My Son in the Sea Lisa Zerkle Somehow he knows he can breathe in both water and air. See how he grows piscine,  dull on land, iridescent in the deep.Delicate flesh of my blood and my bone. How many bodies can this world hold?Men want to examine where exactly skin meets scale. You can’t have it both ways,   choose: man or fish? Not a man, say the men.  Don’t listen to them, sing the sirens, preening their feathers (being as they are  part woman, part bird). What will the fish say?Neptune, I’m counting on you in your pearl  and coral grotto, where distinctions are not so brightly lit, where sea horses are not  horses, where starfish are not fish, but stars.

More from Lisa Zerkle ↓

• @hag_lore on Instagram
• Listen to Lisa on Painted Bride Quarterly's Slush Pile podcast, where the editorial team discusses submissions, editorial issues, writing, deadlines, and cuckoo clocks.
• You can listen to me read Motherhood by Lisa on Instagram @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

Winter nights, burning cinder.Sierra sylvie As I lie here with eyes that , Glint while the cinder burns each memory softly. As I lie here with  those eyes that , Soar across every memory longing to be embraced.
As I lie here with a body , Longing to be worshippedAs I lie here with the body ,Of rusted skin from the torrent of tears .
As I lie here with a soul , Suffering from the resentment of an eclipse As I lie here with a soul , striving to cherish the thistle garden of heart.
As I lie here with an aching heart , Waiting for a lullaby , only to recite it myself.

More from Sierra sylvie ↓

• @the_fire_ave on Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

Moonborn Aura Guerra-Artola I am the Moon’s daughter. Forever shifting roomswithin the skin I call home.My light has crossed the tides, so have my shadows.
I leave pieces— memory like bark, fallen between full and hollow.
I lay in the hands of the earthwhat in mine has completedits cycle—in case she willsthat it might bloom anewfor someone else.

More from Aura Guerra-Artola ↓

• @g.a.aura on Instagram
• Her book, How to Live with a Cat on Your Chest and a Whale in Your Heart, is out now

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Nov 17 -  The Anatomy of a Queer Body by Gokul Prabhu @iamameme_gp on Instagram and @gokulprabhu1 on Substack.

Nov 18 - Raindrops by Kunjal Saraswat @_heart_cuddles_ on Instagram.

Nov 19 - A Boy Moose Ate My Tulips by Erynne DeVore @poemsprayersandswears on Instagram. She has two poetry books, Discovering Divinity: Poems, Prayers and Swears, and The Labyrinth of Heartbreak: A collection of poetry for the lovers and the heartbroken. You can listen to me read mother all by Erynne @rembrandts.cure

Nov 20 - Loneliness is a strange dopamine by Dipanwita Dey @iamdipanwitadey on Instagram.

Nov 21 - Ode to the Familiar Strangers by Yara Tawk @yara._.writes on Instagram. Her book, Periwinkle Sunsets, is out now.

Nov 22 - Fernando by Keana Aguila Labra @keanalabra on Instagram.

Nov 23Something Nice for MyselfMaggie Devers New clogs, soft pink suede baby.The stack of pictures, waiting to be hung, leaning against the wallStaring at me like they have for a year since we moved in.I move them around occasionally,Inspired by a new blank place where they will be most at home, but I haven’t been able to decide yetExactly where they need to go.I think I’m waiting for them to tell meThey know, they know.
So maybe I’ll cross it off my to do list since it’s really already doneAnd wait for that moment of inspiration to put the hammer in my hand, pencil in my hairAnd count out the inches from the floor.
It will make more sense when they’re on the wall,a picture always does and art always does Art always does, but a part of me likes to live in that place between making sense and not,Being real and notWhere anything can happen,Especially if I’m wearing pink suede clogs.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

• Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
• Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

Fernando Keana Aguila Labra 2011. Fernando was where we danced with our heels above the sand. A sixteen hour flight with jet lag as we licked the 6am sun. This is where it rises. Where he rises. Six hours before the mysterious Fernando. An hour acquainted with Fernando. Your chin raised, proudly. I did not understand it then, nor did I care. There was only us and our hands and this big house. Buko juice and lechon and mouths only in jovial activity. I married my toes into this land of his and smiled directly at this sun.
2006. Fernando was my Ate’s go-to karaoke song. She, sixteen, too young for ABBA, never been in love, yet she sang heart-broken. She sang polished. She sang as if to say, here we are, my love, how did we make it, Fernando? Bugles and rifles and old men with gray hair flooded my imagination. Fernando. Fernando. I was sure Ate cried the first time she sang Fernando. I didn’t know I was clutching my chest until I did.
2018. The same chin once upturned and proud is now drooping. His whiskers are no longer brown. His arms know only chairs from the kitchen to the recliner where he sleeps. I ask him where he’s from. Fernando. I beg him to remember the shade and humidity. He is slower to respond. His eyes wide, wanting for rest, but I’m not ready to let go. I plead with him to come back to San Fernando, Cebu.
2021. And he is gone. One hands me a tissue. Another says it’s not about what we deserve. But what of Fernando? San Fernando, where there are ferns and the dirt road? Where is the carsickness and white van and linked arms? Where is the orange laughter? Close your eyes. Fernando. Open your eyes. Fernando. I spell Fernando with my finger onto palm. There are no saints. I can’t remember if I breathed. I whisper Fernando as they lower him into the ground. 

