if madrid poster--Liam M

DIY 2013--Kristen M

Bronze Pretzels--Julie S

Bordercholly--Something I Don't Know

Bordercholly is
Liam M √
Amazing √

The Krampus Will Get You--Julie S

--Kristen M

--Rob M

Bordercholly--Liam M

It Will Be Called Art--Sivan J

We had ideas-
helium in blowup-dolls
released
like once wounded pigeons
ominously looking down
and judging us
for who we are

at our worst

For who minds if genius
is found in a small town
on a sofa you yourself
find ugly
after a bottle of cheap booze
married with a blacksploitation
masterpiece

Because some thoughts
won't ever come
to fruition
and some boys won't live long enough

to become men

to become boys again

They miss so much
in between
ideas
like helium in blowup dolls
So let's act while we still can
All of us
Block out the sun
Make it rain sex
We have that power
I have that power

But Sam won't ever and so Sam
this is for you
Wherever my name's tagged
yours will never be far
SIVAN WAS HERE and Sam too
no parentheses
separated by nothing
but death
decay
and whatever light
shines through a blowup-doll-sky
onto a sofa you yourself find ugly

Untitled Series-- Julie S

he was in her eyes what she was-- Katherine S

8/9/12
removing all the connotations, she stood bare before him
and he could not discern
good from evil, he could not discern what was ugly about it,
or what was beautiful. he asked her what did she want to say,
and she thought of David counting grains of sand, an ocean become merciless to his pious eyes.
he lay there in the sunlight looking at her, seeing the sun displayed on
the theater of her body. she saw in him an opening, something not yet finished,
she saw, alive and vivid, the recurring question that haunted him when he was
alone. he saw in her eyes what she saw, and realized that she was doing for him
what he had told himself he would do. outside, a bird sang, unknowing, unknowable to both of them. they did not contest. something sincere was happening
and they believed in it together, they blushed and hummed,
they did not make love, and they were not lovers.

Liam's Guide to Sitting Awkwardly--Liam M

Step 1.
Walk into a crowded room of people and sit on the floor Indian style - preferably just slightly inside a circle of previously seated persons already engaged in conversation. This also works best if you are slightly acquainted with the group, but not yet comfortable enough to hug any of them without feeling slightly embarrassed.
Step 2.
Interject loudly with an unrelated factoid - or personal experience only slightly related to the previous conversation, better yet to a conversation that had ended minutes ago.
Step 3.
Stare at floor in front of you and exhale slowly through mouth while waiting for group to recover from your interruption.
Step 4.
When group has recovered you may repeat the second step, or stand to leave walking though the circle on your way to another group to repeat Step 1.

*Note – this also works while standing.

Thug--Sivan J

First installment of a never-ending series

Shit and Champagne-- Patrick R

“Penelope! Let’s make our story
Live past this and that bottle and the next;
It’s all going and gone before it’s here.”

Penelope,
Broken bones that cover a leaden pallet
Under the shivering night’s curtain led me along
Down the chalk sidewalk
Into this spotty existence that came about when two people
One “I”
The other “Thee”
We
Met in the street.

My spot is in the windowsill on the fourth floor
And below you stand and stare
Wondering what I’ll do,
If I’ll do.

And the crimson boiled skin from a night of five dollar beers
And ass grabbing—smacks
Still doesn’t make you think

I want you to stop feeling.
I want to stop feeling.

“Does it sound good so far?
Let me finish it,
Just relax, just watch
It’s beauty.”

“Naiveté” you say, you said, you’ll say
I can see it in your eyes through the dark.
My name is Black
Your pores and teeth and perfection absorb me.
“Now, Penelope,
Be serious for a moment,
I’m really going to do this.”

Spotty vision taps my spine and tells it to spill
And I can almost see your face covered with specs of gray and red
“You’re shit, I’m champagne.”
I can nearly hear in the city tide noise
Periods and exclamations looking the same for a while

This leap of faith from the window sill was destined
To end in my questions.
Will you catch me one coffee date?
One afternoon at the beach, one internet moment, one hijacked plane?

Spinal taps with boiling red, gray
Gray and gray and more void
Filling the crevices of fingernails and eye-sockets and...
There’s no time to see your flaky skin,
You step back,
And Black falls deep and hollow onto the head of a “no”

With these concluding remarks
All that is left as substrate and shit
Is in the nostalgia for the window sill moment.

Let’s name it:
Feeling: A life.

--Kristen M

--Kristen M

Nothing Ever Happens Here--Conor M

The lyric blurred from a pair of cheap speakers while blurs of activity surrounded the old friends that were surrounded by more blurs and more friends.
Genny red eye cans were the most common accessory at the particular party. They were only punctuated by the occasional beer whose name was totally unfamiliar, harder to drink, cost more, and told you what it tasted like.
Fancy!
With each turn to listen to a new story or to an old story turned new, colors bled together.
Browns to blacks to greens to reds to yellows to blues and ultimately to vision engulfed in porcelain - Which is eventually smeared with the cathartic but entropic colors of whatever was sitting in your stomach for the past six hours.
If only the music was different. If only he/she wasn’t here. If only I hadn’t barfed. All were common excuses for a lack of hedonistic enthusiasm. They were also the spark that drove some to try to make something happen. Once the intrepid trickled out first, it started a chain reaction.
The moment the number of people became manageable, and the music took on a melancholy character with a hoppy bitterness, the few, the proud, the maudlin remained and asked questions such as:
What would this be like if the dead were still with us?

Flower Child--Julie S

Softer Paws--Conor M

Mushroom on Branches--Rob M