Climax is the Closest Thing to Surrender, fermentation, & daydreaming in Starbucks that my husband is Queer Britt Bustos __________ Climax is the Closest Thing to Surrender Based on Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” come together for we are hungry and giving of what i wish to not…
Read MoreVersatile Villanelle & Sizzling Villanelle Dustin Brookshire __________ Versatile Villanelle Topping is not for the grieving, for those who need to be filled up and forget their own emptiness. – Joseph Osmundson, “Double or Nothing” Topping isn’t for those in the midst of grief.Don’t have a pity party and sit…
Read MoreRicegay Joefel Bolo __________ So my parents are farmers. They carry the rice, roughly as producer, then us who consume. Seeing, to feel the dirt talking. Notice and virgin, rice husk, extract the rice from its golden shell and itchiness. I consumed cups, or in another strange distance, a scope…
Read MoreI Stop Trusting Saint Anthony When, Prayer for Another Hurricane Season from Afar, & Here Come the Girls Stacey Balkun __________ I Stop Trusting Saint Antony When a wave knocks your dad’s Ray Bansinto the surf and they never resurface despite our haphazard prayers.I steeple my sunburned hands around a…
Read MoreThere Were Signs Jazmine Becerra Green __________ There Were Signs I. I went out to dinnerwith a guy once. Justdinner and check, noother plans. He droveme toward my singleapartment, ticking offthings we could do topostpone goodnight. Itold him the HomeDepot on Sunset wasopen late. I imaginedpulling paint chips inRed Willow,…
Read MorePride, June ’25 Editor: Vallie Lynn Watson Guest Editor: Robbie Hess Managing Editor: Karris Rae Associate Editor: Taryn White Assistant Editors: Leah Joseph, Jade Turner, Meilyn Woods Deborah Chava Singer, “Rainbow Blossoms,” Digital Artwork Letter from the Editor by Vallie Lynn Watson Letter from the Guest Editor by Robbie Hess…
Read MoreFinding Home: Immigration and Displacement, May ’25 Editor: Vallie Lynn Watson Guest Editor: Leah Joseph Managing Editor: Karris Rae Associate Editor: Taryn White Assistant Editors: Robbie Hess, Jade Turner, Meilyn Woods Interns: Ta’Mya Davis, Elaine Schroeder Donna Turan, “Liberty’s Lament,” Acrylic, marker, and pen on canvas Letter from the Editor…
Read MoreKilling the Ingénu Valerie Tirado __________ To escape our blood-soaked land,we rather flock on frays of papier-mâché rafts swallowed whole by tumultuous waves than live where the ironclad hungerfor the metallic taste of censorship. How to distill home from homeland when—as a boy—I was stripped of my mother,handed a rifle & taught to kill…
Read MoreEven the Rocks Turn Away When We Look at Them R Rice __________ She wakes to find herself far from home, from family, the tent sweltering under glass-hard sky. Those stirring around her, all of them, on their way, they hope, somewhere else. For a moment she’s still, lost in the moving of her body’s own…
Read MoreRoad Song Jed Myers __________ I’ve ground my teeth to an aching, jawsore from a long clench while I searchedfor a road out of a war, no knowing which side I was on. And I dreamed a crossing—safe passage, no gate, no screamed inquisitions at gunpoint between wired-off halves of land— not…
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