Pulkita Anand We stop deceiving through language With names and meanings With sounds and spellings With dangling sentences and silent letters With words piling on words With the mob of vandalised words growing With defunct adjectives and rudimentary words With clichéd idioms and repetitive slogans With many languages buried and…
by Kevin B We’d go out around one. Climbing through bedroom windows, we’d try to land softly on bushes and backyard lawns. Some of us went barefoot. Some hid a spare pair of sneakers under porches or tucked under tarps used for covering patio furniture. Some of us just liked…
by Menke Hudzinski-Biewenga Innocence is tending to dust bunnies raising them under the bed; watching them hop refusing to eat your veggies just so you can feed them It is painting a rainbow on the wall for Mommy; a big happy grin proud of your work—unaware you’ll sleep without dinner It is believing daddy is gone on…
by Claude Chabot The people know. I have to be careful—they listen, they hear . . . . . . and I’m afraid for the little girl. And Charlie. They keep me here, but I flee often only to return. Their voices guide me—but they are wicked guides, hateful voices,…
by Rose Mary Boehm I know I have to do some shedding. Can’t go into a long, enfeebling winter with the weight of oceans, moors, beaches, dark woods, and stark horizons. I suppose I ought to shed my lightweight roots and put down the other kind, sturdy and reliable, holding a tree that tries to rise…
by Alex Stolis When I was sixteen, Dad almost sold the bar, I crushed on the buyer’s daughter: nineteen, blond, and way out of my league. I was gone-daddy-gone. She asked if I knew where we could score some kickin’ weed, and I made a joint appear from the inside pocket of my field…
by D.S. Stewart As the cancer worms through his body, Simon Weinberg prays the same prayer he’s made hundreds of times, kneeling, arms outstretched, staring upwards into space: “God, if you happen to be there, grant me the chance to explore your handiwork.” He figures he’s doing God a favor….
by Walker Watson You are the sun all flowers seek, Their aching stems bent toward your light— While I, unseen, stay small and weak, A shadow fading out of sight. You cradle beauty none can claim, And never turned to meet my gaze. My love, a ghost that whispers name, Haunts hollow rooms and wasted days. You cradle…
by Jason Bauer The lightbulbs in my kitchen look like little Liberty Bells. It took me 17 years and three hundred something days to see it, but they are. It kinda burns to look at them, but it feels good. It makes my vision distort a bit. Everything turns a…
by Matthew Johnson Son, I wish I could let you Have time off on your birthday, But you know, we even work on Christmas, So if the Son of God walked Into my office to request time off, I’d even tell him to go back to his desk And to continue working on his sources…