Jenna Post CC


Oops. My Bad.

I am sorry for saying things when
No One Asked for My Opinion.

I am working on it. I am sorry
for bath bombs filled with glitter

even though *technically* they are not my fault.
I am so so sorry for no longer understanding

what people mean by *technically* like I used to
think I understood when I was 9.

I am sorry for when I was 9.
For the cruel selfish irony-savant

I was then, so gloriously terrible, it seemed.
I am sorry for being terrified. Sorry

for all my fears. Sorry
I could not carry the load, a load,

any load – could not accept anything
weighted with responsibility. Til God

came at me with Shock and Awe
and I lost my grit and wits and soul and brevity.

I traded all that in for a hill of beans.
I am sorry I was never king of that hill.

I’m sorry I ever hated anyone. I’m sorry
for being sorry. I’m sorry for my stained jeans.


​
Steve Henn is the author of Indiana Noble Sad Man of the Year (Wolfson 2017) and two previous poetry collections from NYQ Books. He writes and teaches in Indiana.

     ​  lolwho CC


I don’t need anyone to buy me flowers anyway

I am a Heath hen. My body is a bird a man starts trying to save and gets
bored. Pave the way for his next endangered species, teach him the lexicon
of the broken with bitten tongue and bitter breath. Conservation legislation scribed
in pilled sheets I only just washed the sweat out of. Salty amendments soak
pillows through to the feather filling he plucked from me so that he could sleep
more comfortably. The bill passed but was ultimately unenforceable. He was not
a reserve, he was a poacher. Wings rot into the dirt beyond the porch swing, screen
door slam a passing bell. Three tolls, a death knell.

I sleep for awhile. Loam and drowned worms cradle me in the damp as I discover
how to absorb dead, dark things. Learn what it means to eat. Here, I become
perennial.

I am purple loosestrife. My body is a long stalk berried with violet rebel bloom. I unstitch
the mud to tendril deep below, undo the earth with deft roots. I invade, unapologetic
in my spread. Choke the soil and curdle it with greed, leave nothing fertile left for anything
else because I am tired of being told to make room. I refuse hunger, leave turn upwards
towards the sun to take. Selfish tastes like seeds, millions of them dug between teeth
and swallowing. Save the spit for later.

​
​
A.N. DeJesus is a poet and technical writer out of Kansas City, Missouri pursuing an MA in Literary Criticism. She has work featured in The Los Angeles Review and Bear Review; she is a past contributor to Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine. 

the killing jar
 
i keep you in an hourglass
an angel without wings
i caught you on some blank verse night
a rust bite star moth thing
 
my mother says to let you go
no holes, no way to breathe
but your bones hold fossil secrets
a vice i must appease
 
i only cut ever so lightly
your satin cerise skin
your rose dust eyelashes closing
my goodbye night dark friend

​

        lolwho CC



See, Be, Tree

Hello world, Hello life, Hello trees, Hello me
My low is low, yet still not as far down as I’ve gone before
Floating on hope, Floating on strength
Floating on “there’s more”
Sifting through the weeds as tall as trees
Do I fight or should I climb, Who am I
Where is this place, Am I running out of time
Acknowledging each moment as it comes and lapses
No tic no toc, It just comes and passes
No tic no toc, It just comes and passes
I still doubt myself
How good is too good, and do I deserve it
How happy is too happy, and have I earned it
Mother Nature, Father Time, and me
Their offspring, A creation of the divine
Tap into power, tap into strength
Tap into being, tap into breath
Zone out and be lifted
Bright white, dark purple, orange, yellow, green and blue
And blackness
Blackness that is full, with no sign of void
Blackness that is vast
No tic no toc, It just comes and passes
No tic no toc, It just comes and passes
This tree I see
Can I sit by your roots and learn how to ground
Can I hug your trunk and take in your energy
Can I study each branch without being distracted
Can I study each branch without thinking of the others
Can you teach me how to grow like you
Will I ever have patience like you
Are you as trusting of nature as I, one day, hope to be
Would you think I was crazy for wanting you as a reflection of me
Do your brothers and sisters ever make you feel low
Do you ever get excited about how much more you’ll grow
Despite where you’ve been planted, is there anywhere else you’d rather be
Would you judge me if I told you I am you and you are me
Such conversation in silence
More rewarding than words
Such conversation in silence
Where every feeling can be heard
No tic no toc, It just comes and passes
No tic no toc, It just comes and passes
No tic no toc, It just comes and passes
No tic no toc, It just comes and passes

​

Michelle Besay is a Caribbean blooded author, based in Atlanta, GA. Coining herself the “Writer of all things internal”, her work is focused on mindfulness, open mindedness, and relatability. You can find more of Michelle’s work on Live Your Life On Purpose on Medium.com.

