I laughed bitterly
When she told me
What she was about to do to me

And as the years passed
Everything she was about to do to me
Has painstakingly been done.

I wince at the incisions,
The wounds ever raw.
I try to laugh but no sound comes.

I think about that,
Blinded by my innocence and tears.
It’s her turn to laugh now

And she does.

John Tustin is currently suffering in exile on the island of Elba but hopes to return to you soon. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

I can’t resist a wind
that opens its arms to me,
swooping down to play
ruffles my hair and creates
starry music.
  This
    crisp
      giggle breeze,
her voice clearly singing
notes of “Pachelbel’s Canon”
seemed to be struck with
      fever
        bliss

Caitlin Gemmell is a writer and artist living on top of a hill in upstate New York. When not writing or creating, she spends her days: drinking tea, foraging for wild edibles, tending her garden, and wrangling her child, chickens, and a pig (who wandered here one summer night and never left).

My backpack contains all that I have lost, and never can recover.

The sheer volume of the contents is only surpassed by the weight each provided in the metaphoric instability of my life.

I should carry the contents for the entire world to see, and one special person to realize I do believe the non-tangibles of life indeed have value greater than the price at which I sold them.

In order of discovery, my backpack contains:

How I lost my way. Whether it was through life or a single day, my decisions have not amounted to anything one would recognize as successful.

How I lost my virginity. Offered at a discount, combined with underage beer goggles, the entire experience was not worth the effort given or the notoriety acquired.

How and when I lost my dignity. Another fiasco predicated on a dare, tequila, and the advent of VHS tape. Greatness thrives in the memory of the impressed. Stupidity lurks forever beneath a thin veneer of respectability.

How I lost my childhood. No one should eagerly accept the yoke of service for the pittance it remits to 9 year olds.

How I lost my hope. Twelve years old and still laboring at the same position.

How I lost time. I went to sleep last night at the age of 10. I awoke this morning nearly 50 years old. I have the memories of my history. However, I no longer have the memories of the time I spent collecting each.

How I lost my place while reading. Bookmarks are cheap and worth the price.

How I lost my nerve. I could have balked. I should have interrupted and spoke my mind when Elizabeth stood at the altar and took another as her husband.

How I lost my will. I had the chance to propose first. I had the opportunity to make her happy before she met him. I could have worked. If only . . .

How I lost my cookies (vomited). The anniversary of the last two events. Beats sour grapes, but tastes worse.

How I lost my heart when she broke it. Elizabeth cared for all hearts. My rebound to Elizabeth, her sister, Audrey, feasted on all hearts. Just because the last name is the same, does not insure the first feelings are.

How I lost my patience. I let 27 years elapse waiting for the perfect woman. None with these prerequisite credentials exists.

How I lost my cool. One bar, one bottle of tequila, and one too many sorrows told to one too many people who didn’t want to listen resulting in one too many punches and one too many police arriving.

How I lost my soul. The last refuge of a desperate man is to claim possession of that which he knows he lost first. Only in retrospect does one realize the true cost of a life poorly lived.

I now intend to keep my backpack closed forever.  It has served its purpose well.

Andy Betz has tutored and taught in excess of 40 years. He lives in 1974, and has been married for 29 years. His works are found everywhere a search engine operates.

We’ve been on hiatus for a couple of weeks. Summer heat just slows me down and this year was no exception. But we should be back to normal in a few days. Hope you enjoy the stories and poems.

How will I know her when she returns?  Will she still be my terrible home?  So much has blown down and scattered since she retreated.  The surface of my world juts, prickly and bare now.  When she first pulled away I wanted it to be because she was dead.  That, however searing, would have been easier to bear in the end than the certainty that it was because she didn’t want me and couldn’t take it back.  There is an old black and white photograph of her reclining on the stone patio of my grandparents’ house.  Her full skirt is plumed grandly around her, her loose ankle an elegant line emerging from the skirt, beautiful toes extended in an open sandal dropping toward the ground.  My grandfather’s dog, Zoo Zoo, is trying to lick her face and she is laughing and dodging his advances.  The tight, smooth bun and one dark curl, neatly flattened to the corner of her forehead, belie this moment of playful abandon.  This woman is careful; constructed. After she was diagnosed and moved back to my grandparents’ ranch there was no more vain spit curl.  She had gone slack in some way that confused me.  It was as if I should be able to get to her–she did seem softer somehow–but there was no way I could find to get in, to happen to draw her attention and then lay back there.  

In those days I walked the three miles from second grade along the rows and rows of dark-leafed orange trees with winter white blossoms and a fragrance so frantically lovely I grieved in the pall of it.  Many afternoons, as I turned, finally, into the dirt drive that led between the groves to the little red house I could hear her cackle; loud, with an abandon both vulgar and infectious.  A gush of regret would tackle me in these moments for having turned my heart against her.  Damn her!  God damn her!  And then the familiar, dreadful slick of longing would sluice out into my belly, slogging my bare knees; a congestion of thwarting.  I’d stand outside the garage in the dry dirt and fallen oak leaves, so still now, live, wondering how to go in there.  Some afternoons I’d steel myself and sneak in silently, below the television blare, for the big spoon of peanut butter that consoled me.  Others I would turn from the door and climb into the hammock under the grand old oak whose branches gnarled over the roof to slowly sway in the rhythmic creaking until I was sure that in outer space none of this was actually happening; that, since no one knows how much it hurts, it can’t actually be hurting.  The cool, shaded blank of this custom gave something to me that I needed to walk back into that little house and remain invisible there.  But even if she had noticed me I’m certain the strain of being seen would have pushed me back out into deep space.

Marla McFadin is a trained psychotherapist interested in transitions into and away from connecting to the expected world. She grew up in a small, progressive town in California where she carried the natural environment into her way of understanding traumatic relationships. She is moved by expressions of yearning.

I’ve been envious of Ganymede for some time now. Most will think it’s because of his unwavering beauty. The most beautiful of all the Greeks, but this isn’t why.
Legend has it that Zeus abducted him, flying him to the top of Mount Olympus. Had his wicked way with him, his new cupbearer. His exquisite servant.
No one questioned Zeus, did they!
But oh how they’d question me.
Me, the captain of the school football team. The straight A student, excelling in wood work class. Talented.
The shock would quickly turn to playground jibes, unfavourable taunts.
Derogatory whispers.
No, that would never do.

“What will I get ya for your birthday Danny?” my mother asks of my looming 18th.
My overnight transition from boy to man.
What I truly desire, I could never tell her. The curse of living in old Ireland. A farmer’s only son.
Oh how I yearn to walk the streets of Manhattan, or London’s Soho, in jeans too tight, shirt too low. Basking in the florescent neon lights. The freedom. My smile illuminated, stretching from ear to ear.
My unrealistic fantasy.
“Ah, money will be grand Mam, thanks,” I say, not wanting to engage any further in this awkward conversation.

I run.
I’m naturally athletic, fit. But that’s not why I run. I run, in an attempt to out run this monster inside me. The one desperately trying to break free, with every breath I take. The one that longs to live happily ever after on Mount Olympus. I have the looks for it, I’ve always been handsome. It’s the strength I lack.
And for a moment I wonder if it’s me that lacks the strength or my family?
My devout Catholic grandparents. My mass every Sunday childhood. The stolen moments my ears pricked, hearing my father curse at the failing football team on the TV, muttering ‘faggots.’
Maybe its not me, maybe it’s them.

I dream of asking for a one way ticket.
An escape.
A new life.
One where I could be me.
The real me.
Not the fake role I play in this cruel world. God mocking me. Having a laugh while I try to navigate my secret, daily.
But who am I kidding!
There is only one kind of one way ticket for me.
And why wait any longer? Why suffer the first few years of adulthood being a fraud. Why live a life of disappointment when realisation is now upon me.

I reach for the rope. Smoother than I imagined. It doesn’t look like a murderer but I suppose neither do I.
St.Peter won’t open the gates for me, that much I know.
But I don’t want him to.
All I want is Zeus,
to save me from this torture.

No more running.

Emma M. Murray is a young mother living in the North West of Ireland. She has a passion for writing short stories. She enjoys sunsets over the sea and too much chocolate. She dances well and sings badly.

I close my eyes
and imagine Sedona,
the red rocks warming me from afar
the vortex sucking me in,
my soul my skin aflame in that
red safety net.
Don’t you know?
That home in the stars
once shielded me,
shielded you,
from him, from the smell of alcohol on his breath,
from the love that was never enough.
A woman, now, grown
Wings
no longer clipped
Shield
no longer gripped
like a vice.
I put down the armor,
bruised from overuse.
Do you see me now?

Taylor Stoneman is an attorney by trade, but a poet by heart. She currently resides in San Francisco and is exploring the overlapping layers between her past and present.

After we took off, I saw an angel sitting on the wing of the airplane. I was seated in the emergency row. The angel had wings feathery and white, somehow more intimidating than beautiful. It had a soft golden halo and inhuman eyes and pale blue lips. The angel smiled calmly as it looked ahead, across the sea of clouds. I took out the card from the seat pocket in front of me, and familiarized myself closely with the safety instructions.

Nikolaj Volgushev currently lives in Berlin, Germany, where he writes, programs, and does other things along those lines. Some of his work can be found at https://emerald-dot-publishing.tumblr.com/.

anxiety hangover
leaves the bones brittle
covered with surprise April snow

trees under that snow
flaunt their grace
a thousand white fingers pointing everywhere
but their sap has frozen

life is present
yet in abeyance
like aging blood
standing still
while babes flicker
or rage

their heat
is no match for this awkward storm
or the squall, perhaps
simply a sketch of brilliance
one flash point in a trillion digital blips
only iconic
to the tender
of eye, mind and flesh

the elders rigid
as if dropped to knees
on the icy blanket
praying for a lesson
a clean path
to purity

they seek a hearth
to come into
to melt
and recall
the suppleness

Tamra Plotnick’s poetry and prose works have been published in many journals and anthologies, including: Serving House Journal; The Waiting Room Reader, Global City Review and The Coachella Review. She has performed her work in multimedia shows at a range of venues in New York City where she lives. She dances samba and raqs sharki, teaches high school, and malingers with friends and family when not writing poetry.

Leave the house, going left, left for my daily walk, all that we’re allowed now. Trip over a sleeping dog, though it wasn’t sleeping. More like: lying-in-wait. Stumble, regain posture, upright again, kick at dog but it’s left.

Have no idea what day it is. Lost track last week, or perhaps last month. Some time around the time the call came, or the email came. That time. Closing down for the duration. Calling time. That’s it then. No more conferences, no more monthly service charges, no more arguments with the IT section, no more administrative assistants to schmooze. Handshakes done. Hugs are over. Avoid humans.

Streets full of people walking uphill to the park or downhill from the park. Most have a dog. Setters, spaniels, bulldogs. Any dog will do. Provide an excuse to be out. I should have a dog. Look around for the lying-in-wait dog, but it’s not lying-in-wait for me. Keep going uphill.

I will be grey-haired, going into this goodnight. I will be walking uphill tomorrow, and the day after. Phone bulges in pocket. Tracking. To make sure of us.

Person with dog approaches. I swerve out onto the grassy verge, out onto the road, wherever I have to swerve unto to keep my distance. To make sure. Hold breath so no droplets are breathed in. Then a deep breath to test lungs are working. Fine for now. Don’t like the sound of ventilator. Of intubation. Wish to avoid both.

Here is the park. Here are the dogs. Here are the exercising people. Here am I. Sit on a green-painted bench, make sure no policeman is watching. Exercise is all we’re allowed now. Not sitting. Take out phone. Remember tracking. Put phone away in pocket again.

Overhead, a cockatoo screeches on a dead tree branch. Spreads wings as if flapping a cloak, cocks sulphur-yellow comb as if flirting, stares at me as if crazy. Screeches again with dizzy joy. Seeing the bird, I wish to be the bird. Wish to live in a tree, in the clear air.

Things are not. Going to get better. Life is going to go. Not uphill, not downhill, but in a completely different direction. Left turn.

Cockatoo has left. Allowed to go where it wants. Take a deep breath to check lung function. Fear of droplets. Walk home downhill. Until tomorrow. Same time, same place.

Annette Freeman is a writer living in Sydney, Australia. She has a Master of Creative Writing degree, and her short fiction has been published in a number of international and Australian literary journals. She is working on a novel set in the back-blocks of Tasmania.
W: https://afreemanwriter.wixsite.com/website
T: @sendchampagne