Construction Site

Author: Joshua Love

A full pearl moon,
Just hovering in the deep navy blue sky
The red crusted earth casts ominous shadows under bluish light.
My toes dig within the mounds
While I climb through the warm humid air.
I look upon the yellow bulldozer and its old worn tracks In wonderment.
Deep Breath
Then a sigh
I need him
But I haven't even meet him
Just yet
But I will... One day
The red clump of clay rolls out of my hands
And hits the ground
Rolling into the street on the right
In a flash
A car crushes it
And drives off.

Guurrr

Author: Annika Bastian

Girl

You and I are a weird pair

Because I can bust out a pan of brownies

As easily as Michael Jackson can bust out a sick moonwalk

And you can bust through my anxiety even easier

Every time you walk in and see me stress baking

And say dang girl we having another Netflix marathon already

Then we stay up til two a.m. eating brownies and emptying out our Netflix watch list

And then you tell me this just means we'll have to spend more time together

Going running so we can burn off these calories and get my endorphins up–

You calm me down as easily as Zoloft does

But with none of the side effects

Unless smiling too much counts as a side effect.

I can clean a house cleaner than Mr. Clean himself

And you can clean out my mind cleaner than any antidepressant ever could.

I talk to my therapist like a two year old talks to their mom.

Incessantly. And urgently.

And you sometimes talk to me like you're my mom but never like I'm a two year old or like I need a therapist.

I have more coping mechanisms than a porcupine has pointy bits

But when you see me curling up in a ball you hug me like I have absolutely no pointy bits.

Girl I love you hard.

Hard like a geometry test.

Hard like saying goodbye to a puppy

Hard like really old gummy worms

I love you a lot.

That's what I'm trying to get at.

Get at like you got to me.

I love you girl

More than a whole pan of brownies

More than the sickest of moonwalks

More than Netflix with no chill

A whole lot more than running because no one really likes running.

Love you more than a clean house

Cuz girl you're my home now.

Love you more than my therapist

Because you listen to my problems free of charge.

Love you like a two year old

Incessantly and with my whole heart.

Love you more than porcupines

And they're my favorite animal

More than hugs

And they're my favorite pastime

What I'm trying to say is girl–

I love you.

My Life

Author: Madaline Cannon

reveling in the memories that I've never had

living a life composed of wistful dreams

wishing for days that won't come to pass

making friendships that become nothing

fixing a heart broken beyond repair

trusting ideas that can't be proven

asking questions that don't have answers

staring at a star that's already gone

talking to a moon that cannot answer back

an existence that is nothing

a nothing that means more than everything

Persona Mine

Author: Chelsea Yates

Starburst, something inside me shatters

As I don the mask, flecks of blood and skin

Suck me dry, roulette spinning, heart changed

Who am I? This plastic face with no self.

Mirror, take this bloody pulp throbbing in a dead chest

Every color I take on fades to static glass.

Wrench the hues where black and white are the only things in my eyes

Flash, again gone, who will I ever be? Prolonged memories.

And then faces sink, part of me with them, indefinitely.

Passing

Author: Reed

An older man sits beside me and

says he likes my shirt

I know what he likes

even though his are bigger than mine

The "conversation"

Read: him talking

and me not-listening

half-turns inevitably to him

and his disappoint-man-t

"It's hard to find other straight people here."

My coy smirk means

what he wants it to mean

and my silence on the matter

allows him to speak for me.

I'm the spring in the trap

for this thirsty rat.

He thinks he's slick.

"We should text. For class." For dick.

"Sure." Text. For class.

I know he wants this ass.

Not yet, though

Don't tell him yet.

I can't reel it in until

I get the inevitable line.

"I've taken this already."

"So I can help you." So pro-tip:

Take gen ed twice to be an expert*

*Some assembly and penis required

I am quiet up til now

Quietly tapping in his digits

Digital bag for DNA

"I'm a guy," I finally say

"Guess that makes you kinda gay."

