When we met, you told me I had a voice that could pinch the corners of our Carolina town wrap its skin into a hand-held bundle and inflate it -- balloon, string-tied braiding infinities around pointer and thumb. You said the only other sound that could do this came from finches when dawn was nothing more than white noise though they moved like the needlework in nests. You were gripping Helium when the ground had been peeled and repurposed acrobatic pictures through a marble vista. Is that when you fell? Chaff like Prometheus shivering in the wheat fields, paint-ribbons and blistered brick all pumped with a siren song? You plummeting into the carcass of earth? The porch swing. Us dangling our sneakers like the word enough. I am scared to strum your palm in danger of plucking strings. Scared to whisper in that way for fear of it coming out as music.
Danae Younge is a 19-year-old writer whose work has appeared in over 30 publications in the US, UK, Canada, Pakistan, & internationally, including Salamander Magazine, The Curator, Palette Point, Nonconformist Magazine, & No Contact. She proudly identifies as biracial & bisexual. She was a national winner selected by The Live Poets Society of New Jersey in 2020 & placed in the international It’s All Write competition for high schoolers. Danae is currently pursuing a BA in Creative Writing at Occidental College. You can read more of her work at www.danaeyounge.com & follow her on Instagram: @danae_celeste_
Featured Artwork: Miami Vice Jay Armstrong is a writer, musician, visual artist and editor of ANON Magazine living in Austin, Texas. “All graphics are analog-based, circuit-bent, for the initial purpose of projecting live.”