DUNCAN MALASHOCK

The First Thing You Ever Said to Me
AUGUST 13

the first thing
you ever said to me
was, about your girlfriend,
“don’t let her intimidate you.”

it’s getting harder now
to persuade myself
i’m worthless to other women,
but i can still do it

if i ignore the way we
stood hip to hip
at the pool table,
read aloud from leather zines
together in the Archives,
joked about how uncomfortable
that sex scene was
in the Akerman flick.

it was my freshman year,
and i got beaten up
at the lesbian bar
for looking like a girl.

In the Sex Dungeon with You
JULY 27

in the sex dungeon with you,
i focused on being
a good conversationalist

while in front of us,
lit vermillion in harness,
a leatherdyke fucked their
ball-gagged underling.

i reviewed evidence:
i wasn’t your type,
didn’t know you well enough
to ask if i could kiss you,
play with your hair,
touch your bare shoulder.
in our black lace bras
we stood like sisters.

the couple passed by us
as if through a stage door;
i held back my applause.

the maze was a grid
of black plywood.
inside it we found a lonely spot—

you told me your troubles:
social anxiety,
insular couples,
one-word answers.

i tried to be a thoughtful friend
in this wild place
where anything could happen,
like the rest of the world.

Duncan Malashock is a poet in Brooklyn. She's feeling more confident speaking in groups, and she has a crush on Debra Winger.

YUYI CHEN

#1

a truth fall
speaking vulgar

spitting my metro
politan eye saw

a chink chomp
ing the nuts fall

ing cheap airline
gentle parent

ing a loud plane
by the road where

your mom died
because of you

#2

I plead a mountain
Wakes without the help
From phone alarm
Feast on my ankle; modern
Technology! Each day I am
Closer to an icy bone
At mountain top.

Yuyi Chen is from Sichuan, China. First coming to the US in 2017, they are now in a PhD program in anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. Their work can be found or forthcoming in antiphony, Nat. Brut, HOT PINK MAG, and Pile Press. Their first chapbook Erotic Continent is forthcoming in 2025 from Discount Guillotine. They go by Echo.

COURTNEY BUSH

It’s all over now famous baby blue raincoat

He lived here and then he didn’t live here
Where the cat clawed through the screen
And I swear he got smarter from Lumosity
And watching Columbo who can do everything
It seems but bring the dead people back to life

It’s gonna be just like this in heaven
Biting plastic ice cubes open
And licking up the chemicals
I’m a simple person
I see the world as I’ve been taught
Inside the fifth sorrowful mystery of the rosary
I can’t quite buy into the versions of love

Red flag this man
Drink blood from this ditch
They fucking wish we’d burst

Ben thinks every angel is terrifying
Because it might tell him he’s the new Virgin Mary
Now we’re in the commons
Now we’re in the movie theater
They put on Jeanne Dielman
Someone asks if we’re really
Supposed to watch the whole thing
I mean is that what she wants

So not only is every angel terrifying
Every person is terrified for a different personal reason

And they’re all tired
The whole ensemble ballet
And the principal can only dance for two to three minutes
It’s all a trick of the light
But I wasn’t joking back there
I really am going to sing

Courtney Bush is a writer and filmmaker. She is the author of Every Book Is About The Same Thing (Newest York Arts Press, 2022) and I Love Information (Milkweed Editions, 2023). Her third book, A Movie, is forthcoming in 2025 from Lavender Ink. More of her work can be found at courtneybushgreatartist.com.

ELLEN BOYETTE

EVERYTHING TASTES LIKE CANDY

In the dressiest of minefields
in the conundrum of footwear.

In the looped youth obsession with block
letters on bracelets in the hermit’s

heart. In the foreground of a Cadillac
in the background of a pomegranate.

Wrap me in foil, put me in the Airfryer,
wheel me out of the dereliction, the hospital,

the fishtank. I like to be carried from
my womb to your brain. All I want

is a handful of cash and gum to chew
like a cow in the mud.

Read your phone. Go to heaven.
In the harpsichords of yesteryear

in the fridge humming, in the bazaar
in the bazaar I saw you running

toward a fur coat and thought
the world a superb lie. Now

it is my turn to pull apart a stranger
with my teeth. Psych—no such thing

as stranger. They said you taste like
Candy. Everything tastes like candy.

Ellen Boyette is a PhD student in English and Creative Writing with a concentration in Film Studies at the University of Georgia. Her area of specialization is Occult Poetics. She received her MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a recipient of the Alberta Kelly Fellowship as well as a Teaching-Writing Fellowship. Her first book of poetry, BEDIEVAL, was a finalist at Slope Editions Books, CSU Press, and Inside the Castle. She was also the recipient of an Action Books Fokus Feature. Her work appears in jubilat, The Columbia Review,  Denver Quarterly, Ninth Letter, Prelude, Bennington Review, New Delta Review, poets.org, Tagvverk,  and elsewhere. She is the author of two chapbooks, NITROUS OR MY VELVET KNIFE and CUFFING SEASON. 

MOLLY GORELICK

Gym, Tan, Laundry

In America, I’ve only had two thoughts and they’re both secrets, little pearls stuffed in shells stuffed in the dumb expanse of the ocean. The peacemaker walks through sand, jungle, desert, prairie just to become earth herself. Lump and pleather, sweat soaking into artificial fabrics in which I don’t think I could do a squat thrust. I can appreciate your literacy while acknowledging the competence of my own. If I love you, I’ll become literate in any language. Caricature of unconditional love. What would that look like on the boardwalk? An exposed midriff can either be meaningful or American. Tell me I’m fabulous! Couldn’t anyone technically move into hospice? Fondle the cough and rotate. Painted hermit crab shell, I’ll make myself at home anywhere.

Molly Gorelick lives and writes in Philadelphia. Her online chapbook Ariana Grande Accompanies Me to My Ovarian Cystectomy and Slips Me Some Extra Codeine was published by Metatron Press in 2024. She is the person behind the A Year in Philadelphia community archive project (ayearinphilly.com) and you can find her at @mollygmollygmollyg on Instagram.

ZIA PERTHUISOT / TRANSLATED BY SALOMÉ MERCIER

une histoire de bac à légumes

j’espère perdre mon tel dans une bouche d’égout pour
avoir une raison de ne pas voir que tu ne me répond pas

quand je demande à papa
comment ça va
il répond

Les bêtes vont bien

Mon père grandit à l’envers
Plus il va vers la fin
Plus il va pour m’aimer

Qu’est-ce qu’il dirait de toi
De ton mignon téton percé
De l’encre plein tes pores et des poils que tu cultive
De ta tête de meuf gouine
si charmante
qui investit les pronoms comme on choisit sa paire de chaussettes
selon l’humeur du matin et comment le soleil du dehors vient nous toucher en dedans

peut-être
qu’il ne dirait rien

il est taiseux mon père

peut-être qu’il irait s’assoir dans le canap en faux-cuir
jambes croisées
pour comprendre
pour fouiller internet
sur son tout nouveau smartphone qu’il ne quitte plus

peut-être qu’il irait chercher une bière
pas dans le bac à légume - le froid lui retourne le bide
mais là sous l’évier entre le compost et les bouteilles de Badoit

il poserait sur la table basse
une large coupelle de cacahuètes et
trois canettes de bières tièdes.

a vegetable drawer story

I hope I drop my phone in the gutter so
I’ll have a reason not to see you’re not texting back

when I ask dad
how are you
he says

The beasts are okay

My father is growing in reverse
The closer he gets to the end
The more he goes to love me

What would he say about you?
About your cute pierced nipple
About the ink all over your pores and the hair you grow
About your dyke look

so charming
wearing pronouns like you’d pick a pair of socks
depending on the mood this morning and the way the outside sun feels inside of us

maybe
he wouldn’t say anything

he’s a quiet one my father

maybe he’d go and sit in the fake leather sofa
legs crossed
to understand
to ask the internet
on his brand new smartphone that he never puts down

maybe he’d go get a beer
not in the vegetable drawer - the cold upsets his stomach
but there under the sink between the compost and the bottles of Badoit

he would set on the table
a large bowl of peanuts and

three cans of lukewarm beer

Zia grew up in the center of France and moved to Paris for my studies. She writes poetry and non-fiction, and she does photography. Her instagram : @zia.perth

CAELAN ERNEST

My Hollywood star cracks in the climate collapse

Moonmen look for the stars here–

Hate to tell you your satellites surveil

the wrong layers / Combustion

shot in heat & smoke Glam’r

gone up & up & — The only fire

I won’t put out is limerence / Dew

you know it? Carve thru

its opacity / Little screens

replace big screens / Is it me you

’re streaming from your elsewhere?

