By Laurie Paternoster I died once. Let me explain. When cancer strikes twice you don’t wait scheduling time on a table for repairs to an earthly body struggling to survive despite the creeping odds in 18 hours doctors ebbed and flowed exhausted searching for answers fresh eyes boosting blood bags scalpels slicing into virgin territory mining for life-saving veins supposed to be there but elusive all of it shoving minutes into hours no solutions fading

By Jan Moran Neil I remember taking less and a little less stuffing the gap in my gut with the gap in the words that were not being served at the table where I measured the spoons for the paying guests in the room that was shrouded by conifer trees and my eyes never cried but were onions dried and then fried with my bones as brittle as cracked egg shell, my breath someone said was over boiled yolk, my throat sounded like artichoke so I took a little less because it was all so

By Janelle Standish There are nights my body mutinies, throws me back into rooms I swore I left. The air thickens, turns animal. Every shadow carries his shape. Every silence tastes like warning. My ribs still flinch at ghosts. My skin remembers things I never gave permission for: hands that claimed me, breath that cornered me, a hunger that ate the edges of who I was. I learned to disappear in plain sight, to fold myself into something quiet, something compliant, something t