VERSIFICATION
january
DISTURBING WORDS
GRAPHIC CONTENT
Blake Bell
i’m worried about the man behind me in line.
probably staring, thinking unthinkable things.
probably wanting to put things inside me.
body parts, utensils, dolls, bottles, animals
who knows what people think about these days
TARGET CROWDS
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Sara Dobbie
Danny Collier
Danny Collier
The schizophrenic
screaming in your face
about vaginas
has a lot to say
about vaginas.
ON VAGINAS
Flamingo
M.P. Powers
She’d just sat down to breakfast when she noticed her ex hanging
in the grapefruit tree in her backyard.
Three days later, the tree was gone – all evidence of it –
eradicated, raked up and sodded over.
Now all that stands in the spot is a plastic flamingo,
its beady little eye glaring straight in her kitchen.
M.P. Powers
Chris G.
a mother's love
CLAIRE TAYLOR
They want to know do I think about hurting the baby
are relieved when I say no. I don’t
tell them I think about opening all the windows so the neighbors will
hear him cry when I lie down on the bed and
slit my own throat
five do's and don'ts for a better suicide note
1. Start with your name so the wrong family doesn’t waste their time mourning.
2. If you choose a gun or a razor to end it all, use any color ink but red.
3. Don’t bother with apologies; no one can forgive rigor mortis.
4. Write your note the night before; the desire to revise should not be discounted.
5. Never end with thank you; if you hear you’re welcome, something went terribly wrong.
kip knott
Sara Dobbie
VIRGIN
Fizza Abbas
Blood spilling in our courtyard
father sacrificed a cow for Eid ul Adha
A blossoming deathbed of a religious ritual
A woman butchered for not bleeding the first night
on a body meant to make more bodies
dylan sauer
the beekeeper packs wax and bloodied linen into the guts,
into the cavity of the pelvis.
"you will be so beautiful," she says. "so full of life."
the bees do not say anything--they are busy
eating.
Sara Dobbie
Jeremy Scott
Puking up my insides
onto the page,
swirl my finger
in the sick
to make something pretty.
CARNIVORE
Alyssa Arns
Munching mistakes,
Chew, chew, chewing regrets.
Sara Dobbie
HITS DIFFERENT
KDK
Smoke snakes my skin like serious sex
As I crush hot incense between my teeth.
A divine ounce allows delicious orgasms
And I feel no need to pleasure men.
A Cannabis Queen can come whenever, she says that shit is spiritual hunger.
Sara Dobbie
a poetry double feature
with author
Charles J. March III
Wispy Moments of Pleasure
Like when it’s cold out, and you’re washing your hands in hot water, and you wish you could stay there forever.
Shadow
People
The CIA is starting to survey the rehab owners, to see who’s watching over the tweakers and paranoid schizophrenics.
Charles March
election
melissa ashley hernandez
9 PM Election Night; red and blue
bite fingernails while shit-posting
on Facebook, watching states
light up on the map until 6 AM,
fear ferrying us into a restless sleep.
cimmone
free dental
thushanthi ponweera
She pressed the ice pack to her jaw, waiting for the throb to freeze into submission.
The tooth would have had to come out eventually.
It was slightly angled, and causing a cavity.
Even a dentist would have done the same, she tells herself,
moving the ice pack to the bruises on her chest.
the body
and the power it holds
Jay Fraser
Talons perched on my temple, a raven's beak pierces the
Taut film of an eye; it opens me and peers inside, searching.
Spores open their umbrellas beneath my skin and divide me.
I am chained to this rock, rotting and devoured;
The beak grates against porous bone.
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after you (left)
Kate O'Driscoll
The daffodils slump
on their crucifixial stalks.
Their little necks snap
and they suffocate;
chin on chest, they wilt.
Sara Dobbie
Sara Dobbie
Thousand Palms
mackenzie moore
Went east to inject my batteries like cleaner to the fuel injectors—
90 into the middle of nowhere, hoping the tach shaking
like spray paint meant it'd burned out the corrosion, blow out
the chalky leftovers settled into the crevasses between the seats
blue hour
melissa boles
in blue light she pressed against soft skin
broke herself open for strangers
came apart over screens, in harsh embraces
said she wanted love, chased release
awoke alone, gratified, paramount
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Sara Dobbie
Dealing in Sanity
My health insurance ran out
so my therapist asked me about
Drug use?
