Poetry on The Student Insurgent

Dream Life

Rebecca Kartchner — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:52:20 -0700

Art by Rebecca Kartchner

Beg for nightmares but

I get dreams conniving

Creep into my head

Infectious thoughts twist

My nerves into knots

Wake to a world lacking

Saccharine sweet

The flat slapping drumbeat

Of my heart, I breathe

Stale airin solid walls

Keep still in bed I

Stall and hope its not

Real, that this is

The dream and soon

I’ll wake to crashing

Shores of subconscious

Let my eyelids flutter

Closed I lie awake

Endless Sea

Amphitrite — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:42:41 -0700

Art by Raven Tigerlily

I’m so tired
of pretending everything is fine when it’s not.
It feels like I’m drowning
in an endless sea
of oppression, misery, and racism.

People look over from their boats of white privilege,
but don’t do anything to stop it.
They see me,
and the pain I’m in,
and just stare
in content.

Their eyes now meet mine,
but they don’t extend a hand.
I scream without sound,
swallowed by the waves.

I’ve stopped calling for help;
the silence answers faster than they ever could.
The water feels warmer now,
almost like home.

Venom

Triton — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:39:27 -0700

“Fair hero and fallen maiden” by Toby

There’s a slick shadow in the newsroom,
eyes glinting like knives under fluorescent lights.
It moves between the desks,
all teeth and silence,
drinking from the cup of swallowed voices.

Politeness is its venom,
slipped into smiles,
dropped into meetings like sugar in poison.
It hisses compliments that sting,
and every nod tightens its coil.

It doesn’t roar, it calculates.
It doesn’t fight, it erases.
voices vanish, our will dissolves,
truth bends under its gaze
until the walls of the newsroom
become a cage
lined with your quiet compliance.

This monster wears credentials like chains,
armor forged from the comfort of those too blind or too scared to act.
It eats attention, feasts on your hesitation,
and leaves only the hollow echo of erased words.

But I’ve learned the rhythm of its fangs,
the pulse beneath the mask.
I know the snap of jaws before they strike,
the poison in the smile that pretends to be safe.

And I will not be quiet.
I will not shrink.
I will name the shadow
without whispering its name.

Because venom loses its power
when you stare it down,
when you speak the truth it tries to devour.
Its reign ends the moment we stop pretending
the hiss is harmless.

You Are a Dorm in the Summer

Via Nelson — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:59:38 -0700

“Heartsong” by Rebecca Kartchner

A breeze unlatched a door down the hall from mine,

once a respite from the contention at home,

now a soulless remainder;

vacated with a window left open.

I wandered naively forward to investigate the draft,

pulled in closer by adoration,

sweet and deceitful.

Now at the entrance of this temporary shelter,

the once gentle air began to force me out,

still I pressed my way in.

Witnessing the center of you;

flat bloodless walls,

silent pulseless sink,

pale-skinned ceiling,

an empty ribcage.

In your center on my knees I begged to keep crumbs,

combing my fingers through the carpet,

landing upon a red barrette,

seizing it immediately so as to savor you.

I felt its smoothness lay beneath my fingers,

remembering your skin,

my hands along the place where your spine should be.

Holding on longer to you,

until the last color wore off,

the final gasping embers of an old flame getting snuffed.

Looking outside the reckless window,

down in the dirt,

the slowly rotting apple,

that you once held in your hands and ate from.

Crazy Crunchy Vessels

Robin Bailey — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 18:31:34 -0700

You are sitting at a table

feet firmly planted on

the grave of the

Mother Pioneer

amidst a million happy faces

wondering why you aren’t

working this event.

You should be out of your

chair, camera-in-hand,

hunched over, squinting,

browbeat by sun, sweat,

observing this scene which

you should not take part in

because you are objective:

That is, you are the objectified;

you are the real starving artist

you are the one on the edge of

all struggle, all liberation, all love

because you are not here to be

part of it. You are not here to be

one of them.

They want you there because you

have made yourself of use, insofar

that you keep to the sideline, that

you watch your step and your mouth,

that you bridge the gap between two

frayed glorified friend groups, that you

make & produce something incredible

and push its deadline indefinitely to

make room for the

“more important work.”

(Being there, for them).

This deadline is not just

your newspaper.

It is you,

living your life.

You are on hiatus, yes, at the whims

of every media-illiterate around you,

no matter how many pain-staking

seconds or minutes or hours you

attempt skillsharing. But also you

are this saint at the mercy

of an infinitely fallible

group / circle / party

that does not, did not

want you here.

And in a year you’ve thought

you spent proving your worth,

you’ve instead, more or less,

wasted it

proving this point:

They cannot love you

in a way that matters more

than you loving yourself.

“Smoking makes your heart pure” by Alex(a) Cruz-Abarca

(temperate dissociation)

caarrp — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:28:01 -0700

Photo by FFH

I’ve become sickly, looking over my shoulder for a guy with a wide smile. Often strictly buisness clocked left and right left again, falling into brush. A prick from a rose bush as I regain my feet.

If I blink fast enough, my eyes roll back, I get 2 seconds of release, a thief behind my eyelids prys me open again and again, I pause to say, “ I want away from this light.”

I look around me and the watercolor bleeds along The seams of this scene.

“I wanna go back,” I say, but I dipped below the surface so the words become lost reverberations in this pool. They all kick, flip turn at the wall in a fluid stroke and I cradle my legs when their waves reach my face. I bubble back up slowly.

“It’s not really like much has changed~” says a bird on my shoulder, they follow me around and give unsolicited advice, I turn to see the blind spot to the right of my head once again, my breath condensates, blinds my vision in spite. I grapple with the straps of my backpack, pulling tighter, tightest, graphite and gridpaper hugs me back, limp + bound.

I awake again, cut to, the sun has risen, and strategically fragmented mirrors reflect soft sunbeams around my bedroom. If it’s just me here, why do I keep feeling you longing to be here too?

If I keep looking, this becomes symptoms of insanity, if I keep wondering, will I ostracize my existence into exile?

