The name of the game
(if there is such a thing)

is to go long.
To grind that shit out.

To beat down your own door
when others are knocking like crazy
and to let them in anyway.

To just be invincible
when you know you are weak
and sorry as fuck.

The name of the game is to endure.
To be alone
and old
and given over
to people who mean well
and think about you
slightly
on their shift.

What they don’t know
is that you
have outfoxed them all
because you have lived
and lived
and lived

until the very end
when God confirms
that you know the name of the game.


Author Bio:
Josh King is a guitar-playing photo-shooting wave-riding maniac cum total buffoon. Dilettante and dabbler in all things even remotely interesting, he gives 100% to whatever he is dilettante(ing) or dabbling in, until he gets tired and feels the need for a nap.  His illustrious career has entrenched him in some of the most beautiful places in the world: Boulder, CO, Santa Fe, NM, Jackson, WY and the glorious sugar white sands of the Northwest Florida panhandle, his preferred napping spot. His home of all homes and place of birth is Nashville, TN, where he currently lives, loves and works (but only if someone is making him). He loves to downhill ski. Has conversation, will travel.

Too often now my mind 
rests on the dismantling of bread
By ring-less fingers, 
On dying petals of lace, the impatient trill of nature
Sounded urgently in the middle of night. 

On why I choose to color my hair? 
Bleach away pigmentation that life decided was enough to satisfy, to define.

Why my mother cried while she watched
My young sisters and I play in the waves, 
When the sun made angels out of us
Because we were young and healthy and alive
Filled with noise, with vibrations 
echoed from deep within our voice boxes, 
sounded like history, like 
the kneading of dough or upturning of dirt,
Matched with the crashing of the waves. 
And I asked her, after she held me close to her cheek, 
Pushing salt water against salt water
If I’d ever understand what she was feeling. 
“God I hope so,” she whispered urgently. 
“God I hope so.” 


Author Bio:
Amelia Wright originally hails from outside Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the middle of three daughters from two wonderful parents. She began writing in middle school as a result of her seventh grade English teacher’s dedication to poetry and prose. She was able to follow this passion into her colligate career, attending Lesley University beginning in 2009. During her time there, she was able to focus on Literature and Education, focusing heavily on the modernist poets of the twentieth century as well as devouring works by some of her favorite authors such as Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Kurt Vonnegut and Albert Camus. In the fall of 2012 she was able to attend the University of Richmond in London for the semester to study works of Shakespeare and other British playwrights and poets. She earned her degree in 2013 and since then has been continuing to write while pursing various graduate school opportunities to follow her dream of earning a doctorate in literature. This is her second published work. 

His favorite saying should have been written on his headstone
His smile grated into the sky above their favorite church
Its stained glass windows, she claimed
were more beautiful at dusk than any other time of day
as auburn sky melted behind tired trees and the field of corn
where they had first kissed.
The memory of unpatched screen doors and unused china
are as familiar as the broken engines that
littered the porch and yard, possibilities clinging like
too tight wedding bands.
They remember her order at Peg and Bill’s. Coffee. Black.
Eggs with sourdough.
Extra apricot jam.
When he would come home in the morning
clothing damp with sweat and
sadness hanging from his slumped shoulders
they would make the music of droplets on tin roofs
their private slow dance.
Their anniversary passed again this year
and Peg and Bill still remember her breakfast order
and his slumped shoulders
and their too tight wedding bands.


Author Bio:
Cody Haight was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She now resides in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In her free time she enjoys free writing, spending time with her family, and taking walks with her dog, Jake. 

You were born in 1915
when the internet and television did not exist,
a time when single pregnant women
were a disgrace
and you had to bind to
the rules of your sex.

In your childhood
you watched your parents
baking bread,
cultivating potatoes and corn,
bearing the storms of life.

You migrated with your siblings 
at an early age, 
the burden of being an immigrant 
was your crown,
your accent faded away
and you married a nice, hard-working
gentleman.

There was no time for anything,
you told me;
Like a thoughtless ant 
you worked from Monday to Monday
sewing the bed sheets where people
would have night dreams;
Efficiency was your jewel,
work your reason to be alive.

