Poetry: Sleep by Amy Wang

 You called my name,
Just as torpor hissed in my ear,
As it draped kisses over my eyelids,
Wrapping its tentacles around my brain,
and fed me sweet syrup of slumber.

I plummet at once,
Through a black well,
But the fringe of your breath
Tickled my lashes
And I came tumbling out again.

The well growled and spat me out
As if it had not swallowed a drop of rain,
but the bloody head
of a snake.

The shape of your voice—
drowning
underneath the rocky cocktail
that sleep has made me inhale.

Your words evaporate
at the edge of my consciousness;
Your nails dig
into my restless skin—
Peeling open
Half
Of one of my eyelids.

Make me suffer one quick blow,
Make
my body alien.

The last flickering light zaps out––
Let darkness swallow me whole.

Poetry: Death of a Hibiscus by Anna Olteanu

Two years ago, we bought a hibiscus plant
and seated it on our doorstep
I long for the day before it got infected
when its petals were as plump as your lips

when you still hoped I had inherited
your green thumb—when you hadn’t yet realized
I dipped mine in paint

The sun hung low on the nascent May sky
its rays exposing our flower’s
proliferating pustules

Your lips were blistered—cracked, dry, and peeling
I let my teeth mangle mine

As you caressed them, the petals withered
onto the breeze
expressions of affection shriveling into a mess
of decay and despondence.