POETRY — Split Lip Magazine

about being an addict. I keep trying but the moon
won’t show, and holy colors refuse their help. It is
all puke and blah, sad mom sad me and blah, blah

poetry, 2020SLMNovember 14, 2020Adele Elise Williams

Funny Fat Guy Origin Story

In ninth grade it’s discovered that I can do a good
impression of Fat Bastard from Austin Powers 2

poetry, 2020SLMOctober 14, 2020Jeremy Radin

37 Ways to Clean Cum from a Suede Shirt

37 ways to clean cum from a suede shirt— what we’ll call instead
How To Polish Your Masterpiece.

poetry, 2020SLMSeptember 14, 2020Jahan Khajavi

Belly Aquarium

Instead of going to the gastroenterologist
when cramps roil or indigestion thunders,

poetry, 2020SLMAugust 14, 2020Christina Beasley

Unicorn Kidz Dance under the Moonlight, too

What is not soft here:

a boy spilling out with glitter and gun oil
moon child moves like his mother’s tides
a body that is all awkward and legs

poetry, 2020SLMJune 14, 2020Jason B. Crawford

I’M ALMOST 30

and give a good blow job but can’t
open a bottle of wine without breaking
the cork. I’m almost 30 and

poetry, 2020SLMMay 14, 2020Diannely Antigua

I Crack an Egg

and out glops my mother, dressed in runny
yellow, telling me when to palate cleanse
Arab from the tongue, if I salt too little,

poetry, 2020SLMApril 14, 2020Threa Almontaser

I Have Something to Say

Confession: I don’t like other stutterers.

I don’t like to be reminded

of the wasp between my lips.

poetry, 2020SLMMarch 14, 2020Eddie Krzeminski, 2nd Runner Up

Seema asks me when I first learned I was a girl and I don’t know how to tell her

hunger in my mouth
sits like the ghost
of a milk tooth.

poetry, 2020SLMMarch 14, 2020Amrita Chakraborty, 1st Runner Up

Choose Your Own Adventure: Reparation as Fable

1955: Activist Lamar Smith was murdered and remained unsolved after 30 white witnesses

did not come forward; no conviction. This was the same year Emmett Till and George W. Lee were killed.

poetry, 2020SLMMarch 14, 2020Jonathan Andrew Pérez, Winner

Landless Acknowledgement

before we get started we would like to acknowledge that we live on some unceded bones. sometimes me & mine imagine ancestral homes.

poetry, 2020SLMFebruary 14, 2020Nate Marshall

Eco-Conscious Aubade with Starshine

I should explain: cosmic rays
might be responsible
for the 2009 Toyota recall.

poetry, 2020SLMJanuary 14, 2020Zach Linge

Bad Binaries

The research says we need more sleep

poetry, 2019SLMNovember 14, 2019Philip Schaefer

Watching Platoon with Your Uncle, the Refugee

You used to think of yourself
as fluent, your tongue an old general.

poetry, 2019SLMOctober 14, 2019Steven Duong

My Bible Verse Vs Your Bible Verse

My Bible verse versus your Bible verse. My rib versus your loins. My blood orange versus your green lawn. My salary versus your 401k. My nanny versus your neighborhood watch.

poetry, 2019SLMSeptember 14, 2019Lorena Parker Matejowsky

Made for Each Other

Wedding, welding — it’s all a slow-and-stop machine. Ignition is the easy bit. You know, sockets oiled, batteries replete as a rose with bees.

poetry, 2019SLMAugust 14, 2019Lesley Wheeler, Chris Gavaler

Sixteen Theses on Walking and Poetry

Walking is the poetry of the urban space.
Just as a poet uses the same language as everyone else, only for other things and in other ways, a walker walks the same city as other pedestrians, only with a different purpose and perspective.

poetry, 2019SLMJune 15, 2019Mátyás Dunajcsik, Timea Balogh

A Battle for America

Google removes ‘don’t be evil’ from its code of conduct

poetry, 2019SLMMay 15, 2019Sean F. Munro, Henry Goldkamp

Equivalents

In Stieglitz’s little photographs, sunlight
oozes through scraps of cloud. Dark
presses against light; the spaces wobble
between positive and negative.

poetry, 2019SLMApril 15, 2019M. A. Bowersock

Bill and I Go to Christine McIntire’s Church

High school seniors, we go to a different church
each Sunday, wanting there to be a God so we can

doubt Him. The Quakers are calm, the Methodists jovial.

poetry, 2019SLMMarch 15, 2019David Kirby