Our little democracy reaps the planet /

On the LA strip I wear a calfskin bra-let,

It’s always tourist season! / Business

as usual, This stretch of land

Booming; The transmissions—

Your receivers pick up dead noise music

like the afterglow of a star after its burst

into nova / I think I have to kill

the icon within me in order to survive—

Moonmen I gesture at the brass

beneath my archival Miu Miu heels

When I stomp hard with my heals

can you see my star sparkle up there?

I paid a lot for it a whole lotta nothing!

Caelan Ernest (they/them) is a nonbinary poet, performer, and thingamajig living in Brooklyn with their cat named Salad. They are the author of night mode (published by Everybody Press). They hold an MFA in Writing from Pratt Institute. They are a publicist at Graywolf Press.

SOPHIE CHRISTENBERRY

being alive 2

overwhelming surround sound
sparrows woman selling nutcrackers maria hernandez
park always getting paved seeded trimmed and
lived in it’s may 17th the sorrow and the pigeons and the
humming lumber of a truck on wyckoff
weeklong
heatwave
back in april so the park
all the trees in my neighborhood have the dark
fleshy green of mid-summer but there are
these purple flowers which i’ve never seen before
i try to click backwards in time and open
the pages of a book i had when i was a little girl My First
field guide to flowers a painting of a waterlily on the cover
bright green background wish i could open the
book in my mind
i love the dogs here and the woman selling nutcrackers
asks another woman to watch her bag and
symphony of sparrows which are such flat
poetical birds, but i can’t help it they’re all over
the park with these purple flowers not a lick of cloud
in the sky on may 17th i look up and see a seagull
embossed
huge over a Spirit Airlines plane
it’s hard to want to die with all this beauty
exploding life of the park dogs and the nutcrackers
and expensive coffee the purple flowers
make me imagine i could fall in love at any time
it’s hard to want to die the fuzzy fragrance of green a
low stocky conifer moves so slow in the wind it’s like algae
in water park is like a reef and i’m listening to the
older men sing next to me in Spanish
listen to a comedy radio show the birds are
also
singing
in a funny unison it’s hard to want to die of course
it’s hard to want to live also

Sophie Christenberry is a poet and waitress from Queens, NY.  Her first chapbook “Shift Notes,” was published in 2023 with Bullshit Lit.  She likes seltzer and taking the train to the beach.

nat raum

journal (take #6)

dear diary, outside smells like rain & blunts—the vanilla kind. it’s no
match for the forest, where petrichor is really petrichor, but in the
woolen july air this may as well be the same thing. dear diary, i was
born to live in the city but when the fervors grip my body (which is
to say, whatever lives within me that paces restless in the cavity of my
chest) i cannot help but take the wheel of my civic and turn it
northward until i glide under a canopy of broadleafs. and diary, when
rainwater wisps against asphalt on the highway like snakes of smoke, i
cannot help but turn on fleetwood mac and let stevie’s tambourine
take me home.

nat raum is the poet laureate of the void; their corporeal form lives in Baltimore. They’re the author of the abyss is staring back, random access memory, camera indomita, and many others. Find them online at natraum.com or astral projecting inside a Royal Farms.

KRISTIN LUEKE

i’ve been alive all this time & all i got was this emerging sense of self-possession

yes you can
disturb the dinner table.

throw hands at a lamb.
curse a calm what never
spoke your whole name.

breathe louder at 5 am,
any time. take up space
or your scythe, whatever
is nearest.

make a word you always needed.
say no or never or who precisely
—be specific—
do you think you are.

you’ve explained yourself years
into understanding, darling
why not show us
your teeth.

Kristin lives in northern New Mexico. She didn’t always now she does. Her work’s in Sixth Finch, Wildness, HAD, Maudlin House, Frozen Sea, some other places. She writes at theanimaleats.com. 

