There is a place
where rain,
it falls upon the earth at night;
the ground,
its tireless ways,
collects it into thirsty pebbles;
and time becomes lost in any eyes that will hold it.
The slightest word dissolves it.
Some say there is nothing out here worth believing in,
nothing to hold onto.
I say, maybe.
Maybe the entire rhythm of the universe
is locked away inside each droplet,
and if I stand here long enough, noticing,
at least one tiny particle will break open
wide enough for me to catch it,
all wet and shining from the morning,
full, and glittering with promise.


Author Bio:
Sarah Rehfeldt lives with her family in western Washington where she is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her poems have appeared in Appalachia; Weber – The Contemporary West; Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction; and Kaleidoscope: Exploring the Experience of Disability through Literature and the Fine Arts. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart prize in poetry. Sarah is the author of Somewhere South of Pegasus, a collection of image poems. It can be purchased through her photography web pages at www.pbase.com/candanceski

On that cleaning day
When the late spring heat broke
In my house, the cool water splashes 
Sounded over the sound of dragged 
Furniture, and I sung alone. 
Cinderellaizing myself with 
The mop and giggling at the joke 
I pushed the loud table in place, 
And stood somewhat bowed, index finger 
Flying noticeably all around. 'Now, Now' 
‘You little thing, making noise? 
What is it that you hide?' 
(A funny mother am I). 
On that same cleaning day 
I have let my finger lay
On my jaw, as I tried to look
Thoughtful and flipped through 
The sketches in his drawer.
I rummaged through the drawer
And colored the gray sketches
One by one, then swelled my 
Nose on the paper, drew the wrinkles 
I possess and finally, rubbed the 
Curves off the sketches. 
On the dinner table I hid my smile
In the water glass as he looked
At the sketches, and hid his fury
In his plate. I grinned at him
Because I was no more a sketch,
In his drawer. He grinned back not
Because I was no more a sketch,
In his drawer.


Author Bio:
Rabia Basri Malik is a 21-year-old thoughtfully bold and boldly thoughtful aspiring poetess. She has recently started writing poetry and publishes her poetry on her blog frombreezestostorms.wordpress.com. She considers herself a poetess-in-making and sees herself as a bold voice for women.

I do not know your name 
but I know how you are feeling 
between the wall of skinny jeans
and skinnier models 
the world will stop if you gain a pound 
slashing meals 
like you were warrior 
and food is the enemy 

I remained silent as I watched 
a girl about twelve crying openly 
because she went up a size 
a sales woman trying to calm her 
her mother looking at her 
like she turned into a monster 
a product of this society

I have been down that path 
it is darker than any fairy tale 
I know that you are not joking when you say
you are not going to eat today 
I felt the pain of hunger 
in order to fit in 
jeans will not make your happy 
so worried about the number of the scale 
that I missed out of life 
I am not saying that I am perfect 
I still have bad days 
when the only thing I want to do is 
rip my guts out 
the good days are out weighting the bad 

I should have gone over to tell you 
your worth is not in correlation 
to the size of your hips 

but I did not 
I was still fighting 
the war within me 
think of this as
a declaration 
we are sisters 
in a world 
ready to cut us in half 
I am telling you 
it is oaky 

you are beautiful 
you are powerful 
you are smart 
you are good 
you are perfect 


Author Bio:
Krysten Lipp is a recent graduate from a small university in Ohio. She holds a dual BA degree in Creative Writing and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. It was during undergrad when she first started writing poetry and has not stopped since. She hopes in earn her MFA in Creative Writing sometime in the future, but right now she is content living with her parents while she searches for a job that will not crush her soul. She writes about mental health, feminism, grief, searching for peace, letting go, and any other topic that society is hesitant to speak about. She still has not mastered the art of letting go but she is searching for peace everyday. 

