​YOU.


Open your eyes. See you.
Look at the flaws
The cracks in your skin
The tears that flow in your veins.
Look at the darkness in the center of your sight.
And see you.
See you in the flaws
See you in the beauty
See you in the desired change
See you in the fantastic future
It is you
It has always been you
It will forever be you.




MOTHER MARRIED A DRAGON.
 
the day after tomorrow
I will write my will.
give away my glasses, my books and my blue socks.
I will say my last prayer
and then visit father
and I will ask how mother died.
 
I will see fire in his eyes
I am waiting for ice
that will melt into water
and become tears
rolling down to temper his heart
but my father is a dragon'
there is no water in his veins.
he will spread his wings
and spit fire, roaring like a broken spirit
roaring of how mother needed to learn submission,
of how his father taught his hardness,
firmness,
and manliness.
of how mother was rude and how he bought chains
for the woman who gave birth to me.
 
'it is not my fault,' he will say
'every slave has to learn respect.'
I will swallow hard
swallow the bitter truth
that my mother was a slave to the man she married
and all he saw in her was a pleasure house;
she was a hotel room
one he could run to when hard.
 
father will roar and roar
I am about to cry.
oceans are swelling in my stomach.
I am trying to be a man
I am making my father's mistake.
and then the dragon opens his mouth
I see fire pouring out.
quickly,
I run into my stomach.
 
I am not the son of my father.

       Andrew Filer CC



My Theory of Relativity

“I look at maps of Mirny Mine. / They blur and sink away in salt water…
I have work in an hour / and a hole in the ground /
large enough to be seen from space”
                -Elizabeth Leo

This is about the kindness
of a dog and how a human should be,
a little about cruelty,
but mostly about scale    – how vast
it all appears; the indifference
of the bluest fields
and the nearest, newest moon.

Friends, when I say this is about
I mean history; the day and night, sleep
and travel, tenderness and the grinder.
In another hour the sands might still,
the glass stopper itself; hands
gesture to nothing

but nothing unstopped stays the same.
The silo empties as regularly
as a lab rat’s feeder.
Whatever first lifts us up
from then on pulls down – the perpetual
drizzle, the unsolvable
argument of a trench seen from space
and the chasm so deep under water
where every story runs in its own time.

​


Day at a Standstill

Looking down and out
the window as someone rocks
back and forth on the sidewalk
        feet in the street
over a lost limb, the collapse
of magic in the non-shape
of a discarded shoe.

There is a beached whale
in every poem and no excuse
as worn as grief or jealousy
dripping from the clouds
         an eye
for an I.

Here is a pulse
like rocking back and forth
over a lost shape
        a tugboat horn
on the river at three a.m.

Here is the prosecution of justice
in a long-awaited eclipse.
We hurry across the sand
to a safe house at sundown
find our way down
a wrong but graver path.

​

      Andrew Filer CC



My Old Roommate Used His AA Book as a Coaster for His Beer

and the god of sobriety said
                                                              kate i promise you that all hopelessness is replaced by hope

and my one-month coin said
                                                             kate addiction is part of who you were
                                                             it does not need to be a part of who you are
                                                             do not shut the door on the past

and the beer said
                                                              you are not you without me

and the pill bottle said
                                                              i am prescribed
                                                              i am not dangerous
                                                              but you are dangerous with me
                                                              and you are dangerous without me
                                                              i do not know which is worse

and the aa book said
                                                              follow your idea of a caring higher power

and my god asked
                                                              why can’t you look me in the face?

and my mom said
                                                              your aunt isn’t without addiction now
                                                              she may not drink anymore but she is
                                                              addicted to god.

and my parents’ divorce said
                                                              your father couldn’t quit drinking when you were born
                                                              so maybe you shouldn’t have been.

And I said
                                                               I have been the person shaking in the corner of the meeting.
                                                               They do not make coins for thirty minutes clean. But they do make
                                                               coins for a year. God grant me the serenity to accept this
                                                               coaster. God grant me the courage to experience the sanctuary of
                                                               my own sobriety. God grant me the wisdom of forgiveness. God
grant me

​

​DEAR DIARY 


SUNDAY
mom yelled at dad, dad talked back
(same old, same old), both can pack a suitcase 
quicker than hell but keep screaming
and dreaming of a far-off heaven

MONDAY
all girls in my class have a date
it’s mostly men past their prime who 
listen to elevator music and
buy them skies with shiny clouds
not that i expect anyone to like me
i know i’m ugly and it has nothing 
to do with self-esteem
good looking people know they’re good looking
if you think you’re not, you probably aren’t
i wonder what post-euphoric laziness feels like
(it’s probably gross anyway)

TUESDAY
teachers gave me a lesson on morality (again)
the same people who got their kids to go to
bed alone but consider horizontal togetherness
passé and prefer practicing self-love before bed
stretched out like four-leaf clovers

WEDNESDAY
i’m bored
thank god for candy bars and booze 
the tv’s on, i like it that way coz
a big space seems much smaller

THURSDAY
i actually hate dating and 
this is how you’re supposed to feel

FRIDAY
future i will
future i can’t
(my mind’s a jumble)

SATURDAY
i got myself a new dog and a new addiction –
i sneak away when things get rowdy and
plunge into the water where i don’t sweat
where i am weightless and
can pretend none of this is real


​
Bojana Stojcic teaches, bitches, writes in English, swears in Serbian, quarrels in German and tries to breathe in between. Her poems and flash pieces are published or forthcoming in Down in the Dirt, Visual Verse, Mojave Heart Review, Dodging the Rain, The Stray Branch, Tuck magazine, X-R-A-Y Lit Magazine and others. 

