Emily Brown
WELL I’M STILL IN MY BODY
i have soured on the current discourse
alexa, play my heart will go on
alexa, play white flag
in my dreams i can do a perfect push-up but i never get to fly
in real life i scatter my thoughts in short bursts
on the internet i am beautiful and well liked
in school i never knew when to shut up
i am still there with my hand trying to touch the ceiling
i am out of my seat
i am not saying the pledge of allegiance but mouthing it
EMILY BROWN is an editorial assistant at Poetry Northwest and The Iowa Review, and received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her writing appears in Denver Quarterly, glitterMOB, Prelude, Sonora Review, and Lambda Literary’s Poetry Spotlight.
ISSUE EIGHT features poetry by Brent Armendinger, Amanda Auerbach, Jenny Browne, Oni Buchanan, jayy dodd, Robert Fernandez, Jennifer Hasegawa, Valerie Hsiung, Troy Jollimore, David Kirby, David Lehman, Erika Meitner, Miguel Murphy, Daniel Nester, Kathleen Ossip, Emily Pettit, Sean Singer, Ed Skoog, and Elizabeth Willis; fiction by Lucy Corin, David Crouse, Cynthia Cruz, Nicholas Delbanco, Marcos Giralt Torrente, and Stuart Nadler; nonfiction by Elisa Albert, Kelle Groom, Kirsten Kaschock, Nadia Owusu, and Enrique Vila-Matas; film essays by Justin Phillip Reed; and an interview with Elizabeth Willis.