Author: anmly_mpusod

When You Say “Protestors” instead of Protectors

I would call it a trick, if it wasn’t so terrifying, the way your mouth doesn’t move when you speak. Your smile, shiny as a church, but what kind of prayer could ever be trusted without evidence of a free tongue? On the rare occasion sound shakes loose, words, no matter how unmuzzled, words still go to die. In your mouth, even womb is wound. Sometimes I dream of tearing your throat wide open and finding there, where stories should be born, only bleeding bleedingbleeding. The wish to desecrate. We are, yet again, portrayed by you, the girl  the Native  the water the mountain who was “asking for it.” Your lips so Sunday still. Sometimes I almost believe you. So it’s best I keep hiding knives in my hair, the way my grandmother – not god – the way my grandmother intended.

 

Mercy

This  morning  I  kissed  a woman  with  a  brick  in her  clay hands. I am building a house, she said. Brick in her hands, tongues  in her mouth.  Somewhere a door  ajar.  We kissed  &  I went searching  for other bricks she brought this way, one by one in her clay hands. She smelled like a house, the one I saw built from scratch near the water tower in Waiʻehu. Did you find more bricks? I was young, a ten-gallon bucket clanging with nails. Who was I to say what was mine & not mine? Did you find the water tower? Over & over I searched. Bricks in hand. Ready to sleep in the roof of her mouth, ready to build a home and call her mine. Did you find the door you tore open and ran from mine the door you buried in bricks not mine one by one Waiʻehu torn one by one Waiʻehu built again. Memory made from scratch. Did you find me there? This morning I kissed each brick of this woman. Her name was mercy.

 

Noʻu Revilla is a queer Native Hawaiian poet, educator, and aloha ʻāina. Her poetry has been featured in Poetry and Literary Hub as well as the Honolulu Museum of Art. Her latest chapbook Permission to Make Digging Sounds was published in Effigies III in 2019, and she has performed throughout Hawaiʻi as well as Canada, Papua New Guinea, and the United Nations. In the summer 2019, she taught poetry at Puʻuhuluhulu University while standing to protect Maunakea with her lāhui.

 

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postmortem for chaos theory

here i am, thinking about the summer
              collapsed around you. the leonine 
days, the sullen nights.              my body  a
                             cascading series of monsoons.
i watch as you dismember me. my wrists wrung
from my hands and each rib carefully pendent
on the ceiling.   the wreck
             -age of light strewn around myself,
              my leftovered body. the heatwave 
              breaks unevenly 
this year. so it’s             summer, it’s
                           salvageable, and i am
thinking about quantum mechanics. the
uncertainty of it all, the truth that there is
a universe where
we learn to                      float. where the
                             horizon isn’t wide enough, and
we chew up the syllables like goldenrod.
              like
                                         desire.
              so now we’ve widowed the lip of the
change  and i am still searching
for you in the breath-smothered glass,
              in 
the digital glow of the beautiful night. 
                            i am a violet-shaped wound, but 
                            dimly. by the smallest margin.
and already the body grieves,
apocryphal.       the laws of physics  break
down
the universe into           body-sized  pieces—
the kind our hands can         
                                                         bear to hold.  

 

Eunice Kim is a Korean-American writer living in Seoul. Her work has been published in Polyphony, The Heritage Review, Vagabond City Lit, and more. She currently works as a staff reader for The Adroit Journal and a volunteer writer for Her Culture.

 

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I thought I was going to drown

One day I fell into a coffee cup
and I thought I was going to drown
and my first thought was
“They’ll think that I jumped.
They’ll think I gave up and gave in and gave out
and jumped into the first ocean I could find.”

Speaking of oceans, did you know
that sometimes, when a whale dies,
it creates something called a whale fall?
That’s when the whale’s body settles
deep enough on the ocean floor
that it feeds organisms there for decades.
It becomes an ecosystem all its own.
That’s what I hope happens to me when I die.

But this is not the ocean
and I am not a whale
I am the woman hanging
off the edge of a coffee cup
trying to summon not only
the upper-body strength
I need but also the will to live

Because they say if there’s a will there’s a way
They say you’ve got to know your why
They say “What do you want to do with your life?”
and you say “I wanna rock”
or at least you used to.
Now you say “I don’t know,
and every day I feel
like I have fewer and fewer options.”

sometimes I think we lay the worst traps for ourselves
sometimes I think my brain is broken
sometimes regular life seems so impossible
that I don’t know how anybody does it

And the only reason I ever
work my way out of the coffee cup,
out of the ocean, all of which, of course,
is just a stand-in for depression,
is because six years ago a human being
burst through the earth of my body
and no matter how broken my brain gets
it never convinces me that
he’s better off without a mother.

And when he’s old enough, I’ll tell him so,
how he was an ecosystem all his own,
my will and my way and my why.
But for now I will just keep showing up
even if I’m covered in coffee stains.

 

scrapbook

My grandmother is a bowl of unshelled pecans on the table.
My grandfather is a glass of milk with ice cubes in it.
My mother is a cloud of hairspray that stings if you breathe it in,
and my father is a hug goodbye.

My grandmother is young-Clint-Eastwood-Rawhide-reruns on TV.
My grandfather is overalls and the smell of insulation.
My mother is a cashier at Dollar General,
and my father is a visitor I barely know.

My grandmother is a pantry that always has bread.
My grandfather is reading the Bible at 4AM.
My mother is blues music on Sunday nights
and my father is a birthday card, it says “I’m sorry.”

My grandmother is the engine that keeps the family running.
My grandfather is the steering wheel.
My mother is driving without a seatbelt,
and my father is a story I tell myself.

 

KL Lyons is a poet from Tulsa, Oklahoma and enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Her poems have also appeared in Wards Lit Mag Issue 05: Native. You can find her online on Twitter at @dystopialloon.

 

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mītatrūsh

“indeed, you are of a tremendous nature” – al qur’an, 68:4

hungry pilgrims destructive yet parturient, slighting the circle in sacred geometry
lovefire on wobbly legs crawling away to hurt in the maw of plastic gods    
invocation for semi humans, homeless and hazmatic, near perfect in the mind
rhapsody of remedial work, softpeaks in the moulder, unopened prophetic medicine
you are your mother’s child, ransom for salvation, suffused in leaking light
reverent company, remolding undergrowth, the body as odyssey
smile today question tomorrow, what is left in the world, but fire and fissures
lift as you climb, claim your flowers while you’re still here, relapse into your gold neurons
a feast of mana in store, for not wanting anymore, swallow song of conscripted souls
the unction is the earth is the river is the pearl is the divine is the good in you
lay down your rose rot, teeth-aching atrophy, curve away from the traffic in talk
so the archangel of the veil, can admire the howling dance that grows of purpose in you

 

Irteqa Khan is a Muslim-Canadian historian and poet of Pakistani heritage who lives in the prairies. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears in Homology Lit, The Brown Orient, L’Éphémère Review, and Spring Magazine among others. She is currently working on poems inspired by the stories, sounds, scents, and sights of home for her first chapbook.

 

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Violent Reverse

Side ladder. I can tell you where to find it. For this you give can’t. You bottom seaweed attached by threats. Trickle lice. Sea microscopic bed. Step on barnacle bottom. Disturb it on your way over. The alive barely flaps: marlin or mackerel. A long-billed fish. Sometime before a rescue appears a boat. You don’t even know you’re in distress. By board a beak rises. The sun. A new turtle with write to nothing. Its secret. The problem. So you have this describe to want. You have the strength don’t you. The night at hotels from artificial light. Follow their lead. The off wears drive them mad. And the problem is join them will get you wetter. And the problem is your alongside. And the problem is the sea turtles are. Watch. Nothing can hold water. And the problem is you are calm and domestic. And in water. And the problem. Feels everything. Bay at the mouth in anchored boats. The top of the island. Itself releases river. Where you tell me where to land.

 

Points of Entry

Not a river into the ocean but
a river wrapping around                        always on the brink
forgetting through slots in the dam where I went clinging to loose wood on the first warm day

What I mean is in another language I am learning from you

You two months in detention two months inside and            yard time is flagged   so you stay                   walk the halls work the kitchen a little                 see I understand enough to tell you     I am trying

                                                                  in my bedroom on the other end of the phone
my passport in the drawer in the wallet       ICE listens I’m told they are listening
to us dream and this fucking system my dad swears from his not even flip phone
older       that if he were here
back in America he’d get a gun but he can’t
And that can’t is loaded

So he burns sage and waits for the warmest time of day to shower

and even though
he answers   he never tries

The phone rings and it’s 866 and I no longer need the detention call script
        the only objects are prayer candles and a wooden cross
decorated with Milagros

           In bed she asks                me to remember
                                                not hunger
                                         but backs

His mandolin
                        90% of Americans living in Mexico—
He fixes guitars for half price
and tells me not to worry but
he can’t remember why he left
                        or maybe I remember too well
      parts of me break at anytime

and I am     slowly in my bedroom

And it’s not lost on me
      as I step into a warm shower      close a door

There are things far worse than the things that have taken me years to remember
and even longer to speak of

