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Late on Arrival~ By Uzomah Ugwu

10/2/2019

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The way she stumbled over her letters
It felt like she was falling downstairs made of mountains
Unaware we had hung onto every cliff of her words
Her sentences blurred between spaces
Where delusion and reality
could never really meet and form into a complete thought
Out in the open with the doctors
hoping we could reach her where the medicines didn’t
We found that we came for her only to find
she had departed long before we arrived
and in a way, the doctors and nurses couldn’t describe
Now rocking in her chair the glare from her glossy eyes
appeared to make some type of contact
with a vision that had a mission that was only known to her
If only she could sit still long enough
maybe she would see it, for all of us to see
Chapped lips with a long distance droll
oozing out of then made her words slide
down sentences unsure as to where they went,
hair not even slightly brushed like her teeth
this sight of a woman once so well kept
made it even harder for us to keep our mind right
not knowing what to feel angry upset or just depressed
sitting still where time rushed by us
where we were tortured by life’s lie
that everything was going to be alright
Alerted that our time was up we left her in her chair
Grinning than sobbing, celebrating holidays
than even howling in her own world
that left us all out of it and nowhere near seeing her
other than what was just in front of us
which was an illness filled with blissful despair


*This work was first published in The Scarlet Leaf Review

Author Bio:
Uzomah has a way of capturing a scene and the feelings that allow you to follow and flow within the realms of her poetics as you read each line filled with metaphors. Her placement of ideas and images leaves you dangling all the way throughout the poem, line by line with trauma, pain joy or a mixture of both that reveals some type of solitude. She surprises you in end with something she does not even may mean to say at all, that we all might be feeling, and had not felt until reading one of her poems.
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Cover Up~ By Lindsey Schaffer

10/2/2019

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Don’t you wonder what they might think?
Hide your body 
Which you have sculpted all season
From the greasy tar of pavement 
Thickening the soles of your warm sneakers
You pasted tendons into muscles from the sweat of a thousand runs. And yet you must hide the features
That grace you with animation 
So you can lunge, stride, swirl
Across the galaxy
with hundreds, millions, trillions, of roads, lovers embraces, nations to explore. 
How do you think your scold trodden torso 
Responds to being hidden beneath a cotton cage, day and night, for nothing more than existing? 
One day animation will leave your limbs 
And as your spirit reflects
From a translucent daydream 
you will remember that the very thing that tried to teach you the meaning of love, femininity, and spirit 
you chose 
to cover up. 


Author Bio:
Lindsey Schaffer is a current undergraduate student at the College of Saint Benedict. When she is not reading or writing she enjoys perusing through museums, going on a long run, analyzing film, or listening to podcasts.She has a poem published in the literary magazine Surfaced as well as three articles published in The Mankato Free Press. 
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Yet You are Mine~ By Tabassum Tahmina Shagufta Hussein

10/1/2019

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If one day all the ice from the Himalayas to the Alps melt
Even then you are mine.
If one day Niagara Falls goes away to the Sahara
Yet you are mine.
If one day, there is not a drop of water left 
From the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean 
Still, then you are mine.
If one day the Ganges-the Danube-The Rhine-the Nile
Parch themselves,
Hitherto you are mine.
If one day, the Vesuvius and the Etna
Get the singed while burning continuously
Then, still, you are mine.
If one day, the third world war initiates to destroy the world,
Still, you are mine.
If one day, all the light forsakes the sun and the moon 
Then you are mine. 
If the snow in the Siberia ever nurtures green crops,
Yet, you are mine, and, still, you are mine.

Note: The Poem is influenced by the one line “You are mine” from the poem “In My Sky at Twilight” By Pablo Neruda. The farfetched imagery and the hyperboles are inspired by the poem “The Definition of Love” by Andrew Marvell. The poem presents a reverse view of Andrew Marvell which is pessimistic and platonic.


Author Bio:
Tabassum Tahmina Shagufta Hussein lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Born in Chittagong, Bangladesh, she was influenced by the natural beauty of Chittagong. Her liberal family background played a vital role in modern thinking. In her both SSC and HSC, she secured Position in the Merit list. But instead of pursuing traditional subjects to secure a lucrative career, she studied English Literature. After getting her MA in British and American Literature, she served as a faculty in the department of English in Private Universities. She likes a challenge and joined the corporate world later. And became head of training of HR Division. Now she is a freelance writer. She is aesthetic. She loves and breathes literature. She has an interest in art, painting, history, philosophy, theology, and psychology. She loves recitation and takes part in recitation programs regularly. Reading and traveling are her hobbies. She strongly supports equal rights, human rights, and intellectual property rights. She strongly believes in humility and civility. As a philanthropist, she tries to improve the educational system by serving as a member of the governing body of her hometown college. She is currently doing her second Masters in Human Resources Management. She loves to interpret literature and art with the colours of her mind. She regularly reads poetry and tries to write poems. She sees the beauty in everything. From twinkling stars to the blade of grass. Aestheticism is the essence of her existence. Some of her poems are published in online literary journals.
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