If I keep feeling, my head will get the best of me, I was never much for sustained security. I slip out of ties, binds, blankets, beds, much too quickly.

“Super power bandit star [redacted] keeps relevant the last 48 hours of reality,” reads the newspaper, a telling story. I sit down, my breakfast and coffee are served to me, I barely nod, fully engrossed in the story, as I start to sip a cup of joe, I enjoy my nuclear fantasy.

Maybe I had been disapointed, I thought I was known, to the capacity of me, but rather I was felt an ocean half full, or three quarters empty.

“You can really only know so much, I mean, humans are selfish creatures”, the bird continues. In the cemetary now, I sit by my grandmother, or a dusted up version. Then I say, “burn everything,” and look around. We seem to be in consensus.

I think of the bodies of people around me, and notice the dotted lines that have formed boundaries. “Who started planning these walls?” I look around, and I am alone.

I blink faster and finally close my eyes. I think, “sweet victory”, but the fire has begun lapping at the outer edges of my cerebral cortex. Grey matter chars lightly and the pink bits underneath churn, flip and twist. I think, I need water, I inspect the holes of the showerhead, propelling 47 streams at me, I open my eyes wider. This feeling sits stagnant under my skin, drips hit and fall across it, gliding to my toes, soles, I lazily turn the water to 73 degrees, luke cold.

I hate this discomfort, unknowing, willingfully ignorant, I want to see it believe it, say it, scream it, hold you, feel it, be, within what I want to know is possibly happening. Why can’t I tell what is happening, and I dont have the courage or desire to find out. Not from here, I am much too far away.

Photo by Rye

Considering Individuality

Eclipse — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:50:09 -0700

Art by Eclipse

Our bodies are combinations of billions of organisms which take up highly specified tasks to keep our complicated bodies alive. The human form is beautiful in so many ways. Even though most of us have two hands, two eyes, and two legs, each of our bodies are an immense cocktail of human difference. Each one of us has features physical, biological, and chemical which make us unique from the 8 billion other humans on the planet. Often society clumps us into groups, proscribes identities and personalities, and universalizes experiences. It causes conflict and friction when we expect others to feel just as we do.

Stereotypes cause us to disindividualize people, particularly communities who are already subjected to mistreatment. Forgetting or ignoring the fact that every one of us is an individual promotes universalized treatment of groups of people, which fails to address individual needs.

This collage is dedicated to the vast spectrum of human experience which makes each human being who they are. Art represents the experiences and personalities of its creator, and thus every piece is an original creation- just like the person who made it. The macro and micro differences in our experiences, personalities, and bodies are what make life so dynamic and interesting. It may be hard to see sometimes, but each of us is full of perspectives and ideas, and exploring them together can be an immensely satisfying opportunity.

Art by Rye

Art by Estella

Sunny American Day

Steg — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 22:12:10 -0700

Illustrated by Steg

I lay in a vapid parking lot

hot,

stale,

syrupy air thickens in my lungs.

My picnic blanket feels scratchy under my knees-

lukewarm water bottle,

chips,

gnats,

this is the life.

I adjust my bikini top, lean back, look around-

scattered cars, shopping carts,

quiet friends, loud crows,

sweltering,

empty–

bubbling popping pavement like a cauldron.

This is all I’ve got.

The rivers and plains ain’t got nothing on this…

this is the paradise we built.

-steg

I Found Blood on My Battle Dress

Zamboni — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 21:54:15 -0700

I Found Blood On My Battle Dress

Combat boots

feel loose on my ankles,

who’ll feel, but me.

“We The People”

Are not. my. people.

A citizen’s arrest for

your love

a stabbing for the

patch on my shoulder,

To have to

reap for thread

when I was taught

by the only maker of me

to sew

I won’t

be hit, bulldozed,

clotheslined

but if

I swing high,

people seeing

the stars on my socks

the stripes on my shoes

is the least

worries.

Ball(o/e)t

Robin Bailey — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 13:56:13 -0800

Art by caarrp

Snuggling up to your bedside
manner, longing for that triassic
cuddle; making myself known
in all my endless acts of devotion:
each vote of confidence spells
out my name in a stunning
display of electoral power
(fireworks, or a star
rising in the east-
west coast).

What if I laid my head
on your shoulder? Is it
so much to want common ground
— by which, I mean, you on the
ground, or me — pinned between
knees, chests heaving, red cheeks
& roses.

I’m painfully aware of who
I am (or what I try to be),
my positionality in these
trying times. Still, I want
& want you, want him,
want to rip & tear both your
worlds asunder
if just to get my point
across: I am loveable,
so you should love me.

Den

Robin Bailey — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 13:54:13 -0800

Art by caarrp

come with me down foxholes,
in hideaway homes. i can tell
you stories, can bare to you
my throat—or yours against mine.

your words will have substance, soft
in the hollowed-away substrate.

we are swallowed down here.

Amoeba (Brain-Eating)

Robin Bailey — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 13:50:56 -0800

Art by caarrp

Are there people
past the mangroves?

Red root steeples
pointing down below.

Swamp beast made from mud
& muck, teased by luck. Toes
wriggle in the shallow all
maggoty-like; heads of past
passersby impaled on pikes.

I have a few bad habits
and more lost gods.

Would you hole with rabbits,
against all odds ?

B&W

Tyler — Tue, 07 May 2024 12:03:04 -0800

Art by Oliver Bee

Black and white. Evil and good. But why? White is the absence of all colors. Black is every miniscule spectra of color combined. Diversity is what has brought us this far; if there was nothing different we wouldn’t be able to combine things to create.

Black is the color of rich soil, and of the heavy clouds that come to plenish land. Black is dark and darkness is when all living creatures finally get to rest, to just breathe in crisp, dark air. But for others, it’s the time to get loose, to party, to live, to be able to see pretty lights and stars.

Yes, it’s scary to not be able to always see what is around us, but that’s when you lower your eyes to embrace other senses and explore what’s around you. We’ve evolved this far, and although some people on this planet seemed to devolve, you can make it through the night. You will fight or flight and you are capable of becoming one with the night as you are with the day.

