DANIELLE CLOUGH

antisuppressant

we are readymade reticence
eating the same meal for eternity

eyes melting mirrors into spirulina
a wellness juice, outworn

i’m good at risking nothing
unmarred by wrenched thinspo

a lie for a pebble is still a lie,
the diagnosis: proximity.

you witness me tantrum like a toddler
we’re harsh in the wrong ways

i remind myself to love is to let go
a bee sting creation, an astigmatic bird

i learned to sew to carry more
my mom willed me not the bag

but pious heartburn, a rubber band
memory, a bass line ritual. we

whittle sea salt into clarinets—
the ocean between us

is an uncracked back, a gong
turned harp, an unhummed tune,

i’m learning to wade is
just to stand

Danielle Clough is a poet from Los Angeles. She works at the Los Angeles Review of Books.

SIMON JOHANNIN / TRANSLATED BY: MAUD BOUGEROL

(15)

Les grands moments sont rares
Dans les ruelles confuses
Mais certains
Sur le rebord du risque
Chuchotent aux crans qui s'ouvrent
Le long de la cambrure
Great moments are rare

In the chaotic alleyways
But some
At the edge of risk
Whisper to the notches opened
Along the arch of their back

(67)

L'agencement d'un tout
Autonome
Et sorti de
Nulle part
Il est là le divin
Au fond du geste

Things falling into place
On their own
Out of
Nowhere
Here comes the divine
At the heart of the gesture

Simon Johannin is from Marseille, France. He is the author of four novels and three poetry collections. 

Maud Bougerol is a translator, teacher and researcher from Paris. She lives and works in Marseille. 

VICTORIA BROOKS

unicorn

I’m a writer and I’m crushing on
a woman and a man
I’m a ______
Obsessed with their bestselling books
hooks, Love
Clues on the Gram like
The peak of another hand across a dinner table
Gender of partner unclear
Relationship status a moon
Let me be your unicorn
This awkward fuck fancies you

In the stowaway bar
I sidle up to one and watch the other
Boy I like you
He can’t hear me, I’m the monster
Girl I like you
She can’t hear me, I’m the mother and the

translucent floating boundary

Where the party’s at
No one speaks my language
No matter what I write, Mummy nor Daddy love me
I got both issues, like wings

Embryo

I’m a mother
Of four cell clusters
One became twins

The others were miscarriages
here are their names:
wife,
mistress
woman
(I have black and white photos)

My living children a blastocyst-split
Named bi and NB
or something
I wish I could tend to them lickety-split
Creating a womb

Instead
Inside, I’m rocking the babies
Cooking pie for my husband, not cruising
Wondering if there’s enough time
To touch their face and
Travel the desire lines

Vic/toria Brooks is a queer nonbinary writer living in London, and parent to an octopod (2-year-old identical twins). Their first queer literary sci-fi novel, Silicone God, was published by MOIST Books in the UK (December 2023) and House of Vlad Press in the US (February 2025). They have also published various essays, short fiction and prose poetry, always rooted in imaginings of trans-dimensional and futuristic sexuality. 

SASCHA COHEN

death drive pleasure principle

I have released my carnival prize fish into the ocean.
My super-ego skipped death and we skinny-dipped
into some groovy scenes: the claw machine
and the colosseum. The motel and the madhouse.

We took quaaludes at the bathhouse. I do
whatever the hell I want: Feed the wildlife.
Stare at the sun and tap on the glass. You can pry
this God molecule from my cold, dead brain.

Sometimes a corpse is just your mother.
The universe folds us all back together
after death, and every day I start over
on this same beach, counting the grains
of sand. One must imagine my goldfish happy.

Sascha Cohen is a writer from Los Angeles. Her poems have been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

MICHAEL JULIANI

Posing Nude

After the breakup, we both admit
we still crave

this kind of afternoon: no curtains,
dirty auburn light,

and her locked wrist
shading my angles

while the sun’s last rays
bend over me.

Michael Juliani is a poet, editor, and writer from Pasadena, California. His poems have appeared in outlets such as the Bennington Review, Washington Square Review, Sixth Finch, Epiphany, Bear Review, SARKA, and NECK. He lives in Los Angeles.

