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8/5/2021 2 Comments Editor's Remarks Honza z Krkonoš CC
“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation." ― Wendell Berry When I have been in despair and known not where it was that I belonged or who I could turn to, when I have longed to be, in such a wretched and broken state, just taken in and heard. That there have been such places and people, so hard to describe in ordinary language, whose mere presence made the difference. I know now that true miracles are ordinary and small. We carry a pain so huge it is sometimes hard to imagine that what is needed most is so uncomplicated that any one of us can offer it to each other, and in doing so, are we not both that place of belonging and the thing to turn to? Howard Bacal writes of a patient who was so touch starved in her youth she herself had to provide what a parent should have: “she recalled how she ached to be held, even putting her own small arms around herself, pretending they were her mother’s. She remembered many nights of her childhood where she hugged the plaster wall adjacent to her bed. After a while, the wall absorbed and held her warmth, and she could pretend she was cuddled up to her mother.” The patient felt she could only heal if Bacal were to hold her, which, of course, he could not. This convinced his patient that he was as depriving as her parents had been, and that healing, for her, was just not possible. She would forever be left alone to wrap her own small arms around herself. Abandoned. Terrified. And in terrible pain. But then, he “came upon a blanket,” that offered a warmth, depth and yield to the touch approximating the touch of a human body. He thought it possible that the blanket, if it were from him, might provide her with the needed experience of holding. She was deeply touched to receive the blanket, and it made a difference, imperfect though it was to her, it was a touch of something deeper than anything she had known before in bearing her pain to another, and needing to be held in it. What prepared Bacal for that moment was another with his teacher, Winnicott, who he turned to for advice in treating a three year old whose behavior had been described as chaotic and bizarre. Bacal asked Winnicott how he should begin the treatment, as he had never worked with children before and felt lost as to how to start. “Without hesitation, Winnicott answered, “if she holds out her hand, take it.” “I have never forgotten this,” Bacal says. “It became not only a metaphor for the responsivity that enabled me to be therapeutic for my little patient, but for my work with adult patients as well.” I have come to believe that part of the reason why we create and share what we have made with each other is because we are all, on some level, looking for a reparative experience. We need to know we can make a dent in people. That who we are has some bearing on others, that we will be felt in deeper ways than the everyday, and that when we hold out a poem, a story, a song, or a hand: someone, somewhere, will take it. Six years ago I started this journal because it was the place that I needed. Is it maudlin and saccharine to say that doing so saved me? Because it saved me. You have all been like that blanket approximating the needed thing. It is my hope that this space has been a bit of that for you, as well. Art is that place where we are heard, held, healed, ushered in to the “feast of creation.” From such pain come these things that we have made. Where in despair we go and find our belonging to something so hard to describe in ordinary language. And so we use extraordinary means to relay our story. But I believe it is simply this: that when someone holds out their hand, you take it. Being for someone that small presence that makes a difference is, I believe, the work that we are each called to do. Never mind that from the look of things around us, it doesn’t always feel or seem that way. Reach deep for it anyway. Believe it’s there for you, because it’s there for you. Take the hand that reaches out to you as if it were your own. We don’t just need to know we can make a dent in someone, we need to know that we are not alone. Surely, we are not alone. From such pain, this place we have made. James Diaz Founding Editor Anti-Heroin Chic
2 Comments
 Timo Newton-Syms CC A PARTIAL LIST OF THINGS I CAN AND CANNOT PROMISE To my next love,
On the Almost-Second Anniversary of the Last Time My Father and I Spoke The last time I spoke to my father was through text message on Christmas morning, 2018. He waited til the morning to drive home his point of bitter rage his history of hurt My father, my dad, wanted to hurt me as he had been hurt and I let him for 29 years. on Christmas morning two years ago for the first time, I said: no more. I told him to seek therapy as I have, and that this was the last time he would hear from me. I wished him peace. I sobbed, violent, shuddering sobs, at the second leaving of my father. Sorrow crept up my throat, a vise, a sickness, it threatened to escape. When my father left for the first time, I was taking a nap. I was 14. I never slept well again. Sorrow lives still in this one spot in the back of my throat: A threat and a promise How do we grieve those who are still alive? How do we grieve? How do we The lesson carved into my little feeling heart since I was a child is this: The people you love will leave you. and life is the reason for their departure more often than death. Now that I am older - an age I didn’t imagine myself to be - I see myself keeping people, I ask them to stay. I say, please don’t leave me. give them little gifts like a crow, pour from an empty cup, trying to be something like enough I say, I cannot weather another departure. knowing that I will weather many more if I am to continue being ages I never imagined I would be. Life