Sudden Weakness

I don’t do poetry
                                               anymore
                                                                              only a secret puff
now and then    
                                behind a tree
                                                                in my garden
or a few stolen words
                                                 in an alley
                                                                                in a language not mine
Who
                do I think
                                                 I am
                                                                letting these syllables
                                                                                                                  sully my tongue?
I quit
                that shit
                                  while
                                                 there was
                                                                                still time
                                                                                                                 did I not?
If you see me
                                dealing
                                                in allegory or
                                                                                 alliteration
                                                                                                                know it is
merely a moment’s
                                                weakness
                                                                                most days I am
                                                                                                               better than that   

​


The Night I Left Home

The night I left home, I didn’t drop words in the dark along the path to help me find my way back home.
I kept them in my mouth, chewed on them until they had nothing of their original substance left.
Drenched in spit and doubt, they swelled, grew into a muzzle.

It was cold in the woods, then as now, and when I stood there frozen I imagined hearing the rustling of
wild animals. There was a faint smell of gingerbread that would have made my mouth water—if it were
not full of rotting words.

Much later, I would learn to twist my tongue around the debris, but every sweet thing that crossed my
dental bridge would still come with a hint of bitter.
​
In moonlight, I wonder if the lace on my tongue is a secret trail.

​

Over Again

Caressing her hair--
reassuring her of my presence,
I tried to soothe my trembling mother.

Whispering--don’t go,
she held me tight;
too afraid to be alone.

I had become the mother, she the child.
Her protector, her healer.

She had my undivided attention,
unconditional love.

We wanted to scream, to cry.
To escape.
We couldn’t.
Her need for that “white magic” was too strong.

She fell asleep at last.
She looked so peaceful.
Tomorrow she’d isolate herself,
want only sleep.

Then came her call toward destruction.
The “visit to the neighbors.” Her wonder cure.

And all would be fine--
for her. Until.

​


Twisted Tubes

Twisted tubes;
hypnotic, repetitive
clicks; the whine of
cold machines.
Cold sheets.

Buried secrets,
gasping for air--
empty holes in my childhood.
Addiction breaking the walls of our home,
robbing me of a mother’s care and
a father’s presence.

She’ll soon be leaving me alone again.

Shallow breathing,
body shaking,
eyes open,
begging, pleading.

Taking deep, deliberate breaths,
I exhale reassuring words,
acquiescing to her pleas
for forgiveness.
​
​

​ Chrysalis
 
She squeezes him tight and he fills her with larvae
destined to pupate, develop wings and molt
shatter her skin like the wood of an old door frame
in their attempt to break free and fly far away.
 
But it will only hurt for a moment, and too far down the road
to worry about—for now, he comforts her with pictures of kittens
tells her stories of his own childhood, how he can’t wait to feel
butterflies beating under her skin, how he’ll never leave her alone.
 
She wonders silently about scorpion children
babies who devour their mother as she sleeps
boys who grow up to be psychopaths and murderers
girls who grow up to be beaten and lost.


​
Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Plainsongs, The Long Islander, and The Nashwaak Review. Her newest poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press),  In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing),I'm in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), The Yellow Dot of a Daisy (Alien Buddha Press), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), and  Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing).

       ​Tasha Lutek CC



Glass House

What happened was this.
The world became three dimensional again.

The dogwoods burst through
the windshield of my Volkswagen beetle.

The sun became a rose, not a revolver.
After a shower, I met John the Baptist.

My prison cell was now cool water.
And the battlefield was cleared of toxic.

The question of God may never be answered.
But what were we asking anyway?

And on Friday, my parents served fish sticks and French Fries.     
​       -       Then I met a girl.

That first kiss, after an eternity in hell,
all I could feel was a body of shocking.

​

​FLUX OF STATE

You were not naked thirsting for rain
When they led you to the night
Stripped off your flair beauty until  you looked weary
& fragile-white, as the snow
Until they discovered you would search for a home
In their frail bulb city - they bought you without price
& you could not remember your mother earth
Since they fluxed you a mother to white boy
You were not made of stones or deaf
But they took you to silence village
Until the sun's sweat wetted every part of you
With strapped plasters gummed on your mouth
To hanker you with a strange zeal 
To cease you quenching from your labour
And today another you woke up from fresh dawn
You look at history every day 
And see how you were a waste yesterday
And thank God today is glad to have kept you
Away from preys and predators
With your flair nature-given gifts

​

​Mother’s skillet
 
is not nonstick
but if I stir the raw ground beef
while it cooks, it won’t burn.
 
Mother used to sip whiskey
while she stood in front of the stove
even though a stool was right beside her.
 
She would talk to me while stirring
up shit, and I would halfway listen
while the local news
 
blared from the other room
where my father
drank too much scotch,
 
the cocktail hour something
I thought normal in families
that were normal, unlike mine.
 
Now here I am sitting on the stool
and sipping water, fresh strawberries
and lime floating in glass tumbler,
 
the sizzling meat no longer pink
but dark brown like the melanoma
that took Mother away.



​Laurie Kolp’s poems have appeared in Stirring, Whale Road Review, Up the Staircase, and more. Her poetry books include the full-length Upon the Blue Couch and chapbookHello, It's Your Mother. An avid runner and lover of nature, Laurie lives in Southeast Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs.