Die for My Man

A man grows

three feet a day

in my belly

soft-surround

he timbers

rising good gold

wetting the soft places

where I stretch and yearn

to accommodate him,

deform myself

for his very existence.

I feel strange

in the morning—

the man towering within

has unusual say

he bends my natural

proclivities—

the man speaks, in his

iodine adult voice,

tells me I am too small—

so he must exit

tearing my heart on his way—

left bereft missing

my internal man

wondering if he was simply

a scam.

Broken in two

no one comes to my rescue

I’ve died for my man.

 

~~~

Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle, WA. Her latest poetry book, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and won the Bisexual Book Award. Her work is online at The Seattle Review of Books, Poetry Pacific, Voices in the Wind, Antinarrative Journal; more of her writing can be found at www.julenetrippweaver.com or @trippweavepoet

even though it’s all switched off, a constant hum

the world is finally ending and everyone is in the street fucking

and we cling to this awful rock while somewhere a wild dog rips a child

to pieces, its jaws locking together like lovers hands on a cold night as they

explore the cartography on their wrists, laughing at the idea they

will ever be old and spitting softly in aching, welcome mouths

the world is finally ending and everyone is in the street fucking,

a farewell sunset behind them and nothing ahead but the fire-black ribs

of their homes. the trees are burning like funeral pyres, the pine needles

crackle like a lonely radio. the roads are melting like hot tears

and the buildings are leering, beautiful.

 

~~~

Stuart Buck is a poet and artist living in North Wales. His debut collection of poetry, Casually Discussing the Infinite, peaked at 89 on Amazons World Poetry chart and his second book Become Something Frail will be released on Selcouth Station Press in 2019. When he is not writing or reading poetry, he likes to cook, juggle and listen to music. He suffers terribly from tsundoku – the art of buying copious amounts of books that he will never read.

Lake water

We were in beach chairs, working on our sunburns, when I had this vision:

My body full of lake, water lapping in my ears, in sync with his thrusts. The more he fucked me, the more came out of me, until he was soaked, until we were both soaked, until the bed’s red blanket looked black and lake water poured down to the apartment below, so much so the neighbor pounded the ceiling with a broom. But the broom turned to seaweed, the neighbor dissolved. We surged. When I opened my mouth to moan, he looked inside and saw I was a lake, teeming alive and full. We fucked harder. I kissed him, he drank me, and we undulated until we were inundated in cloudy living sweetwater.

I looked over at him in his beach chair. I felt sun on my knees, sweat in my hair. I touched his hand, we stood.

We stepped into the lake.

~~~

Gretchen Uhrinek is a Pittsburgh-based writer. Her work can be found in The Longridge Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Philosophical Idiot, and elsewhere.

Aril

red stiffens into a single sough

flush                      and plump, a spectacle stained from a pomegranate

split in two

ruddy

and

blushing

and

      dripping

            nectar

~~~

Natasha Teymourian is a Brazilian poet and artist based in San Diego, where she got her BA in Literature & Writing Studies from California State University San Marcos. She is the Editor in Chief of Epigraph Press and author of Recurrent Events, published in 2018.

Upstairs

my head remembers your hair / the way it tangled with mine / your lips / my lips / the green of your bedspread / door left open / so we could hear if your mom / crept up the stairs / your lips / my lips / my tongue / your lips / your tongue

and my hand remembers your hand / your hand / your hand / your lips / your hand / your hand / your hand / the green album spinning in little circles / little circles / my hand / little circles / little circles / little circles / the record turns faster / faster / little circles / faster / faster / my hand / faster / circles / faster / circles / circles / lips / lips / hands / hips / faster / circles / circles / circles / circles / god / circles / god / faster / eyes / thighs / circles / breathe / god / slower / circles / circles / slower / slower / slower / breathe

I can’t remember a goddamn thing

~~~

Annaka Saari is a 20 year old writer from Jackson, Michigan. Currently, she resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan where she studies English at the University of Michigan. Her work has previously appeared in Ghost City Review and MICRO//MACRO. You can follow her on Twitter at @AnnakaSaari or go to her website at https://annakasaariwrites.wordpress.com.

Peg

blunt //// trauma // for // boy // blunt

// I fed // him // the // heaviest /////

////////// machine // the fattest finger

interface // orifice // blow // wand ////

boy mulch /// longitude /// socket lunch

//// 9 out of 10 underwear models // use

this // trick! /// in confidence I preferred

to raffle // prick // pinking shears /// or

whatever was handy // sucked out all ///

angles // no bind I couldn’t // eat myself

out of. // I was pious // in my // prayer.

a veritable // carwash! // we all know //

lucifer // was a fallen /////////// anal.

// at //times ///// it was hard // to tell

to whom // I was // speaking. ////////

///// an object // shaped // wife /////

or a // wife // shaped /////////object.

 

~~~

Sara Kachelman is a student of prose and bookmaking in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in DIAGRAM, New South, Portland Review, and other journals. You can find her online at sarakachelman.com.

The Opposite of Deja Vu

Like I was dropped into my life

Through a tear in the universe tonight

Like the opposite of a deus ex machina

Or a deus ex machina on its head

Where I’m lying in bed

And staring up at a baby’s mobile

Of stars and new questions

About where it all came from

And turtles all the way down

Lying on their backs

Exposing psychedelic bellies

At three am

Because my ex called

And wanted to tell me

About doing shrooms in Joshua Tree

About the well of sadness in himself.