White is a brilliant blank canvas, it does make things lighter, but constantly staring at the sun will make you go blind… as many on this Earth seem to be. Stop the associations that Black is bad and white is pure and good. Don’t let fear of the unknown dictate your life because one of your five, maybe six, senses does not operate as you wish. This shit is built off racism. The subconscious and unconscious connections you form that Black is evil or grossly undesirable while white is pristine and clean… that perception can carry onto the people you meet, the characters you develop, the weather you experience, the food you eat, and so much more.

You need to mix to develop the advanced, you need to blend to get creative, use all the colors, and you have Black and white to accomplish that.

The extremities of Black and white in contrast apply to so many things that we as humans value, but to be truthful, all of these subjects are simply grey. If there are two sides that so strongly oppose, there must be at least a sliver of logic or good reason within each side, whether that’s rooted in fear or morality. Some people see all white as nothing, some see all black as nothing. There’s that grey area, the mix of nothing and everything. I encourage you to play with your perceptions, see the hidden threads that connect our words, thoughts and actions, and enjoy our mini May issue… Black, White & Grey.

Sky Above

mountains — Mon, 06 May 2024 15:45:39 -0700

hey alice
above us only sky
hey alice
and it’s crystal clear and blue like texas is and isn’t
like the day on the scaffold
burning hands as we all took it down together
hey alice
remember all of us
our signatures on the wood walkboard
we’ll never throw that one out, i promise
hey alice
remember when i almost passed out that one time
remember the show where my glasses broke
remember me me me me me
hey alice
why is it always about me?
you’re the dead one
i didn’t even know you that well
hey alice
it’s so selfish for me to be so sad
when you’re the one who died
because your sadness killed you
hey alice
everything seems sharper now
my heart honed like it’s been diamond cut
they say suicidal girls are selfish
hey alice
but you weren’t selfish at all
you always helped always cared always worked to be better
maybe that’s why you’re gone now.
hey alice
i really hope you found it worth it
i hope you got your peace
i hope we make you proud this year
after all
hey alice, there’s only sky above us

No Talk of Fire

Icarus — Mon, 06 May 2024 15:39:20 -0700

Art by Alexa Cruz Abarca

Can we be bitter without setting our futures aflame? I shampoo my hair in the garden.
Someone tells me to send a letter to everyone I had ever talked bad about.
They return marked with black ink. I trace the outline of my veins with scissors.
Who would I be if I was not me? A mirage? A reflection? A ghost? This is for my future children.
I’m sorry that I could not bring you into this world. I love you and I wish I had killed you.
I’m sick, I tell the doctor. There’s rot in my lungs.
He responds, Have you considered it’s maybe just anxiety? Nowhere bleeds into everywhere.
I cannot remember what California tastes like. They all want to know how I’m gonna die.
Gunshot, stab wound. Disease snowflaking out into the slippery air. I’m gonna be famous, baby!
What’s it like to be a star? Hollywood wishes it could have my body and so do most men.
Satisfaction paints the night wish-dolly white. He places a hand on my stomach.
I tell him, I can’t have children. He tells me I am more than my wanting to die.
One door shuts. Another flowers open. Oak, Maple, Daffodil, Daisy. Baby’s first tears.
The two headed calf before the morning. The wood before it separates from the stream.
The light shining off the coast, warning of the shallow depths beneath the surface.
A god, a failsafe, a forgetting, a future. Smoke rising over rocky mountains, drifting towards tomorrow.
If there’s a flame, I don’t see it.

Compared to You

Mon, 06 May 2024 15:31:38 -0700

Tender flesh I wish I could touch,
But when I see, I seize in disgust.
So heavy compared to lean,
I am unclean.
Formerly crystallized but now undone,
Skin folding in origami with deep creases,
Scars sincere, a period piece.

Crystallize

Amaru — Mon, 06 May 2024 15:20:07 -0700

I wish I could brainwash myself.

I wish I could drop dead.

A knife up the thick blood vessels of my throat or a serrated stab through the gut down to spilling intestines.

An acceptance that I can no longer breathe when submerged in the ocean’s serene deathly oscillations.

Oh to have a whim to carry on only plays out into self destruction.

I want to be free but I can’t pin down exactly from what,

I want to be stable, but divine things never are.

Like the menace of fire, and all its wreckage, to be so fluid, so unconfined and so captivating,

And what about the beauty of essentiality in pressure?

Vital for balance and creation by clicking pieces into place.

But to think how pressure can crack bones, rupture eardrums and cause explosions followed by burning shots of steam.

The two conclude- in a pretty. little. rock.

Who would have thought from such Earthful demolition will become something so fucking prized,

A diamond, free from change as its exoskeleton is only the first layer that shelters its geometric insides

Crystallize my heart,

So it can never feel again.

Home

Oliver Bee — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 -0800

You wish I were in your image.
Soft and delicate crevices,
but stone and sculpted angles
where a stomach and thighs
should be.\ You want me to be
tender and warm, an ample
bosom to fit your desires. What
I want is to fit my own gaze.
My body, soft in all the wrong
places, scars gently outlining
where breasts used to be.
My body isn’t an object to be
gazed upon, it is My home.

Out of Tune

Lynx — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 -0800

I play my family’s piano out of tune because it’s been out of tune for as long as we’ve had it. I never learned any actual chords or how to play properly, but I kinda like it that way. I like the idea that if broken keys still make sound, they can still create music. Broken thoughts and fragments of ideas become lyrics and rhymes that others can relate to. Some of them listen through broken headphones that only work on one side, but still carry symphonies. Ripped pieces of paper can be pasted onto one another, surrounded by stickers and pictures and tape to create a new image, a new message. Broken toys can still be loved. Stuffed animals with missing limbs and loose strings can still be held in the arms of a child who finds comfort in the little things. So I stand at the piano, and record any sounds that work. Because we’re all a little out of tune, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be heard. – Lynx

Over and Back

Dorian Blue — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 -0800

The trees show me their bare branches

Gnarled, raw

The cold bites through my resolve

A crow’s caw

Sounds in the pale blue above

Love like winter

Barren and biting

But it will never splinter

The frost in my chest

Will it melt and let me rest?

