Bria Goeller

John Delgado

i.
I never want to suffer menstruation, ever again. I don’t ever want
You to come up to me with a packet of cookies and lie to me as if you can’t
See those blushing breakouts on my face. Give to me only a ripe pear
Of uterus, so that I don’t have to bother with the stink of blood and something
purely
Animal,
The way you sleep next to me those nights, hard, and somewhat
Afraid,
Or crimson-drenched cloth that leaves me shaking on the toilet at night, leaving you
to shine strange yellow lights in my eyes
The next morning.
So I leave you flustered and red, panting and sick, the way I started.

ii.
But I never want to suffer men, ever again. I don’t want you to wrap your arms me
tight, squeezing me just the way
I like,
whispering in my ear about how beautiful I am, how adorably I sleep and
(or) sneeze.
Instead, give to me a fat, balding
Onion; something I can peel clean, peel sinfully these
Layers off, because the sting of the eyes, this tightness of my stomach,
These tears that pour down my face,
taste exactly the way
You do,
or rather, the way I
Don’t, not anymore.

iii.
I don’t ever want to suffer me, ever again. I don’t ever want
To wake up one day and see some exotic Bengali beauty, to have
to walk past dark-eyed men every morning
And women whose gazes eat my words.
Instead, give me the strength, Lord,
When they ask me why I don’t go back to Bangladesh anymore, when they laugh
At how terrible the rape rates are now, Lord,
because why not call it back?
Let me say nothing about the women who spent nights naked and
bloody beneath floating shapla petals
Sweet Lord,
But, yes,
oh yes,
let us
call it back again—

Lydia Abedeen

Bria Goeller

My mother is a casket
I lie in when I need someone to hold me.

I’ve grown up without a mother
love me, with flower petal

sized bruises on my butterfly wing skin
scars like a first graders lopsided L’s

only having sex in the dark
a bouquet of peeled flesh

Look me in the eyes
when you ask me how I’m doing.

I’ll say, “I’m great” and get flashbacks of
my mother’s smile

her fists raining down like melted crayons
as my spine grew from 3 to an 18 year old

She asks if I want to wear nail polish the same color
as the bloody nail marks on our bathroom wall

I call them beautiful, like my mother
But I have the nose of my father but

Sometimes, my uncle forgot that I was his daughter,
Take photos of me when I was sleeping, say

“I want to feel you in that dress.”

“Uh, the fabric is interesting.”

“Yes, it is. You look sexy.”

“I guess.”

I remember one time he pinned me to the bed
And as his fingers traveled the frozen crescent moon of my spine

He said, “I’m going to make love to you.”
I went home, what was mine, cries
waking my mother held

me,   a coffin and
a chorus at church in the form of a jury’s
cry
“You should have known better.”

Isabella Neblett

Jessie Zhao

On days like this
the unkempt edges of my perspective
are tailored with gilded lace,
stitched in such a way
that I can’t look at it straight
but its iridescence
reflects into my vision
and I watch the world
with gold in my eyes.

Talia Green

When I make breakfast in the morning,
I tune in to a YouTube CNN live stream
and listen
to shiny podiums and hairgel discuss
how this breaking news will
probably bring about
the end of the world
and I slip an extra Splenda
into my coffee
to account for
the apocalypse
coming after these messages.

Talia Green

I was a sidewalk
with some vomit, you were rain
and you made me reek.

Anonymous