University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Abigail Jensen I’ve never known anyone to get excitedat the sight of a penis, says the privileged cis lesbianin all her honest beauty and gloryafter throwing back a shot ofoverpriced vodka. She rests her forearms on the sticky barand whips her head in my direction.I glare back while the others chuckle. Whenever we stumble… Continue reading Tall and Narrow
by Luke Horsey this city was meant to be the surrogate father of the prankthat was played in my first love’s arms, back on the north London fringe in my teensand now you’re recycling the joke: it may well have been salt you were rubbing into my backas I folded in your arms like a… Continue reading poisson d’avril
by Matt A. Hanson from a dimming bow the high bright clouds cumulate / shades of light orange descending / gray blues / mountains faded against sharp stone bare seafront foundations giving way to the dark green / dusk-lit forests as still as the mast of a lone sailboat / white in the distance, surrounded … Continue reading Blue Voyage II
by Aidan Cox Turning your head, hair ablaze in the morning sun like a lit match. And in conversation, in the old, gold frame of a faded painting. That landscape, the little brown stork, those oak trees.The late night of a party and all the warm, glowing bulbs behind his head. You will be reflected in… Continue reading I want you, for the last time
by Ingrid Marie Jensen ‘Where’ve you been all my life?’ Jack Harris asks with a crooked smile, both incandescent and terrifying, that’s real charm along with eyes like Lake Michigan in a storm and an expensive suit. he’s somebody special and don’t he know it! song slides off slick vinyl, filling the air like a… Continue reading Billie, 1933
by Dahlia R. Trigger Warning: Alcoholism/Emotional Neglect Head pounding and bones aching beneath those bamboo sheets— just a sip would turn the throbbing into a dull ache, but the shelf was right by your room. By that hallway and that photo of me holding you on our stone steps at 5 pounds and 2 ounces— … Continue reading Erysichthon
by Aria Shum all those years you spent watching your life pass by from the attic, wondering when it would start breathing again. When it would start wanting again. If happiness would show up at the door like it used to, perhaps disguised in a hat or a coat or the face of somebody you used to know. In a dream, you wake up… Continue reading THE WAITING &
by Sarah Bess Jaffe We watched Bin Laden get shot through the window of an Irish pub in Queens. Well, we didn’t see it but, you know. I thought you were such a big deal. We were sunbitten that day. Remember when we liked the guy in charge,in spite of everything? We rode our bikes everywhere,stuck on the BQE’s hot ribbon,for a daylong noon… Continue reading Dive Bars
by Steven O. Young Jr. I can’t remember where I heard it, or how I learned to define the obvious,but my notepad begins in avowal: Philtrum | means love potion | in Greek. I want to claim it came carried in on your lips,a sumptuous goblet brimming with morning glories gathered from the pastel garden planted between your edenic senses, but… Continue reading Greek to Me
by Ashley Hardin I’m sorry if you asked me a question and there was no reply. I was in the middle of listening to my invasive thoughts about a peculiar conflict in front of me. One-third of my grandparents’ circular ottoman was missing its light brown leather top straight down. This error had started to grow… Continue reading OCD
Ignatian Literary Magazine 