Suggesting I get my medication
on the black market
Instead
amy-jean muller
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Sara Dobbie
Chris G
I can't tell you every secret
emily m. goldsmith
When I was a young fire-headed girl,
I pummeled the hot bare asphalt with my bare feet.
I would clutch the dirt,
shovel it into my throat tirelessly.
I took the ashes of men, wet and swirled,
when I needed eyeliner.
I couldn’t find anything else so dark and black.
DOUBLE OCCUPANCY
Jerica Taylor
We shared laundry money and bottled water and email passwords and a personal massager
because you insisted that was what girlfriends did
and I was trying to shrink myself to fit into your twin bed.
Midnight
Don O'Cull
Your eyes are rocks with my hand around your throat.
You unfurl when I crack your wings.
We stop breathing together and I unlock the strap,
our final dim form in the mirror is peach melba and vanilla kickshaw.
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Sara Dobbie
Ragi/ni Gupta
now, I still have the same wiring in my brain
electricity doesn’t sprint at its old pace, these days
it’s a spark there, a sizzle here: reminding me
where I come from, I can never forget
how to short circuit when needed
[ ] months after I almost killed myself
Ragi Gupta
Sara Dobbie
Memory, Lost
Amanda Crum
I can't remember
a winter
that didn't blister
over the scars
that summer left behind
Michael Stipe Is On The Fucking Radio Again
Kevin Richard White
"Losing My Religion" blares again as I drunkenly cut off a Forrester.
Catholics! I curse. As I weave to stay in the road.
Jesus! I yell as I approach another intersection.
God. If you can cut a loaf for a bunch of believer idiots,
make sure I stay straight enough to get back to work
Anna E. Fullmer
You try to divide Earth’s frozen dirt,
but Earth rejects your spade,
refuses to fold over
another dead cat in a shoebox,
suggesting: stop taking in strays.
In Search of a New Year's Resolution
Sara Dobbie
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Sara Dobbie
Right time, your place
Abigail Swire
We jumped out of the frying pan
into the car. Full-speed into spike strips.
Roll.
Sirens fly by. Slide on ice.
"It was only ever...".
Missile tests shook the ground.
Lightning came down.
Now we're on fire.
We come. We go.
You know everything has to break
for a house to feel like home.
AES
BAD TIMES
Rami Obeid
-holes in the air
from cheap cigars-
I toss painkillers into coffee-
-Keep food to a minimum;
we have to eat tomorrow-
breakup haiku
L Scully
exvangelical
southern twink sucked my sugar
until I turned sour
untitled
Jessica Bonifacio
You exited the one-person bathroom first,
Before I did, lips curling into a grin -
An old Christian couple stared and murmured.
We were, after all, in Burger King
Sara Dobbie
ONTOLOGICAL
Jack Bedell
I am much less interested
in how many angels fit
on the head of a pin
than I am in how much god
can hang from the end of a rope.
sting
Cathryn McCarthy
The day Mum left, I swallowed Dad’s hornets’ nest.
Throat swelled closed, guts broiling,
I poked the wasps, too—finger right in, buzzing, frying,
vomited me across the kitchen.
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Sara Dobbie
Dutch Simmons
I can still make out
The faded scars on my back
Where you clawed me like you had been buried alive
As we fucked in the back seat
Of your husband’s Porsche Cayenne.
SCARS
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I may have wanted...
bob carlton
I may have wanted
love
once.
Now
all I want
is you.
Sara Dobbie
night terrors
My sister slept with a bible underneath her head.
A non-believer, she thought I was possessed.
Helen McKinney
Lisa Lerma Weber
RECONNECTING
James Lilley
I sought help in lockdown,
Zoom sessions only
Waiting to connect, I felt the disconnect
A stranger on a screen
Asking about my past
How many secrets can a stranger keep?
Reconnecting. Please wait.