has also taught me that the strength and anger and cruelty of my fear pushes people away. It is too much. It pushes and pours roiling ocean waves crashing and crashing and crashing to shore I am the sea in my despair In the thick darkness of 4am there are the faces of the people who are gone but elsewhere A oncedearfriend from school My first love An old friend I asked to officiate my wedding. He said yes. A few weeks later, he stopped speaking to me for reasons that I still do not know No warning or explanation just another face in the vast darkness I sent messages to him - to the void I guess - for years, telling him I missed him. Please call, please call, I miss you I still miss you so much I think of you always I am a gentler, sadder ocean I push, I push I search for meaning for my place in it I crash, I crash how do we grieve those who are still alive? my waves beat against a lonely shore nothing after nothing after nothing then there are those who are gone but not elsewhere. My mother’s mother, the silly charmer who sent pieces of gum in the mail when she wrote to me My mother’s father, who I never knew My father’s father, who I don’t remember apart from pennies from a cognac coin purse and silent vibrating rage Friends, teachers who deserve more than a line in a poem most recently there was Barbara. Barbara was my grandmother, my father’s mother. She taught me to love theatre She took me to Peter Pan at Olney Theatre down the road where I fell in love with the living darkness of storytellers bringing life to life I never got to say goodbye. She came to me in a dream shortly after she died. She seemed to understand - though not approve of - my choice to keep my father out of my life. She said, of my ability to gather a roomful of beloved friends, he always wished he could do that. At her funeral in the church down the road from that theatre, I saw my father from behind - though he did not see me - he was so alone his hair yellowing, his back curved with grief and something else I heard later that he missed me I couldn’t say goodbye to her there. I said goodbye later in the best way I could: sobbing in a darkened theatre, asking forgiveness from the rafters I love you and I’m sorry I love you and I wish it could have been different I love you and I tried but I am an ocean of not knowing what to do Life is coming and going. I’ve always wanted to be gone and, despite everything, here I am. an ocean and a bird Giving crowgifts, despite knowing that I cannot keep anyone Asking them to stay anyway Waves of love; crashing hopeful and sad how do we grieve those who are still alive? TO THE WOMAN IN THE FABRIC SECTION OF JOANN’S There was a woman in the fabric section of Joann’s In Wheaton mall, Who held me close I could feel her wanting to cry I had cracked a lame joke about wanting to buy too much yarn We got to talking (as craft people are wont to do She also could never resist anything soft and colorful) I happened to roll up the sleeves of my overlarge sweater Just because it was very warm Right there in the fabric section of Joann’s in Wheaton mall She saw my tattoo, a semicolon, a story I chose to continue to tell And she Knew. And I Knew because of the way she knew. It is so hard to talk about, To live through, She said And I knew, Because of the way she knew. She said I don’t talk about this to anyone, She said Not even my husband She said I can’t believe I’m telling this to you And we hugged In the middle of the fabric section of Joann’s Fabric In Wheaton mall Twice There was a woman on the streets of Philadelphia Who had had a long day Betrayed by the break in her voice and the creases in her suit I had been walking in front of her, on my way to who knows where and pushed through an unfriendly group of people Crowding the sidewalk (Remember when people crowded the sidewalk?) Who just wouldn’t move And I don’t remember what she said Or why we started to talk We laughed about people and the way they never move when you need them to, Even though it would be so easy But I know she had a long day, and sometimes when people crowd in front of you on the sidewalk and Won’tgetoutoftheway It’s too much I told her I hoped that she would be able to rest tonight, she was going to skip a happy hour with friends, And I laughed and said girl you deserve a drink, though! You deserve to do something fun And she stopped, And I stopped And I knew because of the way she knew. And she asked me if she could hug me And we hugged In the middle of a sidewalk in Philadelphia I hope she got to rest. I hope she got to drink with her friends. I think about her all the time. There was a teenager on the metro passing through Somewhere or other And I had had my own long day, Hot and sweaty with bare arms crossed We sat across from each other, in our own tired metroworlds, And they pointed at my tattoo – the same one; the semicolon – And said, “you too?” And I said yeah, Me too. There are all the times I’ve felt the zing of connection to a stranger From one tired or hungry or sad person to another, These connections with people I will never see again are holy They are god They are why I check the news for news of vaccinations I check my calendar to see what I’m going to miss I think of all the times someone has looked at me, Hopeful and uncertain “You know, I’ve never told this to anyone before.” Of the times I’ve said the same thing back I think of all these people I’ve hugged in the middle of the fabric section of Joann’s, Or in the streets of Philadelphia Or just two words on the subway that share more of my story than I could ever Say I hope they’re okay. I hope you’re okay  Natalie (she/they) is a poet, playwright, and maker. She has worked as a writer in theatres across the United States and with the zine Indoorsy. If you're looking for hopeful queer stories with a touch of melancholy, you're in the right place.
