Tag Archives: writers

Poetry, Prose

Smoker – Karlee Sanders

CIGARETTE IN HAND YOU TOLD ME YOU WOULD SWIM ACROSS OCEANS FOR ME

SMOKE POURING OUT OF YOUR NOSTRILS YOU SMILED AND IT MADE MY HEART LEAP
WITH YOUR LIGHTER FLICKERING YOU PROMISED I WOULDN’T GET HURT
BUT WHAT I DIDNT KNOW WAS THAT I WAS YOUR CIGARETTE
BURNING FOR YOU
TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD
AND EVENTUALLY YOU WOULD DISCARD ME
AND ID BE NOTHING BUT ASHES
BLOWING AWAY IN THE WIND
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Poetry

I Just Can’t Love You Either – Brooke Safferman

Where is my home now?

Broken hearts more painful than the shifting bones they belong to

Where is my home now?

Unspoken words burning my inner ears like a radio set to static

I have learned to no longer ask any questions that

I would really rather not know the answer to.

 

Your fingers on my collar bone, your fingers in my hair

Exhale.

“I just can’t love a person like you.”

Inhale? Inhale, inhale, inhale!

You beg to yourself,

But all of the oxygen has left the twin-size bed.

And all you have left to breath in is

The truth.

 

Here today, gone tomorrow they always told me

I always thought you’d be the one to prove them wrong

Your smile was bright but your heart was even brighter

Or so I thought.

Or so I thought.

 

At night, when I’m still awake, 50 shades of the-light-is-off-so-why-can’t-I-sleep

It’s been three months, give or take a few days

And the words you said still haunt my dreams.

Inhale.

Inhale.

Inhale.

“I just can’t love a person like you.”

 

But then, one of these nights, an epiphany occurred

In the darkness of the night

I just can’t love you, either.

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Poetry

How to Have a Midlife Crisis When You Are 24 Years Old – Samantha Forsyth

pace back and forth in the kitchen, 

and when he comes home 

tell him that you are unhappy.

he will look hurt but not surprised. 

start to walk away as he says

something like “Things can get better” 

or “I can change”. and for this you will hate him.

say that you will take a walk 

and before he can catch up to you, add ‘alone’

when you get back, find him 

at the kitchen table 

with a glass of wine. sit across from him 

and tell him that you are pregnant. 

before a year, there are medical complications

there wont ever be anything conclusive only a rash of tests

the thought occurs to you 

that you are waiting for something to die.

have a child together and then bury it. 

tell him again that you’re unhappy,

and hate him more for silently 

putting a hand on your cold shoulder

there wont ever be anything conclusive only a rash of tests

start to find excuses not to be with him. 

sit alone at cafes and hope he is having an affair

but when a man offers to buy you coffee, 

let him. have the affair for your husband

wake up early to think about what would 

make you happy and brew

a warm cup of coffee, but not for him.          

don’t say anything when your husband starts 

to play piano or learns your favorite song. 

don’t look at him when he glances at you for approval.

let his fingers trip over the keys 

and let the notes be heavy and dry,

hope they are painful for him to play 

even though you know he will keep practicing.

there wont ever be anything conclusive only a rash of tests

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Poetry

How to Look for Shapes in the Sky – Iman Messado

1. Make sure your eyes are clear.
You can’t have any cobwebs on the sill,
your eyelashes must be brushed straight through.
Are your tear ducts clogged?
Go ahead and polish your irises
until they shine as brilliantly
as the sun does
when you forgot your sunglasses
on a particularly
hot spring-summer day.
2. Have you looked yet?
Don’t do it until you’re ready.
Now that your eyes can match the sun for
clarity and
luster,
you have to understand
the implications
of that.
You have to remember to
blink.
Just because you can
stare down the sun,
doesn’t mean you should.
You’ll work it out along the way –
just know that your head is made
of stone and that
the sky is a celestial ocean.
Fear drowning.
3. I don’t mean to scare you.
I also don’t mean to control you.
I’m only worried – you have so much potential –
I sound ridiculous but
you only have to look into the mirror to see what I mean.
Have you looked?
Do you like it?
What do mountains have on the shifting marshmallow peaks of a Cumulus?
What does grandmother’s feather bed have on
the interminable expanses of heavenly soft Stratus?
4. The shapes are supposed to be what
really matter.
You’re supposed to ignore all that
has and is and will be
in favor of
practicality and analysis and intellectuality.
Of course,
it makes sense,
it should be as it is.
It’s just unfortunate is all.
It’s just you have so much potential.
So make sure your eyes are clear.
Remember that your head is a stone.
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Poetry

