We hold on for comfort.
We should let go for the pain.
We curl up to contain all we have.
We should stretch out and release.
Tasks to forget keep us distracted.
Making it a job to remember eludes us.
Thoughts in the night disturb peace.
Nightmares come to remind memories
they cannot escape from their host.
Hurt contains action and has to have life.
We let go for the comfort.
We should hold on for the pain.
 
 
Author Bio:
Kimberly Cunningham spent her childhood being silent and keeping dark secrets. It was not okay to tell or something would happen. She hid the secrets behind her eyes and no one saw them. When she became an adult, she started letting her thoughts spill to paper. They looked magnificent at the tip of a pen when before they were ugly at the tip of her tongue. To date, she has three published books and 19 published pieces of work and a blog. She wrote her way free and escaped those secrets.

Every gesture he makes is full of music,
he’s so handsome and rich.
He says let’s go to a party--
but won’t take you home when you want--
or—let’s take a walk down by the shore
and he holds your hand too tightly 
except you’re embarrassed and don’t want him
to get the wrong impression so you go along,
the entire coastline stuck in your throat
you don’t trust him completely
afraid he might knock you down 
and he does—suddenly you hear 
your ankle rip—the ligaments torn
by his weight crashing down full force
and you don’t grimace or cry out
telling yourself this time will soon be over
and time does jump forward
he lets you out of his car 
where you limp to your door but your ankle 
will never be the same.


Author Bio:
Dale Champlin is an Oregon poet. Her MFA in painting and photography developed her critical eye. Her first chapbook of poetry, Twisted Furniture, was published last year. When she’s not writing poetry, Dale designs books, publicity campaigns and logos. As adjunct to the board of the Oregon Poetry Association, she is the editor of the 2017 Verseweavers collection of poetry. Dale is the current co-director of Conversations With Writers, a monthly presentation by accomplished writers. Dale has published in Social Justice Poetry, VoiceCatcher, North Coast Squid and has poems soon to be published in Moments Before Midnight and Willawaw Journal.

Heaven only knows 
how I manage to spin on my toes; 
discovering new ways 
my body can bend. 

Up on that barre, for an hour, I forget 
how much it hurts me to love you. 

Instead, I concentrate my efforts on movement - 
learning to count steps,
attempting to balance my weight 
while enriching my artistic development. 

When I face the mirror, I try to understand 
what is it I am doing wrong. 

Up on that barre, for an hour, I forget 
how much it hurts me to love you.

I stretch and flex until the music stops; 
reproducing action, lighter than air, 
for my own pleasure. 

I read from pain 
and write my story through dance, 
as my arms and legs 
generate motions in space.


Author Bio:
Orit Yeret is a writer, artist and teacher. Born and raised in Israel, she currently lives in the U.S. Her work recently appeared in The Borfski Press, Ink Pantry, Drunk Monkeys and Crack the Spine, and is forthcoming in Blue Lake Review and Evening Street Review. Visit her at:  http://orityeret.webs.com

I am a piece of porcelain
Thrown among the bulls;
Yet the painted glass
Masters all the mules.
 
They buck, and rage, and kick,
And flare their bulging chest;
They stomp the quiet dish
And snort with all their zest.
 
Shattered on the ground,
Mosaic all of crumbs,
In the dust resounds
Beauty’s greater sum.
 
Porcelain may look fragile
And beauty may look frail.
But the largest bull
Will heel at beauty’s tail. 


Author Bio:
Carter Davis Johnson is an English major and cadet at the Virginia Military Institute. He grew up in Roanoke, Virginia where he developed a great passion for literature and began writing. Mr. Johnson has been published several times in The Society of Classical Poets, and writes both poetry and prose. 

the fat that encircles your waist
fills out your booty
rounds out your face
the fat that covers you isn’t you
& you are not the fat
your body  
simply holds you inside
you become   
                                            lighter
 
when you decide not to hate
the weight that takes on a new texture
thickens and smooths
cool as metal
taunts slide off your skin
bullshit ends at your breast plate
one hand—a shield.
the other—a mace
another weapon wield by your mouth
a tongue sharper than a spear
You are a warrior.
and all your battles
will make you
Stronger.
Now slay.    


Author Bio:
Jennifer Marie Brissett is the author of ELYSIUM (Aqueduct Press). She recently completed her second novel ELEUSIS and has begun working on the third and last novel in the trilogy, ERINYES. Her work has been a finalist for the story South Million Writers Award, the Locus and Tiptree Awards, and has won the Philip K. Dick Special Citation. Her short stories can be found in FIYAH Magazine, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Lightspeed, Motherboard Vice, Uncanny, The Future Fire, the anthology APB: Artists against Police Brutality and other publications. And once in her life, long ago, she owned and operated the Brooklyn indie bookstore called Indigo Café & Books. She currently teaches and writes and lives in NYC. Find her online at www.jennbrissett.com

The shadow that covered us
has changed its branches
the lines of our hands are different
we have turned around
both of us knelt down before emptiness.
We only have memory: a murmur
grows until it becomes a dust cloud of my ribs
in the blood that made two butterfly wings from my nipples
in memory
a tear stopped for years
falls like leaves of the tree that lent us its coat
            slowly in a swaying wave
            crunches, scatters in the wind
                        turns into dust,
the murmur of time that doesn't return.
Where will I bury the ashes
of the shadow that silenced my lips for centuries?
 
