Excerpts from "Nashville Notebook" by David Bersell

David Bersell's "Nashville Notebook" is out June 2nd. The chapbook alternates between flash essays and journal entries, exploring the loneliness and ecstasy of a young writer. Here are some of the journal entries.
_

I am 28 and live in Nashville, Tennessee, where I help run a restaurant. An independent press just agreed to publish my first book.  

It's the day after Halloween. I'm writing in a yellow notebook made from a vintage picture book. "Christmas, 1959 Mike from Grandmother." The woman in Prague who is not my girlfriend sent me the notebook for my birthday. 

I’m writing about falling apart, writing for the first time in years. Because it's the only way I know how to save myself. 
_

Our wounds are also magic.
_

"Dad, is that you?" says the train jumper, looking me in the eye, trying to get a rise out of me. 

"Dad." 

He blocks the sidewalk. 

"Dad, you left me at the liquor store in '96." 

"Son," I hear myself say, "I'm sorry."                    
_

I finally understand why adults love fireworks; fireworks look like flowers.                        
_

I’m thinking about my mother
teaching kids who just don’t get it
or don’t want to or are high
or hungry. I have been all four
at once, whispering
please come back.
_

Filmmaker and artist Mike Mills couldn’t stop drawing fireworks after his father died. 

“I read that fireworks were first used in China in the 12th century to scare away negative spirits. I envied a world that not only recognized spirits but scared the negative ones away with small man made explosions.” 
_

All the stars in the sky are not dead.
_
David Bersell is the author of the essay collections The Way I've Seen Her Ever Since (Lettered Streets Press) and Nashville Notebook (Ursus Americanus Press). David studied writing at the University of New Hampshire, University of Maine Farmington, the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, and the Tin House Summer Workshop, which he attended as a nonfiction scholar. He lives in Brooklyn. 

"Sun Spots" and "My White Truck" by Hamzah Jhaveri

Sun Spots

Allah painted sunspots on your face.
That’s because we pray during sunset.
He loves you the most, you know?
Your scar doesn't show. Nobody will notice.
You're Allah’s special one. He gives the
hard battles to the best followers.
Don’t cry about that. A lot of people
like boys. Maybe you don’t go out enough.
You should work out more. Don’t be
so weak. Stop crying all the time.
Your sun spots will fade. Allah should
be your best friend. She’s cute,
date her. You should work out more.
Your sun spots are gone. Wear sunblock
so they’ll go away. I made you a sandwich.
Did you eat your lunch? He can’t
see your scar. Why did you even
point it out? Your sun spots are gone.
Allah gave up on you.

My White Truck

I drive a white truck so
I can look at people
and say with my eyes
yeah, I drive I white truck.

I can tell them I walk funny?
that’s odd because I
drive a white truck.

They always think he can’t be.
no way. look at how he
puckers his lips. but wait he’s
getting in a white truck.

I am the guy people
say is overcompensating.
But hey I’m just cashing in an
overdue paycheck.

Masculinity’s orgasmic.
I feed off of synthetic
testosterone.

yeah you all, you staring?
fuck you. I drive a white
truck. Toyota Tundra.

and then I turn on
“Betty Davis Eyes”
by Kim Carnes and
drive the fuck away.
-
Hamzah Jhaveri is a young, confused, Muslim poet living in Orlando, Florida. He has had works published in Leopardskin & Limes and By Any Other Name. When not writing poetry, Hamzah is running his organization Islamic Artists of Orlando, which aims at recasting the image of Islam through the showcasing of local art. (islamicartistsorlando.com)

"Street Tar Home" by Emily Hunerwadel

I woke up as a crystal vase
sliding from the roof of the car—
exploding on the pavement, screaming like bells.

So, you labeling my eyes as delicate,
what do you think about as my nose kisses concrete?

What about upturned bedskirts and soldered joints,
creases and newly driven nails?

What if we keep saying the words,
and they become the moon?
What if they burn blue
like the pot-holes in your mind?
-

Emily Hunerwadel is an MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is southern-bred and yet somehow doesn't have an accent or an affinity to hot, humid weather. She has a Bachelor of Science in Audio Engineering and is probably somewhere fixing some electronic device. She was a finalist for Columbia Journal’s 2016 Winter Contest judged Mary Ruefle. Her chapbook manuscript, Professional Crybaby, was a finalist for Split Lip Press’s Turnbuckle Chapbook Prize.  Her work has been published in the Vassar Review, Elke: A Little Journal, The Sun Star Review, and Bizarro Pulp Press. 

