It is truly cruel to bury a child named Asterion. “The starry one” who was suddenly ripped away from the lights in the sky. A boy who was born as a punishment, condemned to a prison away from his mother’s arms. It is almost ironic; born flawed due to the sins of another. His mother’s reckoning and his father’s embarrassment. They locked him away, a monster deserving only of cold dark stone. He cries for his mother. Prince of the Labyrinth: destined to die by the hands of a “hero”.

Was walking barefoot to the corner store
Cherry popsicles melting
down our arms. Staining
our denim shorts and our mouths
Hot, sticky, and bright red.

Sharing a tube of cherry lip gloss and giggling
at the high school boys who honk at us from
their pickup trucks, hanging
out of the windows like dogs,
drooling and panting.
The burning
July sun. Long hair sticking
to our tanned skin.

First, you have to lower your standards. Not all at once… if you do that, you’ll notice. Start small. Return emails later than you should. Learn to say “I’ll circle back” and never circle back. When someone points out a problem, nod thoughtfully and write it down, then lose the paper. You see a call from your wife, you’ll get back to it later, maybe. It’s not cruel. It’s efficient.

I salivate at the scent
of my great evergreen,
Tall and embraced
by the spring breeze

Their sap sparkles
in the sunlight,
begging for a taste
Sticky amber on my finger

Insects zip by my ear
with a loud bzzt
I put my finger in my mouth,
subtle sugar on my tongue

Beckoned by the call
of my grandmother’s
caffeinated tone
from the backyard

Newly sprouted greenery
It tastes like, smells
like mint, like Earth
Insects zip by my ear with a loud bzzt

you didn’t hear our cries you didn’t see our dead you didn’t feel our pain

yet you hear our guns yet you see our rage yet you feel their pain

our homes destroyed our food wasted
our water tainted our women raped our children dead our men slaughtered

yet they cry out the wrong name free israel
free israel
free israel from what

Abstract

dilute.
to make it thinner or weaker to make it digestible
dilute.
to make me thinner or weaker i want to be digestible

i look like a fool holding a diluted heart out to the masses begging for someone to consume me
but when they do, they never finish
they mustn’t spoil their appetite they tell me they’ve barely taken three bites.

It’s my turn
I step into a room, a dull white
I watch my brother on that bed
one channel then another
wires drape from his arm
I know white, we
know white, but not this shade
the white of our porch in the night
illuminating the grass it stood from
we run, chasing little sparkles
our hands becoming cages
for those tiny bugs of glow
the white of innocent and ignorance
From that bed
he turns his head looking up at me
I catch a glimpse of that white
The yellow would fly from our palms

I carry too many postage stamps with me—
everywhere I go, I have no regret of it
There could be a chance I stumble upon a post office
and I could write to you every time I do,
even with you right beside me
Intertwined in ink and evergreen’s sacrifice,
words could never dry up in my bleeding heart;
poised and pounding exclusively for you
I would pull out my ribcage and necessary bones
just to makeshift you a mailbox for my prose

From a young age, most of us are taught to fear a specific kind of shadow: the “monster” lurking in a dark alley, a depraved stranger waiting to pounce. We build our lives and our institutions around the comforting belief that if we stay in sunny spaces like university campuses or with family and friends, then we are safe from these monsters. We assume these foundational spaces are neutral havens where safety, truth, and reason prevail. However, this focus on external monsters is a dangerous distraction from a much more uncomfortable reality.