1. evocation
​- by andrew feaster

​honest
the day couldn't have been 
better
if i'd have picked the damn day

there are maladies
that live inside me
parades of perdition
on well worn routes

there is staving 'round each bend
firelocked ghouls
and my grandmother's laugh
hard echoes 
each

rising sun
quiet city
lake
cathedral against the sky

i mean
i perused the catalogue 
and 
no way                     

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3. One day
- rupika kumar

One day you will stop air kissing the synthetic proximity of my plastic cheeks,

to pinch me where it really hurts till that stubborn pain is released.

One day you will stop distracting yourself with trinkets of frivolous recreation,

to focus on being miserable with  earnest boredom and longing.

One day you will leave aside your online ego and digital hesitation,

to reach my door step and blatantly admit  that you missed me.

---

5. ​Starving
- Ritika Deb

​Fear sits like a fracture in my blood vessels,
Leaking a heartbeat all over my bones. 
I stain this season cherry
Not even the rain can wipe away the emptiness I have painted.

I’ve swallowed enough triggers that every time lightning
Shakes the house in April
I am a firecracker of bullet holes.


Maybe I spent so much time swimming in my own head
I should have learned by now how to drown out the voices when they come.

Lately every song is a cold November haunt,
It brings me back to when I needed to swallow pills
So I could stop wanting to go still
Then I needed more pills, different pills,
To make me want to stop swallowing so many pills in general.

I am guilty of stuffing my sadness into my stomach so often, 
That only hurt satisfies my hunger now.

2. Searching
- noah schnaubelt

​There are feathers on the inside of your skin.
When you walk I can hear the wind like brush reeds, 
miles stretching out behind you of so much sky soaking in.
You have learned 937 new shapes from the clouds so far, 
you have learned the names of three mountains and their favorite types of snow,
you have from so high in the heavens, learned that God lives down on the ground,
down there in the details in the checkerboard farms in those goosebumps hills 
in those tiny cartoon creatures all making their way somewhere 
in search of love 
you have been flying upside down in a blue corner 
shaking hands with storms 
getting bit by lightning fighting to feel something much clearer than all this goddamn rain. 
In search of love you have learned so much about others 
​but still can't sit still for long enough to feel your own heart beating 
down there in the basement of your chest
you have given rather than gathered so much of your soul 
have you ever just sat by your own side in the candlelight and told yourself 
"I love you." 
You will. 
There are feathers fighting to shake themselves free of your bones
there is God fighting to finally be known 
in every stone you turn over
there is love, 937 beautiful shapes of it to play with 
and counting.

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4. ​untold
-  Raquel Burgess

I dreamt a dream of you last night
The second time this week
I saw your face then hid my own
(Like it should matter if I’m asleep)

You left your socks, you pulled them off
I found them on the floor
I wondered, should I share the things 
I’ve never said before? 

I took a pen and on one sock
My feelings for you I wrote
Secrets kept even from myself
All jotted down in a note

I went to leave the sock of yours
Beside the other on the floor
But in my pocket instead it went
With the words you never saw

A dream is just a dream, you say 
But even in my sleep
So delicate I’ve held my love for you
Too precious for you to keep

I’m sorry to leave you just one sock
But this one’s now mine to hold
Awake, I smiled to a thought that you
Might wake with one foot cold.
 

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