Deliberately dishonest discussion
She asks, I reply
Calculated admissions
No one had noticed I wasn’t okay
‘Open up’
‘Connect’
replied the shape on the screen
Reconnecting. Please wait.
Anyone close you can talk to?
Strange world restrictions
She waits for me to continue
(Or is she buffering?)
Reconnecting. Please wait.
Not the help I wanted
For 40 an hour.
authors exposed
Alyssa Arns is an interdisciplinary storyteller whose poetry has appeared in Glass Poetry, The Daily Drunk, and Moonchild Magazine. Her work has also been performed in collaboration with local theatres in Arizona. You can follow her on Twitter (@chronicmaybe).
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Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in Southern Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Cotton Xenomorph, Okay Donkey, EcoTheo, The Hopper, Terrain, trampset, and other journals. His latest collection is No Brother, This Storm (Mercer University Press, 2018). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.
Blake L. Bell is a writer and teacher from South Louisiana who also enjoys cooking, gardening, and spending inordinate amounts of time digging around in her own head. Sometimes someone else’s, if they’ll bite.
Melissa Boles is a writer, storyteller, and impatient optimist from the Pacific Northwest who recently relocated to Tennessee. Her writing focuses on art, mental health, love, and the human connection. Melissa has been published in The Daily Drunk, Emerge Literary Journal, Stone of Madness Press, and at Fanfare and Sexology on Medium. Her forthcoming chapbook, We Love in Small Moments, will be published through ELJ Editions, Ltd. in May 2021. You can find her at MelissaBoles.com or at @melloftheball.
Jessica Bonifacio is an 18-year-old artist from Manila, Philippines. That being said, she's angst-filled, waist-deep in schoolwork, and trying to get by one day at a time. She pens poetry and prose when she's not writing for nonprofits or posting about her sketches at her ig account @dye_si_ka
Bob Carlton (Twitter @bobcarlton3) lives and works in Leander, TX.
Danny Collier lives in Washington, DC and chainsaws in West Virginia. He runs the web project An Abbreviated Family Dictionary. Past projects include documenting the syllabic adventures of an abstract cop and expressing trauma through poems about chickens and/or chicken parts.
Jay Fraser is a poet and general nuisance from Lincolnshire in the UK. He takes most of his inspiration from anarchist politics, the real movement to abolish the present state of things, horror movies, and French philosophy: Hellraiser and Georges Bataille are a recommended combination. He has writing either published or upcoming in The Tide Rises, Dwelling Literary, and Lumpen, and is currently writing about the political philosophy of industrial music. If you're a Twitter kind of person, you can find him @JayFraser1.
Anna E. Fullmer is a Library Assistant at Cleveland Public Library in the Youth Department, slinging story times and songs about the ABCs. She’s the lead singer of a band and misses playing shows. She writes songs, poems, and to-do lists. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Rat’s Ass Review, Uppagus, and Dreams Walking. Twitter: @anna_fullmer
Emily M. Goldsmith is a Cajun/Cadien queer poet, witch, pagan and part-time barista trainer. Living in Lexington, she is an MFA candidate at the University of Kentucky whose work has appeared in Variety Pack, Vagabond City, Fine Print, and elsewhere. She enjoys cooking complicated dishes in her spare time and making a mess. Twitter - @emilymgoldsmith
Ragi/ni Gupta is a poet and journalist in the process of weaving themself into being. Their work explores mental health and gender and has appeared in Stone of Madness Press, FAIRY PIECE MAG, and Ayaskala. They're working at Pixstory, a social media platform committed to the truth. Connect: @RaginiGupta__.
Melissa Ashley Hernandez is a Latinx writer and the founding Editor-in-Chief of The Minison Project. She is published in The Minison Zine, Fahmidan Magazine, and The Daily Drunk Magazine. Her chapbook, The Love in Between, is to be published by Lazy Adventurer Publishing in January 2021.
James Lilley, 33, Married Father of three. From Swansea, Wales works by day as a network engineer, is a retired professional boxer and active Bareknuckle Fighter and MMA fighter. Have been writing as a hobby since he was young, deciding to take the hobby more seriously this year enrolling for a Part Time Degree in Creative Writing.
