Journal of Writing & Democracy

Tag: Poetry

  • should we be more solicitous about the earth spinning too fast

    should we be more solicitous about the earth spinning too fast

    should we be more solicitous about the earth spinning too fast or is this just another thursday?

    there are 86,400 seconds in a day 

    time is a storage unit. 
    it’s my healer, 
    my protector. 
    it’s anything but science, 
    in sooth. 

    the earth is spinning faster 
    like they always swore it wouldn’t 
    and so of course 
    i feel as if i’m running out of time. 

    i look up how many seconds does it take to say ‘i love you’ 
    in case the meter runs out before i do so. 

    there are an innumerable amount of books i haven’t read 
    and a boundless amount of sunrises i haven’t watched. 

    time is gripping onto my throat 
    how are any of us still breathing? 
    i wonder if i can make up for lost time by telling the truth. 
    by that i mean i love you. 

    i think the world must be ending and what do i have to show for it?
    the bed is unmade, 
    there are clothes on the floor
    and shit! the blinds to the window are still broken. 

    i still have letters to write and i can’t stop looking at twitter 
    i have people to hug and there’s a package in my mailbox 

    i’m still acting on impulse and changing my mind 
    i have more to say and why am i talking so loud? 

    but honey, i love you, just in case we’re really running out of time.

  • Two Poems by Naomi Riggs

    Two Poems by Naomi Riggs

    Beautiful Baby 

    “Mama, do you think I’m pretty?” 
    “No”, she says. 
    “Your teeth are crooked 
    Your hair—too thick 
    A birds’ nest of pussy coils and naps 
    Why yo head so motha-fucking nappy?
    You need a silk press 
    Your skin—too dark 
    You stay out in the sun too long 
    Your nose—too flat 
    A wide animal shape, ya know? 
    Your body—too big 
    You need to drink some tea 
    And matter of fact 
    Watch what you eat 
    I’m gon’ lock the fridge 
    Ohhh yeah, you got that look no one can compare
    The type that makes a person do a double take.
    Ya know, to stop and stare? 
    I can look at you alllll day 
    Like many others do 
    With a scowl 
    With a muffled grin 
    You look just like yo fuckin’ daddy.” 

    Dear Art Thou In “Heaven” 

    i am not your child 

    if the human condition has, is, and always
    will 
    be duality 
    multiplicity in nature 
    then I need not you 
    to flatten me 
    to the first-dimension 

    i need nor want 
    to be ripped out 
    of the nuanced gray of life
    and placed 
    “into the straight and narrow” 
    of your black and white 

    i am a human being who is experiencing the world 
    day in 
    and day out 
    all by myself 
    i need not you 
    to grow and reach beyond  
    this realm 
    or the next

    i need not you 
    to demand me
    restraint;
    my needs, 
    my wants, 
    my desires—they’re mine
    to do with as I please

    I need not 
    fear death 
    or endure the troubling 
    State of Conflict 
    that is the reflection 
    of life’s dizzying end; 
    fire, eternal, or everlasting peace

    i need not you 
    to make me whole 
    i am 
    parts ready—and willing—
    to become whole 
    one day 
    soon 

    i think 
    therefore I am 
    and I 
    am no child of yours

  • trees of my youth

    trees of my youth

    i live in a tough city as a lover of trees,
    observing them sprung from manhattan concrete. 
    just like me, a child from out west, they’re transplanted youth, 
    too, learning how to thrive in this grand metropolis and in the soil. 
    i think of touching them as i’m passing, 
    but to truly feel them, there’s hardly the time

    hardly ever. if i could have one wish, it would be to travel through time, 
    first stop behind my grandparents’ house where there stood the tallest tall trees. 
    but my adult’s heart can only trace back to their passing. 
    as much as i stared into those branches, a child, as an adult, i traverse only this raised concrete 
    jungle. grandma and i wrote poetry inside old cereal boxes, grandad and i planted in soil, 
    and under them, mom and i picnicked a while. but I’ve lost my way since my youth

    in forests, adulthood. my mind skips like a record to my valentines of youth, 
    sorting through unrefillable grade school notebooks, time 
    ‘s frozen crushes. will i ever master how love from seeds grows (or in what kind of soil)? 
    the acela train once raced so quickly i could barely distinguish the trees, 
    and when my girlfriend called “i’ll be late”, her voice sounded concrete. 
    i caught my own reflection in my phone screen, entire lives passing. 

    back in manhattan, again, now i am passing 
    central park where we softballed, flipping through snapshots from my scrapbook of youth. 
    what i wouldn’t give to live forever full-time among trees, not concrete. 
    i pass my high school, they say time 
    heals all wounds. nothing grounds me like mingling with trees 
    of my youth. i can feel my nervous system regulating just approaching the soil. 

    and not even a critical lens on teenagers can soil 
    my teen reverie. i barely even considered entire grades passing. 
    i also played basketball with legs tall as trees 
    instantaneously outgrowing my jeans, drinking until bloated from fountains of youth. 
    i had excellent marks in how to waste precious time 
    and because i was nerdy, even my outlandish ideas were concrete 

    ly spoken. now i wouldn’t give even one of those lanky days up even the time concrete 
    almost broke my one leg into four. maybe i always knew love grows hidden just below soil. 
    i can finally trace love’s roots. growth’s pattern across time 
    where i dug in the yard, picnicked with mom, my own innings passing
    refrains of you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone, sweet fleets of youth 
    asking. i lean, pausing a moment against the tougher-than-me trees. 

    what i’ve learned of love, i’ve learned it from trees. though you might chuckle, i swear it’s concrete,
    what i’m trying to tell you. they shaded my blossoming youth, taught me if you dig deep enough, you
    find roots in the soil. with each year that’s passing (they pass quicker each one) i’m most content
    under these majestic evergreens, these monuments to the passage of time.

  • The Safest

    The Safest

    The safest I’ve ever felt was walking in the rain in Paris.
    The safest I’ve ever felt was feeling the wind in my hair, on the beach, the sand on my feet.

    The safest I’ve ever felt was in a clean house, my clothes and jewelry neatly organized, my perfumes lined on a shelf in alphabetical order, my cigarettes in a glass jar the shape of a diamond.

    The safest I’ve ever felt was in a warm bed, a warm body next to mine who wants nothing more than for me to fall asleep and dream peacefully.

    Other times I’ve felt safest: savoring a meal I didn’t pay for, melting ice pressed on blushing cheeks, an unpayable debt forgiven. A friend who needed me. A small green pill. Full, round breasts. The dull ache I feel when they bounce against my chest as I dance. A hospital room full of calla lilies, smiling faces, and teddy bears when I awaken into a version of me I would’ve, could’ve died to become.

    It’s a miracle we can be. It’s miraculous to be here together.

    But can I tell you something? This world is too much. Its darkness threatens to overtake me constantly, and yet, I stand before you, still here. Last March a man on the train tried to kill me with a switchblade on sight: Thick strong brown thighs poking out of short denim shorts and a pink crop top. I am the emblem of a raised fist. I am not done yet, and neither are we. We have we and as long as we have we, I can survive.

    It’s a beautiful thing to be seen. We are all witnessed in some way when we are born, and then the world interferes: with its ideas, for the good and for the worst; with its intentions, for the best and for the worst. I didn’t ask to be here, but here I am. Do you see me?

