I Hate My Face

I hate my face,
and that crooked
look it displays
every morning
from the vanity
mirror,
as I pop pimples
of oily puss, to
be cleansed in
bubbling hydrogen
peroxide,
blemishing the
compressed
molecules of
sandy oases,
reflecting
me.

by Chris Butler

Fuck That Bitch

Fuck that bitch,
For all the dirt you’ve done,
For all the stories you’ve spun,
For all the days I heard I’m you’re one,
And only,
Here’s to you finding yourself lonely,
Can you believe she was fucking with one of my homey’s?
And that’s just one situation I found out about,
So imagine how many others she could be boning,
Fuck that bitch,
How could you do the things you did?
Knowing what you knew,
Then when I confront you,
Act like what I’m saying is new,
Did I ever hear the truth?
Of course not,
Smiling on the outside,
While on the low,
Plotting your next move,
Fuck that bitch,
I should have known,
When you said,
Your first name started with an S,
Last with a D,
What did your middle name start with again?
Oh yeah T,
That’s what they called you on the block “STD”
When I asked you about it,
All you told me was
“With me they just play,
Around”,
In reality around is what you get,
Is there any guy out there you’ve spoken to for more than 5 minutes,
That you haven’t fucked with?
Fuck that bitch,
For everybody who got caught in her trap,
Pray to God you used protection,
I heard this chick got the clap,
Now’s when a question you may ask,
Didn’t you mess with her to?
For you it’s probably a rap,
No, No, No,
With her I stayed strapped,
With 3 or 4 at a time,
Now lying I didn’t know was she,
But I knew she couldn’t only be mine,
Fuck that bitch,
Telling me she didn’t cheat,
She had her period how could she?
At this time,
I knew it was a lie,
Because out of her mouth she didn’t bleed,
Not to mention the fact I saw the scrapes on her knees,
She would brain cats out,
1,
2,
3,
At a time,
Pregnant seven times,
By 5 different guys,
Telling everyone,
And anyone around,
Like what she’s done was fine,
And to think,
At one time I would have actually claimed her as mine,
Thank God that change derives from time,
Because now I’m on some shit like,
Fuck that bitch.

by Nicholas Uzzilia

Cascading Out

A step into light, then back to dark
Nothing much left to kindle a spark
Floating on hope; torn like the tide
Bracing myself for the beating of time

Another day; another weight
Another question of my fate
More uncertainty and more of the same
With nothing of reason and nothing to blame…

Suffocating nothingness, a barrage of emotions
Cascades of everything get out of proportion
Too much to accept; and more comes to pass
All that is hope slips from my grasp

Another day that I die some more
Left more broken then before
More uncertainty and more of the same
With nothing of reason and nothing to blame…

My soul is trapped in a crumbling shell
I must have been born to be put in this cell
The past has been teacher; the rest is unknown
Softness and light become nothing but stone

Another day that I die some more
Left more broken then before
Another day; another weight
Another question of my fate
More uncertainty and more of the same
With nothing of reason and nothing to blame
The future I wanted seems laughable now
The terror inside drowns everything out…

by Sandra Hedin

Pirates in Town

“Yo, what’s up dude,” she said as the drunken sailor snapped her head back from behind. She turned and caught his face as it pulled into her sphere, kissing it just slightly off center. Two smoke filled mouths.

She pulled a silk cord that was knotted into a tiny noose from her outside pocket. A fat drunk with his pants around his knees and a limp dick was prodding her from behind.

She turned, threw back her head, opened the little noose and draped it around her lips. Pointing down her throat she shouted at him, “Put it here, put it right in here.”

Taking the noose from around her lips, she handed it to me. Whoever has that at the end of the night gets gang banged by the fleet.” she explained.

Looking together through the window into the poolroom, we could see the men all lined up.

“The one in the buffalo plaid gives good head.” she told me. “The old guy is inventive.”

I asked about the one in the green shirt. “Naw,” she said. “Just regular stuff.”

She turned and looked me over. “Gimmie back the noose.” she said. “I want it.”