     Marco Verch CC


Constellations

The specks of dirt on the window remind her of the stars.
She starts to count them, wondering

where the dirt came from,
which route, which track.

Her mind wanders way above clouds,
she loses herself in space.

With her fingers, she traces the night sky blueprint,
​Cassiopeia, Delphinus, Orion…

the train jerks, her hand slips -

only her reflection, amongst the dirt, remains.

​

      Sarah Wampler CC


Semipermeable

We hawk bottled water to motocross bros
who kick up the sediment when they walk
by wet-caked with dust—mother coached us
to say the word osmosis over and over, to thrust
cone shaped paper cups into the crowd.
Instead, we balance them on our noses like beaks.
It’s so hot.
The men wear thick jackets with neon piping;
REO Speedwagon blasting, baby I can’t fight
this feeling anymore—We are still girls,
you and I, blonde and skinny legged, unfiltered,
full of large particles and debris. Like, but so unlike
the biker babes with their bleached hair and tight stomachs,
their cans of Miller light, and Marlboro reds.
                                                                            How pretty.
August hangs blue and plastic. It’s too hot to stay here.
Let’s go out to the track, watch the way the tires
fling: imagine we’re inside a cloud, the loud
whir of transmissions, smell of burning motor oil, our fingers
around the chain link fence. Separated from it
as we will be from each other, as we will be.
                                                                           Imagine
we can ride off over those low hills, jump
and mount the sky as Northern Pintails, that we’re not held
in place by tarping, ropes and anchors, by this girlhood,
cresting above us like a hand, ready to fall.

​
​
Sara Moore Wagner is the Cincinnati based author of the chapbook Hooked Through (Five Oaks Press, 2017). Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Glass Poetry Journal, Gulf Stream, and Gigantic Sequins, among others, and is forthcoming in journals like Western Humanities Review and Pretty Owl Poetry. She has been nominated for a Pushcart prize, and for Best of the Net. www.saramoorewagner.com. 

     Nick Fisher CC

​
Evening in Exile

I am in exile, surrounded by echoes
of girlhood, faltering against glass
that warps the plains of my face.
The house is cold and eats up my pulse,
choking me with the stench of terminal illness.
My dead mother traipses out of a photograph
to tempt me with the cure for a hollow heart.
I reach into the silence,
longing for the solid timbre of her voice.
She slips through my fingers.
My hands have turned to water.
I hold my breath and spin like a child,
hoping the dizziness will wash the scent
of loss from my eyes.
The ground pulls me to my knees
slams me into the refrain of a fat girls lament.
I shatter in the dust of china dolls
and stale pain killers,
my voice lost in the frigid sounds of emptiness.
I struggle out of my skin,
change the color of my hair
and plan to start a diet tomorrow.
 
 


Before you touch me
 
Whisper to me in tongues
Rinse the fury from your mouth
Scrub god off your teeth
Sing me the blues
Buckle on a rhinestone collar
Lace up your steel toed boots
Wrap your fingers in leather
Slip into a blue dress
Crack a smooth whip
Get down on your knees and pray
Wipe the blood off your lips
Suck on a blue lollipop
Down a shot of tequila
Swallow your envy
Bury your judgement in the pit your throat
Stare silently into my blue eyes
And please, leave your conscience at home
 


Susan Richardson lives and writes in Los Angeles.  In addition to poetry, she writes a blog called, Stories from the Edge of Blindness. Her work has been published in Rust + Moth, Foxglove Journal, Amaryllis, The Writing Disorder, Eunoia Review, Dodging the Rain, Barren Magazine, and Burning House Press, among others.  She was awarded the Sheila – Na – Gig 2017 Winter Poetry Prize, featured in the Literary Juice Q&A Series, and chosen as the Ink Sweat & Tears March 2018 Poet of the Month. Her poetry has also been nominated for Best of the Net.