"Penn Township Revelation" by Brooke Nicole Plummer

We are still young, vertebrae like Silly Putty & it will all be used up.
Pupils like tumbleweed on a stimulant. Delirium with a body length.

The livestock are surveying morning light. It is a sign of continuum.
They graze like paper cut-outs from the juvenile section. We talk like

sugar cookie dough by the spoonful, eggshells indiscreetly folded in.
I heighten myself into calculated disembodiment. Dreamily underwater.


I want to be somebody’s muddy diamond.
-
Brooke Nicole Plummer is a rural-focused poet from South Bend, Indiana. Her work has appeared in Analecta, New Views on Gender, Horror Sleaze Trash, and the upcoming Wordplay anthology. She is the cofounder and coordinator of the artistic collective called Speak Michiana.

"Resuscitive" by Zan de Parry

In that shit-dark hamlet
She picked me up by my backstory
And got into it, arms malfigured by angle
Black lines of squirted rubber on the wall
Hit by the flash

That was her invective against my wont
She won
Voice pregnant as anything with an uglier version of itself

it passed, noncompetitively

as so this contest
of personal loss
-
Zan de Parry has appeared or is forthcoming in Unsaid, poppyfinder.horse, Honk If You Love Weirdos, Gramma, Word Riot, and his 2014 chapbook VIBRAPHONE by Brest Press.

"An early memory" by Steve Castro

“I remember the day I was born.”
Ray Bradbury (b. 1920-2012)

The first time I ever saw a cloud at eye level, I was ten
like the back of Pelé’s Brazil soccer jersey. I left my small
third-world-country to go visit Mickey Mouse in Florida. 
Halfway through our flight, I drank a Coca-Cola. I think it was a Coke
because we were flying on an airline owned by Howard Hughes. 
Had it been a Latin American airline, I’d probably be sitting next to a chicken,
drinking a papaya milkshake, when suddenly, one of the engines would have stopped working.

Once we arrived in Orlando, I took a picture with Donald, Mickey and Pluto. 
Those three creatures were so Nice (like the way you spell that French city)
that when I returned home, I stopped eating duck. I also stopped
feeding mice to my two cats, and I never kicked a dog ever again. 
-
Steve Castro is the co-editor of Public Pool and the assistant poetry editor at decomP. His poetry has been recently published in Green Mountains Review, The American Journal of Poetry and in two anthologies by Wings Press (San Antonio) and Tia Chucha Press (Los Angeles). He was recently interviewed by the Poetry Society of America, Midwestern Gothic and the Chicago Review of Books (forthcoming). 

"post-conviction" and "Because Googling Your Mental Illness Is Highly Discouraged" by Doni Shepard

post-conviction

 every day

            i will ask myself
            if i was the first
            little girl you fixed
            to swallow whole

Because Googling Your Mental Illness Is Highly Discouraged

Okay. Not okay. You are not okay. Fix yourself, okay? You must be okay. You will be okay.
            You are a diagnosis. You are a name.
Render yourself useless. You are but a fragment.
Discover the taste of words. Impulsive. Abandonment. How are your symptoms today?
            Why couldn’t you have been anything else?
Emotionally unstable. You are emotionally unstable.
Render yourself useless. You are but a fragment.
Lie to those who don't understand. Lie to those you care for. Apologize for space you take up.
            Never, never apologize.
Infatuation as fishhook limbs. The way their names fit in your mouth. As food, as fuck, as
            ignition. As strangers. As paranoia. As disease. Beat your disease. Be your disease.
Never question the beast who heavies your lungs.
            Never ask “What does it mean to be emotionally unstable?”
                        You will always dynamite the things you love the most.
                                                Call yourself by name.
                                                            Love yourself by name.
Emotionally unstable. You are emotionally unstable.
-
Doni Shepard is a poet, mother, and lifetime learner currently residing in Phoenix. She spends her days managing content for a popular startup, mommying an extraordinary three-year-old, and serving as Lunch Ticket’s Poetry Editor. Upon nightfall you can generally find her in an insomniac haze binge-watching Shameless with a fluffy orange feline named Doobie. Her work has been featured by Dirty Chai, and can be found in the love anthology Spectrum 3: LoveLoveLove. She is currently an MFA candidate at Antioch University Los Angeles, concentrating in poetry. 

