[After my husband died, I did not] by Tim Neil

After my husband died, I did not
eat anything for two days.

Hunger felt familiar after years
of marriage to an echo.

On the third day, I just wanted
to make a simple meal.

I had no pasta, no fine bread,
just American cheese, a garlic clove,

and one fucking egg. He had left it
for me, along with his yolk-crusted

pan soaking in the sink. The last argument.
In his dictionary, underneath the word

“consideration,” he saw one pale egg
nestled neatly in the cardboard carton,

like a piece of fallen moon in a desert crater.
I pocketed the egg with care, and left

our cramped cottage.
I drove past the grocery store and football fields,

until I reached his new bed of silence.
If he were alive under the dirt,

his snores would wake the neighbors.
The crows in the distance made jokes

about me. They thought I was another clinging
widow. I cracked the shell on his tombstone,

watched the yellow dot the sod.

Tim Neil is a recent graduate of Towson University, where he received a BFA in Acting. He lives in Baltimore, MD.

Zion in El Salvador by Emely Rodriguez

Abuelita wraps me up in tamalitos, so warm,
But she cools me down with Fresa Tropical, ah
Canciones de mariachi cry in the background, and we
Dance like we’re wearing clothes made of cucarachas
Executing imprecise movements like forced twitches
Fixating, fixating, fixating, on las guitarras
Gently strummed, unlike the singers’ vocal chords
Harsh, hoarse, heartfelt vibrations that tingle my eardrum
I’ve never seen tears fall in tune to a beat like this before
Just watch my mother’s head sway back and forth
Knowingly imitating the tapping of the performers’ feet
Like her body embodies the songs of melancholic mariachi
Musical notes invading her bloodstream, her lagrimas shine
Nosotros – felices en nuestras vidas sencillas
Oblivious to our nearing flight departure
Persistently ignoring the dates on the calendar
Questioning what life could have felt like before this
Repressing the thoughts of once existing outside of this
Sin mi país bellísimo, sin mi país, sin mi
This is my people’s holy land, but it doesn’t feel mine
Unfathomable experience of being both free and shackled
Vulnerable with no country, vulnerable within it
Withholding parts of my soul, trapped in two places
Xenophobes in two nations targeting parts of me, I’m just
Yearning for my country to be mine.

Emely Rodriguez is a Latina writer from the D.C. / M.D. area. She is in her first year of the Creative Writing and Publishing Arts MFA program at the University of Baltimore, focusing on poetry. Her work has been published in 45th Parallel, The Voices Project, and Welter Magazine.

“Aria” by Sam Regal

Sometimes I’m shopping online, which is something I love to do, shop online, as every store is a new puzzle to solve, like, which clothes would I buy if I shopped here, and sometimes I end up buying the clothes, so I guess you could say it’s very meta and works on a few levels, and I stumble across something that I didn’t know I needed, like, say, a black bardot crop top, and it’s like suddenly I’m meeting the lord Jesus Christ or found the path to Enlightenment because I feel, out of nowhere, absolutely convinced that this is the one clothing item I have always been missing, like since infancy or conception, and that having this thing, wearing it but really just the owning it, the possessing it, will finally Change My Life in the ways I’ve been waiting for it to change, and it’s like I enter a fugue, I short circuit, I hit “purchase” and there I am, sort of shocked, addled, kind of post-coital, like exhausted but satisfied but not totally satisfied, and if I’ve ordered, say, a pair of bright pink palazzo pants that I know will need tailoring and I know I will never tend to, I feel itchy, and blue, and a little dumb, maybe, or sexless and vast like the last woman on Earth, and I start wondering after creepy stuff, like regarding my personality and whether I am worthy of love despite all the raisins in my bed, and I open another website and hope I don’t get struck by a thunderbolt of object fancy but sometimes I do, sometimes it happens, I hit “purchase” and the cycle repeats itself, and has been, really, repeating itself for some years, you should see my dresser, the drawers don’t close, they’re all overstuffed with shit, with pink and sateen fabrics that I don’t wear or know what to do with, that I drape around my hips like a hand, like a gift, and I know, at least at home in the mirror, alone among my things, objects too precious for this city with its leers and grime and violence and dripping virulent ugly, that I am beautiful, a Chaos void spotlit in pink, singing my body’s sweeping arias.

