By Tay Ann I sink my teeth into her neck, wait to taste the copper on my tongue. I taste every compliment she gives, the prayers she sends, the back she bends.   I take it all from her, watch as it drains from her veins, as her skin turns pale and cold. I make her look as cruel as me, even as I take it all in.   There is only so much one can take, before it numbs them to the pain. I cannot stop. Even when I know it's gone on too long. I feel   the end is near. She's almost em

By Roxana Shirazi It’s the mustard gas that has made me The way I am, my love. No garlic, mustard or horseradish smell, I got seduced by the odourless pure type, It’s not my fault. It’s the days of sitting in the honey silence With cherry-patterned skirts cuddling my little knees Waiting for all the boys to notice me that has made me The way I am, my friend. Yperite bleeding through the Persian dusk. Contaminating/poisoning/dirtying. It’s the bad uncle holding my five year ol

By Mara Adamitz Scrupe I see myself as seductress                      believer ( dulcius ex asperis ) in the rush of hope & hardship toward the tide of sweet license             I am purposeful: a seeker a daughter of an earthly epoch (& an eyeblink away from the next) a siren of desire in proximity to virtue (though evidently not close enough) I may be an archetype or a means to an end (in a quagmire of uncertainty                I wonder at the clarity of the upright ringe

By Savannah Smyth She lay on the slab, White sheets hitched up like a skirt, One red eye, pink as the morning, Interlocked with mine as I wiped the pus from her petticoat. When I asked why she was naked, Chest bare, chest broken- he said ‘The dead have a funny way of flirting.’   I averted my gaze as I plunged my fingers into her chest, Rooted around in ruby until I found it- With her beaten heart in my hands I wondered, How carelessly others had held it before me. Spotted wi

By Zhengyang Tang To flee, or to look, or only to listen? Baku, its nose curling round the iron cage. From afar, a shrillness thick with ears, noses, and throats.   Like the smile you choose for New Year, corners of your mouth grow ever more dazzling. Flesh-zippers split open long, pale torsos, the knives jerking, spewing waves of reek and brine—in the air, red water worms’ carnival.   Breathe now; loosen your billions of warm, damp alveoli. May you have eyes ringed like Satu

By Sean Patrick Mulroy He wasn’t in the car— not even in the trunk— and when I looked inside the kitchen cabinets there wasn’t anything but rat poison and cereal. I searched the closet twice, turned out the pockets of your pants, and ran my hands between your winter coats. I could have sworn I saw him cowering beneath your desk— but no. I thought he might be outside watching through the window, so I pulled the curtains down and then I pulled the carpet up

By Malcolm Drysdale Humans equipped lacking existence wait patiently for the miracle promised for themselves to happen Brothers sisters fathers mothers Uncertain in this age of reason The TV flickers in the ante natal ward as if in warning of life to come Yielding to misgivings the future too appears in spasm as nature strives for birth each morning Cutting across this valley side I caught my thoughts from falling Only the sea ahead after all the shoreline adept at change The

By Marina Bell I want us to crawl out of the fire and rubble and ashes of this Through the portal of past and could be-s. into each others’ beds. slime and silt and rotting leaves   into the gloaming.   cracked teeth jagged bone, gushing red ground black Glorious gore thrashing my bloody heart into a void that has no song too hollow for ghosts too empty for an echo.   The ecstasy of this violence rearranging my organs. Riving muscles into new shapes.   I want to sway to the w

By Louise Moises I discover a small green object on my driveway— at first, I think it a leaf. On closer inspection, I find the lifeless body of a hummingbird, his little wings folded, looking as if he has worn out, closed his eyes, fell asleep.   I cradle the tiny body in my palm, stroke the feathers of the breast— soft, very, very soft. On this bright, unseasonably sunny day, hush of winter overwhelms me— I think of my husband folding his arms around his fading

By L.M. Hardgrave Coach always said: “Never lower your helmet during the tackle.”   I was a blocker for the most part I didn’t see much action. My threadbare spine is thankful.   But you, kid, stuck in the flash. What were you supposed to do when Cody Stufflebean, the moving beanstalk, came at you, holding the pigskin?   You bent your head, prayed, to please Dad.   * snap   You bent your head please keep praying, Dad.   As the ambulance drained the color and two more arms wer

