My cousins had their own rooms. Each one of Them; they lived in a big house. They went to School in uniforms. Had a dog. Rowing Practice. Ballet lessons. They drank enough Milk. Usually when one of them out-grew Something, their mother would give it to mine. For me. Why throw it out when somebody Could use it, right? They gave her other things Too. Food. Soap. Rent. Her brother, my uncle, tried To help her. Once, he offered to take me In, let me go live with them and they’d bring Me up like theirs. I was hiding outside The room where he was talking about it. My mom just laughed. She couldn’t give a shit.
Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s poetry has appeared in Coffin Bell, Anti-Heroin Chic, Pink Plastic House, Mooky Chick, Third Wednesday, Think Journal, The Lyric, Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea (Great Weather for Media), Lift Every Voice (Kissing Dynamite), and many other places. Noms: Pushcart, Best of the Net, Elgin, Rhysling.
farewell to your adolescent majesty free of career influence
farewell bookpitch puppet stitched with copper wire
-less connections, farewell conductor
of payday seances
good buy, the best in fact
intact, but inside
in pieces
photography by Joanna C. Valente
Angelo Colavita lives and writes in Philadelphia, where he serves as Founding Editor of Empty Set Press and Associate Editor at Occulum Journal. He is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Flowersonnets (2018) and Heroines (2017), as well as a full-length epic poem, Nazareth (forthcoming, Apep Publications). His work has appeared in The Shoutflower, Wildness Journal, Bowery Gothic, Madcap Review, Luna Luna Magaine, Yes Poetry, and elsewhere online and in print. For more info, visit angelocolavita.com or follow him on Twitter @angeloremipsum and Instagram @angelocolavita
I built a windowless house out of myself at the edge of the cliff, where the front door drops, into the mouth of the ocean. The heavy waves keep coming for me mercilessly; few more smacks from their belt, against the crumbling ground beneath, and not so long until they topple my walls. As they reach my threshold, the bird perched over my ridge says goodbye; my rooms lose hope, my lights shut down, and in slow motion my pipes burst open like a violent lullaby. My bed free falls and as the last of me disappears with a splash, the ocean bed welcomes me with open arms. In challenger deep, I build a grave out of me, since I could never be a home.
Akash is a 21-year-old Pakistani poet from Manchester with work published in The Open Culture Collective, and forthcoming in the Pocketfirepresents.
The mountains are not for climbing they say the trees swing my way but the wind-the-wind keeps calling my name One day I’ll be always falling In love One day I’ll know how to love
-Mesimo
Violets
The mind is green in trees, difference triumphs in stairways nobody knows I never told you how it began perhaps maggots have the bees Have you been there and then? Know the green lady reconsidered the end and all was said How will I know the giant? Dance take marbles to the baker look for the oven the tail doesn’t lie- The beautiful and tragic are sick the bountiful sticks sits on thrones with gnomes the heart and liver were meant to stain the knees… nothing no thing blossomed without the black rose. I will keep the secret that everyone knows- I love you more than death loves the living
-Flasco
rimanace vuletinoro 1776
“i will tell you a story how I fell in love and you will come to know how my voice came to be this way.” YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO MUSIC? FIRST YOU HAVE TO TAKE OUT ALL OF THE THOUGHTS THAT ARE AT YOUR SURFACE THE KID THAT KICKS THE BALL THE CAR THAT SHOOTS AS IT PASSES BY THE SHADOW OF THE BIRD THAT FLIES AS IT DIES….. EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TAKEN OUT. THE OLD TIMES THE NEW TIMES THE FEW TIMES THE SURE TIMES TAKE EVERYTHING- THE SECURITY THAT ALL YOU KNEW KNOW AND WILL KNOW IS TRUTH. I SAW THE MYSTIC CREATE ITSELF IN THE AIR EVEN THOUGH THAT POSSIBILITY IS CLOSED TO THE MIND. WILL YOU TURN AROUND AND SAY, “What?- What do you want?” OR SIMPLY- YOU WON’T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL. WHAT DO YOU SAY WHEN THEY SEE YOU DIE EVERYDAY AND BREATHE OUT, “I’m sorry but I have to pay……. I don’t mean to-you understand-right. Today it was for my mother and tomorrow….. tomorrow it’s for the hunger.” IT IS ALWAYS FOR THE SILENCE IT IS ALWAYS FOR THE WORDS THAT VERY FEW SPEAK AND EVERYBODY THINKS. IT’S ALWAYS FOR THE FRUSTRATION THE ANGER THE SADNESS THE UNALTERING CALMNESS OF HATE. IT IS ALWAYS FOR THE BORN CHILDREN THAT LIVE UNBORN LIVES. LEAVE IF YOU HAVE TO- I UNDERSTAND BUT DON’T FORGET WHO YOU KNEWTHAT IS SOMETHING THAT HAS NO HEART……. SO, IF YOU EVER DO COME ACROSS YOURSELF TRY TO LISTEN BEFORE YOU BELIEVE THE PERFORMANCE MAYBE THEN YOU’LL HAVE SOMETHING TO WRITE ABOUT. DO YOU REMEMBER PARADISE? I’M SURE YOU REMEMBER PARADISE – YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER PARADISE: ADAM AND EVE EVE AND ADAM ADAM AND ENE EVE AND MADA THEY LIVED IN PARADISE HAD IT ALL CHOSE TO KNOW WHAT CREATED PERFECTION AND UNDERSTOOD THAT IT MUST ALL FALL. THERE ARE THOSE WHO SAY THAT THEY WERE THROWN OUT FOR THEIR DISOBEDIENCETHEY ARE RIGHT…………….SOME OF THE TIME ADAM AND EVE EVE AND ADAM ADAM AND ENE EVE AND MADA WERE CONSCIOUS OF THEIR CONSCIENCE ITS ESSENCE FAILED IN PRESENCE. PARADISE HAS NO FRUITS CONSEQUENCES SWINGING BLACK BODIES FEEDING PARASIDIC ROOTS THAT ARE PICKED BY DYING BROWN HANDS FOUNDATION FOR THE PERFECT SKY…… BLUE…… BLOOD…… IN PARADISE YOU ARE NEVER THROWN OUT YOU ARE ONLY THROWN DEEPER INTO IT AND FORCED TO RECITE: “I pledge allegiance to the flag that molds the paradise of where I stand and to the protectors of what’s unknown who keep the knowledge of forbidden trees that remain un-grown.”