I am forcing them out of you

in a crowded clinic in a discrete building by the bridge
calling the interrogation CFI prep

You whisper
I take notes and put them in a folder
check the boxes and have you sign a form in english that says you know I’m not    a lawyer

A deck of cards

Things you will have confiscated

Books purchased from amazon only
and sent to you directly
after you’ve filled out the proper paperwork spelled the title correctly
a torn piece of river
your arm committed to every number
a parole packet
an affidavit signed and notarized

all the letters returned to all the senders

      every hospital in LA

             my dad through the lens       a long hallway        in a past life

emptying     mom’s ashes from box   to paper bag on the bed in his motel room

the sea whipping
       my mom’s ashes
                                         past the break
                        crossing

If I could just pronounce how
If I could take passports                 
                                          any card in the deck

If I could tell you miedo creíble
dar apoyo without
               falling
       What I want to mean is

      the river that lights you
      is not     just another prayer
                     but the
                             door itself

Heather Simon is a California native residing in Brooklyn. She teaches writing and literature at Queens College and Queensborough Community College. Her writing and visual art often converge, and can be found in The Rumpus, Newtown Literary, Blunderbuss Magazine, Ink Brick, Pretty Owl Poetry, Nomadic Sojourns Journal and others. www.inkmonstersink.myportfolio.com

 

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Intervention with Debt in the Time of Climate Change

The lowest estimation by conflicting news sources suggests seventeen months. Anyone who believes this bullshit deserves to die says the egg profile picture. More specifically fuck the new Tesla cybertruck. My first failing grade was on a seventh grade geometry quiz. Right now my heart is beating sixty-four times per minute. Please refrain from smoking littering or playing loud music. There are people here. They are trying to sleep. They don’t care who you are but I do. I didn’t have an answer when you asked me where my name came from. It’s like how when I say sleep I mean escape but when you say people you mean people. I don’t think January will be a good month. Did you know the world ended in 2012? That’s why nothing since has felt real at all. I feel like I give off short person energy. I’d smack Joe Biden up the head on sight. Kanye West bought his own mountain. It’s okay to steal from CVS. We didn’t do anything to deserve this world but we did everything to get rid of it. I remember when you paid for my hemp milk vanilla latte and blueberry donut. You told me to watch my sugar intake. I spent an hour rubbing my thumb into your wrist. Is there any way this can happen again? No, this jacket isn’t real leather. My baby sister turns eleven tomorrow do you remember her name? I never put her in my poems because I know that everyone in my poems is going to die. Some people are way ahead of me. When Ricardo asked me to play soccer with the Dominicans in Queens I wanted to kiss him so badly. I hate every single piece of excess in my life. Calvin says Trader Joe’s organic coconut oil works surprisingly well as lube. Is colonizing Mars really the most important mission of our time? An earthquake might never bring you home. You’re in France, you’re in the mountains. Greenland is disappearing just for next century’s conspiracy theorists to claim it never existed. Maybe that’s why I pushed you away. I don’t believe in the refugee crisis. I’m such a peaceful citizen. Will you please come back and lay your head on the despair my shoulders held? I’ve been planning this for weeks. I’ve loved the way your purple socks looked when you wore them with your brown loafers. I still have bits of your eyelashes stuck between my teeth. Give me the rope, I need it, give it back to me, where are you going? I promise I’ll stop with the silly questions. I’ll be your pretty little doll for throwing. Help me shave my beard.

 