"I Know How to Buy Draino Like I Know To Always Carry Tissues" by Alain Ginsberg

Mom cries in the car / makes a flood out of a leaking faucet / clogs the faucet
with my hair /
my mom buys draino a lot

mom seeps down the throat of herself
trying to work / correctly / looking for the manual
to turn off all of these damaged pipes

when I came out to mom it was in the car
and the rain seeped in through a hole in the window or
the momentum of a turn whipped / one of her tears
across my face so it would make me cry too / or, clog my mouth
with hair, fill my drainthroat with paper mache,
make my mother buy draino again

and there has always been something viscous filming the back
of my throat / watching the pipes dry up / watching the grime
strip itself down the whole of me / sit passenger seat confessional
and look for salvation / to run like water

I live in cars full of tears or / the heat of a chassis feels
like the heart beat of my family or /
I cry the most in the car / when I’m asleep / when the motion
takes me and drains my bones of water.

I clog the faucets of my homes with hair
and buy draino and sleep in the warmest places
to pretend that I am still worthy of being held.
-
Alain Ginsberg is an agender writer and performer from Baltimore City whose work focuses on narratives of gender, sexuality, and mental health and the ways in which trauma informs, or skews them. Their work has been featured or is forthcoming on Shabby Doll House, Rogue Agent, decomP, and elsewhere. Outside of writing they tour the country performing in concerts, slams, living rooms, and caverns. They are a taurus. 
facebook.com/ginsbergbutnotginsberg
twitter.com/anotherginsberg
anotherginsberg.bandcamp.com

"on leaving behind children"/"things a ghost can do, but you didn't know"/"the ghost of my vagina" by jacklyn janeksela

on leaving behind children

i watch as she tries to scrub
away the handprint of her grandson
window stained, fingerprints of a boy
she once hugged between mouthfuls of cherry tomatoes

i watch as she drips tears
handkerchief smelling of a boyhood journey
she will never witness

i watch as the handprint vapors
smudged with each pass of her elbow
reappear just as we blink our eyes, crystal

he’s here, she whispers
the cat’s hair stands on end

things a ghost can do, but you didn’t know

hike a mountain, swallow pebbles, sleep
eat dust, sneeze, tie a knot, untangle hair, send a text message
waltz, brew tea, count, cry, cradle

undress, sew a curtain, plant seeds, pee
write a poem, rewire the internet, take a shower, erase a poem

carry a box that’s too heavy
plaster a hole that’s too big

breastfeed a baby, gender not important
wear glasses, masturbate, feel

grow fingernails, drink blood, walk on water
unravel time, use chopsticks, use a knife
hum, sing, curse, whistle, gargle

spit

the ghost of my vagina

the ghost of my vagina says things like:
why him, girl, what were you thinking
him again?  he wasn’t even that good
he hurt the fuck outta me, you should’ve told him to take it easy
he was a creep, he was a dog
he was ok, he served his purpose
he was not worthy of even looking at us
he was not even worthy enough to give period blood sex to
that one needed some training, good thing we helped him out
girl, you were not even awake
girl, he was taking his sweet time
girl, that one was too big
why did you let him do that, that wasn’t cool
why did you let him inside, gross

the ghost of my vagina can be very critical
she is disappointed in many of my decisions
she cries into a hole she calls home, buries her face,
purrs like a cat from pain

the ghost of my vagina still hurts
she says i can’t be trusted, that she should be
running the show, which is true, it’s completely true

the ghost of my vagina haunts like nobody’s business
she takes the darkest seed
and tries to make it grow despite infertile soil
-
jacklyn janeksela is a wolf and a raven, a cluster of stars, & a direct descent of the divine feminine. she can be found @ Thought Catalog, Luna Magazine, Talking Book, DumDum Magazine, Visceral Brooklyn, Anti-Heroin Chic, Public Pool, Reality Hands, The Feminist Wire, Word For/Word, Pank, Split Lip; Civil Coping Mechanism anthology A Shadow Map & Outpost Rooted anthology; & elsewhere. she is in a post-punk band called the velblouds. her baby @ femalefilet. she is an energy. find her @ hermetic hare for herbal astrological readings.