The world outside is so dark

The last thing I want is a sense of hostility

Instead, vitality

In the beginning threads of spring

Green will arise

Nascent in its glimmer

The crowning of a worthy affection

Caught in the resounding highs

And decadent lows

I scramble soundlessly

A squirrel on a branch

Making my way to a more inviting world

One where

The roses and forget-me-nots are in bloom

And all is fair

My happiness lifting from the gloom

Rose and Lavender

Dorian Blue — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 -0800

The boiling water rises

Whistling of the kettle shrill

My eye lies on the prize

There will be an end to my chill

Color blossoms in the mug

Sumptuous stripes of steam

Quickening the internal tug

Put to my lips, a floral dream

Soft, cushioned fields of lavender

Against the rose’s cutting thorns

I can’t turn back the earthly calendar

And escape their mounting scorn

There’s an urge in me to unwind

To sit with my tea until there’s nothing more

The world is in an impossible bind

Except for another blend I found to pour

I’ll take what I can, but how much is left

Our woes go from lukewarm to cold, no longer deft

When the storm is over there will be calm

For now, I only have my multitude of qualms

Baklava

Resonants — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0700

in the wake of it all,

after capital’s fall:

i will lie down with you

in the garden we’ve grown

with our sweet picnic lunch

and there we will eat

the baklava made

in the kitchen we’ve shared

with our family found

amid the tumult;

and if: you wish it

i’ll teach you how

to count the stars

as many above

as ways you can teach me

to roll out the dough:

we’ll learn from each other -

with baklava on

our lips.

Playing With Fire

Resonants — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0700

My love and I are planning a trip

into the forest, where we’ll be,

honored houseguests of greenest geology:

and I will sing sweet campfire stories of fine dust and good company,

leaving California behind.

The Golden Coast lit up by blazing

sirens of force, caught up in their hot impunity.

As we book our tickets, she says to get insurance,

so our plans won’t go up in flames.

But when we get to the campground,

I will swim beneath those red woods,

I will give them to my dearest,

these tender trees that survive each fire/

to make a home beneath their boughs,

and tell our stories over s’mores.

Our vacation: a mirage I see on the pavement,

beneath each heat wave’s satin sun.

‘hottest summer on record’, again.

‘worst wildfire season’, again.

while I have to push beg buttons just to cross the street,

and find some shade to rest in.

She coughs on the call, quietly.

the smoke billowing toward her to cook her lungs,

as bombs blow up over Ukraine

she whispers stories to feed the flames;

And her voice sounds like:

the felling of forests-

the fear of fire-

flirting with fascism-

fluttering of firearms,

My friends fight for housing, amid a temperature spike,

and I keep wondering if the next body I see on the street

will be their scorched bones cooling on concrete -

She dials me in a fit of fervid coughs,

the forests fall from Bolsonaro’s edicts,

and pressures erupt to protests in town

as cinders catch in her chest.

An asthma attack takes her to hospital-

the bill is as high as ambient temperatures.

in the parking lot where I stand;

my phone is hungry for her call:

Nine-thousand, two hundred fourty-eight houses – gone.

Homelessness holds her court and judges;

wildfire feeds the waters we had/ planned/ to visit-The flames flicker, luff, and lull.

I take a breath/ clear of smoke/

save these hands from scoring with fire.

and wish,

know, that art. - art must snuff it:

the burning of more than trees.

The Empire Builder

Resonants — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0700

They call this train the Empire Builder | |

each gilded town along the vast Imperial artery [

a hurried disruption of wood, and I consider ,

if cities are wounds or organs ?

Maybe each border is marked by hatchet trails /

veins, a main street where the grain of ‘worn wood ‘

hits the air and bleeds sap ?

I grasped a hatchet from my dad’s army pack when I was younger ;

filled with grim purpose of building my own empire —

violently hack empty space from bleeding parts -

and finally, with fire in my heart :

chopped the roots of ancient trees ~

that I believed had no grand purpose ,

that I thought were just a nuisance ../

But it is not useless; every poisonous heart can seed and sprout ‘

or finally be dried and pounded out for healing tincture “

and maybe this punctured canvas of a town can still be left to dry -

pulled and tied and stretched and broken up until ]

the streets are garden rows, sustaining a heart rebuilt \

the silt glimpsed from the far jailbar windows | |

within each car of the Empire Builder .

Lines

Serbal Vidrio — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0700

Downy hair of the earth overtrodden in
crushed dense wandering tracks—flesh of earth
shaped by the imperfect impressions
of travelers on whose feet travel worlds

Cutting shifting tracks with days passing
and passing lives, lives that slip away
like mud washing from a disaggregating trail
like displacing sediment along wending riverbeds

Sense of place not my own
placelessness abides in the places I pass through
unbelonging thrives where I fail to inhabit
anticipating arrival in unknown latitudes of longing

I walk these lines
set down
by others’ feet
in other lives.

This Is The Only Thing I Have Left To Offer

Icarus — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0700

My brother has started at
a high school in California
which has some of the strictest
gun laws in the country but

we cannot regulate our borders,
so sometimes a gun comes from
a neighboring state and kills people,
or the gun is attached to the belt

next to a taser and a baton,
and before our eyes is fired.
A girl is killed, or nineteen children
are killed, or a family is torn apart.

What a cruel world we live in-and we
argue and give our children a bulletproof
backpack but we cannot give them a promise,
or a future, or hope, but we can offer

thoughts and prayers every year until we
are praying that they did not feel pain and
stalling court sessions because we’re
fine with kids dying if they do it themselves.

