In a carrier bag Chinese lanterns are creased and faded
long ignored
I am surprised by your moment of sentiment
you want to keep them
 
a child in your voice
remembers them hung crisp and bright
by a mother who tried to care
 
grown now you know
it wasn’t you who drained her smile
she carried your dead sister through sepia streets
and wore the memory like a stone
 
keep the lanterns safe
close the bag
don’t let them fade any more
and sometimes look with a small boy’s eyes
at who she tried to be


Author Bio:
Karen Ankers lives in Anglesey, North Wales, where she draws inspiration for her writing from the landscape and Wales’ mythical tradition. As well as writing poetry, she enjoys writing one act plays, in which she tries to give a voice to those usually ignored and unheard. Her plays have been performed in the UK, America and Australia, and she is currently working on a novel.

The two lovers sit at the table round, each wearing their sorrowful frown. 
"A toast I say to you my dear." He says watching the snow.
"A feast for you, my heart is ripe, seductively sweet my tears." Speaks she in tones most low.
They drink the two, with modest flair, tension hanging by threads most bare.
"More food, more pain!" Shouts he, though it does no good.
"Your chance has passed!" Speaks she & dons her hood.
"Dear Friend leave me not here in a desolate place." He races to her side. 
She draws up her robes and steps ‘round with a mighty stride. 
Opens the door, does the damsel fair, giving curses to the frosty air.
The steps she leaves in sparkling snow, go forever down the road. 
They disappear as his tears flow, closing the door to the love he’s known.
A knife he spies on the table grown cold, a notion thinks he, "May I never grow old." 
He plucks the steel from the icy slab, eyes turn to God, there then he does stab.
"A nap now." Thinks he and he breathes no more, never hearing her rapping upon his door.


Author Bio:
Chad McClendon is a 30-something-year-old author who lives in Northern Kentucky with his family. Chad has recently published a young adult novel through Solstice Publishing, and the company has named him Author of the Year. Chad has published several other short stories and flash fictions, most of them horror in nature. Chad draws his inspiration from history, and his own nightmares. Chad’s favorite scary stories center around ghosts, and he is currently marketing a Novella concerning a call center that caters to the recently deceased. A recent trip he took a trip to Salem, Massachusetts in preparation for his next novel, Natalsa of the Brim – a story of witchcraft, secrets, and shadowy love affairs. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, and his website.

The last time I returned to the island of my birth, I went with passport in hand,
new luggage and a reservation at a hotel located on the beach. Once there, I ate my fill of 
ackee and salt fish, drank too much rum punch and listened continually to my beloved 
reggae. I ignored the “real island people” unless they were cleaning my hotel room or 
serving my meals. My long vacated family home was not ached for or even thought of. I 
was a stranger to my birth place; a true visitor to the island. I felt perfectly content in 
keeping my past at arm’s length. Hadn’t I worked hard to lose my accent, to act and 
speak like a Yankee? Wasn’t I now considered American? I removed my heritage like
an old ragged overcoat that once covered me in shame and humiliation. Words from 
childhood taunting still echoed in my mind: Her parents don’t speak English they 
speak coconut. Look at her lunch, why does it smell so funny? Who dressed her this 
morning a blind clown? I raced to escape my culture, made myself over into 
a newer better version. I am no longer the little girl afraid to speak in public; no 
longer the child afraid to eat her lunch in front of others. In public I am a real American. 
Behind closed doors my speech and culture remain, as it always will be, West Indian. In 
the end I belong nowhere. Not to the island that I so easily gave up, not to a country that 
will never truly be mine. I am nothing but a fraudulent historian attempting to rewrite a 
past that can never be changed.


Author Bio:
Arlene Antoniette is a lover of all things beautiful. Lacking the skills of an artist, she turned to the written word as her tool to express and release her emotions. Arlene holds a B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Psychology.

as I once 
plucked petal from flower,
I now strip you bare

scale by scale,
remaking you 
into bristle: 

into fragments 
of a former self,
reaching 

for parts 
stolen away:
for ghost-limbs 

of a trauma
we couldn't see,
so I pluck you

and you fall
and drop your seed,
returning to earth

for restoration:
for that healing cycle
where we all must go
to continue to grow. 


Author Bio:
Kourtnie McKenzie is a teacher, writer, and artist from Fresno, California. Her writing and art has centered around awareness for women with autism since she discovered she was on the spectrum in 2014. In 2016, she was awarded the Ernesto Trejo Poetry Prize; the same year, she graduated with her MFA in Creative Writing from Fresno State. Her publications have appeared in Calyx Journal, Barking Sycamores, Barely South Review, and others. When she isn't reading or writing, she's teaching in a special education classroom at a local high school, or she's playing with her six cats, two birds, and five fish. Visit her website at www.kourtnie.net.

She is a child of the unknown
Parents long-lost
Home unfound
Life striving for family.

She is passionate and elusive
Territorial and wide-eyed
Bright and exquisite
Pushing others to get ahead.

I have pained to reach her
With a mother’s arms
Home pulled away
With a lost sheet of paper.

I am discouraged and pained
Yet reaching resolutely
Pulling the fleeting thoughts toward me
That will reach my destination.

She is a child of the unknown
I have pained to be her mother
She is elusive and far from me
But my destination is soon to be found.


Author Bio:
Hannah is a lover of writing, traveling, and social justice through entrepreneurship. Pursuing her dreams, she is on her way to a life in Ethiopia where she will be an English teacher by day and by night, a volunteer with widows hoping to start their own businesses. She loves to step in completely unaware and unprepared, ready to learn about the culture surrounding her and modifying her approaches to suit their community needs.