July 2021

Blessed, 19 years old in June, a cursed blessing —

giggly drunk as basement gods blessed —

trampoline danger game, bleeding chin blessed —

God-can-hear-you-bad-mouth words blessed —

pirate island in my cousin’s backyard blessed —

college-kids-in-love blessed —

wishing on Ostara stars, Lake Erie blessed —

what-should-my-writer-name-be blessed —

washing background tables for coins blessed —

under-the-door-petrichor, storm-breaking traffic blessed —

Winter-Long hair, Spring-Short temper blessed —

Mom’s snip-snip, split ends dead blessed —

broken 2 AM-suburb-train blessed —

willing cells to age, mourning cosmic youth blessed —

Blessing the young, middle, old, dead, alive, blessed.

Julie A. Larick is a student and writer living in Cleveland. She studies English, Environmental Science, and Activism at The College of Wooster. Julie edits for The Incandescent Review and interns at GASHER Journal. She has poems forthcoming or published in perhappened mag, Ogma Magazine, and others. Julie loves to sew, thrift, watercolor, and was born in 2003. Her portfolio is http://www.julielarickwriting.com and her Twitter is @crookyshanks.

stone angels linger in the walls of hospitals and
curse you
painting the dust a dull Advil red
while you walk down the ominous white halls
nearing a heartless clinic where the angels made of flesh
brush white paste on your skull and stick
icy metal disks in your parched, stale hair
and tell you to go to sleep, go rest in
the bed the sun speckles with its light
and go to sleep so they can see the screeching in your
brain, the eclectic electricity of pathological
ups and downs, ups and downs, ups and downs
in your dreams you damn the winged statues
and as you wake you wait and wait and wait
for sheets of paper that tell you how infectiously
the voltaic sparks have contaminated your
abysmal neurology, learning three days after
your imprecated sleep that aberrations permeate
your brain from every angle
and in the presence of absence
(as the doctor called it; some kind of seizure)
/æbˈsɒns/, sudden disruption of consciousness
you wish you could be
an angel, too

CA Russegger is a Filipino writer whose work doesn’t appear anywhere much, but who loves history, literature, and dogs.

Steps to becoming a real writer:
Pull apart your ribcage in the
heavy turns of night, when time
teeters on a cold cut-throat cliff.
Dig your uncut nails into your
vibrating heart. Let the crimson
stain your fingertips, and let the
blood vessels snag your nails.
Breathe in the warm beating
of your heart and ask yourself
who the hell you are. Why the
hell are you holding a pen and
what makes you think you have
the right to finger a piece of paper?
Bite your lip hard and draw more
blood and let it drop into your ink
bottle, creating swirls of bubbles.
Then do whatever helps you hyper-
inflate with chemicals/emotions.
Drown yourself in music, or more
words — whatever. Make sure you
ache unbearably but keep your screams
bitten tight behind your teeth, then grab
that paper, watch your fingers quiver
and spew everything on the page.
Remember, don’t even imagine
showing these words to anyone.
Remember, this is for your eyes,
only. Remember, in a writer’s strength
lies vulnerability. And when you wake
up with the golden sun, honey, you can
make it all striking and pretty for the
world to see.

(I don’t know if I qualify as a real writer.)

 

Tejal Doshi is a high school student living in India whose work has been published in The WEIGHT Journal, Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, Voice Club, and elsewhere. She is a member of MIST (Mental Illness Support for Teens). She also fails to understand why nobody laughs at her brilliant jokes.

after Tiana Clark

 

“I”?

I founder.

I fall from the sky of dream. I grab

bedsheets like they are

parachutes. I gasp. I gasp nightmare

into dawn. I thrash about in blue dark,

scramble for my phone. I can’t write

on paper. I write what I remember

on a notebook app — most times, I remember

nothing. For a long time, I close my eyes &

hope for memory. For a long time,

time passes.

In a next room, my

mother is yelling at God

in her sleep. I close my ears & open

my eyes to light feeding the curtains.

I open my mind to the moment &

the movement of myself.

I wrestle between being broken & being

torn. I turn off airplane mode &

messages pour. Angry

WhatsApp messages. Preaching WhatsApp messages.

E-mails. I skip the

unfortunatelys. I read. I read.

I highlight Tranströmer: I’m awake and don’t know where I am.

I envy that [his] life finally returns, envy

any name that appears like an

angel. I sprawl. I spread

into a pool & ponder. I ponder.

I wonder why some hands can hold hope

when some cannot even hold themselves. I curse

inward.

I write sgshjsnsnshdhdbbd.

I cross out sgshjsnsnshdhdbbd.

Bach. The Art of Fugue. I lie

on the bed, I sup the song.

I haven’t spoken yet, can go

a whole month without a mouth.

In the bathroom, I sing.

Hymn until lather fills my mouth. Here, I mourn

the morning before the bird. I know this morning like

I have known all mornings. I, too, like

how they look like hope. But God,

I hoard too much night.

 

 

Mayowa Oyewale writes poetry from Ile-Ife, Nigeria, where he currently studies Literature-in-English at Obafemi Awolowo University. A poetry reader at Chestnut Review, he Instagrams @mayowaoyewale__

God has a photograph of this:
We survive years of wilderness.

A man from the neighbourhood
Keeps us acquaintance,
With guns at [both] hands—
Aimed at the tunnels of our nostrils.

Silence is our new language,
Our weeps fly as idioms and phrases
Round the deafened ears of the world—
In shape of teardrops
While mother nature laughs at us

Coughing up the dust in her mouth;
Another multi-coloured wind sweeps in.

 

 

Najeeb Yusuf Ubandiya is a young poet from Nigeria. He is a loner who writes to find out what he thinks and feels—about himself and the world around him—and to keep his purpose awake and breathing.His works have appeared in Ngiga Review and Blue Marble Review.