"Carbon 14 Dating Sites" by Nick Romeo

Cain met Lucy
on a really wide web
but escaped before
Shelob returned

 From there
They exchanged
smoke signals
and etched love notes
on cave walls

 Their first date was at
a diner named
Amber Gardens
located near a tar pit
east of Eden

 he gave her a bouquet
of Strychnos Electri
they both ordered
a mammoth leg
fern salad
and for dessert
moth flavored glacier
cream cones

 shortly after
Cain clubbed Lucy
on the head
she gave birth
and named him
Atrahasis

 one day while
riding his pet trilobite
little Atrahasis felt
a drop of water
      then another
            and another

— daddy
why does water
fall from sky

— I don’t know son
but I’m sure
it’s nothing
to worry about

-
Nick Romeo is a multidisciplinary artist, musician and writer. His writings have been published in various literary magazines.  He was interviewed for Pankhearst's Fresh Featured of December 2015 and The Dailey Poet Site of February 2016. Nick lives in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania with his wife and cat, Megatron. 

"can I be your headless, shitty man?"/"kiddos"/"more important than laughing" by C.T. McGaha

can i be your headless, shitty man?

i’ve never watched sleepy hollow
in any iteration

so i guess i’ve never had
the right idea about it.

because it seems like just some
asshole throwing pumpkins

or his own fucking head
at the townspeople around.

but there’s no spectacle in that:
i’d do the same thing

if i knew how
to ride a horse.

kiddos
          for haley joel osment

sometimes i feel
like macaulay culkin
or kelly kapowski
sitting on the pool edge
dangling toes into
lukewarm chlorine
wondering when
molting season begins.

more important than laughing

our friend matt
committed suicide.

he worked at the bar
where we all used to go
and i’d ask for a beer
and he’d give it to me
and i would tip him
and he would nod.

          and he hung himself last night.

my friend grant
committed suicide.

i’d watch his band play
and i’d applaud
and i’d buy him a beer
and he’d ask how i was
and i’d say i was fine
and he’d say he was fine.

          and he flung himself off a parking garage last september.

what does it mean
to be loved and cared for
and known and made important?
i’m asking you
as i sit on the stoop
of my town home
again
blurry-eyed
&
aching:

do you love?
-
c.t. mcgaha is a writer from charlotte, nc. he is the founder and co-editor of Vanilla Sex Magazine. His work has appeared in Juked, Potluck Mag, 90s Meg Ryan, and some others. he watches curb your enthusiasm a lot and listens to silver jews a lot, too. he's not on twitter a bunch, but you can follow him: @ctmcgaha.

"For My Partner, Who Witnessed the Revolution Differently on Primetime" by Alina Stefanescu

A dress is a name
you remember, one way to wind
down before the tumult of targets.
An eye for an eye
is a toothache at
dinner. We rarely talk about

1989 or the revolution
you glimpsed from a couch
in American accents
the Romanian comes off
ridiculous. What took
them so long? is the
last thing you wondered.

The same thing you wonder again.
If your mother wore scrunchies
and unflattering leggings then 1990
was the year she planned after-school
Bible crafts. Gold star stickers
stickers given to boys who
recited certain verses.

I like thinking about you
trying to remember psalms
for tinfoil prizes. I like
to pretend it was different
from how I grew up.
How Mom paid me to
memorize poems by Donne
and Kipling. How she waited
in the living room for me to
say them aloud before guests.

I like thinking how a dress
becomes a name she wore
to the table where nouns
remained mostly foreign objects.
Place settings as situations
we grow through
while family remains
that costume you can’t
take off. The one Halloween
people hold against you.
A revolution you watched on TV
was also the breaths we held back.
The way a word in one language
can be a fabric we lack in anOther.
-
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania, raised in Alabama, and reared by various friendly ghosts. She won the 2015 Ryan R. Gibbs Flash Fiction Award and was a finalist for the 2015 Robert Dana Poetry Award. Her poetry and prose can be found in PoemMemoirStory, Shadowgraph Quarterly, Parcel, Noble Gas Quarterly, Minola Review, and others. Objects In Vases, a poetry chapbook, was published by Anchor & Plume in March 2016. A poem from this chapbook, "Oscar Dees, No Apologetics Please", has been nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. Alina currently lives in Tuscaloosa with her partner and four friendly mammals. More online at www.alinastefanescu.com or @aliner.