But my brother is now ending his first year
and I am going into my third and he is still
alive, but that’s more than I can say about
a lot of children. Maybe I should feel grateful

that I haven’t died yet but every bullet locks
into its chamber with finality like the classroom
door locks into place and then there is nothing
I can do. Here we are, and I am left offering

the same thoughts and prayers I wish I could
denounce. I write letters and speak out and
here I am, wondering if I should delete this
poem entirely because this poem does not

pass laws or stop children from being killed
but maybe if I write enough I can convince
myself I am doing something, anything at all,
and I can pretend that this bandaid can be plastered

over a bullet hole. I am praying I do not have to see
another child without a face. I am hoping that
this will end and things will change. I don’t know what
to do, so here, have this poem. It’s all I can offer.

Vive La Révolution

Icarus — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0700

The morning dawns and the sky bleeds red.
Orange and pink hues flash across the sky as\ sun breaks from under the cloud cover.
I watch as gold shimmers in the light.

Hope is like a miracle. I think of a man we all praise
dropping bombs onto weddings and thinking this’ll change
I think of poisoned water and I think of mass graves.
Of stolen land, and people, across rolling seas.
I think of prayers given to the earth on bended knees.

I think of the children, with bright eyes and flimsy bones.
Then I think of the sun, and once golden thrones.
They fade into nothingness against a summer sky.
April blinks into existence,
and I watch Icarus fly, and fall, and burn, and get drowned by the waves
and all the people who we were too late to save. The city startles
awake and we know there’s more dead, as the
sound of gunshots ring out and the sky bleeds red

A Delicate Rose

Rosie — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0800

From the moment I entered this world, my parents knew I was a delicate rose.

I was the first flower they planted on their own, and although their parents didn’t teach them to garden, they did their best to gently tend to the growing thickets of the rose bush they so thoughtfully sowed.

As I grew throughout the changing season, I did my best to weather the storms that constantly plundered through the garden.

They did everything they could to keep me growing safe and sheltered from the storms, but even a greenhouse can shatter with strong enough winds, and they knew that the most resilient flowers bloomed in the open air.

When I did begin to bloom, many stopped for a minute to marvel at the beautiful blossoms I had finally grown and maybe snip a few off for themselves. But when they got closer and felt my thorns, they decided a softer flower might be better to take home and keep around their loved ones.

And who could blame them? At least a lily doesn’t cut you when you try to hold it close.

I spend my days staring longingly across the garden at the delphiniums, the daffodils, the daisies, and the bluebells all side by side, no thorns… no aphids…just happily coexisting.

Every once and a while someone decides to try and make it through the thorns so they can add the romantic rose to their bouquet…

A rose cut off from its bush dies quickly, but even if my blossoms wilt away in a vase, or are trampled into the dirt by a forlorned lover, I’m happy when someone chooses to cherish them even for a moment.

It’s easy to assume that because a rose has thorns we aren’t delicate, but even the prickliest plants will wither without water.

Sometimes during a long period of shade, a drought, or another storm, parts of my body begin to decay…but a well tended rose bush has the resilience to come out of dormancy and create new blossoms, even after the harshest winter.

The beauty of a flower is that we are ephemeral… we all must die eventually, but the seeds that we leave behind in the earth stay for generations and the garden will continue to grow.

I’m a delicate rose, but I’m learning to tend my own garden.

An Offering

River — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0800

Everything we do

is an offering

these days even my spits a gift to the ground

to the plants

and i bury the end of my blunt while i’m thanking the trees

like i’m blessing the dirt like this the only ritual i’ll stick to

And everything we do is an offering

So i’m still trying to watch what words come out my mouth and

Choose which thoughts i listen to more carefully

I’m wondering who suffering stains dark red my hand

When i trade in these dollars for some plastic wrapped bullshit

Enough gas to get me to the beach and back then

Thousands of miles away from this city

 And i'm practicing my apologies in the car

All the ones i haven’t offered yet

Because im scared i can’t make them words so

I sit and just watch them

Listen and think and

Try to remember for when i need them

And i’ll offer my love in exchange for your presence

Cuz i’m still struggling to offer myself peace inside any four walls

Over anyones four wheels when ive fucked up for the fourth time

Or something hurts so bad i feel 14

Everytime i forget to respond to something important

Forget what to say forget how to be

When i can’t rest in this form and these features and this voice and

most days around 4:00 cuz most of the days already passed

Before my eyes

Because im still tryna see myself before im 24

Still tryna remember to let myself be seen, before you leave…

Before i remember everythings an offering

And i want to be seen someone kind

Something vulnerable so real it’s already heartbreaking

     Shed my shame until my presence is immediately disruptive

Offer my fear to the fire of love

The flame of intimacy

     So you can find me …

So the next time i’ve got your heart in my mouth

i’m not choking on the blood dripping down my throat

I’m not scared to be seen

Crimson honey leaking from between my lips

No longer petrified that you’ll tear your heart from my mouth

or tempted to take mine first

But as my teeth sink deeper

Our dance becomes softer

Our laughter become stronger more frequent

Even when your veins are thick or your body is far

I want to offer you my greatest love letters

Even when i inevitably freeze from fear

I want to offer myself forgiveness

I still want to face you

Unafraid of the future

Unafraid of myself

I am aware that everything we do

is an offering

To this moment to all expanding time moments beyond now

To outliving these oppressive patterns

Honoring and embodying these sacred life cycles

To earth, all elements, all being which has created us

Among who we ceaselessly create

So it is joyfully that i rest rest in your cavities

and gratefully i awake to everything else

And in bliss i offer myself to the process today

// And when i blink

And find myself in the belly of night

When i break and bend and bow before reflections

I will seek raven – do not cower do not relapse

Wide eyed creature  you can honor the void

You can hold the wholly magic you can offer this self you sit with

To darkness and be transformed in the mystery

Reworked nonphysical

 Cosmic hearted creature

You can heal and release your consciousness here

                                                              Hear your breathing

                                                         Thank  you    for being  here

Beautiful Horrible Things

Icarus — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0800

I don’t think death is as beautiful as the poets say. Yes,

there’s something pretty about dead roses and rotten fruit, mice

skulls and bones, but I’m reminded of how easily skulls can split, or

how easily bones could break, and in my heart, there’s another funeral

and it’s raining. My head is rushing to meet the frozen ground, but

I should be prepared for it. It’s nearly taking me three separate times,

and every time I look in the mirror I recognize myself a little less.

