A Mother's Changed Hand

Stella Sanles

September 2023

The hand that holds mine

Is large and pale

Soft with 

Short nails that remain

Unpainted.

They hold the butcher's knife

Fold dumpling skin

And peel oranges.

Splashing water

On freckled cheeks and

Running mousse

Through wavy black hair.

Out hands meet.

We cross the street

And walk to school

Every morning

Together.

I don't see them again

Until late evening.

Hands that were once small

And lived on

The other side of the globe.

Still peeling oranges

But not as frequently.

With a father

Across the sea

Working to afford

A life in America.

Gripping pencils and paper

Running over characters

I don't understand.

Painting a grandmother's hand

A color I don't know.

In a crowded apartment

I've never seen.

In a busy country

I've never visited.

Those hands are now

The same size

As mine.

Aged and weathered

Tanned from the sun.

Hardworking as ever

Tending to a garden

And me.

Our hands are apart

When we cross the street.

But now yours 

Take my arm.

My elbow bends

In acceptance

And we walk together

Like we did when 

Our hands were different.

You still peel my oranges.

I was wrong (1/25/24)

Zoe Byszynski

@habitually_a_mess

I was wrong.

I have twenty long branches outside of myself.
They twist around endlessly reaching.
Their fuzzy swirls couldn’t hope to hold you. 
My center is too mushy to stand tall for you.
I swish around and wobble like unset gelatin.
I am encased in this film that leaks and flakes and stretches and smells and burns.
Spikes all over. Growing, reaching out. Breaking?
           Something is bubbling up here, trying to get my attention.
I breathe hot steam.
            Opening and closing to get your attention.
Two empty spots in the middle. Not to look pretty, not to mean anything.

Inside I am glass. I am fragile. I am brittle. I was wrong.

I hear your voice through these loops.

Your voice bounces and bends through my hurdles with ease.

I see your eyes through filters that can’t focus right.

Never as perfect as you.

They ooze when you’re gone.

On my back I fold in half and half again and half and half.

I will not be strong. I can not learn. I won’t.

Spots consume me, mapping what I wish to let go.

Please tame me. I am wrong.

I can never cover it up. 

I will hide it. Alone and well. Alone and good? Alone and… Alone.

Sometimes I wish… I pray to sail on a boat far away.

Where no ocean could ever cast my reflection.

No cave could echo my voice.

No wind would feel my breath.

No way that it could ever get back to you.

I will sit on the dock because I know this boat is coming.

I don’t know when.

But I know it will find me and I’d rather not be surprised.

If I had more to conceal, I’d have more to pack.

I am sorry for all I’ve taken. 

All the time.

I will try to be quick in my voyage.

To vanish beyond the horizon swiftly.

I was wrong to pick you. I was wrong to burden you.

I am sorry to have knocked on your mind. I don’t wish to stay longer than I’m welcome.

I hope you meet someone with a nose just as keen.

I hope you meet someone with a smile just as wide.

I hope you meet someone with eyes just as sparkling.

I know you will meet someone with beauty as great as your own.

You are… you… you…

You have stained my life. I will not try to clean the residue.

In my mind I will be holding your hand the way you like.

Cooking what you are hungry for.

Throwing out whatever you want to let go.

Forget me with the same ease you met me. Let me waddle away and keep your head held high.

And soon you will pass me like every other stranger on the street.

Gag when you see me at the park.

Scowl when I pass you in the store.

Shove me as I stand still.

Treat me wrong. Treat me the way I deserve.

To Henry, Crane, and “those who jumped”

Zoe Byszynski

@habitually_a_mess

The dying sun sank to the west “cast

your indifferent rays upon the earth”

I walked out into the yard.

Hearing of my Uncle’s termination,

I became convinced of my own extinction.

To die by a heartache devoutly wished,

who would bear the love of the unworthy

and sweat after death?

I stopped about halfway across.

Two graceful faces looking upwards.

Begging, “baby bury me in Belfast

because that’s the only place my body belongs!”

Artist Note:

He snuck over the Canadian border.

He was deported.

He came back.

He was an alcoholic.

He’d been an alcoholic.

He had problems with his wife.

His second wife?

After their kid died young.

Drowned?

