by Annie Blake Carlos N. Cuatzo Meza When I was a child my mother was too scrupulous to take off her clothes. She had a habit of cutting her hair very short and she always wore a dicky bow. And I’ve been left wondering. What the hell did she look like? I try to undress her now that I’m an adult, but she doesn’t seem to find any humor in that. Lies do that. If you pack lies in rows and layers like sticks they cover you like a dress. The thicker the lies, the more seductive the

by Annie Blake NASA it is like being unhooked in outer space. there is no metabolic interchange. the silence is different. it is inflatable and it doesn’t forgive my transgression. i know I have slipped. the hinge is flapping. the oxygen and radio have been switched off. i can hear the muffling outside my room and i want to make sure that it stays persistent. the voices are shadows which cannot keep percolating. part of me knows this—hope has become extraneous. i want the voi

by Annie Blake Husqqqy/Unsplash these lenses i was born and raised with — all i can see is this grey dawn yawning over the cars turning along what they think are fresh green arrows. these slapped-up buildings in the city, the trash in everyone’s yards, discarded plant pots in brown mounds—the patches of corrugated iron roofs. this half-assed sun croaks dizzy shadows on the windows. i would like to call them pretty flakes, but it’s the oily smog from the trucks and cars and ni