On Needles Spencer Williams The nice white lady calls my name, and I toe into her office with my ears on fire, because I’m there to receive bad news that I hope will be good news, and my body—chronically proactive and over-achieving—jump-starts the rage spiral I had programmed for approximately one hour after […]
Lora Mathis, Radical Softness as a Weapon
Two Poems shelley feller after the fall after Hart Crane and Klaus Nomi i put the anal back in bacchanal i descend the tender foul all false fruit & bitter butter bunker hunk, i lubba lub u hot like bone broth, jock rot o, humanimal, i am hostile to ur harp & altar […]
Subscript Em Rose All planet Earth produces is the dead bodies of humanity—that’s its only creation. Everything else comes from outer space, from unknown regions. –Sun Ra Hanuman, shapeshiftgod of mermaid seduction billowed in a black-ink pin-poke constellation, across your rib canvas. Demon-demolisher Hanuman side-eyed as you called me Pleiadian: a Nordic […]
The Queen of Ingland Ashley Danielle Moore “The Queen’s coming to Harlem,” Dexter said. “Shut up.” I slapped his elbow. The joke was aimed at our mother, who had been on her hands and knees since last week, turning the house upside down. Her sister would be visiting, and this aunt of ours […]
Am I Writing Stand Up Shit Now? Sophia Lara ive grown up my whole life knowing that im like ugly / that im like not literate even though i write every day? whats up with that again? / that im like fur coats and red bottom shoes in my head bc my sister […]
Exhibition Match Adora Svitak There would be no boys in the 106-pound weight class at the tournament, so they told Mei that she would fight an exhibition match against her teammate, Jude, the girl with no arms. Jude weighed 120 pounds. She was two weight classes above Mei, but this was preferable to […]
Kids in America Claudia Cortese We’re the kids in America Everybody live for the music-go-round Kim Wilde Tommy sat next to me in tenth grade study hall. We were both equally awkward in that just-hitting puberty way: his gangly body barely holding up his newly too-big head, my body still not knowing what […]
We Real Cool Matan Gold A white woman approaches the stage. She has volunteered her skills, promising a familiarity with the rapper’s discography, or at the very least, this particular song. The rapper asks if the white woman is ready. She lifts her mic and responds, “I gotchu.” She begins. She misses a […]
Two Poems Justin A. Davis Sketch with Beetle, Pessimism, and Scorpion My nation’s been designed for a purpose, full of blood and oil and evangelist beetles. It’s all sad Drake and mob-tied Drake and dancehall Drake, phallogocentric Drake. Sad Drake has been whispering into his doorknob. Mob Drake’s dodging child support and reparations. […]
