m66roepers CC



Trespass
                              CW: suggestion of sexual assault

              “Forgive us our trespasses, 
              as we forgive those
              who trespass against us.”

I learned the art of trespass
on the grounds of the church.

They kept the gate to the playground
locked which

is more than they can say
for their habits or their hands.

We’d ride our rusted bikes after
hours past the chapel. When

we were small we’d wedge our way
under the wooden gate. When we

were older we’d stand 
on each other’s shoulders. 

It must have left some marks
keeping these secrets but I

don’t remember worrying. We just
thought this was worship:

learning how to get away with things
when witness eyes averted but

once we were inside
I don’t remember

playing. The fun part
was the sneaking in and

the surreptitious
escape. 
​

​

               dustroad CC



Truth

Back to the fireplace,
Like a saint, head tilted up
To dam in salt water

“What do you like to do, Red?”
And he is backlight by the moon,
Honest in his question.

“I don’t- I-“
Blinking to meet his gaze.
“I don’t know.”

“I hope you get the chance.”

​
​

               ​ ricky shore CC


​

I Ask Amy Her Thoughts on My Marriage

Baby, we both know I know nothing
about making it work. I made it two
years with my guy and he was in jail
for part of them. Here’s what I do 
know: take what you can and use
it – write your poems, you know I wrote
my songs. Sure, he broke my fucking
heart, but the music! Maybe that makes
it worth it. I don’t know anymore,
you just gotta love until you die. 
What else can you do?

​
​

              ryangs CC



​
Route 66

The first time she ever felt completely 
at peace was when she was 
walking down Route 66 –

and realized that no one 
in the world 
knew where she was. 

She could disappear for hours
(perhaps even days)
and no one would be the wiser.

That still desert air.

​
​

                  ​i threw a guitar at him. CC


​

At the Shoe Fence in Rice, California

No one today on HWY 62 between the Colorado
and Ash Hill is wearing shoes. Ghost bikers
pass me, and twenty-four marines who passed
in wrecks on this barren perform a silent drill.

History is a broken axel of the southbound
whistle, the train whirling through the air,
crashing, and crushing passengers beneath it.
Afterwards, torn articles of clothing appear

on a lone tamarisk, bone bleached, until a fire
burns it to a husk and a fence is raised
to enclose the plot. Tongues, toes, heels, eyes,
and arches—parts of shoes now hang from it.

Who am I to say if the passing is a phantasm
of a radiant Mojave mirage? or barefoot prophets
of ragged sack cloth with nothing to say to me?
and to question the elder woman in the rear

who carries corals out of the paleozoic sea
and when they die she says their ghosts
walk barefoot to live toward the western sea
and some after they die live like owls?

But look at the chucking of all those shoes
hanging from the fence, no longer needed,
as if a schoolyard of children out on recess
decided to skip barefoot and never returned.





​Memento Mori

Now I am where I have forever wanted to be,
and I bless the wrong turn, the detour,
the mistake of excess weight I hauled,
the breakdown and the wreck.

How could I have known there would be
such beatitude? Here in this dead bar
with jukebox Freeman staring through me
and saying to the keep ‘Anders is a ghost?

I’d like to celebrate with him the haunting
of the blind curve where my techy watch
notified my loved ones of catastrophe -
See the dying light morph into a ghost,

my semblance—and give a thumb’s up?
Now I am where I have forever wanted to be.

​

                Sue Thompson CC



Bird/Brain
​
Welling up through chest 
and throat,  four 

cardinals in a tree. Repeating thoughts
about nothing. Singing I 

am here, I am here, I am singing
this. I am here and I am hungry

and my pain is that which is old
in my mind and old in me, a seizing 

threat to chain up the breath, a seizing 
mind to size up the jaw. All 

is estranged, nothing belongs. To me, 
every step is a step away from death 

and a step towards another dying. All day.
Every day. Repeating thoughts about nothing

I am here, I am here, I am here thinking
and cardinals are singing, a mind repeating

songs for the sake of repeating because 
singing is letting go of a body 

and letting go of a body is the last lesson in a series 
of lessons about what it is to be flesh 

at a time when old pain is still enough 
to withdraw into cardinal points as birds might

in the middle of the afternoon, singing about themselves
to whoever listens, we are here, you are here 

too, will you share the mind of a bird and sing
along for the sake of singing along, all day, all day?

​
​

                 i threw a guitar at him. CC

​

​
Snuff Out the Gaslight


She had no

flashlight

to guide her steps

in those monstrous depths

but she had a

gaslight

to teach her

to morph her

to make her accept the horrors. 

