Straight

By Mia Espinosa

 

six hours and twenty-three minutes.

now a boy can tuck a strand of hair behind my ear

his fingers free from coarse entangled curls as

he leans in.

now no creamy hair product residue could sneak onto my clothes

attempting to reveal how a simple slick-back bun took

thirty minutes and hundreds of

uncontrolled tears.

now i will go to school and bask in the awaiting shower of

compliments:

I love your hair like this!

Oh my gosh, you look so put together!

I like your hair better this way.

six hours and twenty-three minutes

of roaring blow-dryers and gossip of tia josefina’s marriage affair, making the

bachata music blasting from bluetooth speakers a

faint whisper.

 

six hours and twenty-three minutes
of curls getting wrapped and pinned into tiny rollers,
preparing to be transformed into the straight path
that’s bound for acceptance.

 

six hours and twenty-three minutes
of snapchatting my white school friends, chemicals absorbing into my scalp beneath a thin plastic cap. 
i zoom the camera to only show my face
hiding how much it takes to look like them.

 

tia josefina scrapes shampoo with her dollar store press-ons into my scalp

es para hacer limpia.

quick bursts of pain shoot through my body as the hot plancha burns my ear

stay still, quieres hacerte bonita. no?

silent tears sting my cheeks.

estas bien, mija?

Si.

they like me better this way.

Syntactically Challenged Nonsense

By Liepa Januskaite

 

I study the complex something,

Broca and Wernicke would attest, of jargon jumble said right

and semantic distinctions, reals and deceptions, of what is left.

 

It’s the phonological waves of diphthongs that are left,

rising and falling like Roman Empires, echoing something

that memory might mitigate, migrate, misremember wrong versus right.

 

Although, there is limited correctness when it comes to Chomskian convoluted messages. All the right

side of my brain, all of it, all that’s left

taken over by poetically placed morphemes and shades of vowels. Do you think this means something?

 

Fortunately for you, something means nothing, because I still can’t tell my right from left.

Pennsylvania Moonlight

By Zach Leitman

 

Time:

a car breaking down, speeding to a halt,

the consistent CLIP! of your chest like a revving engine,

with each beat, the impact of a thunderstorm. 

The roly polys playing in your image —

soft summer nights never felt so warm.

 

Even though there’s a porch light left on,

and a phone screen flipped upwards,

and a sealed up letter on your desk

with a name on it but no address.

 

Even though:

you waited for a long time,

when you knew there would be no reply.

You can never truly forget

where you came from;

the cuts on your hands won’t let you,

the lines on your face,

the gray in your hair,

reflected in a light too harsh for your beautiful face.

Let me be your light.

I’ll be kind and gentle and maybe you won’t see the lines anymore —

and maybe your hair will regain its color,

and the red on your hands will disappear.

 

And still, you respond:

 

The sky will hold me in until, like the rain, it will let me go.

I’ll sit in the storm until the moon appears once again.

Isle of Else

By Jenn Amelia Martin

 

By the 14th St-Union Sq R-line, 

a pigeon bleeds fat pink and cries 

to Calder’s Circus inside 

an outline of chalk.

No splint on the arm, 

which means it hasn’t yet fought 

the child who thought death is not allowed.

Sometimes I worry I won’t know how to wait

for the delay in getting by 

and for this awful light to turn.

When the feathers fail to fall,

Another pair of Sambas w/ a stoop blunt 

blows morse code, all to say warmth 

has a smell that is “hot” & nothing else. 

A cellist thrums Danse Macabre 

as a barfly foxtrots his corpse to Stonehenge. 

Bordering them, is the Man who paints a heart 

to stomach his chest when there is you before 

your blue cab: a mouth Van-Gogh’d to acid-pity,

hood on your brows so I could see half the eyes on your face. 

I’ve been told that memory doesn’t wait for remembering. 

But how does one not melt-cold from it? 

The sweat without a cause. 

Dear Google, I mean God. 

I need a synonym for “here” that isn’t a place. 

Tell me a metaphor to kill death twice, 

as your ribs homed rails inside & inside.

The tracks — a moon choir. 

Just how sleep woke you. 

Swallowtails and God

By Jessy Ye

 

I am a child of Swallowtails and god. Who

gave you the love of a bridge and gold? I am

a child of blue winter cherries. Who gave you

the red of a mad marrying maiden? I am a

child of a septic tank, I am. Who gave you

those glasses made of locust shells? I am

a child of elasticity. Who gave you the road to

the slaughterhouse train station? I am a child

of Narcissus and Eve.

 

Eve is a child of the sepia rainbows and Crab

shells. Who gave her the eyes opposite to a

Phoenix? Eve is a child of burning acres, and,

concrete farmland. Who gave her the pocket

full of plastic tulips? Eve is a child of leather

red dictionaries. Who gave her the drumming

of brush bristles in ink? Eve is a child of

Battleship, yes, Battleship. Who gave her a

child of Swallowtails and god? Eve is a child

of the Captain and Guanyin.

 

Guanyin was a child of tailored suits and

Cheongsams. Who gave her the hands of

water bound in shackles? Guanyin was a child

of blood rolling down alley-lanes. Who gave

her the hair tie made of plump electric cables?

Guanyin was a child of spools of wool and

wools of synthetic sheep. Who gave her a

cookie box of thread and thimblettes?

Guanyin was a child of metal gold coins in

booklets of mold. Who gave her a child of

sepia rainbows and Crab shells? Guanyin was

a child of the strange man from Eve’s

Childhood — so strange you could imagine the

shape of his feet.

on pain

By Caitlyn Yu

 

Do you remember what you traced on my leg?

Your nails digging a little deeper to form a mountain range. 

A temporary tattoo. Textured, a light pink. 

A small fire blooming under my skin. 

 

A few seconds of playing God. (A fascinating thought.)

 

Do you remember the first time? 

The first time you made yourself large? 

The first time it truly hurt? 

 

You lifted me like a pebble. 

Swift and sudden, skipping across the pond. 

A few moments of flight before crashing below the surface. 

An ache in my bones from the contact. Water that I can never quite cough out of my lungs.

 

Do you remember what you painted?

Watercolor. Purple puddling at the base, with flecks of green to finish. 

I remember how you cried, how it all spread with your tears. 

Do you remember signing your name? 

 

I look different. I don’t recognize my nose, the way it sits on my face.

My skin, the freckles that tell different stories every day. 

The imprint of a star that reminds me I’m the same. 

That reminds me of my size, the value of my pain. 

I’m scared of the sensation, scared that in that I will see you again. 

Contact Mia Espinosa, Liepa Januskaite, Zack Leitman, Jenn Amelia Martin, Jessy Ye and Caitlyn Yu at [email protected].