What can I do? Is it worthwhile digging another grave?

Do the birds stop singing? I cannot afford to put my life on halt.

I fear if I stop, I will never be able to start again. What can I do?

Nowhere is safe. The streets of America have become killing fields.

You take a risk every time you step outside. You take a risk. You pray.

They said they remember. They have better things to forget.

You die. You die again.

I push back getting my license another year. I think I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

Your Choice

Amaru — Sat, 01 Oct 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Where’s your karma?

I fell victim to nauseating torment

Have you even had dirt under your fingernails? You dragged me halfway across the world

Why have you stayed still above me?

We’ve both experienced red

But in such different ways

Choices, choices, choices

But you made the wrong ones

Choices, choices, choices

You penalized us with guns

Choices choices choices

You left us with none

Choices, choices… voices

Why has yours become the most rotten one

Voices, voices, voices

Mine was muted so harshly you’ve made me numb

Where’s your karma?

your future is in (my) hands

Icarus — Sat, 01 Oct 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Art by Misandry

this is land of the free, and home of the brave,

we love you as us, and give you a grave.

we’re a welcoming country, you’ll live the dream!

while we work behind the curtains and screens.

make America great! keep America white!

we’re killing your future who have tried to fight.

we give money to the rich and bombs to the poor,

and disease to families and kids to wars.

we claim that we’re different, while being the same,

we strike down opposition, in unities name.

we’ll kill our leaders, and kill our youth,

as broken teeth and tongues try to tell our truth.

as we ruin lives while children sleep.

we trash our oceans, and make the moon weep,

and tides with sadness, eddy away,

silence the ones with something to say.

we bury our problems, but say they’re at rest,

bend over backwards at our leaders request.

we forget the promise, in liberty made,

then watch in disbelief as loyalties fade.

and dreams dissipate into ashes and dust,

but again, I’m asking you for your trust

Chode to Schill

The Student Insurgent — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Art by unknown

He has come down from his ivory tower

Only to climb up another

in the Windy City

To blow smoke up your ass, but no longer mine

Another school insulted by his name and time

His reign of terror in Eugene,

Oregone but not forgotten,

Has reached an abrupt end

Wicked, green, witch of the Northwest

Good riddance!

I’d wish you the best, if it was off with your head

But you’re not worth the price of admittance

Peg yourself with ya witch stick and fly off into the distance!

Ding dong, ding dong.

No more videos starring a rat-faced fuck

Nor flops for photo ops

No more passive optics you think pass for justice

Gone are the days

of your money-hungry gaze, that is until,

the new appointee is in bed with your beloved trustees

Seeing the profit-pit you’ve left in your wake

We know this is the beginning of worse yet ways

You’ve turned this school into a bloody goldmine,

Congrats, you’ve tricked them with your fool’s gold, but not I

Chicago should be thrilled

To get to suck your michrocock Schill

An ode to you, President Schill!

You will be neither missed nor forgotten

And may Chicago carry on the torch

Of calling out President Schlong

For all of his bullshit, who knows for how long?

Draft in inDesign (most updated)

He has come down from his ivory tower

Only to climb up another

in the Windy City

To blow smoke up your ass,

but no longer mine

Another school insulted by his name and time

His reign of terror in Eugene,

Oregone but not forgotten,

Has reached its end

But we won’t forgive your crimes.

Wicked, green, witch of the Northwest

Good riddance!

I’d wish you the best, if it was off with your head

But you’re not worth the price of admittance

Fly with ya bitchass broomstick off into the distance!

Ding dong, ding dong.

This is an ode for you, President Wrong

You may be gone,

but your legacy lives on.

No more videos starring a rat-faced fuck

Nor flops for photo ops

No more passive optics you think pass for justice

Gone are the days

of your money-hungry gaze, that is until,

the new appointee is in bed with your beloved trustees

Seeing the profit-pit you’ve left in your wake

We know this is the beginning of worse yet ways

You’ve turned this school into a bloody goldmine,

Congrats, you’ve tricked them with your fool’s gold, but not I

Chicago should be thrilled

To get to suck your microchode Schill

A chode for you, President Schill!

You will be neither missed nor forgotten

And may Chicago carry on the torch

Of calling out President Schode

For all of his bullshit, who knows for how long?

red flowers in my lungs (and a person who hates who they’ve become)

Icarus — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Art by Monty

i have looked into the future and hate who i’ve become. words spill off their tongue like honey while cotton catches in my throat and chokes me from the inside out. i want to warn them, tell them that people will only deceive you, don’t go into that car, you won’t come out the same, something in you died that day, all the advice i wish i had taken, i don’t remember being this selfish, maybe i was mistaken?

and the truth is, i don’t remember, was it a december where we fell apart, i cannot see, i did all i can, this began with fire and ash and a girl who thought she was better than she actually was, because i had confidence, right, that was a good thing, to have, to be,

(and now he laughs mockingly)

was it? i don’t recall

oh, i must not have been good at anything at all

i want to cry, where was he when i died, choking on blood red roses that have flowered in my lungs, him denouncing who we were, me refusing who i’ve become

i was not a very good child, no, not at all, but I wouldn’t talk about him this way, i would never have fallen so far from grace, filled with anger and hate and burning rage,

but still i am trapped in this glass cage.

it’s a fact that cotton expands when wet, this is a fact you should know, because i am dying, vomiting up flowers on this bedroom floor, i tried to be better, i’d hoped i’d be more

this unrequited love is killing me, and he hopes it does

“ and he always thought he was better than he was”

i meet him in a land of time, and he cannot bear to look at me, back turned.