She had a

gaslight fog 

to burn smog

and smoke

to cloak her 

and change her

and drug her

and she let that

gaslight

shine like 

green sludge

into her soul

without 

blowing out

its flame.

But it flickered

and it faltered

and that girl

started to smell 

the satisfaction 

of a flame

trying to finally snuff out

and she prayed

that her lungs

would be strong enough

 to kill it herself.





The Final Girls


Horror stories do not begin

with hope. 

Horror stories do not end 

without blood being spilled.

But we wait patiently with horror stories, 

because we hold onto 

the anticipation

that there is either a satisfying end

or an end that will allow us to finally tear our hands away 

from our eyes.

This horror story will end with a final girl. 

and it will be satisfying.

The final girl battles monsters. 

She is the one who overcomes them. 

She is the one who ends the story in her own words 

on her own terms 

with her own mind. 

The monsters are gone when she speaks her story.

The monsters are destroyed at the final mark. 

The final girl walks out of the house, 

the forest, 

the cave, 

the clutches of death, 

dripping with blood

and guts 

and scars

and fatigue 

and a soul that has been buried, 

but yet...

she walks. 

She keeps walking. 

She keeps going,

because she is now 

ALIVE.

From death she has risen,

clawing up from the 6-foot deep grave of an end.

SHE IS THE FINAL GIRL.

I AM THE FINAL GIRL. 

WE ARE ALL THE FINAL GIRL.

AND WE WILL CARRY OUR MONSTERS’ HEADS BY THE SCALP 

AS WE GRIN WITH WHITE PEARLS IN OUR MOUTHS 

AND WITH THE TASTE OF OUR STRENGTH 

ON OUR TONGUES. 

AND WE WILL NOT BE SILENT. 

AND WE WILL NOT BE DESTROYED. 

AND WE WILL NOT LET THE MONSTERS 

TAKE OUR VICTORY FROM US.





To My Fellow Cockroaches


A bed. 

A wall. 

A mirror. 

And a grave 

to hold the teenage dream I was promised. 

But perhaps that grave 

was meant for me instead. 

Yes, a grave 

to keep that which crawls, 

decaying, 

amongst life... 

something that just 

keeps ticking along 

like a cockroach 

surviving the blast of finality 

from devastating bombs. 

People hate 

cockroaches. 

They are quite hideous 

on the outside, 

but I find solace 

in their filth and endurance. 

For I, myself, am a 

cockroach 

crawling through muck 

to only persist 

through the nuclear war

inside my mind 

and on my body. 

Because who am I to this world 

but a cockroach? 
​
I am a Mary Shelley creation

of ripped flesh 

and borrowed existences

to endure in this world 

as a horror 

in and of itself. 

But this world does not realize

just how much 

of a horror 

I can be. 

I am working on that. 

We, women,

are all working on that. 


​

                ​ricky shore CC


​
WRECKAGE

You smell like addiction and heartbreak
Loss as your friend and constant companion
Knowledge will never bring peace

Dying with grass stains on your summer clothes
Children build spirit cages out of twigs
There is so much left unsaid

Heavy linen, dark woods and thick shadows
These are the waiting areas
The Lychgate is the border

In the collapse of daylight
You seek the horizon 
Learn to hold your breath in the drowning 

That discomfort you are feeling is grief
But seeds are used to the darkness 
Life is growing in the wreckage of my heart

Fall in love with this warmth for me
Strip me apart in layers
Until the emptiness passes

​



CLEAN

I want to be clean again
Bones carved from cherry wood
Blushing as he looks right through me

I am angry at feeling so much love
I wish you wouldn’t find me in my darker places
Maybe this time I will get it right

There is something wild and untamed inside
Uncontaminated by knowledge
Burning with purity and rage

They call him numb and dreamy
An endless battle of contrasting memories
The beginning of all possibilities

Sad things make me feel warm
Little prince of a forest kingdom
He flickers when you turn your head

I want to be clean again
Pale white skin stretched over innocence
A house becoming a home

​
​

            ​   ricky shore CC



​You Didn’t Think Happiness Would Hurt This Much
​
You believe the deep aching itch in your crotch is sexual desire and when you finally realize it’s a yeast infection, it’s too late to go back.
 
So you let him rub you raw in the front seat of his Crown Victoria in the park overlooking the Grand River in the moonlight while your mother is home with the kids.
 
You tell yourself you’re not cheating because you didn’t have sex with the new guy until after you moved out. This guy is a rip off the bandage and get it done way to leave your husband.
 
This guy is just a means to an end.
 
