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