"untitled for baths" by Emma Durbin

in

I used to run into the woods and sing with the trees.
I used to return home, run the tap, and steam my problems away.
I used to love baths.

Now I have a cheap tub,
aged caulk,
too many roommates,
and an aching block of anxiety across my chest.

I used to love baths.
But now all I can do is shower and remember:
That outdoor rain-head in Italy
with the lemon shampoo
and my almost private view of Vesuvio.

But now all I can do is shower and remember:
That hot tub in Washington,
open and under the stars.

But now all I can do is shower and daydream: A hot spring.
Bright and colorful lights dancing above our heads.
The taste of sweat and rain and forest on your breath.
Wishing it was me there, with you.

 

Emma Durbin (they/them) is a Chicago-based playwright, poet, dramaturg, and theatre producer. Their writing often centers women and people who are experiencing gender marginalization, and the bonds they form in search of survival, community, and joy. Plays in development include: landscape (workshopped at Mirrorbox Theatre and Valdez Theatre Conference, 2022 Premiere Play Festival semi-finalist, 2024 Irons in the Fire at Fault Line Theatre semifinalist, 2023 NAP Series at Normal Ave finalist, and 2023 LAB Series at The Inkwell Theater finalist), Witchcraft, Bitchcraft (2022 commission by Pocket Theatre VR), and overgrown (winter 2023 Jackalope Playwrights Lab). Emma is a co-founder and artistic producer of Freshly Brewed, a new play development series for emerging Chicago writers, produced by The Understudy Coffee and Books and fiscally sponsored by Raven Theatre. Emma attended the New Play Dramaturgy Intensive at the Kennedy Center with Mark Bly and has a BFA in Playwriting from The Theatre School at DePaul University Dean’s Prize Recipient). Please visit emmadurbin.com to learn more.

"Coke in Time" by L. Lois

in

“Renewal” contributor

hours slowed
to a crawl
as I waited
unable to work
without a car
high in the hills
of East Africa

what could I do
until the permits
and colleagues
arrived to whisk
us all into
action
with the sun setting the beat

every day
I thanked my hosts for breakfast
and walked
the dusty roads
coming back at three o'clock
precisely, with a whiff of desperation
for an unrefrigerated Coke in its glass bottle

 

L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting through her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies, nor time. Her essays have appeared in the Globe and Mail, her recent poetry In Parentheses and Woodland Pattern.

"Exquisite Corpse #05" by Ruth Towne

in

“Renewal” contributor

this is what I worked out in secret
gravity is part of the falls
flame devours vapor to make the light


now my passport is blank
so is the ancient map


I folded on its even creases
thin troughs soft as riverbeds


geothermal steam rises around me
from earth, a vapor like sunrise
as delicate, as brief


by this river, down this path
I’ve been running barefoot,
like how we used to swim then
when we were small children


leaping in tumbling seas
our salt-wet skin glinting like scales


then, when we were secretless
creatures content in their make believe play
daughters of the water swimming
with mermaids in the waves


this is what I worked out in secret
we have more to be because we are here
we have never been as much as we are

 

Ruth Towne is an emerging poet. Her poem "J°@n M!r°'s Mannequin" appeared in Assignment Literary Magazine's summer issue "Renewal." Her debut collection, Resurrection of the Mannequins, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Other poems from her project have been published by the The Lily Poetry Review, Decadent Review, New Feathers Anthology, Coffin Bell Journal, Arboreal Literary Magazine, and Anodyne Magazine.She is currently the co-editor of poetry for the Stonecoast Review.

"Casio 1301 MTA-4000" by Agniv Sarkar

in

Last night I was locked in my father’s watch,
hidden away in a dark drawer,
counting blind.
The timer started to roll over as soon as
its hands began to approach the hour.


I woke up from the dream,
sickly sweat under the watch.
It was scared of its half-truths,
from analog to digital,
from form to function.


Once, time slipped from my grasp,
but still it clung to me.
The watch was old and it kept
the old time, so it felt heavy on the hand.
Without it, the lightness felt dizzying,
the time lost.


As soon as I could, I reclaimed the time
I aimed to make it mine.
And those who saw it paused.
Gave it more than a seconds thought (the watch knew),
and it had moved on from being my father’s.

 

Agniv Sarkar is a student of mathematics and philosophy, leaving high school early to further these pursuits. He found poetry through philosophy and found the intersection of the two able to create the most beautiful artwork.