Sheets tangled around lithe bodies, I am 
unbecome in this- read: drowning from this.
Once brings red flashes, twice brings muscles 
torn clean down the centre. Your face, screwed shut
in agony? ecstasy? never looked so alive in the eyes as when
you look at him. Call him a cheap fuck, 
gloryhole, a skin to slip on for the night like an evening gown.
An expert shrouded
in veils- the receipts, the pretty presents.
If you give me enough it makes up for what was lost.
Flush the ring down
the toilet, like too much alcohol winedrunk on this heady feeling
this is enough – am I enough? Drown in the sediments.
Reach inside my chest
fingers as spears, try to claw this out of me- if I use enough
bleach if I use enough ethanol if I use if I use if I use.
Time ossifies memories, like postcards to places I will 
never see. Printed on the back of eyelids. Learn how to
lean into this, the tension 
and the 
relief. 


Author Bio:
Eddie House is a 22-year-old genderqueer manic pixie daydream. In their free time, they love to write, especially poetry and short stories. They spend a lot of the time roller skating, mainlining energy drinks, and pretending to write to get their friends off their back. Can be most often found hiding in the university library near their home and trying to work before the staff can kick them out for not being a student. Their aim is for other queer young people to read their work and be inspired. They have had their heart broken more times than they can count and write about it at eddielhouse.tumblr.com. You can also find more of their work in Anatolios and Hustling Verse under their birth name. 

It has years to stand before we meet,
I have miles to go before I sleep.

The reality is crawling down my walls 
Like the hot wax from opium-scented candle.
On a good day, with bright sunlight,
I can peel some of its burnt skin off. 
Seems that someone had made a huge and ugly
Picture of the rotten world and stuck it 
To my window from outside long ago.
The colors faded away, the time does not forget
About any of us and anything around.
The tree for my coffin was planted 
Long before I was born, should be big by now.
Everything I love will eventually turn
To trash that my kids will get rid of,
As soon as I meet that mighty tree meant for me,
The tree I was promised to for eternity.
Today looks like at least the hundredth 
Groundhog Day I was meshed in and mashed in.
Winter turned the city into bare skeleton
Chilled to the back bones of skyscrapers.
The first snow this year was late, in mid-February.
I watched it from my bedroom window.
It was too cold to go outside or even out
Of the room or bed. I hope my tree was not cold,
Wherever it was or still is. I hope that it is 
Never alone. I hope it is still in the woods, 
Waiting for us to dance, standing firm and sound.


Author Bio:
Yuliia Vereta is a young writer from Ukraine, who is creating essays, fiction, and poetry that comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comforted. Currently lives and works in China. Holds the Master of Arts in Translation. The majority of her works reveal sharp social issues, moral crimes, and emotional struggle.
Her other works were published in 2019 in Salmon Creek Literary Journal, Penultimate Peanut Magazine and Litro Magazine. She received the 2018 City of Rockingham Short Story Award for short fiction and became the finalist in 2019 Poetry Matters Project as well as 2019 Hessler Poetry Contest.

Found a bird outside an icy 
storm on her way 
To die
She could no longer see so she used borrowed 
Eyes to touch the skies where she flew and flew
Now done with the protected light she went
Wild and blind in untraveled nights that 
Hid the next day’s heights

The bird met a bishop then
asked if she could see the lord
And have him hear her prayer
The bird danced around a question that was
Not meant to be there

For what god would give her
wings with this frost on them where
She was unable to fly outside in an icy storm
So, she kept her dreams and silent prayers
Unanswered because she was afraid to speak 


Author Bio:
Uzomah Ugwu is a poet and writer, that still hand writes everything including prose and essays. Uzomah is a political, social and cultural activist whose focus is on human rights, mental health, animal rights and rights of LBGTQ persons. 

Brown Skinned Genuine Magical
Legendary Intelligent Ambitious
Artistic Radiant Gallant
Confident Loyal Important 
Knowledgeable Charismatic


Author Bio:
Rukaya Williams is a student at Truman State University. She originally wrote this poem to express how she views black women. As she thought about it some more, she realized that she fit those adjectives also. She loves uplifting other black women and believes in positive self esteem boosts keep the soul happy. She hopes her poem gives a little light into another black woman's heart and soul as she reminds herself how AWESOME she is!

The strongest person I ever met could say "No"
A no to the world and all its gilded wonders
So that she may bask in the oceans of her own skin.

She would laugh, a wide smile full of pearls,
in the face of the rivers and streams
Who claim her depths are too dangerous to traverse.

I loved reading her private odyssey. You can
Find it on the coral reefs that have grown across her skin,
As mysterious and sad as the stars in their contestations.

I wish I could count every heart she’d stolen in her smile;
Every soul including mine turned to Jell-O by her touch. Instead,
I marvel at her world and wait for my vocabulary to grow.


Author Bio:
Sarah is a new writer hoping to share her work. She enjoys reading, writing, going to museums, and learning new perspectives.

