A knapsack, the toolkit, and no mapI’ve walked this path beforeEven if it’s different each trip.The journey again mandatorySurgically precise from muscle memory. What they don’t tell you thoughThat little piece of youThat part you have to cut awayIt never really comes back, you know?And there’s a little less left every time. Continue reading The Toolkit by Scott Moncrieff
Luxuriating in the mire of sadness, and delusion.Their pens trudge along wearing the mask of defeat.This dance of ink stains begins and ends the same.It always has and always will.The scribbling is a straight line, full of unfilled this and that.A cat’s meow is more soothing.The great chasm exposed no new ideas or inspiration.Mother is nowhere to be found.Tears and whispers are the default subject.I’m … Continue reading The Poems They Write by Frankie Laufer
I’m always wandering afterward,the crisis of my face in close examination.What to say, what I said, what I might:my romantic confusion—where to go from here,where I have been.Now to turn and simply go on home,more unsure than then,whenever that was,how—and why— Some cry returnsI can never entirely retainor restrain,a wanting not to wont,a fitting for the frame,a reason not to blame. Continue reading After the Shrink (Succession) by John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper
Astrological sign of the fish, Pisces rules the feet Oh shoes!…how you wear me down so! Either defying gravity on my pointed Swan Lake toes or on my humbled hobo knees shuffling for your twin Give me your tired your worn…your unlaced well-heeled marked-down tugboats drifting like smelly used dreams in the basements of Salvation Army and Goodwill stores discarded and unloved feet—yearning to be free Always that scorned and vacant stare— this … Continue reading Why Mermaids Don’t Limp by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
Graveyard Shift.Rubber Gun.Took The Bus.Had Some Fun.Pulled The CordAt Every Stop.Pulled My Piece.Got The Drop.Pled The Fifth.Rental Cop.Factory.Dark AndLocked.Got ThereLate AndPunchedThe Clock.Punched It With MyRubber Glock.Got A Drink.Did My Rounds.Spent Some Time InLost And Found.Took Some Stuff That We Could Hock.Went Back Up And PunchedThe Clock. Tick Tock.Time Clock.Waiting ForThe BellTo Ring.My Badge.My Bling.Clip OnTie.HeadOn Chest.Lullaby.House Arrest. Continue reading Tick Tock Time Clock by Charlie Robert
I was in a state of delirium. One I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to escape. I guess that’s the limbo as Christmas Eve bleeds into Christmas Day. In my delirium, I had the sensation that I was in a UFO, of sorts, and the “rain” was just glitter falling on the windshield. As if someone exhaled too hard and the glittery powder invaded … Continue reading 24/12/2024 by Fabiana Real-Bravo
Paula’s notebook. It’s where her lists live. She has metropolises of tasks. Her duties have taken over the red lines, and expanded to the margins schools teach us not to invade. The pages are supposed to be neat, organized, saturated with chemical equations and drawings of covalent bonds. However, reality is everlasting. Obligations rule her mind and her hands. So the pages are filled with … Continue reading 28/11/2024 by Fabiana Real-Bravo
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”-Apocalypse Now I love the smell of fresh blood in the morning the stench of burning flesh venting through my every pore How your lips are pressed for time how mine grow red and sore from the bruising and the biting How to find love more inviting when both feet are out the door I don’t know why this reverie…the dust of memory slips through our mind … Continue reading Meltdown by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
Death is a pageant for bad choices;there is no creativity in savingdisguised as killing;there is more life to the poorslaughtered before their time;their return to a better lifeguaranteed by their creatoras a second amendment.Like a mind soaked in the sun,death dreams of basking in flowers,but summer is its imaginingof how eternity must look like.It is not the heavy metalslumping on the ground in weight;it can … Continue reading Death Does Not Know How to Kill by Jonathan Ukah
Hey guys, welcome to my video.Join me as I unbox my trauma.Look how beautifully wrapped it is—and here’s a personalised note. It says, I birthed your children. FROM MY BODY! Unboxed your progeny.Your stomach swelled fat, you think you know labour. You are labour. I started watching horror films in my thirties.Elevated horror—the kind that’s meant to make you check your privilege.I wasn’t afraid anymore … Continue reading Unboxing by Megan Cartwright
