Dancing around their lumpy carpets and feigned jubilation
I try to join in…but keep losing my footing
Tripping on all that’s left behind
Skin ripped from my knees and shins, I begin to bleed out
I grab the broom and tear back the rug
Shrieks and shudders echo around me
Tackled to the ground and ripped apart as I attempt to remove the disarray
I am pushed out the door that once was of comfort
They don’t uncover the smut below
So naturally now I must go


Author Bio:
Prudence Elonzae was born and raised in the Midwest. She is a graduate from Concordia University where she obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Management of Criminal Justice. Prudence spent the first years of her career in the probation and parole field. She then had the rewarding experience to spend several years as a stay at home mother for her three children. 

Prudence enjoys reading all types of poetry. She has written poetry for a magical escape since her teens. More recently she has found herself using poetry as a source of healing.

Searching for the end of this
cymbal crash chaos all-consuming
hurricane heartbeat
for my battered self to find a safe haven
In you
in warm 2 a.m. walks
across frozen campus
mugs of earl grey
steam against stars
coffee
as sunlight paints skyline
first draft poetry
recovery in rhythm 
1 am phone calls of “It won’t always be like this”
the hand holding tightly to mine
When the weight of being
hangs heavy on my heart
unable to breathe
this sickness
feels like all I am
you are there
to promise
the storm won’t swallow me
completely
Thank you
for reminding me what I deserve
Thank you for being kind
even when I can’t be to myself
Thank you for listening
to stammered strings of syllables
Thank you for helping me stay
 
 
Author Bio:
Meghan O'Hern is a student at Bradley University where she studies English and Creative Writing. She is happiest when drinking coffee. She would like to thank Writehouse Ink for helping her stay.  

You had to have a Schwinn
to lead this pack of boys
riding bikes full speed
baking under the Chicago sun
laughing after senior year
heading to the local park 
to play a game of ball 
or lob a cane pole 
in the park lagoon 
with stinkbait on the hook
to catch a bullhead, 
cousin of the catfish,
small but just as tough.

Riding Schwinns was High Mass 
in the summer after high school 
before everyone would join the Army 
or wait to be drafted.
Maybe one or two of us 
had sober fathers working
and we would go to college.
I was one of those.
Going to college was something
I was told I'd do from third grade on.
So do the homework, my father said, 
or he'd wash up and visit the nuns.

Korea ended not too long before.
Two guys ahead of us
would never ride a Schwinn again
or go to college on the GI Bill. 
One guy did come back.
For years he walked in circles
around his family's back yard
smoking real Pall Malls,
unimpaired by filters, very long. 
Butch was shell-shocked,
neighbors said.
We'd have to pray for him.
They didn't call it PTSD back then.


Author Bio:
Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had poetry and fiction published in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

You were a Blue-eyed White male
who stood at the front counter.
you hastily tapped your left foot, virulently oscillating the pupils 
in your eyes waiting for a patron.

You were self-absorbed in your patriotic posture,
thirstily glimpsing through the tables.
Your wife surreptitiously explored the saloon
stocked with pub glasses
and rare etched glass from the back wall.

“The Redskins are working harder than they usually do!” she snidely yelled.
She adored the Country vocalists
who angrily lip synced Johnny Rebel covers --

I'd take from Uncle Sam and let the White man pay
if I could be a nigger for a day

…

the White man worries, the nigger don't care, 
cause at the end of the month his check will be there.

Five minutes passed on,
and I saw a Native waiter assist you.
You sat in your seats; I wasn’t too far away.
Your wife was right at your side.
She smiled. Her teeth shone
as bright as Klux hoods.
You gestured a snarky grin and
looked up from three tables over, 
glaring at the top of my flat, bushy hair
…in contempt.

“Did I frighten you?

Why?”

I peeked my Brown eyes 
above the seat, a few inches
in front of me and 
saw the stiff, blond ends of your crew cut.
You grasped oppressive visions. 
They submerged in your drowning eyes,
leering your hatred at my skin burning!
Less of a human I was to you, wishing: that I have my flesh
gorged in a black river of crocodile,
weighed down by a metal neck collar, 
castrated because I looked at
your wife.
Your eyes moulded my Black being
into a faceless alien you weaponized!
You tried to control your rage 
but channeled it,
depicting White Supremacists 
circling around me, laughing at my demise! 
Your Blue irises then drifted from the Brown of mine.

