ROW HOME LIT VOLUME TWO

an alt lit magazine

for Baltimoreans at heart

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OUR CONTRIBUTORS:

Josh Sinn (Cover Art)

Shantall Gallareta

Katya Sandino

Christian Reese

Stephanie Spring

Antonia Perdu

Jacob Decoursey

Aurora Engle Pratt

Audrey Gatewood

Katie Griffin

Shannon Khoury

Caressa Valdueza

Shelsea Dodd

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A special thank you to all who submitted, our

selected contributors, and you the readers.

This project wouldn’t be possible without you.

Much love.

© 2014

Baltimore, MD

Curated, Edited, and Produced by Arianna Valle

Brooklyn, April 7th

You met me at 33rd and 11th

Back in Brooklyn

I paid for your dinner, our drinks Then to your apartment

Your small room, your bed

Your vaporizer

Brooklyn Lager

Baseball documentary

Your grey hair

Washed, clean

Your blue pillow chair

Our silence

Three beers later

Two bags later

It's 10:00

I should be getting back

Cab ride: eight minutes

I over tipped the driver

-Shantall Gallareta

v

- Katya Sandino

that was the last winter you were coldyou walked upon the frozen water

barefooted; toes turning

a deeper sapphire than the lake.

between inhales, within the white,

vodka flavored mist exuding from your lips,

held the warmth of two hearts:

beating, pushing, impalingyour chest and mine.

you opened your mouth wide

trying to invert temperature

and color.

i collided my lips with yours

and breathed in your exhaust:

coughing, heaving, choking

my throat and yours.

you’ve tried this before.

I took the heavy, metal gateway

from your hands,

trying to remind you heaven is here

too. you closed your mouth, eyes,

opened your clenched fists-

letting the blue veins run and defrost;

letting yourself take in and warm the air.

vi

Water Clock

Today the air was

flowstone.

The brownstones

are cave walls excavated

in air dayless, endless, faceless

as hollows

uneyed.

Bricks beneath

the flicker-play

of sun, of shadow, of human

shadow.

This city eats

flint, rotting fruit,

small bones in

the husks of hearth-fires.

Seconds cinder,

passers-by sprout

Lascaux hooves,

afternoon

white, chipped, ancient pig-

ments

flake, wait

for the tune

of the tale

& the old old ways

of telling why these walls

might still stand

to be unearthed.

Gradients of ripeness

in the shades

of brick: cabs galloping,

cops, students, scavengers, kin

crowding to etch

a time-scented scene.

This summer heave

is a cave wall painted

with ancient fruits,

horsemen passing

on the kill,

cave dwellers

warming their palms

at taillight in

the scar of night,

dreaming daylight,

cracking

our tomb.

- Christian Reese

Morning Coffee - Stephanie Spring

Let me take you back to where we were created from that Supernova Burst of radiation.

One whole split into two halves.

We are matter.

We are mass.

Radiation that outshines the entire galaxy but here's where they were wrong.

We don't fade away in a span of weeks or months.

Even though you died looking for me and I was born looking for you.

We surpass the high mass stars.

We danced with Martians on Mars.

Infinite energy.

- Excerpt from Antonia Perdu’s poem titled "42" inspired by "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”

viii

A Light Fantastic

If up exists, we’re looking at it,

you and I, like sparks

birthed from the same graceful ball of fire

still tripping a light fantastic through epochs

blurred by invisible algebra,

swimming past jellyfish stars

through that deep and inky ocean

over top our heads. So don’t cry;

don’t cry—

one day, I promise,

you and I and everyone you love

will return to these stars and dance again

among constellations: fiery pinpricks in the denim

sky. - Jacob Decoursey

- Arianna Valle

Confessional

sometimes removing the stickers from bananas just because it looks bettersometimes leavingbed too late in the morning oftentalking too softlyoften coming ontoo strong sometimeslike a holy terrorsometimes like an empty jar where there were oncethree notes on rough paper but now there are none not a liarjust poorly adjusted to realitynot sanebut no stranger than a long day in spring no odder or softer thana ball of twine no worse than a housewith the roof caved in not forgetful

just occasionally evasivefond

vainimpatiently awaitinga future morechangeless than the present dayoften spending too long at the mirrorsometimes ignoring the ants on the floor sometimes shiftlessoften singingoff keyand thoughtless

not a culpritbut culpable not a sinnerbut one who has sinned

- Aurora Engle Pratt

xi

- Audrey Gatewood

xii

Blue

You're worn and wistful.Until blue is a whisper, Let it bring you to wonder Of an unknown ocean you've met before, Of a venture's summation with clouds'

cessation.Let it bring you to wander As a ripple in your river, As your tree celestially ascending. Discover blue's disclosure.

- Katie Griffin

xiii

I have walked these streets for years

through shattered glass strewn and

glittering in the hot August sun;

where a tree tears through its concrete veins

and black bags drift in the wind like ghosts

along a stretch of flowering weeds.

 There are times when I can hold the

warmth of the day in my hands

as the wind crashes in soft waves

through leaves like flashes of light

and a something else runs through

my body like hot-wrought iron

because I know that in this place.

- Shannon Khoury

- Caressa Valdueza

xiv

A Travesty

How mirror-like to the pitch of the new moon night is the ink of irises seeping softly into your pupils

like pools of coffee hold the cream and

How beneficent is the great Pannist who sends the staccato flourish of rain to rap the tinny panes

and rival the Requiem protesting from within and

Oh! How the wind does worry the boughs! into a reminiscence of the terrible end: in their throes they threaten the velvet vault of heaven and

How, I wonder, would the stars come spilling hither?

By ones and twos I fancy they’d fall, cascading,

raining, a great and brilliant wall of light and

How the morning has brought with it slick licorice tree limbs,

those dripping chandeliers which craze across the dawn

like a glaze too small to fit its pot, or a thawing pond, and

How akin the beads of dew perched on every twig-tip are to the jewels of perspiration which adorned your fragrant bark

while my pale fingers tasted your sand-christened flesh and

How curious it is now, in the cloud-clogged morn, to see my naked sallow stark against your saffron-perfumed swarthiness,

while slowly, outside, the waterlogged winter-bare branches,

How slowly do they pry open the sky.

- Shelsea Dodd

- Stephanie Spring

until next time...

keep creating