Barely a Breeze

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…finger tips touch the walls of my cage and I whisper, “Madness is like gripping a railing on a spiraling staircase knowing it doesn’t have a platform on either end”.

“Baby, what do you mean by that?” My husband startles me while pushing past the door to my side.

A voice whispers, “Distract him” and so I do.

“Oh my love, you’re back! I was just playing with words. You know me.” I embrace him and he’s distracted.

“Look what you’ve done with this room, it’s beautiful” he exclaims…. “Your nurse is so kind to you and look at all…

By Taylor Amber Rose

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Unhappy Happiness

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…is value in pain

Though most disagree.

Many try to avoid it

Thinking they will be free.

But the pain doesn't disappear

Its only stuffed, drugged, or denied.

And over time the pain will erode us.

Failed attempts to escape give way to its unrelenting tide.

So what should we do with pain,

When it grips us in its claws?

When it crushes and pushes and smothers and gnaws?

In labor, it's a queue to impending birth.

A woman's body is working

To bring a human to earth.

The key in childbirth

Is letting pain have its way.

But even…

By Angela Jones

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The Abyss

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…slate-like under my bare feet; cold, slick, impenetrable. The air is stale and clammy. My hands blindly lunge into obscurity; nothing within grasp, only the vacuum of the dark barren. The cold emanates from within my soul and spreads through the fibers of my nerves, embracing every inch of my body. I call out; my voice falling flat, no walls to echo my shout. I shiver, not knowing if this is from the chilling dankness or my own fear and fall to the ground.

Sobbing, I crawl through the misty darkness for hours. The floor is slick from the dewy…

By Tracey Koehler

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The Provincial

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…flinched as I heard a thud, followed by mad fluttering. I cautiously approached the kitchen window, and peered through the murkiness outdoors. A massive black bird lay on the ground, flapping his wings, but unable to right himself. The poor thing must have lost his bearings in this weather and flew into the the large picture window. His fluttering became erratic, then slowed, and finally stopped.

The weather outside was dank and the ground covered in thick fog; not a day to spend outdoors by any means. It was, however, perfect for an evening inside with a good book and…

By Tracey Koehler

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Time

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…remember lyin’ upon my momma’s bed lookin’ to the shards of sunlight slippin’ through the cracks of the wall’s boards; I came out upon that bed that was standin’ within a room that Momma called “the shed.” Well, she called it that because it stuck out from the side of the shack that we were livin’ within. Anyway, that shack stood upon the land of my daddy’s owner. Well, Momma saw him more as a boss than an owner, and I suppose that she had to see him that way because she hated him. Now, I say that because this…

By Christopher DelMonaco

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Pathologically Disconnected, or, Why I Write Novels

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…handed my college buddy a small magazine clipping with a photograph of some place with trees and water. I’d just had a very nice visit there, in fact. Then I ripped out the page I was looking at and cut the place out.
“What is it?”

I was excited to explain the birthday gift. “It’s a. . .it’s a ‘place-to-be’. You look at it and you can picture yourself in the picture, anywhere in the picture you want. . .Like I did. When I looked at it; it was a really cool picture that…

By Gabriella L Garlock

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The Path of the Fireflies

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…glimpse inside my soul reveals a new path, lined with fireflies to guide my way. The path is smooth and soft beneath my toes like fresh sand. I can feel it give way beneath my step as the flight of the fireflies outline each footstep in its soft glow. My mind is filled with childlike curiosity as I follow along, the sweet scent of blooming hyacinths riding the warm breeze beside me. I can hear the lulling sound of waves rolling to an undiscovered beach in the distance, and the far-off cry of a seagull…

By Tracey Koehler

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Something

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…swollen from stress, she stifles a smile strained and scared to share some semblance of self-satisfaction.

Starts and stops string a song of life standing as a solitary sign, annoyingly stoic and submissive. A vast sea of sound is situated with only strangers strapped in their own seat; saddled with their own stride.

Surrounded with sterling chauffeurs; suffocated in a facade of sugar and spice. A day dream of circumstance contrasts who you thought you should be; sunbathed in shiny bronze of slippery skin.

Something surreal sifted slowly into the psychosomatic reality of sweet truth. A shift of self-discovery and…

By Darren Thompson

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Out of the Box

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tip-toe, in the dark of the night, to the grave of all of my sorrows.

Falling to my knees upon the frozen ground, I sobbed in silence.

My body convulsed with need to shed itself of the misery and distress that my heart and mind had endured.

Stubborn to the end, I lay prone upon the grave, digging my fingers into the earth beneath me.

I clenched fistfuls of the rich dirt and held it to my chest, as if I could somehow become a part of it, absorb it into my flesh.

My soul ached with the weight of


By L.E.

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Alakazam

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…friends have nicknamed me Houdini.

I have the uncanny ability to make lovers disappear without a trace

With nothing but magic words and the ripping of a sheet.

They dematerialize into nothing but molecules and isotopes

And are swept up in the unforgiving wind produced when I utter the words:

“I can’t do this anymore.”


My magic is most proficient when my mind starts playing tricks on me.

It produces false pretenses, and speaks stories of treason,

Giving me the sign that the show is about to begin.

“Would anyone from the crowd like to…


By Vincent Midolo

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