September New Moon Special
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Autumn Nights
Bethany Rider |
Rolling out of summer
Like rolling out of bed So easy Yet so uncomfortable Waving away the warm breezes to watch the chill sweep in Goodbyes to late evenings Hello to early nights It's not the same after summer The whole world seems to know it Knows how the wind blows and chills to the bone |
August New Moon Special
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Black & White
Darian Miller |
Is it ever so easy?
So clear? So natural? So black and white? To me, it's always been grey. A mix of right and wrong, Assurances and uncertainties. But nothing truly clear. Nothing black and white. Nothing obvious. Am I murder for trying to save my family? A thief for taking back what is mine? A monster for continuing to walk by? Nothing is black and white. Nothing is so clear. Maybe I should I have stop. Maybe I would be dead too. Maybe I should have screamed for someone stronger. But I called the police. Maybe I should I have stop. But nothing is black and white. |
July New Moon Special
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deep purple breaths
C.W. Bryan |
Yesterday I unscrewed the top of the
homemade huckleberry jam you gave me before you left for Lisbon. I took deep purple breaths to fill my light pink lungs. It was such a necessary experience; I tense with shame at the possibility that the vision of you in my mind’s eye atrophies each day, the Atlantic between us casts foggy shades on my eyes and the crystal clear memory muddles like a lake after heavy rain The anxiety of asking a question when you have no idea what the answer will be, but have every notion of what you wish it to be: it’s a 60 pound backpack 4 hours into an uphill hike, so I resign my curiosity and just tap the Portuguese postcard nailed to the wall beneath the light switch every time I leave the house and hope that’s enough. |
July Full Moon Special
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Vices
Hannah Elliott |
I bite my lips when I’m nervous or when I’m thinking.
Especially when I’m trying not to think about you, and how with your lips pressed against mine, you would mumble, “your lips are so soft,” a snug smile tugging at the corners of my mouth that was fighting for dominance with yours. My lips are chapped from me trying to forget the way you would kiss my hand in the car without taking your eyes off the road - it was second nature at that point, just like driving was. The red stain isn’t from the lipstick shade you decided was your favorite. Instead, a bloody lip gloss covers my mouth and it aches and throbs as I remember the last time you kissed me when it was out of love rather than lust. In the moment it was just you and I, and I was almost convinced that we would make it despite the frequent snide comments and sub-tweeting our relationship had become. You kissed me with desperation between your lips, but when you sent me home crying you proved to me otherwise that you didn’t need me like I thought I needed you. Now I’m alone, with cracks in my lips as my finger hovers over the search bar of Instagram. My heats sinks into my chest seeing you with just another version of me and hot tears form without warning. Maybe the anger will replace the sadness and I won’t reminisce on a time that was unhealthy looking back, but my judgement is clouded by nostalgia and a longing to be yours- be someone’s- and feel loved like you made me feel just one more time. |
June New Moon Special
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Running
Adele Dummermuth |
Choice: to run away
Effect: ends up 8 miles from home family and friends walking, driving, searching family crying Choice: walks into a hotel 6 hours later turns himself in Reason: he wants to go home Thought: he must be a good runner Effect: runs cross country the next year Choice: doesn’t try Cause: he doesn’t like the pain Effect: family is frustrated Reminder: the night he ran away Fear: they’re losing him they’ve lost him Choice: to continue to run Reason: Effect: painful track meets family confusion over his choices |
June Full Moon Special
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Like a Wrong Meal
Victoria James |
Good ole’ country boy, Ethan.