And by the way, I make an A.

So suck on that if you're thirsty,

rat.

Swimming With Sharks

Author: Will Bradford

Last night, I summer bled through the ceiling

I felt like a spider crawling out of a shoe

As a wave of candy and arsenic

I channel surfed my dread and regret

Static, nothing changes

Forever falling, forever failing

Ideas, someday, may break us down

Douse and bask in bible-bleached late night 800 numbers

Booze-drenched sweater-stained quote-machine

The hills run over the heroes buried

New aged mumbling elders waxing gothic

Home sweet catacombs

Precision velvet lawn-care:

Razor Teeth at your service

Double edged sixpence preferred

Clairvoyant currency can’t play by the rules

Humid depression, ascending, marks another season

I never want to be a cemetery again

Last call, come clean, missed opportunities

I’ve got you searching in the dark,

A life less lived

Drowning in gloomy benzo-breeding fog pillows

I spill over the streets like general anesthesia

Missing ingredient, cure for life

Chaos messenger of the planet, lost, never returned

The Generation Analysts initiate their examination:

Pick it apart,

Leave no prisoners

No time to ponder

Someone call the arsonist!

Garbage talk, back-alley waste

A small animal curls into an arc

An empty bottle adrift in an ancient sea

Deep amongst the truest blue

Laugh, it’s over

Long live a new fiction

Of which nothing is or was before

Tip of the Hat

Author: Annika Bastain

When my family first moved to the South

When we were dirt poor

Even poorer than we are now

My momma

Would drive to Leeds

To the discount grocery

And buy rotten fruit and dented cans.

She and my aunts–

They were as poor as we were

Would bring an extra dollar

For the groceries to be brought to the car.

Old black men,

In old overalls and worn khaki trousers,

Faces fleshy and lined,

Would rock back and forth

In weathered gray rocking chairs

As sleepy as the Alabama heat,

Baking slowly in the sun,

Liveliness leaking out through the humidity.

They'd haul themselves out of the rockers,

Joints squeaking almost as much as the wicker bottoms of their chairs,

One of them looks at the other and says

"I don't want a lot of money. Just enough."

The other says "ain't that the truth"

And my mother nods sympathetically,

Knowing the truth of it all.

No teeth

No job

Maybe no wife

But probably kids–

These old black men would walk women's groceries to their cars

In exchange for a dollar or two.

They'd tip their hats and say thank ya ma'am

Like we were at a posh hotel instead of in

A baked asphalt parking lot,

Gray, with spiderweb cracks,

And as rundown as our cars.

The discount grocery went out of business eventually,

And my mother and aunts make more money now,

But I wonder

Still wonder

What happened to all those old men

Who tipped their hats and said

Thank you ma'am.

Machinations

Author: Chelsea Yates

Smile. Good morning. Elapse time. Gears smooth from same.

Same grin. Same hello. Motions same, time keeps on.

Auto-mation of old routines and apathetic cogs

Intangible relations from metal heart not linked

By corded wires of electrical feelings, frayed beginnings

And ends. Auto-mation, no one to see

Real sparks of life within, not same or cookie-cutter in

Likeness and circumstance. But warmth and alive.

Alive to break through hard encasements, years of

Programming. If only molds could be easily broken.

Comfort versus unknown. Human or automatic responses.

Non-conformations, yoke forsaken. Freedom granted.

Lesser Tears

Author: Chelsea Yates

I am but a doll screaming in dusk’s due

Compliant, wrists rubbed raw, weeping internally.

Porcelain skin, glassy eyes, arms sore from holding

Bare except for soul, smiling teeth break. 

I am but a doll, set high upon shelf

Stared and beheld, then discarded as time permits.

Silent in harsh light of day, muted, voice stilled

Doll, but a prize, a toy, erased from history.

Nothing.

Here I Stand

Author: Salla' Oliver

I stand before you like a mountain in a thunderstorm.