He had two more kids.

One studied psychology,

my mom told me. 

He had problems with his wife.

She might’ve reported him.

They both were undocumented.

He was the only one home when ICE detained him,

conveniently.

He was an alcoholic.

He came back

but he didn't let his shoes touch the ground.

They always say my father looked like him,

Except without the handlebar mustache.

They always say I look like my father.

My mom told me.

My father tells me very little.

Johnny Can't Fly

 By Lexi

Biting through his encasement,

The clipped-winged man is weeping.

Desperate for flight,

To be removed from your wings and confined

Is not innate but merely fateful;

If you are a free-flying bird in Florida

Owner comes out to play,

Holding his endless cigarette.

He can't seem to grasp the bird

Who is refusing,

Who is biting and scratching at his encasement.

Owner explains, through thick and cloudy exhales of smoke,

He doesn't want to play today.

(He shit himself.)

Trying to break free, biting and scratching towards no end only to reach 

The fishing line,

The unbreakable string that once bound my necklace,

Which had been so carefully owened,

Only to fall apart the next morning.

The freedom appeared to be misplaced, the bird's bite strong yet not quite in the right spot.

The cage is locked the next morning,

Same as any other.

The same morning that the beads of my necklace fell to the floor.

Perhaps the bead got lost in the tumult of it all,

And stayed with the bird, enveloped in its fierce grasp.

Biting through his encasement has instilled a muscle memory,

The very one that tore through the unbreakable fishing line.

The very one that tore through the unbreakable fishing line.

For my broken necklace, thank you, birdy,

For a beacon of freedom,

A piece of the key that unlocks the cage

If only he could fly right out,

Break away from the cigarette smoke blowing into his barren cell.

Fly right out, only further this time,

Further than his clipped wings could ever allow for.

I Fucked Bob Dylan

Zoe Byszynski

@habitually_a_mess

When your hands are clenched I will give them a place to unwind.

When your eyes are closed I will match them with mine.

When your lips are sealed I will steal a piece of your mind.

Untitled II

Zoe Byszynski

@habitually_a_mess

I've torn and collaged the dictionary

Trying to find the right words

But the glue has stuck my lips together

    And your silhouette to the back of my eyelids

So darling be weary of my tacky fingers

Because some adjectives linger on my knuckles

    And some nouns under my nails

But there might be room by the conjunctions

For our hands to intertwine

Streetlight

Zoe Byszynski

@habitually_a_mess

So limber

So lonely

So beautifully repetitive

I love how I can find you

Everywhere

Shining

For a moment

And then gone

When a brighter light comes along

Untitled (Big Apple Slices)

Zoe Byszynski

November 4th, 2022

@habitually_a_mess

I like the city from a distance

            When I'm not in it.

You can try to get away from it.

To carry nothing except the clothes on your back

            and the pit in your stomach

As you look for solutions in the landscape,

            the cracks in the sidewalk,

                        the gutter,

You realize the sunsets look the same,

            the lines in the supermarket are just as long,

                        and milk spoils if you keep it out

Displated in my mind

Twisting you inch by inch

Switching you frame by frame

Salting you to the taste

Keeping you- in concept

I know you enough to invade your bed,

            but not enough to keep you awake

Just because the line from me to you is taught,

doesn't make the ground any closer.

Leaving who I was at the first step,

doesn't mean I'll love you more at my last.

You could've met me in the middle,

but where's there to go from there

besides the 2,000 feet below us.

You've made me too good for you.

You're younger,

But you smile just as brightly

            At this girl

she looks familiar,

            But I've only seen her through glass

                        In a puddle,

                                    Or the back of my spoon at some worn down diner.

And though you're smiling at her,

            Your eyes are fixed past her

                        At this boy.

Who you've never met besides in the back of your eyelids.

The four of us delicately longing.

It's admirable,

            The lies we tell each other out of love

                        But never in it.

Four Clothed Cats

 By Isabella Krieg

July 2023

I watch as four clothed cats sit on a common city step,

They're discussing their dinner plans for the evening.

As the streetlights go out they go back inside

And I feel that tomorrow will be a very lonely day.