It comes and goes, disasters on the news,
wearing old clothes for comfort,
a shirt the color of the sky, blue as that,
and a hat to protect me from the sky,
and the routines of it, the bearing up stuff,
you know what I mean, I am sure you do,
and later how the crows are gathering in a single tree
and the sky is the color of sorrow again.
No stars. A cloudy night. An old world
and the people on it trying to break free a single
act at a time. “Halleluiah,” I hear from
the church up the road but I am a Buddhist
and all I know to do is pray deep. “May all
people be safe, healthy, happy, balanced.”
All acts count, one by one. The giant roses
on my kitchen counter are from Gordon’s
garden, blooming so big and wild, opening up
to show the world what they’ve got going.
Gordon died last month but the garden is
still there. Chasing what’s gone is what
this is about. A delight of the elderly. The daily
ardor and yes, I know there should be more order
to all this but loss doesn’t have any. It comes
like an unexpected thing. In the middle of the
night or a wedding. Any place where the tiniest
petals break open, where there is a readying for
a harvest, preparations of any kind for
sustainable life. I myself plan to fill out job applications,
and I am thinking about planting a garden of tomatoes
and sunflowers, it is still possible to do and a haiku
at the end. Seventeen syllables. “A thousand joys,
a thousand sorrows, I am grateful to still be here.”

​
Author Bio:
Charlene Langfur is a southern Californian, an organic gardener, a Syracuse University Graduate Writing Fellow and her writing has appeared in many magazines and reviews, and most recently in a series of poems in both POETRY EAST and WEBER-THE CONTEMPORARY WEST.

I always wanted to write
a poem you would approve of
but I didn't want to ask permission
so built up inside me
back waters could not flow
a constructed dam on a mountaintop
the illusion of perfection
the pond was stocked with rainbows
the valley filled with family farms
little purple flowers grew
can I live in this valley
will the dam not hold will we all drown
can we swim while holding hands

cool water
hot sun
we're treading
water so clear, the illusion I can touch bottom

will my valley sustain us, can we build a boat
can we try and see
if we sink we'll learn to breathe like fish
and wear our gills held high

shall I take that endless risk
what will life be like?
will my valley recover
will wet earth be suitable for housing

shall I trust some miracle
will produce a valley reinvigorated
a homestead we can share

we'll thrive on growing cucumbers
and raise our goats
to enjoy the muddy fog


Author Bio:
Caroline S. Knickmeier is an artist and writer living in southwestern Wisconsin. She grew up as a free range kid spending time outside, making art, and writing. As an artist her work has been described as "almost literary." All of her visual art is influenced by literature and music. She earned a BA from the University of Montana, Missoula where she studied literature, art, and wilderness, while she wrote and traveled to capture candid photographs. Art and writing are her chosen media to express, explore, and cope through life experience. Her work promotes conservation and experiencing nature to alleviate human suffering. She writes about challenges and overcoming them. She has been published in the Yahara Journal and exhibited in the Overture Center for the Arts, FSTOP Magazine, John Michael Kohler Arts Center Gallery, Gallery Marzen, Edgewood College Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Lofts Gallery, among others.

Oar's swirling wetness stinging my warrior face invisible in the revolutionary shadow
called night. 
Death lurks ‘round me, we taunt each other as at play, 
it seeking for anonymity's escape through my unwanting embrace, 
as if to exchange that state of its regularity which I avoid here, in a thirsty world;

My fitful dreaming, full of me, floating on some Arab prow in murky, black waters;
we reflect each other, lap at seeming reflections quivering to dances invented new by 
my oar, cutting deep, then gone in time's reverse as if untouched then, ever.

You find me each night, unquestioning and new is your greeting, one hand formlessly spreading wide the way of quiet being,
you knew me before time summoned me suited in mystery's wings furled against
possible flight, soon. 
And on your silkened garment of stealth does my shadowy oar dapple with thrusting
toward unknown arrivals at unknowable catapults o'er bastions of brutality's plentiful harbours.
How I long to be…….as water, said the wise eastern advisor; he, Mr. Lee, may now
envelope my smallish vessel, delivered here nightly by him who heeds some sage’s
advising, only to find expectancy's prize: I am alive.

​
Author Bio:
Joseph Baron-Pravada was born in Brooklyn, NY. He was a US Government Attorney during Watergate, when he 'Felt' uneasy about governments, and laws. Later he bacame a public company CEO, lobbyist, and now, multimedia artist, published produced playwright (paid royalties), columnist for leading magazines; his paintings have been published & exhibited as well as included in a national touring exhibition as well as several multimedia exhibitions in NY and other venues. Published diversity author via major university, winning Finalist in Stymie Magazine's 1st annual collector cards edition. Invitee, 2nd & 3rd Annual 'Slice' magazine Literary Writers Conference; Lifetime Guest Artist @ Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts via 2006 Playwriting Intensives (invitation only). In short, his work's been....paged, framed, screened & staged. http://www.angrysponge.com

