Querencia Winter 2025

By Emily Perkovich (Editor)

Querencia Press's Winter 2025 anthology features 53 contributors of Poetry, Fiction, & Non-fiction work. Themes of the collection vary widely and the editor would like to incl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Querencia Press, LLC
• Release date: Jan 31, 2025
• ISBN: 9798348442163

Book preview

QUERENCIA

WINTER 2025

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Querencia Press – Chicago Il

QUERENCIA PRESS

© Copyright 2025

All Rights Reserved

No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted save with the written permission of the author.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

ISBN

978 1 963943 38 2

www.querenciapress.com

First Published in 2025

Querencia Press, LLC

Chicago IL

Printed & Bound in the United States of America

C O N T E N T S

P O E T R Y

end times—T Cruz

How to Drown Your God— Gabriel Noel

100 ANTONYMS FOR WOUND—Liam Strong

This Is Not Another Love Poem—Selene Ceridwen Lee

My body is inhabited by insects.—KJ Miller

the day i finally grasp the concept of loving myself will be my last—Kaitlyn Sun

journal (take #24)—nat raum

hunchback of garfield township—Liam Strong            

sandstone spine, limestone lungs—Icarus Grey

Box In An Empty Lot—Jodhi Mather-Pike

bingo, anarchist at the rodeo—Em Roth

Rooted—Maggie McCombs

a collective anger—henry 7. reneau, jr.

stop-start self-harm spiral / i thought i’d grow out of this—                Blue James

Thunderstorm; 3PM—Ryan J. Skarphol

Ribs form both treble and bass clefs.—Kim Malinowski

Cerulean—Robyn Hager            

the alcohol never lies—Joseph Blythe

The Cold Sun—Proph Dauda

Milk Sickness – Excerpt—David Greenspan

what the bombs eat for breakfast—Michael Neuwirth

The New Alchemy—Casey Catherine Moore

Don’t Cry—Alex Carrigan

Act Two—Selene Ceridwen Lee

At rehabs in Florida, they take you to the beach on Sundays—         Ryan J. Skarphol              

Empty stomach, empty heart,—Blue James

Moth—Arani Acharjee

Journey—Riam Griswold

This Body Has Never Been Mine—Selene Ceridwen Lee

journal (take #31)—nat raum

IN MY DREAMS, I WATCH MYSELF DIE. /—Icarus Grey

shock front—Amanda Nicole Corbin

Blow your house down—Sylvia Marie

My Mother’s Sorrow—May Garner

白 Snow—Cela Xie

Florence-Forget-Me-Knot—Sylvia Marie

The First Day in Snow—Proph Dauda

Tacet—Casey Catherine Moore

listen, we don’t say that here—Em Roth

A letter to the last person standing on earth—Arani Acharjee

journal (take #37)—nat raum

ode to my windowsill—T Cruz

[*trigger warning*]—henry 7. reneau, jr.

winnowing—Liam Strong

Night Vision—Riam Griswold

Are You Happy?—Robin Percyz

The Making of Angels—Jodhi Mather-Pike

anti-sonnet—Liam Strong

Where Now?—Carolina Bucheli Peñafiel

I’m not—Kim Malinowski

Window Shopping—Blue James

Abaxial Bends & Begonia Breaths—Katrina Lemaire

Stains— Liz Márquez

Today—Jen Schneider

My Therapist Told Me You Don’t Need to Attend a Church that Doesn’t Love You, and Years Later— Maya Williams

Meet Me At the Candelabra Tree— Leslie Cairns

Wild Greens Soup—Kimberly J Simms

grounded flights—Tanisha E. Khan

Lost Geometry—Rachel Chitofu

internet lovesong—mk zariel

Sierra—Carolina Bucheli Peñafiel

Apples—Meghan Albizo

That I Might Be Holy If To Be Holy Is To Love—Robin Percyz

One More Hope to Nourish—Tony Nicholas Clark

pedagogies of violence—Em Roth

vida loca | ʻōpulepule ola — tauoranga whakawehi | koyaanisqatsi (crazy life)—M.S. Blues

What I Keep—May Garner

Another Britney—Ariél M. Martinez

i think i tasted tangerines & transcendence—Katrina Lemaire

Saudade—Carolina Bucheli Peñafiel

WHEN I WAS A BABY, MY MOTHER PUT PAINT INTO MY BLOOD.—Icarus Grey

Borderline Liminal—Selene Ceridwen Lee

Gender is a Galaxy—Blue James

glass house—Kaitlyn Sun

Birth / Suffering / Clandestine / Death / Rebirth—Gabriel Noel

Death Valley— MaryAnne Hafen

For just a moment—Ryan J. Skarphol

F I C T I O N

Áilegas—Natalya Monyok

Strangler Fig—Katharine Tyndall

Good Sister, Bad Sister—Toshiya Kamei

We are making a new world—Emily Tee

The Star Quilt—Emily Tee

Fifteen Minutes of Fame—Emily Tee

The Parade—Maureen O’Leary

Keeping Confidants: A Grim Reaper & Rapunzel Medicated Mashup.—Paige Johnson

Unknown 19—Tommy Cheis

N O N  F I C T I O N

If It Had Been a Good Thing, It Would’ve Been a Miracle—          Crockett Doob

To Tell My Daughter—Aaron Babcock

A B O U T   T H E   C O N T R I B U T O R S

P O E T R Y

end times

green hum yellow hum red hum screech.

