and when it touches down, all the meteorologists call it unprecedented.
I wonder when they stopped watching the news and only reported it. No one remembers
how to cry. Is it true that a single generation of monarchs make the return trip north?
That to step on one will change the future? How then, do I
translate the capsized boats? The shadeless neighborhoods? The wooden boxes
made to hold a child? Some days, I think about pockets
lined with milkweed and hemlock. Other days, I follow an old trail
across Texas to scoop sunflower seeds from my grandmother’s hands.
– Amanda Roth…
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haven’t showered in maybe three days, it doesn’t matter, i’m in la which means i’m going to be the least fuckable person anywhere i go, there’s a van that takes people from the airport to a fancy marriot, i’m not staying at the marriot, i’m staying at an airbnb in historic filipinotown, but i’m not one to turn down a free ride, the driver can tell i don’t belong, i only have a backpack, worn-out red canvas with “bastard” written across in faded sharpie, no one sits next to me, i check uber to see how much i’m saving, not as much as i’d hoped, i redownload tinder, i’m going to be the least fuckable person anywhere i go here but the novelty of an east coast butch with a bunch of shitty stick-n-pokes will get me somewhere, i want to be used, i lose most of the day stumbling around little tokyo stuffing my face with dairy-rich desserts, all things considered—yes, all things considered—i am, unequivocally—
– Rachel Stempel…
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What am I now
but an old man,
who loves only
the wind,
the wind…
giving birth the word
wend…
the wending
wind.
I hear it
in the shadows
where it promises
that whatever bends
resides inside
the mind.
With a one letter
difference
the wind
is the mind…
The wind,
which arrives
without warning.
The mind,
which blows
it away.
– Michael Sofranko…
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tonight all the versions of myself lay together on my twin size bed. one is vomiting over the metal railing, a snap of a girlfriend kissing someone else playing on repeat in their palm. one listens to our dad’s hand-curated phoebe bridgers playlist. one can’t stop eating, and one can’t eat at all, and one is somewhere in-between. one calls a friend about social studies. one calls a friend about ap history. one calls a friend and asks if they should switch their major to creative writing and five minutes later ends the call. one texts their brother. one hates their brother. one decides they don’t really mind their brother all that much. one hates their brother and curses him to hell. one is shopping on etsy for birthday gifts for their brother.…
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“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” the very, very old man said as he sat down across from me on the mid-day bus. “I remain balanced,” he said, “by wearing an equal number of rings on each hand.” He paused to let this information sink in. Then unsheathed his hands from his jacket pockets and, leaning in, rested them on my knees. I could only assume there were fingers underneath the mass of jewelry. “Go ahead and count them,” he said, “exactly the same number on each hand.” He was uncomfortably close to me, but his breath smelled like cough drops, which was somehow reassuring. “Go ahead.” He nodded at his hands that stayed heavy on my knees. The bus rattled on, over potholes around fast corners, and the very, very old man sat perfectly still.…
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I see glittered carriages sprinkled through Central Park
being pulled by horses that remind me of the Midwest,
not the steroid-juiced, blender-bred racetrack specimens,
not the ponies that granddaughters of Fortune 500 CEOs
have grown out of, but something in between
Hell’s Kitchen and Times Square
in an alley repurposed as a stable
I can smell before I can see,
a single AC unit
jutting out the only window,
a stallion with his sun-stuffed
snout pressed against the cool air,
legs stomping in the mildest satisfaction
interrupted by the stablemen
who guide it back into a steamy prison,
and I hear my friend complain,
“They aren’t supposed to live like that,”
and only then do I consider
these obvious snippets of suffering.
– Dylan Tran…
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Because the instructions said a dark cool place with absolutely no sunlight and because the boy and girl were young enough to believe in shadows, they buried the seeds in a shoebox and the shoebox beneath the basement stairs of her parents’ house. Because the instructions said uninterrupted and six to eight weeks and because the boy and girl were young, they soon forgot about the shoebox and the two seeds planted inside and went about growing up. For years the girl grew up pretty. The boy grew up fast and mean and tired of the girl for a time, as boys sometimes do. The girl’s parents were already grown up, so they grew old and grew out of the girl’s childhood home. The boy would remember the girl sadly.…
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