“face me, please,”

my voice cracks and i have never felt so weak.

we were together, we’re still the same, aren’t we, i swear, i tried to be good, i did what i could, was it not enough, tell me what i did wrong, we got here together, we did what we had to do.

he still doesn’t face me when he finally speaks, broken words upon his tongue, a knife in my chest twisting deeper and deeper, his voice cracks and i can see the tears in his eyes.

“no thanks to you, alex”

oh paris, why do you still lie?

He Said She Said

anonymous — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

He Said	She Said
You had two shots of vodka	I was completely sober.
You wanted to talk	I wanted to hang out with our friends.
You said you wanted me to sleep over	I was trying to come up with excuses to go.
You followed me into a different room	I didn’t want to be followed.
You said you always wanted to	I said I didn’t know what I wanted.
You told me to lie to them	I wanted to scream for help but you were so controlling.
You asked me to help you get popcorn	I was led into a room I didn’t know
You put your hands on me	I never really said ‘No.’
You kept kissing me on my neck	I was waiting for it to end
You jammed your tongue down my throat	I was searching to free myself from the wall
You pulled me down on to the couch	I needed it to end but didn’t know how.
You tugged at the end of my shirt	I moved your hand away.
You got up and left me there	I was frozen feeling bare.

In This Earth Live the Stars

Serbal Vidrio — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Part of a series on latin american poems

Originally Written by Elicura Chihuailaf

In this earth live the stars.

In this sky sings the water

of imagination.

Beyond the clouds that rise

from these waters and these soils,

our ancestors dream us.
Their spirit—they say—is the full moon;
silence, their beating heart.

Instructions for Changing the World

Serbal Vidrio — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Part of a series on latin american poems

Originally Written by Subcomandante Marcos

Build yourself a rather concave sky. Paint it green or brown, earthy and beautiful colors. Give it a splash of clouds to your liking. Carefully hang a full moon in the west, let’s say about three quarters up its respective horizon. In the east slowly start rising a bright, strong sun. Get men and women together, talk to them slowly and with love, and they’ll set off on their own. Lovingly contemplate the sea. Rest on the seventh day.

Bring together the necessary silences. Forge them with sun and sea and rain and dust and night. Patiently sharpen one end. Pick out a brown uniform and a red scarf. Wait until dawn and then, with the rain about to clear, set out for the big city. When they see you, the tyrants will flee in terror, trampling each other to escape. But… don’t stop!… the fight has just begun.

Juan López and John Ward

Serbal Vidrio — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Part of a series on latin american poems

Originally Written by Jurge Luis Borges

Chance found them in a strange age.

The planet had been parceled up into different countries, each provisioned with loyalties, beloved memories, and an undoubtedly heroic past; with rights, grievances, and peculiar mythologies; with brazen forefathers, anniversaries, demagogues, and symbols. This division, the work of cartographers, made wars auspicious.

López was born in the city that stands by that immobile river; Ward, on the outskirts of the city through which walked Father Brown. He had studied Spanish to read the Quijote.

The other professed a love for Conrad, who had been revealed to him in a classroom on Viamonte Street.

They might have been friends, but they saw each other face to face only once, on a pair of too-famous islands, and each of the two was Cain, and each one Abel.

They were interred together, left to snow and decay.

The facts that I recount took place in a time that we cannot understand.

Medusa

Icarus — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Art by serendipity

medusa had the right idea i believe.

a cave on a mountain seems the best way to go, watch their eyes as you turn them to stone. hold their lives in the palm of your hand, let no more men tell you what you believe, shatter them and their preconceived notions.

if i was her, i would never leave, escape to where i would be exempt from the rule, the exception because when a man came into my space and said “i thought you liked this” all i could say back was, “i was 15,” oh how i wished i had snakes for hair and weapons for eyes,

instead my hair is curly, perfect for someone to grab in their hand and say you’re mine now, it hurts, that the way of the system that wasn’t made for us to succeed will make us bleed to survive, was I made to be broken?

i carry pepper spray with me and plan to go into politics.

sparta would have welcomed us with open arms, a warrior society, where violence was encouraged and reciprocation too, castrate him with a knife if he touches you, forget chopping the hydra’s heads off, we already know two more grow back in its place

become a vigilante and turn them all to stone, scream at them and stop playing nice, once they’d diagnose you with hysteria, now they deem you a SJW and pray for your death.

only through empowerment can anything be changed, with the collective rage of thousands set the world on fire, and dance in the ashes of what remains

i wish i was medusa, as tragic as her life was, because she at least had an advantage

an advantage that ultimately killed her in the end, because her snakes for hair and weapons for eyes

were something that men didn’t understand and so claiming to be heroes, brought on her demise

To a Driver Who Became My Friend

Serbal Vidrio — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Part of a series on latin american poems

Originally Written by Tracy K. Lewis

You from your steering wheel
and me from my books,
we dialogue,
and in the Guaraní language
we are strained by
five hundred years of rain and fallen leaves
and five thousand of dust,
two nighttime continents,
a whole Milky Way of mute space,
until from the dregs
of such divergence
there arose something shining like the sun
of Capricorn,
caustic like red earth
against blue sky,
and sure like the slow ascent
of the earth toward the Andes to the west:
an honest companion.

Tomorrow is in Danger

Serbal Vidrio — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Part of a series on latin american poems

Originally Written by Ariruma Kowii

The forests are losing their vitality

Their dialogues are agonizing, losing their clarity
beginning to fall silent

Their dreams crumble to pieces
and silence begins to reign.

Its song
the song of the birds
is faint and discordant,
their hymns

where will they be heard?

The air arrives tattered, exhausted
and delayed

The rivers watch us with bitterness
and desperation

The entrails of the earth,
nourished by poison,
begin to expire

The plants
no longer bloom with fervor
with the same enthusiasm as yesterday

Tomorrow, fearful
its face pallid and its body malnourished
runs the risk of miscarriage

Tomorrow,
tomorrow is in danger
tomorrow
tomorrow runs the risk of never arriving
tomorrow depends on us
and so it is fundamental
to recover our reason for being
it is indispensable
to care for its pregnancy
to ensure that its delivery
goes as it should
that its child is born healthy and vigorous
and that we all
can lull it to sleep
in our arms
and christen it
with the name
of:
Humanity!

