She smiles at the world,
In her father's arms.
Just a day old,
Not a care in the world.
My heart swells with joy,
As the first word
That escapes her lips,
Is “mama”...
Now she's five,
I wave her goodbye.
As she boards the bus-
It’s her first day of school.
My baby argues at fifteen,
Says she wants to be free
She laughs off
My concerns of safety.
She says she's an adult,
My baby wants to grow up.
I reluctantly let go of her,
Watch as the night swallows her.
I wait with baited breath,
For her to come back.
The night turns old-
Still no sign of my baby.
And after midnight,
When she stumbles in sobbing
One look at her,
I know what I feared has happened.
My daughter-
The one who slept in my arms,
The one whose hair I tied
Now lies broken.
Her screams pierce the house
But her tears dried long ago.
I try to make her forget,
But the wound's too deep.
I know she'll never forget
What these men did to her.
Life is torture for her-
Every waking moment hell.
It didn't surprise me really,
When I walked in
To see her
Hanging from the ceiling.
But the pain-
Who'll numb the pain?
Weeks after she's gone
She's still with me.
My baby wasn't young anymore,
Turned old not with age,
But with the evil,
That crossed her path.
I am her mother-
Not adjusted to the past tense
If only
She'd listened to me that day


Author Bio:
Preetha Datta is a student studying in Ashoka University with ambitions of a degree in Tech with a minor in Creative Writing. She likes to watch movies and travel in her free time, potentially both, together.

The little white toddler
Bathes her black baby doll
With her mother's help.
She changes the baby’s clothes
By herself,
Bestowing kisses and hugs
On the doll-a gift,
And her mother says
This
Is a good thing.

The young white six-year-old
Plays with the black girl,
Her same age,
Sharing her toys,
Knowing the other 
Has few,
And her mother says
This
Is a good thing.

The 13-year-old white girl
And her mother wait,
Standing behind the black man,
Getting a drink
From the same common water fountain,
And her mother says
This
Is a good thing.

The 18-year-old white college girl
Gets a summer phone call
From her black friend
And classmate, Patsy,
During vacation.
They talk for a long time
With frequent giggles.
Patsy is smart, beautiful
And so very funny,
And her mother says
This
Is a good thing.

Fifty years on,
I still have the photo.
Of latter events,
I still have my memories.
And I say
This
Is a good thing.


Author Bio:
Linda Imbler has been published by:
deadsnakes.blogspot.com, behappyzone.com, bluepepper.blogspot.com, buckoffmag.com, Fine Flu Journal, Bunbury Magazine, Blognostics, Nailpolish Stories, Broad River Review Literary Magazine, Mad Swirl, Ascent Aspirations: Friday’s Poems, and Unbroken Journal. Her first poetry collection Big Questions, Little Sleep has been published. Linda’s short stories have appeared in Fear of Monkeys and Danse Macabre. This writer, yoga practitioner, and classical guitar player resides in Wichita, Kansas. Linda can be reached at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com. 

Remnant of a rainbow 
grown man yelling 
picking a fight 
Young girl jerking off
an even younger looking boy 
This is what entails my MTA ride home today 
while I place my head on my backpack like a sad lost puppy 
waiting for someone to guide me home 

I was the torrential downpour 
tornado warning flashing on my phone.

And suddenly I am alone
pulling in slowly to the next and last stop on the four line 
patiently awaiting for my three day weekend 
Oh the celebration of a free country 
where we can scream at grown folk and get nasty in public 
where we can smoke a joint or silently await our fate 

Thrown into the wildernesses like a new born baby out its mothers womb
close my eyes for a few seconds and the busy New York life has me surrounded 
where we run to stand in line 
to be first to be packed in like sardines 
The world doesn't skip a beat and yet everyone's still rushing 
here I am in the moment world at a glance 
still shot frame by frame 
I imagine the world 
where people aren't touching me or staring me down like I owe them gambling dues 
The man sitting in a corner with a cane stroking his beard
as the fluffy girl bounces off of me
and we're all screaming fuck you 
But I'm from New York 
& I wouldn't have it any other way 


Author Bio:
Patricia Leonard is a 28-year-old writer from New York. She has recently been published in Three Rooms Press' anthology Maintenant 10. She writes poetry and creative non-fiction. Writing all her life, her words have transformed how she sees the world. Now finally sharing her work with the world, she is well received as a talented writer with a way with words. A natural star, she thrives before you. 

The Black Keys roll on in the background.
Rock music and refrigerator static never mix.
Muted traffic from outside the hotel window
Adds an extra element of space. 

I am not alone.

The music ends, and the space between is infinite.
I can hear your voice echo in my head.
“What song is next? When will Tyler get back?”
Rob Zombie haunts through the speakers.

I’m a super beast, the one that you wanted.
And yet, you’re about 70 miles south in a place
I’ll never know again, in a space we’ll never share.
A place that is as infinite as the space between songs.
 