By Kerry Burton-Galley Whenever I succumb to my depression, or become paralysed by this dissociation, I seek to find some sort of consolation in the company of killers.   I can tell you it’s just morbid curiosity or a keen interest in criminology but truth be told, it’s their relatability, especially those otherwise ‘good fellas.’   It cuts through my mental silence to listen to accounts of perverted violence being told with such mannerly indifference. I don’t see them as mon

By Georgia Hilton that enfolds you. The softest envelope, night’s blanket. A velvet coverlet brushing your earlobe, skimming the surface of a cheekbone. You breathe into me and I absorb it. There is no me, but you suffuse it. It’s not darkness after all, but waning light that casts the shadows. I am a shelter from it, your deepest hollow. The ink of an underground cavern. What fantastical creatures swarm the imagination here, living without sunlight or oxygen. But they are re

By Gillian Lenore Beneath the cracked bones in my chest, where old shadows braid themselves into prayer, there’s a hunger- inherent and incessant- a beast, born from loneliness, fed on every hand that ever let go. It would silently call out. And monsters would come. Smelling of comfort and wearing sheep’s clothing, I let them in- and spent years confusing echoes for answers, claws for comfort, gnashing teeth for devotion. I mistook their shadows for shelter, their hunger for

By Birdbones Time picks its teeth With the bones of Human endeavor Devoid of form Streaming boundless Mercurial in appetite Its shadow inescapable Expiring arbitrarily No encores chambered A ruse in measure As no more exists Than ever has or will Reliant on its passage We live, we love We hurt, we heal Its taste for irony however Insidiously Pierces hapless souls Moments spent living Moments spent dying Cruelly interchangeable Infinitely entertained by The zero sum Of our exi

By Brian Cameron I wrote Do no harm  and split the nib. Ink climbed my wrist— slow, deliberate— as if it had been waiting. The page swallowed what it could. The rest kept moving. I pressed my hand there, trying to quiet the noise. It didn’t stop. I meant to save someone. Instead, I watched their story dry on my skin. When I washed, it bloomed again— dark, ferrous, faithful. I said I understood hunger. I lied. It burned the same going down, and I kept drinking. Silence came in

By Petty Dreadful Bitter leaf brews noxious as bubbling rust of an aged screw rests submerged under black moon water knocking gently in the murk against jagged quartz. Hateful utterings form mantras at the darkest early hours by the dim light of a red candle that drips it's wax beside a spotted trail of blood. Intentions of ruin bringing forth an era of misfortune from a vengeful grinding of cinnamon and cayenne that promise no flavour, only spite. Black salt, belladonna, pis

By Millie Graham And hellfire shall rain down upon the land And the people shall burn in fearful anguish. Satan shall rule the souls And rip from them all purity Till all remains the writhing husk Of those who thought to be clean. In the filth of their intention they squirm, Vainly hoping to free from the sulphurous clutches Of the dark prince almighty And the carnal temptations that prevail. Suckle at his breast And taste the malicious ecstasy of evil As it fills your veins

By Alicia Kimberly How old were we—eleven,  twelve, thirteen? Just two  children kissing behind  my garage, between  the bee-infested pear tree  and the conifer the owl  lived in, the grass covered in May  morning frost and littered  with rabbit ears, limbs, and smells   of wild things, rain,  and you, pink-cheeked little boy.    Our eyes open, wide-green,  your white-gold curls dripped  Freckles on my nose  like a colander of cellentani  and your mouth was full of America -c

By Bob W Christian Peace is a liar. It wears a mask of soil and silence, But beneath the garden, something breathes. Not worms. Not rot. Something that remembers my hands. The farmhouse walls groan in tones too close to your voice. At night, I hear footfalls in the hall… Not the echo of my own, But yours, dragging like broken promises. The mirror is the first traitor. Where once I saw resolve, now your grin. Eyes black, glistening with remembered laughter, The kind that came

By Mary Mulholland you ask why         i keep cigarettes    if i       don’t smoke     never     notice scars    under my clothes & last night    we argued because  i squeezed   the middle  of the toothpaste as if that mattered      the world to you    when you said i was weird  i pulled the duvet   over my head with a sheet until i heard you were sleeping.   then tiptoed down     switched the iron to linen    waited until the light went    out then pressed the tip     on my