Sam Regal is a playwright, poet, performer, and recent transplant from Brooklyn to Athens, Georgia. Her translation of Yao Feng’s One Love Only Until Death was published in 2017 by Vagabond Press, and her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from SumThe Wild WorldNoD MagazineLucent Dreaming, and elsewhere. A former resident at TENT within the Yiddish Book Center, Sam was awarded the Colie Hoffman Prize in Poetry in 2017. She earned her M.F.A. from Hunter College and now studies within the Creative Writing Ph.D. Program at the University of Georgia.

“buying cocaine for **** *******” by Scott Laudati

i was just about to quit for good.

it was another day carrying bags

up and down stairs

while guests stood

in front of the elevators

and complained that they

were taking too long.

guests who had just gotten done

bitching about the lobby,

that the air conditioning

“was too cold,”

that new york had

“too many rats.”

 

usually i skipped the elevators

and hoofed it up the stairs

with their luggage strapped

to each shoulder.

it gave me five minutes without them.

and if they’d already pissed me off

i might accidentally

drop their bags a few times.

 

i wouldn’t even wait for them

at their rooms.

it was the same story every day.

they had no cash

or they only had euros

or they would pretend

to forget my tip altogether.

but that night i didn’t

punish the bags,

i just left them on the floor

and decided

“i’d rather be homeless.”

 

there were always windows

you could open

and step out onto fire escapes

for a quick leap,

or empty rooms

with fresh sheets and

high rafters.

but that night was the first time

i realized you could just walk out.

it wasn’t against the law yet.

 

i thought about it on the way

down the stairs,

and i probably would’ve done it

but then i saw her in the lobby –

a famous actress i’d had a crush on

since the days

we bought tickets for

singing animal movies

and then slipped into

the r-rated theater

when no one was looking.

 

i grabbed her bags but i didn’t

take the stairs,

i stood right next to her

the whole way.

“how’s your day going?”

she asked.

“terrible,” i said. “i was just about to quit

and then you walked in.”

she smiled.

i had said the right thing.

i couldn’t believe it.

i looked back at my coworkers.

they couldn’t believe it.

 

when we got to her room

i asked her if she’d ever been

to new york before.

of course she’d been to new york.

hell, she was the girl i thought of

when i thought of new york.

but she laughed.

everything that came out

of my mouth was stupid,

but it was coming out right.

 

“what else do you do?” she asked.

i told her i was a writer.

“what are you working on?”

“i just had a book published,” i said. “would

you read it?”

“a real book?” she asked. “sure.”

 

i kept about 30 copies of my book

in a locker

downstairs for just this reason.

i went to get one

and there was some crisis

in the lobby.

my manager asked me for help

but i shook my head.

there was more at stake

than keeping my job.

 

when i handed my book to her i said,

“they’re poems, but they don’t, like, rhyme.”

she gave me a $10 tip

(the most i’d ever been paid for my writing)

and i left,

wondering about this world i had entered,

always surrounded by

fame and money

and none of it ever crossing over.

 

we never had a lunch break

at that hotel,

you just left

whenever you wanted

and when you got bored

you went back.

this was down on ludlow street

so i walked to the cake shop

and ordered a budweiser.

it was happy hour and the bartender

slid two in front of me.

 

i was pretty drunk after

an hour of that.

 

my phone was buzzing the entire time

but i ignored it.

when i got back the girl

at the front desk jumped up.

“where have you been?”

“working.” i frowned.

she called down!” the girl said. “she wants you

up in her room.”

 

i rode the elevator looking at myself

in the reflection

of the brass doors.

this was my moment.

she’s read my book, i thought.

she’s going to take me away from

all of this.

 

her door was open when i got there.

a guy was sitting on the floor

strumming a guitar.

he wasn’t good.

she introduced us and i could tell

by his indifference he was some

la kid,

born rich,

and all he had to do

was be at that right club

on the right night

and now she was his.

 

“you’re a great writer,” she said. “that’s why

i need your help.”

i was a bellman,

i would get fired

if i didn’t do what she wanted,

and usually, this meant

i would get arrested

if i got caught.

 

“i need to finish a script,”

she said. “can you get me a bag?”

i swore i’d never do it again,

but what the hell?

 

“how much

do you want?” i asked.

the guy with the guitar was

finally interested.

“get two,” he said.

 

she handed me $300.

