Poetry

gutter song

By Rebecca Flieder

mad adam east of eden
makes up his own rules
to a game he does not play.
he will make her the burnished
sandalwood
tree of life and
she will take the apple
she will take the fruit
the snake decides
swallow the body the blood
of the etz chayim the
mates for life

back alley blackwater lilith.
a hot black tar
tangerine jumpsuit and
smiles–no
grins–no
sneers at
the pavement melting between her teeth.
the concrete forest
the polluted cosmopolitan politico
cold, calculated,
chaotic greens and greys
reflected in her eight-ball eyes.

her mother was a forest fire:
ardent, searing.
her father a gutter song
of half-spent cigarettes and
sweltering workday’s grime
waiting to be burned

lilith:
cuts her teeth on a road just laid down
hot black tar between molars
grinding his pavement punches down through the
atmospheric smog splinter infested sidewalk rollerblading from
his lips sits a cigarette rolled from the very jet black she walks on

and she: like her mother
will not submit.

mad adam makes up his own rules
to a game he does not play.

in kind:
she will tear herself out of him
stop the traffic in his heartbeat
cause a collision
and slip away

lilith will play his game
play him like the devil’s fiddle
twirl him around her little finger
like a snake around an apple tree
lilith: coffee-candied lips and a
sweet as saffron smile
she will not play she will win
bring eden to its winter
she will not merely survive his game
lilith: the screech-owl
the night-hag
the monster
the black tarred and feathered abomination
she will not merely survive his game
she will tear it to pieces and kill it with her beak
she is everything he cannot be and more
she: like he mother
will not submit.

she will burn every inch of eden until he knows
until they know
she will not be a pawn to push towards a sea of grey

she will leave the apple trees to rot
and burn the bridges she comes to
whatever she may be:
night hag,
night monster,
night witch

will be better than a slave.

Rebecca Flieder is a Creative Writing major from New Hampshire whose works often focus on love and nature as they relate to the modern world. When not writing, she loves to wander the woods behind her home and pretend she’s not the one that ate all the chocolate chip cookies.

The Creation Story

By Beth Proctor

Before, was Absence:

A drowsed opiate ether,

She defied all dimension

Save expanse.

Then, came Light:

A rabble-rouser,

His tongue lacerated

The night with scalding flame.

Third, was Sound:

A harkening cry,

She spliced silence into waves

From whence melody was born.

Late, came Matter:

A narcissist,

He churned the torrents into seas

And conceived a mirror of his beauty.

Lastly, was Life:

An eternal continuation,

She birthed man and animal

As brothers.

Now, is Existence:

Malleable in the palm

Of any who hold

A pen.

Beth Proctor is a sixteen-year-old poet from Lincolnshire, England. She enjoys writing, baking and learning languages other than her own. Her work has previously been published in the Busta Rhymes anthology.

Contrapposto

By Audrey Lee

I have bones to pick with existence –

who forced me to be here as a vulture,

coughing up marrow of my personality’s frame?

Who poised my skeleton in material decay

to walk among the inhabitable

spaces while my hands are raised in the air

in prayer or self defense –

there’s a pale girl who isn’t sure which

one she should be asking more of.

There’s a bird who is picking away

at the scoliosis in my spine, the serotonin

(or lack thereof) in the palpable scars

gasping across the folds of my frontal cortex, how about

my nervous system backfiring

like a space shuttle that ran out of fuel.

There’s empty music from the empty room across the hall

that roars and reminds me.

I kick at a speck of dust

because it is licking at the fireplace and I watch it

burst in the heat and sink into the flames.

Audrey Lee is a current senior at The Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania and will be attending Franklin and Marshall College this coming fall. She is the winner of the 2016 DeSales University Poetry Contest and her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Columbia College of Chicago. She has attended programs by the University of Virginia and Ithaca College, and edits her school literary magazine, The Epolitan. Her work has been featured in or is forthcoming from The Claremont Review, Rookie Magazine, YARN: The Young Adult Review Network, Canvas Literary Journal, Moledro Magazine, Blue Marble Review, Eunoia Review, Half Mystic Journal, Paper Swans Press, and Teen Vogue. This summer, Audrey will attend the University of Iowa Young Writers’ Studio and intern at Apiary Magazine. Find her at audreymorganlee.weebly.com.

Douse

By Jake Bowser

Old scars peeling back and
big aspirations to love you
again have kept me from
blooming and sparking into
the wildfire I’ve been told I
can be
but you’re the one who told
me that you were water that
would inevitably douse my
flame and for some reason
I so desire that.

Jacob is a student at an arts high school in Pittsburgh PA who attends for writing all sorts of genres. His favorite, however, is poetry.

island living

By Morgan Almasy

a tinsel giggle erupted from my mouth,
consdensed air escaping a soda bottle

i never liked gritty sand in my toes
or crunchy peanut butter over white bread

never liked stray cats,
blood in their wake
like rainbow oil puddles

but i did like pre-storm skies
yellow-stained paper almost
brown at the edges

i liked when my shoulder blades spread,
making room for battered wings
flapping above the
metronome of an ocean
splash-hissing me to a rhythm

until

the stars grew tired,
my wings coated in salt

and

i said thanks
before dutiful slumber
until the day’s discolored page
was turned.

Morgan Almasy is a sophomore creative writing major at Red Bank Regional High School in New Jersey. Last year she attended the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ creative writing summer program and will be attending this upcoming summer as well. Almasy has been recognized by the national Scholastic Art and Writing competition, earning a gold key, four silver keys, and an honorable mention.

Aubade

By Max Saltman

I made you laugh

And something exploded,

Flew out the window

And did doughnuts in the parking lot

Before coming back in and doing it again.

You ask me how I am,

And I say “great,” and I mean it,

Not in the standard-American-answer way,

But I mean:

Your question follows me around,

Follows me home and

Dances a waltz around my head

To the best kind of music.

Max Saltman is an editor for his school’s newspaper, and does stand-up comedy and writes in his free time. He hopes to continue both in college. His favorite poets are Robert Burns and Wallace Stevens, and favorite comedians are Louis CK and Sam Hyde.