every night, crickets harmonize with the hum of changing lights. outside the window, condensation hides my fear and muffles my prayers. streets have laid empty night after night. not a soul graces the sidewalk below. but i am here.

green hum yellow hum red hum screech.

etching another tally in the crumbling brick wall beside me. the ninety-fifth day has come and gone. i haven’t slept once since the trumpet sound. the sun is down to only a sliver of light every twelve hours. i haven’t seen the moon since day thirty-three. no sense in going out again to find you. i am still here.

green hum yellow hum red hum screech.

echoing the sound of praise outside waiting for the phone to ring. lord please call me back. the walls are closing in. some nights i hear the faint whispers of my mind sneaking up behind me. i already tried to run away. that first month alone was running from the whispers. 

green hum yellow hum red hum screech.

evening of the thirty-third day, i did it. found your book, opened it, and watched myself get swallowed by the hesitancy that keeps me here. i know i should believe it, but every time i start over, nostalgia grips my neck, curiosities squeezed out.

green hum yellow hum red hum screech.

god! why is it so hard to get back to you? how many more days shall i spend here pondering? for sixty-two days i have haunted these halls. searching for the goodness of you in every vessel. squinting i stare into myself,

green hum yellow hum red hum screech,

and wonder if i’m the vessel.

—T Cruz (they/she)

How to Drown Your God

—after 333 by Jannat Alam

make them tea. make it hot. scalding. volcanic.

tell them you added an ice cube. you lie. watch

them bubble and boil to the bottom & once the

liquid cools read them their leaves. divination.

divination. pull out the bones. the stones. the

tarot. every card you pull is the five of cups.

tell them to stay away from the bodies of water.

they don’t listen. they never listen. jump.

jump. tie a rope to your god. plunge. down 

into the darkness & the cold. tell them it’s okay

to breathe in. watch the lungs become sorry they

listened. you lie & you lie & you lie & you lie.

— Gabriel Noel (he/they)

100 ANTONYMS FOR WOUND—Liam Strong (they/them)

[1]

________________________________________________

[1] the straightness of arrows. their lack of queer. stick figure anatomy, my center, a gnarled tendril. intercut with missing winter, its want for warm. intercut with consumption, pork. swords between toes, martyrs because two people can’t exist with the same name. we do, somewhere. male genitalia held aloft: windchimes. every gun is smoking before & after the third act, my adopted mother exclaims onlyness, as in character death, ghost flowers at graves we don’t share blood types with. no, you’re not bipolar. but at least you are alive. what walt whitman said. that i have died so many times & have not yet lived. i am fruitless, haven’t eaten fruit in weeks, i will not bear children nor will they one day bear me. the bloated gas can, four months of summer deep, an object that remains without motion will remain without closing. he/his proverbs. refrain. ellipsis. miscellaneous tools who promote an opening. i stim for hours at work, hours while i sleep. the bentness of arrows, unknown variable of splinters. the body is the same way, the one that was found of mine, the one who was identified. blood stays hidden until dictated otherwise. dante traverses paradise & its half-siblings for this, so the more real brands of pain can idle, discontinued. it’s like wanting there to be an end to poems. most faucets leak, most oceans wish they could feel it. my other mother once died, then died once more. the tears between pages, or at least what we wished was absence. something that makes sense to hold onto. i’ve never said enough.

This Is Not Another Love Poem

This is red weaving violet into evergreen,

the catalyst, the hummingbird,

glaciers slipping under the weight of themselves,

five moons—everlastingly blue.

This is a confession,

an idea of fear casting like iron,

love having no formative taste for comparison

other than my lack of wanting to overturn otherness,

instead to writhe below the hands of it.

This is fervor impersonating courage,

pearls in place of diamonds,

flaw being my reason to fall but

I bury it again.

—Selene Ceridwen Lee (she/her)

My body is inhabited by insects.

Does your mother know? —Guts, Leith Ross

They have been with me since the sixth grade, when a boy in my class kissed me behind the recycling bin. I let my eyes unfocus on the texture of the rust on the crate, lips closed and body frozen. I can't remember what they felt like the first time, the bugs. I do know that a rustle goes through my lungs each time I see royal blue.

We kiss once. I am not sure I want to, but we are drunk and you tell me how pretty I am, so I open my mouth to your tongue and your teeth. My lips are cut up and bruised the next day. I feel a soft, quiet buzz underneath my cheek where you kiss me goodbye the next morning. In that moment, I think they are honeybees aching for a drop of your sweetness. They leave me alone for the following weeks, mostly, but the sound returns occasionally at night when I think about