CHUN SHU / TRANSLATED BY CECILY CHEN

点燃蜡烛洗澡
春树

大部分时候我感到羞耻
我遇到的都是多差劲的男人呵
就别把我们的合影
拿出来一看再看了
月圆的晚上
容易想到缪斯
想到家暴
想到有过短暂情史的
长发蓝眼睛
我们互抽对方嘴巴
在酒店的床上翻滚
散落一地烟灰
真是个意外之夜
久违的疯狂
不做爱只接吻
当然他必须消失
他懂，于是先走了
留下一趟短途旅行和一篇小说
无法信任那些说谎的人
同时也不原谅自己
对生活的不满
造就了我的美丽
摩拳擦掌想到这些
想到老金斯堡的“内心暴跳如雷”和“窗外的杂种还是挺多的”
揪落红玫瑰花瓣
在男人的阳具插入之前
我们把玫瑰花瓣放入阴道

Lighting a candle and taking a bath
Translated by: Cecily Chen

Most of the time I am full of shame
All the men that I meet are oh-so-very-shitty
So stop pulling out our photos together
For my eyes to linger and caress
Full moon
How easy it is to think of the Muse
Of domestic violence
Of the one with long hair and blue eyes
From a passing tryst
We slap each other in the face
And tussle on the hotel bed
Spilling cigarette ash to the ground
What a night of surprises
The return of that familiar wildness
Not fucking and only kissing
Of course he then must retire
He understands, and excuses himself
Leaving behind a quick trip and a story
Distrustful of those that speak untruths
And unforgiving too of my own
Dissatisfactions with life
This is what defines my beauty
Rolling up my sleeves as I think of all of this
Of good ol’ Ginsberg’s “thunderous, tempestuous heart” and “outside the window
are the hordes of wretched souls”
Pulling petals from red roses
We place the rose petals inside our cunts
Before the first thrust of a man’s cock

Chun Shu (b. 1983), born Zou Nan, is a contemporary Chinese novelist and writer. She is one of the most prominent figures of the post-1980s poets in China. She currently lives in Berlin and Beijing.

Cecily Chen is a writer and translator from Beijing, China. She is currently completing a PhD in English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago, where she works on experimental Asian American literature, Marxist aesthetics, and negative affect. She is the translator of two chapbooks, CHEATING (Inpatient Press, 2022) and SWEET TALK (The Year, forthcoming 2025). She is also the poetry editor at Chicago Review.

ARI LISNER

Self-Portrait at 28
After David Berman

I know it’s a stolen title
but I’m giving it to myself as a gift

Today’s the day I put art back in its place
Things up until now have had puppy proportions
and the claims I’ve made have been put on a brief hold

You got nursed back holier than thou with sleepy South Jersey eyes
It’s unbelievable. I look a lot like you now. Driving loops to everyone’s eyerolls
Today’s the day I put art back in its place

My new boots clacked when I walked back in at home. It was too late and the glow in the
window was this crazy red catching the glass
I trusted your sick sense that night. You brought that little purse back around.

Not married to outcomes
But I oathed that ending
Cottonmouth, goodbye, driveaway to Lou Reed

I felt rich upon the realization

My middle school’s character pledge:
I try my best
Have courage
Include others
Be respectful and responsible
and celebrate the ways I can improve
the world around me
Thank you

Ari Lisner is a practicing writer and aspiring filmmaker whose writing captures queer intimacy against the backdrop of New York City. He has a chapbook called One Shtick Pony. Find Ari on Instagram at @arisbarmitzvah. Let’s go Mets.

DAVID SAN MIGUEL

Call it Faith, Call it Ketamine

I can open my mouth and materialize Heaven.
I can kill us both before we touch grass.
Spitting fire breathing bars. 10 Hail Marys
and all my teeth are cut.
Insanity is a ritual is a meditation is a…
prayer, prayer, prayer
Pray the real live forever man.
Pray the fakes get exposed.
In the utterance— a vibration.
Cymatics coursing through air,
I can see lines and points and planes
and Time
Phasing like mercury,
like Language
I
Can
Walk
Through
Walls
O, how I am naught but ignorance itself!—
post the sexy consecration of our bodies

David San Miguel is a Los Angeles based writer.

SOPHIA TEMPEST

untitled #3

I am an autonomous being!
and a cruel and exotic meat

hide your face from God when you eat it

the court did not advise me
in much of the kingdom
a smile is a threat

Sophia Tempest is a poet living in Philadelphia. Her first chapbook, a lamb hangs by its own foot, was released with Ghost City Press in 2019. Her full-length collection, WHEN I GET TO HEAVEN, was released with Another New Calligraphy in 2022. 