I.
Of something honeyed,
you should not forget the aftertaste;
how it could, very well,
be bitter.

II.
Indulge in his nectarous words.

III.
Refuse the then a name,
as well, the before and after.
Become swallowed in his now.

IV.
Nothing
but his arms and the sun
can keep you warm
in an odyssey of a blizzard.

V.
You find a loneliness
in the hollow of his eyes;
a void.

VI.
In something of an exhale,
his words pour and run
a tiresome pace.

VII.
His sullenness reeks
with an abundance
of slighted repentance.
 
VIII.
Fear to ask;
for the disclosure
might be more sickening
than the suspicion.

IX.
Tell him of the ecstasy
that leaves you in twilight;
a bliss that is more of an idea
than euphoria.

X.
Don’t let him know
you are unstable.
That he has made you unstable.

XI.
Wish to be something
of mayflies with him.
Spoil each other with a single day
before things become rotten with mold.

XII.
Watch yourself fall more in love
with a poem than him.
Then, with no penitence,
fall out of love and land
in your own soft words.
 
​
Author Bio:
Taylor Burgin is a 16-year-old junior at Miami Arts Charter. She is graciously a part of the Creative Writing Strand in her school. She has five dogs and three cats (proudly considers herself a 'crazy cat lady') and finds her interest mostly in playwriting and spoken word. Taylor first found her passion in these two genres by watching her older brother perform on stage in plays, and realizing she wanted to be the one writing the words. She hopes that one day her own pieces will be performed and enjoyed as much as she loved writing them.

May 11, 2003:
train ride home from the land of Green
laughing faces,
quickening paces as 
catcalls knife themselves into threats.

Into a death come sixty years too
early.

A body, hard on the 
cold concrete, red
blood to reflect 
cherry blossom trees.
Just across the river from the 
freedom that hides in anonymity.

May 11, 2003:
small child, turning six years old.
She is protected as much by the 
white 
of her skin
as she is by her town of
white picket fences.

Listen to the glee
as it flees from her throat at the sight of a new present--
it echoes 
the screams that reverberate through
a Canyon of Steel

at that same moment
on that same day.

October 12, 2015:
I am no longer the six-year old birthday girl
but some kind of 
figure to Hate.
The devil has Crimed
his way into the way I love,
into the life I live.

But my dreams are not yet
deferred indefinitely
because 
of the privilege I inherited,
never earned.

Now I’ve learned that justice is just
a headline
to pose next to “Best Dressed Celebrities in Hollywood!”

Tell me,
“She didn’t have to die.”
You’re the thing that killed her. 


Author Bio:
Pascale Jarvis is a first-year student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where they* study creative writing. When they aren’t huddled in a chair, scribbling in a notebook, they enjoy painting murals, climbing trees, and kick boxing. One day, Pascale hopes to pulverize the gender binaries of society armed with pencil and paintbrush, and maybe a cup of coffee as motivation. 

​Nature whispers; quietly, she comes
on breezes of brown winter, blowing
promises of springtime and green. She bends
and bows with the tossing of the trees, laughing
at scowling human faces. She pinches
cheeks and turns them red with cold; her needle
sews a white blanket over hopes of early spring.

​
Author Bio:
Sarah Burton began writing poetry at the age of three, dictating poems to her mother. A prolific writer, she enjoys experimenting with a variety of poetic forms. She holds a BS in Anthropology, BA in Religion, and MA in Systematic Theology. She lives in Michigan with her husband Kevin.

What were our hands doing?
All the days 
we sat in a row
four sisters stacked like cups
on the long cement step, waiting for dinner.

All Julys,
late afternoon sun fell 
past sunburned feet
hair that hung 
for breeze to breathe through
yellow and brown ropes. 

Mom’s hands pulled loose hamburger through spaghetti sauce eternally
in the fat yellow bowl.

We waited to scoop up the meat with little 
corn-chip shovels.
Thin towels 
between our legs, 
to soak up lake
as if we had always been.

Some nights, Grandma’s hands were in the hollyhock.

Busy, to present us with little pink girls
bud for head
bloom for skirt
spine of slim toothpick.
We were to scoot them across the dinner table, 
pass from pale palms,
trading new colors of skirts. 


Author Bio:
Millie Tullis is a student of English and Philosophy at Utah State University. In 2016 she won the Elizabeth R. Curry Poetry Prize.