, My Daughter by Saswati Chatterjee
One of you is not like the others. I suspect it is you. The others were born at dawn; you stretched your neck, sinewy and perfect, at midnight. Your brother played in the edges of twilight, you darted about in its shadows as secretive as your heart. You whisper like a leaf falling in the…
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