    I’ll speak for myself. My glory isn’t just in the moments I feel safest, but in the moments I know love. I know love when I brush my hair in the mornings after a ragged sleep. I know love, when I can pay my rent on the first of the month. I know love when I have a belly full of home-made chili. I know love in my mother’s eyes, when she tells me I’m the apple of hers. When she calls me by my name and reminds me I am her daughter. I know love when I compose a new melody, when I lift my voice to sing.

  • Two Poems by Jack Brown

    Two Poems by Jack Brown

    Four Older Men 

    A man walks into the bar and sees only me
    because I am there. He says Good enough but hesitates.   
    I tell him my age over dark liquor. There is a 
    shimmer in his moderately sunken eye when
    the first 2 falls from my mouth. 

    A man walks into my iPhone and says I am perfect 
    based on 3 images. He expects more than I can 
    give so I lie about it all. Still responding, I misread 
    his intentions because he is not very good with an 
    iPhone. I come out of character eventually. 

    A man walks into my bedroom and dislikes all of 
    its color and the past-his-time singers on the walls.
    He does not ask anything but for me to roll over
    and become small. We force our skin together and I make all 
    the right noises. The lights are white, surrendered. 

    A man walks right into me and hits me square across
    the face so I say thank you, sir. His experience trumps
    mine so he brands my chest with a SOLD sticker and takes
    me home. I am brighter than him so I stand in the corner
    like a lamp. He only ever turns me off and I stay.

    Visitation

    Back home now 
    with the labradors still barking 
    through the screen door, making
    enemies of the robins and the 
    street cat who sleeps by the 
    boxwoods on Martina Drive. 

    And there’s vodka with lime and
    my throat is the last stop on
    the Great (Southern) American Cities 
    tour and all the checked bags are 
    away in the attic. I want to howl, 
    but I’m flinching too hard. 

  • My Ancestors Weren’t Eliot’s

    My Ancestors Weren’t Eliot’s

    “We are born with the dead:
    See, they return, and bring us with them.”— TS Eliot

    we are born
    into the hands of ghosts

    like shadows, buzzing beneath my skin
    their breath stuck behind my teeth,
    in a rib I didn’t know—
    cracked open, now,
    spilling time like water.

    we
    are born
    etched in names no one speaks,
    their silence riding
    the currents of our voice.

    see
    they return
    between light’s fragments on closed windows,
    they press inside,
    slip through fingers
    where we thought we held ourselves
    whole

    look
    we are not alone,
    they walk with us, buried within the folds of our skin—
    each step a resurrection,
    each pause a return home.

    they return
    To the space between sleep and wake
    They pull us through folds where time forgets itself,
    where our heartbeats
    burst like gaskets,
    scattering into the void they left behind.

    they bring us
    forward
    back
    forward
    teaching us the dance we’ve always known
    but never learned.

    bring us
    with them, yes, bring us
    into the hum, into the space
    where history bites its tongue,
    just under our complexion,
    where roots twist,
    where the past claws its way back,
    scraping through layers of us,
    until we become
    the earth that mourns
    And then blooms.

    we
    are born
    with the dead
    and they return
    and return
    and return

  • sacred bodies

    sacred bodies

    i’ve never been a woman of religion. 
    i simply do not have the time; 
    passing like silken hair threaded through fingers
    or the slip of tongues intertwined. 
    my faith lies far from hymnals.

    she addresses my body like it’s religion 
    and her altar is my sunken hips. 
    she bites into the holy loaves of my thighs 
    and sips sweet wine from my lips. 

    her touch is my first taste of heaven.
    her nails scribe pinkened confessions
    as welts into my skin. a votive flame in my gut—
    fervent yet flickering. 

    how many times can someone cry out for God
    in a night? and is she calling for me, 
    or for an omniscient being, watching, 
    like a voyeur, with envy from up above; 
    one of his angels buried between my legs, 
    devoted and desperate 
    to evoke from my throat 
    clandestine choral notes? 

    in the shadows, amongst the unfurling of our divine affair,
    our bodies tangled, with inseparable limbs, 
    sheltered, embraced by her wings, 
    we become a prayer.

  • Sponge

    Sponge

    I came to New York City—to visit—

    and I began writing poetry

    well

    and now I live here

    and my ink well is empty

    but of course I’ve never used

    an ink well

    because this is the

    21st century

    and if I have anything of importance to say

    I just open my notes app;

    let my thoughts spill out

    on to the screen…

    but now that I’m thinking about it,

    they don’t really spill

    since it’s not ink from a well

    they just,

    just…1

    1. I closed out my notes app and opened Instagram. I’ll come back when I’m feeling more poetic. ↩︎
  • Pixelated

    Pixelated

    SOUTH CAROLINA 

    Before the Internet 

    Pixelated 

    i. 

    I was 15 in North Myrtle Beach,  

    skateboarding towards 420 World  

    under the stale haze of old billboards and tattered confederate flags. Big Mike worked there,  

    and it’s where the porn was. 

    My friend Lauren, who dated Big Mike, told me that I didn’t masturbate right. 

    I never put my hands in my pants. 

    I held a pillow under me  

    like a torso  

    something firm  

    and humped until I came. 

    I was bisexual, 

    I am still bisexual. 

    2 men and 1 woman kind of bisexual. 

    I am sure it existed in California,  

    but queer feminist porn wasn’t in my sphere  

    among titles like Karma (with a backwards R) and Cock Busting Teens part 3. 

    Devil’s Threesome: Hot, Wet, and Blonde: $19.99 

    A perfect bisexual DVD. 

    A “late bloomer” I guess, 

    though most boys in comparison to girls are. 

    Blooming in a world that viewed

    me as female,

    and was withering. Blooming in a world viewed 

    me as female,  

    was withering. 

    Too big for my britches / stunned, 

    a screaming groin.

    So funny how quickly shock turns to arousal. 

    I skated home in the merciless sun, 

    the smell of softening asphalt below me  

    following an orgasm lantern adorned by a faint flicker. 

    ii. 

    The kissing was exhilarating,  

    the devil was a male character 

    playing the brother of the female character. 

    Pants were peeled, 

    my awkwardness deepened. 

    A sunset of an unnatural energy cast a shadow on my mind and boner, there was a contradiction 

    between the visual and the meaning. 

    Entropy 

    my shoulders/face/back stained red. 

    I wanted to be her brother/boyfriend? 

    I didn’t want this flesh,  

    my body, 

    to be touched 

    the way that the men touched hers. 

    Squinting/Furrowing brow gave focus to the sound, 

    Pixelated/my hard-on emerged. 

    15 minutes of panic-jerking 

    TV turned off 

    pulled up my underwear/grabbed a pillow. 

    An inaudible space 

    imbued with honeysuckle shampoo/Erin’s face. 

    She swept her pink bangs away  

    /I made her laugh in Wendy’s. 

    Drunkenly kissed my neck skinny dipping. 

    I turned to lightheaded glass 

    on another plane/a wave/a shudder/a tiny echo planted a seed that blossomed 

    in a boisterous and debilitating desire. 

    “brother and sister” 

    Nucky Thompson’s Final Scene 

    A half-baked coupe 

    trying to come to terms with my blood relations. Scorching highs, booming lows. 

    My family and Atlantic City  

    had the same facade, 

    being a big important machine 

    that doesn’t function now. 

