Write

v.
1.To make visible; to call into being.
As in, “I would have been older than you, but you were written first.”
As in, “I would have been disjunctive, but for what, in that same hour, and plaintive, writes.”
As in, “I would have been here on time, but amphetamines were written into my bloodstream, and everything was too beautiful to be wasted in disarray.” As in, “I’ve written desperation into my brother, and now his fingers can’t untie themselves.”
As in, “The diagnosis writes itself.”
2.To stagger out of Edenic climes, and the Light of Hope you want so terribly to be scorching your back instead droops ahead of you in tepid disapproval, a dishrag sourness pressed into your eyes and nostrils no matter how piously you labor to shield your face with your uncovered hands. To cast a shadow.
As in, “The will is fixed in wandering; the carcass writes.”
adv.
1. Insincerely. Without regard for consequence.
As in, “He spoke write at me. His words smelled different; they were seraphed.”
adj.
1. Realer-than-real. Like resuming an argument after a quick jog around the block.
As in, “It felt write to lay myself as flat on the floor of the tub as I could get myself, and let the water from the shower fall down. It’s like I had written each droplet.”
n.
1.What something that has always existed is called in the act of pointing that thing out.
As in, “Each split-second’s new you, each write, is a headstone to every previous you, dear writer, dear written.”

Joe Milazzo is the author of the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie, two volumes of poetry — The Habiliments and Of All Places In This Place Of All Places — and several chapbooks (most recently, @p_roblem_s). His writings have appeared in Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Prelude, Tammy, Texas Review and elsewhere. He is an Associate Editor for Southwest Review and the Founder/Editor-In-Chief of Surveyor Books. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is http://www.joe-milazzo.com. Here in these definitions in danger are what these words now mean, or might mean, or must mean if they wish to escape the new world incommensurate with the perceptions they’re accustomed to inhabiting. 

Eric Lindley is a musician, writer, and artist living in the bay area. His writing has appeared in Fence, Joyland, Tammy, and elsewhere, and other work at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Machine Project, Telic Arts Exchange, The Knitting Factory, and The Smell. With Janice Lee and Joe Milazzo, he co-edited the online interdisciplinary arts journal [out of nothing] from 2009 to 2015. You can find Eric’s work online at https://likeoverflowing.com/