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.

 

 

Julieanne Larick is a Midwestern Best of the Net-nominated poet. She studies English and Environmental Science at The College of Wooster. Julieanne reads prose for GASHER Journal. She has poems published in perhappened mag, Blue Marble Review, NECTAR Poetry, and others. 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.

the second boy i’ve kissed here with tongue has thinner lips
than the movie tickets i had cut my fingers on to watch

a coming of age flick rated 4.7 stars out of 10. maybe practice
makes perfect but the sessions sure aren’t. i duck into a

corner and hide from sharp eyes who know that showing up
uninvited is only for quarterbacks with skulls crushed into

medals of sophomore-year honor, senior girls with swaying
hips they’d promised a good time yet still deposited here,

shallow apologies shackling their hands. just a little bit of
aloofness is allowed, as a treat — an appetizer only

for boys wrapped in faux leather jackets and painstaking
nonchalance; meanwhile, being present at all makes

people recoil if you’re a negative space in the walls: a
ravenous phantom here to struggle — to sample a

rendezvous that you cannot pronounce, to taste mandated
teenage rebellion and sirens on a school night. and

no, you cannot just take two bites and leave. it’s rude to
the hosts who left before you. so tonight, while i find

crumbling convenience store lipstick to be the only thing
that tastes bearable with stolen alcohol in red plastic,

it kills me to ignore hospitality. i gorge on the tongue of a
third boy and call it an act of grace. serve him dessert

by leaving a crimson lip on his empty beer can. after all,
i can tell he’s starving just from the way he’s here.

 

Grace Liang is a teen writer from Toronto. She enjoys reading fan fiction, watching video essays, sleeping, and playing piano. Find her on Instagram at @yf.grace.

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__