MAD SUNDQUIST

Club Kid

in the club i feel rage
a kid-girl sitting against a wall waiting to leave.
this is towards nothing and no one but anticipation.

anticipation like thirteen,
kicking rocks at the strip mall
waiting for some place or thing to be meant for you.

entitled but honest,
it takes no accountability;
a feeling as helpless
as soles on scuffed concrete.

in the club i feel guilt
a child unraveling
anger from grown-out hair,
revealing i am not doing what i came here to do,
which was to kiss lips and kill the unwanted parts of myself,
to glow against the cheekbones of my peers.

tonight i am caught in the wind
i am impossible, i am a weapon on the dance floor,
sharp-rubbing shoulders i hardly know, a risk
an open wound
a vibrant contagion of noise and senseless irritation.

no gloss nor grace,
im burning louder than the sounds meant to be heard,
the real ones beating over my head,
built and spun to transfigure those in their path,
to consume us with pure presence and light-dappled hands.

my teeth appear in flashes in the black box, illuminated fang-white
shamed frustration smile
misplaced contempt
i wonder where my arms ought to go next

fly outside, tie self to picnic bench
sit on claws
keep eyes down like knifepoint.

it is ugly to be seen like this:
scratched naked by sidewalk road rage
reeking of summer hubris,
a little desperate craving
for endless conversation,
no vessel for the words.

i reject the club
deny its release,
too much alive to contain in one room
too self-aware for strange communion;

no, tonight i alone must
kick the rocks
crank the song
skip the beat over the curb
swim the gutter fountain
cook the street greens from concrete
and pray a little.

crossing diagonals on red
i zig-zag myself home
the indoor fog transformed to moth-speckled streetlight

i remember slowly:
shame is like the blue stained glass on your windows;
fooling me in the early morning
but then so easily peeled off the pane.

Mad is a writer, archivist, and musician living in Berlin by way of Brooklyn. 

KORA DZBINSKI

EPISODIC, in four

ACT ONE
in which i flirt unabashedly with the
fourth-floor walk-up. in which i
have never been fucked in a library.
in which i read across skin anyway.
in which yesterday’s phone call was
last month. in which someone on
Zoom says “queer temporalities”
and it's all just candy floss. in which
self-care is a bath bomb. in which a
toaster is a bath bomb. in which
Everything is ok if you just take your
meds on time every day for the rest
of your life. in which you are the
rest, if you want it.

ACT TWO
if i keep writing about suicide
my advisor will
(redacted)

ACT THREE
& on the first day of my funeral,
you fill this dripping Mouth – body
of Christ, my body, rotting into flannel
sheets / turned in on itself at the first
sign of calories – such long deaths are
hungry work.

ACT FOUR
your fort and I swap
DNA //
the blanket builds a
Church //
i’ll cry in your basement
with
strangers //

Kora Dzbinski (he/they) is a Mad-queer poet and scholar based in Chicago, where they write about Madness, transness, disability, horror, film, and sex work. They hope you are drinking enough water. Find them on everything as @oatmilkmom.

PATRICIA KUSUMANINGTYAS

6 pm booty call

noah winces watching a cornea cut open on
how it’s made. he’s always been a tough guy,

telling me things like how you can get you
eyes fixed up without an appointment, nonchalantly,

but now his hands are covering his eyes and he’s
shrinking into the couch, watching me shrink too,

thanking ourselves for having twenty-twenty vision.
i pass by a church on the ride home. one, two, and

another. then a bar i know is going to close by the end of
the month. it was supposed to turn twenty-seven this year,

just like me. i go to record stores and flip through
the crates, always saying “that’s a good record,”

without buying anything. i go to bookstores and read a
paragraph off each book, always returning them after.

is this what it’s like, waiting around to die?
a woman walks by, stevie wonder through her speakers.

noah said portable speakers are the worst speakers
out there, right after he finished. don’t you wanna,

don’t you wanna, don’t you wanna fall in love with me.
before i let out a tear, she skips out to another song.

Patricia Kusumaningtyas is an Indonesian poet, tech worker, and film/music critic based in Brooklyn. Their poetry and prose have been published in Roi Fainéant Press, Major 7th Magazine, Dead End Zine, Poetry is a Team Sport, HaluHalo Journal, and Culinary Origami Journal. Her music, film, and art criticism have been featured in Our Home in the Dark, ACV CineVue, and Speed of Sound Magazine, and she organizes events with the Indonesian Film Forum New York. 

