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Literature, PoetryDecember 21, 2016

Lately, I keep crossing

Encounter with Nothingness, by Anum Lasharie. Image courtesy of the artist

Encounter with Nothingness, by Anum Lasharie. Image courtesy of the artist.

between pleasure and arrowheads.
I want you to be aware, I will not remember
meeting by the low-slung first floor window
where we all arrive less than
astonished, our tongues to our teeth.
Now that O’Keeffe is dead, they’ve found all the robes
she never needed lined up in a closet
that has not been opened for years.
Colors barren, the robes stubbornly hanging.
I think about the woman with the palest skin
sitting across the table from me. Think most
of the cavernous spaces opaque by her eyes.
In this room, we always start by composing a brief statement
of how we fit in. No one remains silent.
No mention of transience. I sit next to the director,
erasing his answers to another question.
At worst, there is always the hallway,
more shrill fluorescence, the woman across from me
wrinkling again. All of her fading
is private. All her de-tasseling.
Not everyone is outlined in danger.
Not all people are churning.
The remainder of us are audience.
We have to get out of here.
Outside, the wind moves across, exploring
further confusions. Somewhere in the world
another person is killed
in another building while I’m sitting
in this conference room writing down
each sentence as if readying
to answer each consecutive regret.
There are always uneven numbers placed beside us,
always black-lipped strangers, always such gashes
of history: photos of boys with bone.
I gave them my name.
I don’t know how to give them every border
I’ve spilled through—or the times I wanted
to go home through summer’s collar
and feel my beloved cold on my mouth.
To be unchanged when the wind is in recess.

~ Lauren Camp

Lauren Camp is the author of three books, most recently ‘One Hundred Hungers’ (Tupelo Press, 2016), winner of the Dorset Prize. Her poems have appeared in Poetry International, Feminist Studies, The Human, World Literature Today and elsewhere. Other literary honors include the Margaret Randall Poetry Prize, the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award, and a Black Earth Institute Fellowship.

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Anum LasharieLauren CampPoem of the Weekpoetry

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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