Thirst

When I was young, 

I worried if there would be enough for me. 

Enough food, blankets, hot water, toilet paper, and love. 

There wasn’t enough. 

There still isn’t enough. 

I make myself fat eating everything I can touch before someone takes it away. 

I drink in big gulps whether it is water, beer, or whiskey. 

I’m not thirsty. 

I’m trying to drown myself. 

I’m trying to get enough. 

My crotch hurts from self-abuse. 

My skin is dry from too many long showers. 

I ate all the cookies. 

I seek any validation from any stranger who wants to give it. 

And they say I’m thirsty. 

And I am. 

Micah was born in North Carolina. He has lived in a series of apartments, houses, shacks and sometimes on the streets in WV, NC, OH, PA, IL, MS, CA, MA, RI, and WA. He has been a bookseller, welder, ditch digger, door to door screen-door seller, fence painter, landscaper, busboy, waiter, dishwasher, barista, HotTopic retail weirdo, busker, homeless beggar, thug and enforcer, janitor, screenplay writer, call center rep, lawyer, project manager, program manager, poet, artist and genealogist. Currently, he lives in Arizona.

by Andie Lovins

winter rain 

smellsofdirt 

something 

vaginal 

i wake myself
so slowly
i let these
pearls
saturate my tongue 

drown me 

with their earth wisdom 

i am muddy
with
remembrance 

but holy
rain
i send her everywhere 

i ride on the back of 

her truth 

the shutters thrown wide 

a blossoming
she’s in me now
i’m scrubbed of 

all that
now
i am the storm 

by Allison Baldwin

There’s nothing like a mother’s love

A monument to practical things.

A hairbrush on a nightstand. A

notebook tucked away. 

She is the anchor

in this house. She

grounds in fire.

She goes into Quick-Chek

buys me two half gallons of milk,

a box of cookies,

never asks for money back.

She dances in the grocery aisles

when no one’s looking

except for me.

She’s weird—

but so am I.

I, too, dance

when no one’s watching,

maybe I should stop

let the spotlight shine on me.

Sweat under the limelight.

Does she know what she has birthed?

More goddess 

than monster.

We play bumper cars

with shopping carts.

She hits me where it hurts

then blames me for the paint

scratch. A heart catch in

the throat.

Allison Baldwin is a poet and disability advocate based in Highland Park, New Jersey. Her work has been published in both print and online. most recently in Intercultural Press, the upcoming debut issue of Ghost Heart Literary Journal, and the upcoming anthology, Give Me Flowers While I Am Living: Letters, Poetry, and Essays Honoring Glenis Redmond. In addition to published writing, Allison also volunteers for the Highland Park Arts Commission where she recently coordinated Access Granted, a two-part photo essay/community writing project that centered the lives of people with disabilities living in New Jersey. In her free time, she also manages the Instagram page, Awakening Spells, where she combines her intuitive gifts of Tarot and Oracle Card reading to help people in her community embrace their magic. For more inspiration, writing, and poetry, follow her @awakening_spells and @notes_on_an_elevator. Follow the Access Granted project @accessgranted2019

Christian was born and raised in Macedonia and arrived in the US in 2012. He currently resides in Chicago.

by Yusuf “Yoshi” Misdaq

Jindana 

L’vever arrival 

Hit runway gliding 

Making it all a question of timing 

Falling in your favour

Like times you win 

And the glad handers

Come rushing in 

Towards you 

.Gravitone. 

Don’t plunder this 

Short lived blooming 

Mind warns body 

Mind warns soul

Soul warns body 

Soul warns mind. 

Everything distributes 

Another way to say 

Fades. 

Everything falls into 

Appropriate pockets

Another way to say 

Falls apart. 

What conscious heart 

Throbs and radiates

Asking to receive or 

Willing to give? 

Latter lets you live 

Latter lets you receive

As though autumn leaves 

Swirled up from dead earth and 

Reinforced your armourtree to create 

A wonderful new summertime of you and for you. 

This is how you live the high life of surfers 

An’ forever-youngers

By not bundling everything in to 

Your own back seat.

By not taking all of the winnings

‘N by leaving a few spaces open  

by Alais Mara

Misunderstanding sucks the sun out of the sky

leans the walls in and expands my heaving heart until all I see is red 

all I feel is the urge to run. 

You smile and tell me, 

All of these shadows are harmless, my love. 

While you smooth out the knots of someone else’s day

and my own muscles bunch, wring their tense hands.

How do I distance myself from my own feelings?

We’re running out of toilet paper. 

We aren’t worried. 

Easier to talk about toilet paper than helplessness

God! There is no way to navigate the strange pathways of my own heart. 

I put my back to the sun because I’m not ready for that kind of clarity.

by Jen Hitchcock

Click HERE to listen!

Jen Hitchcock owns and operates a book shop and creative space called Book Show in Los Angeles. She is a writer and music journalist whose work has been published in the LA Weekly, LA Art News, Mix Magazine, Tattoo Savage, Razorcake, Metal Hammer and a slew of fanzines and magazines too long-out-of-print to mention. She also wrote the script for a low-budget comedic webseries called Ninety-Something and self-published a music and humor ‘zine called ZYZXX way back in the 1990’s. She still makes fanzines once in a while, when inspiration hits. 

by Manuel Chavarria

Among dead stars, Eurydice did claim to find the lady fair
Who’d held aloft our shatt’ring world in eras fraught, times of despair,
And though that lady waned beneath the lashes of the sudden glare
Of raging lights that lurched across the galaxy to find her, where

The wind slipped toward the edge of plain and stroked her as she, silent, stood. (The fires galloped o’er the sky and took her, as we knew they would.)
Yet she was not to lose the thread that bound her to her purpose; there
She held her ground and looked upon the lights with violence in her stare.

She gripped the world more tightly as she braced herself for that first lance,
Which illumined the heavens, and she buckled while the cosmos danced.
The stars rose up around her, and they reached for her and held her still,
And inserted those blades that long precipitated endless ills

That came upon all worlds once they’d matured beyond the breath of God,
Crept further from his whisper ’til the fundament was cracked and flawed,
And floated ever onward toward a light that dims as it grows near,
As angels dance in rearview, wonder changing to alarm and fear.

And all the little daffodils, and orchids that bloomed ‘neath the sky
Did wither and decay into the soil, released a heavy sigh,
And fell upon the earth, their shrinking roots lost to the fading gusts
That Eurydice watched dissipate alone among the cosmic dust.

by Karo Ska

inside me, strawberry jam 

thickens 

before leaking, dripping 

then gushing. an 11 day early knock 

at my cervix door. the moon 

& me unsynced.

the moon: predictable, well-

behaved. not me. not

this month. does my flesh crave

reproduction? is it angry 

i won’t host a family

of cells? i have

no home, no land i can call

my own. i can’t grow

children without roots,

i can’t grow glass

inside my skin. i flush

ragged parts of me, refusing

a darwinian legacy. what

is success of species

in a world of children

caged or children

shot or children

starved? what is success

if not burgundy blood, flowing

down my leg, screaming

i’m alive.

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