8/5/2021 0 Comments Poetry by H. E. Casson Kevin Doncaster CC Untended Poetry demands That I pretend That we were seeds That we were dropped and scattered far From the flowers that had shed us From the people who had bred us Caught in winds And wings of birds And treads of shoes And shaken loose Left to grow Like mistletoe Unintended What a pretty gauze to lay What a pretty way to say: We were five kids In a group home Unattended And poetry dictates it That I do not say my sleeves Like glue Stuck to my arms That they tugged away at scars That they grew as red as mars Unlamented It was June When seeds were roots And petal knew the sun for food I crawled up on the group home roof I transcended And the yard was overgrown Sewn with weeds that were once seeds Standing solid Eight feet tall A perfect cushion should I fall Should I trip and slip and fall Should I lose my grip and fall Just next door The grass was trimmed Every flower in its home And a boy sat on a bench With his knees up to his chin Like a fence to hold him in In his hands I could see words That he’d carried from the house Carried from his father’s mouth That were neither good nor kind That he held up to his mind Where they planted Where they vined Where they blended So we talked And planted words Better than the ones he’d heard Of a future that was safe That was splendid (Then it ended) His father, he complained And we’d never spoke again But the weeds and I remained Untended  H. E. Casson lives in a very small house in Toronto with one human, one half-sized stuffed Chewbacca, and about a dozen plants. Their words have recently been shared by Angst, Ghost Heart Literary Journal, Tealight Press, and poetically magazine. They can be found at hecasson.com and @hecasson on Twitter.
8/5/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Kalyn Livernois Magic Trick featuring Peonies To the left of the house, a peony bush - a great delight at five years old. PEE-on-ee. Hilarious. But more than that, their milky-pink petals bloomed round as the full moon. Ants crawled in and through and around their powdery layers, wound tight and countless, spiraling in. To the left of the bush, a shed, a father inside sawing something so that the dust gathered in piles on his work table. Sawdust like a softer sand, inviting. She watches the work a while in silence, sawdust falling into anthills. He can’t play right now, he says, not looking up. In the backyard there is a defunct Barbie Jeep—found, spray painted the shade of cherry skins, and left for the rain; a treehouse the color of sawdust, but lonelier. This memory can’t contain anyone else: it’s too quiet. Eerie. In this memory, no one else is home and her father keeps on cutting the once-trees. If you never stop the saw, you never have to play. That’s the trick. The ants just keep spiraling into the petals and she returns to watching them. This memory is quiet, but the peonies will always be the loudest part. Dammit, Mary after Mary Oliver You’ve gone out with your basket and pen to collect violets, which my mother calls Johnny jump-ups and I kind-of-smile, kind-of- wince because I know she wishes those days with her cousins picking wildflowers in western PA could have lasted a little longer before she left for California with my dad and drove and drove and drove into her memories; they became the safest place. I bought her a book of your poems for her birthday. The big seven-oh —I guess because I wanted her to know you like I do, stepping barefoot at dawn onto dew-dropped ground and walking and walking and walking into a world that is willing to hold you where violets line your basket I wanted that much beauty for her. You once told me that the only life I could save was my own - but dammit, Mary. Dammit.  Kalyn Livernois is an MFA candidate at New England College. She is a prose editor at Cobra Milk and the managing editor of Variant Literature's journal. Her work has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Dust Poetry Magazine, Stone of Madness Press, CP Quarterly, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. You can find her on Twitter @kalynroseanne.