MIRIAM SAPERSTEIN

Miriam Saperstein is a writer and mixed-media artist based in West Philadelphia. Originally from Metro Detroit, they are obsessed with incantations, decomposition, and ritual histories. Their work has been exhibited at the William Way LGBT Community Center, featured in the Radical Jewish Calendar, and published in Syllabus, BathHouse, and Jewish Currents. 

MEREDITH MACLEOD DAVIDSON

Abecedarian on Cowboy Carter

America! We are all trauma
bonding our way through a collapse
circus penned by the death cult
debtors with diamond dreams. One more
expedition to our folk
freedom roots. Deconstructed,
genre can be God or gossip, giddy-up, guns.
Hallelujah! Honey, heal your
independence. There’s only so much space in these
jeans. Justice. Cooks in the
kitchen. Oh yes, cowboy, we’re bucking tradition.
Local legends re-excavated, ain’t that archival
mercy! The public discourse, attention
needs so much tending.
Once we’ve pantomimed our own farcical power,
pray for purpose. Praise
quiet, country, women and
rhinestones. Reckoning both renaissance and requiem,
soil smoked with ambulant souls. Trapping
tyrants between snaps and tambourine twang,
using influence to fill
vacancies in those willful
Western minds,
xanthic with imperial rot. These voices
yank you back to yourselves. Joy, something
zealous, human.

Meredith MacLeod Davidson is a poet and writer from Virginia, currently based in Scotland, where she earned an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. Meredith's work is published or forthcoming in The London Magazine, Propel Magazine, Cream City Review, The Boiler, Gutter, and elsewhere. Connect with Meredith on Instagram: @mairmacleod

GABRIELLE WOOLLEY

Containers

I can’t decide
a medium
for my rage

not once in my life
have I made a scene

my career is
my civility

light the candles
burn the incense
run the bath

I’m going to live in this
red house forever

when a year unravels itself

I did not key the Prius
my body did not shake
still, I tried to sound so eloquent

I finally woke up
in the crowd, a sea of sheets
the dream about a spider web

I’ve never spoken as clearly
as when I didn’t
recognize myself

Gabrielle Woolley (she/her) is a poet and zine maker living in Philadelphia, PA. You can usually find her on her bike, at the library, in a cafe, or by the river.

COREY QURESHI

Bill is dead

Wow I love leaving work
Smattered in grease
and exhaustion
and back in 13h
ok but how bout
the fact that none of
today's issues were
mine for some reason
there is a weekend atmosphere
that makes people have
mental fucking breakdowns
i cant take to heart the
criticisms of a sex offender
in the back doing
all but his work
everyone's got opinions
i got the keys to the
store's entire basis
and if it weren't for
my life i'd have no
issue sabotaging the
whole shit!!!

Corey Qureshi is the author of 3 chapbooks of poetry. He runs BOXX Press. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and children, where he works as a baker. @q_boxo

ULYSES RAZO

Heart Cramp

i'm not crying, i just sprained my eye on you. it’s new years eve which means i want to have sex. i’m dumb & somewhat generous with my drugs, could die here listening to Twigs, Pathetic Lit open on my desk. boys hate everything so i'm a boy. thank you for not asking what i thought of your poem. it’s just that sometimes i get so tired i feel like shitty porn. and your pleasant tone made me want to block you. i want to bury what you gave. the cure for crying is more crying. i feel like crawling into a cave-themed bed. it’s a funny feeling not knowing what this feeling is. inside me a bit of god comes out your mouth. there’s a tower of air between us. out of kindness, i’m giving you a window. in florence, there were city lights in the clouds. someone recently said pisa was shitty and i wanted to punch them on behalf of you, even if you don’t disagree. no one talks about my ex’s neighboring city like that except for me. in january, when my ironing board started speaking, smoke came off the glass pyramid near where i live. there is another person in me. on the train i got high off the idea of coming back. i dream i’m in a club dancing with you. signs are telling me to drive clean. but i’m a dirty dirty boy. a man who was speaking of an artist lying down, waiting to be touched, was actually referring to a dog, which he later referred to as “a mistake.” i see hands and think of guns. put your hands away, a woman says. we’re almost there.

Ulyses Razo’s poems have been featured in Hobart, ShitWonder, SARKA, Amygdala Journal, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from Paul Smith’s College and was a Poet-in-Residence at Bethany Arts. His microchapbook, Murders & Other Poems (2024), was published by Ghost City Press. He lives in London.