In the Bedroom Series, the question is in how many ways can an everyday object exist? A bed, for example, is an object that we use most nights and days. We sleep on it, with others or alone, we dream in it, we are warm or hot. Our bodies rest and recuperate. We have sex in it, with others, with ourselves. In the end, it is just a massive pile of woven fabric and wire springs that sits on the floor like a boulder and yet it is easily dismissed. It is a phantom.
In the Closet Series, the question is more how do the possessions we keep behind closed doors, mostly hidden from the outside world, infiltrate our consciousness? Clothes and shoes and secrets and jewels are hidden for long periods of time, but from who? From ourselves? From others? From thieves in the night who really want to steal our Levi’s and our old Dodger hats? Your mother’s wedding dress or your brother’s ashes? A closet is prime real estate in some markets and yet, is it necessary? What will it reveal if exposed?
iamtopo is the questioning of what is real and what is not, what is molecular and what is spiritual, what is I and what is you. In both matter and spirit exists a life that encompasses all and yet it is imperceptible by the naked eye. When looking at the universe or inside ourselves, whether tele or micro, a scope with a lens must be used to enlarge and reveal the details that make up our existence. One must observe deep within the outside or the inside to come to the understanding that they are basically the same: electrons orbiting a nucleus are planets orbiting a sun. Our eyes a galaxy, our hearts a comet, our love a black hole.
Shouting into the void trying on a name and a face
I can bring it to you But it changes nothing for us
I am me with no name I was me with a new name
I cannot replace your anger with understanding
Feeling left out of a diagram birthed of an empty voice
I cannot erase my sentiment or evaporate your seething pitch
I’ll shout into the void again why I won’t tell you things
Evyan Roberts (she/her) is a queer, fat, black, femme who is deeply committed to intersectional feminism and #blackgirlmagic. She lives in MD and is currently pursuing a Masters in Social Work where she intends to keep working to promoting equity for sex workers and trans folx. Her writing has appeared in the poetry anthology A Garden of Black Joy: Global Poetry from the Edges of Liberation and Living. As well as online literary journals such as Kissing Dynamite where she was the featured poet for August 2019, Ithaca Lit, Not Your Mother’s Breast Milk, Rogue Agent, and elsewhere. She is also the author of a poetry and art zine, Ruminations.
“Lost Time, Broken Things Forgotten” explores isolation, abandonment, self-reflection in times of change, and ultimately, regrowth and new beginnings. Humans, like places, need encouragement, love, nurturing, and fostering. When we let places fall to ruin and abandonment, what does that mean for our society at large? What does that mean for us, and how do these processes parallel each other? In this time of crisis, I can’t help but wonder what we let fade, what we choose to forget, and the routines we let go of – and how we need to build and adopt new ones to survive and thrive. Bodies are homes, and homes are like bodies. I’ve always been fascinated by that duality – but also fascinated by this trend for humans to build structures and then let them fall to ruin because they aren’t “needed” anymore. We move on without always thinking of ways to use or repurpose what we have, to recycle instead of destroy. There is, of course, growth in endings and beginnings from something lost. How can we use that process in a better, holistic, and healthier way, for our bodies and our homes?
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of several collections, including Marys of the Sea, #Survivor, (2020, The Operating System), Killer Bob: A Love Story (2021, Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), and is the editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault. Joanna is the founder of Yes Poetry and the senior managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Some of their writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Them, Brooklyn Magazine, BUST, and elsewhere. joannavalente.com / Twitter: @joannasaid / IG: joannacvalente / FB: joannacvalente
Gareth Evans is a British artist living in Germany. Indebted to music, most of his art is born from what he feels and sees when he hears it. An avid fan of David Lynch and PJ Harvey, his work embodies melancholic realism and snippets of lyrics that move him. Find him on Twitter @malvo815
res·ur·rec·tion
/ˌrezəˈrekSH(ə)n/
the action or fact of resurrecting or being resurrected
resurrectionmag.com 