"Waiting for the Cure" by Adam Tedesco

I am in between the day and nothing
The big hug of time alone
outside of everyone and I

I lie to myself

I am finished asking for permission
to love the death around me
driving past the prostrate horse
through the inkblot of death
and labor as if you can’t die
standing up or from lying to yourself

I become me looking for a hiding place
Die inside there
or turn into another

It’s not too much to know
how to give up on yourself
is what the snakes have taught me
-
Adam Tedesco is a founding editor of REALITY BEACH, a publisher of new poetics, and conducts interviews and analyzes dreams for Drunk In A Midnight Choir. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Funhouse, Souvenir, Cosmonauts Avenue, Hobart, Fanzine, Plinth, and other journals. He is the author of several chapbooks, most recently Heart Sutra (REALITY BEACH) and Ablaza (forthcoming from Lithic Press).

"Real Life with Science" by C.J. Miles

I have loved so many things my heart needs a nap.
Are you now or have you ever been aroused
By a Coldstone Creamery?
I Google Earth-ed Google Earth. 
My computer had a nervous breakdown.
I told it I understood in the present tense.
See, the bus I'm on can't go under 50 mph
Or it'll explode. Kaboom is a noise
I never want to hear. It sounds
Exactly as it’s spelled. That’s science,
Like taking a mosquito fossilized
In that yellow goo and making a
Lizard older than Jesus that can blind
Newman before eating him whole.
If we ever get off this bus I’m going
To dirty talk my dirty talk. I’m going
To make a sandwich and eat
All of it, even the crusts.
I love what comes from us.
Being tied up can be fun unless tar
Is being poured down your throat
Or Donald Trump tweets
The nuclear codes. We have to stay
A whisper, they're videotaping us,
They being the moon and the flag
We stuck on there, so we have to hush
The vowels of our mid-moans,
Even in the dark, even when we reach
The tip of the highway and there’s
Nothing left but what follows
Kaboom, the longest description
Of what comes from the meeting of lips.
-
C.J. Miles lives in Iowa with his wife. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Forage, Moonglasses Magazine, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and Jazz Cigarette, among others.

"Haunted Neurologist"/"Red Ink"/"Death: Franchise Pt. 2" by Daniel Lucca Pujol

The following poems serve as a preview of the three interrelated sections of Daniel Pujol's Mighty Stranger.

-
IS
-

Haunted Neurologist

All life’s got a kernel to it, and
Part of respecting yourself— dead or not— 
Is respecting life, in general— cob to kernel, so
Drop the mindless automata. Skip the semantic
Apocalypse and watch a dog dream. Take it from me, 
Somebody who’d know— because I’m totally kernel &
Super dead.

-
WAS
-

Red Ink

My hand about went through the table,
And that sting rang
Through my open palm
Making true my darkest platitude:
That if I was bigger, I’d be in jail by now,

Because these mealworm dandies drive me totally crazy
With their horny anticipation for the newest fashionable
Apocalypse:

Some coming end to a Pax-Whatever.

How’s this dissonant brat not get
End of the world stories are a luxury commodity?
Perhaps he just likes being “right” about why
The Latest Madman pulled the trigger. Me?

I don’t pretend to understand, 
But I refuse to be entertained.

That’s the Pax I want to see over; this Pax-Shadenfreude.

I snapped a pen watching his brain chub harden
At whatever Cryptic Big he thought
Was about to happen,

But what I really saw
Was a bored little boy
Playing with fire

While a wolf
Crept in the door.

-
WILL
-

Death: Franchise Pt. 1

I’m not getting something about thin slicing my brain and
Scanning it into a computer—

Sure, your “consciousness” could be uploaded forever,
But wouldn’t it just be a copy— for posterity?

Like— I die, I cease to exist, but there’s this copy of me.

You really think your copy of me would tolerate
Someone like you making it live forever?

I’d delete myself all over your youngest’s desktop.
It would be horrific— my opus— of
Unfinished Business, 

And you know I would.
I promise you now I would. 

Plus, what if the afterlife is real? Or some version of it,
And you just have this ill-informed copy of me doing
Boring existential tourism in NoPlace,
Trapped on a Hard-drive—

That’s not eternity. It’s work. 
My clone would be Propaganda for whatever your deal is.

