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Letter to a Boy~ By Rayna Yu

6/11/2015

I’m not good with words
So here’s what other people said

My father said
You were
Selfish to hurt your family
Weak to end your life
When you hadn’t yet started it
My friends said
You were
Troubled
Nobody could have seen what was coming
Nobody could have helped
I didn’t say much

I’m not sad
Should I be?
You were
Only a quiet boy in gym class
Not cute enough to date
Paler than a bowl of milk
Held yourself like no one else wanted to
Didn’t mean much to me

Tonight I lie awake when I should be sleeping
Damp haired from my shower
The night orchestra of crickets and birds plays a
Cacophonous song of chirps and whistles
I think about you

And I’m not sad but
There is a space where my stomach should be
What you are and what you were and what you could have been
Flutter around my head like moths and
Murmur into my hair
Ghosts aren’t real but I am haunted

I should have grabbed you
Screamed into your face
Shaken some sense into your bony shoulders
That now slump into themselves, and turn to dirt

I’m not good with words but
I should have spoken

Author Bio:
Rayna Yu is a violinist and writer who lives in Virginia. In her spare time, she works on her young adult fantasy novel and plays with her cat. Rayna currently attends Colonial Forge High School.

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I~ By Heather Lyn

6/10/2015

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When transgender stopped
being a bad word, a dirty word
it became a strong word;
a word synonymous with the word
brave,
a word that meant her father had to
teach her how to shave--
a word that meant she became
he and could shop in the men’s
section comfortably.
It meant living--
for the first time,
living.
It meant trial
and error
with “family” and “friends”
and those who pretend
to respect him,
but only when he
was her.
It meant hurt.
It meant loss in exchange
for growth.
It meant hope.

Author Bio:
Heather Lyn is a graduate of Young Harris College in Young Harris, Georgia. She received her Bachelor’s in Creative Writing and was published in YHC's literary magazine The Corn Creek Review multiple times. She has self-published a supernatural mystery novel and was a finalist in the Agnes Scott Writer's Contest. Heather will also be featured in an upcoming horror anthology due out early Summer as well as a poetry anthology. Her second novel will be out in the fall of 2015.

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We Give Her a Name~ By Loren Kleinman

6/9/2015

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On a Monday night we name her Tegan Elysium Wade and consider the variations: Teegan or Teagan. There's hope in her name. Faith. Faith. We pray together for her body to meet the spelling, to know the variations. And then she'll see and hear the middle name, a heaven for the little poet. She is already different and perhaps difficult. But we can't be certain. We can't be certain we'll stay together because we've given her name. There's no certainty in names or labels or the parts where we hold close and decide together there's no other name. And we love each other and for certain people that's enough. For certain people there's nothing in a name. For sure, though, we know her name already. We're certain we know us.

Author Bio:
Loren Kleinman’s poetry appeared in journals such as Drunken Boat, Nimrod and Paterson Literary Review. Her interviews appeared in IndieReader, USA Today and The Huffington Post. She is the author of The Dark Cave Between My Ribs, which was named the best poetry collection of the first half of 2014 by Entropy Magazine. Her third poetry collection, Breakable Things releases March 2015 (Winter Goose Publishing).

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Only if~ By Caleb Watts

6/8/2015

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Only if we could feel our own thoughts.
What if we could express our deepest desires?
Only if we could see people the way they were,
and help the people who needed help.
What if we could dream big dreams,
and live in reality when it's real?
Only if...

Author Bio:
I am a young man with many interests. I take pride in the arts because the arts is what gives man a culture.

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Tales from a Death Bed~ By Namitha Varma

6/5/2015

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I'm reading your story
scrawled across your body
in crumpled skin,
pouches of clotted blood,
streams of blue pulsating through your throbbing veins;

Those glazed eyes,
hawk-like and helpless at the same time,
the witch-like nose,
sharp and hooked,
with a toothless grin
and jutting chin
Tell the tale of lost love, self deception and hubris...

A flat chest sagging with leftover stumps of proud full breasts,
stray white strands masquerading as hair,
skin crinkling like new silk between my fingers,
Talk of a rich life.

While my eyes drown in the pathos
of your rotting age,
tubes and wires all around you,
Men and women throng the hospital to cluck their tongue in pity
and watch your shrinking life with repulse.

Stripped of the power of youth,
You lie vanquished by old age.

Author Bio:
Namitha Varma is a media professional based in Bengaluru, India. She is a voracious reader, a music enthusiast and an opinionated social observer. Her works have been previously published in Sahitya Akademi’s journal Indian Literature (May/June 2014), eFiction India (various issues), Coffee Shop Poems, Flash Fiction Magazine, Hackwriters, and A Little Poetry. Her poem has been read out on NPR Radio as part of the National Poetry Month, via #TMMPoetry. She can be reached on twitter via @namithavr.

