The natural women, 
wearing what is suitable for the surroundings of their hometown, 
have become endangered because nowadays social media supports the creation of 
a false image and you have to be an "anime girl" or a real-life princess even if you are living in the wetlands of South Carolina.

Once the Venus Flytraps ruled the East Coast of the USA,
but today there are only a few who possess the key 
to their core essence,
to their sweet spot,
because women are told to 
distance themselves from the truth
and to dress up like the Lolitas from Japan
or the jet-set reality stars from California 
(whose designer clothes, btw, have driven them into an everlasting debt spiral)
or if they want to be "natural," they have to follow the style of the dreadlock-wearing
feminist vegans
of New York.

A real Dionaea muscipula is a woman who roams in the woods 
in her 
faded jeans and t-shirt,
or hangs around in the garden in her nightie even when it’s five p.m. 
causing a fuss
in the midst of the "good old church folk."

A woman like this has no interest in catching the little flies, 
she’s waiting for the grand-prize: 
Squirrel Treefrog, the man of the woods
who loves taking long walks in the rain.


Author Bio:
Paula Puolakka (1982) is a Beat poet, writer, and MA (History of Science and Ideas). In 2019, she landed second in Dreamers & MLK poetry contest (NC, USA) and was awarded in the essay contests held by the Finnish Reserve Officers Federation and Single Parents Association. She was given an honorable mention in the blackout poetry contest held by Tiny Spoon Literary Magazine. She has also been the winner of the daily poetry challenge held by Poetry Potion (South Africa) 15 times between April and October 2019. In 2017 and 2018, Puolakka also landed first and second in the writing contests held by Re:fiction and Literative. Her latest work can be found through Spillwords Press and Former People’s blog. The Finnish newspapers Savon Sanomat, Kainuun Sanomat, and Lapin Kansa have supported her by steadily publishing her reader’s opinions.

As I open the door
I see summer’s blue sky
And the light that shines
Across the world.
I see an enchanting glow
Throughout the land among me,
The green grass and the dandelions
Flow through the fields like ocean waves.
The cruel snows, winds, and leaves
Have all vanished, and I know that
Summer has arrived.


Author Bio:
Christopher Cordova is a 15-year-old from Salt Lake City, Utah and part of the Creative Writing Program at Judge Memorial Catholic High School.

Ethereal with white hair, fragile wrinkled skin and blue eyes that mirror my own.
Clouds of heaven at last ready to welcome her
Like they did her soulmate over ten years ago.
Tulle of wedding dresses may wear and rip, but their love is eternal.
Clouds, Los Nubes, Au Nuages
Transport her away from the walls that watched her memory fade and her bones break.
Take her to where he waits with their two Angel babies
to welcome her with a platter of milk chocolate.
Soul of the most kind and gentle type, 
Through many trials and tribulations did she suffer in the later years of her life.
Azure skies let her bypass the gate, send her to 
Heaven straight. 


Author Bio:
A longtime resident of Woodbridge VA, Sarah lives with her mom, dad, sister, brother and two cats. Sarah has always loved writing and her senior year she finally had space in her schedule to take a creative writing class. Her fiction piece "90 Day Ghost" was published in her award winning school literary magazine Eddas. 

​I don’t know what it’s like to feel warm anymore.
Paint’s falling around my body, talking coldly.
Fingertips reaching out, temperature drops, paint drips down.
Galvanized, I don’t feel my legs. I decide that,
Heat must come from paint cans. I can stay awake.
 
Seductively, it asks me “Will this kill you?”
Ring around the Rosie, I’ll always play. What’s next?
Through intoxicating unease, I say “No Grey, not today.”
On a Friday, I float further away, pulsing.
Crackling joy winds itself round my veins concealed.
 
Heavy, tachycardic breathing, am I blinking?
Spying, grey-soaked eyes unapologetically 
Obscuring my boundaries. My skin is repulsed by my organs.
Cut me open, and you’ll see Grey.
Reel me back in place. “Grey, you’re electrifying.
You’re messing with my head in all the right spots.”
 
Grinning, it feels pink and pretty. Grey grabs me,
Twisting, forcing, leading me. I think I’ll stay here.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen all give me small distorted gifts
But, thirteen doesn’t make me sleep.
Thirteen, I like best.


Author Bio:
Harmony Filson is a junior at Cumberland University in middle Tennessee. She is an English and Secondary Education major, and plans on one day obtaining a doctorate in English. She hopes to teach at a university after she is done with schooling. She started writing fiction when she was in high school, but has since transitioned to other genres. She writes poetry and nonfiction, and hopes to share the passion she has for writing with her future students. A lot of her writing is influenced by memories and harsh truths throughout her life. She likes reading and writing work that makes the reader question boundaries and traditions. She hopes to one day publish a novel and own a farm, and plans to keep writing poetry while she works towards these goals. 

Sisters of pure water
dividing time into waves,
you swim my dreams
with an azure of song.

Tell me the story of oceans,
of ice floes that calve
into northern seas,
of the exile of hope.

Legends of thirst
drink the brine one time,
then become the seasmoke
rising along my shore.

Tell me the elegy of water,
the craving for rain
that lives in the clouds,
the desolation of satisfaction.

(after Rimbaud's "L’Esprit")


Author Bio:
Born in Pennsylvania, David Anthony Sam is the proud grandson of peasant immigrants from Poland and Syria. For much of his life, he lived and worked in the Detroit area, graduating from Eastern Michigan University (BA, MA) and Michigan State (Ph.D.). He lives now in Virginia with his wife and life partner, Linda. Sam’s poetry has appeared in over 90 journals and publications and his poem, “First and Last,” won the 2018 Rebecca Lard Award. He has five published collections including Final Inventory (Prolific Press 2018) and Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson, the 2016 Grand Prize winner of the GFT Press Chapbook Contest. He currently teaches creative writing at Germanna Community College, from where he retired as President in 2017. He serves on the Board of the Virginia Poetry Society. 

A forest stands
Strong and tall,
Until the day of its fall.
We are destroying the lands
With our very own hands.
The world is not a doll,
So I ask you, please don’t maul
The trees that stand tall.

Pollution in the air,
This is not fair.
The water is gone,
This is a con
We need to change this now,
But how?


Author Bio:
Kate Yarrish is a young writer in high school. She is often busy with school, but when she has free time, she likes to write, golf, watch Netflix, and hang out with her friends. Her friends would describe her as determined and creative.

Tiny dancer, 
teach me to be like you,
with tick legs not very good for carrying weight
but perfect for spinning in circles,
and feet that are as light as feathers
even while they bleed.
I want to know how you carry so much sorrow in your little shoulders,
wrapping the pain around you like a ribbon and
stripping it again like paint, toe by toe, one twinkle at a time.
Tiny dancer
I want to live in a music box
where the music plays so loud I won’t be able to hear my own voice.
Barely remembering to breathe until
the rhythm stops
and I don’t have to anymore.
I can see it now, the key winding to a halt as I finish my last show.
It’s the glimpse of a gravestone,
an epitaph that reads
she was nothing if not nice to look at.
I would like to be beautiful,
If I cannot be real.


Author Bio:
Taylor Yarns is a sixteen-year-old writer from Buffalo, New York. After reading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh in fourth grade, she realized that she wanted to write for a living, and has been hoarding notebooks ever since. She recently joined her local writing community by becoming a Youth Ambassador at the Just Buffalo Writing Center. Her work is a mix of prose and poetry that incorporates some of the elements of the fairytales that she holds near and dear to her heart, such as magic, love, found families, and characters that beat unlikely odds. She wants to double major in English and Psychology.

Naps, kinks, curls 
Clogin’ up the drain 

10 am shampoo and condition
Suds and curls run down my back 

10:45 am deep conditioning
Pillow soft curls 
Get stuck in between the teeth of the comb
Detangling is the worst 
Can’t forget the shower cap

12:00 pm twist beyond compare 
This is gonna take a minute 
Let me find a good show on Netflix

12:45 pm one section at a time 
Two down three to go 
These twist gone be FYREEEE
Just about half way there 

1:25 pm I CANT FEEL MY ARMS
One section left 
The pain almost over

2:00 pm Victory Is Mine !!
Ugh 
My neck is wet


Author Bio:
Rukaya Williams is a student at Truman State University. She wrote this poem using Rupi Kaur style to describe a typical wash day for someone like her with naturally curly hair. "Having thick natural hair can be a pain, almost feels like a second job. But at least I have toned muscles." ~ Rukaya Williams