Fine Print: A Literary and Arts Journal

It’s been over a week since I’ve seen your lips move. Its been over a week and the first 
words that dance across your tongue when I arrive are oddly comforting. You talked of 
guns—a man had just been shot at the park. You talked of guns and my heart relaxed 
because a bullet went through a stranger’s skin.
You could have welded your own bullet with carefully chosen words, your tongue could have 
pulled the trigger when I first saw your lips parting ways. But a stranger was dead, 
sentenced to a silent eternity. That dead man took a bullet for me so I wouldn’t suffer 
through this highly anticipated moment.
It’s been a week since I’ve seen your mouth make shapes but you didn’t hesitate, and for 
once you planted the conversation seed. We talked of death and mystery, of guns and mass 
media. I watched your milky skin stretch towards your eyes and ears when you spoke of 
this shooting. I watched your alabaster skin because I couldn’t bear to stare down the 
barrel of your pupils. My mind forms images of your skin against mine and his skin 
against cold steel. His face is split and cracked, his features burst outward like 
fireworks on a cloudy day. I looked away because your freckles are too fragile to observe 
when you talk of dead strangers.
I looked up and the approaching storm carried away the broken face of a man I’ve never 
seen. You finished talking and I smiled. It’s been over a week since I’ve seen you smile, 
but you shot one back at me. I felt the bullet this time. My heart bled through my pasty 
shirt, a piercing mahogany on this dull and dreary day. It’s been over a week since I’ve 
felt my organs pump blood, but we talked as if it had only been an hour since our last 
encounter. We felt the nervous pulse within ourselves but we formed words that danced on 
our tongues and poured from our lips. We talked of guns and death, of strangers and 
cigarettes. We thought of love, but we didn’t dare speak of it.

“One day”, I thought to myself, “ I will get out of this bed.  One day I will be inspired”.  For it is meant to be, you see, the fates have chosen an eccentric path for me and I dare not stray onto the crippling comfort of pavement.  

“My name is Delainey LaHood-Burns and pockets fascinate me.”

-Delainey LaHood-Burns

by Leah

A religious worship of society;

sacrificing the body for self-absolution.

A poem inspired by an early morning conversation with Delainey.

you are my sky

with blue eyes reflecting upon the sea

and great spinning masses floating gently

across the crown of your head.

in your laughter i hear seagulls,

that fly in and out of a raspy throat,

beating gently across your form and mine

They don’t understand me.

They don’t know what lies beneath

My eyes,

My soul.

They don’t know what drives me.

What motivated my fingers to the words

That flow into verses, rhymes and poems.

No one knows what keeps me up at night.

They don’t see my fears,

Nor can they explain my salty tears,

For they cannot see where I wander to

When my mind ceases to stay at rest.

No one likes the way I think,

Or maybe not so much as that,

I feel as if they don’t comprehend.

But that could be my greatest downfall

In every single history book.

Will they ever bring me down to size?

Will they ever see the light that shines

From every pore in my skin?

They don’t understand me,

Because I am my own secret.

All these years, I’ve refused to see you.

You are a collapsible human,

Warped into leathery limbs and

Brittle bones with marrow

Sucked clean from within.

Ghostly eyed,

It seems you have wandered

From the corners of heaven,

Because you found no God

Lurking in the shadows.

Your unholy vessel,

Unable to endure death’s lengthy march

Has rested here,

Mouth open, a black hole

Crying out in silence.

People speak in

Hushed tones of what has happened here,

Helpless to the reverberations.

They give it a name,

But don’t dare to speak it out loud.

What of you that remains

They’ll capture,

And hang your empty eyes

Up like the star of David

For others to witness, but not understand.

You made me cry once,

I was in sixth grade.

Bullets shot from tear ducts,

Doe eyed,

I think you stole my innocence.

I couldn’t help but lick

the sweet taste from lips

I burn

I burn

I burn

left to drift

I couldn’t help but run

we swim-

I succumb,

I drift.

the air and the

night inside it-

the pull of pooling time

the smell of campfires

and

all of it and I had nothing

to give but I had to breathe

I had to breathe.

smoke sings from our chests

and clings to all strands of hair;

the massive world lifts.

Waiting for the weight.

it settles in eyelids and

tits and dicks and grins.

We scream while we sway!

We puke and we pray!

And

When the blackout turns

white, our grins are not pompous

they are nostalgic.

This is SUPER SUPER rough. It is three haikus with a couplet interjected between. Please be easy on me. Also this is Leah (: