Free

Nothing more than a beaten baby,

fleeing down the aisle in my

virginal gown of naivety.

 

He wore my hope proudly.

Pinned to his chest like a

red rose boutonniere.

 

Concluding whispers of the

tired and disillusioned

pursue me as I try to prove them wrong.

 

Oh! Oh, no. I’m not

the stereotype of predictable

failure to thrive.

 

Through gritted teeth, I

learn to duck

and stay up late

 

Learning the dangerous buttons

and resisting the desire

to push them.

 

With a light step and a

careful eye, I execute

years of delusional bliss.

 

Life inside a Stepford skin

wore down the glorious

angles of imperfection:

 

my birthright and bliss.

She came with a dagger

forged in the ecstatic

 

flame of unexplainable

familiarity.

Immediate love. Fierce

 

unexplainable connection.

She cut through the skin

freeing the woman. I

 

was meant to be.

Always was. Hidden

brief and singular,

willful and ignorant,

 

But no more! She

 

rescued me. And I

rescued her. And

I am she, and

 

she is me.

 

by Rachel Holbrook

 

Rachel Holbrook writes from her home in East Tennessee and is anxious to leave her mark on the literary world. She was previously unpublished.

New York City

Take a bath, you filthy whore

And wash underneath your teats

Where the sweat tends to collect

And gel with cum lubricant.

 

Blow me off as we motor

Down Madison Avenue

Honking at every cab

And pedestrian alike.

 

We will piss on your sidewalk

And stack the trash on our curb;

Snickering at the tourists

We will insult the locals.

 

Letting cigarettes smolder

Between our fingers, we will

Make certain everyone

Breathes our polluting venom.

 

Now dress and join me, my love.

 

by Michael Gunn

 

Michael Gunn has previously published in Burningwood Literary Journal as well as Shotgun Honey. His country song, “If Her Grandma Didn’t Have a Kitty, I’d Take My Dog Over There”, continues to descend the charts.

 

Sarah Marchant

Demo Tracks

 

They all want you to write

something sad about religion

where the train meets the rails

where the shaking knuckles

meet the trigger.

 

A handshake

(firm gripped) with God

that’s a shock to your system –

yeah, he gotcha good.

 

You’re still harmonizing with yourself

over some girl who never loved you

more than she loves her body, her womb’s

ability to conceive towheaded heartache.

The ghosts of your paintings

are crawling the walls

and your covers are quicksand.

 

Sometimes I see smoke but I can’t find

where the fire is. Sometimes

I catch you shredding yourself

but I don’t know how

to turn the machine off.

 

Even in my sleep, my teeth

are rotting out when we’re kissing

and there’s blood on your guitar strings.

 

When I wake up

my heart is pounding

like church bells.

 

 

Wet Graffiti

 

In this part of town,

the universe could be a girl

biking through brain waves in a tank top

or gas station soda

sticky on the bottoms of your shoes.

 

Your coffin is Ramen noodles;

your crown is a carton of cigarettes.

 

I am the advocate.

Snapping at sensitivity

until my jaw locks, clean.

 

I am the grocery store bouquet

and the toddler carrying the pink helmet

she’ll never wear in a two-fingered grip.

 

When you’re watching

the McDonald’s down the street

get demolished and picking yourself apart

at every stoplight,

 

a smashed skull

is a courtesy prize.

 

 

Bloodied Knuckles

 

Once we trailed after the same sunset

a parade of summer heat

 

but now we belong to warring tribes

painting our faces with each other’s frailties.

 

You’re running circles and I’m

dropping pebbles

to somehow keep myself centered.

 

You’re pitching up tornadoes and I’m

marking the sky

transmitting some sort of warning.

 

The river roars to life

a tumult of terror in my chest

 

as the battle reaches a fever pitch

and you stir up shards in your wake.

 

by Sarah Marchant

 

Sarah Marchant is a poet in St. Louis who struggles with being fully present.

 

Judith Grissmer

 

It’s To Die For

 

the beauty of

this night,

its strange glow

of light rising

after days

of heavy rain.

 

At nightfall

the sky is alight

with pink

and yellow fire—

 

owlet moths

that thought

they were hidden

are in a frenzy over

the last purple spikes

of catnip. You and I

walk without words

as rain returns,

darkness resettles.

 

I have finally

figured it out,

I say: the only

price we must pay

for all this beauty

is to die for it.