    Eye contact on the bus,  

    fucking in the lifeguard boats 

    she took me to her girlfriend’s house  

    in Asbury Park. 

    Pieced together 

    that we weren’t together 

    at a Pride barbeque. 

    Under the boardwalk 

    two boys, engrossed, watched a video  

    on a flip phone: rotten.com 

    something was being eaten alive  

    rusty tap water 

    barefoot baby I found outside of the Wawa  

    the way that no window’s elapsed the city’s pitilessness time did too 

    until I was healing  

    from surgery

    Boardwalk Empire,  

    my reason for living. 

    The only thing you can count on is blood  

    the blood in your veins and the blood that’s in mine. 

    Nucky Thompson dropped 

    like a full bottle 

    onto the boardwalk 

    the psychic without a crystal ball  

    read my palm that Summer 

    right there 

    where the fictional death lies  

    next to mine 

    perplexed and agitated, she said, “You’re a man.”

    ASHEVILLE

    Tomorrow, tomorrow 

    Your last breath 

    with a summer rain soundtrack 

    in the crook of a mountain. 

    I was down the mountain 

    parked in front of my house,  

    my girlfriend’s car. 

    The rain stroked the peripheral of the blue screen life 

    on my phone. 

    Giving cybersex a cadence with a man who lived far away.

    When one wakes up they can hear the heat in North Carolina. 

    Pitch like a dog whistle, 

    only southerners understand. 

    The hum was louder that morning, as the cicadas cried. Why doesn’t the cicada offer any knowledge of its demise? Maybe the cicadas cried for you too. 

    The spin of the earth pierced the silhouette on the picnic blanket. 

    Surrounded by our friends, I stared into outer space. 

    Shrouded in the disgrace of jerking off while you died. 

    I avoided hormones 

    creep 

    as long as I could  

    a violent white man 

    out of fear of turning into  

    everything I hate 

    takes advantage of the living and the dead. 

    “They couldn’t even choose their meals on any given day. I can’t believe  they could have chosen this.”

    “I didn’t see them as selfish until now.”  

    How small of us. 

    We had just come out to each other,  

    only you and I knew that. 

    Wiping the tears from your cheek that night I whispered,  “We can sleep on the playground 

    and if it rains, 

    we’ll bury ourselves in sand,  

    it’s cooler than our houses.” 

    CHICAGO

    NASA 

    No kissing naked namelessness naïveté 

    A mirror that you watched yourself in afternoon abbs aloof Sadly, there was no foreplay seeking safeness salify Ariana Grande blasting abrupt avast abscond

    NEW YORK

    Planes Flying By 

    In Queens, I hear planes above the light pollution shipping

    lives either closer to or past one another 

    while we endure the stickiness of August in the city. 

    Tiny bottles and cans 

    clinking in the houseless carts  

    from the basement apartment. 

    I hate it  

    When lovers only focus on my pleasure.  

    It should be requite. 

    It’s always like this: your head held between my

    knees. I clutch your neck, labored breathing. 

    You look up. 

    Teary eyed with adoration: this is our tenderness, yet I am growing numb. 

    John Lennon’s beady eyes stare into mine 

    from the other side of your room. 

    The first girl I ever loved comes to mind as you say, “I’m your faggot,  daddy.” 

    I nod. 

    She was afraid of pleasure and obsessed with it when we were younger. 

    She told me that on AIM 

    maybe? 

    If not, 

    it’s something we’d have typed out in Courier New  

    on LiveJournal.

  • twenty-two

    twenty-two

    Because in the dim parking lot
    one man’s sobriety was a flower for his truths;
    because Max’s hair in the rain.

    Five days this month I hulled a ship;
    whittled down the masts to
    birth marrow for grief to reside
    in peace. And Joseph, old
    enough to be my father,
    who believed my pain was truth,
    once emailed me a lonely

    “Let me know if you need anything—anything at all. Anything.”

    After I’d begun taking too many xannies
    to wrestle violence into arpeggios
    which meant the only thing
    I had to barter was my hand, to my head,
    to the edge of the bed, to three
    breaths an hour into the sky.

    Yet somehow I felt hunted as the
    pills corralled the world
    indefinite and shapeless;
    perhaps this was the eerie kind of freedom
    the showbird chained to the dock,
    without knowing of its wings,
    mimics into happiness.

    So I ate a truth so large it led me blind;
    that in order to sustain hunger as a precision,
    my humanity should keep not in the soft of
    my palms but in cyclical, dying singularities:

    an unhung landline. The horizon after
    the waves swallow the morning.
    The last third of a revolving door.
    Winter burying the damp maple leaves.

    Still, in solitude, I needed a prayer
    answered, so I trusted that slicing
    its sea open would promise the body it’d bloat to
    shore—clean;
    but to think I tried so
    hard to disappear only to find
    forever
    between the feeder channels.
    And still

    I unfurl,
    and unfurl,
    and unfurl;

    and
    dear Mother, help me—

    I still don’t know why my eyes are so endless.

    Christine Lee is a poet and visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY, with work previously awarded by The National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Christine is currently an undergraduate student at The New School.
  • Troubled Sleep Interview

    Troubled Sleep Interview

    Troubled Sleep, the newest used bookstore in Park Slope, has gorgeous vintage tiled floors that date back to a time when the space was a French Bistro. I spoke with Alex Brooks, the manager and book buyer of the shop about community entanglement, obscure occult orders, and the palm-reading aspects of buying and selling used books. 

    Lior: Tell me a little about what a day in the life looks like as a bookstore manager, bookseller,  and bookshop keeper. It can be such a romanticized role. 

    Alex: It’s totally romanticized. Everybody comes in here and says, “Oh I always wanted to run a bookstore,” and I’m like, “Well, half of it is lifting heavy boxes, and the other half is like being a moving man, but it’s good—you get your exercise in.” Day to day, you have your regulars: you have the people you see consistently and I think the people you interact with the most are the ones who come to sell you books repeatedly. And that’s kind of your cast of characters. That’s your crew. They’re all different types, luckily most of them are pretty nice, and I’d say I’m friends with a bunch of them now. I look forward to them coming by and we have these ongoing conversations with different installments. Some of them are more challenging because they bring unusual or obscure books that I’m not familiar with and some of them honestly have greater knowledge of those books than I do. For example, [Alex gestures towards a bookshelf] This one shelf up here came from a friend of ours who lives in the neighborhood and brings us books. He’s a great guy, love seeing him, love chatting with him—but it’s a challenge because he has all these books relating to the occult. Oh, Blavatsky is in there. I wasn’t aware of the Rosicrucians either. Have you heard of them?

    Lior: No!

    Alex: Yeah, it’s this occult order that was formed in Germany in the 17th century. 

    Lior: Oh, Lord…

    Alex: Yeah, I’d never heard of them until yesterday, till he brought these books in. 

    Lior: That was your yesterday. You’re in this constant community entanglement, community discussion. So, you’re connected to the collective that is connected to Codex (a delightful used bookstore on Bleecker). 

    Alex: Yeah, good knowledge.

    Lior: How did you become the person to be, like, I’m going to take this on, I’m gonna be the guy for this shop? 

    Alex: You’re a Codex fan; you go there?

    Lior: I am!

    Alex: Nice, I love Codex.

    Lior: Codex is special. 

    Alex: I was working Friday nights there for a while, it was kind of fun cause you’d get that Friday night crowd of people who are out Downtown. And they’d just come in hot with energy that is too rowdy for a bookstore. I’ve been working at the other shops for a few years and just earned the trust of the bosses. I was looking to step up and I thought I could bring a little more to the table and add some value to the collective, and then we just got hooked up with this space. 

    Lior: Was it a role that you had been imagining yourself in for a while? Like, as a literary nerd, book lover… 

    Alex: You flatter me. I enjoy working in bookstores for sure, but not everybody does. A lot of book nerds don’t necessarily want to be public facing, or dealing with people. 

    Lior: Totally, it’s actually very social. 

    Alex: It is.

    Lior: More so than people would even visualize. 

    Alex: I’m not necessarily great at the social element but I like it. I like seeing people all day, especially coming out of the way the world has been the last couple of years. I really missed social interfacing. 

    Lior: Do you feel like you’re a palm reader of sorts when people bring their books to sell? Or when they bring their selections to purchase and you’re like, “Oh! You’re choosing this book at this time in your life.” Like, you give them a little bit of wisdom, what you see reflected in their choice. Do you feel like you get to know people a little based on what they buy here or what they bring? 

    Alex: Oh, definitely. When people bring their books to sell, then you get a full reading. 

    Lior: Totally, you’re like, that’s your life!

    Alex: Right, like this guy who brought all the occult books yesterday, he brings so much stuff, so much variety—he’s the ultimate man of mystery. Every box of books he brings us opens up a new labyrinth of his life. I think I’m always doing it on an unconscious level, the palm reading based on what people buy. The best is when someone buys a book I really like and we can just share that enthusiasm. 

    Lior: Well, what are you reading that you’re excited about these days? 

    Alex: Let’s see, what’s in my pockets here…

    Lior: Oh, very cute! That’s a very good book pocket, a perfect little novella sleeve [Alex pulls out two books from his vintage Carhartt jacket pockets]. 

    Alex: Definitely, it’s good for a novella or the mass market size. 

    I’m the kinda guy who takes two books for a subway ride.  This book, The Housemaid, is by this writer, Amma Darko, who is Ghanaian. It was published by Heinemen, part of a great African writer’s series. I believe she’s still alive; I think she was born in the fifties. Darko has maybe six or seven novels and this is one of her best-known books. Unfortunately, they’re out of print now and, like, only available online which is so lame, but it makes the print copies, like, all the more precious when you can find them. So I picked this one up and it’s great so far—I like reading literature from a faraway place to get a taste of a different culture. [Pause for customer interaction—the customer and Alex talked about a bookstore that no longer exists that wasn’t enjoyable to go to but they both wish still existed]. 

    Lior: I’m curious about who has inspired you and your literary path. Who has taught you and who has taken you on as a book person? 

    Alex: I would say primarily the other people I work with in the shops. You know, our original shop, Book Thug Nation, goes back till 2009, so I was a customer originally. Through these shops, I’ve discovered more books and more writers than at any other place. . .Now, I know how to look for them myself.

    Lior: And how did you start learning about how to look and cultivate your own sense of ownership and taste? 

    Alex: It takes a while, you know. I started from this place where if I look back at my reading taste. . . 

    Lior: Oh my God. 

    Alex: There was a point when Book Thug Nation just opened and I was looking for William Faulkner, looking for romantic poets and the stuff that I read in school. You don’t realize how big the world of literature is and how much else there is to read. Not that there’s anything wrong with reading William Faulkner or romantic poets, old verbose white men. . . 

    Lior: They have their space. 

    Alex: Right, they have their space. But there’s so much else and that’s our general ethos here, especially with the fiction—we’re always trying to have fiction in translation, keeping it international, the Russians too. 

    Lior: The Russians! 

    [Pause for book purchase The customer purchases a book by Andy Warhol and comments that he thinks Warhol is underrated].

    Lior: I’ve never heard someone say they think Andy Warhol is underrated. 

    Alex: Maybe as a writer?

    Lior: Oh, absolutely. Even just witnessing the community entanglement, how it happens, how people are so happy to be here—people are thirsty for this; I was like thank God this shop exists! 

    Alex: It takes on a life of its own. 

    Lior: I love that about what a bookstore can be. Are you writing anything these days?

    Alex: I wish! I was actually on a good streak with writing until we opened up this place. I’ve never published anything; I’ve never been able to apply serious effort, but I like to read and I think everyone who likes to read plays around with writing.

    Lior: Absolutely.

    Alex: It’s just all about the reading, I think—when I read, I write.

    Lior: I find that is true.

    Alex: You write, too?

    Lior: Yeah.

    Alex: You find that link between reading and writing?

    Lior: Oh, totally. If I’m not reading, or if I’m not inspired by what I’m reading, it’s hard for me to write. It’s like a well that dries up. 

    Alex: If you’re not watering it. . .

    Lior: If you’re not watering it, it’s like [makes dried-up noise].

    Alex: Oh God, that’s a scary sound! You’re right, though. That’s why if I start reading a book and it doesn’t inspire me at all, I have no patience for it. I’m not going to waste my time. 

    Lior: I think that’s valid. So, the name of the shop…I read Dead Souls was a potential name? 

    Alex: That’s what I wanted. 

    Lior: So that’s what you wanted to name the store, but you didn’t want to offend the church across the street?

    Alex: Indeed, we wanted to be respectful.

    Lior: I feel like the vibe that Dead Souls gives off is totally different from Troubled Sleep. I mean the word “dead…” 

    Alex: It’s a lot putting “dead” in your name, but then again, I think humans have a death urge and a death fascination, so I don’t think it would have been bad for business necessarily. I think it would have drawn people in. I’m an enormous fan of the book, Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol. I would name anything after that book. I don’t really know the book, Troubled Sleep, by Jean-Paul Sartre—I’m not much of a Sarte-rian. 

    Lior: What would you say to students who are just beginning their own literary path? What would you want students to know?

    Alex: In general, if you talk to people about having a career in books or even just having an interest in books, there are always going to be people around you who say discouraging things. People say discouraging things to me all day. They come in and say, “Oh a bookstore, huh? Tough business. Good luck!” There are people who talk about the Internet or reading PDFs, but the thing is, those people are all wrong. That’s the great truth of it; no matter what happens with smartphones, or streaming TV, or people ordering books off of Amazon, I think the written word is here to stay. People will always like to read physical books. For anyone who is thinking about a career in writing, there will always be demand for that and there will always be opportunities for that. It’s not going away. Books have been here for a long time and are going to stay here for a long time. One of my older buddies said to me when I was thinking about opening this store: “Any job you do in life, whether you’re an investment banker or a custodian, there will be competition. Somebody else will try to do your job better than you, so you better do what you’re good at. What you’re naturally talented at. Cause that’s where you’re going to be the most competitive.” If you’re a person who’s into books and into writing, then that’s what you should do. I don’t want to speak like I’m all wise, but I believe in that. 

    Lior: I love that. I think it’s a really hopeful note to end on. 

    Check out Troubled Sleep, take yourself on a date, browse the ever-evolving selection of new and used books, and say hi to Alex! Who knows what you might find, or what might find you. 

  • Let the Clouds Cry

    Let the Clouds Cry

    Illustration by Jillian Rees

    Let the clouds cry.

