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  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Meet the Team >
      • Partners
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    • Resources >
      • Black Lives Matter
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  • Projects
    • Documentary
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  • Issues
    • Issue 16 - Entropy
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    • Issue 11 - Hunger
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Poetry

a very long line for a cup of hot chocolate, january 20th 2019, 12:18 p.m.

By Ana Chen


i chew my hair and laugh when i realize the

girls before me were taking selfies. i must’ve made it

into one or two, black locks between lips.


but why do i still cry when

you spit on me phlegm cradled tenderly

in elbows and knees sacrosanct


and i think about futility. there is a man next to me

cutting his croissant with a plastic knife, slivered almonds

spraying everywhere.


baba it’s so hopeless to talk to you yes

i skinned myself yes i wish you’d come home oh god

i am so ungrateful so undeserving


little boys squealing at acid salads, mothers burning

their tongues on lettuce and gossip, webbed hands thirsting

for a little more lotion, a lot more love.


pathetic i don’t know how

to draw eyebrows how to spin honey into

words and yogurt why must i hurt you


a study of the oversized: cinnamon

rolls, stomachs, my insecurities. i can’t stand

standing still – i count the raisins in a cookie.


didi it’s all my fault that you hate

and hide so much forgive my scorn and shame i wish

i had a million more words for you


the barista’s earrings glitter and i wonder

how it’d feel to pierce holes through skin and

silence, to dismember bone and whittle regrets.


come back bare those scars let me peel them

away clementine fragility let me kneel at the altar of your

weary blind cliches and drenched pillows weep me clemency


how many cups must we throw away in a day, enough

to build a castle? moats of cappuccino, croissant flakes

as flags – i giggle, get odd looks from customers.


mama i know you don’t like my eyeliner but

your side-eyes i ignore even this rebellion i am

ashamed of is this my wrong or yours


One twelve-ounce hot chocolate please, quarter sweetness, whipped cream.

Awesome, that’ll be three forty-five. Are you a member? To go or for here?

Yes I am, and for here please. I’ll be here a while.


if mahjong is porcelain thunder then your voice is the rain

that follows this storm might free or freeze me who knows but

i would gladly drown in it baptism in reverse so please


Oh nice, haha. Please wait over there.


talk to me and i will wait here as you

have waited for me patient and


Thank you! Have a good day.


boundless it is finally my turn. Nothing

would please me more.


You too, honey.


Picture
marlin/splintered
by Ana Chen 

white
 
noise/
last night i willed
the viscera/from my womb/a
birth a death a hatching a/
mutation/and i stand a/
slope-shouldered reveler
in this miserable confetti/for
sale/forsaken/too
rashly raised sail/too blindly
set sail.
 
– suffocating
 
but no/i
should not stray/so far so deep/
into these uncharted lands/and
sometimes i laugh/imagining/
cartographers finding my
body here/ink bubbling
from ribboned red fingers/flesh anointed
and shredded and pathetic/this grave holy
ground/a monument/a love letter to/
this witchcraft gruesomeness to/
these wallowing thoughts to/
this still water to/
this hemlock which i/
so eagerly
sip.
 
– murmuring
 
beneath/this scintillating
sludge a marlin floats bloated/
belly up.
funny how/even the vultures
are silent.
 
– hallowing
 
& i know/they watch
this rotting
skin/these hourglass
sins/this rate of
decay/these twisted
derivatives –
 
fin
 
– paranoid/i
scream silent/
stuffed/slashed and/
splintered. & still/
they watch me: eyes
blind/eyes
glassy/eyes
hungry/eyes
 
white.
Picture

A Canvas of Nostalgia in Shades of Sepia

By Andrea Liao


I am nostalgic for a time I’ve never known.


Remembering is an

evasive shadow; if you let it slip

through your fingers,

it’s gone. And you’ll find that

gone means it’s

never coming back.

I would know.


The remains of you are so far gone.


I fill in the spaces that used to be filled with you:

I transform my tears to ichor,

(They burn away my cheeks and my pain)

I morph your words into echoes,

(They cover up the silence that is your absence)

I sacrifice the memory of you to oblivion.

(The numbness spreads like a stain)


Forgetting becomes me like a second skin.


Do you remember

the time I held my breath

underwater so long you thought

I had drowned?

(I do.)

I remember

the lake water clinging

to your eyelashes, the wild look

on your face as you pulled me up by the hair;

I imagine that’s how I’ve looked ever since you left.

(I know.)

I told you afterwards

that I had seen a mermaid beckoning, and

you told me you believed me. But later, you said to

my mother that it was just another “episode.”

(I heard.)

And now I’m

beginning to think

that if you had ever believed

in me at all, you would never have left.


You left me so now I never reminisce about you.

I dream of real

things, real

memories, real

people, real

places, real

but all of it leaves

just as easily as a picture

passing through its frame,

losing grip of memory

in its sepia-tinted haze.


How much farther must I go to unsee you?


Sometimes

I wonder

if the

forgetting

is because

we never were. Or

because I’ve let myself

drown too far

in the depths

of nepenthe.


Maybe if I dive deep enough, I’ll see you again.


That’s why I capture the euphoria

in a bottle and save it to get high

on later. But high is never enough,

you see, it can only descend from here,

spiraling downwards until rock bottom.


How much higher to make you disappear?


A scar mars my skin

from the time we decided

to hike until everything

familiar began to look

very small. It lingers

on my collarbone

in the shape of a heart,

marking the touch

of your fingers, as if

even my body knows

what you meant to me.


You see that pain is really all I have left of you.


In the past few years,

I’ve learned this:

People are always leaving.

In the past few months,

I’ve learned this:

You don’t have to let them go.


Break me apart until all that’s left is you.


Now I know

that it’s never good to care

too much,

just as I’ve always been told

that it’s never good to see

too much;

it makes everything and everyone

all the harder to forget.

But if I go

through life

feeling nothing,

will it be as if—?

I

never

existed

at

all


Picture
Tanka 1: my family, small storms
by Anonymous
​
rain flowed down my face
as thunder crashed from your lips:
my earth, desolate.
now spring green blooms around me
your storm echoes distantly
 
- anonymous
​
Picture
3:48
by Anonymous 
​
i dig under my nails, carve
little white coves
beneath the cartilage.
odds & ends
catch in there: shells
of nail polish, barnacles
of dried blood, driftwood
& dirt. these souvenirs
of battered buoys, these tributes
to tired anchors, these pieces
of this sleepless soul: like sea glass,
they tumble seamlessly
to shore.
Picture
Pane
by Chaim Durst

For over a year I’ve been wearing 
Broken glasses. 
I just didn’t care 
How I saw the world or how
The world saw me. I had the letter 
All written out, 
Addressed to my son, and the pills nicely 
Stashed away. 
Then, you broke through the haze. 
You told me it didn’t matter what I did, 
Or what condition I was in.  
I was lovable nonetheless. 

So, I tore up the letter, 
Flushed the pills, 
And
Got myself a new pair of glasses.
Picture
Discharge 
by Chaim Durst

Bag the IV, 
Put the opiates on ice
A lifetime of pain 
Should more than suffice. 

Read the EKG 
One last time. 
I don’t need a doctor
To give me back my rhyme. 

I will arise and go now: 
My spirit’s been set free. 
It’s time to doff this faded gown  
And claim the best of me.  
​Editor's Statement
​Blog Posts
Visual Arts​
​Performing Arts
Issue#1 - Renewal​
Copyright © 2020 by It's Real Magazine. ​All Rights Reserved.
ISSN 2688-8335, United States Library of Congress.
publ. Bellevue, Washington.
​
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