ZOFIA PROVIZER

day of the fever

it’s a fever day, there’s a pig named Emma
there’s a pig named Emma with a fever
with a fever, 17 babies
17 babies at once and a coyote on the loose
a coyote on the loose who must feast on the dogs and kill the pig named Emma
kill the pig named Emma without losing his grip and catching her fever
her fever leaves her alone in the big balmy barn
in the big balmy barn the pig named Emma is meant by God
to live
in the big balmy barn the pig named Emma is a star in the big dipper
a star in the big dipper small enough to hide from a coyote
a coyote who lives on the loose and must feast on the dogs and kill the pig named Emma
the pig named Emma is small, is only 330 pounds hurling through the sky
hurling through the sky with hands on her temples and they’re human
they’re human on her temples hurling through the sky
moving in slow circles we learn that
we learn that to keep
to keep that to learn

Zofia Provizer is a queer and transexual writer residing in Boston, MA. Their work appears in Stone of Maddness Press, Peach Mag, A Velvet Giant, elsewhere. They have a forthcoming publication in Gnashing Teeth Press’ 2025 anthology, “__figuration: an anthology of trans writers”. Their chapbook, “Lose Sight of Heaven” was published with Nixes Mate Review in 2019. They are a collaborator with T4T Reading Series and [Working Title] Worldwide Reading Series. Zofia writes from the gut, yearns for a good swim, and basks in desire.

LAGNAJITA MUKHOPADHYAY

semantics

he said it’s all just semantics anyway
there were always borders

i think about how he makes a living on word

clouds

almost like a swing
dancing in the corner

pulling up to it
adjusting
the moon

i think about how it felt to hold your hand but not love you
how you took your hand off my knee when this happened
but it was under the table anyways so no one saw
you put it there
like a secret

like a guilty pleasure

i am tired of arguing with people about colonialism
the way it was done, who it was done to, who did it,
who paid the price, i am tired, and there are problems:

how i never went looking for anything,
not love, not pain, not infamy,
and not the words to speak about it
how it makes a theft,
how it becomes who you are,
how the signs are always there,
and you spend

your whole life recovering

Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay is an Indian-born poet, musician, and anthropologist, and the author of the books this is our war (Penmanship Press, Brooklyn, 2016) and everything is always leaving (M.C. Sarkar & Sons, Kolkata, 2019), and poetry album "i don’t know anyone here" (2020). She was the first Nashville Youth Poet Laureate, finalist for the first National Youth Poet Laureate, and Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Her latest book Towards a Poetic Memory of Bengal Partition was out with Natyachinta in December 2023. She is the poet and bassist in the band JAWARI, whose debut album "ROAD RASA” has propelled them to the Paris Olympics and SXSW. With a Masters’ in Migration and Diaspora at SOAS and a Masters’ in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, find her work in Poetry Society of America, Tagvverk, and Anthropocene, among others.

JOLIAMOUR DUBOSE-MORRIS

s’mores

I can use the smoke of the Bronx to melt marshmallows. Sticky fingers of chocolate and dirt—ashes of graham cracker and gravel—Highbridge burns, and those left sit around in campfires.

The July backside of 1975—it's a stick up! Stick up! Afros of sorts, when the boys catch notice of my D trains. Barbershop packed, boombox basing, New York lives in a Donna Summer.

The back of my neck, a forest of loop-dee-loops, and little girls hula-hoop on the steps that aren’t broken.

Sidewalk-marching, panthers on a day off, swap out the leather for Levis, smizing in eyeshadow, ears singing in jewels pierced from Momma’s sewing needle and kitchen mandarin.

The river runs down, MC’s smashing the fire hydrants with hammers, and it all washes away. And they all wash away—

Shoelaces dangle, electric chords for where their footsteps used to be. Kangols by the sewer pitch, for where their heads used to be. We all saw it.

When the foot was on the back, when the metal was on the wrist, and a crowd of us watched, and Five-O was up to no good in that blue that’s almost Black, which should make us the same, but don’t.

When them street lights come on, quick legs that scatter, sky so blue that it’s almost Black, which should make us safe, but don’t.

Graffiti gangs don’t mind a little darkness—the moon a vanilla scoop.

Red and blue, matches my outfit. It’s a stick up, stick up! Make ‘em dance when that stick sing, and I saw it, spray cans clanky, badges shiny, fingers itchy off that trigger, pointed dagger, twist it

like a soda pop, and the bullet will bliss you! All of you! The boys like to share—I got one too! Right in between these D trains.

And there, did I feel the spark. The smoke that brewed. And there, did I catch it and eat it, dissolving the sting on my tongue, and I put my hands to the sky, my knees to the ground, and

sucked on the vanilla scoop, and I caught the brain freeze to go with it, and it tasted of all the death. Crunchy. I know I left crumbs.

JoliAmour DuBose-Morris is a writer from New York. She has worked with Document Journal, Cultured Magazine, Elephant Magazine, StyleCaster, and more. Most recently, she was a 2024 PEN American Emerging Voices Finalist, a 2025 Lewis Latimer Scholar, and a 2025 Brooklyn Poets Fellow.