 

it was a new hotel and

i’d never bought coke

in that neighborhood before.

janis was my favorite cocktail waitress

and she was running

the lobby bar by herself.

but janis was a soldier.

i told her what i needed

and she left her customers and

took me to another bar.

“i know a guy

with the best coke,” she said.

 

i looked at her nose.

i watched her inhale a cigarette.

janis had a beauty that ran so deep

all her hard work

couldn’t betray it.

 

she took me to max fish and

her guy charged $100 a gram.

that was a crazy price

and the bag looked really light

but janis had done me a solid

so i gave her $50

as a thank you.

 

when i got back into the lobby

ben stopped me.

“we’ve got to try it out,”

he said. “you can’t give

her a bag of shitty blow.”

we went up to the manager’s office

and did a bump.

then another.

“never forget,” ben said, “they’re paying us

to snort this right now.”

 

i went up to her room and

she opened the door, drunk.

“do you have a dog?” she asked.

i knew she was one of the

adopt or die types

so i said “yeah” but

i didn’t elaborate.

she told me a whole story

about white people

and how they’re the first

ones to get rid of their dogs

when times get tough.

“i hate everyone,” i said. “people

don’t deserve dogs.”

she liked that.

she took the coke and kissed me

on the cheek.

 

the next day she told me

she was getting an apartment

around the corner.

it sounded like an invitation.

“i’m leaving new york,” i said. “why do you

only get the girl

after you buy the plane ticket?”

the la guy parked a convertible

against the curb.

“that’s too bad,” she said. “it

could’ve been fun.”

then she walked past me

and threw her suitcase

into the backseat.

she blew me a kiss as she sat

in the passenger side

and put her feet up on the dashboard.

“it could’ve been fun,” she yelled.

 

the staff looked at me,

waiting for an explanation,

so i gave it to them.

“all the poems in the world won’t buy you

a convertible,” i said. “i don’t know

how many times

i have to learn that lesson

before i stop

trying.”

 

 

Scott Laudati lives in NYC with boxer, Satine. His writing has appeared in The Stockholm Review, The Columbia Journal, and many others. Visit him on Twitter or Instagram @Scott Laudati

“In Real Life” by Clare Needham

I wanted to meet
his other victims.
 
I thought this was a simple
wish for catharsis.
 
By discussing our mutual hurt
we could ground ourselves in a
 
shared reality. Through our conversation
something might solidify.
 
As a solid, it could be located and
placed elsewhere.
 
I didn’t think it through.
 
I’d had the experience of telling
a friend. Someone who’d been
 
through similar shit, also lived
to tell the tale. We had a feeling
 
about each other, before either
of us said a thing. It would happen
 
this way, again and again, with
other people I would come to know.
 
But the first time I told her, I felt
sucked out, 2-D, hysterically on
 
the verge of hyperventilating,
hallucinating, as we stood outside
 
the bar. I was back to feeling
unreal in my own body.
 
I don’t discount this telling’s necessity.
 
It was a quest to know, thus
doomed to come at a cost.
 
The box with Pandora’s warning.
I kept paying for more. 
 
I wanted to meet someone who
had also seen his face. Heard him
 
speak. Could recite back the twisted
things he’d said and done — I had
 
no doubt he was a repeat offender,
and relied on rehearsed technique.
 
I found one victim I could talk to —
not part of the family tree.
 
A single woman, young, like me.
 
She took on a life in my mind.
I would imagine meeting her
 
in a café. Small talk, small
flurry of female compliments,
 
then down to business. I would
lean forward, and with trembling
 
righteousness, speak the words:
He raped me.
 
She would pause — then shift
in her chair as she steadied
 
her attack. She’d smirk,
get angry, then laugh in
 
my face. He raped me, too…
And I liked it…
 
Get over it, she added, her
face turning to stone.
 
It wasn’t such a big deal.
 
It was similar to what
happened when I had to
 
imagine for therapeutic
purposes my present-day
 
self going back in time to
comfort and advise the
 
teenage self. The younger
self would always win, would
 
praise him, and together they
would laugh as he threw me
 
down the stairs, against the
wall. My teenage self was
 
full of mirth. Cruel and bubbly
when she said
take it.
 
This violence I imagined
came from within
 
came from the him in me
and also came from me.
 
