january ’26 issue

Braille Polaroid

A picture’s worth a thousand words – Oh what I’d give to be back in your arms but we don’t turn the clocks back today.
I thought that those demons inside me were gone but they’re back and they’ve chased you away
If I could go back I would make it ok, I would show you my love is still true.
But I can’t so I’m sitting here all by myself without even a picture of you.

by Matty Goldsmith
Halifax, NS

Toy Blocks

You built them up this way.
You stacked yellow on blue and green on red.
You switched them and rotated them
Until they sat just right.
Now you inspect the tower
From too far away to recognize its pieces,
And ask why it stands the way it does.

by Ris V. Rose
Dundas, ON

Time, Tongues, and Torrents

I tasted the wind as it flowed between my fingers
Gently, relentlessly it spun.
Like sand striping away the weakest layers
Each new moment, new flesh under the sun.

All around me I saw signs of the flood
Inundated thoughts, reservoirs overflowed, reservoirs overflowed.
As if the ancients, in their wisdom
Built the dams to fail.
So, build it to fail.

Hidden away deep inside
A crack not meant to heal.
Rest assured, let them steal
And so build to fail
All those we hold dear.

by Tommy Sydor
Dundas, ON

Sum of the Parts

Tell me it’s time
To abandon the familiar feel
Of internal organs
Put delicious metaphors
In place of them
A sticky sweet concert
Of eclectic geometry
Better to bleed words
Than blood
Better to seem aesthetic
Than honest
And then eventually
We just eat each other

by Adria DiMaggio
Guelph, ON

The Light and Dark Place

I know the patterns of clouds and stars
Above my house
As though they have not changed
Since the day I was born,

But sometimes a dark shadow
Creeps over them,
And when I turn around
To see which one of my ghosts
Is hiding within that darkness,

The answer is usually always
None,
But that hasn’t stopped me from checking.

by Ris V. Rose
Dundas, ON

inauthenticity

shards of glass is what i eat
when i speak lies into air
why must i pain myself to be liked
by people who don’t see
when my mouth is bleeding

by River
Toronto, ON

sk8er boi

and there would be times
i would listen to your heart
the blum on my cheek
where you would beat
next to me sweet in sleep
and i would listen
till sleep took me
i chased this beat
feeling many
now sweetly
i close my eyes
and my temple creates
this beat i miss
next to my cheek

by JdV
Hamilton, ON

apple teeth

i wanted to eat an apple and so i grew teeth.
milky white and bitter
still, i haven’t unclenched my jaw since i thrust my fingers in the garden earth and reached out to the underside, all the while two stars shone in a singular constellation, resolute and still
and bright
i grasped the grovelling boys’ hands and held tighter than they would ever dare
we wriggled, so like worms, in an ecstatic dance of frayed edges and short circuits
pleasure begets pleasure begets pleasure begets–
the boys ask me my motivation as we bow and curtsy and signal the band to begin playing
i laugh and laugh and laugh
daylight peaks through the muck and i plant my feet firmly on the ground
an unmovable object the lightning can’t resist
i answer myself with an apple-tooth grin
and yes oh yes you are just like Eurydice
keep pushing forward and i will always always be looking behind me to see if you are really truly there

by KN
Toronto, ON

Untitled

orange pekoe tea
confined to engraved flowers on glazed clay
with the sun glistening off the rim,
flirtatious and welcoming a kiss /
craftmanship between my lips,
tenderness pours into the abyss
and all i know is bliss

by River
Toronto, ON

Except it’s Real

I have this dream
Always the same
I’m sitting in the passenger seat
And my left arm is outstretched
Gripping the wheel, realizing
I’m driving the car
Approaching a bridge
I become aware of the danger
As I climb toward the driver’s seat
I always make it
Just in time
Always regain control
Always experience the moment
Of relief
But I take a turn too hard
There are no guard rails
As we slide off the bridge
I’m aware of your presence
My right arm reaches out
To shield you
I see sadness in your eyes
I see fear
I see blame
For a second I think
This isn’t real, I’ll wake up
But the water feels ice cold
As it crashes in through the windows
I think to myself
This has never happened before
I’ve never felt the water before
I say to myself
This is just like that dream I have
This is just like that dream I have
This is just like that dream I have
Except this time
It’s real