 

 

Mid-September

 

This morning I stoop

to pull wild grass away

from bleeding hearts

and columbine, untangle

iris from spiderwort.

Has it been since June

that I knelt upon this ground?

 

A summer overgrown

has choked the simple

beginnings of spring—

an elderly mother’s move,

repairs to a rundown home,

common occurrences of life

that like the sheaths

of lady’s thumb

choke, cover, obscure

adjacent bloom.

 

I weed along toward noon.

Sun lightens the delicate leaves

of coral bells, bare black

earth again revealed,

and I lean heavily on

soil scarcely redeemed.

 

by Judith Grissmer

Judith Grissmer’s work has been published in the Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, the Golden Nib Online Anthology (2010 first place in poetry VA Writers Club), The Blue Ridge Anthology (2008/2010 first place in poetry, Blue Ridge Writers Club), The Alembic, Crack the Spine, Mikrokosmos Journal, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. Work is forthcoming in the Edison Literary Review and Penmen Review. She has attended poetry workshops and classes in universities and writing centers, worked independently with instructors at those centers, and has participated in writers’ critique groups for many years.

 

Autobiography #12

When I was in sixth grade Mom asked me what I wanted to do for the summer. “Camp is good, you’ll make friends.” She said it like an adopted kid wouldn’t get confused. You got me almost yesterday.

Mom and Dad were getting a divorce and didn’t want me around while they decided. Maybe I skewed the thought process. When I looked over the camps they were mostly the kind with cabins or rooms, that I would write letters back home. Mom already figured out that I wouldn’t write letters, she must have known that in college I wouldn’t pick up the phone either.

She didn’t pick up when Dad called. Sighed. Made remarks that she thought were funny, because she would make a funny voice. “It’s your father. God.” I chose a day camp, and she was good at being glad. “You’ll like it, I bet, but if you change your mind, tell me.”

Halfway through summer they seemed to get along. I ruined the process again, righted the train crash of their marriage. Japanese and Jewish; her family fought his family in the war. Romeo and Juliet were supposed to die in the end, but I figured I knew what it was like if they didn’t. I said this to my English teacher once and he moved past the issue quickly. He didn’t want the other kids to think as hard about it as I did, even though half of them had.

They didn’t get divorced until I was in college. I didn’t answer the phone when they called about it; just an email. They got rid of me, but not each other, I liked to think. It was too late to change my mind about day camp.

 

by Jono Naito

 

Jono Naito is a recovering New Yorker and MFA student at Syracuse University. His work has appeared in Bard Lux Literary Magazine, Paper Darts Magazine, and the Eunoia Review, as well as online at jononaito.com. He lives with his partner-in-crime and an arrogant bird that looks like an avocado.

Breaking the Links

I tried so hard to keep fear away from her. In the garden, I’d say, “See, honey, a worm,” and watch her pick it up, never showing the squeamishness that kept me from touching a worm myself.

We read stories of strong, brave women, who surmounted obstacles, forging ahead, not allowing fear to vanquish them. Overprotected Understood Betsy learned to stand on her own, and when she and little Molly were accidentally abandoned at the county fair, Betsy hid her fear. She promised Molly she would find a way home—and she did. In So Far form the Bamboo Grove, Yoko and her sister survived horrifying war privations and subsistence conditions before being reunited with their family.

When my daughter went to college in 2002, with the ashes of the Twin Towers still nearly visible, we walked up the Harlem hill, through the wrought iron gate into the university that had welcomed immigrants. Then we walked down the hill to the Hudson River.

“Which way is home?” I asked. She pointed north,.

“Right,” I told her. “The river goes home, If anything happens, try to get a ride north, as far as you can if you can’t get all the way.  Route 9, Broadway here, goes all the way to Saratoga. You can follow Route 9 home. If you can’t go by road, follow the river. It will take a long time, weeks, maybe longer, but the Hudson will bring you home.”

She listened, nodding silently but confidently, secure in her strength, in her wood skills, in her ability to find my love waiting for her whatever happened, where ever she went, secure in the shining innocence of youth.

I left her and drove home listening to the rattling chains of fear traveling with me.

 

by Jane Arnold

 

Jane Arnold has been writing and publishing nonfiction essays and memoir for over 25 years. During the past five years, she has been writing and publishing fiction, including flash fiction and short stories. She teaches writing and literature at a community college.

 

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