____

Horizontes
 
La sombra que nos cubrió
ha cambiado sus ramas
las líneas de nuestras manos son distintas
hemos dado un vuelco
somos dos que se desploman al vació.
Sólo nos queda el recuerdo: murmullo
crece hasta ser tolvanera de mis costillas
en la sangre que hacía de mis pezones dos alas mariposas
y en memoria
una lágrima detenida por años
cae como las hojas del árbol que nos dio su abrigo
            lenta en un vaivén de ola
            cruje, se esparce por el viento
                        se hace polvo,
susurro del tiempo que no retorna.
¿Dónde enterraré las cenizas
de la sombra que enmudeció mis labios por siglos?
 


Author Bio:
Isolda Dosamantes was born in Tlaxcala, Mexico, in 1969. She is the author of several books of poetry, including Paisaje sobre la seda (2008) and Apuntes de viaje (2012), and Después del hambre (2017). In the US, Toshiya Kamei has published English translations of her poems in The Griffin, International Poetry Review, and Minnetonka Review, among others.

what do you say after all the words have been said?

what do you say when the closet door is opened
to reveal all the skeletons?

nothing is a binary 
(i, of all people, know that)
and we don’t have to be changed or unchanged
but couldn’t there be more than

this?

binder yes, pronouns no. tolerance yes, pride no.
labels, labels, labels.
negotiate my existence.

we’re a half-healed whole,
mother and (?)


Author Bio:
Avi Burton is a sophomore in high school. He's definitely trans in some way, but the exact label isn't clear yet. He started writing at age 12 because he thought it would make him famous. It hasn't, but he keeps going anyway. His poetry can also be found in the Rising Phoenix Review's Disarm issue.

I must carry her through this, shove her straight ahead,
whisper love while feeling an undecided hate.
Why did I agree to this journey? Everyone watching,
like media mongers, to see if we will make it.
 
Some worry, wring their hands and pray. Others gawk,
entertained. Others are not here at all but will examine our progress
later with judgment and opinion—and I will hear all of it
when I’m most worn out.
 
A nurse fingers my vagina, describing the scene, telling me
how I should push with my next contraction.
I’ll fucking show you how to push I think smiling warmly
into the ceiling, halogen lights dimmed for evening.
 
Tell me there are rivers, stars and trees I say to my husband
pointing toward the window.
 
He has been here all along, little difference it makes because
mother-with-child is a lone animal clawing, coddling,
carving home out of deserts complete with jawbone cups
and cactus plates,
rattlesnake blankets, rainwater drink, jack rabbit and beetle feast.
 
She and I were always one flesh and that’s why, now suddenly,
as the rifting comes,
and the wire jaws of Hell breech, barbed and surging, our bodies
ripping from one another as she breaks out into another country
and my body retracts than breaks out too--
 
then we inhabit our own bodies again, briefly,
until I grasp her in my arms here on the other side.
Wailing and tears—we are alive. She is alive.
Camera, lights.
 
Carloads of gaping bystanders ready now to cradle her. They reach.
I reach. She is passed around the room.
Exhaustion overcomes my power to resist and retain her.
They have her. My body has me. She wails. I hear.
 
They will return her, I believe, held against my will by sleep.
 
 
​Author Bio:
Kimberly is the author of White Goat Black Sheep (FLP) and her poetry has appeared in several literary journals including The 3288 Review, Temenos, Storm Cellar, Borderlands: The Texas Poetry Review, The West Texas Literary Review, Windhover, Ruminate Magazine, Relief, RiverSedge and The Berkeley Poetry Review. She is an MFA graduate of New Engl and College, a book reviewer for NewPages, an editor for the Nimrod International Journal of Poetry and Prose and an Assistant Professor of First-Year Writing at Michigan State University. Her writing explores trauma, sexuality, violence against women, motherhood, and displacement. To read more of her work visit kimberlyannpriest.com.

We wait till our night train blossom of rose
Manage the sky at dusk for the afternoon
Build canoes designed for journey of fortune
When we got to shore, we knew we did it
 
We trade in lone lane of solidness
Drain it milk from breast, life saw it
Ganged to walk Toronto way
As much as we know, it wouldn’t cost
 
What we did, beyond years of wilderness
More compassionate than the love you Christ
Injected the venom from viper to whisper our
Handy work, we love the oak’s life
 
We still do, will do it not past or present
We were right in front of those shapes that
Perfected origin’s man and brought sack of
long learning, we still do, what we did.


Author Bio:
Daniel Ajayi is a devoted poet from Lagos, Nigeria. He is passionate about his career and realizes the opportunities life gave him. He writes from his studies of human behaviour and holds a degree in Human Resources Management. Some of his works appeared on Spillwords Press, Storried, Ovi Magazine and elsewhere.