Yaz Lancaster

Ojalá

Nobody ever tells you these things, like
how small & weird you’ll feel before massive
paintings. The way you do when you’re young &
a man is screaming. Someday you can grow
up & stop being a girl or be de-
pressed by sunlight & just enough quicksand,
apples in the trash once-bitten & tossed.
Inevitably on the way to see-
ing my mother, I wish I held prayer
the way in which one carries religion;
a reason to bend toward earth knees first,
to wash my body from the inside or
anything to believe in that doesn’t make mistakes.

Vegan

I wouldn’t be a very good vampire.
I have never held life
in my feet on the edge of
a cliff, or discovered an extraordinary
seashell. I was never good with storytelling
or desire. Beasts from childhood hoot
& roar like they always have. & they always
will. I love nature running cool & without
intent to do anything, though I know
it will one day kill me too.

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Yaz Lancaster is a Black transdisciplinary artist most interested in relational aesthetics, collage, and anti-oppressive, liberatory politics. Their work has appeared in Atlas and Alice, Afternoon Visitor, The Poetry Project’s HOUSEPARTY, and elsewhere. They have degrees in violin and poetry from NYU, write for I Care If You Listen, and are the visual arts editor at Peach Mag. Yaz has an Aquarius stellium and they love chess, horror movies, and bubble tea.