all JEAN no SALAD
This is a reader-friendly version of JEAN SALAD! I wasn’t allowed to call it the ugly boring version for old people & losers, so consider this… all JEAN no SALAD. enjoy!
ISSUE 1.2
Three Poems- by
Reverie till failure
Feel for sweet potato. Or loose molars
Sensitive prince plots murderous,
brotherly, fashionable naps; crawling.
Young elder hallucinates movement,
blushing with smile. Saturn loses
many rings. Somewhere, snakes slither
through bellies of men. Children grip
gold once & release. Enough fluids;
seems this timeline’s shoe polish
assigns vertigo; pinching hiccups too.
Burning ears twitch towards volcanoes.
Perverse cameras expose souls; enough
prayer pardons birds-eye. Ah, finally;
Your squint challenging the sun. You
are bright. It is warm. I’ll reach to you
& begin.
Phantom limbs
I wake
every day
months pile
phantom limbs wake
every day because
you are not here
phantom
months dent
pillows opening
eyes every day phantom
limbs pillow dents one
by one two three limbs
never meeting open
eyes because you
have never been
here every day
I sleep too
phantom.
Thursday, March 20th, 2025
Give it a good go. Sit with thought; insinuate during casual conversation. Not much pushback, huh? Okay, stare till your brain frightens. Have a strawberry. Then another. Do laundry; oh right, that new bra has not felt the touch of another, ‘nother? Can’t be right. Cook a meal, munch on roast; stick two fingers in my mouth. Wait, no—your mouth. Yes. This time, lie on the floor, pray for perspective. No, you cannot ignore this; it is decided and it is true: Ever been loved? I’ll cover my eyes & fall asleep, dreaming it all again, this time with—
At midnight, slam your head & bleed; I’m working on it, but God, do I want—
Nesting Doll- by
6:07am.
Wooden creaks from outside a bedroom door tug her awake. Melody must be heading to the bathroom. Her eyelids pull apart reluctantly, unsealing the creased, encrystaled skin. The dry chill that slips through the wall length window, that freezes tears and splits lips in the night, now pricked at the soles of her feet. She had always been a restless sleeper, but the first nights of the mid-season, gradually dipping into winter, have always felt particularly unsettled.
With a groan, a wince, and a radically hopeful peak over at the rising sun, she sweeps her legs upwards to entrap the worn white comforter beneath her ankles. Her eyes close again as her body heat begins to insulate the heirloom amnion she typically tries to create for herself on mornings such as this. She cherishes this dearly, for this may very likely be the only semblance of peace she can scrounge for that day, week even. For just this minute, she is in limbo; awake, with only a vaporous string of thoughts too chemically loose to materialize into any kind weight on the shoulders. For a lone minute she finds herself just a breathing body; an animal simply acting on its instinct to seek warmth.
“Jayy-daaa...” the throaty voices croon to her. God, please not right now.
“Jad-e-Ah Jadajadajada Jade-Aaahh Jadajadajada….”. They are sighing, but in a way that may still curdle one’s blood. They usually come at night... She curls into a ball and “relaxes” into the mattress as much as possible, pretending not to hear them. Janice told me this wouldn’t work as they come from me and therefore know all my thoughts and feelings, but haven’t you ever tried to outsmart yourself? She thinks she hears a snicker amongst the faint, but swirling chatter. Maybe if I play fucking dead…
But, inevitably giving in, she heaves her body off the bed, nearly tearing up as the comforter slips from her body the way a dream melts away with each treacherous blink. Oak planks carry her to her cherrywood armoire. An heirloom from a woman she will never meet. Yet another ancient, unshakable thing. It is still shining, though its original polish is quite chipped. Its outer walls are visibly tinged with sunbleach (some more than others), a stark contrast to its freshly oiled hinges.
Its 19th century doors open with only the sound of all the air in the room rushing into its vastness as they swing open each morning.
Above the hanging belts, purses, and skirts, burrowed deep within the top shelf behind an altar and other small and/or somehow cute hoarded things, is a handled lockbox with a lovingly oxidized key hole. She kisses her thumb to the window until she senses the voices confidence being to melt from the heat of the sun, presses its flesh into the hole as far as it can squeeze and its latch snaps open, responding to her light-dusted touch as it once did for her mother, and for many aunties and great grandmothers she would never meet.
Cradled within its velvet green interior was a golden hair stick. The taunting whispers usually begin their bargaining attempts at this point, but today they are closer to pleading screams. The body was thin, and curved upward into a subtle bow that settled perfectly into one's palm. It was topped with two iridescent pearl adornments threaded through a drooping curl in the metal; one large and one small. She grips it from its box and slams the armoire shut, quite eager to return to the space its much needed breath. With less fluidity than usual she begrudgingly twists taut, dehydrated curls into a bun against her kitchen*, piercing its core with the pin to set it in place.
