“Holding all this joy alone felt like a crime that would see me judged harshly by the universe. It was a kind of joy I wanted to share.”

“You scrub, taking care to get between his toes, each one a prayer he’ll make it another year, a rosary of skin and bone.”

“But all I can think about / is how I want you to hold me so tight / my breath grows branches.”

“Do not actually burn the bra. / Not on the fire escape. / Not in a trash can. / This isn’t an episode of Friends.”

“I will love you well in wasteless Tesla circuit”

“the solar system has taken billions of years to live like this”

“This myth, like everything // else in the realm of love, can be stripped down to the vulnerable.”

Our Valentine’s Day issue opens with this moving poem by Gustavo Hernandez.

For the past decade on every valentines day, I made a set of six cards around my interpretation of what I think Muslim Valentines Day should celebrate.

“At 4 am, on your bed, I turn to you and say, if the robot in me malfunctions–here are my twelve seconds for today;”

For John who’s probably somewhere smoking an American Spirit.

“The tradition of my cosmic body; an outer star at the peak of my brow” — Shakeema Smalls gives us the infinite volta.

“the salt sprinkled delicately across” — it’s time for sensory overload

Papercutting extraordinaire, MicKenzie Fasteland presents “Two Sapphic Queens” this Valentine’s Day.

honeyed skin // pressed tight / slick

I fantasize about a body / Often / Candied veins buried / Beneath a pile of skin / Organs that could play the violin

Spooked by his softness, he fled to the forest.

How neither of us/were made to debut in the kitchen out of our own/physical hunger, except if you believe grief too has a growl,/has a belly.

learned to skin a memory and string my left lung with its still warm guts

To begin issue 1, an anonymous valentine.

Because I was never good at staying sober, / I chase highs in laundromats, the things I do / for heavy brass soil horn need hot wash, lavender / lemonade

A fact, or a circumstance, of abuse, depending on which way the glass cuts your vision: if a child experiences a significant amount of trauma, early and consistent enough, the images that make up their experiences, dreams, visions, fantasies, abuse, and nightmares become a kind of kaleidoscopic mosaic.