I timidly looked down at my pamphlet
trying to relax, salivating, hoping to 
scarf chicken fresco, a shrimp platter
tempting ribs, 
flaking in honey barbecue sauce
filling up my famished stomach. 

“Did I frighten you?

Why?”

I spotted your curious eyes lurking
when I leveled my eyes with yours--
Your scorning colonized my curiosity
into submission, I looked down 
in obedience like Uncle Tom.

“You worthless coon. 

Go back to Africa, where you belong.”

You scoffed at my Ochre irises 
with vainglorious pride.
Ten seconds after our eyes crossed
you bitterly flickered your eyelashes
jerked your head, took a deep breath, and inhaled
your rage.
The Native waiter cautiously approached you 
asking you and your wife for your orders.
How did you look your clerk in the eye?
His eyes were Brown, Brown like mine, Brown as loamy soil
slaved in the grounds--
Oh! They’re glazed by the same Blue 
embodying the willful ignorance embedded in you.
I know, but I can’t understand why.
Your eyes are Blue, but please change them Brown.
Look at me with Respect,
stop looking down. 


Author Bio:
Patrick J. Derilus is a third-year student at SUNY New Paltz University majoring in English with a Creative Writing concentration and a minor in Philosophy. He writes poetry, narrative fiction, memoir, and essays, and is currently working toward earning a BFA in Creative Writing.

Patrick I used to draw a lot as a child and make fiction stories out of his favorite cartoon shows. His junior year of high school, his Human Relations teacher asked if he could write a poem about the summer. The poem was four lines long. She encouraged him to write and he has continued writing poetry for 7+ years. He has also experimented with other writing forms including: screenwriting, songwriting, short stories, novellas, flash fiction, traditional fixed forms of poetry (sestina, sonnet, ode, pantoum), essays, and memoirs.

I am not the wind; 
I am its cry.

I am not the sunlight;
I am the ripened peach.

I am not the murmuring current;
I am the creek.

I am not the scale’s rainbow;
I am the trout.

I am not the memory of;
I am the blush of the dying ember.

I am not the longhorn on the hill;
I am the roam.

I am not the rising; 
I am the moon.

I am not the wind;
I am the singing oaks.


Author Bio:
Wendy Gist's poetry, fiction and essays have been featured or are forthcoming in Amsterdam Quarterly, Empty Mirror Arts and Literary Magazine, Foliate Oak, Fourth River, Gravel, Grey Sparrow Journal, Illya's Honey, Juked, New Plains Review, Rio Grande Review, Soundings Review, The Galway Review (Ireland), The Lake (UK), and many other fine journals. A native Arizonan, she now lives in New Mexico where she serves as Co-founding editor of Red Savina Review. She's the author of the chapbook Moods of the Dream Fog forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Can be pre-ordered @ finishinglinepress.com.

Diva who died
They were pious they were sane.
Hoax of piousness when divulged - 
Very choice is to kill the bird.
To kill - to kill they all said,
To not let the honor go in vain. 
They were in love and lost it in terrain. 
They thought in their wary way. 
Shattered and broken they plea,
To redo the falsifying deed. 
They were blind for the honor they lost,
Raising the sword – they trolled. 
For thou shall now taste the pleasure, 
Of love, of loss, of melancholy and of leisure.
Cutting the wings of the fragile babe.
Tears in eyes – her soul left the terrain,
He was battered and in pain.
He didn’t know his undiscerning fate.
None can undo the suffering they gained -
Honor preserved, Brutality unveiled. 
Her soul rose and held the pen,
To tell the story of the den.
She threw ink in the air, 
It was more like a flair. 
They all saw with the naked eye,
Story told by brave diva who died. 


Author Bio:
Atoofa Najeeb is a 23-year-old thoughtfully intelligent and boldly thoughtful aspiring poetess. She publishes her poetry on her blogatoofanajeeb.wordpress.com. She considers herself a poetess-in-making and sees herself as a bold voice for women. She worked as a Human Rights Activist in HRF-IIU and is currently enrolled in M.Phil. at Air University’s humanities department. 

Bare she stamps it 
to splinters and jags 
as if she smashes snow. 

It creaks 
and sinks into her. 
She feels explored. 

The snowflakes 
elbows and knees melt,
their lips too. They kiss. 

She dies like every book
when the icy lovers are deepest. 
She lives with this death for years. 


Author Bio:
Sid Orange is an autodidact. He lives in The Cotswolds in UK and likes superlatives. 

