Issue Twelve

you are —
a sore in my mouth, born
savage amid the delicate vowels i
spin for mother; the last rotations
of summer, all cracked lips and
missteps into sidewalk puddles.
my head tilted & searching for a
requiem to the sky; the yellowing
calluses carved in my fingertips,
tender flesh hardened by sawing
strings. i trace your name like i’m
learning to write for the first time;
like driving on the freeway
with nowhere to go, broken brakes
and needing to get away; this poem,
a handful of loose threads with
ends i cannot stitch together
—my dying youth.

 

Emmy Song is a junior at Montgomery Blair High School in Maryland. Her poetry has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and has been published in Rising Phoenix Review, Sierra Nevada Review, and more. When she is not indulging in creative writing, Emmy can be found editing travel vlogs or curating Spotify playlists.

 

Shadows down the street like liqueur, black cat,
soft-ridge shoulders and rusty purr, black cat.

Nose in the air like her paws float on clouds,
starlight in her eyes, a silver bur, black cat.

There is something of the witch about her,
all natural, green and larkspur, black cat.

Dust-mote tongue laps the night from a puddle,
her empty belly full of myrrh, black cat.

She walks with all that history, worship,
coronation-stride to the future, black cat.

Rolls the quartzy night-smoke on her shoulders,
meanders like drunkard’s blurred slur, black cat.

Fireworks refract dreams onto dustbin lids
and it is all just fish to her, black cat.

 

Ellora Sutton is a British writer (and museum gift shop worker) who has recently graduated with a first in Journalism and Creative Writing from the University for the Creative Arts. Her obsessions include poetry and Jane Austen.

 

 

 

 

My canine is my great-great-grandmother’s.
Yellowed with age,
a well-read page.
The sediment
is fossilised with fables.
When I am lost,
I trace it with my tongue-tip
and soak up the Braille.

The burial mound of my wisdom tooth
is my ancestral aunt’s,
sleeping snug
like the lump of Australian opal
she left me.
A treasure, a milky thing.
A stone breast
resting in the gum
of the scarlet cloak
we keep in the airing cupboard.

My sunflower seed buck-tooth
is from the farm girl
that would germinate into
some flying bird part of me.
It is strong and broad
and the first thing you see,
a placard:
This girl is of the earth.

My third incisor is Victorian.
It tastes of elderflower cordial
and sepia photographs,
and reminds me
that even when I stand still,
stay silent,
time blurs past.

The altar of my molar,
nobody knows who that came from.
I think it is soft enough
to have been swept up
from the ashes
of witch-fire.
I can taste the scream of it,
and maybe that’s why
my lips have such a temper.

 

Ellora Sutton is a British writer (and museum gift shop worker) who has recently graduated with a first in Journalism and Creative Writing from the University for the Creative Arts. Her obsessions include poetry and Jane Austen.

You, yellow stall walls who held me
When I cried before getting on the bus and going home,
Are strong despite your thinness.
Notes and names written in smeared sharpie on your doors
Are reminders that I am not the first to find sanctuary here.

You, warped mirror who tells me I look just fine
Even though I am too tall to be fully reflected in you,
Offer the reassurance I do not trust anyone else to give.
The way artificial light refracts in your bent glass
Gives my whole body a sort of halo.

You, faulty smoke detector who beeps without reason
Over and over and over,
Will not leave me alone with my silence.
Like a voice from above you echo off the tiled floors
And tell me there is no use in dwelling on what you cannot change.

You, beauty parlor, meeting place, smoke spot, safe space,
Are more than the sum of your parts.
You are midday solace, quiet comfort, gentle company,
My inanimate but unwavering guardian angel.

 

Amelia Loeffler is a high school junior currently attending The School for the Creative and Performing Arts at Lafayette High School, majoring in literary arts. Her work has most recently been published in The Messy Heads Magazine. Amelia can often be found roller skating and wearing funky pants with a coffee in hand.