Before I was a girl, I was an accusation. A bad omen. A piece of gum stuck to the bottom of my mother’s boot.
Ally Ang, “Anti-Ode to Girlhood,” published in Underblong

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Before I was a girl, I was an accusation. A bad omen. A piece of gum stuck to the bottom of my mother’s boot.
Ally Ang, “Anti-Ode to Girlhood,” published in Underblong

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that part’s a mess but the body’s more riddle than liar. The body is just information.
Kemi Alabi, from “Polyamory Defense #324,” published in Underblong
Poem In Which My Mother Tells Me Not To Do A Pap Smear Because It Might Tear My Nonexistent Hymen
And I’m like . . . what about cancer . . .? And she’s like . . . but your hymen? And I say . . . but what about death?? And she says . . . but the patriarchy . . .?! And I’m like . . . yeah yeah, the patriarchy! And she’s like . . . yes yes. Death.
— Noor Hindi, published in underblong
Dinner and A
Let’s be blunt – a bat right to the tender cortex.
I have too much patience when it comes to love.
I marvel at how people pay to have tiny fish eat
the callouses off their toes. I am each silver sucker,
turning each fleck in each guzzling cheek. A friend
told me once to choose grace instead: to say no,
thank you in the buttery light of each breakage.
To send gratitude to the self, slathered in a red
wine reduction of your own making. Over meatballs,
my date asks me: have you ever written a love poem?
And: if you could travel anywhere, where would
you go? I rub the pen that exploded on my face.
Did I ever write a love. The light, was it dimmed
and dumb? Where did I go in those cricket crushing
boots, those shoulders of smoke and star fruit?
Toward what house set on fire, centuries ago?
Cedar along the throat. I’m not sure why I’ve always
wanted books large enough to clobber a mouse,
pliable enough to hold onto in the middle of the night.
Or why cilantro blooms in snow when I kiss.
Or why I consider the taxidermist’s decision:
what to show in the window, how to hide
that telling puncture. I turn to my date: yes I have,
and anywhere with or without a rope.
There's something soft in me— we killed it and it's rotting. Off the highway like another deer. Off the highway like another girl.
I have a poem called “A Barbie Dream House But All The Dolls Are Kitchen Knives” in the first issue of Underblong, a journal whose existence i feel very !!!!!!!!! about!

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Sam Herschel Wein & I started dreaming up Underblong last summer during a visit Sam made to Lubbock, where I’m currently based. & of course we had to do a photoshoot in my yard with a giant scarf Sam brought along (photos by Jeff Gilbert).Â
I’m so in awe of this friendship & everything we’ve imagined and made together. We’re also working on a joint chapbook called Gesundheit! & other poems. I think it’s going to be just as magique & blongy as Underblong.Â
Running a journal with only two people is a lot of work. I’m so glad I’ve had Sam by my side. Thank you, Sam, for your encouragement and for all the work you put into our journal. I know Underblong will just keep underblonging bigger & blongier. Â
Check out issue 1 here.Â
& send us your beautiful work! Â
Language is one of the ways we breach the barrier between one person’s body and another’s. It’s one of the ways we connect one mind with another. It also helps us understand ourselves and make solid what often exists as air. Sometimes, I think of language as cartography for thoughts. But like all maps, no language can represent the world exactly.
Benjamin Garcia, interviewed by Mag Gabbert for Underblong
The heart is the least vulnerable thing. The heart does what it wants and oh, it pities, how it pities. The heart is the passenger, the driver, has gum, water bottles and plastic puke bags in case you get sick. Taco Bell, the heart regrets to inform you, has closed. You will have to find some other way to soothe yourself.
Jessica Abughattas, “The Blood Move,” published in Underblong