UnfortunatelyLit 
Clawing
the dirt wet by my parents’ spewing / torn up muddy fields / where a playground should have been built / my mother’s hands too polished / my father’s too shaky / as moonrise sinks / with the dunk of a wintry chill / I claw my way through hardened earth / I plead with the branches / to lift me to the heavens / when they stay silent / I continue toward the promise of a lover’s voice / it’s traveled through sunrises to find me / his calls speak of home / he will scrape the dirt beneath my fingernails / and soak my palms in warm water from the vintage tub / our walls will echo folk songs / and he will keep me warm
In an Apartment Somewhere Downtown
Treble notes
Pandora stream
body shakes
your spewing wakes the dream
your dry blood flakes off your skin
like the wallpaper laid by your absent kin
hard candy kisses, coated in smoke
sponsored by the summer your arm broke
you’re losing your grip
the years pressed too hard on your lips
stripped down to your core, laying by the kitchen sink
I dig my nails into my palms, revealing flaming skin, splotched in pink
Kelli Lage lives in the Midwest countryside with her husband, and their dog, Cedar. Lage is currently earning her degree in Secondary English Education and works as a substitute teacher. Lage states she is here to give readers words that resonate. Awards: Special Award for First-time Entrant, Lyrical Iowa.
Website: www.KelliLage.com
Instagram and Twitter: @KelliLage
Facebook: @byKelliLage
Why we chose these pieces:
Clawing – This piece has a great voice and pacing that yanked us through the poem. We especially liked the contrast in the imagery– the cold to the warm, the hard to the soft.
In an Apartment Somewhere Downtown – We knew we wanted to accept this poem when we read “hard-candy kisses, coated in smoke.” Just, wow. What a luxurious punch to the gut. The poem is so intense, but the shift to the speaker at the end brought us right there with them.