The serpentine ageless liquid mercurial 
possessed snake eternally swallowed 
since beginning of time, one 
unquenchable thirst to gorge and 
slake slurping icy cold mountainous 
pebbly shake, yet fresh as zesty Irish spring 
using tongue o Gaelic spake then 
tumbling down into cavernous abyss 
subsequently carving, a deep criss 
cross patchwork across rock hard 
rugged topography like handiwork 
of invincible force commandeering 
humongous rake affixing legendary 
signature quasi-indelible grooves
only for indomitable chiseled masterpiece 
erased, twisted then wrenched
by natural landscape altering phenomena 
identified as an earthquake creating 
fresh tabula rasa to begin anew
inviting waters from on high to carve
from the ebbing and flowing 
millennial currents, which eventually find 
a more direct course beginning as trickling 
creek swells from winter rains
and thence in summer while sun doth bake,
when flora blooms and fauna 
prance firmament then abandons 
bent elbow oxbow lake
as former bend in the river.



Author Bio:
Despite hiatus sans countless years without formal ink come social security disability the linkedin source of monies direct deposited from main headquarters, which mention of unearned monies could be dumb of me, but this astute, destitute, and fruit full chap favors forthrightness hmm... no matter any chance for consideration might be nixed from an alum, asper hard school of knocks, where invisible contusions rapped this bummer - all throughout his public education, and absolutely nada one iota of gumshun detected, cuz no purpose driven life didst drive me to hum.

I feel warm sunbeams on my face and see
Bright colors as in a magical wood
I hear the wind passing by a large tree
The birds sing like a human never could.
I think back on the last time I was here
The sky seemed full of jewels as sunrise came
And as I looked around I saw a deer,
I thought she looked at me, she seemed so tame.
And then she dipped her head, a queenly nod
I felt so honored, so I nodded back.
The moment was unique, but here, not odd,
And then I heard this loud and heavy thwack!
A stranger with a gun- although he'd missed
His shot, he shattered my moment of bliss.


Author Bio:
Sloan Harlow was always an avid reader, and had a well-loved poetry book growing up. This love of reading developed into a love of writing and being able to transport people to another place. Although she enjoys writing, she hasn't been brave enough publish her work before...until now. 

On a walk to fetch the newspaper
a sight made me stop and stare
a gathering of ibis
white as altar cloth 
on my neighbor’s dying grass

a conference had been called
more birds arrived in groups
graceful swooping squadrons
wings tipped with ebony 
circling slow to land

beaks like shepherd’s crooks
blood-orange stalks of leg
bowing heads and grunting chants
a manna feast of bugs
an avian hallowed ground

a schoolboy of twelve or so
trudged down the sidewalk path 
hey look they’re thirty birds, I point
he glanced and smiled and quickly passed
polite but unimpressed

sights like these may be for eyes
who’ve learned to measure time in breaths
I sighed and opened the front door 
the scent of fresh ground coffee
rose like incense in the air


Author Bio:
Carol Folsom used to practice law but now finds joy in practicing poetry. She is proud that she was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy JAGC Corps for three years. She was awarded a Lily scholarship to a poetry workshop in Collegeville, MN, , and has been published most recently in Algebra of Owls, Belle Reve Journal, and On the Veranda. Her work is soon to appear in Edify Fiction. 

Gulls cry above combers,
plovers ebb with the tide. 

It’s time to lift the pail
painted with red starfish

and blue leaping dolphins 
with the yellow tin shovel 

to try the wet sand. You’ll
find an indigo mussel shell

and pink carapace of crab,
shiver as ocean rages over 

lost sailors’ cries in Davy 
Jones’ dark locker though

streaked with green veins
water isn’t all deeper blue. 

At the top the wave breaks,
curves and thins to faintest

jade, sea blanched by sky
a pale door you can enter. 


​Author Bio:
Nels Hanson grew up on a small raisin and tree fruit farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California, earned degrees from U.C. Santa Cruz and the University of Montana, and has worked as a farmer, teacher and contract writer/editor. His fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award and Pushcart nominations in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. His poems received a 2014 Pushcart nomination, Sharkpack Review’s 2014 Prospero Prize, and 2015 and 2016 Best of the Net nominations. 

So this is what’s left.
Despite how it looks,
What it is
Is much different.
This beautiful place,
A pharmaceutical wasteland.
Flowing through it, is a toxic river
Slowly eroding the tunnels through which it runs.
Overcoming already the few bridges that existed.
Now they lie crumbled and broken.
Once it was thriving,
Now, barely surviving
The factories run,
But they do not function
The government gave up
And have all gone away
There is no worship at the temple.
The beauty remains but the promise is gone.
The hope has all faded,
Maybe it's easier to NOT carry on.
What have we done?
Lying in silence,
Forgotten but not gone.
It sits,
Waiting for nothing.
Wishing for no one.
Wanting no more.
This land is my life,
This place, is my body.
I drank too much.
Took too many pills.
And this is what’s left.
What have I done?


Author Bio:
Jenn Mena has been inspired by a life rich of experiences and a deep connection with the power of words. Born in California, her love for writing began at a very early age, even participating in writing contests before she was ten. Growing up it was exceptionally clear she was gifted with a very natural and remarkable way with words. Her life has been built on consistent change, requiring adaptation and resilience. Much like her life, her writing reflects a keen ability to become what is necessary for that moment, skillfully versatile and seemingly effortless. She now, finally, is guiding her life path towards my love of words, coming second only to the love of her phenomenal son and greatly supportive, equally talented partner. Still an emerging writer, there is great hope and expectations in what is to come of Jenn Mena.