The Angel of Just Getting By, by Jannat Alam

Poetry, chapbook, 16 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

This collection was a metamorphosis. Once an acceleration through bittersweet firewalls, now eyeing our panoptic with sleepy panda glances—furtive, through curly, unevenly cut, bottle-black fringe… Each word is both and neither; bubble and pop, ebb and flow, sand and foam—as many faces as the Unseen may reveal—it lives in its un-mention. It breathes in its held tongue. Life without death is merely purgatory, and death without life cannot be worth living. It was written with You, and only You in mind—my boy, once immaculate… Over and over and over and over, rolling like silly children down a grassy knoll, yuga after yuga, I will meet you. There is no need to look—let me yearn with the presence of my Word.

Jannat Alam is based in Los Angeles. She runs Reap Thrill.