You have exactly two thousand dollars in the bank that your sister lent you but most of it will be gone when the cheque clears for your first and last month’s rent. You’ve moved to a red brick Victorian row house, which sounds enchanting, but the wall going up the stairs has peeling orange floral wallpaper dotted with black mould.
 
You scrub the wall with full strength bleach so your daughters won’t breathe in spores. Your five-year old and your seven-year old share a bedroom and your toddler sleeps in a crib slipped under the eaves in the small open space at the top of the stairs. You sleep on the couch until your mother buys you a double bed for the other bedroom.
 
It’s good enough for now.
 
Christmas is coming but you’re only working part-time at Food Basics, so you sell your original painting of the beaver by George McLean to your brother for $500. You use this money to buy the girls gifts from Santa, plastic shit that will break in a week but will make them happy for a little while.
 
You take them for supper at Burger King on Christmas Eve because the owner is a friend of your husband and gives you free food. You are the only customers in the place at 6 pm and holiday music echoes through the dining room from the small TV on the corner shelf near the ceiling. A teenaged girl with an elf ears headband stretched under her uniform visor listlessly wipes your table when your oldest daughter spills her carton of 2% milk across half-chewed chicken tenders smothered in ketchup.
 
But you don’t even watch your girls rip open their gifts on Christmas morning because you’re upstairs having sex. You do it to keep the guy happy. Because he says that you were born to fuck him, and you should be happy that someone wants you. You stay with him even though he grabbed you so hard a few weeks ago that a black handprint inked your arm.
 
After pancakes with fake maple syrup, you pack a change of clothes for each of the girls in their new Toy Story backpacks and smile and wave as they drive away with their father to spend the rest of Christmas with his family.
 
And you feel an ache again. Higher this time, in the middle of your chest. 

You didn’t think happiness would hurt this much. 


​

              ​  Thunderchild7 CC



Track Marks to Me

              The bug bites
              Her peeling tattoo
                             are track marks to me

               Sunlit pupils
                             The lack of them
                                            are -

               The casual itching
               Fast talking
                               is pipe smoke again

               Long sweaters in summer,
                              Air conditioning,
                                             hiding what may be

    The bug bites
    Her peeling tattoo

​



Unrequited Love

I love her. I do.
I promise I do. 
Say it out loud to
convince them it’s true. 
Because it is true,
we love each other.
But before I knew love, 
she’d love another.    

In the beginning,
dream sequences began.
Perfection, black spots,
smiling, I ran.
They said I ran fast,
scoffed on their way out.
Faster that the lies
escaped from her mouth.

The same mouth I kissed 
nights before closed eyes.
The same mouth I kept,
held on to in time
for my heart to break.
Then, more after that.
Before holding on, 
was no going back.

Sometimes that mouth will
smell like the day of 
white sheets, plastic tubes,
blue, stick, rubber gloves. 
She didn’t wake up. 
Shouting what to do.
EMT phone calls.
Feet of snow dug through.

“I love you.” Come to.
The hospital bed. 
Debate on giving 
that kiss on her head.
I never forgave
her asking to go, 
asking for water,
no saying “hello

I love you, I do.
I do, I promise.”
“When can I leave? When
can I?” so chronic.
Her mouth was so cold,
so different now.
My mouth didn’t speak.
It didn’t know how.

Time passed, we got home
through the feet of snow.
Pretend it’s okay.
Pretend we’re alone. 
Then was when I met -
She introduced me,
“This is my true love.
Come here,” Let me see.

I saw it. I did.
I promise, I did. 
Tried to love it too
but couldn’t, didn’t.
No, love it, I mean. 
Still feel it in me.
I wanted so much 
to see what she sees.

White powders in nose,
sharp needles in veins,
to understand her,
her heart and her brain.
My way to her soul,
others way to hell,
others way to run.
Path I now know well.

So, I did try, I
pried her from her love.
Even with distance
I wasn’t enough.
Not Olivia,
Opal, Olive Vine.
Her love’s name is Opiate.
Opiates. Not mine.

The drug, my girl, the
unrequited love,
addiction, addicts
stone cold in their gloves.
We ran out, we ran
out of money, time,
out of food, people.
Not ever of lies.

Time passed, we left home
but we’ve been there since,
holding tightly each 
other, still on the fence.
I love her. I stood.
I promised I would. 
Don’t think I could give 
all that “her love” could.
 
I can still hear it,
her saying the name.
I can still feel it.
The pleasure, the game.
Curled beneath covers,
tangled up in hair,
inseparable.
We’ll always be there.

I love her. I do.
I promise I do.
She loves another.
I wish I could too.

​