By the time my husband and I purchased an apartment in Alphabet City, all my idols were dead. I imagined their ghosts making fun of people like me who crawled into the East Village hoping to have babies and a volunteer gig in a community garden. But I was desperate to belong to a neighborhood that represented my values, ideals, and dreams of a creative life—a neighborhood with a storied history and its share of ghosts.
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Playing Dress Up: Fairy Tale Redux
As a tiny bruja is the late 80s, I was obsessed with gothic fairy-tale fantasy films. Here I am, in my magick thirties, still playing dress up…
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Poetry by Ian Kappos
Ian Kappos was born and raised in Northern California. Over two dozen of his works of short fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared online and in print. Co-editor of Milkfist (www.milkfist.com), he sort of maintains a website at www.iankappos.net.
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The Death of Albine (1895) by John Maler Collier.
Crafting Your Signature Scent: Why to Make Your Own Perfume
There are many ways we attempt to cast the spell of remembrance, to leave our mark, to cause a beautiful and painful ache in our absence even if it is only temporary. This is just another way we strange and intricate humans crave to be loved.
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Persona (1966)
The First Time I Kissed a Girl
For a drawn out 60 seconds we stood there just staring at each and laughing out of fear. The pressure set in. We knew we had about 30 seconds to make this happen before the guys started booing, leaving us up there, and moving onto something more exciting. Drunken frat guys have the attention span of newborn puppies. I felt panicked. My fantasies about kissing a girl usually took place during a calm game of spin the bottle or truth of dare in a dim lit basement. In my fantasy I was already a little buzzed. The buzz was what gave me permission to indulge. I had never felt more sober. My armpits were sweating, and I could feel my pulse pushing out of my throat. Meredith looked at me, now also panicked. Then without warning she leaned in and kissed me. It happened all at once and in total slow motion. I felt her tongue. I couldn't believe how soft her lips felt. I heard cheering. Before I could open my eyes it ended. She hopped off the stage and a group of guys ushered her into the kitchen. I stood frozen. My veins felt hot. My face flushed. Electricity ran through me. I’d kissed plenty of guys, but I had never experienced these sensations. I wanted more.
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Yayoi Kusama
On My Unapologetic Mother
My mother was furious; she embarked on a nightlong analysis of everything I was doing wrong in my life, as she often did. Halfway into her thesis, however, her anger turned to tears. It was a big deal, she said, her voice cracking, because by changing my tickets to later in the day, I would arrive at Tokyo close to midnight, and would be forced to find my way around a foreign country carrying two large suitcases in the dark, on my own. It was a big deal, because I was twisting myself to fit into the contour of the world around me, even if it meant bending myself so far I was hurting myself, as if all I deserved was the leftover nook of whatever people threw at me. I would make myself small and try to crawl into that space, and I would crawl with my head down, with my arms tucked by my sides, worried about accidentally poking someone with my elbows.
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Photo by Monique Quintana
Necromancy For Your Grandmother's Hands
Bluish, you find the stone. They are the diamonds she once told you about...
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Martin Knize
The Things We Carry
Ming-Ying is a human interested in the intersection of art, education, and activism. Her art centers around social justice, the feminine, and all things cute. She is passionate about: Black Lives Matter, Asian Pacific-Islander representation, queer counter-narratives, and educational equity. She also loves cheeseburgers, despite half-hearted aspirations to be vegetarian.
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Oscar Keys
Poetry by Sage Curtis
Sage Curtis is a Bay Area writer fascinated by the way cities grit and women move. My work has been published or is forthcoming in Main Street Rag, burntdistrict, Yes Poetry, The Fem Lit, Vagabond City Lit and more.
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4 Poetry Collections That Will Make You Feel
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (ELJ Publications, 2016), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016) and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017). Joanna received a MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, a managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM, as well as an instructor at Brooklyn Poets. Some of Joanna's writing has appeared in Prelude, Apogee, Spork, The Feminist Wire, BUST, and elsewhere.
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Via cromos
Strange Beauty: Chavela Vargas
When aesthetic is subversive, it is both strange and beautiful…
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Auto Europe
What My Irish Father Did on Saint Patrick's Day
Two years before his death, when he was already widowed and battling congestive heart failure, Dad's bon voyage gift to me turned extravagant. Rather than one of his homemade or home-grown presents, he pushed a small white envelope across the dinner table at me. Inside was a wad of crisp new bank notes.
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Clem Onojeghuo
The Car Goes First: On My Father's Death
When I was 12, I came home to discover my father’s car with its doors flung open. From the front seats, two pairs of legs stretched onto the pavement. The radio was on low, and I could hear laughter followed by a clink of glass on glass. This was how my father celebrated an ersatz out-of-body death, five years prior to the real thing.
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Poetry by Kristin Chang
Kristin Chang lives in NY. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in VINYL, The Shade Journal, Nightblock, Cosmonauts Avenue, the Asian American Writers Workshop, and elsewhere. She is currently on staff at Winter Tangerine and writes for Teen Vogue.
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Bianca Serena Truzzi
Se llamaba José: Poetry by Zelene Pineda Suchilt
BY ZELENE PINEDA SUCHILT
CURATED BY CECILIA LLOMPART
Se llamaba José
Se llamaba José,
nombre tan común
Mi padre se llama
igual
Se llamaba José
Hombre tan común
Como el padre de Jesús
igual
Digo su nombre en alto
escribo su nombre,
esperanza permanente,
porque fue un héroe.
Se llamaba José,
nombre tan común
Mi padre se llama
igual
Se llamaba José
Hombre tan común
Como el padre de Jesús
igual
Mientras escribo su nombre
cristiano en lengua española,
lo quiero Quetzalcóatl
lo quiero Oró pulido
lo quiero inmortal
por ser tan común
por ser padre
que vivió por los vivos
sus hijos
su amor
tan eterno
lo quiero Turquesa
lo quiero Jade
lo quiero en las calles
que lo vea José en la cantina
que lo vea José en la taquería
que lo vea el muralista
que conmemora a los muertos de lejos
y no va al entierro del común
porque lo común lo enterró.
que lo vea Jesús el mesero
que lo vea Jesús en la escuela
que lo vea María
que lo vea María magdalena
las que cuidan l@s hij@s
que lo vea la que pinta en casa
la que conmemora las vivas
las que recogen tras los vivos
las que se pintan de rojo
porque la sangre importa.
Más viva que muerta,
me llamo Zelene y recuerdo a José.
Fui a su sepulto,
vi la bandera de sangre serpiente y pasto,
tomé su mano fría y abrase su sangre caliente
corriente sin paro
rio de su amor, su amor viva.
Cuando salgo, salgo corriendo
nombra, nombres de hombres
que murieron en contra de la muerte
y vivieron por amor.
Se llamaba José,
un hombre no común,
un hombre en paz.
Zelene Pineda Suchilt is a CHí-CHí (CHilanga-CHicana) poet and storyteller living in The Bronx. Her work juxtaposes indigenous concepts and urban culture using a range of media, including poetry, painting, live performance and film making. Her literary work has been published on Huizache: The Magazine of Latino Literature, Free Press Houston, Quiet Lunch Magazine, The Panhandler Quarterly and MANGO Publications. In 2009, Zelene received the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Young Visionary Award from The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago.
Cecilia Llompart is the Spanish Poetry Editor for Luna Luna Magazine.