this pressure feels purplish

and all i did was stand

from sitting after sleeping

like a bag of sand

on your nubby couch. i spy

swimmers from your bay

window. across busy

lanes of traffic i make

eye contact with life-

guards as you breathe

into my body, save

me from behind. we could

take this outside and i’d grab

handfuls of leaves and needles

from those thick, private

bushes. only rabbits

and squirrels hear us

in effortless euphoria: the hum

and hump fast or soft

as cottontail. even the neighbors

in swimsuit, trunk, and towel

are unaware of our sounds

as automobiles pant so fast

with quickening pulse

down your frantic road.

~~~

K Weber lives and writes in Ohio. Her 4 online books of poetry are in e-book and audiobook formats on her website along with her writing credits.

The Words

The words roll their eyes

and tell me,

get over here.

 

The words pin me to a wall

by my small wrists.

 

The words hold me

for a time, saying nothing.

 

The words are caught up

and won’t visit till later.

 

The words call. They don’t text.

The words unwrap

hot pink desires.

 

You’re probably wondering

what the words are doing.

 

They topple beside me,

tipsily.

 

The words bring my hands to

waiting lips.

 

They erase space

between us,

bit by bit.

 

Love Languages

Eat me out in an abandoned store

at the mall, with its changing room

eerily lit and the bathroom still

stocked with toilet paper.

 

Choke me against a concrete wall

and hope no one checks footage.

In this horror movie, we both die;

we have la petite mort.

 

I want to lick your long neck

in front of everyone at this party

and then whisper, “vamonos.”

You grip my wrists: “vamanos.”

 

Pink tulips demand to be photographed.

Call it vanity, but my breasts should be

featured in your lens il più delle volte.

(I’m another millennial poet with great tits.)

 

I’m vengeful and désolé.

I’m horny and lo siento.

I’m making a lot of mistakes.

Mi dispiace.

 

I use too many letters of the alphabet,

writing with my right hand, in black ink,

on a card found in a laundromat,

via US Postal and one forever stamp.

 

I am sorry.

~~~

Sarah A. O’Brien is a writer, artist, and teacher living outside of Boston, MA. She will graduate with an MFA in Poetry from University of Nebraska-Omaha in December 2018. Sarah is working on a book of poems, probably called Chameleon. She is the Founder and EIC of Boston Accent Lit. Follow her at @saraheditsbooks and @fluent_Saracasm.

*******

i lay my heart in the barbecue pit

so u can eat it on a stick
or if u like it raw bby,
know that it’s just meat.
have it.

 

crush

i lost my ability to sing and there discovered vulnerability
coasting at 4am: u conducted, on me, a test of satiability
it didnt take long before u could strongly attest to my muteness
and so detesting it, therein u found ur weakness

for girls with lungs of canary, goldfinch, and nightingale
singing hail mary hymns, born of wedding veils –
these are god’s creatures, handmade, then kissed –
me, i am a lecher, hell-stoked, then dismissed

i was so stupid – i should have known
u placed choir girls on a throne, now i trace our old haunts alone:
our swings at night, newfound in the half-light,
on ascending, the wind-chimes, our secret sad sign

but this silence, this fault line – yes, it’s all mine.

~~~

Erika Loh was born in Singapore in 1999. She is an undergraduate at Yale-NUS College and spends her time visiting art shows and skipping classes. Thanks to the Internet you can read her diary here.

We trade weather reports like love

letters – you send a picture of the aquamarine

sky behind the verdant mountains that rise

up from the ocean, your smile in the middle

of the frame. I can almost smell the salt

water breeze as it tangles your hair. I respond

with a photo, my smile as bright as my umbrella

against the concrete sky.

It’s been raining for ten days – I crave sunshine

and your hands. You send a photo of a rainbow.

I recognize the street you live on, remember

each time I parked, walked into your house,

crawled into your bed.

There’s a thunderstorm tonight, loud

and bright. I sleep with the blinds open, watch

the lightning flash through the window. I tell

you I’m naked in bed, the room illuminated

with each crack. I can’t photograph the flash,

the lightning moving too quick to capture.

I send you a photo of my body instead, my skin

pale against the dark sheets. I wish

you were here, I say, knowing we’d fuck

hard and fast, the percussion of the storm

our soundtrack.

The next morning dawns clear and bright,

the storm pulling the clouds with it as it moves

up the coast, the azure sky a welcome

sight. The emerald grass sodden, the seeds

of desire pushing through the earth

of my heart, growing wild.

~~~

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the chapbooks All in the Family (Bottlecap Press) and The Violence Within (Flutter Press) and is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Public Pool, Rising Phoenix Review, The Legendary, Germ Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Brain Mill Press, Haunted Waters Press, and others. She loves nail polish, wine, and tattoos. Read her blog at www.wordperv.com, follow her on twitter: @wordperv, or find her on facebook: www.facebook.com/poetry.CourtneyLeBlanc.

We trade weather reports like love

letters – you send a picture of the aquamarine

sky behind the verdant mountains that rise

up from the ocean, your smile in the middle

of the frame. I can almost smell the salt

water breeze as it tangles your hair. I respond

with a photo, my smile as bright as my umbrella

against the concrete sky.

It’s been raining for ten days – I crave sunshine

and your hands. You send a photo of a rainbow.

I recognize the street you live on, remember

each time I parked, walked into your house,

crawled into your bed.

There’s a thunderstorm tonight, loud

and bright. I sleep with the blinds open, watch

the lightning flash through the window. I tell

you I’m naked in bed, the room illuminated

with each crack. I can’t photograph the flash,

the lightning moving too quick to capture.

I send you a photo of my body instead, my skin

pale against the dark sheets. I wish

you were here, I say, knowing we’d fuck

hard and fast, the percussion of the storm

our soundtrack.

The next morning dawns clear and bright,

the storm pulling the clouds with it as it moves

up the coast, the azure sky a welcome

sight. The emerald grass sodden, the seeds

of desire pushing through the earth

of my heart, growing wild.

~~~

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the chapbooks All in the Family (Bottlecap Press) and The Violence Within (Flutter Press) and is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Public Pool, Rising Phoenix Review, The Legendary, Germ Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Brain Mill Press, Haunted Waters Press, and others. She loves nail polish, wine, and tattoos. Read her blog at www.wordperv.com, follow her on twitter: @wordperv, or find her on facebook: www.facebook.com/poetry.CourtneyLeBlanc.

My skin is tethered to long bolts,

pinned up like teenage posters.
You say that it will never be over

and I swoon like dirty wings.
Spread me out like wings and

push me through the pregnant pause.
Sing and hold my hopes for hostage.

You find hidden places I ache and
breed and move and diddle-daddle

on my naked sweaty knees.
Say to me that my hands are bloodlines

to my death,
and lead me there in tow like thunder.

Make my death the little smeared edges.
When it’s no longer so unfamiliar

you somehow lick the ocean clean.
Take my world and fuck me up again.

Tomorrow I will be sick but I am also
always sick with you and unbelievable.

Push me open and show me who I cannot be,
or else have my eyes fit snug bug into

my heaving openings and closings.
To you I am nothing and it is this nothing

I wrap in and spin wildly outside my head,
up against your blowing horror face.

Show me the horror inside my open body.

 

~~~

J C Bouchard’s collection of poetry and photographs, Let This be The End of Me, was published by Bad Books Press in spring 2018. Their poetry is forthcoming in CAROUSEL and has appeared in PRISM international, carte blanche, Arc, The Puritan, Hart House Review, BAD NUDES, BafterC, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and more. They live in Toronto and online at jcbouchard.com