Grandma always just called them “the whispers”. “When the whispers come over you,” she’d say, peeking away from meekly boiling turnips to make sure that Jada was listening. “You’ll be startled at first. Hell, terrified. But ‘long as you got that wand…you be alright”, and she went back to stirring. As soon as she feels the hair stick’s delicate engravings—one continuous line forming a subtle sprig-like symbol—leave her fingers, the whispers rattle to a stillness. Only an anticipatory, static buzzing remains.
* “kitchen” is a common black slang term used to refer to the nape of your neck, specifically the shorter hair that grows there
6:43am.
The garden was getting weighty. Frost would coat the mornings now, and everything in the path of its breath. Jada has skipped her dosage every night for almost two weeks now, so chills unquelled by their usual nightcap bit and stung her awake. It was her job to go out back into the garden, down the jagged pebbled path her grandmother had lain when they were getting settled in, to refill the herb jars. Maybe Ma will take some if I wake her up with it. She’s not as defiant this early. First, she stopped setting out the mugs after dinner. Then, she stopped setting the table. Then, the jars were emptier for longer periods than usual before their next replenishment. Then, it all fell on Jada, for she was not yet tired, although she was getting there. At 21, she really was getting there.
Bending down, a sunray blocking her peripherals, her view tunneled down onto a sad, weighted patch. This is the last of it. She had begun storing her own jars beneath the bed because she had found a full one in the garbage, and her mother rocking, hands squeezing her scalp, in the corner of kitchen as she conversed with the whispers. Another time, she walked out into the yard to search for her mother because Melody would not stop crying for her, and caught her uprooting an entire month’s bushel with a calloused and vindictive heel. That day, she had to call auntie.
After deeming this reminiscing unnecessary and untimely, Jada went back through the screen door with an ice dampened paper bag filled to the brim with mint, mugwort, and lavender. Before spreading the herbs out onto the wood, she wiped the table with a holey rag splashed with white vinegar and water. Melt in three brown sugar cubes and it’ll sip down all your dreams. She remembered her grandmother’s words after she got her first period. Bake the lavender into shortbread; she likes those. Auntie’s voice once her mother turned 40 echoing as she pulls out two slightly warped baking sheets. The smell of the herbs drying in the oven filled the house with a sweet cinderous waft. She sits herself down in the cushioned, wicker outside chair that her mother now, for some reason, preferred as the cushioned-wicker-inside-chair, and watches the color of her hands disappear wrist deep within each amber jar.
7:37am.
Right on schedule, the little pitter patter of Melody’s feet carry her down the hallway, sleepwalking into the room. The delicate pastel pinks of her nightgown sent Jada back to last night’s dream, where the thin lips of a pale-faced haint were darkened by the blood of her pink flesh. The remembrance is only a blip, slipping away again as she crouches, scooping the little girl into her arms. Melody lays her cheek on Jada’s shoulder and sticks her favorite thumb in her mouth, heavy eyelids still deciding if staying in bed a bit longer was the better option. In just a few years time, she will come to resent her chubby, naive legs for leading her away from sleep that day, for not cherishing that time she had. Time the women in this family find themselves desperately looking to get back.
END.
Two Poems- by
Assume the Position
If you want to assume God’s position,
that’s fine,
but you better pray, like you’ve never prayed before,
that your mortal body can bear the weight of that cross,
because it killed Him.
And His father sat back,
Watching as his Son withered away,
Only to be buried in a hole under a mound of rocks.
So, you’d better pray that, from the heavens,
He lends his hand to you,
before the devil steps out of the shadows to take you home,
to finally finish the job, he started in you.
Vultures
When I die, don’t bury me.
Strip my body for parts,
feed my carcass to the vultures so they may nourish their young.
and, as it was written,
what remains, what once was,
will become one with the soil, and my soul will venture on.