Barbie Doll

 By Marge Piercy

1971

This girlchild was born as usual

and presented dolls that did pee-pee

and miniature GE stoves and irons

and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.

Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:

"You have a great big nose and fat legs."

She was healthy, tested intelligent,

possessed strong arms and back,

abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.

She went to and fro apologizing.

Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs

She was advised to play coy,

exhorted to come on hearty,

exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.

Her good nature wore out like a fan belt.

So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay

with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,

a turned-up putty nose, dressed in pink and white nightie.

Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.

Consummation at last.

To every woman a happy ending.

Marge Piercy is an American activist and writer. Her work focuses on her Jewish heritage, Communist activism, and feminist ideas. Shes written more than seventeen volumes of poems, and fifteen novels. "Barbie Doll" was published during the second wave of feminism in 1971.

The Moon

 By Stella Sanles

November 4th, 2022

Instagram: @stelita.of.the.sea

The moon is bright

She shine brightly

Through my window

Sending moonbeams

Onto my bed

Scattering pale silver

Across my body

To match hers

I turn to look at her

Squinting my eyes

To see her change shape

Seeing rays of light

I know aren't there

I like sleeping 

In the darkness

But I can't hlep

Feeling warm

At the thought of the moon

Casting her light onto me

To watch me dream

11/4/22 1:05 am

ghostofurmemory

 By Zia

July 26th, 2023

Instagram: @deathw7sh

I still feel the ghost of your memory

In these warm summer nights

Wishing on a star

That you'll be where you once were

There's only silence

In the space you once stood

I wonder where you are

If you remember me the same

As I listen to songs

That remind me of a life I never knew

And emotions I've never felt

Who will I be

when the clock strikes midnight?

There's a sense of finality

In knowing I might never see you again

But slowly that dread

turns into existential comfort

Because maybe what we both needed

was to be free

Feed Your Son

Zoe Byszynski

@habitually_a_mess

A pen is mightier than the sword

In an age where boys no longer wield

We let them consume

An appetite for purpose

After they've already licked the plate clean

They slam their fists into the table

Then into the air

They shout to god

"Why have you plagues us with famine"

god doesn't answer

So they look for a god that Will

He serves them five course meals

Food for thought

Then he lets them starve again

Unless they get him more mouths to feed

And while they were too busy making demands to the heavens

They failed to notice the fertile soil below

Deathisaparty

By Zia

July 2023

Instagram: @deathw7sh

live your life

take your time

be by yourself

just try to free your mind

everything will be ok

that's what i say anyway

and in some ways i'm right

life is a journey

and then you fucking die

but when i really think

in nights dark adn starry

love is a drug

and death is a party

when i die i'll see everything

i've ever loved

i'll become the sea

and the grass, and the sun

i'll become a strem

of pure information

flooding through the minds

of the masses of your nation

i'll be your darkest thoughts

i'll be your brightest dreams

i'll be everything in between

i'll be everything you hoped for in life

but just remember

you only see the truth when you die

This Is Love

By Kota Blackwell

July 2022

Instagram: @static4ge_

This is love

This is hating until your mouth runs dry

Slapping, Kicking, hitting.

Pay your price and clean it up, 

never think more than a moment.

We love by showing our cards,

naked and vulnerable.

I had all kings, you hold all aces.

Beat me out every time.

The pesticide of our love,

the chemical run off,

the toxic waste.

Eat it, lick it all up.

It's tasteless divergence.

This is love, bbay.

Love, love, love.

Perverted, imperfect, disgusting, sinful love.

This is love, baby.

Milk of the Gods, poison of the underworld.

Slapping, kicking, hitting.

Butterfly Growing Kit

Zoe Byszynski

@habitually_a_mess

Oh little caterpillar,

How you've slept and wriggled

Many weeks under mother's watchful eye

In what's your home in no other way but name,

You long for the world

So vast,

But we'd all know how far you'd make it.

As you wait, you grow to the size of your impatience

You create a world of your own, enclosed and secure

Mother lets you out only after you've forgotten to dream.

You wonder

As they flutter

Is a world that shut you out worth flying in?

But if you don't fly at all why wait for wings?

Oh butterfly you've taken too long to decide

Your wings are cracked and brittle

And your mind is bitter

Alone and useless.