When you born on somebody else’s river in a cursed boat it’s all downhill from there. Ha. Just kidding. I’d tell you what I don’t have time for but I don’t have time. Angel Nafis, Gravity

So, when Bhim ripped Jarasandha apart once again, he swung his left half to the right side of the arena and his right half to the left. And his body found no way to return to itself. Divya Victor, J is for Jarasandha

Wait, I said. I don’t know if my phone’s 3G will make it – the sharks have been eating the cables, it’s been very slow. We just need to make it to the land bridge, it’s my favorite part. Grace Phuong Thao Tran, New Build

Sometimes, parents & children become the most common strangers. Eventually, a street appears where they can meet again. Chen Chen, Poplar Street

I the total black, being spoken From the earth's inside. There are many kinds of open. Audre Lorde, Coal

it was always October in my throat. Ocean Vuong, To My Father / To My Unborn Son

i want to live on his tongue, build a home of gospel & gayety i want to raise a city behind his teeth for all boys of choirs & closets to refuge in. Danez Smith, The 17-Year-Old & the Gay Bar

for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns Audre Lorde, Litany for Survival

One of my aunts drowned in a river I invented from rain. One of my aunts thinks skydiving is a synonym for when it rains the other way K-ming Chang, A brief history of the orchid (兰)

Godhood is just like girlhood: a begging to be believed. K-ming Chang, Churching

they like rap, they police—good folks gather around a boy’s body to take a picture, share a prayer. Danez Smith, the bullet was a girl

When I woke, I asked for a new father to ignore me. His wounds so welt and black and man, him the most country in a city in a country that tells him to forget he’s alive. Aricka Foreman, Field Study

I kept saying, I’m so sorry, shivering, I’m so, I’m sorry. But he said, What? Hey. I love you. Chen Chen, Winter

Pray the gods do not misquote your covetous pulse for chaos, the black from which they were conceived. Even the eyes of gods must adjust to light. Nicole Sealey, Even the Gods

The way I kept dancing when the song was over, because it freed me. Ocean Vuong, Not Even This

One of my aunts drowned in a river I invented from rain. One of my aunts thinks skydiving is a synonym for when it rains the other way K-ming Chang, A brief history of the orchid (兰)

i approach the tall blonde in the bar // she says, “you’re so beautiful i’m scared to touch you,” because that is a thing people say, somehow, to me, in real life Rachel Charlene Lewis, After I Am Treated Like Shit and I Miss It

I braid her willow hair. I tie her shoes once more. It is winter again. The birches like crooked combs. Why are you crying? Why are you crying? Ruth Awad, The Years of Water & Light

What they cannot kill they take. Rumors fall like rain. Like bombs. Like mother and father tears swallowed for restless peace. Joy Harjo, How to Write a Poem in a Time of War

But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe. (There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") Langston Hughes, Let America Be America Again