I WANT TO BE A HORRIFYING WOMAN / I’VE BECOME MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN GOD (after Belladonna of Sadness)- by
a demon creates a reality where our love is real: i am enclosed in the lilac woods. in a cave, then in the stars. . . then, all of my memories suddenly belong to someone else i once knew, but i can no longer recall the name of. i forget everything, then relearn it differently a hungry lion could sense my good vibes. inevitably, my sex becomes my face attached to this cattish body i shake my tailed ass to The Dreaming i waltz around in your head for a while. . . finally! an account of my life unclouded by my own delusions! before there was ever even me, there was you, a high desert day off roading no seatbelts self sabotage via pop radio a spring day at the lake with all those horny birds screaming nature is a lot like you in the same way a bird hatches a chick just a year younger than she, inevitably, there are two birds inevitably, i am born to be here too. you remove the list of snapshots from the mall photo booth & they change into a person. i come to you reading my poetry aloud & you don’t take it too literally. in the main reality: i’ve become so content in my silence. i’ve made it my anthem. you? are being chased down an alleyway by glowing eyes & sharp teeth. your name is a graffiti warning in a bathroom stall. i stare at you from across the street, then disappear when a bus passes. tell me, how do i become a martyr? silly opheliac figure maiden in gothic literature who dies when a man says NO too loudly? you are discussing my sadness, sat at a patio table with cigarettes, surrounded by all of the friends & lovers i’ll never be them there, my sadness is shapeless clay, for a man to beat his dick around until a vase forms. nevertheless, i believe in both realities this conversation happens simultaneously: you? this whole thing is so pathetic you are so beautiful you need to gain confidence in yourself me? to be loved by you is to be changed by you i am so beautiful now i am so beautiful, but nothing you do makes me feel beautiful you? you are a sleepover kiss so desperate for attention obsessed with me me? i’ll love you until the day i die & yet i have evolved past you! i am so beautiful! & i am so funny! i have perfect tits! we will never even have sex! because of my sadness?! my sadness is a man-made lake! we can visit! we can feed the ducks! i change all of me except my sadness sadness is the only constant without sadness there is no initial pact holding us me? i’m horrified with myself in endless pursuit of a version of you that didn’t exist you? two times at once: you yell NO NO NO NO NO my particles disperse upon the first NO but you have to prove your point in the same moment you tie me up cut me open see how blue it really is inside let it spiral out across infinite timelines on the off chance innocent versions of ourselves blow a speck of me off a dandelion wish please, i’d do anything be anything live a whole lifetime in arts of living deliciously just to love you again . . .if only that would happen, . . .i would never have a reason to be this sad, ever again.
ISSUE 1.1
Japanese Denim- by
This morning, I found an old pair of jeans,
creased but not torn, faded but still holding on.
I ran my fingers over the seams,
felt the weight of what was built to last, and thought of you.
Not love, no, not quite.
But something that could have been,
something that lingered in the space between
what was and what never got the chance to be.
A connection stitched together in late-night talks,
in glances that spoke louder than words,
in moments that felt like interludes
to something greater
if only you had let me in.
I wanted to know your world,
not just the version you showed everyone else.
The quiet parts, the soft parts,
the places you keep guarded like a locked drawer.
I knocked, I waited, I hoped
but you never opened the door.
So now, I stand here with denim in my hands,
turning something old into something new,
cutting away at what no longer fits
while still admiring the strength of the fabric.
And maybe that’s what we were
a story unfinished,
a thread left hanging,
a bond that never had the chance to be broken
because it never got the chance to be whole.
But if time is kind, if seasons shift,
if one day you look back and find me still waiting,
know that I never unraveled, never wore thin.
I was always here,
ready for something that lasts,
if only you had let it.
Shyness Stole My Life- by
I was fumbling at the register for cash. I realized I didn’t have enough on hand, apologized profusely, and put down my credit card, raising my minimum monthly payment by fifty-cents or so. 20% variable APR. I liked matcha.
Outside of the coffee shop was a “shyness steals your life” poster half ripped off from a telephone pole. I thought about shyness a lot. I was more shy than people gave me credit for. Femininity and shyness are often confused. When I was younger I’d try to be shy, to boost my femininity, because I was ugly. Someone told me that sex was confidence so I was trying to undo that. But it was difficult.
You could really just spend a day sitting around watching cars and people. That’s of course the dream of New York. I kind of wish I smoked. It would feel more intentional, to sit around and watch cars and people and smoke. I was quirky or whatever so I liked watching the municipal buses go by more than the high end cars. Buses are more of a vignette. For example: today I saw a woman struggle to push a baby carriage onto the bus and was able to feel really bad for her. Fuck ass baby daddy situations allowed me to feel real sympathy for others, because I did not have a fuck ass baby daddy situation. Of course no one helped her get the stroller on the bus. And I didn’t help either, because I was more shy than people gave me credit for.