    Let them cry

    Let them pour rivers
    of what you left behind

    Let go of the strings you hold,
    Like a balloon, or a kite.

    The strings you attached to the clouds,
    Say goodbye.

    Madness is in the way your hair burns.
    The way the clock turns.

    Let go. 

    Your hair was a field of strawberries 
    Your eyes were an ocean,
    A foamy blue I could live in
    When I kissed you. 

    Let the clouds cry.

    Let them cry,
    While you dream tonight.

    Let them feel sorrow
    As they cry
    Into tomorrow. 

    Dream about the heart-shaped leaves
    on the thin branches of the purple tree.

    You know the one.

    Where the butterflies
    sleep amongst the flowers,
    Blessed by the tears of the clouds.

    Now, say goodbye,

    Let the clouds cry.

    Let them cry.
    Let them cry.

    Let them cry.

  • Less So For You, More So For Me

    Less So For You, More So For Me

    Photography by Caitlyn Hasenfratz

    As described by Southern Living Magazine, “Cotillion is typically a season of etiquette classes for middle-school aged children” involving swing dances and guidelines for interpersonal relationships between girls and boys.

    I.

    Mom, my Cotillion classes never prepared me for falling in love with a man. Do you regret sending me to them? Do you ever think the best lessons Georgia taught me were not learned from someone’s bleach-blonde aunt? She’d never met anyone like me in her life. To her, I am the only queer boy, Mom. How do you remember me, back then? Are there tears in my eyes? Am I coming out to you for the second or third time?

    II. 

    I want to live in my phone sometimes, Mom, I can’t expect you to understand that. I’ve learned everything I know about homosexuality from men in tiny boxes on the Internet. I’ve paid rent on a hyperlinked one-bedroom and shared it with hundreds. They knew me so well. Not more than you, surely, but still. There is a type of truth mothers cannot tolerate. There is a type of pain mothers cannot unburden. 

    III. 

    Mom, do I still walk street-side if he’s taller than me? (Nobody is taller than me.) What if he’s left-handed and wasn’t taught to swing dance? Which of us is the woman, Mom, is it me? (I don’t think you would like that.) I once held the door for a man and he slapped my ass. There was no module in Cotillion on what to do if he slaps your ass. I don’t think Cotillion fits inside the gay bar. Sometimes I don’t think I fit inside either.

    IV. 

    He doesn’t dance with me like that, Mom. He trips over my toes and splashes cranberry juice on the floor and I love it. I slurp it off of his New Balances. I kiss his beard and remind myself that he is a man, that I am a man. We dance in other ways. He remembers what you mean to me, Mom. I taught him the two-step. He forgot it. I’m jealous. 

    V. 

    I mourn the boy you call your son, Mom. You know edges, you know nothing of my corners. You know nothing of my innards, nothing of the ways I have unfurled myself and been unfurled. You know polo shirts and khakis and thirteen first days of school and that tattoos send you to hell. But you’re not still a Christian, are you, Mom? 

    VI. 

    Mommy, I’m tired of pretending I already grew up, I’m tired of chasing maturity like stray dogs down dim alleys. I miss having a car because it was a comfortable place to cry. It was an assured route back to you. I’m 20 now and I’m not very good at washing dishes and I’m drowning in emails. What the fuck is LinkedIn, Mom? 

    VII.

    That blonde woman running Cotillion used to tell me I’d be a real ladies man someday. I’m not even a man’s man, Mom. I’m a dildo left on the shelf, uncleaned, undignified. (You would hate this metaphor. There are not always poetic ways to express these things, Mom.)

    VIII.

    I wish I knew how to spell the name you gave me, Mom. I wish you’d just named me “fag” sometimes. And sometimes I wish my poetry wasn’t about sexuality. I’m growing tired of it. Aren’t you? 

    IX.

    Mom, tell me I’m still your baby boy. I’ll never be anyone else’s. I can’t stand to watch the phrase stumble from the mouths of low-eyed men who won’t cut off the crust for me.

    X.

    Mom, you won’t have to write back because you won’t have to read this because I won’t let you. I know you love me. I know you love me. I wish I loved me like you do; simply, softly, because you have to, because you learned how to, and that was enough.

  • Light Poems

    Light Poems

    Photography by Caitlyn Hasenfratz

    Sage

    The moment is outside of time
    Ironic cause that’s what I’m needing
    To teach you

    Pleasure I have in my veins
    The planet rewinds everyday just
    To feed you

    How can I be of service?
    Burn me up, Waving me
    Listen here, patiently
    Lessons entwined in the roots of my history
    Plant me within ya mind so nervously 

    Trust
    Another word for faith in motion
    I have a scent that stays here often

    Flock of a feather we rise together
    Locked in a palace of self-afflicting worship?
    Attention focused alone is not worth it
    Was I a part of the void for an instance?
    Was it really the womb or dirt dug in?
    Dirt hugging me take me away
    Take me away
    You shoulda used me
    I was your sage

    Concentrate

    Rivers and lakes envious of my eyes
    Iris of mine birth a water divine
    Clawing my way out of heaven designed
    Or was that your arms?

    Heart full of dirt that i now turn to clay
    Lay out a mold for a body to breathe
    Raise up the child and teach em to pray
    Is there more to it?

    Scars on my back they all mark my mistakes
    Thought that my guardians didn’t own blades
    Tasting defeat but now i think its fate

    And the bitterness turns into sweetness
    And my bitterness melts in serenity
    And the bitterness crushes my bitterness held within Better sins thought up exactly

    Now my patience not taking the backseat

    Change of taste got my will riding shotgun

    And it click like the last puzzle piece done

    Man that click sounded just like a shotgun 

    *** 

    Now the pain that my mother gave me
    Has become the retreat for my safety
    And inside of it are all the paintings that hold pain in on occasion.
    Or did i lose focus?

    Sand

    Sand within my Palms

    Might be some tears that dried up in
    the Sun
    Might be the Mother that built up
    my lungs
    Might be the source of my feeling
    alone
    Might be the reason i’m pushing for
    company
    Might only come if there’s pain in my
    melody
    Might only take up a word in this
    summary
    Might just become what i need to
    surrender


    Render my breath to a vapor to liquid exquisite conceiving its form as a drop from the tension 

    Or the sand within my palms

  • Various Poems: A Collection of Poetry and Photography

    Various Poems: A Collection of Poetry and Photography

    All Photography by Finn Darrell

    words of emp*werment

    We stand on the shoulders of giants.
    Giants supporting giants.
    Stilettos stacked sky-high,
    legs so long
    clouds dance around the thighs
    Visage vers le ciel
    eyes to the sun
    and beyond.
    We reach heights higher than the
    beanstalk could ever imagine.
    Looking down on the clouds
    We soar.