8/5/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Sam Stebbins Timo Newton-Syms CC
Aptitude Test My birth certificate looks like forgery, ink crooked and smudged, copy paper creased. Blame it on my birthplace, where everything was just good enough. Back then, I was told again and again to be a taxidermist. Never mind I didn’t have the stomach to skin and stuff an animal, never mind I grieved for creatures dead in the road. Before snow fell, the neighbors strung deer by their necks in the front yard, tongues lolling out, blood drying in fur. I couldn’t fault them for keeping my friends fed through winter. Yes, we ate what we could kill. By spring the mud gave up its bones. Our dogs brought parts of wild animals home, and it’s so much easier to see dirt in the light. There, the sun hides for five long months. Sam Stebbins is a poet from Michigan. Her work has previously appeared in "Barren Magazine," "Crab Fat Magazine," "Cease, Cows," and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @samstebbins_.  Timo Newton-Syms CC Biting Back I used to count the silence between each of your steps – my room in the basement, I had the entire house mapped by the way the floors creaked under the weight of your feet. I walked as if the concrete itself was slowing me down to ensure I stepped on every crack in the sidewalk. Not to break your back, but to even everything out. I made sure to step on just as many cracks with my left foot as I did with my right. I hoped if I could keep everything balanced I could keep your temper tethered. My sister pushed my finger onto a piece of glass and I bled crimson drops on the stairway on my way to find you. Your hand printed purple stars on her backside. The social worker pulled me out of recess to ask if it was true. I fucking lied for you, Dad. I didn’t know what else to do. You drove me to high school so early the sky was still bruised black. I’d watch lights flash by from your beat up car, speeding to match the violence racing from your lips, daggers steered in my direction. A single silent salty tear slid down my face and you said that’s right, cry, smart ass, cry. And you know what? I do. I cry all the time. I even have a shirt that says crying is good for you and I wear it like a big fuck you. I have grown into my bad behavior. I stole the bitch from your bite and bent it backward until it broke under the weight of my becoming. Loving Abundantly The thing I love most about love is its defiance. Love is active in its refusal to stay buried. It grows into something whole through every obstacle -- chooses not to end. It is ever evolving and turns into something new, sure, but overall it just stains itself into a blush that rejects a watering down. That blush paints my chest and ears when I’m around my love as we walk around the park, wishing it was the shore. Someday they’ll take me there to show me where they buried the memories of their family in the sand. They send me love letters while I’m dancing in the whole of the life we’ve built together, while I’m building a whole other relationship with my wife - who I blush around, still, after 8 years. No end in sight. How fucking sweet is it that love is an expansive case of brilliance? I never have to bury any of the honey seeping from my chest. I am so sure of the wonder I have for both of them, and they assure me they are both in love with the whole- ness I’ve found in loving more than just one. I don’t bury who I am, but completely fall into the tender blush of both their hands holding mine, embraced in a love whose eternal vastness ceases to end. My love lives in the building across from me and my wife. The end of the street is the farthest I’ll have to reach for them. It sure is a treat to be so close to the overflowing nearness of their love. I grow a plethora of plants to propagate in both spaces, whole gardens flourish with the snips we share, the leaves are blush colored and print reflections in the glass windows. I bury the scarcity radiating from the haters, bury their belief that this abundance of love must end, and revel in the elephantine blush of this too much. I bask in the shore of my love as they build me a bath tray, the whole thing covered in glitter because they know I love baths and glitter. Loves, bury me whole in the excess of your never ending kiss, and sweep me up into the shore of your blush.  Tyler Elizabeth Hurula (she/her) is a poet based out of Denver, CO. She is queer and polyamorous, and is cat mom to two fur babies and a plethora of plants. She has not been previously published and her poems feature love, polyamory, family, growing up, and being queer. Her top three values are connection, authenticity, and vulnerability and she tries to encompass these values in her writing as well as everyday life.
8/5/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Tessah Melamed Timo Newton-Syms CC Ryan Doesn’t Want Closure Down so bad ur cumming thru the cruelty, backshots here so he can’t see your face when you, tell him you miss him - fuck, we’ve all been there - I’m feeling sorry for you, I’m feeling sorry for myself… it hurts all over. You don’t know the difference between regret and remorse; you catch an apology with your teeth, you catch a fist with your jaw. You swallow his spit, you cry on his cock. You are, if nothing else, a performer. Where’d you learn that, dirty girl, where’d they teach you how to spread your legs and sigh? Who held your hands and told you to rock your hips like this? Which boy? Show me the boy. Show me the boy who taught you. Show me the boy who hurt you. I will take you down the hall of mirrors and you can learn to touch yourself again. God, he’s gorgeous. Evil is supposed to make you rot. You think you’ll be sick over what The Men do forever, the way they splinter your spine, the violence of it all. Your pussy craves that violence now, your lips shape themselves around an apology to your abuser you carved into his red eclipse with the knife on your keys, his hand on your thigh in the passenger’s seat: we all have a Ryan. Let me… pull the petals off that flower, let me peel back your eyelids, expose those veins. Call me baby - one more time - I will scream so fucking loud the cops will come again. I want all your sugar and gasoline, all your gold. Spit in your palm and shove your fingers down my throat, one more time, wrap my bleach-broken hair in your fist. Let’s go ahead and fuck up these sheets, baby, one more time… Down so bad the desperation chokes you, down so bad he’s beautiful now, down so bad...  Tessah Melamed is a writer from New Jersey. She enjoys bad and beautiful things. Tessah has been previously published in Crooked Arrow Press, Trampset, As It Ought to Be Magazine and Soup Can Magazine. She is anticipating beginning her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this fall. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @_wherestessah.