by Robin Hiersche

The Sickness

Loving me the way you hate me
Infuriating yet alluring to
the sensation your penis awakes inside of me
My love & my hate are equal
Anger me and your bed is inviting to me
Love me and I recall all the whores you've fucked
pretended to love.
You penetrated her the night you welcomed the Brontosaurus

by Suzy Hernandez

ART: Binding Love

by Amy Rowland

Plane

Plane
Wings warming
Announcements at arms length
Present company unwanted
Drinks disguise the rest
Turbulence, children screaming
Drifting half way to sleep
All withered and worn
Awoke to pilots speech
Stating not to worry
Damn I was asleep
Next door neighbor
Hysterical now, peed on himself
Oh not me this time
Someone else save the day
This is vacation. Not
Another wet blanketed
Withered day unfolded
Bathrooms always delayed
Bouquet of urine
And life’s aftermaths
Proudly displayed
Rain candy from the
Ceiling for these screaming children
Jet lag, turbulence
Teeth clawing upon the ceiling
Food awakes stale air
Upon my tray they lay
Micro waved mistakes
Of leftover beware
Sixty four dollars
On little nippy bottles
To quiet the children
And the neighbors urine
Finally quiet him self
But stewardess are warning
Teaching unboarding
Children all calm now
Sleeping to late for me
To mind. Replace your tray
Upright and buckles in place
Blanketing Brooklyn
Our tires displayed
All of the boroughs
Left in our wake
JFK no traffic break

by Dawn Christopher

got laid off on Monday

catch the standupsit
down train while you bustle
up against/your headphones breathing
nonsense, secret nonsense and you
let it/how can contact lose
its meaning after two joints
and an hour/palindromes of
people we've touched but never met/and i
want to know what matters/will i
find the sun if i stretch
far enough, or are we ghosts holding
picket signs at some protest for
death/today i soak up all
the rain and shake my beggar's cup
for years until i
overflow with ashes of the past/what can
i do but wonder why we waste
our lives on trains/i sleep-walk
into passersby and yes, we've met before.

by Sarah Ruth Farnsworth

Seasons of lows

What is my conception?
Grasping for an explanation
Conflicting forms of structure
Bound but do not puncture
Can you whisper it to me?
A word, a gesture, your hostilities
Highly polished internal follies
Bubble, overflow, becoming sorries
Rain washes away the woes
Baptizing, cleansing a season of lows
Has the world turned deaf?
Blindsided, ran over, left for dead
My galaxy lies far from here
Where feelings are open, released, trusted
But until my path comes to a close
I will wonder, in astonishment, and become unfroze

by Dawn Christopher

the plague

we found madness quickly
requiring no more than a rifle
through the papers on the stairs
overturning the carpet
digging with forks into the wood
it became so easy
the stairs giving way
opened like a birthday cake
and inside, tucked
were a thousand locusts
and a thousand frogs
wearing themselves down with waiting for us
impatient that it took us so long to dig through
so long to think of what could be there
beneath the stairs
and they said to us
now think of what could be in your hands
do you think you've really got bones there?

by Jennifer Zaslow

Bodily Function

Crusted eyelids
Squeezing out some screaming kids
The drip of the clap
A hard, but victorious, crap
A pins and needles hand
Rough skin like paper with sand
Squeezing out a zit
Finding a lump on your right tit
The aching need to piss
Lips so chapped that no one will kiss
Grunge between the toes
The grunting made in sexual throes
A furrowing of the brow
Needing to sneeze, right here, right now
The appendix ready to burst
A hemorrhoid at its very worst
A tear duct acting up
Aching balls you gingerly cup
A painful kidney stone
An infected wound you call your own
A sharp pain in your head
Hair keeps growing although you’re dead
Acid reflux in your throat
A viscous slime that your lungs coat
A thought that drives you insane
The piercing of a needle in your vein
A break or a contusion
Symptoms leading to mass confusion
Life’s blessing, yet bodies curse
Through health, or death, it could be worse

by Bill Johnston

HEART SHAPED EDIBLE PANTIES

In the sexxx shoppe, even the air is tinsly,
hot around the racks of spandex and plastic.
Two grunge girls with tie-dyed hair dance,
shove dirty dice and a single
red condom into their lover’s fawn palm.
He counters with fistfuls of emotion
lotion pillow packs, showers them golden
with pleasure chest condom coins.
Their broomstick skirts swirl around him
shrieking like the drunken streets of Marseilles.

Fat chest churling tsunami waves,
a redhead giggles in giant gulps
as she ripples through the aisles,
smoothes her eyes across nubby toys.
She is sugar cookie dough
scraped from the bowl with fingers,
determined not to go home alone
any more Saturday nights;
she oozes her breasts onto glass,
a display seen from all sides.

A buck toothed brunette prods her mate
with Max Arouse and a jock
pops his friend with a Christmas g-string.
They’ve never been dirty before and wonder why.

Dipping her head into notes of jazz
hung heavy on the line,
the sales girl is truly a honey.
Seeing her composure, each of us
is electric with hope, craves static.

A forty-something man grabs a stick
with a penis molded from hand-tinted
chocolate for his wife’s birthday,
maybe thinks of her soft butterscotch voice
as he waits to pay. For her alone,
his arms are full of batteries and desire.

by Ayara Stein