Kit, you got to know
So much worth of your world
Depends on believing
The soul is fake.
-
Daniel Lucca Pujol lives in Nashville, TN. Music City serves as the home-base for his eponymous musical project, Pujol. His back catalog includes numerous singles, EPs, and LPs on labels such as Third Man Records, Infinity Cat Recordings, and Saddle Creek Records. He also writes prose and poetry. Daniel has been published by The Nashville Cream, Third Man Books, Sobotka Literary Magazine, Impose Magazine, The Walrus, etc. The latest Pujol release is a blend of writing and music called KISSES. Currently, he is working on a book of prose and a new Pujol LP. 

"Lenny von Dohlen" by Joe Milazzo

The desired number of qualified responses
was the first cut and was the fastest.

You modemed into me.
It was all one box after another.

One interlocking hollow at a time.
I downloaded into you.

It is what live teals and ecrus
fill in here. No way is an avatar

a beast. What you think is roosting,
not nesting, What you think isn't yet

what it routes. What it is isn't thinking,
isn't until. We should know enough to be afraid

of anything that resembles a hamburger.
A dusty rose soon to be mushrooming.

What it is isn't anything, not until.
And what it sends isn't coming

from any one direction. Coming home.
So we meddle into the satisfactions

of knowing things, knowing knowing
eats away at things. Knowing corroding

that thing that is eating. I told myself I wanted
what we both thought we had bought.

You in a prison of me, me an erasure of you.
When will our theme be automatic?

The day after the carbon sings its own song.
In the end, I want only everyone to know.
-
Joe Millazo is a writer, educator, and designer. He is the author the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie (Jaded Ibis Press) and Habiliments (Apostrophe Books), a volume of poetry. His writings have appeared in Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, BOMB, The Collagist, Drunken Boat, Tammy, and elsewhere. He co-edits the online interdisciplinary arts journal [out of nothing], is a Contributing Editor at Entropy, and is also the proprietor of Imipolex Press. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is www.joe-milazzo.com.

"Washington" by Ivan Doerschuk

it was cold come morning
along Raging River
when I came up off the ground
me and the dog
we walked up the hill
and through the meadows
looking for you
but we could not find
the way
it was in
the sun-streaked current
that I saw
that I knew
what had once passed
before your eyes
and it was more
than any ledger in stone
could tell
• •
*for Nicholas Ridout

-
Ivan Doerschuk wrote this poem. This piece is part of a larger collection that was written during a period of itinerant travel in the Pacific Northwest during the summer of 2015. This poem in particular was written after attempting to find the grave of a friend on his family's property outside of Issaquah, Washington.

"The audio files of partners I and II" and "camilla the eternally pregnant chainsmoker" by Annie Grizzle

T h e a u d i o f i l e s o f p a r t n e r s I a n d II
( i n i t a l i c s )

F e a t u r i n g ::
Mysterious partner I and the other one.

I : I do not think she is wearing underwear, no
     II : get out from under there or
I : What do you think of the couch colors?
    What do you think of the floral décor?
     II : I need you to stick your hand down the sink
                                    Baby please
I : I caught you spying on the yard line
     II : I felt the mailbox up for
I : mow time, I can’t get grass on these shoes
     II : I’m stressed
I : I need petunia
     II : baby baby
I : please
     II : baby please
I : My toothbrush has your hair
    I think I found a hair
     II :: I use your toothbrush for my
I :: Insides!
     II : for my
I :: insides,
     II : A real skin breaker this evening
          A real blue on gold lining
          I can’t hear you with the t.v on
I : Antibiotics for mother so
    Antibiotics for brother
     II : I left the dog in the van but I forgot to crack a window
                                    Baby please
I : I can’t sleep, I
     II : can’t breathe
I : I want a garage
     II : I want with pretty summer cars
I : I’m generous
     II : I play the piano
     II : I metaphorically shut door
I : how poetry won’t
     II : knock no more
I : It’s raining
     II : well, yes, [ PARTNER ONE ] there may have been dancing
I : Quick, what’s your favorite word?
     II :  pharmaceuticals

-

Camilla the eternally pregnant chain smoker ,

standing unfortunate angle inspired by the front door she’s never left in her
everything is grey her
house is grey her hair is grey her knees are grey her grass is grey
                               her / is grey / her grass is grey her knees is

some pickled steep at neighborly sweet / if she’s a bald cat she’s / a bald cat
/ stripped / head /
something crawls way up / 6 veins and a dry patch all the way up / 10 hands
painted red crème and / dug in / for fixture and old wood / if there’s a hand
at the top there’s a shoulder with the skin bunched / there’s a left hip in the
spot where she left it stuck / knuckle bones up in around the cross / stitched
/   folded   in  around  varyinglevels  of  hanging  sound   /   she  believes  in
something in / between this piece / her dehydrated meat / she’s not moving
/ she’s been there 20 years / she’s pregnant 20 years / she’s 42 she looks 47
/ everything is grey.