 Timo Newton-Syms CC Press play across our brown tiled living room floor my parents are dancing Salsa their bodies becoming a call and response my mother shines the smile she uses when she wants something my father gives her his everything In those rare moments, undoubtedly, I feel like I came from love we sing along as Frankie Ruiz sings about infidelities the secret calls the scheduled meets We relive past and future memories my father sweats of Obsession his thick gold chain sliding across his chest the heavy cross dangling pulsating to the beat my mother’s hips/a figure skater I hold up six fingers giving her a perfect score my father’s right-hand spins my mother from corner to corner his left hand on her lower back his silverback chest thumping this time she dances just for him a grey thunderous cloud, our normal yelling and breaking is asked to wait in the dining room it hovers over the door frame like a child that is used to getting all of the attention The lamp in the room becomes a spotlight on a 12-year-old daughter’s wish for a song that never ends I begin all my planting with an apology In the in-between My mother meets me in my yard In her hands she holds a brown paper bag of seeds I slow down time to look at her Like an energetic child she pulls out an avocado seed A plump brown memory of home I tell her “Mami, it won't survive” She ignores me with a smile Takes extra care when planting Says “acuerdate de mi” every time I bite into an avocado She chuckles while asking me if I remember the time, I killed my grandmothers’ plants Calls herself “dramatica” for telling me I had “bad hands” She doesn’t know since then I begin all my planting with an apology She playfully reminds me not to overwater Tells me “Too much love can drown” I disagree, on the inside and offer her a drink from a bottomless glass  Vanessa Chica Ferreira is an NYC educator, poet, playwright, fat activist, poetry editor for The Ice Colony, and founder of theWORDbox. A featured poet at various events throughout New York City. She co-wrote and performed in a 3 woman play titled “Live Big Girl” which debuted at The National Black Theatre. Her work has been published in The BX Files, The Abuela Stories Project, The Acentos Review, and Great Weather For Media. For more info visit www.vanessachica.com
8/5/2021 1 Comment Poetry by Scott Ferry Timo Newton-Syms CC
somedays the sky above my house is enough - framed by a fence we erected in winter i could sing but i don’t i just breathe in the knowing that all of this blue inhaling up forever will still be here after i die that my scheduled pain and anxiety will eventually expire will drop upward in a floating vortex like ashen seeds from a charred stalk that hopefully every bright morning i spent with my wife and children will remain somewhere unaltered with me as i go Scott Ferry helps our Veterans heal as a RN in the Seattle area. His third book of poetry, These Hands of Myrrh, will be published by Kelsay Books in late 2021. You can find more @ ferrypoetry.com. 8/5/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Erich von Hungen ryangs CC Vodka And Cigarettes My mother chose vodka, cigarettes, crosswords, a nightgown all day the pattern worn off in places and novels. My mother chose never looking up, or out, or at. My mother chose, "What?" and a glass. My mother chose the little dog around her feet, it's yapping as a reason not to talk My mother chose, "What?" and a deeper puff. My mother chose a silence all her own with no way in -- but sadly too, no way out. My mother died on page 323 not seeing the ending, half a pack of menthols unsmoked on the table, eight bottles of water-clear forget-me-not. My mother didn't realize it -- the book was closing on her. My mother didn't know it would go with the rest: the valued, the recipes, the mink, the shoes, the still useful to the Goodwill. My mother didn't see any of it clearly not like vodka, but more like cigarette smoke, blue and soft and enfolding -- no sharp edges. None, except for the vodka when it showed it wasn't water, and she said, "What?".  Erich von Hungen currently lives in San Francisco, California. His writing has appeared in The Colorado Quarterly, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Write Launch, The RavensPerch, From Whispers To Roars, The Closed Eye Open, Bombfire, and others. He has recently launched three collections of poems "In Spite Of Contagion: 65 COVID-19 Poems", "Kisses: 87 Love Poems", and "Witness: 100 Poems For Change". Find him at https://twitter.com/PoetryForce
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