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

By Jessie McLean Would that it be me, not them that is insane. My sacrifice to a world too dear to leave to a dream. I need to be wrong about what I see.   Even reasonable people I know are talking about civil war, how neighbors will shoot neighbors dead like doves, painted on the steps of their own doors, like cattle corralled and panicked, like leaves leaving too soon for fall.   A story is raped a number of ways. First by a man, then by the law. Choice quakes like tall gra

By Alan Dunnett You gave five, which seemed a lot. I gave three against my better judgment. I gave three exceptionally and regretfully.    Just one can be more than enough. You act like these stupid end-of-email kisses are real. No, they mean less than nothing.   At last, our poor communication is at an end. Relief is palpable. We go down to the dirty old river   and step to the bridge and its Roman pillars slowly with stones in our pockets. Then we actually kiss but not five

By Alex Padina Under the pressing wind I wondered about polysemic words, and how they guide the train of thought. Seemingly unrelated vocables sharing the same whispered air, the same shape in their invisible sound waves, despite their different roots.   I saw a gigantic mass of clouds: A shadowy, sinister flock of billows, slowly taking over the blue sky. And despite the threat of heavy rains, I felt light.   My mind suddenly shifted to a future memory— one of doctors and pa

By Margaret Bethray They are lifting away the winter, layer by layer, to reach a face that sleeps in ether. Your pupils dilate, better to absorb the radiant nurses who revolve and press enamelled tablets to your lips. You feed indulgently, grub-like, marvelling while the world’s sugary lights unravel their thrill and shimmer their silks.   Turning over in drugged sleep, you hear thin wings rustle a rumour: once you filled the shape of a man . But the cell walls split and you

By Estelle Phillips My son returned late.   We silenced at the sight of him wrought with devastation from a fight not quite to the death.   I rushed to hug him, lured him into his old room where he flung his rucksack across the bed and perched, smouldering with contempt. His mask for loneliness.   His breathing slowed and turned to fire. He burnt words exposing our secret shames, brought us to his place of breaking.   My son was like a dragon come to claim our souls.   Prepar

By Yati Ramli The house inhales at night. Its walls ripple with unseen lungs, doors sigh on their hinges, and the staircase beats like a slow heart. I wander room to room, listening for your footsteps. They are not here - only the hush of curtains, the small rustle of spiders in corners. Yet there is beauty in this haunting. The dark does not lie; it tells me everything remains, only changed - your laughter woven into floorboards, your shadow pressed into glass. The house exh

By Heath Sutherland Walls closed midnight velvet. Doctors seared brands into my skin - depression, anxiety, psychosis —   The true word “autism” slept coiled in my marrow, a black rose waiting for its century to bloom.   I was the boy who “saw” music and cried too soon: Jeff Wayne’s synths exploding violet galaxies, Meatloaf’s bleeding crimson thunder, each note a living shape only my skull could cradle. Beauty inside the looping torment that later tried to drown me.   I lear

By Corrina Kehkét The girl sobs, and the birds sing and the birds sing and the birds sing wings tucked tight, the birds sing. Song and sob meet at a sun-stunned window screen, and the song slips past but the sobs bounce back, trapped with the girl who freed them. The trees softly sway to shyly wave limbs that bow and bend, that gently reach, Hers flail and fling, thrash and snap, crack upon impact with a cold patch of pale sky. The wind blows a breathy tune, a

By Zenobia There is a bloodletting across the land by an on-all-fours submissive obedience to a red knee-capped agenda drooling for greed and power. But to tell the truth, we are all being seduced, hunted, really charmed by the beauty of soft fat lips and are overworked, trying to survive distracted in a buzzed haze from what is really happening until drawn into the darkness of deep sleep. Wake. Up. Find your own voice without prejudice see past the heavy blur of sparkling fi