Strong against the chaos and darkness. Refusing to fall.

But only a storm I endure, only I see.

I stay in my mind a lot, go through so much but I can't show it.

Because I would be seen as complaining, whining, angry.

This isn't a piece talking about the many woes of a black woman.

It's a piece about me. This is a "Why do I have to be strong all the time and never show vulnerability" piece.

You hear it about men all the time.

I'm here to tell you, women can endure this too.

I want to cry, yell, scream to the top of my lungs and fuck shit up, if necessary, without being judged.

Staying in this dark room with this storm can cause invisible issues.

Issues that only come knocking at my door in the wee hours of the morning and the most inopportune times of the day.

I try to walk with my head high and hide my frustrations with life but sometimes it gets a bit much.

And sometimes a good cry and a hug would heal it all. Even if temporarily.

I hurt, I can be broken, I can be angry, sad, depressed or just not feeling the shit that day.

I fall on hard times.

It's just this smile mastered the art of disguise.

The next time someone is complaining or looks to be down, instead of judging them, help them.

Help them with the locks of that dark room that they just can't escape.

Help them free themselves.

In helping you've helped someone face another day.

U Esso A

Author: Carla Smith

a set of haikus from a hangry American

I sing the sandy

tune of democracy, I

choke it down with milk

sour and chunky

shove that hotdog down your throat

puke up the result

Star-spangled eyelids

—Stark white, bleaching the standard —

are trimmed, so neatly

two legs laid three eggs

cu-cu-ka-choo red, white and

blue bled from the coop

you hold the door for

the money man, rough-green-s/cents

short-stuff, molded hands

let's go redskins!! let’s

go braves!! knock nails in its head!

Tomahawks, enslaved

ol' uncle Sam shoves

his fist down our pants, jacking

us off just in time

cataclysmic sound

shoving banners in the ground

hit a lick then split

don't tread so close to

me, Police state, carried o’er

sea’s silt shook debris

when will the oil stop

spurting? Gorge yourself on it

black-tongued Lazrus

keep begging for it

and we’ll shove it in deeper

nice, easy, jesus wept

take it harder than

we gave in 'nam, Agent O’

mutant child and spam

Lady

Author: Wanda Wesolowski

Lady's swallow made the summer.

But followed by her blight & blunder,

the prickly plight, the thoughtless thunder.

Consumed my thoughts and all my wonder,

took my heart & soul in sunder.

Lady wrote goodbyes in masses.

She died in letters. Dots & dashes—

simply remnants of the crassness

that remained within the ashes:

"Rest assured, we will get past this."

Lady's light turns night to day.

Lady's flights all get delayed.

But maybe that's why lady stays.

To show the world, to mark her place.

Maybe that's why lady stays.

Because Lady's never truly gone.

She is the night, she is the dawn.

She's all that's right & all that's wrong.

Lady left to linger on, in every breath,

in every song.

No Childhood

Author: Jayla Williams

Be a child without a hood 

And never draw suspicion

Because you never want to have someone 

Make a “grounded” decision

It takes a village to raise a child

This very well may be true

But don’t be a child with a hood

Or the village won’t be raising you

Because if it’s just past dark

And you want to get skittles for your brother

A vigilante might get excited

And take you from your mother

Creative Writing Assignment

Author: Lily Elmore

I am not sure if I’m real anymore

I float through my life like a dream

The truth is so hard to say these days

Because the truth is not what it seems

Am I expressing anything anymore?

Trying too hard to create

My art’s for “art’s sake”

And I can’t catch a break

So I ride out the wave for hours

I know it’s a painting, not a puzzle,

But the pieces still feel wrongfully placed

I’ve been reading to learn for so very long

But I’m not sure I know how to read.

I’m starving but the fridge is empty

The fruits of my spirit consumed

I didn’t know when I left home

How dark was the darkness that loomed

And I’m doomed.

Or maybe just overdramatic.

But probably both.