Expanded Poems- First Row
A Cold Autumn Evening in Queens
J.L. Stephenson
And we sailed to distant lands
by pipe and roll,
in the backwoods,
by a softball field
which I had never seen in such beauty.
and through smoke and packed herb
And ashes,
I saw an entire past and future.
Wrapped in denim,
smelling of a chimney that dared never to quell,
you were the fire in that pipe
and an escape,
brief escape,
from this damnation and expulsion,
from the good days
that I never knew all too well.
and thanks to you, I have felt less alone
in my lonesomeness,
less alone in company
that I so deeply adore.
let the night end here,
let my eyelids roll and let me drift to sleep
because it’s cold, everywhere
except for the tips of my fingers and my heart, when I watch clouds
escape from the best lips I have ever seen.
I can go blind this night, and my eyes will end themselves happily-
knowing your existence, as my last memory.
As time goes by I get warmer,
but I am further from the sun
and making my way
to nothing,
and nothing feels too similar,
to being without you.
you have gone and left me number
than the freezing wind
and the dying-of-the-light,
indica marijuana we puffed
in sheer innocence and youth.
I pray these virtues don’t burn out
in this pipe,
because being beyond the now, with you
is as good
as the end of times.
and thankfully now,
my lungs are weeping,
left as heavy as my heart,
left dry and cracked and empty,
left made obsolete,
by your presence.
Ailment
Aleena Jacob
Anesthesia for a rotten-old punch:
this is how they grew up so try to learn,
try to forgive, try not to hold this burn,
the Lord said this is how it is for you too.
The stove lights on, the power to burn
“How could you kiss him?”
The stove carries the milk, the source
“Do you have no respect for yourself?”
The milk boils
“Your father cried all last night”
The milk rises
“We never expected this from you”
The milk overflows, seeping down steel sides
into these hands plastered in the white cloth of shame,
“Just like when we had aunty’s girls over”
“Didn’t talk to them, of course not”
“They’re not what she wants”
“They’re not boys you can flirt with.”
Milk spills over, crusts our stove,
but my mother turns her back.
Did she notice when I laid in bed,
petrified to lift a nerve
against the sound of slams against my mother’s skin?
Against the sound of slams against my locked door
as you two burst into anger,
over you did, you said, you hurt, you left?
Molds and twists in my stomach,
over beatings sunk in brainwash.
A few punches gifted to the closet door,
scars scathed across the side of both palms,
becomes an easier task than this rage
carried behind my nude body.
Anesthesia for an ailment undead:
This is how it is.
This is how parents, couples, friends
fight.
Twenty
Alexis Normandia
I am twenty years old and I am lost.
Not lost like a tourist in Manhattan,
But that of someone stumbling home after a long night
Or when you wake up in the morning and your hand gropes around for your glasses.
You know where you need to end up,
But you just can’t make out how.
I am twenty years old and I am lost.
But I have managed to locate incredible people in the fog,
The type of people you could not have any contact with for weeks and when you see them,
You pick up right where you left off.
Like time bears no wounds on the bond you share.
I am twenty years old and I am lost.
But I have heard songs that penetrate every level of confusion I have ever felt,
That speaks directly to the thoughts in my head,
And they give me the inkling that I’m not the only one who stumbles through life in the dark.
I am twenty years old and I am lost.
But I have hit the surface,
I climbed out of rock bottom where I once resided,
Sad and tearing myself apart at the seams.
I stitched myself back together again,
And crawled out of my hole.
I am twenty years old and I am lost.
But I have danced with the rain,
And lusted over the sunrise,
I have felt my heart skip a beat,
Or two,
Or ten.
I have fallen in love and fallen out.
I am twenty years old and I am lost.
But maybe I am not.
Another Evening in Europe
J.L. Stephenson
There are no lights here like New York City, except for you.
There is no memory that isn’t fading, except for you,
and I can’t wait much longer for the days among the cold with you.
The freezing winter in Jamaica was all the warmer with you there
and we pretended like we’d never age- just as the Romans do.
But we are aging, too quick for comfort, and I pray to end it all with grace.
But there isn’t grace in longing, no sympathy for my wishes left empty
because there was no voice in my throat when I needed it.
Only liquid medicines which last until the moments that you become a dream from another life.
I have a life like a worn black hoodie, all reliable and useful.
Warm enough to provide comfort in the nights, constant enough to remember
the wonderful mistakes and horrible decisions we made when we loved being young.
Life will never be better, I declare, than these few and fleeting moments that we share now.
To pretend that it will, is to do a disservice to the freedom and hellion living we access.
I realize now that God has shined on me, because he let me know you in my youth.
Perhaps even after all of my golden years, meeting you would recharge such a youthfulness.
Because when I look upon you, it feels as if I am the Caesar of this planet
and time is my servant, taking direction from the wave of my bottle and dancing hands.
We are infinite and nocturnal, living only when the stars release themselves,
living only when the world is blurred and laughter runs like watercolor stains.
The only pinpoint in such a night is your eye, which makes me feel as though I am immortal.
Say the word and the two of us can stay in these moments forever,
be cemented in time and being with one another in this beautiful blur.
Say the word and I go as far to stop time here, to halt the world at our tarnished fingers.
We are sinners as the entire world is, we have fallen into cracks and will be forgotten soon.
But for now, we are the core of this Earthly life. We revel in daily resurrections.
Life is a stone on my chest that you have lifted.
Now I am breathing, young and free again.