Seasons – Harika Kottakota

You stand in the wheat plains gazing heavenward
Palm rested on the side of a chestnut foal
Cumulus drifted slowly, soft heels dug into clods
Shoots brushed cranberry cheeks, crickets whispered
Their secret melody under the settling dusk
Gold waves to rickety barn, sides infested with ivy
Dismantled windmill blades sprinkled in dew drops,
Seedlings of those scary thunder nights,
Lay glistening like a second sun on muddy sky
Faded fence skewed like an ice skater’s blade
Scraping joyously on frozen lakes under Moon lamps
Waking to Mother’s oven and Grace’s doll house
Father rapt in daily news of some faraway place
Hopping over creaky floorboards, storing static
Against wool carpets and zapping Grandma’s knitting
Vision wrinkling in warm shades like mangoes, oranges
Frisbees dropped, under hammocks or crude tents
Saving scrapbooks from attic cobwebs–pasts, before pasts
Taping our precious scribbles religiously until our
White ceilings converted to memorial mosaics
Dragonflies and Vs of geese enchanted our daydreams
Off to some Everest or Yosemite where adventure lurks
Leather-bound journals lined tables clasping memories
And reminders to future selves to always hold dear
Your heart’s home: acres of beginnings, middles, and ends
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Poetry

Oh, Mother Nature – Karlee Sanders

the sky cries for you, my dear. when you’re sad, so are the clouds.

the sun shines for your effervescent smile.
flowers lift their heads as you walk by.
you’re one with nature, it’s like they look up to you.
or maybe it is you.
controlling them in ways that are impossible to understand.
not with your mind, but your heart.
yes, oh yes.
I can see it in your eyes.
such beauty could only be created by the most darling thing of all,
you.
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Prose, Prosetry

Aerial Views – Matt Grydzuk

And so you were skipping stones across ponds

“Every time I walk past a balcony I think of throwing my phone over it.”

Same, but I think of throwing myself over

For just a split second, then realize it’d be too up-front

Too gaudy, and then it sort of fizzles out


And so you were skipping stones across rivers

Playing records backwards to get the real meaning

“I think maybe I should leave,” you said

But I could never understand how someone could fit

That much sadness in such a small thing


And so you were skipping stones across canals

“They’re all just intersecting lines,” you said

We’re all just intersecting lines

You followed up with

I think that maybe people don’t know you

As well as they should have


And so you were skipping stones across lakes

Hands tied behind your back, you were writhing

“I don’t want to be here!” You said, taken out of context

Were placed anywhere else

You didn’t know how to address matters outside of literal meaning

So you just stopped talking

So you just stopped addressing the bleach stains


And so you were skipping stones across deltas

Frozen over for a long while, now thawed, you turned to me and said

“I think this is where depression stops and starts”

And so I am standing at the edge of the balcony

For the first time thinking of throwing something else over

Thinking, “Maybe”

“Just maybe, one can make a monologue out of anything.”


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Poetry

Observatory – Haley Ingram

I love it here.
the view reminds me of life. 
The sky the way it paints over our hands and onto our skin,
The way the color doesn’t mix together as much as an artist would like it to.
The lead in our paints is heavier than we were ever capable of lifting, but it’s all we had.
It’s all we are fed. 
We closed our coffins with the nails we’re chewing on in hopes that
You need to be undead in order to make a move-
But I don’t want to kiss death anymore 
He leaves my body to rot 
My teeth hurt from grinding against him
He has violated
All of us. 
We are all iron cast replicas forged in the fires of our own hell. 
We paint our bodies with colors of the sky and call it identity. 
Nobody likes the night 
Everyone is afraid of the dark
Why am I afraid of the dark but find so much comfort in the makeup of hell?
We call ourselves artists, 
There is no artist.
There is only nature and our mimicry,
We feed on the idea of existing originality. 
Why don’t we open our coffins?
Let’s swallow our nails and puncture our throats
To allow the nervous words to spew into one another. 
Till death do us part-
He’s not getting between us. 
We are survivors in a world imprisoned by 
The impressionable weight of shackles
And strength to carry them. 
We are convicts in that we are happy together
So that cannot be. 
But in this moment. 
I love it here. 
The view reminds me of you. 
The way the sky paints itself and the willingness to relinquish power. 
The way I don’t want it to be easy to touch you 
The way no one can touch you.
Painting doesn’t make me an artist
But it makes you a masterpiece. 
I can lift you over my head 
And in this moment. 
Life is worth living.

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