In Real Life — I never met her.
Chatted on the Internet
 
in a twenty-minute burst
that scared us both
 
that we would come to regret.
Scared of him, scared of each
 
other, scared of repercussions
for sort of speaking aloud.
 
It was clear we lived under
the same
                         gag order.
 
“I just want to stay completely
out of this, out of his life.”
 
“I had the most bizarre dreams
last night. Yes, seems it’s best
 
to let sleeping dogs lie.”
 
“Agreed!”
 
“Stay safe and warm.”
 
“You, too.”
 
*
 
Sure — go ahead and ask.
But not every question
has an answer you will like.
 
If you know too much,
you will lose your mind.

Clare Needham is the author of the novella Bad Books, published by Ploughshares Solos in 2015. Her work has appeared in New York TyrantCatapult, Bodega Magazine, Fiction Attic Press, and Armchair/Shotgun. She has been a resident at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

“Still” by Clare Needham


I no longer have the dream
where I am forced

to commit murder, slice a dog
in half, reassure its trembling

fur, its anxious eyes that I 
will do it clean, by running a 

sharp knife fast along its length.
Though each time I trembled

with the dog, said do not be
afraid

                      for us both.

Instead I now find
the dog in two pieces

split in half but still
alive, and it is my task

to glue her back. I 
take my time, I do it

almost perfect. The dog
is healed, is whole, yet

I haven’t aligned her
right, one back leg

is too high; she limps
slightly, moves

— haltingly —

away.

Clare Needham is the author of the novella Bad Books, published by Ploughshares Solos in 2015. Her work has appeared in New York TyrantCatapult, Bodega Magazine, Fiction Attic Press, and Armchair/Shotgun. She has been a resident at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

“Internet Dating, Day 16” by Josh Lefkowitz

When I read about the one girl who studies orangutans

suddenly my passion for apes knows no cage-like containment.

Another young woman travels widely in the summer

and there I am zip-lining alongside her above Cozumel’s white sands.

When they hate black licorice, I swear to ne’er eat it again.

They all like Mad Men– seriously, they all like Mad Men

and so I don my best clenched Draper jaw, click and upload accordingly.

It’s all a perfectly amiable way in which to pass the day,

sifting through a sea of smiling beauties, sailing witty inquiry boats.

But if I’m being honest, I miss you-

-r better moments, your silent laugh, body shaking in soundless guffaws,

or those nights you spelled letter-by-letter words on my chalkboard back.

And your hand in mine, which deserves its own line.

Strange, to sit here with infinity at my fingertips, wondering

how I got it so wrong – that what I thought a spark was actually a wildfire.

Josh Lefkowitz received an Avery Hopwood Award for Poetry at the University of Michigan. His poems have been published in Washington Square Review, Contrary, Electric Literature, Court Green, Shooter Literary Magazine (UK) and Southword Journal (Ireland), among many other places.

“anemophobia [deaf havana]” by Rebecca Oet

 

Sometimes my brother decides not to breathe. I yelled at him last Saturday over bread and he

dropped a piece of slightly roasted fish in my cup of water. I can hear the storm outside.

 

In summer lonely and buzzing I braid yellow shoelaces like friendship bracelets around my

ankles. Feet swelled up like water balloons, rubber acrid when the wind blows.

 

The air in my bathroom is thick with grated skin, muddy in strips, scattered by huffs of breath

from my nostrils. I look up and see the sky, can hear bells when the wind blows.

 

I am clutched in a storm at the art museum in Cleveland, wrapped in Roman tapestries, aloft

and unafraid. I can float forever, spin in bare space when the wind blows.

 

I hold my breath when I run, scuttling, chest stiff. I can’t let go of this sick white heaving breath

like salt on roads in the not-winter not-spring slush, diffused when the wind blows.

 

I was 12 and scared of becoming wind. I could see the trees bending and trembling and I would

bend and tremble. I don’t need to see air-like-river, I can hear the storm outside.

 

Rebecca Oet (Solon, Ohio) is the winner of a silver medal in the National Scholastic Writing Awards, the River of Words Youth Poetry Grand Prize, the VOYA Magazine’s Teen Poetry Contest, and the Young Poets Network Short Poems challenge. Her work appears in Constellations, Abstract Magazine, Dunes Review, Columbia College Literary Review, Qwerty Magazine, Silk Road, The McNeese Review, Healing Muse, Tears in the Fence, Forge, and many others.