still, your hands wrap around my brain like a vise.

on the fine China dinner plate: sprig  lacquered with sweet Sherry ambition, polyurethane-blanketed queries, 

Abigail Ray is a writer from Portland, Oregon, and has been published in Same Faces Collective, Maudlin House, and Call Me Brackets, among others. She recently graduated with her Bachelor’s in English and writing from Portland State University. She primarily writes poetry, lyrical essays, and experimental fiction about loser-core women that are definitely not poorly disguised projections of herself, no matter what people are saying.

imbued by a sense of blue,  berry not in lactose-less latte

Hoya Dolling is an emerging indie-writer based in the Pacific Northwest, forging poetry and fiction with the weight of always choosing rock in a world of paper and scissors. Stiff, but not unchanging, the stone is weak to erosion with time as the artist, painting blisters and smoothing personal edges.

Can you feel me in the silence, can you smell me in the air?

in a subterranean street   of a literary novel   set in Mexico City like those lines   folded across faces in suburbia  clipping the grass 

American comeback, prove me wrong Charlie took a bullet, and then he was gone. Its like this new era is a rhyme in a song and this song has been playing far too long

Town reset In a matter of weeks Holy ones rising Upsetting the peace And when your crown Slipped away Leaving his throne empty He threw his country away Knocking at your door They want your family & more The king is dead And the country is at war But just a plane ride away In our restaurants and clubs Where people dance and Waiters wear gloves.

This poem is a response to one my dad wrote by the same name. It is included below. White Hair I figure you were finally caught by the old man you tried to chase away. I think I saw him too at my dusk and your dawn, in the morning after too much wishing I could carry you along. Maybe Calvin Senior came and pulled you away you wrote how smart men do this each in their own way. I know you’d never leave without a fight, never gently into that good night. But now that you are out

Rain I brace a table I embrace a name I hope I see your ghost After all this rain. My chest splits open As part of you moves in, But I’m sewn up all wrong And don’t know where to begin. Raised by the player  who knew the blues run the game I hope I see his ghost After all this rain. My head closes up As too much of you moves out, My memories sing and fade Like water in a drought. Your heart, your heart Like a strange machine gave out The heart that cried wolf, But could no lo

Two moments in time, forever in mind October 2000, sitting on the edge of the hill, what a great view A sunset, ¢1 lollipops, our hearts filled with joy "Say goodbye!" grandma yells from down below, "Five more minutes!" I reply, taking in the last sunshine glow Deep inhale, the smell of wet dirt and handmade tortillas Hand in hand, we climb down together - one last hug so tight Tears fall, "I'll see you soon!" a promise so bright March 2013, a different edge, a different view

"Bob Dylan," "Hud," "29," and "Victoria PT"

Look, you know full well what they’re like: twisting words and half-truths, those magpie thieves;

How the corners of the page curl in flame how the smoke rotates every atom of his vision on its axes

In Defence of the Cryptid & How The Forest Calls

We exited the roadhouse, a rural gas station-restaurant hybrid into a more uncanny night.

My many years on stony roads have led me to the crashing edge.

It's getting harder Not to sink To the bottom And live there I see your face in everything, And the thought of Never holding your hand again Slowly creeps back in, Settles, and pulls me under, Further down deeper Leaving me broken, Drowning in pain Nothing will ever be the same I can't stop hurting Sorrow is my constant

Lucia of Syracuse, patron saint of writers — known for fiercely guarding her virginity, but isn’t that another way of saying self-preservation and autonomy from men? Patron saint of the blind — the men who killed her tore out her eyes,  and she holds them in every painting  like a badge of honor, like she hasn’t yet been bested.  Look what they’ve tried to take from us, she seems to say, poised and unfazed, instructing me:  write them into a corner.