Hypersomnia
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
She doesn’t know where she likes to go.
I had to ask her four times
before she finally told me:
the movies
and New York City.
She wishes she could be more like
the people in both–
glamor twisted statues and
well-dressed habits
decorating important places.
Sometimes she likes to
put on a little mascara,
take her work-vest off
and pretend like she’s found home
for long enough to leave it.
She still lives with her parents.
I could see her sitting at the edge of her skin
wanting to know more about
who she is
so I asked her another question:
what do you want to be
when you grow up?
she told me
nothing–
she doesn’t want to be anything.
she’s not even good at being herself.
she told me that people who dream
only end up sleeping their lives away
and that she’s too old to stop
smelling like empty rooms
and fairy-tale carcasses.
but she’s only 21.
Doesn’t like to wrinkle
so she doesn’t smile
and often mistakes the shine of her hair for gray.
it looks like
midnight with the stars curled in.
has apocalyptic cracks in the lips and
finales for fingernails
and says she doesn’t know
how to last out here
like i do
and being happily abandoned
with two kids
isn’t the start she was looking for.
I feel like telling her
that I want to be like her when I grow up.
that she is beautiful like 5 feet 2 inches worth
of time spent talking to her little sister
and that I love her.
but we don’t have that kind of a relationship.
She doesn’t know where she likes to go so
I told her to go
to sleep,
I’ll watch the kids.
she did for the first time in 21 years.
woke up and told me that she dreamed
that she was dreaming
of dreaming
of dreaming.
–I gave her a hug once.
She felt like everything.
Betelgeuse
Posted by Lauren Yates | Filed under Poetry, Print
To the ninth brightest star in the night sky:
Project divine sparks toward this back wall.
I’m hard of hearing and your feelings aren’t quite mine.
Come closer.
No one can outshine your dark horse harmony,
bracing front man melodies sung by the sun.
Know that you’re bright enough to hold
your own, that you illuminate the night sky.
Ninth brightest star, come closer.
Your potent whisper still can’t fight
the distance between us. But I don’t want it to.
Six-hundred light years later, you’ll shock my fingertips
once I’ve called your name three times.
“21″ inspired by Alysia Harris
Posted by Melissa Pavri | Filed under Poetry, Print
1. i fear the unknown
2. i am still learning how to say no
3. i am blind
4. i see beauty in every rift in the universe
5. i know my sister better than i know myself
6. i have never been in love
7. i like the taste of salt and things i know by tongue
8. i am the color of the earth and it makes me feel human
9. i don’t mind my scars
10. my dreams frighten me
11. i don’t believe in stars and i dislike distance
12. i sing in wishing wells
13. i know how to live outside myself
14. i fall for legends
15. i have endless faith in the anarchy of friendship
16. i don’t know how to shatter but i have met salvation
17. i only share secrets with my reflection
18. i want to know the worth of my last name
19. i am stuck making words sound beautiful
20. i am not good at telling the truth
21. i will be
quiet
Posted by Ilana Millner | Filed under Poetry, Print
there’s something loud
in the way the leaves
shake
today.
they’re quivering
with anger
and the bark of their spines
writhes,
snakes.
I close my eyes
anticipating the explosion,
the splintered
extension
the fatal attempt
to pierce the thick
thick
skin of us all
because I saw
a woman tell her daughter
to
SHUT UP
on the subway
and my illiterate lips began to pray
please
please
don’t
because she was asking questions
with the sage of a saint
and I wanted to shake the dazed
and dusty
and disillusioned
passengers
with the fervor of my fear
and yell
BEHOLD
you have a miracle in your midst.
but I kept my place
my space
and watched her go silent
watched them stay silent
watched me be silent
like the trees
eventually.