    sternum

    shirt button open
    revealing breastless chest
    breathless lungs
    sternum
    staring straight on
    better than before
    the deficit of flesh
    is the presence of my joy

    equatorial affairs

    by cosmic coincidence
    one Colombian happening
    we collided-club-bound
    in the sweet summer of ‘19
    both born beneath the waning gibbous
    of the millennium orbit
    twin flame, do you still burn?
    baum baum baum
    the crowd shook together as one
    rattling apples all over Newton’s gurning jowls
    does dance imitate music? or does music imitate dance?
    these were the kinds of questions we asked ourselves
    and each other
    that summer.
    we met through locked eyes
    as you did a double-take,
    gleefully gulping my aura down your gullet.
    Adam’s apple always protruding
    head cocked horizontally
    from behind the bathroom door
    baum baum baum!
    Techno-lovers cavorting
    clustered round the altar—the central trunk
    sticking stubborn through the roof of the place as if to say
    I was here first!
    baum baum baum
    the noble árbol
    surrounded by its congregation
    throbbing bodies
    surround-sound and perspiration
    sharing from the communal cup of audio-visual vibrations
    turntables and turned tables
    handbags
    and
    hearts were searched that night
    that reluctantly turned to balmy dawn on the mountains of
    Bogotá
    was it the altitude sickness?
    or that malady we call love?
    you told me about the history of the area
    all of which I’ve long forgotten
    but I remember how enthralled I was
    and even better, I remember when we shared our
    first kiss
    in an
    empty church
    Lord forgive me.
    your eyes shone an azul blue
    like the sky
    although they say the sky is not actually blue
    but in fact, a scattering of the Sun’s photons as they enter
    our atmosphere
    no matter.
    your eyes shone an azul blue
    like the sky
    and when the sky turned grey, which, of course, it didn’t,
    we rode in our mechanic carriage up and up through cloud
    city
    into el páramo
    un paraíso
    empty
    except for the birds and the bees
    the nothingness surrounded by us
    we bathed and baptised each other’s broken bodies in a
    brook,
    knee-high
    and made love under the equatorial sun
    and basked in abundance
    and lost track of time
    as one does in these situations.
    and you drove me back at lightning speed so I wouldn’t
    miss the plane
    and Maya was furious with me.
    and if we’d have crashed the car that glorious day I
    wouldn’t have minded in the least


    mundanity was a memory with you, Mateo
    melon juice coated every crevice licked off each other’s
    hand.
    tasting of sweet and sweat,
    it doesn’t quite taste the same when it’s been flown across
    the globe
    and you can’t buy love in the supermarket.
    the memory of you
    is tucked away in the corner of my mind
    in a delicately wrapped package
    like the one I sent for your birthday
    which you never thanked me for
    until it arrived months later.
    bloody postal service,
    about as reliable as British meteorologists.
    I digress
    to you
    my most favourite brief encounter
    mateo
    te amo.

    the experience

    canvas smarting
    limbs twitching
    vision tracing
    am I many onion skins?
    nausea starts so I know it begins
    as I look at the screen
    shadows of wiggling
    behind every pixel
    red
    green
    glowing machine
    kernels in my mind
    explode, eyes: glowing
    grass alive and growing
    an overbitten lip
    ponders as it is stroked by
    a canine
    bitten softly
    chapped plump fleshy and tender
    It’s been half an hour
    but it feels like forever
    sixty-eight billion
    seventy-nine million
    three thousand and thirty-three
    seconds
    gone
    by

    See more of Finn Darrell’s photography on Instagram @daaddy.longlegs

  • No One Wants to Write Poems About the Proletariat Anymore

    No One Wants to Write Poems About the Proletariat Anymore

    I want someone to see me.
    I want someone to know 
    it ain’t easy.
    That life is luck and you’re lucky if you got It.
    I want someone to see me
    and the masses 
    and the wretched,
    our big eyed clutching kids 
    with tears streaming down their tiny faces.
    No one wants to write poems about the proletariat anymore 
    or collecting cans 
    or waiting on lines 
    or praying for good health 
    or popping a pill
    or pedaling as fast as you can.
    No one sees me and I try to be good.
    I want to be good.
    But somehow 
    I’m still at the very end of a line,
    the very end of a rope.
    No one wants to write poems about the proletariat anymore.
    No one knows what that means.
    And I’m tired of explaining it again and again and again.
    Purpose, objectives, priorities, goals,
    why do I want to be here and 
    how many words do you want?
    Feed my family!
    Read my poem!
    Look 
    at 
    me!

  • Poems by A. Trufanov – Vol.2

    Poems by A. Trufanov – Vol.2

    Complimentary Ticket: A Poem-Play

    Characters 

    Socrates – resurrected Greek philosopher 
    Harold Bloom – a traveler from Ireland 
    Simon Dedalus – his companion 
    Agrippa – wife of Socrates 

    The beach was empty, the airplanes were flying over the water,
    And that was 
    Freedom. 
    Water and air always took liberty for granted 
    While the fire and earth always complained. 
    They bill you every hour, they grumble and turn around the tables leaving you stranded 
    ashore.
    High society is never mighty, 
    For a cup of cicuta never wastes a minute. . .

    Harold Bloom: We must get home since I haven’t been there all day. 
    My wife is teaching, but you will be fine. She doesn’t like other people to be around though.

    Dedalus: Oh, I know that. 
    My mother would never invite any guests, no matter how hard I’d ask.
    Once I brought a friend of mine to show him a small collection of wooden dwarfs. . .
    She stood around as if she was Britain and me as European Union
    Trying to rescue Africans from the sea-storm

    Socrates: So, you two noble Irishmen, how come you are on the island of Lesbos, and why did you decide to resurrect me? 

    Bloom: It is a very funny story 
    For never having had a donkey 
    I drove back here on my piroga 
    Because they really wanted me to leave the island. 

    Socrates: That is not an excuse to leave your cell until you are sag. . .
    And you, young man, what brings you here? 

    Dedalus: I made a quarrel with some lads, 
    They made me think, I am about to flee, 
    Took up my land, my property, all what and whom I loved, 
    And carried over here in the sack of rustic little snag. 

    Socrates: It seems to me your verse is very flat and leery 
    But I don’t like it, because that was entirely my invention. 
    A fellow never likes when someone takes advantage of him 
    By using his very own invented tools. 

    Bloom: The need for your advice, sir Socrates, 
    Made us so. 

    Socrates: What advice? 

    Bloom: I dreamt about a girl last night,
    She was as jolly as a summer mood. 
    I made a ring for her, I asked some dwarfs to help, but she refused. 
    What would you do? 

    Socrates: Son, you are much happier than I was in my marriage. 
    Sometimes I fear Agrippa must be here, but hopefully, she is dead. 

    Enters Agrippa 

    Agrippa: Heil, Socrates, long time no see—where have you been? 

    Socrates: Agrippa. . . 
    Sons. . . now it is the moment for me to tell you a truth—take it as advice; 
    When I was young, my friends were all about fasting; 
    But now I am old — and there is nothing left to stand for, maybe that’s because of water — it depletes of your own will, no matter how great the landscape the earth still taxes. What has been made of earth belongs to earth, and only our souls can question this state of authority and make a fire out of air; the fire that I am referring to is called love. Don’t take a chance to laugh at me — but bid my council. 
    You must be standing where you are, because the death bids you soon, and only love or 
    A war for love can make you 
    Stronger and be saved. 

    He leaves with Agrippa. 

    Bloom: Fare thee well, Socrates? It feels somewhat so sad to come that far to learn of nothing, but. . . let us leave Dedalus and be gone. We must not break, even when the authorities fall—stand still. 

    The Letter. 

    I understand that I am no better than anybody else, 
    Some weird things happened to me only proving
    That something is wrong. 
    Some bad poetry is working upon me, 
    I am sorry, and only ask for understanding 
    That things might not get changed as quickly

    But I know that I will eventually 
    Stay away from the darkness of my conscience 
    When not a single hue of light could lead me

    To the green lanterns of the dark sunrises
    Of fickle suns and bloody moons
    To finally return me back to Sparrow Heights.

