Make me dim-witted. One of those days where I can’t bare it—the hum of madness. My belly wreaking havoc up and down my spine, intestines in a knot. Garlic! Disgusting! or maybe you called it gross & I called it get me out of here. A different morning: I’m spinning sex between my fingers. Cavorting with an old pillow case hoping you’ll come along and lift my top. As a kid I would peel the skin off of grapes with my two front teeth and gently push the innards into my cheek with my tongue keeping it safe before coming down on it with a hard chew. Pulpy swallow & the great disappointment: here was a truly valuable soft thing that I had worked hard for & didn’t know what to do with. ————————————– Hannah Rubin called us from Los Angeles, CA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

It's a bus stop in South America And crossing five lanes of traffic At ten in the morning. It's quiet, More than we were expecting. The taxi is late for arrival and I am thankful for every second. It's not knowing the language And our tensions so high, A tennis court in my chest. Love was being rewritten in my head You were becoming the epitome of sacrifice. You asked me what I would answer if you pledged me to marry you. I said I’d wait a few years And that was the correct response. It’s a man in a bulletproof vest asking you the intention of your visit, To give her hope. We cross out of the city. There are dogs on rooftops, We are sharing headphones And the glass begins to fog in the humid jungle evening. Whatever home there is left I find it as I lay my head on your shoulder. There is a song humming subtly over the foreign soap opera on the TV. It’s not quite your taste But it is my favorite. You will be able to sleep on the plane And I won't ever again for the next two years. ————————————– Ky Pacheco called us from Flagstaff, AZ. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

This is what you are missing Melissa – dust turned to waves in the desert – okra coming up two months too late – a forward-breaking gate opening into someone else’s field – I walk by a window and I don’t understand how little I see you – but so clearly the wasp backing out of a hole inside a long-dead tree – when we were children we lived with our grandparents and I remember without sadness mostly the sound of tires screaming into the street – the porch light welcomes whatever intercepts it – I praise insistence – I kiss my love because our best friend died when we were 5 years old – a brain tumor – and then again at 7, 11, 17…43 – bodies killing themselves by growing beyond their own capacity – I’m building a bed for our visitors – it’s infuriating how little I understand about re-joining wood already broken piece by piece – anticipate everything I hear God saying to no one – I’m still listening when you stop, for a moment, breathing in your sleep – I’m recognizable now as a part of the man who made me – every man is a suspect – inside my own mouth I’m annoyed by who I cannot seem to be – do you miss this Melissa – every part of our body is ash aching to be reminded it is ash – unlike fire reaching through the face of every forest in order to be incited by wind or offered some relief – I’ve learned to flinch by standing absolutely still – it isn’t death exactly living without you – the purpose of a rope is to borrow someone else’s strength – that’s why I’m calling you – when I pray I hear nothing so clearly as our new voice singe-scoured and full of disbelief – ————————————– TC Tolbert called us from Tucson, AZ. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

There are few mornings like this – When the tumble day slows and the sweltering July heat subsides; when memories of last night’s fire show resonate with a still-first sense of wonder. The footfall of Fatherhood feels fine underneath; I am comfortable here, at peace with a stirring that has often lingered in the quiet process of thinking. My daughter turns her eyes aware, Expecting the dance of color in the thick night sky, and utters with perfect sincerity the answer her mother and I had first provided to her own plea for more “firewoooorrrks!” “Later, next year,” she repeats. She seems to understand – just as she is profoundly unaware that stirring in her mommy’s womb just now, the slightest mobility towards life of her first sibling yet to be born. The sky creeps thoughtfully, grateful it seems that the booms have subsided, for now – until “Later, next year.” The clouds pass lightly as we look upward to dream of a better place. This unsummer in its brilliant disguise – cool, elusive, uncharted. The tongues amongst the people do not complain of lasting heat nor of humidity. Instead, the cool, soft morning greets them, allowing children to play. ————————————– Dan J. Kirk called us from Pittsburgh, PA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

barking up the right trees stuck on the double branch don’t climb if you can’t get down if you can’t get down better learn to jump the kids are so back vlog squad with baby teeth sucking back cinnamon getting pantsed by their dads tamogotchi death hits all seven stages and everyone knows that the moon is made of cheese that green eggs go great on a ham sandwich that cyber bullying is cooler when everyone is doing it slip-&-slide into stardust along greenwood grass burning the summer at both ends there’s glass in the pool marco polo cut short feet cut deep red & blue sunburns on chlorine skin remember when sunscreen used to work the first time fallen hotdog soldier slipped between truck slats hunger driven dance-moves filled with cruel intentions no amount of ketchup can cure a broken heart but a viral video is a bandaid solution for missing lunch category is horse category is narwhal category is charades is easy when every answer is the right answer guess flamingo guess spider guess where your hamster went I promise you’ll be happy with the results The kids are so back but seriously don’t climb a tree if you don’t know how to get down or if your mom can’t find the ladder but by some act of god if you find yourself up there just close your eyes try and remember how to jump ————————————– Morgan Tessier called us from Toronto, Ontario. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