Her lullaby soothes me into a cocoon of dark weightlessness
when, with venomous spite, she yanks me from my slumber;
her Banshee screech propelling my heart
into a thunderous chorus of irregularity.
Conducting her nightly Hell, my demonic Master
smiles with satisfied sadism 
at my wretched tossing and turning.
Stealer of hope and beauty,
she imprints herself in the lines on my face and bags beneath my eyes
draining the vitality from my body while
planting seeds of desperation in the soil of my soul.
A device of torture, my bed insistently
maintains its promises of comfort and repose.
Denied of sustenance I starve and
beg on my knees at her thrown
for a scrap of the abundance she hoards.

Bored with my misery
she smugly grants me mercy...

For one hour.

Sleep is a selfish, fickle, two-faced bitch.


Author Bio:
Michelle reunited with her love writing a few years ago as a way to express the difficult internal turmoil she could not otherwise voice. Her work focuses on communicating the emotion in the details of an experience. She holds a BFA from Texas A&M University – Commerce. She is also a photographer and is currently on a twelve-month trip around the world.

I.
Her spine, her hips, her lips
arch down beneath you. 
Goosebumps tasting the heat
of her.
Only her.

II.
In the shattered shadows
of wilted I’m sorry's
and metal melted into finger flesh,
you vow no more chocolate excuses.

III.
You will find her name is a secret
you will hide behind your tongue
and only let leave at climax.
Hallelujah.

IV.
Her neck tenderized pink,
the rarest meat on the menu,
rubbed into color by your yellow palms,
the same hue as the post-its you’ll use to remember
birthdays and anniversaries.

V.
And you will fall.
Fall before her with praise
swearing she is the mother of pleasure
and the father of war.

VI.
Hold her throat in glass hands
that won’t contract,
her essence in a concrete egg.
You shall not destroy her.

VII.
Pull her close and tuck her in your lungs.

VIII.
Take what she offers,
but take no more.
Let her shake and moan,
but do not reach inside her, and
steal
her golden threads.

IX.
Tell her stories of angry drivers and late meetings,
But not of Heaven or Hell, world travel or costly wine.
In the dark river, sprinkled with star glints, as she
lies
on the bed, tell her what you will do,
but don’t exaggerate.

X.
You will
lay her on warm, fresh laundry.
Kiss her under the apple tree.
But you can’t 
don’t
won’t
shouldn’t
shall not
want her.
 

Author Bio:
Cheyenne Marco grew up on a Minnesota poultry farm and finds inspiration for her writing in her upbringing. She teaches at USD, works on South Dakota Review, does outreach for a non-profit, and fantasizes about sleep. Her works have appeared in Lake Region Review, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and Prairie Winds.

In our country
A woman who writes poetry is considered a curiosity
Every man fancies himself as the addressed
And since in actuality it is not so
He becomes her enemy!

As such Sara Shagufta
Made few enemies:
Before she could marry a writer
She had already become the sister in-law of them all
Because she did not believe
In offering expletives
Every Tom, Dick and Harry claimed
She had slept with him
From dawn to dusk
Every unemployed hack-writer in the city
Bumbled around her
Even those
Who had jobs to go to
Would leave their tatty files and worn-out wives
And let her play in their hands
(Oblivious of electricity bills, children's school fees and the wife's medicine
For these were concerns
Of the lesser mortals)
All day long
All evening
So late into the night, 
Incensed talk would ensue on literature and philosophy
When hunger struck
They'd all chip in and order
Bread and boiled pulse from the shack round the corner
Great dignitaries would then be offered tea
At her expense
They told her Pakistan’s answer to Amrita Pritam
Stupid gullible girl
She fell for it
Perhaps also because
Those responsible for her bread and butter
Always served her Kafka for tea
With Neruda biscuits
She survived
Their drooling compliments 
But for how long
One day or other she would have to escape this panther prowl and these flattering 
Connoisseurs of art
She had been nibbled away alive by
Sara went one step further and left the jungle itself!
In their symposiums
They still drool at her name
Except they can no longer eat her
For in death they have relegated her
To the status of Tomato Ketchup!


Author Bio:
Rehan Qayoom is a poet of English and Urdu, editor, translator and archivist. Educated at Birkbeck College, University of London, he has featured in numerous literary publications and performed his work internationally. He is the author of 2 books of poetry and several works of prose. He lives in London.
http://www.rehanqayoom.weebly.com