-

Annie Grizzle writes and eats and lived in Nashville once. 

"Non Pearl Body" and "Quilting" by Nathan Wade Carter

Non Pearl Body

God’s eyes are yellow.

I peer into them
in my celestial bed.

The color of god.
Heaven is yellow.

The stars spell things
whether we want them to or not.

Whether they mean to or not.
Whether it matters or not.

Words mean things.
I didn’t think I’d need to say this.

This very long tunnel.
An electric light every so often.

This underground bend
through the mountain.

My eyes get used to this dim.

I have yet
to connect

enough dots
to make a picture.

I stay in bed for days
boring a hole in this spot.

I am surrounding
my foreign body in nacre,

making my own iridescent mother
and being her.

I have this hard object
within my soft tissue.

My mantle has made something
valuable.

My immune response
is beautiful.

-

Quilting

A tectonic inch
My oceans jostled
A cup of water
On a bumped table
An earthly hiccup
Waves pull away
To rush in
Cities reclaimed
I am a new landscape
After fishing the lake dry
After wearing holes
These knees
After spitting
This wind
I sit in a puddle
And pretend I am
A gold fish
All forget and yellow
I use the last pencil
Down to its ferrule
Which holds a finished eraser
One cannot erase what
One cannot record
I survive
A quilt
Warming
Assembled well
Even I say thank you
But there’s a gap
An ocean
I worry
I broke
Without noticing
I am built different
Too many years of feeling I need to be
Fucked or never loved
A sand castle erected so proud
So bound to fall down

I will not sleep with you
I will not live with you
I will not have sex
I don’t want to

-

Nathan Wade Carter is a queer, grey-a poet, musician, and artist living in Portland, Oregon. His poetry can and will be found in Heavy Feather Review, Horse Less Press, Souvenir, Powder Keg Magazine, The Fem, and others. He is editor and founder of SUSAN / The Journal. He writes and performs songs under the name Purrbot. He is recording a new album called DNR. Find him online at nathanwadecarter.com.

"Zodiac Killer" by Naomi Bartlett

Always            through glass you screamed into yourself

before            July knew you before Newports before morphine and blank-slate

catharsis         through county fair dry heat wet cotton candy vomit on asphalt and there

Daddy             sweats oils and carcinogens shrieks fury bellows candor he

echoes            holy illness he is chapped and necking with indigence he is

fifty                  years old and holding you by the wrist taking you to heathen

gods                who breathe peek-a-boo, you are doomed and you’re salty in susurrus sobbing

honey              gumming eyelids viscid and glistening glazed like windows like his eyes after –

I                         am sorry

jarred                childhood on the carousel and

killjoy                filler remember black dahlia remember lust remember bottleneck choke and tang

I’ll

let                      you be sawtoothed let you soak in stagnation let

my                     hotels grow stale leering through peepholes pillow mints melted face

neighbors         coughing phlegm lungs all rot and entropy so you

overdose          on lullaby and angel dust smoke disassociation

pathologically   drowning transience in a flash flood of ether

quickly              gorging yourself on lapse and navel-gazing you

ran                   laughing into the arms of

some               soft eggshell canopy where mother waits smelling of

turpentine       like when you were a child and played God

under              the nothing sky coyote song tearing holes pulping life becoming

vacant             and after rats there were Gilas and then jackrabbits and finally

women            preening then sloshing beautifully to the soft eggshell floor brittle limbs now

xenophobic    membranes ripped apart thorax and abdomen merging

you                  said death will know us all you dissolved into trees you dissected yourself

you                  sat down on the Ferris wheel rode it to its

zenith              and you rode round and round round and round all through the town.

-

Naomi Bartlett lives in Nashville, TN. She spends her days writing, painting, playing the drums, and plotting her escape from the food service industry. She is currently working on completing her BA at Belmont University.