I expected to find myself there

But instead I’m nowhere

Not even when he wandered the desert

And spoke with the moon

Not even in the roosters crowing outside

Inexplicably, in the middle of Silverlake,

Tangent to the sloped intersection

By this parking lot they’ll never finish,

Not even in the human wet cries

Of the feral cats and kittens

In the alley below.

But as you lie sleeping

I’m caressing the void beside me

In the cacophony of sounds,

Caressing the hundred more universes

All sweaty and bellied up, non-existent,

Where I know exactly who I am

And what this is for

But don’t have you

Or instead have everything

Except questions

Or a silent version of this timeline

Or a purple one

And three slips into four am

And so on

Until the night drains

Out through the window

And you are awake wanting toast

And to contextualize me, effortlessly,

Before coffee and after a dream about a home

We both forgot.

~~~

Lexi Cary is a bi writer (w/b)itch and musician based in Los Angeles. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in DUM DUM Zine, Angel City Review, Always Crashing, and Germinal Mag. You can see more of her work at lexicary.com and @_lexicary on twitter and Instagram.

Desire, in Three Parts

I.

There’s a certain pain to coming

apart, an emptiness that opens

up inside you that wasn’t there before

and you want him again

before he’s even out,

before you can feel him running

into the soft creases of your skin—

 

you leave it for a while,

picture it sinking into your body

like rain into parched earth

and then you imagine flowers

 

growing where there weren’t any before.

 

II.

Some days, Jesus Christ,

I want you so badly it’s like a sickness

and I’m lost in fever dreams—

 

stretch me and crack me open

wide and explore me taste me

every inch of me and I’ll repay

in kind

 

i’ll open up to you

in ways i haven’t before and it hurts

but in a good way and the blood

feels like evidence of some

Holy Sacrament

and i certainly called on a higher power

when you gritted your teeth and pushed

our hips to fit

like cogs in a clock—

my body vibrated with the bell’s toll.

 

III.

Now, my shirt still smells like you

from clinging to your chest so tightly

and pressing my face to your hot skin

to inhale a goodbye.

 

If I had a microscope, I could

find bits of you on me,

in me, and the thought makes me hold

myself a little tighter—

when I squeeze my eyes shut, it’s almost like I’m holding you again.

 

~~~

 

L.K. is a teacher living in Philadelphia and never wants her students to read this. She isn’t really a writer, but is horny more often than not. She thanks her long-distance relationship for inspiring this poem.

on being in love

being in love is like……….doing a presentation in class……

while you’re naked………….then you wake up from

the nightmare………just to go to class and do a presentation……

and suddenly you’re naked……then you do it again and again…

……love doesn’t necessarily make you do stupid things but

……it makes you want to do really stupid things like……

drink a bottle of nail polish……steal from your mum to buy a motorcycle

……tell your girlfriend you love them so much you want to be alive.

stupid stupid………stupid but worth it somehow……

is it even a romantic gesture to say…“you are so cool and smart

you make being alive a little less unbearable”

or is it just really weird………i love you i flushed my last xanax

it’s so humiliating to be in love i feel like an oversized toddler…

…………have you ever eaten a family sized pizza on your own

then immediately felt bad for eating a family sized pizza on your own

but also kind of victorious because you proved………something

……not sure what maybe that nothing can stop you…

your hunger has no limits you can make yourself sick you

……can do everything as long as it means flirting with death…

being in love is like your parents……catching you having sex…

and staring till you cum……but you can’t cum with them staring…

so it never ends……being in love i don’t know……i don’t know…

 

~~~

helga floros likes pepsi max and baking muffins. they have work in occulum, peach mag, witchcraft magazine, & elsewhere. they tweet @helgafloros

Strap-On

The strap-on rested between my legs. It was weighty. I pretended I could feel it when I moved my hand up and down the whole length of it, like it was really part of me. In the mirror I couldn’t help but admire it. It was beautiful in a way; soft pastel pink and long, a flamingo neck or milkshake straw, an extension of myself. I liked the angle in which it hung away from the rest of me; straight out with slight droop . In OSHA they advise you to position ladders at 45 degree angles to make the climbing easiest. That was my strap-on too; 45 degrees and it’s the first time I’ve ever felt sturdy enough to be considered a wall, proud to support whoever would take that climb. I liked how little my body looked and how powerful the strap-on made it appear, becoming a thick knot of muscle;capable, a pitbull, or jaguar, all prowess and strength.

All of the people I’ve known to have a real one had been drenched in taking, and I had been what was took. There is something about being the one who enters that says pioneer and the one who is entered that says room; the door knocked down and boot-marks on the hardwood floor. But I don’t want to pioneer or conquer; I want to enter on tiptoe. I want to cum with tenderness. My strap-on can be as gentle as my pussy and I need you to know that. There will be no taking here, I will not take anything from you. When you lay down for me I do not see a buffet in the way men have made a feast of me.

~~~
McKenzie Hurder is a new poet just beginning in Boston! She’s interested in the interiority of the self and how feminity shapes experiences. She believes writing is  a healing process as well as a gratitude process. Follow her on instagram @elwyn_esque