We Are Not People

Serbal Vidrio — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Part of a series on latin american poems

Originally Written by Hugo Jamioy Juagibioy

We are not people from an alien world

longing to keep living;

we are not people from a land

from which tomorrow they will say

we left.

We are not a people brought from other places,

our roots are here.

We are men of the trees, we are a people, we are a community

born of the depths of the earth,

trees walking through the place

inherited from our taitas,

people caring for harmony and the balance of nature,

a people constructing a home

for our children

so they may live happily and naturally.

You My Paradise

Serbal Vidrio — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Part of a series on latin american poems

Originally Written by Hugo Jamioy Juagibioy

If there is a paradise

in these Indian lands,

why isn’t there one

in others’ lands?

A solitary paradise

suffocated by a space

where violence, narcotrafficking

surround it and little by little destroy it.

A paradise where peace

once reigned among its inhabitants,

where respect and tolerance

were the pillars of life.

A paradise that today is only

history and nothing more

because it has seen the arrival of

destruction, war.

Oblivion is perhaps its fate.

The Glass House

Icarus — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0700

if i got sent to war-

is it a fun fantasy? inserting yourself into places you don’t belong i call it - seeing the privilege of the oppressed while it’s not there

am i wrong?

this belief, this idea, a sense of community found in the very place, you’re not supposed to be

It’s like, white saviorism yet taken to this max When it’s not about you, you make it an act And as much as you claim otherwise Doing this detracts

From the experience and lives of those so much different Is this done on purpose? Might you make this deliberate?

If i got sent to war-but no you have not You live in countries untouched by the rot That has plagued countries year after year Yet you only now notice, only now turn you ear

Stand with others, don’t make this your own For what you are doing shows an absence of tone Let other have their experience, and don’t make it yours While you battle on twitter, others fight wars

The Empire

anonymous — Wed, 04 May 2011 18:02:48 -0700

The titan’s madness leaves us undone. The worker’s slaughter; The bosses having fun.

Tall towers, falling down. Small soldiers, Walking into town.

Hanging heads, cheering crowds. Kingdoms falling, with king’s heads in clouds.

Planes soaring, bombs burst. The crowds roaring, The deathtoll’s new worst.

Volunteers marching, with paychecks in blood. Nations Falling, Corpses laying in the mud.

Seven million, Dollars a Day. For jets to make, corpses in a new way.

The titan’s madness leaves us undone. New Walls in Palestine, No homes, where shall we run.

Israel holds food, Israel holds water and land. Palestinians hold tears; Palestinians bury bodies in sand.

So many bodies, so many dead. So many starving, who have you fed? No more young men or schools; only dread; No more bricks, mortar, or houses for dead.

Plant a tree, No, not for me. Plant a tree, for seven generations to see.

But to plant a tree, there must be land to grow. The cement walls and checkpoints, all the guns and fear, they simply must go.

I want my freedom, I demand my say. Are murders in my name? No more, not after today.

I demand to eat, I demand to live. To plant that tree, Israel, that land you must give.

O the Trees!

Joel Durr — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

O the trees! O the trees!

Cut off at the knees -

they reach for the sun no longer, you know.

Now they serve the interests o’ capitalists

As catalysts to subsequent selfishness.

Our plunder for lumber and popsicle sticks;

The well-calculated blowing of mountains to bits,

for the profit from coal, bituminous

are far more dangerous than any terrorist hits.

For it was Abraham Lincoln a-sittin’ and thinkin'

that our fall would surely come from within.

He feared for the day

when corporations could say

they succeeded in usurping the state.

This line we surely have already crossed,

that is unless you are asking your boss.

For all is maintained quite out of perspective

by framing within the specific objective

of free market, benefit and cost.

“Consume, be silent, and die” they say

though phrased in a much more positive way

through television, internet and radio ads

that promote all the newest material fads.

This is a smokescreen to serve the obstruction

to your view of the heinous perverted destruction

of our natural waters, air, and land

and to keep you submissive beneath their command.

But remember this o woman, man and child!

These plans rely upon our complicit denial

of the consequences of certain free market decisions

that further perpetuate our social divisions.

But we can yet repair the damage produced:

distinguishing wants from needs - consumption reduced.

This here’s a bandwagon worth jumping on

because we can survive “business as usual” for only so long.

Self Visualization

Cimmeron Gilespie — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

While you’re going jogging or running,

Its all in your mind

Its all around you, its makes you want to,

bleed out the eyes

They put the pictures in all the magazines,

Expecting all to see

They put the pictures there,

To be in your mind

Its all bloody insane,

Like a sadistic sign,

They want you to act, think,

And be the same

Its all bloody insane,

INSANE,

Its all bloody insane,

Deranged

Pictures and poses, sex and red roses,

Arranged

Black and white madness, with corporate fascists,

I feel harangued

Oh no, what now conformist cow,

No more a hagiographer

Human is human, love is love,

Share the beauty like a dove!

The Whole World Around

Cimmeron Gilespie — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Come on Come on,

The whole world ‘round,

Everybody Get together,

The whole world ‘round.

It’s you and me,

The whole world ‘round,

It’s everybody we see,

The whole world‘round.

Move past the killers,

The whole world ‘round,

Move past the drillin’

The whole world ‘round.

Bikes for everybody,

The whole world ‘round,

Together for peace,

The whole world ‘round.

We are talkin’ freedom,

The whole world ‘round,

Abolish the citizen prison,

The whole world ‘round.

Peace and freedom too,

The whole world ‘round,

Together me and you,

The whole world ‘round.

Got to have food

The whole world ‘round,

I am talkin’ to you,

The whole world ‘round.

Come join a fight

The whole world ‘round,

Cuz it ain’t alright,

The Whole world ‘round.

Come join the fight,

The whole world ‘round,

We can make it right,

The whole world ‘round.

So come join the fight,

The whole world ‘round!