Prolit

a literary magazine about money, work, & class

sext: by the year 2026

the landfills will be out of          love and

my father          will hit his life expectancy again

              and i will not be ready again and

i will go home and forget what forgiveness looks like

                           again and plastic will

              melt into            our homes.

sext: hell is plastic

              hell is death in which we

                          are outlived by the

                                         plastic in our landfills.

sext: (hell is manmade) we sell

              you plastic                 in order

to appease                     your hunger for

                          abundance

we       sell       you

currency         to appease     your

              hunger for       love.

rent is due on the 1st

the clouds          do not tell
               you to bring an umbrella to
work

                 (but you do it anyway)

               the weather                  man tries
to sell you: love,           the landlord
               tries to sell you:          a home,
               you eat                           god for
breakfast,                          you eat
               tomorrow for               16 hour shifts

                                                 you
stomach love                    like debt collector voicemails,
               your school’s          financial aid office
sends you          angry           letters about the

                                                 (apocalypse)

               you ignore                      the phone,
tell it
               love comes                     today,
tomorrow
               we must                          eat.

Blue Nguyen

Blue Nguyen (they/them) is a Vietnamese non-binary lesbian poet based out of Boston, MA. They are an Aries/Taurus cusp in love with liminal spaces. They have been nominated for Best of the Net Anthology and Best New Poets Anthology. They are the author of “is the sun lonely too?” zine. Their poetry can be found at The Mantle Poetry, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and forthcoming in Protean Magazine. You can find them on Instagram: @blue.ngu and on Twitter: @queerqhost.