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