​
Author Bio:
Chad W. Lutz was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1986 and raised in the neighboring suburb of Stow. A 2008 graduate of Kent State University's English program, Chad is attending Mills College in pursuit of an MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in telling lies (Fiction). His writing has been featured in Diverse Voices Quarterly, Kind of a Hurricane Press, Haunted Waters Press, and Sheepshead Review. Chad runs competitively and won the Lake Wobegon Marathon in May 2015, and recently took second at the 2 Cities Marathon in Fresno, 2016. He aspires to qualify for the Olympic Trials.

last night 
speckles in sky 
upturned umbrella
like, sky protected
rains. no thunder
simply shower 
and the moon 
covered must 
have been drenched.
outside dogs bereft 
of shelter, soaked 
in rain, protested 
while others slept. 

Author Bio:
Ananys Guha lives in Shillong in North East India. His poems have been published world wide.

The stomach is a mercenary:
Digestion, only temporary. 

I eat antacids 
By the handful
To subdue 
The tell-tale gasses--

The violence of heartburn
Blazes hot. Runs riot.
Lava dissolving
Rock. 

The chalk of medicine 
For a hell-tempted heart. 

The oven of this world 
Is lit by sparks 
Of our own ignition.

Our need for spice
And heat--
Before decomposition. 


Author Bio:
Among other things, Daniel is the lead singer/lyricist for the indie rock band Mining for Rain (www.miningforrain.com), and for many years has been a respected community activist and organizer in the labor movement. His poems have been published in literary journals and magazines, both online and in print, in Australia, the UK, and the United States, including: The Australia Times, Blue Collar Review, Colorado Life Magazine, Journal of South Texas English Studies, The Penwood Review, Shot Glass Journal, and Wayfarer: a journal of contemplative literature. His first full-length poetry collection, A Poet Playing Doctor, was published in 2015 by White Violet Press, an imprint of Kelsay Books for "advanced formalist poets." His most recent book is Put On Your Silly Pants: poems for children and very immature adults (DaffyDowndilly Press, 2016). 

For My Son

Set fire-words to burn and refine
Flames licking as I rhyme, Black Lives Matter.

Don’t pet his hair or pound his fist.
It’s asinine, and Blacks Lives Matter.

You say you don’t notice his skin.
Ignorance is “color blind,” and Black Lives Matter.

When you spit that “blue” or “all” do
You undermine that Black Lives Matter.

From ship to field to prison --
still confined. Ask yourself, do Black Lives Matter?

We shake at hoodies and traffic stops.
You say we’re fine. Do Black Lives Matter?

Elect a president who heaves 
hate in headline? How can we say Black Lives Matter?

Hands in the air, what more can he do?
How else should he sign that Black Lives Matter?

Red pools on rough asphalt
boy, still and supine. Black Lives Matter.

Stop projecting we’re violent 
or over-define #Black Lives Matter.

Your kids call him "nigger"
at school, in line. Tell them Black Lives Matter.

Do you have any of your own?
He is mine, and so Black Lives Matter.

At the orphanage, clinging to me koala style --
that time, sublime, so Black Lives Matter.

Mom, he calls, like his white brother --
In my hazel, his brown shines. Black Lives Matter.


Author Bio:
Author of the inspiring, Searched the World Over for Elie: An International Adoption Story, Sherilyn Olsen teaches workshops part-time and is working towards an MA in English at Weber State University. She and her husband live in Utah with their four children.

I see a soldier with titanium legs
Walk unaided into a dining room
For his morning meal of bacon and eggs
His nom de guerre on his uniform
My Fork and knife now back in place
My hands cover my quivering face
 
Across from me sits a military mom 
Her son deployed in Afghanistan
God only knows what passes through her mind
When the gallant soldier begins to dine
​

Author Bio:
Michael Glassman is a retired high school history teacher. He began writing poetry, flash fiction and one act plays ten years ago.

Of these, the writing of poetry interests him the most. The goal being to say as much as possible in as few words as possible transmitting powerful images, rhythm and tone in an imaginative format meant to awaken the reader's senses. 

Clouds darker than a moonless night consume the sky. Subtle breezes blow past me, but I am not afraid of what follows the rolling thunder and bright flash of lightning. No. I anticipate the rain on my face. Heavy and cold it saddens some but not me. I dream of the dreary gray skies. I long for the musty smell of freshly fallen rain upon the earth.


Author Bio:
Megan Eshleman-Landry is 16-years-old. She hopes to enlighten the world with her poetry as much as poetry has helped enlighten her.

I learned to never count on anyone
coming out of the shadows.
 
I knew that life could be taken away
by rude, large hands raised in the dark.
 
All the words would not soothe
this cavern
 
each time
I would lose an Aunt.
 
I dug the hole.
I could not discuss it in hushed rooms
 
with the Aeolian piano.
They were only mentioned at Christmas
 
or holidays but never a mention
of the men that took them from me
 
never a mention of how they came to be
 
in asylums…
under dirt
 
with the preachers words
just pushing the burial shroud.
 
James River erupting at the shore
of my ability to listen
 
“she looked good…”
 
doubled over, permanently bent
I could not straighten
 
there were too many
tombstones to see
 
too many men I did not want to be.
 

Author Bio:
Dennis Reed is a native New Yorker and a former member of the infamous poetry group, Bud Jones. His work has appeared in Essence, Style, CLA and many other magazines and literary journals. He has taught writing courses at Morehouse College, William and Mary and VCU.