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

We start with still-lives [this is expected]. Bowls of fruit arranged on tables, requisite apples, pears, grapes. A curious pineapple has snuck its way in. A thin vase with a lonely flower, child-sized chairs stacked just so.

I’m suspicious of stillness. I focus on stop-motion squirrels in the window, trees revered then forgotten, their limbs jutting into the horizon. My fingers bruised with purple ink—lefties never quite fit—I mix my colors into mud.

I am a valley among peaks, compressed before raised. Chronically razed. A blank page soaked, body curled, unqualified. A landline phone affixed, wire enjambed.

You see quirks where I know cracks, flip full magazine pages while I hold jumbled pieces. Newspaper clippings in halves, longing, flexed and ready.

I am voracious in my wanting to know, but knowing isn’t a crux. A diagnosis is just a notation, a string of digits for billing. A confirmation growing hazy, quickly [but also slowly] moving away. Unimportant in its arrival: a shrug, a nod.

I am quiet while you speak, watching. Not quite listening, while you explain to me what I have lived. I think of the Xanax bottle on the shelf, the set of new paints, unopened. To be enjoyed at the summit. Balls of clay in a box, lazily waiting. A bowl of apples, a single stem.

Taryn Ocko Beato is a writer, mixed media artist, and audiobook producer. She studied creative writing and film at the University of Rochester, and received a Master of Arts from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Taryn lives in New York with her husband, son, and sweet rescue dog, Darby.

What sense is there in words?
They won’t feed you,
They won’t bathe you,
They won’t cloth you, or keep you warm

They won’t hold you and love you,
They can’t kiss you
Or pay you (believe me),
They certainly won’t provide a comfortable life —

For you children and your wife
(husband, dog, whatever).
They won’t cheat you
They won’t wrong you

They won’t lie, steal, or plot against you,
They won’t even put up a fight —
So what sense is there
In these words?

I don’t know,
but I can’t stop.

Don Clark is a Iraq/Afghanistan veteran and recent graduate from Geneva College. He writes everything in small notebooks he finds at the bookstore down the road, and only writes in pencil. He once saw a space shuttle launch from the top of a submarine . . . that was pretty cool. He hails from Pittsburgh, PA, where he is NOT a steel mill worker.

There lurks a dark man in my dreams. Do you know the type?
Gangly, ghastly, like shadows cast before day breaks into a sweat.
We try to rock ourselves back into silence and complicity. Meanwhile
I avoid his limbs from day to day, as they stretch out from underneath
School desks, book shelves, lockers and their innards, ceilings.
I keep a key in the heart of my throat. I keep a funeral drape
Over my peripheries. I am always mourning, thinking
Daddy was half-right; Life is short, maybe, but days like these
Are very, very long.

         Regret could only dream of looking back half as far
As I can.

Pelumi Sholagbade is a high school senior from Washington DC. When not writing, Pelumi can be found reading, playing the cello, or failing to fall asleep at night.

He wondered if his date Mary had squatted down when pouring the food into the dog bowls.   He envisioned what her rear haunches would have looked like while doing that.  There is something very loving about that scene.  Seeing such utilitarian poses would always remind Adam of his beautiful mother, and how she would get on her haunches to help the younger him with his shoelaces, or to teach him how to button his coat.  There is something extremely reassuring  and loving indeed when listening to a mother’s knees crack as she squats to kiss him Good Bye in school on his first day of kindergarten.  He would remember seeing his mom approve of the young new kindergarten teacher.  He would nervously trust his mother’s judgement on this memorable day and would now begin to own the courage to say goodbye to her.  He would see his mother look back to him one final time as she exits his vacuous classroom, that memorable classroom with its high, grey, and presently sparse walls.  She would, with some slight apparent worry, but reassurance too, wave to him.  With wide open eyes and a tight smile beginning to soften she would then walk away, and then be out of sight.  Adam would return his gaze to his new teacher.  Holding Adam, she was on her haunches too.  Adam would approve of his genuinely smiling new teacher.  She possessed a young and honest face too.   He would see that huge green-colored artificial gem pinned to the front of her green dress, and he would become temporarily preoccupied with it.  The young Adam returns his glance to that soon-to-be-decorated grey classroom wall, closeby to where his mother had been standing, and he notices attached up high that very old wooden-encased clock.  With its white face and bold black Roman Numerals, the thin and sharply pointed clicking clockhands would tell him to begin his day.  All would be o.k.  All would be o.k. afterall.

Author is: married, father of two. U.S. Army Honorable Discharge, 1968-72. Bachelor of Professional Studies SUNY College of Technology, Utica, New York Summa Cum Laude 1979. M.S. Ed. The College of Saint Rose, Albany, New York 1983.

Ed enjoys writing in the early morning. He loves running (40 marathons completed) and playing sports with his boys. Also, he likes to garden with his wife; Ed’s not having too much of a green thumb, she allows him to cut the grass and rake the leaves only. Ed is thankful too for a good cup of morning coffee along with a slice of evening apple pie. The family loves their guinea pig and insomniac cat too.