Issue

August | The Dopamine Hit

11 pieces — ten poems and cover art · eleven contributors

The cover of August | The Dopamine Hit: a torn collage of a young man’s face beside a blurred figure behind textured glass, beneath the Neon & Smoke masthead.
Cover art by Patty Paine — if.

From the editors

Dopamine Hits is here.

A dopamine hit is that quick burst in the brain that calls you back. The scroll. The swipe. The binge. The craving. The loop you know you should leave, right before you ask for just one more.

This special poetry issue of Neon & Smoke lives inside that tension.

Inside, you’ll find people escaping desire and running toward it. Some are breathing heavily in parked cars. Some are at the disco. Some are trying, beautifully and painfully, to let go.

This issue is about craving, compulsion, pleasure, habit, hunger, release, and all the strange little things that keep us coming back.

We also have the pleasure of introducing two emerging poets: Dira Ya Wiranti with “The Cursor is a Hungry Heart” and Hannah Dilday with “Little Death.”

If you haven’t yet, check out our latest Editor’s Light, “I Read Your Guidelines. I Still Don’t Know What You Want.” It’s dedicated to the confusing business of trying to decide where to send your work. No, we don’t have all the answers. But we do have thoughts.

We’re also continuing to open new calls for visual art and fiction, including Soulful Things and This Time Make it Smoky. We can’t wait to see what you send us.

As always, thank you for connecting with us, reading us, and sharing your work.

Half genre / Always lit 🔥

T & J

The contents

  1. Lady Butcher Alexandra Price Poetry She's in the line in her ironed skirt,
  2. Let Us Meet Blanche Kabengele Poetry for Diane
  3. Down Bad Girl Casey Clough Poetry The text is not on this site. The page holds what the record holds.
  4. I don’t care how you get here Charles Richard Livesay Poetry
  5. The Cursor is a Hungry Heart Dira Ya Wiranti Poetry
  6. Parked Erika MacNeil Poetry Also in Issue-2.
  7. Little Death Hannah Dilday Poetry CW: Sexual Content, Death, Mental Illness
  8. In the Club H.G. Poetry
  9. Borderline Personality Disorder Lynnea Morales Poetry
  10. Disco Horse Martin Fisher Poetry
  11. if Patty Paine Cover Art
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