Pensive. by Rex Ybañez

Don’t think you’re the only bastard who ever suffered—
just write as if you were.
—William Logan

This was originally written
with fountain pen—curséd sink leaking
cursive ink. Something about floods
frustrates storms under the skull. No one gave
the writer an advisory warning.

Letters have been straightened to hide
the passiō of poïesis. No one will guess this. Instead
of building an ark, he writes how his humanity
drowns for your viewing pleasure—silence your phones.


Rex Ybañez is a former children's librarian and grant writer at Polk County Library in Bolivar, MO, with degrees in English and Spanish from Southwest Baptist University. In the last few years, he's been published in the Young Adult Review Network, the Missouri State Poetry Society's anthology Grist, White Ash Literary Magazine, the Bleeding Typewriter, the online revival of Nine Literary Magazine, and Southwest Baptist University's literary journal SCOPHe likes to read kids' books, play guitar and bass, draw, and take the time to get to know people close or afar. He's also an editor of an online magazine called A Literation, formed by veteran writers on Tumblr. He currently has aspirations to be a great hero of the poetic tradition while starting the revolution with his Fender Jazzmaster and Marshall half stack.