POETRY
Amygdala
By Davy Joseph
You’re welcome to take a look inside,
amygdala lit up on the power lines. Crashing violently into the good night,
into the good night.
Trade my twenties
for some empathy and benzodiazepines
now all I ever see
are their faces in my dreams.
Honeycomb by Emi Olin
Sun Tattoo
By Sarah Hecker
I got a sun tattooed
on the tender part
of my pale forearm.
To signify that
I hadn’t bitten into the
apple with a sliver razor
in over a year.
Funny thing is,
when she asked if
going over the
previously plowed skin
hurt, I said no. It felt
nice. It felt like home.
I asked when she had
another opening.
Wallart by Ella Johnson
Gummy Bear
By Sarah Hecker
I wish you’d bite
my head off first,
so I’d at least be
shown some mercy
before you chew me
up and spit me out,
deciding that the color
that first enticed you
was not the flavor
you thought.
Drowning by Olivia White
Photo of Guy Fawkes Mask by Asif pav
Man in the Mirror
By Sam Dotson
A pockmarked face,
marred by decision and derision,
marked by contention.
I don’t look like such a young man anymore.
Staring straight into those eyes;
meet a man who tells no lies.
Not to me,
not to you.
​
He wears his wares upon his chin,
as tears they wear upon his cheeks,
and smile lines race against his pursing lips.
A face so seldom understood,
worn by pages made from wood.
​
View From the Edge
By David Ellison
Come to the edge, and look down
to see what lies below.
You’ll see a blackness that goes on forever,
with a depth that has no end.
The abyss below you is not a void.
Its darkness is your friend.
Don’t look up from it; just stare.
It has all the answers there are to be.
But in your search for them you must know,
for that in which you seek.
​
Look for visions of yourself in the blinding darkness.
If those images still elude you,
dig deeper into that endless pit of night.
Below the edge you are more than yourself.
There is nothing physical in that lightless sea.
In the abyss you are the feeling you create in others,
whether friend or foe.
Grayscale Photo of Human Hand by Amine M’Siouri
Popular
By Sam Dotson
An old friend
come to see me again.
“It’s been a while,”
spoken knowingly.
“Can you remember?”
Not anymore.
“Kind of,”
I lie.
​
​
Citrus by Sophie Caswell
Sinisterium
Sam Dotson
How the bell tolls,
sounding at the hour.
Not to mark the time,
but something much more dour.
That taste in your mouth,
errant vicissitude,
turn from sweet to sour.
Ashes then and ashes now.
Ring around the Rosie,
and we all fall down.
Burnt by Sophie Caswell
On Alzheimer's and Dementia
By B. Howard Barnhill
“Everywhere at the End of Time” is
Like moths turning a Newspaper Stand to ribbons.
Trying to describe feeling rather than effect;
The consciousness drifts off like dandruff in—to reduce into moss.
​
Let the Universal Spirit hold you, I’ll dust off our shoulders.
Grandmother, gatekeeper to whole social networks of relatives long since past.
Her disconnected father, the Protestant Luther,
Trying to speak truth,
while avoiding another. Draped in unworldliness.
May I keep my head above the books
Long enough to escape from escape
And know my surroundings, love them.
For I am the Ink, the Pen,
and the Hand
By Tyler McDonald
For my hands tremble at the desk,
dancing above the permanent ink stains,
smearing words that make out the grotesque,
the father, his pawn, and the mortal lover.
Hot flames, red and boiling, smear my skin down
onto the startled paper, its tender moisture rips
from the murky sweat of a maimed crown
and the unwieldy pen still quivers like an earthquake.
Handen die een ets maken by Sir Francis Seymour-Haden