Category: Poem

It’s easy to burn bridges with the fires Burning within your heart. Eyes blood red from tears shed, Thanks to mistakes of would-be friends Or family…wondering to yourself how to get revenge Yet is it vengeance that would null the pain that Follow you like an unwanted shadow? Are we not mortal? Imperfect specimens Who… Continue reading Read Poem: BRIDGES, by Kerry Brackett

DEATH VALLEY, CA – Park visitors found the body of David Kelleher on June 14, 2022 in Death Valley National Park. Kelleher appears to have been walking from Zabriskie Point toward Furnace Creek after running out of gas.–NPS June 15, 2022, Abby Wines. His body was only 30 feet from the highway, but he couldn’t… Continue reading Read Poem: LOST IN THOUGHT, by CLS Sandoval

The lymphoma suckled from a radioactive teat, becoming spinach-green, a tank full of rage, a continent of muscle, bigger than I expected, ready to smash my lymph nodes and rampage through my body like a video game with all cheats enabled. Nothing could whisper it down to human-size: not the sound of my mother crying… Continue reading Read Poem: Portrait of my lymphoma as a certain radioactive superhero, by Christian Ward

Confined by illness, chained and bound, a doctor’s diagnosis hunts me down, tearing my soul apart, “Mentally Unstable” stamped on every chart. Shrouded in shame, drowning in sorrow, lacking and feeling hollow, yearning for another’s name, desiring nothing more than to be sane. An echo of emptiness in my soul, never feeling worthy or whole,… Continue reading Read Poem: Confined Mentality, by Kristina Johnson

she is up at 5:20am baking a carrot cake, her husband already out to the gym. the table is set for three. in her mind, that little thing would’ve come down the stairs in those striped purple leggings, pigtails. cake for breakfast. orange juice mixed with apple juice, the way she liked it. by 8am,… Continue reading Read Poem: there isn’t another happy birthday, by Rowan Tate

Aroused as animals, you on my body, and I keep my hand on your skin. As I keep my hand to a cold night fire, To your hair flowing and glowing, on your back like amarbel on a tree. With a thin layer parasite covering, I want to be in love forever. We glance Graces… Continue reading Read Poem: parasite, by hank trivial

Pulling up to the drive-thru I order my usual adding a chocolate croissant I pull up and give cash “Keep the change” “Thank you” Now waiting The pretty barista hands me my coffee and croissant “You’re really pretty” “Thank you” maybe they didn’t know i ordered a medium instead of a large. Walking to a… Continue reading Read Poem: The Chaotic Life of a non-Chaotic Human

We repeat ourselves, yet we do not know we repeat like the passing of light like a sound of music, singing, every year throughout time whenever someone calls, someone goes, someone sings. How beautiful is this stranger’s song it smells like a bird and fog like the previous days in the eastern house with open… Continue reading Read Poem: SPRING, by Ziaeddin Torabi

To be a monarch is to be the queen or to grow wings and fly away Flying toward the sons of my atomic atmosphere Maternity stripped from my womb to be given to a mother whose children knew nothing of her sorrows and grief This internal home deserving of protecting at every price that was… Continue reading Read Poem: THE FALL OF THE TOTEM, by Mina Hakmoun

When your girlhood leaves you, you are, kind of, still a girl. When grandma speaks of her regrets it’s almost as if she’s right there. Like it’s almost possible to bring her twin back from the dead, away from the bottle 50 or more years ago, rearrange the puzzle pieces so that she makes it… Continue reading Read Poem: Louise in Paris in the World of the Undead, by Tesa Flores