More from Keana Aguila Labra ↓

• @keanalabra on Instagram
• You can preorder her book to love something you must carry it on your back by Bottlecap Press

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

Ode to the Familiar Strangers Yara TawkLike a wave crashing down on shore to then melt back into the ocean, I wonder if I too must break to recollect myself in my mother's embrace.Do droplets of rain miss being a wave?Will I ever miss being her child?Where does an unstoppable river go once every ocean has run dry?And what of the lake with no mother to run to, what of the waterfall with no arms to fall back into?Can they call the ocean anything but a stranger?Their beginning perhaps, but not their future.Can I be one's child and yet my own person, a freshwater lake and still of the ocean?I was born into the world as a stranger's crafted goods, a sweet summer tree's sweet summer fruit; yet I feel like a lemon in a vineyard, a sour flavor that smells of winter, and I love my self of citrus and fire, but I wonder if my mother would recognise this stranger.

More from Yara Tawk ↓

• @yara._.writes on Instagram
• Her book, Periwinkle Sunsets, is out now

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

Loneliness is a strange dopamine Dipanwita Dey Loneliness is a strange dopamine.Slowly, steadily, it consumes existence.Under its spell, it traps, strangulates,murders, and extinguishes.
The desperate try to defeat it,unleashing the invisible chainaround the collarbones.Feels like a gravitational force,pushing into the darkness of the unseen.
Solitude devours the ultimateversion of yourself—the despondency of never being discovered,never being heard,never feeling the warmth of a beloved's touch—evaporates into the captivation.
Loneliness is a strange dopaminethat gradually erases felicity.You let it consume, let it burn.The desperation is robbed.It feels dreamy, forever in slumber.It doesn't differentiate,manipulates the foul play with peace.
It paints hollowness with serenity,makes silence your native tongue,shadows your permanent companion,darkens your inescapable attire.
You begin to forgetyou were once alive—how hope sounded,how touch once anchored youto the trembling realityof being alive.
And so, you exist—half-forgotten by your own soul,where even the mirror sighsat the ghost staring back. 

More from Dipanwita Dey ↓

• @iamdipanwitadey on Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

A Boy Moose Ate My Tulips Erynne DeVore i discovered marbles and obsidian buried in my garden next to the worms after a moose ate my tulips
“of course it was a boy moose,” someone joked with mei tried not to wake my daughters scaring him away they woke anyways irony is never lost on poetsmy daughtershave ears and eyes and hearts of their ownthey would’ve seen the evidence in the morning
those tulips were a gift from Mother Earth meant for my pleasure, the flowers that came to me in a dream after i turned my back on the housemeant to turn usfrom innocent and sweetto Victors sometimes i still dream about eating strawberries during a time i could pretend Alaskan fruit has a taste
the tulips were a gift and i blamed nature for taking them from me “the lord giveth and the lord taketh away” scripture gets just enough right we could forget to dig deeper
the moose was just doing what moose do andhad he not consumed what i perceived as minewould i have let the feathers guide me to God
a boy moose ate my tulips and i was pissedas if Divine gifts are mine alone as if i could expect him to be anything other than who and what he is as if God didn’t want meelbow deep in dirtlistening to Their question:what do you want to plant?!girl, CAN YOU HEAR ME?put your face to the earth feel me and ask yourself if just anything pretty deserves to be buried deep inside your home’s fertile ground?
the tulips, godthey were beautiful and they picked me but the moosein all of his immature adolescent volatile and majestic naturefreed mefrom my attachment to pretty thingsthat just so happen to be there
the moose released me from all that tied meto roots that were never mine to begin withfreed me to get dirt under my nails anddiscover buried treasure to weed the roots that would no longer strangle alli was planting
i prayed to co-createwhich meansgetting my hands dirty 