ARCADIA MOLINAS

Things I Have Stolen

An avocado
A discounted chicken club sandwich
25 toilet rolls from work
50 cigarettes from 50 hotties at the club
Boxers from the shittiest ex I’ve ever had
The hairstyle of a cute girl I saw once at a cafe
3 tote bags from 3 different lovers
Ideas from books, films, songs and strangers
A little more life by dancing in the dark
Hope from mopes who only wanted me naked
Happiness from sunlight hitting my toes
A couple of bus fares here and there
Blades of grass from unsuspecting prairies
A friend’s ex-boyfriend two times too many
My time back from data and tech
And as much as I can get away with
stuff under my shirt fit in the fucking void.

Arcadia Molinas is a writer based in London. Her writing has appeared on Write or Die, Spectra Poets, Tetragrammaton, Cringe, minor lit[s], Worms, and elsewhere. She makes a mean negroni and loves to light up a stage.

VIVIEN ADAMIAN

Follicular

You text jane:
I’m feeling an implacable feeling
it’s like I’m feeling nothing
You gather the facts:
you woke up at 6am
which is 4am in LA,
where lesbians look at you
and smile instead of disappearing flightily
around corners
where the poet laureate of SF
with his little baby in his lap said,
Whatever’s left on the plate of imperialism
will for sure be devoured by this one
where you write things like,
I always mistook the stillness of cowboys
for gentleness
when it’s really just
thinly veiled violence

Somehow, at 3pm in Chicago
you’re still energetic, you think
I’ll go somewhere and write!
You text everyone
and how can no one reply when you are so abundant?
So healthy you are more than alive
how can no one respond when nothing hurts
when you need them
not pathetically but just to share
this miraculous absence of suffering?

On the way home you stop at the expensive pub
You sit at the bar
Your body in perfect equilibrium with the world
and write a poem about spring,
like some knockoff Frank O’Hara:

Dry dry dry
like the bush that burned
Now baby-like
green leaves
Who’s he fooling?
By the magnolias
budding
This pigeon thinks he’s a peacock
Spring is all pretending
Pretending

You track your cycle by counting
how many days since the full moon
You’re in the follicular phase
the AI overview tells you
this phase is linked with a boost
in mood, energy, and motivation
That’s gotta be it, you think
You text jane,
This has gotta be it
I’m follicular

At home you lay down because it feels
so fucking good and for the next four hours you try
not to call your suffering ex and say,
Want me to come over
and make you feel better?
Want me to? I feel so good I’ve got
plenty to share...
and you can’t even get off
because there is no fantasy
so what is
this feeling

And then
actually the light
is too bright and
when you close your eyes
blue and green
visions and when you open them
Joni Mitchell’s face
on the CD stand
How can I sleep now, you think
how can I sleep now
when I’m so awake?

Vivien Adamian is a writer, artist, and zinester from Glendale, CA. She is pursuing an MFA in Writing from the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. Her writing has appeared in the Qafiyah Review, and her publications have been acquired by the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection.

ANA DELGADO PALOMINO / TRANSLATED BY OLIVIA BRALEY

X

Oh ojalá ser
misericordiosamente estrangulada,

arrojada en ríos de leche,

ojalá ver

el nacimiento de un bosque

y cuando vuelva
escribir/hacer
corazón

X

Oh I’d like to be
strangled mercifully,

thrown in rivers of milk,

I’d like to see

the birth of a forest

and when I return
to write / to be
a heart

Ana Delgado Palomino (2001, Spain) graduated in Classical Dance and Fine Arts by University of Granada. Always carry one or two Mercadona n06 lipsticks in her bag. She has worked in galleries such as Ethall (Barcelona, Spain) and art fairs such as La Biennale di Venezia (Venice, Italy) or Lateral (Granada, Spain). She likes shabby sculpture, cobalt blue and eating with her hands in small bites. 

Olivia Braley is a DC-based writer, author and activist. She is the author of the chapbook SOFTENING (ELJ Editions) and co-founder of Stone of Madness Press. Read more of her work and reach out to her through her website, oliviabraleywrites.com, or on Instagram @o_t_b.