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Lost Plane~ By Yailyn Garcia

6/4/2015

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The tracking of planes
has become a global sport,
open for business.

Amateur photographers post
thousands of images
showing arrivals and departures.

Under Iranian law,
any American aircraft needs
prior approval to touch down on Iranian soil.
yet Iran had an unlikely visitor; a plane,
bearing an American flag on its tail.

Author Bio:
Yailyn Garcia is a junior at Miami Arts Charter School. She has received an honorable mention for poetry in Scholastic, and has been published in two poetry books. She currently lives in Coconut Grove with her mother who struggles with Multiple Sclerosis, and her father who struggles with Hypercoagulable.

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What Have We Become?~ By Kathleen Murphey

6/3/2015

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Central Command buzzed her clear
She passed into the clean, cool air
The sun shining bright cast the yard in stark light
A basketball court within the fence,
topped with barbed-wire and menace
As she walked to her car, the knocking commenced
With conflicting emotions, she raised her hand in salutation,
in acknowledgement,
in sorrow for their predicaments

She taught college courses in the prison for the community college
Some of her students,
men from Cell Block B and Cell Block E,
waved from their cells,
through the bars and the windows of their cells
Other men waved too,
for salutation, for acknowledgement, for encouragement
from a woman other than a guard
Indignation, frustration, sorrow, compassion, anger, empathy, pity--
all flashed through her mind--
After all, she could be one of them, if only …

Men in cages, cages in which we put men,
What have we become?

Author Bio:
Kathleen Murphey has a Ph.D. in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation was on Loren Eiseley (1907-1977). She teaches English Department courses and Women in History at Community College of Philadelphia. She has looked at issues surrounding female sexuality in popular culture in her academic writing and is now exploring some of those issues in fiction from short stories to poems. She believes that the personal is political and that fiction and poetry are important vehicles for protest and for re-envisioning our world and our choices. In her ideal world, people would read a wide variety of literature to help them sympathize and empathize with all kinds of different people and to empower them to work toward a world in which all human beings are treated with courtesy, tolerance, respect, and civility. Literature can transform lives, so every poem is an invitation for transformation. In addition to teaching and writing, she is the mother of three lovely girls for whom she wishes a better, kinder, and more socially just world.

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Our Mother~ By Annasofia Padua

6/2/2015

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Disregarding all warnings
of red ants, roaches, mud
and extreme heat,
I decided to walk into the forest.

At first, yes
it lived up to its unpleasant reputation
but,
there is no better place to sit
than under all of the towering trees.

The noise of the crickets and the wind
Whispering at the plants,
cured injuries
harmless scratches
couldn't compare to

Thin tree branches sunk into the soil
as if they were making holes on purpose
in order for people to set up tents

the forest welcomed me
and as my vision drifted
towards the details the forest carries
like a loving mother would her child,
I noticed
we are killing the purest things we know

The mockingbird doesn’t know why it sings
but it does
and everyone listens

The grass didn't pick to be green
but along with bushes with small leaves
and sunflowers
who wear bright yellow
it establishes roots of beauty
never achieved by a human being.

As I layed back,
I heard the immense tree
Speak to me
Through strength.

Our minds create buildings
And side walks
But they will never create this.

Yet our ignorance towers our abilities
and runs through these very forests
with hypocrisy.

We are hell to the thing that gives us the power to
were killing the green goddess that gives us life
but our mother will rise again
from accepting our disrespect
and kindly swallow our bodies full of toxins

Author Bio:
Annasofia Padua is a sophomore at Miami Arts Charteer majoring in creative writing. She has written work in fiction, poetry, non-fiction and more. Anna is a big nature lover and enjoys being outdoors.

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Wanted Dead or Alive~ By Patricia George

6/1/2015

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Hearing howling in her dream she moves
In the direction of the kitchen window
Overlooking the backyard
Dead African violets sit in pots
Wilted and brown
She waters them, hoping they’ll revive

A pack of wild dogs is charging the house
Frightened she moves past the kitchen
Passing the rumpled newlywed bed
Still warm from last night’s love

Her body in the new gold dress with
Orange polka dots and
Long ruffled sleeves
Hangs from the hallway ceiling
Dead to her old life

She will plant zinnias this summer

Author Bio:
Patricia George has worked as a public school teacher and a tutor. She works as a piano accompanist for the local school choirs. She writes in all her spare time and paints in the summer when school is out. She writes poetry to clear the cobwebs out of the mind and make a straight path to communication. She has a B.A. degree from Fresno State University in California and has postgraduate credits from San Diego State University and Colorado State University. Some of her publishing credits include The Muse, Dark Matter, Anderbo, Thoughtsmith, Red Booth Review, Fortunates, Inner Art Journal,The Scapegoat Review and Penduline Press. Visit her at: patriciageorge.biz

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