Coalesce

Poetry & Art by nat raum & erika gill

i don’t wait in lines for bars unless i’m in LA and in LA the lines miss me entirely and the bars spill from the mouths of acquaintances whose blank faces i can’t remember some guy asked if my name was Nikita and i said no with a smile but really he meant to say my actual name and i can’t abide the noise and my social battery is corroded will the kudzu make it here can we invite it to swallow me whole me and this endless tired world beat dropped fuzzed out lines warm purse margarita sip mango sick acid in a slurry of smog and triple sec at the house show someone packs a bowl so furtively i realize i forgot it’s taboo still but i am not afraid to pull smoke through glass and let it fill my lungs i don’t wait in lines for bars unless i’m in LA and in LA acquaintances sometimes look like sham friends but in the night we are all beautiful and in the amber of streetlamps we coalesce

nat raum is the poet laureate of the void; their corporeal form lives in Baltimore. They’re the author of this book will not save you, WANT, fruits of the valley, and many others. Find them online at natraum.com or astral projecting inside a Royal Farms.

Erika Gill (they/them) lives on unceded Tséstho’e (Cheyenne), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, hinono’eino’ biito’owu’ (Arapaho), and Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute) land in Denver. Erika is Editor in Chief of Alternative Milk Magazine. Their poetry appears in fifth wheel press, MORIA, Birdy, and others, and their debut collection, Lone Yellow Flower, is available now from Querencia Press. Socials: @invariablyso