Charles J. March III is an asexual, neurodivergent Navy hospital corpsman veteran who is currently trying to live an eclectic life with an interesting array of recovering creatures in Orange County, CA. His various works have appeared in or are forthcoming from Evergreen Review, Atlas Obscura, Litro, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, Lalitamba, 3:AM Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears, Fleas on the Dog, Dink Press/Problématique, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, The Recusant, Taco Bell Quarterly, Storm Cellar, Terror House Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Harbinger Asylum, Madness Muse Press, Maudlin House, Misery Tourism, BlazeVOX, Blood Tree Literature (prize), The Babel Tower Notice Board, Bareknuckle Poet, Anti-Heroin Chic, Synchronized Chaos, The Beatnik Cowboy, Points in Case, Expat Press, Stinkwaves, Young Ravens Literary Review, The Writing Disorder, Literary Orphans, Otoliths, Oddball Magazine, et al. Links to his pieces can be found on LinkedIn and SoundCloud.
cathryn mccarthy has adored words all her life, writes queer romantic fiction, and has recently developed an all-consuming crush on poetry. Her inspiration ranges from her inner city life and customer service job to rural landscapes and their ancient folklores (occasionally jumbling them all up at the same time.) Publications include Acid Bath Publishing's "Wage Slave" anthology, "Odd Magazine" (September 2020), "Floodlight Editions" (October 27 2020) and "Pens of the Earth" (forthcoming November 2020).
Helen McKinney is an English Language teacher, mother and poet. Originally from England, she now lives in Northern Italy where she will forever be searching for herself and inspiration. She can be found on Instagram and Twitter @ellie_pages
Mackenzie Moore is a writer and illustrator based in Los Angeles who currently writes for television and podcasting. Her chapbooks Alms Basket For Your Heart (Variant Lit) and Bento Box (Kelsay) are out now. She believes bagels heal most wounds.
Don O’Cull lives in St Petersburg, Florida with a good-thinking wife and two lean sons. Poetry kicks his ass every morning. Middle schoolers kick his ass every day. His favorite color is bourbon. His work has appeared in Don’t Talk to me About Love, and he was once named Barnes & Nobles’ “Poet of the Month.”
Thushanthi Ponweera is a full-time mom and an aspiring writer living in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her poetry is usually typed hurriedly on the phone, before her kids wake up. You can follow her writing journey on Twitter at @thushponweera
Kathryn O'Driscoll is a spoken word poet, writer and activist from Bath, England. She talks openly about disabilities, mental health, LGBTQIA+ issues and joys and gender politics in her wide range of poems. Aside from performing poetry across the South West, she’s also a Bristol slam champion who has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, at multiple UK National competitions and on BBC Radio Bristol. She has a first class degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University.
M.P. Powers gets people high for a living - he rents out scissor lifts, scaffolding, ladders, etc. In his spare time, he writes books and does artistic things. He tweets here: @mppowers1132
Jeremy Scott is from Albany, Georgia. He has been enmeshed in punk culture since cutting his teeth in its music through the local scene in Albany that popped up in the early 00's. He has been published in eris & eros review, Beyond Words Magazine, Sad Girls Lit Club, Surreal Poetics, and Tempered Runes Press.
Dutch Simmons established and taught a creative writing program for his fellow inmates while incarcerated. He is a finalist for the Texas Observer's Short Fiction Award and the Julia Peterkin Flash Fiction Prize. He is an awesome father, a former felon, and a phoenix rising. Presently lurking somewhere in the woods of Connecticut. @thedutchsimmons on Twitter
Jerica Taylor is a neurodivergent queer cook, birder, and chicken herder. She lives with her wife and young daughter in Western Massachusetts. Twitter @jericatruly
Claire Taylor (she/her) writes about motherhood and mental health. She has written roughly a dozen picture books that nobody wants to publish. You can read most of them in her monthly newsletter, Little Thoughts. She lives in Baltimore, MD where she spends most of her time biting back profane screams after stepping on Hot Wheels cars. You can find Claire online at clairemtaylor.com or Twitter @ClaireM_Taylor.