LIZZIE SCHEADER

The week where nothing happened

Google: At what week in pregnancy does morning sickness start? That night I threw up halal and half a modelo. Nah. Last time I had sex was like ???, there is no way in fuck I am experiencing the repercussions of human chorionic gonadotropin aka HCG aka morning sickness aka hell on earth (as per one lovely redditor put it). I allowed myself 30 seconds to cry. Bad word. Bad word. Bad word. The 2 vertical lines, practically mimicking the twin towers: was this my 9/11? For nearly 10 days thereafter, I didn’t leave my bed. The smell of coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, nearly all those I loved, triggered retching. My mom repeatedly told me, eat saltines. NO! Those taste like anorexia. And besides, I haven’t showered in days, I cannot subject my roommates to seeing and smelling me in this state while ravaging the kitchen. They don’t deserve that. I don't deserve that. Do you get up slow in the morning? I don’t remember when I got up last. It’s important that you see the sun. The sun doesn’t give a shit about me (victim complex). I’m reaping what I sowed. A man would come to my bedroom (he’s totally done with, btw), touch my back and tell me everythings fucked. Yeah. I’m aware. I’m knocked up, and too broke/hated/and tired to talk about it. And the regurgitated, mastibutory, philosophy-bro-speak couldn’t even impair me beyond the nausea. Every waking moment, I was debilitated by car sickness, that was more relentless than a black Marlboro headrush (omg). And he’s there, practically jerking off to me about Foucault, and my ambivalent attachment style. Where was my community of women from r/pregnant when I needed them most? I have never wished to kill a small good thing so badly. Christ, I talk to the ants when I have my coffee in the morning, and there was a guppy inside me, half of someone I loved. Upon my appointment, I took note of the 9 people who checked in after me, answering the question “how are you?” all the same. They said they were good, because any other answer would be ill mannered, no? And I knew they weren’t good. Some without insurance. Had their moms there, daggering eyes of disappointment, and premarital impurity. But we take off our big girl panties, and get the damn thing done! Sit my assless ass in a recliner, arranged in a Sofia-Coppola-kind-of-way. “You go girl! You’re part of the club now!”, says the Lena Dunham-loving, pink-pussy-hatted, white feminist biotch, holding a poster that says something explicit, glittered with the word “CUNT”, and suddenly you feel like a prude right-winger, because every bit of your being is holding back an eye roll, so dramatic, it’s century defining. Cool. Sure. I can get down with it, but ya’ll didn’t warn me it’d suck this much? You seemed to have left that part out.

Lizzie Scheader is a New York based multidisciplinary artist and writer.

NICOLETTE NODINE

with the fishes

miss you pink

Nicolette Nodine is an abolitionist, poet, collagist, and full time lover girl. They write about loving, revolting, and resting in LA. On her iPad or in the club, she's just looking for a good time. 

RYAN TAYLOR

yr light floods me till I’m a still lake singing yr reflection.

Will we ever be kids on the train again? This time is short, composed of bracketed, intimate infinities. I love you all. We may never play as we do now. We may lose our enemies and angels and live by other rules, in other worlds. It will be different.

You are married with children,
are living in Lima,
are buried in West Virginia,
are joining the USCG,
are getting your PhD,
are breaking my heart.

The tender invention of my life has so many moving parts, and it is yet too soon to say what it does. I live in hope we are Amateurs forever.

Ryan Taylor writes in Queens and sleeps in Yonkers, NY. Their work has appeared in Polyester Zine, Pure Nowhere, the Luna Collective, and Peregrine Mag, which they edit. Their website is https://hopechest.neocities.org/. They love you, and hope you will forgive them.

KD SIMS

KD Sims is a lesbian poet and smut writer from Illinois. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Dream Boy Book Club, Stone of Madness Press, Hooligan Magazine, Hot People Read Poetry, PITS MAG, and Cosmic Dog House Press, among others. She lives in the Hudson Valley.

BEE LB

BEE LB is the facsimile of a living poet; a porcelain pierrot with a painted face. they collect champagne bottles, portraits of strange women, and diagnoses. they've been published in PULP, Dirt Child, MOODY, and Landfill, among others. their portfolio can be found at twinbrights.carrd.co and they can be found at patreon.com/twinbrights

LILY HERMAN

Underwater

My gynecologist says There are
other fish in the sea, and also
Starting at 35, we do rectals,
and
I think, What the hell,
what’s one more
sensation
demanding surrender

And anyway
maybe if I lay very still
my grief won’t be able to find me
Maybe it’s a tracking animal
whose eyes live to follow
the line of my movement,
to find I’ve grown complacent
and stopped guarding
against it

The doctor tells me Take a deep breath
And
I say
Yes, OK, the sea

Lily Herman is a writer from Baltimore, Maryland. Her work has appeared in Bruiser, 86 Logic, Blue Fifth Review, and Across the Margin. Her poetry chapbook, Each Day There is a Little Love in a Book For You was published by Dryad Press. She has been supported by residencies at Yaddo, Wildacres, and Monson Arts.