Intervention with Desire and Police State

Good morning. I’ve done my best to have a productive day so far. I’m calling because two nights ago you were in my dream and today I woke up having forgotten yesterday entirely. Did you hear about the riots in Ecuador? I’m about to spend three dollars on a very small coffee. I like doing my laundry early in the morning so I can spread out all my clothes without taking up anybody else’s space. There are some things that would make me happier but it’s so hard to get them done. This has been the worst month of my very short life. Each week feels stranger than the one before it. With enough weed I can go through a half-gallon of passionfruit juice a day. The only reason you remember my hands is because they get clammy when I’m anxious. I hate how things just keep on happening, what do you mean by that? Do you think of me in the shower when you use the eucalyptus exfoliant you recommended to me the last time we spoke?  I still want to meet you. I know it’d be better if we just blocked each other’s numbers, but have you ever thought about what would happen if we eloped to Mexico and just lived on a farm? In all my memories of the moment I slaughtered the chicken in my uncle’s backyard I can see the moon in its eyes but it was only two in the afternoon. Time’s made such a concept of me. I’m sorry I keep rambling. Believe me, all I want to do is listen to you breathe, I want to map the sound with the rising and falling of your chest, I can never let it get quiet enough. There’s a word for the moment in a tragedy when the protagonist realizes everything’s been going wrong. There’s a book I’m reading that I think you might like. I wish you were here so the man in the Burberry scarf would stop looking at me. I’m wearing the silver coat we picked out together, I sent you pictures, I had purple hair. Every morning I make an extra cup of coffee for the abuelita that sweeps the floor of the entryway of my apartment building and takes out the trash and she absolves me of my sins. It sounds less formal and more genuine in Spanish but we still don’t know each other’s names. I don’t miss Martín, I miss his asshole. I’ve never understood why I can’t just invent my own words. On October 30, Adrian Napier was held at gunpoint in a subway car after jumping a turnstile to avoid paying the $2.75 fare. Can you explain to me what the market wants? You’d look so sexy in a crown. There’s this restaurant that’s full of mirrors full of mirrors full of mirrors and in one corner they align so perfectly that the exit sign is reflected into infinite versions of itself; when you say loneliness, that’s what I imagine. I wish I was sober more. I wish the chocolate industry didn’t waste 70% of the cacao fruit. A male PhD student sitting next to me is telling his tinder date about how he wants to design a course merging philosophy and biology to better understand our place in the universe through science and she’s nodding and I’m counting the amount of times that she nods. I’m eating strawberries, banana, kiwi, figs. Is everything this hopeless and unfulfilling? If you’re not doing anything right now, I’m spending my weekend masquerading as any possible version of myself that could feel right beside you, you can dress me in your favorite face. Don’t grow old. Don’t move to Europe. Can’t you forget me here instead?

 

Bailey Cohen-Vera is the Assistant Editor for Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. A poet, essayist, and book reviewer, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as The Iowa Review, Southern Indiana Review, Waxwing, Grist, Poetry Northwest, The Spectacle, and Cherry Tree, among others. Bailey is an MFA candidate in Poetry at NYU, where he serves as a Wiley Birkhofer Fellow, writing obsessively about bananas. His website is baileycohenpoetry.weebly.com.

 

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aubade with alternate endings (on leaving somalia, while durdur band plays for the last time)

 

Asmaa Jama is a Danish born Somali poet and multidisciplinary artist. Their work has been published in print and online, in places like The Good Journal, Popshot Magazine, and Ambit. Most recently, they were a resident at IBT’s Creative Exchange Lab and a writer-in-residence at the Arnolfini. They are a co-founder of feminist art collective Dhaqan Collective.

 

 

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Strain

He shifted his body from the fragment of the world,
where all the atoms of your departure are sustained—
your grave, his agony, the polyethylene bag
brimming with breast milk.

He can’t break away from the things that remind him you are gone.
The napkin they used to wipe your face after you ate,
he tucked into his bag
after your funeral. He stretches, swallowing all the screams
in the earth, with limbs still devoted to memory.
The night is solid on his skin—his stomach
growls in a broken voice.

Trapped in a loop he can bear no more,
the brink, where the world becomes custodial—with barbwires
that rend its nooks into small rooms he cannot enter.

So long in the dark, pupils adjust to a new gloom,
and his hands become eyes—leading him
through the walls to a doorknob.

It’s been a month since you left.
He wishes he could step into your mother’s prayer
and swap it with the harvest of his silence.

 

Revival

The dancer walks between the dead and the living
while the courtyard stills in a seethe of bees, a chimera.

He’s dizzy from this funeral dance of revival.

Against a foul smell, he kneads his bones
back into childhood. Grandmother says children possess

eyes that see everything, even the empty spaces under the dome
of a haunted masjid. They reveal the deeper understanding of loneliness.

If he goes on and says something from the flawless abundance of God,
birds will come to the window wheedling grief out of his eyes.

 

Saddiq Dzukogi was born in Minna, Nigeria. He is the author of Your Crib, My Qibla (University of Nebraska Press, 2021) and the chapbook, Inside the Flower Room a selection of New Generation African Poets Chapbook series. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Kenyon Review, World Literature Today, Oxford Poetry, Oxford Review of Books, Southeast Review, and others. He is currently a PhD student in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he received the Vreeland Prize for Poetry.

 

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unhappy isn’t the word at all

 

but what do i know?

Noor Ibn Najam is a poet who teases, challenges, breaks, and creates language. She’s a Callaloo and Watering Hole fellow and a recent resident of the Vermont Studio Center. Her poems have been published and anthologized with the Academy of American Poets, the Rumpus, Bettering American Poetry, Best New Poets, and others. Noor’s chapbook, Praise to Lesser Gods of Love, was published by Glass poetry press and mulls over the ever-shifting role love in the human experience—and how best to worship such a multitudinous deity.

 

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