NIKITA LADD

Nikita Ladd (she/her) is a poet, creative nonfiction writer, and mapmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently an In School Programs and Partnerships Coordinator at the DreamYard Project in the Bronx. She received her BA from Wesleyan University, where she studied Neuroscience and Writing. Her work can be found online in Hunger Mountain Review, Rejection Letters, and HAD. @kita_keeta

CHUN SHU / TRANSLATED BY CECILY CHEN

点燃蜡烛洗澡
春树

大部分时候我感到羞耻
我遇到的都是多差劲的男人呵
就别把我们的合影
拿出来一看再看了
月圆的晚上
容易想到缪斯
想到家暴
想到有过短暂情史的
长发蓝眼睛
我们互抽对方嘴巴
在酒店的床上翻滚
散落一地烟灰
真是个意外之夜
久违的疯狂
不做爱只接吻
当然他必须消失
他懂，于是先走了
留下一趟短途旅行和一篇小说
无法信任那些说谎的人
同时也不原谅自己
对生活的不满
造就了我的美丽
摩拳擦掌想到这些
想到老金斯堡的“内心暴跳如雷”和“窗外的杂种还是挺多的”
揪落红玫瑰花瓣
在男人的阳具插入之前
我们把玫瑰花瓣放入阴道

Lighting a candle and taking a bath
Translated by: Cecily Chen

Most of the time I am full of shame
All the men that I meet are oh-so-very-shitty
So stop pulling out our photos together
For my eyes to linger and caress
Full moon
How easy it is to think of the Muse
Of domestic violence
Of the one with long hair and blue eyes
From a passing tryst
We slap each other in the face
And tussle on the hotel bed
Spilling cigarette ash to the ground
What a night of surprises
The return of that familiar wildness
Not fucking and only kissing
Of course he then must retire
He understands, and excuses himself
Leaving behind a quick trip and a story
Distrustful of those that speak untruths
And unforgiving too of my own
Dissatisfactions with life
This is what defines my beauty
Rolling up my sleeves as I think of all of this
Of good ol’ Ginsberg’s “thunderous, tempestuous heart” and “outside the window
are the hordes of wretched souls”
Pulling petals from red roses
We place the rose petals inside our cunts
Before the first thrust of a man’s cock

Chun Shu (b. 1983), born Zou Nan, is a contemporary Chinese novelist and writer. She is one of the most prominent figures of the post-1980s poets in China. She currently lives in Berlin and Beijing.

Cecily Chen is a writer and translator from Beijing, China. She is currently completing a PhD in English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago, where she works on experimental Asian American literature, Marxist aesthetics, and negative affect. She is the translator of two chapbooks, CHEATING (Inpatient Press, 2022) and SWEET TALK (The Year, forthcoming 2025). She is also the poetry editor at Chicago Review.

ARI LISNER

Self-Portrait at 28
After David Berman

I know it’s a stolen title
but I’m giving it to myself as a gift

Today’s the day I put art back in its place
Things up until now have had puppy proportions
and the claims I’ve made have been put on a brief hold

You got nursed back holier than thou with sleepy South Jersey eyes
It’s unbelievable. I look a lot like you now. Driving loops to everyone’s eyerolls
Today’s the day I put art back in its place

My new boots clacked when I walked back in at home. It was too late and the glow in the
window was this crazy red catching the glass
I trusted your sick sense that night. You brought that little purse back around.

Not married to outcomes
But I oathed that ending
Cottonmouth, goodbye, driveaway to Lou Reed

I felt rich upon the realization

My middle school’s character pledge:
I try my best
Have courage
Include others
Be respectful and responsible
and celebrate the ways I can improve
the world around me
Thank you

Ari Lisner is a practicing writer and aspiring filmmaker whose writing captures queer intimacy against the backdrop of New York City. He has a chapbook called One Shtick Pony. Find Ari on Instagram at @arisbarmitzvah. Let’s go Mets.

DAVID SAN MIGUEL

Call it Faith, Call it Ketamine

I can open my mouth and materialize Heaven.
I can kill us both before we touch grass.
Spitting fire breathing bars. 10 Hail Marys
and all my teeth are cut.
Insanity is a ritual is a meditation is a…
prayer, prayer, prayer
Pray the real live forever man.
Pray the fakes get exposed.
In the utterance— a vibration.
Cymatics coursing through air,
I can see lines and points and planes
and Time
Phasing like mercury,
like Language
I
Can
Walk
Through
Walls
O, how I am naught but ignorance itself!—
post the sexy consecration of our bodies

David San Miguel is a Los Angeles based writer.

SOPHIA TEMPEST

untitled #3

I am an autonomous being!
and a cruel and exotic meat

hide your face from God when you eat it

the court did not advise me
in much of the kingdom
a smile is a threat

Sophia Tempest is a poet living in Philadelphia. Her first chapbook, a lamb hangs by its own foot, was released with Ghost City Press in 2019. Her full-length collection, WHEN I GET TO HEAVEN, was released with Another New Calligraphy in 2022. 

