Karaoke: Encore
RUNNING UP THAT HILL (A DEAL WITH GOD)
After Kate Bush
Monica Rico
It claws / it doesn’t begin with an itch / a single hurt / a pointed branch 
Poetry, Fiction, & Nonfiction
Entomb/In Tune: Earl Sweatshirt’s Black Lyric Mode
Joy Priest
But for me, Earl’s short poems (sometimes, I’m willing to concede, laid over monotonous beats) are speculative and visionary. They map a modern mind, short in attention, fighting to be audible above our cyber industrial reality—its alienating information storm of iPhone notifications. They take us beyond the day’s meaning-emptied habitual speech.
Some People Think they're Owed a Bond Girl
Karyna McGlynn
to bend over whenever. This belief reaches / quietly into their bone marrow.
dionysus is the only sober person at karaoke
E.B. Schnepp
super impose me neon, berry-tinged / fingertips left smudges across everything I touched.
My Massage Therapist Asks if the Pressure’s Too Much
Abbie Kiefer
Let me tell you, Lil—I’m here to be borne down
on.
Self Portrait. A Boy in His Mother’s Clothes Singing Madonna’s “Live To Tell”. At Night. Alone.
Cassandra Whitaker
A bag of snakes, the hole inside / me.
The Moss Takes Us to an 80s Sex Shop
Karyna McGlynn & Fez Avery
But we arrive to find it’s been co-opted by a cocktail bar. / The Moss wants to bounce but we’re already here.
RUNNING UP THAT HILL (A DEAL WITH GOD)
After Kate Bush
Monica Rico
It claws / it doesn’t begin with an itch / a single hurt / a pointed branch
Let’s Play College
Karyna McGlynn & Fez Avery
Alright fine: let’s play Chubby Bunny / naked in the sprinklers, I said.
After The Reading, A Man Asks If I Hate My Father
Janiru Liyanage
nother time, a couple pressed me to / forgive my family, they said all the best art draws from love, not anger / but I barely heard them over the Frank Ocean song
Ghosts of Scene Sites Past
Seán Carlson
On an external hard drive stored in a closet somewhere at home, I have a photo from the first concert I set up, a moment captured on a roll of film and later scanned and sent via email.
When Beyonce Hits, And Sunset is Pink And Baby So Baby Blue
Cassandra Whitaker
What’s beyond the two lights at the edge / of the bay bridge tunnel blinking / out of turn, one a bit more butch / than the other
Last Christmas
Colin Ainsworth
The last time I was here I was really in here. I have been here. I know that I have been here. These people are in my home and they are watching my TV.
Well, It’s Not Like It Used to Be
Patrick Duane
I was born March 24th, the same day as Harry Houdini, so my family used to take annual trips to the Harry Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Here, a Brindis for All Who Weep Alone
Rocio Anica
I raced past the kennels each time. So many noses pressed against the chain link. Others cast their pink, brown, black noses downward, their beautiful tails curling inward or twitching a sad little wag as they turned away.
From the Archives
December 20th
Nick Visconti
When my mind plucked me / abruptly from earth and gently // laid me in abstraction, time went and saw / the world.
A Houston Crease in my Brain: A Conversation with Joshua Burton and Anthony Sutton
Anthony Sutton
I have known Joshua Burton since 2014 when we attended the Boldface Workshop at the University of Houston.
Playing Kong
Kerry Neville
You know where this is going: Danny lives across the street, house number 32-25 to my 32-26, and he is eight years to my seven;
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