STONE TSAO

HUSH

i.

my mother is a storm inside me and in that home the nightingale stutters in the night.

ii.

in the dream, i was roommates with my dad. the aquarium broke not long after, and the names i

wore flashed like lighthouses to an indecipherable language.

iii.

in the afterlife now, i begin to dissect the stomach

stone tsao is a poet. he lives in queens. 

L SCULLY

spend a lotta time

looking in
defending you
barfing
avoiding shit
in the yard mainly
forcing sweet
online
with men
for a lesbian
in the waiting room
oh good
you’re here

living at the top of a hill

car drives by
I get a whiff
of sadness

it’s refreshing
how evil
my dog is
in a sea of people
pleasers

suggested for
me:
“little piglet gets
blown off its feet”

I am divorced
from
my life

L Scully (they/them) is a living writer.

OLIVER SCIALDONE

floral shoppe by macintosh plus

exhaust angel rot of the earth
roach-hearted boy
spume-doused harddrive clutching
bible-corroded matchbooks

born in the taco bell drive thru
one wing clipped and
smeared with bubble yum
gas station 40s perched on taillights

call me / phreak me
i’m here all night

danny devito’s defunct limoncello brand

saucyboys sugar-pinched brew
prayer card plasma
nectar of the catholic school survivors
horned in recovery
our cups runneth

spaghetti western flirt
cornerstore cowpoke
magazine ads licked by
menthol cigarettes
sucked and soaked through
just some guys
stick n poke branded
confettied over a twin sized mattress

Oliver Scialdone is a poet and artist who lives and works in Brooklyn. You can find them online at trshboyoli.neocities.org

JACOB SEFERIAN

Such Lookers! Such Thinkers!

In the image of a self-checkout
camera I figure intense beauty
must feel like a prison, but me
I am from a lineage of men who
get fatter as they age: No fear!

Doc, I have this spiritual exhaustion
got all the WebMD symptoms like
uninventive lovers and Applebee’s
plus my heels have calluses that
never heal and turn cirrhosis yellow

which is why I was at CVS catching
my reflection while I steal foot masks
see, Doc, I am clearly sick. I’ll take
Klonies or maybe a few Oxy, politics
aside, a kiss won’t do it. I want to be

bold like this old guy I slept with once
awakened by his roommate shouting
for rent, then my lover pissed blood
which I insisted on seeing for myself
and, oh yes, the stream was bright red.

Jacob Seferian is a writer in NYC. His work has appeared in several magazines, online and in print. 

OLIVIA BRALEY

THE INTERNET IS FOR GIRLS

in the future all the pretty girls are holograms
another word for beautiful is untouchable

the perfect body is five foot seven and weightless
only real enough to be looked at

Olivia Braley is a DC-based writer, author and activist. She is the author of the chapbook SOFTENING (ELJ Editions) and co-founder of Stone of Madness Press. Read more of her work and reach out to her through her website, oliviabraleywrites.com, or on Instagram @o_t_b.

ALEXANDRA NAUGHTON

WHISPER CAMPAIGN

I eat dreams
breathe modernity
light knuckles to corvus eyes
drama shit

gossip activates a network
such a variance in reconditioning
swinging from synapse to synopsis
cover undering

Nagel did Playboy
before getting plastered at dry cleaners

I drain heavy
gang stalk morbidity

big poetry has yet to bloom
fish bones tinkle in the breeze

LAND OF CONFUSION (AFTER GENESIS)

I don’t want to go out
I want to watch television

I want to be desired
but I’d rather rewatch Dexter

I keep passing out during Grey’s Anatomy
escape trumps escapism but it’s abridged edging

rest curdles in odd froth stewing screams
oversewn eyes slinking forced seductions

nebulous forms unsate my dreams
thornier than reality’s brainrot premium

in sooth everyone else is cooler on the Internet
apply a heavy slathering of cringe and pray

flirt back what’s your at having fun carefree
the viewer clicks away jaundiced so chalant

too many men too many problems
we live in the hands we’re given

every media outlet is embarrassing in 2024
graveyard shifts at the imperialist fellating factory

this was a hard watch loved it thanks
you're going in the manifesto with AI mewing

Alexandra Naughton is a writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Be About It Press, established in 2010. She is the author of a place a feeling something he said to you a memoir novel told in second person, and poetry collections such as You Could Never Objectify Me More Than I've Already Objectified Myself, I Will Always Be In Love, I Wish You Never Emailed Me and many more. Her first novel, American Mary, won the 2015 Mainline contest and was published in 2016.