how the world ends i say hollow-eyed / with hollow / as a synonym / for hungry, as / a synonym for / curling fingers around the moon / and blotting out the stars / with dark thumbprints. i’m / looking at you, / shadows painting / skull-sockets like war paint / and eyes that want / to swallow the world / as how the void / wants to swallow you. / wolf-girl, come walk / with me; would you / have welcomed / the sun into your jaws / if she had invited it, / i wonder. i map out / t

no place like home(land) streamlined duality that punctures the lungs— fiery language melting pitch. devouring heaped-on dung with relish, adulation showers to a gleam. cry. question. mock. laugh. scream. sundogs at twilight howl their response, glazing over back-rolled eyes. pedaling nowhere on their way to mercy, rosy-eyed children in limbo dream. Green Teddy Bear I’ve had blood clots in the past but it’s been a while so I’m not worried about a t

Nigromancy by Gina Marie Bernard Dysphoria is a campaigning sorceress / a Svengali that conjures itself // learns rote a duplicitous augury / and cuts each deck false // a fakir scrawling across papyrus / mystic avatars of the severest tortures // and self-mortifications. / Nimbly, I practice sleight of hand // combing cobbled streets for those / to deceive in sating my compulsion. // I riffle through tattered cards, manipulating / behind each smile // a force that belies fre

excerpts from California Building by Teresa K. Miller A graduate of the Mills College MFA program and two-time National Poetry Series finalist, Teresa K. Miller is the author of sped (Sidebrow) and Forever No Lo(Tarpaulin Sky) as well as co-editor of Food First: Selected Writings from 40 Years of Movement Building (Food First Books). Her poems and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, DIAGRAM, Alternet, Common Dreams, and elsewhere. She lives near Portland, Oregon. More info is av

...and that's a wrap for Vol. 2! Here's the complete list, so you can more easily revisit individual pieces: Legend, by Courtney LeBlanc A Japanese legend says if you can’t sleep it’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream. Featured Writer: Courtney LeBlanc A Love Song In Four Bars, by Jessie Lynn McMains It’s just you’re so pretty when yr putty, yr so damaged like a fist to a mirror. Sir Math, by Kelly Sexton And I almost fucked you, after the dirty talk about the fact

The Cave by Ele-Beth Little A quiet baby grew into a quiet girl; Swaddled feelings mute to brim, they held her tight, Positioned to reflect a sham parental world She occupied the plastic cave behind her eyes. When night un-hushed her, tears soon found their form For all that light erased through vacant days, She grieved the space within that danced a storm Compelled to sit and smile, Accommodate Sit and smile And wait Sit And smile And wait For the bullshit cycle to replay I