Poetry

By Jazlyn Mara Those are thunderstorm souls  the ones who come from chaos  and turn out calm they are everything Earth's core lava and moonlight when the time is right  always pushing or pulling  blooming or blowing at worst, a disaster nevertheless natural at best ending up all that a storm is , yet the serene side  of a downpour  By Jazlyn Mara

By Jazlyn Mara The end of us was crimson red bitter like bordeaux kingdoms collapsing each of us swallowed a handful of f*ck you’s  with brick dust.  these were the colors that I choked on, that stung and stained my lips as we left each other.  By Jazlyn Mara

By Jazlyn Mara your absence lingers  the way dust does in the empty corners of my bedroom  but it hugs me tight and tucks me in at night staying snug  around my chest — which is more than you do, now, so  perhaps absence  is the best I’ve got of you. By Jazlyn Mara

By Jazlyn Mara You can run if you feel you have to but first I’ll tell you you’re beautiful like glass at sea  buried under sand until  something moves you sharp around the edges at first from the one who pushed you to pieces a little blue, still learning which ways  the light shines through, yet wholesome soft, well-rounded and kind they’ll find that heart to be inside your chest. a risk at each glistening ridge  that architects your body a radiant fixer-upper often delicate

By Sanquilla Hopkins There is an old African saying, an individual is educated when a man is educated. A nation is educated via the education of a woman. A culture that looks up to men but treats women differently because of their strength and work ethic undervalues the slow, steady work of a woman's hands turning the land that yields food for her loved ones and future generations. The women in my family are anything but weak and lazy. Their lives demonstrate the power of det

By Hannah Bhullar In the chambers of my mind, plumes of the past cascade. Who could this be, scratching at the walls of what has imploded within? Ring Ring Ring. Emergency. Evacuate NOW. It permeates and disintegrates, like the wing of a butterfly shredded apart mid-flight. The memory of what happened, what could have happened and what did. It swarms through the hives of my mind, like demonic bees. A terrible buzz torments me, a searing sting rips through me. Hello? Goodbye.

By Hannah Bhullar I want to bask in your glow like you’re the February sun. I’ll float in your puddle of warmth like vermilion leaves in a placid Bourne. Let me drink in your aura. Scarlet. Amber. Pantone 116-1546. Like blooming flowers of liquid nirvana that prickle your throat with each generous gulp. You taste like heaven. Elixir of life. Fountain of youth. I wake up someplace else, In another world where pain and anguish have never known me. Where they have never grazed m

By Hannah Bhullar Sometimes I dream of running away… I hold your hand as we sprint, dashing through a field of purple wildflowers  And barley so  golden, it glitters and shimmers like a summer stream. We laugh and so do the birds, twittering into the sunset air. Our voices decay into the sweet breeze, carrying our infinite love into the world and into the hearts of many others… My love, I would run with you forever. I would run to a place far, far away where no pain and suffe

By Hannah Bhullar I will gift you a poem every day until our dying breaths… I will send them to you one by one, until your heart has memorised my handwriting. Until the world has run out of trees, until the sun has dried up all the ink, and until I cannot hold this pen anymore; I will write you. I shall immortalize our undying love. It is the very proof we existed, Proof that I love you even when you think I do not,  Proof that I always will.  Proof that we are infinite. It i

By Hannah Bhullar I read the poetry in the fibres of your skin, In the rows of your hair, In the creases at the corner of your eyes… And it’s so beautiful. I want to love your rough frame. Let me treat it like a docile kitten. Pet your fur, Stroke your feathers, Kiss your horns. You are all the cutest things in nature. All the grace and beauty, All the bones and chasms… Your body is the frame for the artwork of your soul. It is the stave and score behind your melodies. And I

By Hannah Bhullar The profound emotion I feel. The weight of my heart. The fireworks. The flames. The burn. The rush. I feel it all when I'm with you… And I let my colours flare. I let my melodies roar , that shower our world with symphonies. And you sit and watch me in awe… My heart is carved from the bones of this very  earth. Feathers of Phoenices are encrusted in me, and so are the specks of ancient stars. It is a roaring and thrumming miracle. And these diamonds that fal

By Hannah Bhullar I wish to stop hurting at the harmless words of women, and their latent looks. I have only ever wished to be held, to be hugged by a mother and fed off her love as if it were milk from her swollen breast. I wish to feel her warm skin that gives life and will give me my childhood back. I wish to hear a father speak softly and stand up tall. I wish to watch her hair grey and his fall out while contentment grows in its place. I won't be so alone then… I wish to

By Hannah Bhullar You grope my skin and press into this soft flesh with vigour. My goosebumps are braille for what you seek in this body of mine. Your words are a bomb - and my existence - the trigger. You hear the blast, but not the ticks. You smell the fumes, but not the fuel. You see the fire, but not the pain. When the flames roared and spat, they battled my body that fought for your honour. But the stench of truth was too strong for a senseless creature like you. I wear

By Hannah Bhullar Red, I hear you, red.  Like the tinge on your collar.  The red between my legs ebbs like humid oceans wave on crispy Caribbean sand.  Crash; hot red! bleating sirens of ice.  Metal ripped red; wires sliced red.   Pooling heat.  Red.  Surging panic. Red.  The scream rips my throat red. Red, I hear you, red. Like the blush on your lips.  The red on my cheeks permeates like the fumes of the Tanami desert.  The red inside is  out , out  is flowing in.   The red

By Hannah Bhullar I want to kiss you.   I want to breathe you in.     Can I taste your soul? Your love - so sweet,   I’m sure.     I want to lap at your tongue    like the ocean waves. Let me trace   your nose,     your eyelids,       your cheekbones,     and your chin. Stare at me   as if you want to devour me;     as if you’ve never felt        this much love     before. Look at me   as if you want to dive in     and drown in my warmth…        I want to be   under your skin

By Cal Burgess Technicolor hallucinations,    Rowan branches and bowls of lime,       Forest mushrooms and incarnations,          I see a face and the world I left behind– Blue eyes and rain,    White clouds, and sun another day       My soul seems stained,           So I might just walk   And I’ll dream my life away. By Cal Burgess

By Cal Burgess It was all strawberries and cherry wood-grain, Amber sunsets and the warm August rain, Synesthesia on the astral plane, And Jakarta clouds, unresolved– Flying by, the days like birds, And thoughts like jungle streams, The clouds will warp like human words,          And then fly out to sea.  By Cal Burgess

By Cal Burgess Eighteen laying hens,  Mud, sludge and gravel,      Swamp Maple and matted grass,       And the rickety old door– It’s my escape to Arcadia. I see all those chickens darting about, One by one stretching at faded mosses,         Frolicking and clucking away the days. If only we were all as wise as them. By Cal Burgess

By atm.itm let my blood clot  slide down your hand  let my tampon marinate  at the top of a bathroom can  let your eyes follow my hips  as you pull down my pants wait for me to expose my private thoughts  sticky between thighs  think me yummy   probably more disgusting pretending to be stable  damn this body  shoot me down  it’d be easier to let my life spill over the street  than to read another rejection  8:36 pm the sunday  my words faced eviction  no roof or hand me down

By atm.itm they kissed and her black shadow took form  of a body held by one outside her mind  for now she knew  what it meant to be missed  to bare sensation greater than to be starved  to be plucked  from a bunch of deformities  worse than her own  leaving the insatiable pleading     she was a fool  full of love  enslaved to a tongue  that now lives to lash out against  her name  he yelled  she hollered  they slept separately together  mistakenly making their vows  whine in