MIRIAM SAPERSTEIN

Miriam Saperstein is a writer and mixed-media artist based in West Philadelphia. Originally from Metro Detroit, they are obsessed with incantations, decomposition, and ritual histories. Their work has been exhibited at the William Way LGBT Community Center, featured in the Radical Jewish Calendar, and published in Syllabus, BathHouse, and Jewish Currents. 

MEREDITH MACLEOD DAVIDSON

Abecedarian on Cowboy Carter

America! We are all trauma
bonding our way through a collapse
circus penned by the death cult
debtors with diamond dreams. One more
expedition to our folk
freedom roots. Deconstructed,
genre can be God or gossip, giddy-up, guns.
Hallelujah! Honey, heal your
independence. There’s only so much space in these
jeans. Justice. Cooks in the
kitchen. Oh yes, cowboy, we’re bucking tradition.
Local legends re-excavated, ain’t that archival
mercy! The public discourse, attention
needs so much tending.
Once we’ve pantomimed our own farcical power,
pray for purpose. Praise
quiet, country, women and
rhinestones. Reckoning both renaissance and requiem,
soil smoked with ambulant souls. Trapping
tyrants between snaps and tambourine twang,
using influence to fill
vacancies in those willful
Western minds,
xanthic with imperial rot. These voices
yank you back to yourselves. Joy, something
zealous, human.

Meredith MacLeod Davidson is a poet and writer from Virginia, currently based in Scotland, where she earned an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. Meredith's work is published or forthcoming in The London Magazine, Propel Magazine, Cream City Review, The Boiler, Gutter, and elsewhere. Connect with Meredith on Instagram: @mairmacleod

GABRIELLE WOOLLEY

Containers

I can’t decide
a medium
for my rage

not once in my life
have I made a scene

my career is
my civility

light the candles
burn the incense
run the bath

I’m going to live in this
red house forever

when a year unravels itself

I did not key the Prius
my body did not shake
still, I tried to sound so eloquent

I finally woke up
in the crowd, a sea of sheets
the dream about a spider web

I’ve never spoken as clearly
as when I didn’t
recognize myself

Gabrielle Woolley (she/her) is a poet and zine maker living in Philadelphia, PA. You can usually find her on her bike, at the library, in a cafe, or by the river.

COREY QURESHI

Bill is dead

Wow I love leaving work
Smattered in grease
and exhaustion
and back in 13h
ok but how bout
the fact that none of
today's issues were
mine for some reason
there is a weekend atmosphere
that makes people have
mental fucking breakdowns
i cant take to heart the
criticisms of a sex offender
in the back doing
all but his work
everyone's got opinions
i got the keys to the
store's entire basis
and if it weren't for
my life i'd have no
issue sabotaging the
whole shit!!!

Corey Qureshi is the author of 3 chapbooks of poetry. He runs BOXX Press. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and children, where he works as a baker. @q_boxo

ULYSES RAZO

Heart Cramp

i'm not crying, i just sprained my eye on you. it’s new years eve which means i want to have sex. i’m dumb & somewhat generous with my drugs, could die here listening to Twigs, Pathetic Lit open on my desk. boys hate everything so i'm a boy. thank you for not asking what i thought of your poem. it’s just that sometimes i get so tired i feel like shitty porn. and your pleasant tone made me want to block you. i want to bury what you gave. the cure for crying is more crying. i feel like crawling into a cave-themed bed. it’s a funny feeling not knowing what this feeling is. inside me a bit of god comes out your mouth. there’s a tower of air between us. out of kindness, i’m giving you a window. in florence, there were city lights in the clouds. someone recently said pisa was shitty and i wanted to punch them on behalf of you, even if you don’t disagree. no one talks about my ex’s neighboring city like that except for me. in january, when my ironing board started speaking, smoke came off the glass pyramid near where i live. there is another person in me. on the train i got high off the idea of coming back. i dream i’m in a club dancing with you. signs are telling me to drive clean. but i’m a dirty dirty boy. a man who was speaking of an artist lying down, waiting to be touched, was actually referring to a dog, which he later referred to as “a mistake.” i see hands and think of guns. put your hands away, a woman says. we’re almost there.

Ulyses Razo’s poems have been featured in Hobart, ShitWonder, SARKA, Amygdala Journal, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from Paul Smith’s College and was a Poet-in-Residence at Bethany Arts. His microchapbook, Murders & Other Poems (2024), was published by Ghost City Press. He lives in London.