The leaving was such that each apple in the orchard glassed over into ghost-form on a single night. Centers rotted, dropped out, only translucent orbs at the end of wooded knots remained. A buck arrives, noses them to the ground. His only want: to hear the shatter. First my grandmother, then my brother. A permanent Autumn settles across my face. Brinks become a fabric to dress in. I practice sewing parts of my body shut: the mouth, an ear, the space between my fingers. At the edge of the orchard I find an owl. Bring my hands around the middle of the algid body, between my palms it moves as dead things move. Still, I’m gentle as I walk the owl out of the orchard to the place of bramble and stumps. Lay the bird out like a boat, like a baby in the arms, like a dirge. Slow gold light slips, the night freeze blackens fruit trees. I continue to visit the owl. The spiders come. The flies, too. For a moment one of the owl’s eyes opens. I look through the eye into the back of his death, parts of flight and story leak out. The collapse of the left lung: green. The collapse of the right lung: sky. I’ve only ever had one good dream in 46 years of bad dreams and it was of sleeping in a moon field with my daughter while friends placed inocybe between my teeth. The eye of the owl closes. The buck says it’s peaceful here, to be with you like this. I don’t say anything because I don’t speak anymore. Within a streak of light, wasps fly out of the ground as leaves fall in the orchard. I become a ghost apple at the nose of a buck. ————————————– Kelly Gray called us from Camp Meeker, CA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

I’m waiting for the tram, picking plums but really what I’m doing is looking, longingly higher up where most of the fruit is sitting ripe. A man approaches — bald but for a crown of white hair, lightweight vest, faded tattoos of an old sailor, two breasty mermaids with red lips. Do you want me to pull down the branch, he asks and I say yes please thank you and he does and suddenly I’m ensconced in the leaves, enveloped by the tree. I pick the plums one at a time, each a little ball of orange red fruit. That’s all for now, I say, and he starts to let go— then reconsiders. He pulls the branch back down takes matters into his own hands. His wide fingers grab fistfuls of fruit and drop them in my bag. Just as many fall to the ground and there are errant leaves and twigs, all component parts of the tree are now there, in my bag, in pieces. What a joy, to seize something entirety in pursuit of the one sweet part, the part that could be crushed by a closing palm. What a delight, to move with abandon, to ignore precision, to choose clear cutting over particular picking. Could my own hands claim what’s in front of them so confidently? Could they take so completely? I run into the street to catch the tram, whose yellow doors are already swinging open. ————————————– Ashira Morris called us from Sofia, Bulgaria. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

In front of the laundromat a cigarette grows out of stub and ash, smoke seeps from lungs back into sticky-dry tobacco, red hot cherry backs away from filter, reshapes as fire, jets back into bic lighter, gas condenses into fluid. Came back unsmoked to haunt our past selves down. Almost a room in the outskirts, we write each other out. Eyes like wildness, your torso tree trunk, we careless pass a bottle of warm stolen vodka. Sing songs of chipmunks, chase each other up plum trees, over roofs of cars, fluff each others tails before we scamper through the oaken night to bury acorns. Came back to teach us how to make our bodies out of muddy leaves, shape our faces from a pliant clay. Crop vineyard hair, cattail braids, let snakes grow as they may. Pluck river stone out of the water, become ourselves a river. Chisel cloven feet for gravel dancing. Came back to sing again I think, together. Seek each other out by scent, taste clove smoke. Dig up the acorns, and with our fingers dirt-caked set them shiny in our mouths as teeth and gilding for our crowns. ————————————– Allegra Wilson called us from Santa Rosa, CA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

Begins with texts to my best friend. Do you want to hear my revenge fantasy? Let’s get iced coffee and be brats. Learned helplessness is a crime. Success is an art. I’m working on my MFA. That’s deeply stupid. I’m reviewing my life choices in this Greek restaurant. Not everyone needs to be a Very Interesting Person. Who needs a human man? Shadow Daddies exist. I’m having revenge fantasies. The taste of blood. That’s deeply brilliant. I would destroy him. For you. I’m in love with everything. I prefer to move in silence. ————————————– Stephanie Valente called us from Brooklyn, NY. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

I am not mentally okay. I thought of you, or more specifically, I thought this would be something you'd enjoy. This is some news you need to hear. Here is some free therapy that I heard. This made me cry. Watch this cute animal & forget how the world is falling apart. I'm not mentally okay but I cannot say that to you so instead I hide the things I cannot speak between the lines of these memes sent for your entertainment. A noncommittal event invitation. My ADHD brain is experiencing mania and I'm consuming consuming media like CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH potato chips. I am mentally unwell. I am bedrotting and need attention. I miss you but I don't know how to start a conversation anymore. I want us to be closer but I'm terrified of being vulnerable first. I'm a crow sending shiny things to your inbox with no expectation you'll even see them I am my mother's daughter - I leave her 317 Instagram reel messages to me unread because I feel too guilty and too avoidant to open them. There is a chasm of things I have not yet figured out how to say. I only know how to write them in my journal. I don't know which of these things would be useful to voice. I am mentally unwell. I saw this video of two unlikely animal friends resting on each other & I want us to have the same intimacy. ————————————– Kate Carey called us from Philadelphia, PA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems

I felt like masturbating I felt like crying It was the twenty-first century Already A quarter over There had been artistic movements & wars My debts had been repackaged Countless times The enemy of my enemy Followed me On Twitter, now called Ex-Marines shot themselves in the head in their aunts’ basements We lost touch almost as a whole Category We listened to music for evaluative purposes Had to turn off Shostakovich a recording of quartet #10 that churned too fast like history A choir with one boy who couldn’t sing But tried to follow, quietly Teachers like cigarettes fired or quit My memory got so bad I said the same thing a hundred times Into the wax cylinder Like the moon changing in the same ways Like the water falling back to earth The killdozer guy said it was like people couldn’t see The 50-ton machine he was working on for a year and a half Even though it sat there openly In a shed, folks coming and going “somehow their vision was clouded” It was the twenty-first century Eschatology Minus clarity All the new angels issued Their wings & narcan Doing their trainings from home ————————————– Tom Snarsky called us from Berryville, VA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems