Jenavieve Marie CC



​
WHEN THE DEVIL GRINS WITH THE TEETH OF A GIRL

Right after my June birthday, celebrated
with a smudged driver’s permit and my first volunteer job,
a hospital patient gets too interested 
in my candy-striper skirt and clean white sneakers.
The whole thing lasts a lifetime, 
thirty seconds or so,
before I am pulled back into the hall,
told it’s okay,

you’re okay,

until I believe it.

Back at home, I tear off the skirt,
throw it in the kitchen trash, 
and apologize to the khaki pants in my closet
for thinking the shapeless fabric and safe buttons
were too ugly to wear
before.

After the summer, a boy tells me I’m special,
tells me he bets I’m even cuter 
without so many clothes on.
I text the pictures he asks for, 
then panic, 
ask him to delete them.
He says LOL no,
and I’m not hungry for dinner.

So by the time the deacon finds me 
alone in the Sunday school room
and walks forward with his hands reaching,
reaching,

reaching 

out for more pieces of me,
I want to lace my fingers through his
and show him what it looks like
when the devil grins
with the teeth 
of a girl.

​


​
CHAPEL

For a small Southern Baptist school,
there sure were a lot of queer kids 
lining the pews.

If you were really quiet,
and listened very closely,
I bet you could have heard us

screaming.

​
​

Flickr CC




How to unf*ck the world


An asterisk is where you belong anyway. Listen to it twinkle.
You = me anyway. That means we, of course. And them.

It’s all starshine everywhere anyway. And some rain isn’t watery.
Anyway, I have ceased to see. This is my love. 

I am talking to you. The ones who know the holes in my heart.
I have possessed confusing kindling. I haven’t always known from whence the fires come.

But fear not the stars you are. One of them is also all of us. 
And we are here and there and always. Yes; it is seen. But listen.

It is something that you cannot see. It is what you are trying to get at.
Well, the great big you that means me, too. And them.

But the hearing is wowie. And it says: don’t mistake your love. 
It also says: Anyhow. And: don’t get shitty from wanting to know now.

Because there is no half star. 
That’s why we write what we are.

Sometimes beauty is a nasty business.
Sometimes you find your place in the middle of the mess. 

Sometimes you stay there. And you pray O my world, my loves. 
And all while having your ears hold them.

All of them. And you here.
That’s how.

​

​

Joseph Byrd’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vita Poetica, Punt Volat, Pedestal, South Florida Poetry Journal, DIAGRAM, Clackamas Literary Review, and Novus Literary Arts. He’s a Pushcart Prize nominee, was long-listed for the Erbacce Prize, and was in the StoryBoard Chicago cohort with Kaveh Akbar. An Associate Artist in Poetry under Joy Harjo at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, he is on the Reading Board for The Plentitudes.
​

Pat Pilon CC



​
On Healing Your Inner Child


When I was little my mother made me hold onto her pockets in public. There were too many of us kids to keep track of so we all hooked onto her jeans. A sweeping skirt of black headed children orbiting her wherever she went. 

We were a sight to see in grocery stores and restaurants. “What well behaved children” strangers would praise. I’d beam at the thought of being so good, so easily managed by my parents who’s only mistake in life was having too many kids. 

When I got old enough to go to school and could no longer have the sweet comfort of my mothers pockets, I would hold onto my heart instead. Or rather the space on my chest just below my clavicle. I’d cup the air there like a snow globe. An orb that could protect all that was sacred and beautiful, my caged hands there to keep it from shattering. I shielded myself from the discomforts of the anxiety provoking, wide open expanses of the classrooms I was forced to brave. I simultaneously did my best to still be considered good. Always the best behaved girl, the greatest honor I could imagine as a child. 

As I grew up my hands became loose, fell to my sides like too stretched elastic. The memory of what to do still there but the fight was long gone. I tied my loose, rubbery limbs around anyone that would come too close. Anyone willing to fill the space between me and the harshness of the world around me. Anyone who could warm my bed and wrap their strong limbs around me at night. 

When I became old enough I learned to stretch my own arms around me. I practiced bundling myself up in safety and security the way my mother always tried her best to do when I was young. I tried to be okay with the fact that sometimes the world was just harsh and get used to the idea of living in that sharpness. I learned the difference between companionship and love and practiced wanting the latter. I learned to hold space for myself rather than leaning on others to do it for me at night. 

The hardest part has been learning that I am still worthy when I falter. That I can be my own version of good and my imperfections are allowed to be apart of that. I try to allow my mother the same grace and remember that she is only made of flesh and bone just as I am. These days I gather her into my arms as often as I can. 




Ciara is a thirty year old artist that loves to explore different mediums including but not limited to creative writing, poetry, drawing, fiber art, and anything that can catch her attention for long enough. She loves to write about love, loss, mental health struggles, healing the inner child and honestly not much else. When she is not writing or creating art you can find her watching horror movies with her partner, singing mediocrely to herself alone in her home or cuddling with her Sphinx cat Hank. 

Nic McPhee CC




 NIGHT TRAFFIC

When the wind comes from the south, trucks & cars
miles away sound like they’re right outside
the open window, sliding under sleep. Dreams ride
the tires’ high whine and the growl of the gears.
A caravan of commerce under the stars,
where industry and sleep-hunger collide.
Those weary night-drivers waver astride
their pedals, longing for truck-stops & bars. 

The harsh night music awakens me at last.
Cacophony cuts short my peaceful slumber,
evoking scenes and feelings from the past.
Then the future sneaks in, pulls my mind asunder:
How much time left? When death comes, how fast?
Staring stark at the ceiling-shadows, I wonder.




​
Kay White Drew is a retired neonatal physician who has published some essays and a few poems, and has a memoir slated to be published in summer 2024. She lives in Maryland with her husband and enjoys long walks, travel (in moderation), and weekly video chats with her three millennial daughters. www.kaywhitedrew.com 

Nicholas_T CC




It’s you and me kid

Hospice is a scary word, 
one people rarely come back from. 
He didn’t this week. 

This is the third time I have spent
days and days in these quiet halls, 
makes me wish to not be an adult anymore. 
I want to go back to when I ran, I played, and they would run with me. 

The grief is never ending, cyclical, sparked by the smallest thing. 
How do you grieve before someone is gone? 
I’ve been mourning him since the day of the diagnosis. 

I’d seen this disease before, 
the removal of memory, the stripping of him, piece by piece. 

My mother, the nurse, knows what to do, 
I have just been really good at faking it for a year now. 
I am tired, and I know he was too. 

Take rest pops. Breathe easy now.


​
​
EJ is a Queer Seattle adjacent writer. She loves going for walks and cooking when she isn't writing. More of her work can be found on her instagram @ejwantstobeapoet.

r. nial bradshaw CC




Phototaxis

Yeah, I am that girl, the one
who roamed the sub
until she drew the other kids
outside, outside their homes
from the other side of living 
room windows that did nothing
to hide their gloom & 
boredom, who drew them to her 
like pesty bugs that rush to the light. 

I am that girl, the one
whose sun was an otherworldly 
sun, whose light escaped
a darkness from childhood
night terrors, whose light
the darkness couldn’t snuff
no matter how many empowered
brats strived to bury it alive.  

I am that girl, the one the kids--
no matter their age--
chased & never caught, the one
who climbed faster & higher
without fear of falling or death
or living to feel like death.

I am that girl, the one who hit 
the boys, hit them hard & harder 
when she learned they wouldn’t 
hit her back, the one who attacked 
& attacked fast before 
they saw her coming for them.

I am that girl, the one
whose sorrow was a picture
window in a dimly lit
kitchen, one overlooking 
a field of spent goldenrod— 
sun-bleached & dried out--
a perennial built to survive
harsh seasons & trampling. 

Hell, I am that girl, the one
who resembled the rundown
house down by the train tracks,
the one with the tangled 
mess of curls & faded hand-
me-down dresses, the one with 
skinned & bruised skin 
that band aides couldn’t cover. 

I am that girl, the one 
who stopped running
from the boys when she grew
tired of running, when she
ran out of space to run,
the one who opened the blackout 
shades in that run-down house 
& pretended it was their light 
she let in to kill the hopes 
of those cruel girls
hiding in the shadows. 

I am that girl, the one
whose shadow those girls
tried to erase as they hoped
she’d die already, the one 
whose eye they hoped to poke
with a needle before they buried 
her dead or alive, the one
who crossed her own heart
& swore someday they’d 
swarm to her light again, 
this time trapped on the outside
of that windowpane
in her renovated home.  



​

​Jenifer DeBellis, M.F.A., is author of New Wilderness (Cornerstone Press, 2023), Warrior Sister, Cut Yourself Free from Your Assault (Library Tales Publishing, 2021), and Blood Sisters (Main Street Rag, 2018). Her freelance career spans over two decades, allowing her to ghostwrite and edit literary and mass media content. She edits Pink Panther Magazine and directs aRIFT Warrior Project and Detroit Writers’ Guild (501c3). She's featured in Psychology Today and Seattle's My Independence Report and her writing appears in AWP's Festival Writer, CALYX, the Good Men Project, Medical Literary Messenger, Solstice, and other fine journals. A former Meadow Brook Writing Project fellow, JDB facilitates summer workshops for Oakland University as well as teaches writing throughout metro Detroit. JeniferDeBellis.com.

Donald Lee Pardue CC




two rabbits drowning


my father with the lungs of two rabbits yawning
 
my father with dolphin skin smooth across cheekbones
 
my father with wrists of potatoes, bruised and scaling
 
my father with chameleon eyes peering in two directions
  
my father with a gopher gnawing under his ribs
 
my father with a beard of grey feathers fanned over hatchlings
 
my father with legs of a weary shorebird waiting
 
my father with toenails of garden snails

my father with the lungs of two rabbits drowning
  
my father with nostrils of orcas gasping a balmy morning  
 
my father with the hands of blighted starfish
 
my father with fingers of unearthed carrots
       (i stroke them as his rabbit ears listen above water)
 
my father with the back of a camel slow in standing
 
my father with lips of an anemone sifting the sea’s current
 
my father with the pelvis of a famished deer
 
my father with the sex of a hummingbird tucked under straw
 
my father with the heart of owl wings beating backwards
 
my father with a heart of wind torn in crosscurrents
 
my father with the heart of a stag jumping from rock to rock
 
my father with the heart of a fitful salmon 
 
my father with a heart of granite worn uneven by river water

​


​
Sharon Coleman is a fifth generation Northern Californian with a penchant for languages and their entangled word roots. She has translated poetry from Yiddish, the language of her mother’s family and has studied the Portuguese of her father’s. She grew up deeply in tuned to seasons, growing cycles, so much of the natural world. Her poetry and prose appear in Your Impossible Voice, Faultline, The Ana, Dream Pop Press, White Stag, Rivet, Berkeley Poetry Review. She co-curates the reading series Lyrics & Dirges, and co-directs the Berkeley Poetry Festival.  Her books include Paris Blinks, micro-fiction and Half Circle, poetry. See her website:sharoncolemanpoetry.com. 

James Loesch CC



​
But Then Again, We’re Believing in Dumb 
Stories All the Time


Everything is an effort, though often not much of one. 
I don’t want to lay claim on expending great effort all the time 
like living is a chore, which is often is, and even more so, 
like we’re all moving along in Morse code with spoons 
on empty water glasses, and from a distance it’s music 
but up close it’s something else entirely, like having a herd 
of pet crickets, as I also don’t want to claim 
that I’m all blithe and surfing through life 
which no one accuses me of, though I imagine it 
in their eyes anytime I get good news on a day the world’s 
doing its usual bad news thing, and all I can offer 
is a slowly growing dimness to my countertops, which isn’t enough 
for empathy, except to say “why do such things need to happen” 
in our own ways, which are somewhere on this slope 

of other people’s lives, how I feel there’s someone 
in the room with me and there’s isn’t anyone there, 
so obviously I think it’s one of my dead parents, 
but which one? Probably neither. They never visited 
when they were alive, so why would they start now? 
Science says I might be falling asleep, and sleep 
is saying “Magical Realism,” and something in me 
is saying “sure!” It’s Thursday, I’m feeling frivolous. 
They say revenants work this way, which is to say 
life is like literary criticism, with foreshadowing 
and sentences, and here’s an ibuprofen for your trouble, 
or an objective correlative for one’s inner turmoil. 
The future is falling apart, right? We keep getting bits of it 
in our produce. It’s scattered across the front lawn. 





The Aura Homily 


I was at a party where there was a person who could see auras, 
who went around the room naming them. Silver Kathleen. 
Etc. When it came to me, I didn’t have one. How can one 
not have an aura? Isn’t it like not having a soul or something? 
Is it because I’m adopted? Am I a chimera? Little blank aura kid? 
I’m being a little defensive, I’m told. But why not just make 
something up for me? Help a person out? Would it be that hard 
to say, “hmm, maybe it’s a minty green”? Where’s the harm? 
These others look so happy with their auras. Well-adjusted, 
bright-eyed. This website I’m on, because this is what’s become of me, 
lists ten possible auras and I’ve never felt more American, 
an auraless adoptee reading “techniques from Buddhist monks 
for your next two-week self-actualization workshop.” Floating monks 
reading by the glow of their auras. Let’s talk parameters. 

I took the Myers-Briggs test on my lunch break today, 
and I’m an INTP, the laziest and most condescending 
of the sixteen personality types, also the most likely type 
to say black is my favorite color. Maybe I could call that 
my aura. Adoptees are good at making stuff up. 
Nuns, priests, and the void wear black. Maybe someone 
would see me and think I’m a nun, priest, or the void. I mean, 
I don’t even believe in auras. And now, look at me. 
Maybe, being adopted, my aura is lost in transit, UPS color, 
wrong address color. Maybe my aura’s a color that’s not been invented yet, 
a secret color, like how Homer couldn’t see the color blue, 
so the ocean was wine. Maybe it said, “Je est an autre” as it passed 
and no one at this party speaks French, or the cortege 
took a wrong turn, and said, sure, this place looks as good as any. 

​


John Gallaher's forthcoming collection of poetry is My Life in Brutalist Architecture (Four Way Books 2024). He lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits the Laurel Review. 
​

r. nial bradshaw CC




Remember Our Trip to the Circus?

Dear Dad,

I waited for your evening phone call all year long,
but it never came. 
Your punch dial, and my answer on the third ring.

Do you remember the static in the air surrounding me when you handed me my Happy Meal,
discount tickets to the circus just inside?
My straw straight locks stood on end, pressed against primary color balloons. 
I thought the bunches would burst, but just stuck to them instead. 

Your authority snaps like the crack of a lion tamer’s whip after every booth we pass.
No to the liquid gold popcorn,
No to the footlong hotdogs with diamond dollops of ketchup.
You put me on the tightrope path and with stilt walker prowess,
I still manage to bank fool’s gold with a cotton candy grin.

Your faux leather wallet battered as you distributed bills to those vendors like Coinstar. 
A treasure trove of toys secured in my arms and a soda to fill the tank of my stomach. 
The lights flashed,
and I thought I would be the one to explode
out of a cannon if we didn’t find our hard to see seats.

The elephant graced the room in her decorated headdress with crushing steps.
The master dominating the ring announced, “Buy a box of Cracker Jacks, win an elephant ride. We have ONE and ONLY ONE golden ticket! Good luck!”

I watched you contemplate how to avoid my gaze when— Crack, 
my head whipped in your direction.
You gave into my pout lips and pleading eyes.
I was already halfway to the concession area with your last crisp bill. 

Your sigh was inaudible to me then,
I didn’t understand you couldn’t bet against the house or double 
down with a food stamp card. 

I swear you called me Charlie Bucket when we broke open the box,
glint of gold had us hugging and cheering
as a “thank you!” sprinted from my mouth faster than my tattered trainers could carry me.

The elephant’s thick leather grooves guided my hands,
gently settled behind her ears.
I rose to new heights, fear of a trampled death, 
but you beamed as I passed.
Cheering my name with pride,
you waved like I was king of our town. 

Remember our victory lap?
Triumphantly holding me on your shoulders and making way to our secondhand car.
I clung tightly to your elephant ears and jaw,
feet tucked in the crook of your armpits.
I rested my chin atop your head,
already reminiscing about the elephant
and how she’d remember for the both of us.

In memory of my father
11/05/1961-01/31/2021





​Death Certificate without a Signature


Two days post operation 
I press my face against the toothpaste flecked glass. 
I hold my whole 182lbs by my fingertips, 
a perimeter of sweat forms my silhouette
as steam distends the room, a mask of uncertainty.
The veins in my hands interrupt the conversation of my skin
as the punch of my deadname strikes my phantom breasts.
I stare dead into pre-transition’s past
She’s undressed— wild. 
I rub my eyes of any possibility of sleep.
She’s gone, a trick of the light.

