Nila Narain

“my gut: a place i will always be learning to trust.”

Michael McGill

On the Embankment,

the silence between Tube trains;

a widow, waiting.

Justin Bryant

The truth is there is no more value in replacing an alternator than there is in lying in bed with your dogs on a day irrigated with rain.

Casey Dawson

A moment alone in a body.

Noreen Ocampo

the vents in my bedroom like to sing, too: a song

like computers deliberating something

impossible.

Kehinde Badiru

I want to remember the little

Black Boy Dream: black eyes,

curly hair, clear wishes, red lips, new shape.

I want to be proud of that legacy —

Nick Vidal

“In 2019, artist Maurizio Cattelan sold a banana, taped to a wall, for $120,000.

I don’t get why these things happen”.

Annecy Báez

Many of the items in the house were gifts from my late husband to his then best friend, who is now my fiancée. Throughout the years, our used furniture had migrated here, one piece at a time--mirrors, table, chairs, rugs--but who would have known that one day I would live here.

Kristle Navarro

She wanted to live on her own. This was a bit more isolation than she’s anticipated.

Olivia Braley

Three poems about exes, egg scrambles, and etymology.

Randy Workman

To be alone isn’t necessarily to be lonely.

A. G. Maxwell

“Your late twenties have been a slow education in the frailty of the body. Before, the only time you really focused on your vessel was in quick pleasure or acute pain.”

David Nemat-Nasser

I’d love a bowl of Grandma’s chicken paprikash
a plate of saffron rice

Kyle Tam

We’re good at celebrating what the liberation washed ashore with the Americans, and even better at overlooking what they left behind

Mitchell Nobis

I dream of my children sleeping through nights.

Roger Li

Warm water spills atop

steaming skin & down

my neck where nooses

slip unseen.

Adrian Ridley

Step outside, put on your headphones, find your escape.

Josh Castillo

“I always steered toward the heels. Clunky two-inch brown leather heels, hidden beneath my grandmother’s bed. Maybe they made me feel powerful. I was smaller than the average kid, and to feel tall was to feel formidable.”

Wumxnn

Lean on me, when you’re not strong.

Liyah Iman

"For us, living,
really living,
was never in the picture.”