BrainScramble Magazine. The world through our eyes. BSB i4: CRUSH, out now.

“You were a pleasure to work with,” my counsellor said, her face warm and round like a pumpkin. Her tone was buttery smooth, light as a feather and full of hope for my future. “And that soft space that you found here—I truly hope you maintain it for yourself when you land back home.”  Almost…

It had nothing to do with the way her nose whistled when she breathed or the fact that she was letting her chipping nail polish sprinkle the carpet, though those were both annoying. The red polish was surely stuck to the green fibers and wouldn’t vacuum well. It didn’t even have to do with the…

a shadow sits in a meadow. you can’t see its face or its arms or legs or anything. just a shadow, long and tall. in its hand sits a flower. you don’t know what kind. one by one, the petals start to fall. the hands are long and skeletal. nothing but bone and no skin.…

ley lines (/leɪˈlaɪnz/) noun a network of straight lines thought by pseudo-archaeologists to connect sacred sites. i. The train pulls into the station. Everywhere, the smell of sweat permeates the narrow spaces between bodies; the whole car hisses, then pitches, throwing its passengers three paces forward and one back. It spits the crowd out onto…

Bury me in that red-rocks desert, Where the lilies don’t grow And the mountains cast a shadow On the few that dare to try. Take a piece of me, when you go: Like the winds do to the blooming dandelions; Like the sun does to the drying soil; Like the years did to the town…

It feels like every poem I’ve ever written has, in some way or another, been about spring. Ironically, though, this time, I have chosen not to write one. Spring is difficult, always more cruel than I imagine it will be. I find my poetry centers on this aspect of the season too heavily, ignoring the…

In the rain, we have potential  –It’s where all things come to take root– while running water, rings  like a melody I used to hum, cycled between my toes  and up my legs.  Oh, how I used to dance–  fifteen; bloodied blisters on the souls of my feet all that–  I could give in; bloody…

This time of year, I think of the mornings when I wake up next to you.  The sun shines through my window as your curls fall atop your eyes,  Your cheek pressed against my pillow,  Your mind in a tranquil state before your eyes flutter open.  The sun wakes you despite your trying to fight…

The sun set, my skin burnt red, the beetles had gone from my brain. A porch light turns on, the air fills blue and lime and my skin burns so warm I feel dizzy. I’m forgetting what it felt like that time when I fell, but I remember that the bottom was liquid  that surged…

can i be the bud of a new leaf still curled inwards  on the branches of a tree  in the new family’s front yard? can you turn me into a before? a hope, a something free  of a past that clings to its legs.  oh, please, let me be a new blossom, flushed-pinked  with new…

after “Looking for Ram, Looking for Allah” by Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee Thousands of lifetimes ago, I was named Ram, then Khusrau, once Bhimrao, then Ehsan. Every name is life’s request for another dance with creation. Music of the cosmos: a love-marriage between garbi and qawwali, and no name exists in the warp and weft of…

i am laying in the grass and thinking about the simplest of things: a ladybug in my palm—the universe condensed by its mother into a shell so small and red; a frantic moth, battering itself soft against a porch light, drunk on voltage. even in its panicked dance, a prayer. i fold my piece of…