      Nick Fisher CC



​Courtney / Persephone


Mama always said I was bad. Bad all ways. Bad like Dad. Got
that bad blood bad seed. Blood black as the River Styx flowin
thru my veins. Mudblood. Not like that boy wizard shit. I mean
that bad seed that rots in the fallow field and grows. Only strange
things. Dark fruited things. Corpse flowers. Late bloomers. Me.
Dark girl with bad skin. Shit-smell girl, they called me. Retard
girl. Collector of birdbones and Barbie dolls beheaded. Mama
wanted a mini-her. Oh Mama. All beauty queen and sun shine.
Golden hair, sunkissed skin. Mama all Malibu. Mama tried
bleach and spray tan. But on me the spray streaked. Turned
dirt. And bleach all she wanted, the dark roots always grew
back. Rotten. Mama said. Girl, plant sunflowers. Run barefoot
in the good garden earth. In the sun sand surf. Stay in the rays
of. The warmth of the day. Light. Mama tried, but my garden
grew strange. Grew bitter. Fatal. Reeking sinful. Vespertines;
pomegranates tart of flesh and thick with blood seeds. Bad
seeds. How did my garden grow. With fungus and funeral
lilies and meat-eating orchids all in a row. Mama tried to
warn me. Daddy was a bad man, Mama said. I know all
about those bad men, girl. How only a bad man could love
a girl like me. And how I wanted all the bad things they
could give me. All the things Mama tried to warn me away
from. Things to tempt and ply me. Stiff cocktails and big
black cars. Leather seats they'd lay me down on, slide
hot rough hands under my skirt. Or motorcycles, engines
hot and purring between my pale thighs. Oh Mama tried.
But I was just born bad, Mama. Mama I said I gotta go.
Bad. Look at me. I tore my skirt hem. Above my dirty
knees. See how dark my eyes are, smudged by eyeliner
black as coal. Fine, she said. Go— She opened the door
to the coal-dark. But if you walk through it, girl, you won't
be able to come back. No matter how bad it gets. Goodbye,
Mama. I said. I took my blood. My bad. And walked out
into the black. I stood, thumb-out by the side of the road.
Alone and free. The headlights of approaching cars glowed
like pomegranate seeds in the bad bad night.

​

      Achim Hepp CC


​
Comedown: A Fragment

The gig is over…another one in the bag on another year’s worth of shows…thirty so far…not counting TLT shows…not bad…not the most intense tour I’ve done…I think that was a couple years ago when I pulled fifty solo shows during road season…and certainly better than last year…when I was misunderstood in the wilderness…

The gig is over…another theater…another late night…driving home in a borrowed car…speeding down the interstate…going 65…70…75…80…85…getting the little fucker just outside of 90…hoping there’s no cops cruising this late…what a scene…being nicked in a borrowed car, covered in glittering war paint, heavy stones covering my fingers and a purple moon around my neck…

The gig is over…the moon shining silver on my stones…driving past my day time stomping grounds…would they recognize me in this natural state?...would it be a shrug?...or a total freakout?...another place where I pushed my luck too far…where when push comes to shove “We just don’t like your kind around here”…

The gig is over…I’m finally relaxed…speeding down the interstate…with the songs of my adolescence blaring through the speakers…a respite from spending all week breathing fire and telling twisted tales to dewy-eyed reporters…yes the Revolution moves on…but it feels like a personal victory tonight…

The gig is over…all that’s left is a Marlboro marked with pink stains…and a midnight martini to allow me to breathe fire again in the morning…




Professionalism: A Chant

“Do you think you look professional?”
No.
I look like a human being
Who lives, loves, and weeps.
Who sings, laughs, and bleeds.

“Do you think you look professional?”
No.
Feel this flesh.
This ain’t no polyester.
You can’t buy this off-the-rack.

“Do you think you look professional?”
No.
My heart ain’t wrapped in plastic
And put on the shelf
Marked Premium Choice Cuts.

“Do you think you look professional?”
No.
My skin is too crisscrossed
From decades of private wars
That you can’t begin to imagine.

“Do you think you look professional?”
No.
I’ve been reborn and resurrected
In dusty theaters and barroom stages
But never from a copy machine.

“Do you think you look professional?”
No.
You can’t wrap a tourniquet around my sleeve
And think my soul
Is gonna wither and fall off.

“Do you think you look professional?”
No.
I look like someone who has been living
Instead of slouching, hunched and broken
Anxiously awaiting my ascent to the top.

“Do you think you look professional?”
No.
And every night I get on my knees
And I thank all the gods and goddesses of the ages

That I never will.

​

A Poem in the Continuum of Love                                           


I love you
And that’s all I can say.
The world goes on and on.
The parrot keeps talking.
The trees still stand in the forest
Nestling into one another to form canopies.
The river still runs slowly,
It runs quickly sometimes
When it wears the legs of a rain.
And here I am
Facing this desktop computer,
Writing you a poem
That has neither beginning nor end

​

Kolawole Samuel Adebayo is an old soul in a young Nigerian body whose poems seek to awaken the consciousness of men. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming on Tuck Magazine, Glass Poetry, PAROUSIA magazine, WRR, BPPC anthology, Pulse Nigeria, and elsewhere. He likes to connect with his friends via his 2 Instagram handles: @worshipholik and @samofthevoice.