This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Merrick Sloane, is from local remedies by Chiagoziem Jideofor (Host Publications 2026).
this poem
this poem assumes you’ll live a long life.
this poem assumes you’ll lose babies, sustain a level of detachment, wield a mouth,
a potent mouth.
this poem assumes you aren’t like others—just here, idling and waiting.
this poem assumes people like you are taken out of the line, quizzed repeatedly.
this poem assumes the thousand beads around your waist are not of prayers, but
droplets from home, water turning green in a bottle.
this poem assumes your regrets are of never eating enough.
this poem assumes you aren’t in danger.
this poem assumes you have more wisdom than to pick sides.
this poem assumes your loneliness comes from a room, all that burning and pining
this poem assumes you are a believer until you are pushed by stronger hands.
this poem assumes your success is an uptown apartment that barely allows
twenty steps.
this poem assumes you only need friends who would point you out in a crowd,
none of that disdainful look at your locs, just love and pristine energy.
this poem assumes there are arms hugging the fright out of you.
this poem assumes home is anywhere that lets you keep your name.
Chiagoziem Jideofor (she/her) is Queer and Igbo. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, South Carolina Review, berlin lit, The Lincoln Review, Passages North, Commonwealth’s adda, the minnesota review, Shō Poetry Journal, MAYDAY, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from the University of Alabama and is currently a PhD student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. A Best of the Net and AWP Intro Journal Awards Winner, Merrick holds an MFA from UT, Knoxville. Merrick’s work has received support from The DreamYard Project’s Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium and Poet’s House. A 2025 Garden Party Collective Neurodivergence / Intersectionality contest winner, Merrick’s poetry also appears in citizen trans* {project}, ANMLY, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. They are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick writes so that others may feel radically loved and is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.