You filled hours with cakes and pies,
you scrubbed floors,
making them sparkle for 
everyone.
But on Sundays, once retired,
when you played cards with your friends,
I felt empty.

Your love might have been bigger
than your working frenzy to serve others
for I missed you,
even though you buried 
your spirit under scrumptious food
and shining floors.

Now, at age ninety-eight,
dementia swallowing your soul,
bedridden, with brittle bones,
you smile at me,
you tell me that 
there was no time for anything.
You had to sew from morning till night,
and then you made dinner.

My grandfather stayed up late
devouring books,
a bookworm—just like me—and
there was no time to make love.


Author Bio:
Julia Hones is a creative spirit, an inquisitive mind, a poet, a writer and everything in-between. Her poems and stories have been published in an array of literary magazines and anthologies such as The Mindful Word, The Artistic Muse, Gadfly Online, TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism, The Voices Project, Black Mirror Magazine, Coffee Shop Poems, The Greensilk Journal, Epiphany Magazine, Vox Poetica, "You, Me & a Bit of We" Anthology and others. She is the poetry editor of Southern Pacific Review and runs a literary blog.http://juliahoneswritinglife.blogspot.com

Obscure even to your
Mother’s bridge partners
Hypnotized we shared
A room over Buddha’s Burgers
We were always just
Learning how to fly,
Practiced daily in a
Mirror Simon Says
Don’t move as the whole
World is standing still
The Lady of the Lake
Says love means nothing
Now native to nothingness
Just a new from nowhere
As the doctor examines
The scars on your wrist
Watchtowers fade under
An antic Antares
At the Beach I catch
Rain with an opened mouth.

Author Bio:
I was born in Walton-on-Thames, England in 1945, graduated from San Diego State University in 1977 BA in Philosophy, have been an educator most of my life and currently a high school teacher (planning to retire this year) in Tampa Bay where I live with my wife, Elba.

My life began when I was told it was gonna end on a hospital bed. My limbs felt like lead but were as delicate as glass. I was breathing through a tube hardly hearing my doctor through my blurred vision. I wanted to leave and just walk away from my sickness. I fought for my life with the will to live. I remember headaches from fearing to fall asleep. I didn't look at the time of day it was, I didn't wanna know how much time passed. I counted my breaths. Every minute was spent working for another day. I began to promise myself a future and promises to travel the world. I indulge with feeling good again even when the bad has taken over. I collected every moment in my life to see what have added up to this. Every love I ever had. Every love I didn't. All the moments I outstretched my arms and felt the wind blow through my clothing. All the nights I didn't sleep. So this where my lies began. I reached down to the child part of me that still believed in fairy- tales. I started to depend on the part of me that never grew up, that believed anything. So I convinced myself I could last forever.



Author Bio:
My name is Maria Janette Michaud I grew up in Middletown,Connecticut. I’m still learning about myself. I'm constantly changing, with my creativity stretching further everyday. Mostly my poems reflect from my imaginative stories, and character situations. I'm currently enrolled at Montserrat College of Art. I plan on majoring in art with a creative writing minor. I find an interest in art that can catch realism and I want to strengthen my artistic skills; while keeping writing apart of it. My writing also origins from my interest in writing for scripts for films. Growing up as a dyslexic writing was something that wasn't an easy task for me. I still choose to write till this today, because i’m proving to myself that I can overcome a challenge. I believe that everyone has a story to tell, whether it an entire book or just one page. This is me reaching out and telling mine.

I heard once that
there are no such things
as happily ever afters.
At least, not the ones
from fairytales.
There are no princesses,
no princes, and no, not even
a knight in shining armor.

I didn’t believe it. 
Not for a second.
It was the eyes I think.
I got lost in them or maybe
it was the fact that I was naive.
I paced back and forth wondering.
What had gone wrong?

I thought I knew you but
now I’m not so sure.
I told you I loved you
and that I was sorry.
You responded with silence
that cut me to the core.
You said goodbye.
There was no happily ever after.


Author Bio:
My name is Winnie Yang and I'm a recent graduate of college with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. I've always loved the way words are put on a page to tell a story. I've written fiction for a long time but recently got into poetry last year.