Photography by Jasmine Hayes

Warmth

A warm, salty liquid slowly slides down my cheeks

And enters my mouth

As the vast hole located in my heart

Expands to great lengths

And leads me back

To quiet nights

Where there were no words said aloud

But sparks blazing

From two different sides of the city

The nights filled with silence

Silence filled with this indescribable thing where nothing else matters

Where all of the problems associated with the world become a blur

And the only things in focus are the sparks created

By our wandering hearts

As the world stops for a few seconds

And for once all of the worries seize to exist.

-Batula Hassan

Photography by Ben Kessler

“98.6”

Thermometer says “98.6”

But her forehead burns through the screen

Her feet are sturdy like rocks

But her hands keep shaking like leaves

She’s a head of spinning nonsense

And arms that fidget like wormtail vines

But then you say- invertebrates

Are by definition without spines

She’s got pupils that pierce like night

And keep rolling back in socket

She’s got plenty of multicolored pills

That rest in a shallow plaid pocket

She’s got old time Blues

Like porch-swing and silent cries

She’s got blue in her blood

That goes back through the times

She had electroshock syrup

That flew through demon holes

Now she gets pity-eyed embers

Of fire-black devilish coals

Cuz she’s got ancient dust in her wrist

That makes red handcuff rings

And veins like tree branch ends

Or glassy organic marionette strings

She carves picture scenes over precut

Slices, in sour blood-orange peel

But scrapes only permeate

What is definitively real

So we think for a minute

That her fruit-scratches cut deeper

But thermometer says “98.6”

So there’s no way that she has a fever

– Stella Sokolowski

Photography by Sarah Payne

Photography by Ellie Fore