Black Girl, Initiate Written by Maya-Gawonii Shabazz-Saleh I learned early that cruelty has a logic, and if you listen closely enough, it will tell you why it chose you.  In fifth grade, I was the only Black girl at a sleepover, and even before anything happened, I understood— not intellectually, not in language, but in the way my shoulders stayed tense and my voice stayed small— that I was already marked. I remember the house more clearly than the girls themselves. Walls p

Blood Permane nce Written by Breezy Jewel I once thought of myself as an accismus over some sort of passionate ballad until my desire mutated completely into what I feigned to reject. I don’t want this, not here, not for a while, not even a little bit. I don’t want the weight of the world held between your eyes, not when the weight of the world entails the masses begging to live without barbarity. Here- the absence of any sort of pragmatic competence, where language is displa

Concrete Utopia Written by Breezy Jewel Risen from blood-soaked plains and riverbanks, Liquid hope poured into wooden frames Then hardened into what many could believe to be the shape of harmony, Or, at the very least, a mold that somewhat resembled it.  These cities grew, in curves, in spaceships, Not for gods nor kings, But for balconies meant to face the same sun, For halls wide enough for everyone to enter. The concrete was never meant to be cold, It was meant to remember