Poetry

Green trees – A yellow

jacket – A waterfall – My

father clutching my arm. I

used to ask my parents to tell me that

everything was going to

be okay, but you can never be

100% sure of these things – So

we settled on 99.9%. I used to be afraid of

pain – Afraid that I would slip

and fall into the river – and

the water would fill my

lungs – the way it fills the

space between 99.9 and 100

Sam is currently a student at Colorado State University. He is interested in screenwriting, short fiction, and poetry.

my wisconsin toes barefoot in january:
  the snow shedding tears, but sparkling.
    trickling streams divide houses –

  a puddle slumbers atop asphalt, rain
pellets sprinkle divots, and padded
  rodent paws scamper across grass.

    the wind’s rasping breath blows
  my hair and the strands melt
into my face in spidering lines.

  even the shingles drip and i am dizzy.
    leaning on my house, i leave a hand
  print in the brick – soon, a fossil –

roofs become sinkholes,
  collapsing into living rooms
    intruding into basements.

  shingles – black, blue, and slippery
again – convince ravens to swoop
  over houses and disappear as they dip.

    i step into what’s left of the snow and my toes go numb.

Kaitlyn Von Behren is an eighteen-year-old poet from Wisconsin. Her poetry has been honored by Teen Ink, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and Button Poetry. When not writing, she can often be found talking politics, annoying her cat, and eating sushi.

In Nanjing the summer weeps,

from joy or heat I cannot tell.

In Nanjing my apo jokes

about frying eggs on sidewalks

to sell from bike pedaled carts.

We’d join illustrious street marts,

holler ‘lai mai, lai mai’,

swat in customers with mosquitoes,

hum and smolder

under fragrant smog.

In Nanjing we sit on bamboo cushions

until the ridges grate our butts.

We’d peel open sticky rice sachets,

and munch the aches away.

Julia Zhou is a seventeen year old from Herndon, Virginia. She is a rising senior at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where her favorite classes are Biology and English. Her writings have been featured in Typishly and the Silver Needle Press. Besides reading and writing, Julia also enjoys baking, playing trivia, and listening to soft rain.

Minced meat marinated in

beef broth

memories

free flowing

as a drop of oil umami

I lick off the side of a

well-shaped bun.

Julia Zhou is a seventeen year old from Herndon, Virginia. She is a rising senior at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where her favorite classes are Biology and English. Her writings have been featured in Typishly and the Silver Needle Press. Besides reading and writing, Julia also enjoys baking, playing trivia, and listening to soft rain.

ONE.
In the rusted pan, stew simmers like skin. Mami stirs an array of meats and rooted

vegetables with a wooden spoon—circular, slow motion. “You are not depressed, just

confused,” she, or maybe myself, says. Like a match to the mouth.

TWO.
Outside, a man crushes the butt of his cigarette beneath his feet. His teeth, milk-grey and

fractured, clip every word that rolls out his mouth. Beer coats the sparse hairs on his

upper lip. He lifts his fingers in mimicry of a handgun. “Pew, pew,” he says.

THREE.
At night, I make enough room for the soft memory of a boy cradling a joint between his

lips. My hands, like his mouth, fumble for a body that isn’t there. You know, like

scrambling for a breath that can’t pave its way out of your throat. It is familiar, whole.

FOUR.
My therapist once told me I think too much about the future. You know, how I need to

remain present and shit. I tell her I have weaponized my own pain. She asks why. I say to

make myself beautiful again.

Brittany Adames is a Dominican-American writer. Her work has been previously published in CALAMITY Magazine, Bombus Press, Rumble Fish Quarterly, TRACK//FOUR, and Rust+Moth, among others. She currently serves as the poetry editor for Ascend Magazine. She has been regionally and nationally recognized by the Scholastic Writing Awards and was a Pushcart Prize nominee.