    While reading classics helps me not to get a better sense of 
    What I’m doing, while smoking these bits of mind, 
    I praise others for being braver than I am

    While being a shadow of those who are in power still. 
    A shadow to man, a shadow to love,
    To a pure shed of tears coming out of eyes of the blindest monk

    That had been praying for me, 
    While we still are 
    Objects of longing for the future. 

    I understand there is a need for all kinds of people, 
    But some have asked to leave right now, and
    This hustle is already quite a puzzle.

    Welcome home. 

    Sometimes we must forlorn the house
    In order to receive it back. 
    My heart’s still aching, 
    Thinking of what was left behind, 

    But if you act, 
    Then you can change the pact, 
    And whatever is easier for you, 
    I wouldn’t want to know. 

    Time is limited, 
    Death is waiting outside, 
    And how could we truly 
    Forget the love and joy 
    Of these spring years? 

    I came to say, 
    That I love you, 
    But instead, you gave me nothing 
    That I could hope for. 

    Yes, I should forgive, 
    But people never change, 
    Until the death, or shadow of it 
    Comes close enough

    To make you fear 
    What many generations 
    Described as spleen 
    Or change of climate. 

    But don’t forget, 
    The winter is behind the door, 
    And I shall forgive you 
    Until you dare to speak 

    Ask then a mirror, and it will speak:
    What never dead was truly 
    Can be restored and hoped
    If you become a better ruler of yourself.

    Atlantis 

    It would be a wonder to see the resurrection
    Which nobody saw yet still believes it is coming. 
    I would like to take a quick trip there to find some peace 
    And get some indulgence for my sins, those that I know of. 

    The intensity of propelling miracles of Atlantis around the world 
    The notion of which is within us but not with us. 
    There is a great law—avoid to ask for what you are wanting for,
    Because it may someday do you wrong.

    My white verse has gotten very blunt, 
    Let’s find out how can we get to see a brand new star
    And take our feelings back from my heart
    Not having the rest of the book be read before. 

    Shall we hope, if time permits, 
    To find where is Atlantis?
    Perhaps, on Union Square?
    Or, maybe. . . right over there?

  • Six Poems

    Six Poems

    The Great Entrance

    Angry bloom of purple
    skin wrapped in
    gossamer
    gauze soaked, human seran
    wrap with an expiration date


    I come from
    the repeated
    rupture like a
    hole in a hose
    faucet turned to
    flooding is that a
    setting?


    Usher in the future
    generations of shuffling
    feet


    Before childhood
    comes the inevitable
    rip


    open clock never
    closed lunar sore of
    beginnings torn apart
    like a t-shirt over a
    too-big chest

    I was safe inside the
    belly of a chipmunk
    once
    I did not want to be
    drawn out of the
    sack it was a pain
    I can’t remember


    The suction sound
    pulling tendrils of
    hair from a clogged
    drain Oh, suction
    sound popular
    plumbing song


    Dear God, please be
    kind to this bloody
    thumb thrusting itself
    out and into the grease
    of morning


    Light filters through the
    glass lamp on the hospital
    table there is only sweat
    and crying


    I pat my silent, empty
    spot the minutes stick
    on my fingers
    like over chewed chewing
    gum or too much sex


    Praise the expected
    hierarchy of birthing
    trauma
    cavern of unspent
    years praise the
    children that slide
    down like dirty rain
    on angry purple skin.

    Sitting in the Grass

    Why didn’t I cry
    when my grandmother
    died?
    Did I hate her, want her
    to drown in the bathtub upstairs?

    Do I miss the sound of
    her 50s mentality
    silence?

    Who gave birth to the concept of
    silence? What drugs were they on?

    Was the inventor
    a housewife?
    Did she wake up before
    dawn to roll on a fresh
    coat of paint? 

    Did she slide
    back into bed, close heavy
    lidded eyes
    just before the alarm ticked eight?

    Do the train tracks behind
    Grandmother’s house ever close their
    parallel legs?

    Do they tire of being an in-between body, 
    of bearing so much weight?

    Do I sit here now singing hymns in a church pew, 
    or am I somewhere else?

    Is the subtle crook of my black clad elbow,
    the subtle crook of my black clad elbow
    or an empty house?

    Do I wear her funeral like a mask 
    of expressionless glue?
    Do I drape her death around my shoulders 

    when the pastor bites his lip? 
    Do I want to bite 
    the pastor’s lip?

    After the ceremony, why do I dig a six foot hole 
    and toss my baby teeth in? 

    Do I imagine those yellowing keys 
    are seeds of my mouth?

    Do I hope for my own tree to
    climb? Do I want to burn it all
    down?

    Are the static voices pushing through the telephone my parents? 
    Can they tell me the history of hunger? 

    Will they ever stop the pattern passed down to them 
    from sweaty thigh to sweaty thigh?

    Lesson On Breathing

    Find me
    in the
    seams
    of all  
    broken
    things
    kept silent
    in a drawer
    of the sea

    floating fragments
    char colors
    of indignant
    waves goodbye
    glue that
    held dirt
    walls
    standing
    together.

    Kick or Be Kicked

    Ten thousand wombs
    wounded by wire
    rods assemble in a
    row outside the door
    of my bedroom

    I climb their
    hollows wrung by
    wrung

    a fleshy ladder
    of fully formed
    fingernails scratch the
    amber sky

    I smother my face
    soft edges and
    seams

    catch my woolen
    screams they hold me
    together like a half
    hearted pillow I cannot
    fit inside

    Knuckles tight
    around severed
    chords sick of
    unsung 

    lullabies concrete
    cough syrup I am
    careful to refuse

    Motherhood bangs her
    hands of pots and pans

    There is no
    food on the
    table


    one leg tilts low
    a bow to the plentiful
    pantry empty and vertical
    coffin angry bare-breasted
    shelves

    Can something die if it was never alive? Legs part and flutter

    open like battered
    wings after rain,
    wetness slides down
    cracks

    in my windowpane

    Wetness slides
    down body bursts
    out a history of
    names, 

    I am intent to repeat
    repeat the birthing game.

    Proximity

    I never questioned why the cemetery bordered the elementary school. I questioned just about everything else, but not that. The headstones are so weathered and moss covered that they can’t be threatening, caked with so much time. I think it would’ve been different if the plots were marked in crisp cut granite with the hard edges of yesterday. Corners that silently slice the mourners apart with the freshness of death, the immediacy of loss. 

    But many people who lie there have been sleeping a long time, so long that their children’s children have lost the map to get to them. I never saw anyone in the cemetery unless school was out, and floods of children invaded the library, the corner store, the square. Then, I would see clusters of teens wading among the graves with bottles of purple Fanta in hand. They would push smoke out of their mouths in an attempt to chase away their innocence. When it grew dark, some would have sex and sleep under the shadow of someone’s great grandmother. They would flounce into school the next day with dirt on their backs, smelling like something sticky.

    The only time a person passed the gnarled gate to pay their respects I am not there to witness it. A man with faded red corduroy trousers puts flowers below a name in crumbling letters that reads “Sheila Downing”. Let’s say the man is her father, Mr Downing. He touches Sheila’s years on the earth, “1970-1973”, before she became the dirt beneath his feet. He does not know enough of her to cry. Her three years passed forty years ago. It’s like setting paint out to dry in the August heat. He only wonders about this daughter, this ghost of a girl he can’t stamp out. He sits in the grass for a while tearing up dried yellow sprouts among the mass of green.

    All the while, I get paper cuts in my second grade classroom and curse mathematicians. I get older and pass the cemetery every day on my way to school, I learn about Sheila. I learn to be afraid of that bedroom of disintegrated bodies. I learn to hold my breath as I walk by. I learn to pray to God and renounce the devil. I learn that one day, someone will come to me, perhaps dressed in red corduroy pants, and pull out the dried bits of grass above my head.

    Archive of Sleep Through Withdrawal

    Lobotomize loved ones

    leave their letters etched into the skin
    on the sidewalk Be still and

    listen.

    Listen to the din of broken branches growing
    through the wall
    of this boisterous room

    Be still.

    Silence behind eyes eyes move
    in reclusive circles with
    lids pursed

    Tight like an oyster’s shell

    Bodies made of mud and 
    sand crawl through callused doors

    Snakes in the street steal the tongue of God
    rainless mouths
    crave wet words

    Listen.
    A nosy stethoscope exposes

    the ground beneath this city of stacked
    metaphors and mattresses

    afraid
    to touch yourself?

    hollow in

    draw finger to flame

    _______________________________________________________________________________

    search for a shock

    _____________________________________________________________________________

    _______________________________________________________________________________

    too strong.

    _______________________________________________________________________________

    Indulgence
    waits

    in every crevice

    of anatomy

    concealed in each voice

    found sleeping.

  • CANDY SHOP

    CANDY SHOP

    I wasn’t the girl you wanted me to be. Although, I sure did look the part:

    a brunette in wedges and fishnets who met you at a dive bar on the East Side.

    We made some conversation, not one about my age.

    Instead, you talked about yourself and joked about John Wayne.

    ———————————————————————————————————————————–

    But you are not John Wayne, and I am not Judy Garland.

    We don’t ride off into the sunset. Instead, I cry in a garden

    of horrors. It’s the place where the lonely red roses grow,

    and every girl who makes it out ends up alone.

    ———————————————————————————————————————————–

    In my worst nightmares, I’m standing outside the Candy Shop, 

    crying on the sidewalk in Brooklyn.

    A moment in time—

    where only I could remember

    the night you refused to come out and talk.

    —————————————————————————————————————————-

    I always wake up before freezing on a cold September,

    or maybe it’s May

    when we’re back in your apartment on the corner of Saint Marks.

    You’ve got a bloody nose,

    I’m drinking rosé in the bathroom.

    At first, the duality fits, as it’s all fun and games.

    But we paint the tiles blue without saying a word.

    ———————————————————————————————————————————–

    I leave in a taxi cab, and it feels like a curse.

    I should’ve lit a match to burn the place down;

    at the very least, it’s what you deserve.

    ——————————————————————————————————————————–

    The worst forms of violence are the ones without apologies.

    Flashbacks of love get dotted with a question mark

    from a lack of forgiveness

    for the scars you left.

    There is no happy ending in this.

    You wanted silver-screen romances. I got a narcissist.

  • Notes from In Between

    Notes from In Between

    Sky I’d Dye For

    At your first mention of going outside 
    I was overcome with irresistance
    Four hundred and ninety-five
    Cars raced at sixty in the near distance
    The only sound disrupting the stillness
    As the early sky melted into dyes
    Slipping without resistance
    As the moon was begging the sun to rise
    A bleached-out blue spidered out from the highs
    Turning our ceiling to acid wash jeans
    Like a pair of old Levi’s
    Then shifted into bright, turquoisey greens
    In all of the twisted years of my teens
    Ocean waves crashing hard from overhead
    Is something I’d never seen
    Splattered hues in a fierce, watery thread
    This sea started simmering into red
    Sparks from our blunt mixed with the glowing bits
    Of heaven viewing bloodshed
    The golden oranges shown through in fits
    In the final phase of the morphing spritz
    The light show faded to normal day break
    And the sun sat in its glitz
    Knowing that this sleepy street would soon wake
    Back inside free of any pain or ache
    The vibrancy of the morning flooding
    Your house with plenty at stake
    But so much beauty had begun budding

    Intersubjective

    Beaming black bullets bursting from the whites
    You say you don’t care
    I know your emotion goes elsewhere
    You’re not dead inside
    Like two-way mirrors masking megabytes
    Of files hidden
    From the world we live in, forbidden
    Yet your light shines bright
    A nose not nearly as sharp as your wits
    Smells lies from miles
    Forcing simplicities into trials
    In justifiable fits
    Knowing even when I taint truth with twist
    Because of the fear
    Giving you reason not to be here
    Only you could make me admit
    Blush pillows providing a perspective
    On how to handle
    Situations without a gamble
    Never defective
    I want you to ramble unrejective
    About why you front
    They’re fooled, but I see right through your stunt
    Intersubjective

    Violet

    I’m so absorbed in astrology when I should be engrossed in the entities and ironies of birth flowers
    as mine is a violet
    and yours is a marigold
    But I’m living in a world of light so gloriously golden
    that it glares white
    despite
    the dirt I had to reroot myself time and time again in order to evolve
    enough to cradle
    the capacity of embodying such a light
    of being a light

    And I’m still evolving

    Meanwhile you stalk around with a disposition so dark purple
    that it smolders black
    like your eyes
    I have a fascination with them that could be described as both a sickly
    amber and a
    plum of dusk
    with how they keep me from reading you fully
    I would’ve left a lot faster than I did
    if I had been able to provide myself with a rainless view of the void of a
    mind that hides
    behind
    midnight-dyed eyes

    Nolita

    Shooting stars seen through light pollution
    don’t know the first thing about fate
    Hennessy and lemonade
    convinced me I had a soulmate

    Beach days and fighting nights,
    We recharged under city lights,
    Making out and making up… 
    overnight bags and waterproof makeup

    The woman at the front desk
    thinks that we’re engaged
    Please don’t come up to the eighth floor,
    you won’t look at us the same

    The volume alone
    slurred over tones of defeat
    should be enough for you to know
    we’re not as discrete as we seem

    It’s actually my mom’s ring I’m wearing
    No, I wouldn’t call this a “fling” we’re sharing
    I’m just the pretty face he needs to keep around… 
    to show off in Brooklyn and the East Side of town

    Through four sound proof walls and bleached out sheets,
    I’m thinking back to that kiss on 56th Street
    While he rolls over to answer his phone,
    I’m thinking about how far it is to walk home

    We sleep on separate sides of a king,
    anchored with a figurative flaming twist,
    names I’ve never heard, blue pills, and lies,
    and I’ll be out right after sunrise

    ****

    Nolita felt sincere,
    like we were supposed to be there
    It was the least you could do since I picked up the debris… 
    of your two fragmented affairs

    She got dedicated posts,
    parties with your friends
    I got manipulated the most,
    With a phone call when you hit a dead end

    No amount of smoke screens we’ve choked on,
    chased down with iced coffees
    could prepare you for the city
    that you now have to chase without me

    ****

    I should have left you in Nolita.

    illustration by Max Hamilton