Breathe. By Alex Z. Salinas

for George Floyd

My brother, 

My beauty,

I can’t breathe

When I hold back the

Black rain

Stacked with cosmic 

Grace, greenhouse 

Rage,

I can’t breathe, 

Beautiful brother, 

Your grasp is tight & I 

Long to hold back the

Fevered saturate

Inching down my

Neck

Vise-gripped by

Trigger fingers I

Noticed could use a

Clean clipping, a

Lover’s light 

Kiss,

Brother, 

My beauty, 

I can’t breathe 

When you squeeze

Down 

With the contempt of

Ira who razed her life

Mad & rife with rabies, 

Baby, 

Homie from another

Mother,

I can’t breathe

When you never

Let me go—

O sweet brother,

Zealous judge of soul,

Won’t you pretty please with a 

cherry in the chamber,

Please let me go?

Alex Z. Salinas lives in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of WARBLES, a full-length poetry collection from Hekate Publishing (2019), and Dreamt, a limited-edition chapbook from Analog Submission Press (2020). His poems, short fiction and op-eds have appeared in various print and electronic publications, and he serves as poetry editor for the San Antonio Review. He holds an M.A. in English Literature and Language from St. Mary’s University.

Strange Trip By Wayne Russell

Something has a stranglehold on me,
the world is a ball of yarn spinning in
decomposition, lava lamp eyes rolling
waves, she is pulling something and I
cannot breathe, I can not see, it's dark.

Love held the flame and burned the
house down! Can you hear a dandelion
chain, gnashing of teeth, wooden shoes
clacking heels? It's cold here in her arms.

Death brandished a sharp razor-like
reaper, her eyes plummeted cascade,
liquid steel euphoria. One by one there
they go into premature graves, engulfed
by the flatness of fatherless earth. 

Can you see the kaleidoscope birds flying
backwards into their leafless trees? Can
you see lost years escape cold, from your
tar pit druid escapades?

The liquid gods drove me into this state
of madness, but I broke free and escaped,
Floridian son, drowning as one, this life is
a strange venture, a florescent trip.

Wayne Russell hails from Florida in the US, but has never settled anywhere. He has been writing dark musings most of his life, his debut poetry book Where Angels Fear is now available Amazon.