SWWIM sustains and celebrates women poets by connecting creatives across generations and by curating a living archive of contemporary poetry, while solidifying Miami as a nexus for the literary arts.
mom taught us that bad things happen in threes like us—me, the oldest— the two of you, younger. closer. I’d watch you both as you fell asleep in the car, your light eyes hidden, protected; the only time we look related. there wasn’t a parent left to tuck me in, so I carried myself to bed, climbed the spiraling staircase higher and higher towards my bedroom. I wanted to know how to fit in with disappearing clouds. nobody knew how to answer but they knew how to demonstrate: pots and pans flying in the kitchen, clanking against painted walls, tile, bone. I’m still watching, observing. taking note. Wish I knew how to stay high forever, the apex of an object thrown before it comes down too hard, crashing. the clatter of borrowed time, the mess of it all. I wish I knew how to fight with both wrists straight— a pen tracing a ruler. But I’m free hand. I’m jazz, baby. the lightning carving out a spot in the pavement. some things you never see but just know. like meeting someone else whose mother left them, too.
Jessica Ballen, MFA, is an AuDHD poet serving as Editor-in-Chief of Lunch Ticket Literary Magazine, Managing Editor of Defunkt Magazine, Senior Editor at Small Harbor Publishing, and guest editor for Frontier Poetry. Their work can be found in RHINO Poetry, Okay Donkey, and Ghost City Review (among others). Catch them compulsively posting on their Instagram stories @_j___esus, listening to dream pop with their four cats, and dancing in the Willamette River.