Testosterone lowers my eye sweat coffin into the ground, lays it to rest.
Last handful of packed earth sends grief ringing the bell tied to its wrist at the surface of the soil.
Tears cascade, uncaught, as I expel her estrogen from every gland in my body to avoid my own funeral.
She hid me in her solace,
but now I cannot even speak of her for fear the masquerade wears off.

Each step in my remission kills her.
I started with her hair,
every snip of the scissor and razor slash cutting away the sickness.
I emerge from the chair healthy and new. 
Smiling, I tipped the barber the bill.
They’ve no clue they helped me cover up homicide for thirty-six U.S. dollars. 

Each snip and cut were never enough— I could always go shorter.
Dysphoria echoed in my mind with every word escaping my thin lips, until month number three. 
The deep hum of my voice now hushes the cries of her soprano to eternal sleep,
nine months on hormones narrows my hips and chisels me out of her flesh.
My body, again adolescent.

Chill creeps into the fog’s warmth,
the steam static background noise distracts from the trill in my ears
as I look into the face of every man we’ve ever hated.
My face is becoming. Yes, becoming. 
Less safe, less trustworthy for those who don’t know me. 

Now when I share who I am, I am inclined to reveal that I murdered you,
for fear omission of my transition will leave me surrounded solely by my thoughts. 
The fear of being ostracized as I explain her certification of death will never receive a signature.
Court ordered, same day, I choke on my freshly printed birth certificate.





A Love Letter to Myself


It’s you! Oh, how it’s always been you.
The unashamed tear stained cheeks,
always wearing masculinity t-shirts with heart shaped sleeves,
the man with the over the moon cheese grin.
It’s always been you.

The way you assert yourself to defend what you believe,
and the way you love hearing yourself speak your own opinions
as if they were truth--
if only I could press my lips to yours to shut you up.
It’s always been you.

I watch the way you over-exert yourself 
day to day, just to barely get by--
how you put all others before yourself.
I will be the one to wrap you in the wealth of love you deserve.
It’s always been you.

I promise I will undo the pain,
remove the hurled brick insults,
gently etch worthiness into your skin--
the only blemishes left to cling to your naked body
as you shower to start a new day.
It’s always been you.

How I hope you’ll continue to walk with me,
reminisce down forked paths of our demise--
how we chose left or right
and still ended up here anyway.
It’s always been you.

I promise you we will move on from a past that’s always haunted our present. 
Because it’s you. It’s always been you.




Haras Shirley is a transgender man and poet from the midwest. He previously published with Wingless Dreamer Lit. He has written a children's book and two poetry manuscripts. When he isn't pursuing his writing goals he is an advocate for the transgender community and currently holds the title of Mr. Trans Texas. He will compete at the national pageant to become the next Mr. Trans USA. Haras resides in Indianapolis, In with his German Shepherd, Tonks, and two cats, Sev and Dobby.
​

Sigfrid Lundberg CC




my brother said his name was fowl

when I was twelve I watched him
baptize himself with Wild Turkey, 
chanting, “I am the fowl, I am the sin
of the saved.” He shook his wet hair 
spelled out the word “fowl” and said
he saw snakes under his skin. 

I tried to save him by drawing swans 
in my notebook, swans with no claws
but my brother said such fowl could
not kill snakes. I could not save him. 

But he saved me. He showed me how 
to make claws with steel nails poked
through wool gloves. His ashes are
in the pond. I still have my claws.

​

​
Mary Alice Dixon lives in Charlotte, NC and grew up in Carolina red dirt mixed with Appalachian coal dust. Her past jobs include popcorn waitress, encyclopedia seller, and advocate for abused children and their parents. Her writing is in Kakalak, Main Street Rag,  Northern Appalachian Review, Stonecoast Review, The Petigru Review, Pinesong, and elsewhere. In 2023 the NC Poetry Society named her a Poet Laureate Finalist. Mary Alice makes hospice calls and talks to the ghosts of her lost cats, Alice B. Toklas and Thomas Merton. She believes poetry is a form of healing.
​