by Adria DiMaggio
Guelph, ON

Nostalgia

If nostalgia was a puddle,
I could dip my toe in,
Revel in the way its cool touch is both
Shocking and
Comforting,
And then dry off and turn home,
But nostalgia is an ocean
Under a moonless sky,
With northern waves
And marianan depth,
And to wade in it
Is to be overcome by it,
Turning headfirst through riptides and blinding blackness.
Still, despite full awareness,
Whenever I am brought to its sandy shores,
I kneel at its tide,
Cup it in my hands,
And indulge.

by Ris V. Rose
Dundas, ON

Sonnet

Who is it that winks in soft daylight here?
If I were but a shell of myself you;
Of all would turn away and disappear
For all is changed save my skin and its hue
So wherefore, I ask, is your laugh so strange?
These lines so unfamiliar and new
Are etched into your porcelain skin; changed
Not thy appearance, but thy moral view
Milky white is your treachery and though
Your sweet speech is still novelty to me
It is cold, near hated, and lost its glow
And I know not the person that I see.
What appeared to be a look of true pain
Was to me indifference; cold before rain

by McKenzie Cline
Hamilton, ON

The Mineral

When I was ten years old, my mother and her husband bought a cottage along the shores of Baie Dorval in Northern Quebec. It was a place that was wild when we found it and wild when we later left it behind. In the winter months, the water from Lac Kipawa would recede as the dams were drained and you could climb underneath the docks – an ideal place to lay in wait, to imagine every possible feeling a person could experience on whatever lay on the other side of seemingly perpetual prepubescence. The snow would get deep along the banks, and the fluctuating temperatures would ensure a finger-thin layer of ice insulated the feet of snow beneath. If I walked softly and quickly, I could cover a distance away from the docks before falling through. A metaphor for a relatively precarious life lived out of sight and mind. What seemed dangerous, and perhaps was, also served as a place of refuge and unencumbered thought. I would dig into the snow, hollowing out everything underneath the sheets of ice and then climb in and fall asleep. I could lay there for ages, uninterrupted– beholden to every thought I’d ever had or hoped to have – curiously viewing the shifting northern sky through crystalline ice while my heart slowed and the heat of my breath caused the melting ice to drip over my eyelids, running down my cheeks like tears, quietly washing away the mineral of my sadness.

I don’t have this place any longer in the physical sense, but it holds a space gathered in the corners of my consciousness, alongside all the other cobwebs of old thought. Having lost their silken viscosity – having lost their threat. In there, I see the docks outstretched like two arms waiting for an embrace in the desolate expanse of the Bay. Along the shoreline floats a wildling, adrift and just out of reach. He is an innocent and his innocence is childlike, perfectly preserved in the ice. Open and expressive, his heart and his mind are guarded by unpredictably yet strategically scattered mines. Even with the lightest footing, I step on them periodically like those sheets of ice and fall through the snow. Emotion pours from my body while he looks on with the gentle, interrogative expression of the uninitiated. It should be frightening, but isn’t. He would urge that I float along the safety of the shoreline, but the risk and allure of running my hands along the edges of every razor sharp rock below his surface is irresistible. He operates at the axis of his feelings minus his fears, but I cross those dotted lines at every opportunity, irresponsibly one might say, unconcerned by the difference. I cast lines and while many are severed on landing, he tugs on those he desires and wraps their lengths around his hands, pulling and releasing in waves at a cadence that feels at once calming, disorienting and real. It’s an unexpected presence in an otherwise solitary place, but the change is so welcome that the invitation tumbles out quickly and recklessly, without expectation. Winter is a death not without shelter. Dig into the snow with me, feel your heart slow down, breathe deeply into the sheets of ice above and let the mineral of our sadness wash down our faces into the frozen earth below.

by Adria DiMaggio
Guelph, ON