Wearing camo 24/7, planning to take me hunting someday. Drawing attention to every hand hold, every kiss. Do you feel that? Drawing my focus on him rubbing my arm, as if I couldn’t feel his hand on my skin. Ethan tried. But, he’s not what I ordered. Sweaty hands Corbin. Small sweaty hands grasped tightly to my larger hand as if my taller figure would float away as soon as I got outside. Not even dating, yet all day, making plans for the next. What started with hello, how are you, became his potential marriage. Corbin tried too hard. I didn’t order that. Professional manipulator, Steven. A long three years playing pretend as if make believe was your profession. Better luck winning Where’s Waldo than nailing you down to one person. My best friend, turned your sex buddy, turned ex-best friend. 3am text breakup disintegrates wasted years, an involuntary, welcomed freedom. Steven, no way, that’s what I ordered. |
May New Moon Special
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Krill Phenomenology
Terry Trowbridge |
Unremarkable redirected light:
commonplace prisms such as the feathery organs on the bodies of krill, legions of chromatic peasants refracting flares dappled through whitecaps and mirrored by plankton, bright enough to outshine bioluminescent languages in the epipelagic daylight; at least until the horizon scatters dusk’s acute angle. Unremarkable light: that light which is seen, but seen by the creatures who redefine sentience. Cognizant? Yes, but perhaps pointlessly so. They swim, but have no control to overpower the currents, swept along, incapable of stillness, incapable of choice. Fluttering mindfully at one with the brine, all is arbitrary. Under these conditions: thought has no purpose either in planning or the present tense. Only two domains are certain – one is pure abstraction, the other is the light. The abstract we cannot know unless the featherlike flutters communicate those thoughts The light we cannot know until we see it from the krill’s perspective, light through water, light through body, the philosophies of being a prism adrift. |
April New Moon Special
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April Showers
James Cepheus |
April Showers bring
Stormy nights And windy days Don't work too hard It will fail anyway April Showers Soak the soul Wreck my life And soil the world Yes, April Showers are hard, I know I know You think stop and think You're broken and low But the rain will stop The clouds will part The sun will shine You will get a new start Maybe now you're guessing What April Showers really bring... |
March New Moon Special
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Blades of Grass
Hailey James |
I was a kid that had a lot of allergies / I couldn’t go swimming because the chlorine / Most fruits were off limits / Don’t get me started on nuts / And then there was grass / I was allergic to grass / Whenever I was in contact with it my skin would blister up / Almost immediately / So I wouldn’t touch the grass / I would look at it / I would smell it / I would linger above it / Standing on the sidewalk / There weren’t many things that I wanted to do / That I was told I couldn’t / I never wanted to play with knives / Or run with scissors / I never wanted to stand on tables / Or walk around naked / I never wanted to drink coffee / Or climb on bookshelves / But I really wanted to lay in the grass / So instead, I would lay on the concrete and watch the little blades / As they danced in the wind
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March Full Moon Special
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Lily Pads
A. L. Celdon |
A frog hops
From pad to pad Like a ballerina dancing Across the pond Life is like that frog Born beneath the surface Blind to life And light Slowly springing to the exterior To jump and jump And run and run And forever moving Until we slip from the lily pad And sink again |
February New Moon Special
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Sentience
Emily Moon |
A noun and a verb walk into a bar
seeking an object. Adjectives and adverbs mill around, anxious thoughts of Choose me! visible on their expressive faces. Particles orbit in a cloud of uhs, try to fit in. Nouns gossip in groups about the verbs conjugating in the back room. Punctuation marks sit in dark booths, long necks and shot glasses on the table. We wonder if they'll stagger to their proper places after they finish their drinks. A cute object with a killer smile and fabulous hair struts in. Heads turn to watch them swagger to the bar, lift a cowboy boot to the brass rail, hook a thumb on a belt loop of their tight jeans, and turn to survey the crowd. The noun tilts their head, levels a flirtatious smile, says Hellooo there, beautiful. Everyone pretends they are not watching. The punctuation marks -- order another round. |
January New Moon Special
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Parasite
Harriet Sanders |
Oh, hey, it's you,
Again. Yeah, I missed you too, I guess. Not really, I don't have have time. No, I'm sorry. I don't think so. I told you: I'm busy. Listen, I should probably go. Hey, it's me! Again! I missed you! A lot. Could you come see me Later today? What about tomorrow, are you free? Not even For just a while? But I was... I was only... Okay, I get it. Goodbye. |
January Full Moon Special
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Cacophony
Les Epstein |
One damned flake descends
From a hasty spoonful Scraping my wind pipe Into atonal fits All through tooth brushing Its jagged edge Now long gone to who knows where Nags me on In hack and sneeze-- Tears in waves-- I’m my own Vaudeville Making a highway merge Between oil tankers Bolting out of the Blue Ridge Into our bowl shaped city And I reaching school halls Enter a shaken cubist work “Oppressed Hacker Descends a Staircase” Then yak and yak about Massachusetts bards With fourteen fourteen-year-olds Honking, blowing, picking at nasal nuisance All engaged in Transcendental wheezing Group debris to Thoreau. |