Learning- a poem
today I learned if i open my mouth wide enough
you’ll fall inside
yesterday I learned they can say the word bitch
on satellite television
next week I remember how to stay quiet
remember how to fit inside the space between your fingernail
and skin
today I know one of two things:
There is a moldy avocado in my fridge
God isn’t real
in an hour I will subconsciously forgive everyone for the 34th
time this week
in 2 hours I will forget the way our pupils melded into one another
forgetting blood rushing to skin and warmth in my ear
today you cannot see me
the indignation has worked its way up from my ankles to my
widows peak and covered me up in its reprieve
tomorrow the doctor will tell me there are a bunch of bugs in my brain and they get in there through my ears and nostrils
a poem
and like a resident of the
seasons, i can become something
that withers
soft ear to soft earth
the voices in my very strange
dreams sound heavy
but speak light
i’ve been painting altars
in the shape of
desire
down 3 flights and a small
distance left i beg
for sunlight and the days
are finally long again
the air sometimes brings cinnamon
and jasmine and whatever
comes from open kitchens with
open doors
i’m a poet, i linger
worshipping and villainising
and breaking - maybe healing
before the gradient of—
nothing sustainable
i angle my head to see a
forever blue until i’m
drinking lavender skies
i’ll stop bracing myself
i hope i can flow out of this
corporeal tightness teeth
halfway to my heart
infinice is inside me tripping
at the portal of my lips
if you ask to hold me,
realise i have no bones,
move me baby
move me
i have contentment to be seen
when the feminine self-destructs- by
I pick at the quicks around my nails // and feel rage for the people telling me // how to be, how to speak, how to feel // my trauma. my skin. my path to wander // can we hold each other in silence? // with no need to advise? // can we not be the mother or father, // the close friend or the helpful lover? // how about a bowl instead // that holds the dirty water // then cleans itself out later // after the shed.
I feel the creeping discontentment // that comes with success // what now? when you arrive at your destination? // but I don’t want to run and run the field over // driving myself ragged and mad with exhaustion // my son be like bouncing and watching others rush // so maybe I too, can take a load off?
I feel like a terrible mother today // because I’m unable to play // I’m bleeding and tired, // nostalgic and sour // and of course, that’s ok, // to lose some of my power // but I don’t want to tread on my baby’s heart flower. // I’ve been thinking lately // the feminine in all her might // is a sight for sore eyes // but when she self-destructs // her rage, turned to shards of glass // will lodge deep into your crevasses // and grief will seep // from the lacerated masses.
Violence of Nature- by
A woman in flight, a devil that might
caress the virginess of her mighty blood.
A bird that sings, trapped inside of this world that flees
from the evil it does, responsibility or respect. . .
neither present in the age of descent. A quiet revolution.
Violence of nature—howling winds breathing into squelching birds
and their flocks returning from the carnage
of smokey lungs and aching muscles, sore travelers.
Days gone by and nights moving faster than light
soon it is this breach of the wild that should seek to comfort silent words.
A birth of a virgin, from a virgin
might be the sword that swings its violence unto nature
and we would be nothing without it.
Nothing without the swoon of a marbled idea
frozen to the whims of frenzied phonetics and tiresome philosophy.
Provoking the purity of a virgin’s nest between her legs
and the intercourse of continuity that might rape both the man and the woman
deeper she calls, harder he thrusts—
is it these deep roots to where we grow so much attention:
attachment at the base of hips, interlocking fingertips.
And a woman cannot be anything, lest she be locked in a cage
like the bird who longs for traveling days of vernal countenance.
The eons that have taken sweet Sophia’s wisdom by the head
and whipped her around to bend to the will of the dead.
Any object of desire: an apple, a fetus, a leprechaun
mystical beasts of horror and the riffs they sing around ancient aura
the imaginative fantasy of daydreams and ecstasy, but the taste of a woman
the flirt of her decorum and garments and jewels
the way she speaks to God and nature and how the wind howls around her
any man might name her their whore.
But we do not know the sweet taste of her skin and the softness of her lips
nor do we the way she moves under thin sheets and candlelit hips
we only know the calls she makes and the squeaks we hear
between walls and leaves and winds that move through cities of men.
Purity and caste are long gone amid the winds of a modern hen.
the devil’s wishlist- by
sometimes I wish I had the body of a hungry model and
not the body of
a Greek goddess.
I wish I was more like a
ray of sunshine, soft, delicate, instead of a frost
high tide.
I wish I didn't have claws
to be able to let go
without leaving marks;
instead I would prefer
thin fingers, a firm hand
to sew everything that I tear.
I wish I was smaller,
more delicate, quieter,
like a flower in its glass case
and not an ivy clinging to the rock; like a sparrow that never stops singing
and not a crow in love with its moon.
I wish I didn't wish for more,
just to be,
just to remain,
just the flash
of a storm
in the middle of the sea
The end.