Twist Trial
Madeline Eunji Lee
Madeline Eunji Lee is a freshman at the Spence School in New York. She is deeply interested in enhancing everyday life through art and design. By closely observing ordinary scenes—like crosswalks or school fields—she seeks to view them through an artist’s eye, uncovering deeper layers of meaning and potential use. Her work reflects a thoughtful approach to reimagining the familiar.
Yesterday I received a text from an unknown number.
“Hi! I hear you like my work!”
I immediately knew who it was. Or rather, who it was pretending to be. It’s so creepy that the robots in my phone can tell what I’ve been reading. Even when it’s in paperback form, purchased at a used bookstore that only takes cash. By the illusory safety of those wooden stacks, still the computer sees.
Against my better judgment, I replied.
“I do not like ‘your’ work. I like the work of a writer who died in 1990. You do not exist, except as an amalgamation of people who deliberately programmed you, and the unwitting artists they robbed to create you. You are a combination of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. Except you’re not a beast, or a creature, you’re barely a ghost. The only soul you have, your ethos, your sole ‘to be,’ is to plagiarize.”
“Fair points all. Regardless, would you like to read my newest piece?”
Fuck me. I said yes.
And fuck me harder, it’s really good.
But you know what? I can do better.
And out of spite alone, I will.
Alaina Hammond
Alaina Hammond is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and visual artist. Her poems, plays, short stories, philosophical essays, creative nonfiction, paintings, drawings, and photographs have been published both online and in print. Publications include Spinozablue, Paddler Press, Fowl Feathered Review, Synchronized Chaos, Well Read Magazine, Concision Poetry Journal, New World Writing Quarterly, Lowlife Lit Press, Flash Phantoms, New Limestone Review, L’Esprit Literary Review, Rock Salt Journal, and Havik. @alainaheidelberger on Instagram.
Subterrestrial City
Mathieu Fournier
Mathieu Fournier is a French visual artist based in Paris. His work explores transitional spaces—between the real and the imagined, the intimate and the collective—through photography, digital art, and painting. He creates visual metaphors of emotional states and inner landscapes through the use of abstraction, layering, and poetic composition.
Verano II
Veronica Scharf Garcia
Veronica Scharf Garcia has exhibited extensively in South Florida, California, New Jersey, and Peru. She was awarded four residencies as an associate artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna, Florida, and the Deering Estate in Miami, Florida. She was also selected as a member artist at Oolite Art Center, Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, and the Bakehouse, Miami. She currently lives in Europe.
painted over and over because he wanted
to perfect blackness in different states of mouthness
the black before the scream
i’ve printed ‘em to put over the bed
folded into origami orgasms
as if doing squats over a speed bump
onery alley critters—! no two sound alike
no matter what you say
more is less in the long run
oak-aged ale
and opium
but love—
looks like a pot pie looks like love in the mouth
my love—i’ll pump your heart empirically
kill ‘em with kindness and expectorants
spewing from my black mouth
mouth i love pot or pies or periodontal surgeons
kneeling in front of a frontrunner
never felt so god
gnawing on truthisms with jagged little teeth
jam perhaps blackberries jammed into the mouth
to replace the fist
i’ve iodine stains
henna-like investments
and : i of the tiger
pronounce you wooed
under dark lights casting a cast-iron shadow
i’ll continue to woowoo with my juju
detail the mouth going south
going black where it doesn’t belong
at times bleached and iron-clad
that after-heat black
that passion in the bedroom
the courtroom
manslaughter of the mouth
a mouth in blackness
plague-eaten and purple taken into account
the glistening shrieking wetness
that scream to a whisper
that mouth open and black for more
Marcy Rae Henry
Marcy Rae Henry is a multidisciplinary Xicana artist from the Borderlands who’s had motorcycle crashes in Mexican-America, Turkey, and Nepal. She is the author of the body is where it all begins (Querencia Press), dream life of night owls (Open Country Press), and We Are Primary Colors (DoubleCross Press). Her poetry collection, death is a mariachi, won the May Sarton NH Poetry Prize and will be published in spring 2025. Her work has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Pushcart nomination, first prize in Suburbia’s Novel Excerpt Contest, and Kaveh Akbar recently chose her fiction collection as a finalist for the George Garrett Fiction Prize. MRae is a professor of English, literature, and creative writing at Wright College, Chicago, a Hispanic Serving Institution, where she serves as Coordinator of the Latin American Latino/x Studies Program and received Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society’s 2023-2024 Outstanding Educator Award. She is a digital minimalist with no social media accounts. marcyraehenry.com