More from Erynne DeVore ↓

• @poemsprayersandswears on Instagram
• She has two poetry books, Discovering Divinity: Poems, Prayers and Swears, and The Labyrinth of Heartbreak: A collection of poetry for the lovers and the heartbroken
• You can listen to me read mother all by Erynne @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

Raindrops Kunjal Saraswat Raindrops shine under warm lights.I notice it for the first timeAs I sit here—Two hours deepInto this nightWith the rain.
Well, not just the rain.It brings its companions:Thunder,Lightning,Showers,And storms.
Tonight, it’s a stormy rain.The wind is wild,And the glass of my balcony shuttersShudders under its weight.
I sip my coffeeAnd keep penning my poetry—This one is about sorrow,About giving up,About the reality of life:Death.
Behind me, the music swells.The rain’s pattering grows louder,And the glass keeps trembling.
My windowIs not strong enoughTo protect me.It doesn’t knowThat I writeWhat I accept in life.
I’m a writer.I don’t need protection.A simple hole in the groundIs enough for my sleep.
The trembling stops.A smile creeps onto my face,As if I knowWhat comes next.
The glass shatters.Large shards fly toward me,Pricking my legsOne after anotherUntil the whole paneIs embedded in my flesh.
Still, my pen glides smoothlyAcross the page.My coffeeIs still warm enough to drink.
I’m vulnerable now—To the storm,To the ache.Lying here,Wrapped in warm lights.
Penning my poetry and having coffeeWith large pricks embedded in my flesh.I feel dizzyAs blood flows down my beige sofa
The stain will last forever.
As I reach the final line,My pen gives out—No more ink.And I doWhat any writer would do:Leave behind a masterpiece.
I grab my inkpot,Take a feather,And dip itInto my soaking blood.If the stain remains,Let it mark my diary too.
I finish my poem.The last line reads:
“For as long as it takes,I shall waitFor my beloved—My demise—With a smile.”
The feather slipsFrom my lazy hand.And as I shut my eyes,I notice the rain again—And for the first time,I realize:
Raindrops shine under warm lights.

More from Kunjal Saraswat ↓

• @_heart_cuddles_ on Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

The Anatomy of a Queer Body Gokul Prabhu

This poem first appeared In Plainspeak.

Please tread gently. This poem has potentially disturbing content.

I see death, perched at my window.Sometimes, they even sit on the edge of the bed.Death is my friend now!I am often tempted to draw them into a kiss.They no longer hold a scythe,and are no longer dressed in a cape.They dress like my ex: shabby t-shirt, greying jeans, and sneakers,or whatever those shoes are called in their world.We have a conversation sometimes,or they just watch over me as I sleep.I am often tempted to join them on their journey back to their land,but I think, for now, I shall stay.
I hear the cuss words from the neighbour boy as I pass by.“Chakka,” he spat, because I was not like him,looking for pussy constantly to stick his dick into.My existence used to be a crime,but even after the law has changed, I don’t expect acceptance.What a joke. I am craving a good, appreciating word,but I am only disappointed. I am not even hurt anymore;cuss words have become part of my hearing system,the language used to construct my body.
I smell the judgementand the disappointmentof my parents as I enter the hall;it stinks of their silence on my sexuality.It doesn’t exist; it will disappear if they deny it.I will become ‘normal’ again.I just need to see the baba,sit in a pooja,eat the medicines that will rip it out of me.Or, oh – they can also beat it out of mebecause I can smell a conspiracythat ends with me being straight or married to some girl.The smells of love and trusthave been overpowered by the stink of hate and distrust,but at least, I have the privilege to be able to walk out.
I taste, unwillingly, the cum of a guy I am not even interested in.It has been forced into my mouth, but I don’t say anything.My standards have lowered.Is it problematic to have standards? I don’t know.My type of guy is way out of my league,because my body type doesn’t cut it for them.I am, as they call it, the cunt for everyone,even for the bored-of-girls-want-something-tighter cis straights to use,whether I like it or not.Love is out of the window; I have lost hope.The fear of not having a future togetherunless you can afford to flee to another country.I might be able to, someday, if I am still alive till then.
I touch the knife, lightly running my finger along the edge.It’s sharp enough.I can do it, really.No one will miss me;the neighbour boy or my disappointed parents.The peeps who use my cunt will find another the next day.My friends will hopefully understand.I am tired, and I want to go to sleep, and experience my body like I used to.But I know, even after I am gone,my body is death’s best friend,constructed by cuss words and disappointment and fear,the template of the queer body.

More from Gokul Prabhu ↓

• @iamameme_gp on Instagram
• @gokulprabhu1 on Substack

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice.

We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO