Month: May 2022 (Page 2 of 2)

Photo by Cederic Vandenberghe on Unsplash

Fight for Bedtime

13 May 2022 / Editor

Nonfiction by Haley Grace

As a kid, bedtime was so exciting. Right before my eyes closed I would imagine flying dragons and dancing princesses. I drifted away to thoughts of bursting colors and beautiful designs.

As a teenager, the fairytales disappeared but my imagination still soared! Only instead of castles, it was faded blue locker covered hallways that smelled of old books and musky cologne. There were no flying dragons but bright yellow school buses with torn off lettering lined up outside. I would drift away to the false reality of an 80’s movie, where butterflies flooded my belly when my crush kissed me before the credits rolled.

Now I am an adult, or at least in the eyes of society. There are no fairytales in my dreams. My brunette, blue eyed, 80’s curly headed crush is facing the other direction; avoiding a conversation we’ve had a million times. That place between sleep and awake is now where tears flood my eyes. It’s where ideas of doubt, fear, and anxiousness dance in my head. Imagination is now taken over by the fuzzy sounds of the TV I’m not really listening to. The only thing I’m dreaming of is a cigarette because nicotine cures a clouded mind.

No one tells you there is no imagination before adult bedtime. You slowly learn about stiff tension between you and your partner from a fight you swore you would never have. And a racing mind of questions. And lists impossible to complete.

Maybe this is all inevitable.

But if you can: Fight for the dragons. Dance with the princesses. And let the kaleidoscope of butterflies take over as you kiss that curly headed kid.

Haley Grace is an Appalachian raised LGBT+ emerging voice just getting her start in writing. She graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College with a degree in Communication and Literature. She is working on her Masters in School Counseling and enjoys writing about her adventures, heartbreaks, and observations of life.

Perfect Teeth

11 May 2022 / Editor

Fiction by David Patten

Elliot is far from a novice. He’s battled marlin in Florida, landed bluefin tuna off Prince Edward Island, fly fished for days in the Louisiana Marshes. Now he has come to Peru, on the hunt for species unique to the iconic Amazon waterway: peacock bass, redtail catfish, arapaima, piranha.

Six in the morning, mist rising from the surface, the chatter of tropical birds and primates from the dense rainforest flanking their small boat. It’s long and narrow like a canoe, Elliot perched at the bow clothed in khaki, boasting zippers and Velcro and hidden pockets only an angler would wear. At the stern, hand on tiller, Santiago guides the craft through the still waters, as the old man has done for decades.

Santiago maneuvers them into a horseshoe pool off the main river. It’s sheltered by overhanging branches that shed pods into the water. It’s a feasting ground. Elliot baits his line and stands astride the bench for balance.

The first two times the bait is gone, either slyly taken or slipped off. Elliot packs it tighter around the double hook and casts again. This time the line goes taught, the carbon fiber rod doubling in on itself, threatening to snap. Elliot reels and pulls, reels and pulls. Mantenlo tenso, says Santiago. Keep it taut.

The fish is strong, angry. A fighter. It breaches in a commotion. Breathing hard, Elliot brings it toward the boat. Es piranha, says Santiago reaching for the landing net. But Elliot raises the rod too soon, the frenzied ball of muscle arcing at him. Instinctively he holds out a hand, Santiago’s ten cuidado, be careful, a fraction late. With the violent precision of a steel blade, the piranha removes Elliot’s index finger at the mid joint.

Elliot’s mind can’t process what he’s seeing, stalling the shock and pain. The piranha thrashes in the boat, gasping. The disturbance has caught the attention of an alligator on the far bank. Santiago watches it slide into the water. Mantener la sangre en el bote, he tells Elliot, wrapping his hand in a small towel. Keep the blood in the boat.

David Patten is an educator living in Colorado. He enjoys reading and creating short fiction. He is looking to expand his audience.

Familial Territory

10 May 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Jessica (Tyner) Mehta

You told me you looked like your father,
your brother like your mother,
but that’s not what I saw in the Mumbai tea house–
what everyone told you was wrong,
a lie from their eyes. Your mother
engulfs you both, in the cacao black
eyes and teeth crowded as a morning train.

Your father, he’s slipped into your innards,
entrenched in your turned down chin,
arms frozen across chest, the cold set
of your jaw, the distance of your aura.
Your father doesn’t scare me

because all I see is you. You in thirty years,
the you of our past, over-seasoning tradition
and fear with barricades.
I broke them down once,
I can do it again, they all doubt me

and therein lies my power. It’s in my tiny bones,
the reach of my hair, the fray
of my lashes. You know my stubbornness
is thicker than yours, my desire burns brighter
than all the fireworks of Diwali
and your father—the poor man

will see me one day
just as you do.

Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a multi-award-winning Aniyunwiya, Two-Spirit, queer, interdisciplinary poet and artist. She is currently preparing for her Fulbright Senior Scholar award and her post-doctoral fellowship as the 2022 Forecast Change Lab fellow.

Grandma’s Refrigerator

8 May 2022 / Editor

Nonfiction by Abigail Mathews

Grandma’s refrigerator is the color of the world. It is everywhere.

When the sky is no longer dark, but painted with rising yellows, then the smell of the kitchen is nearing, and I am reminded of milk jars and oven mitts.

Oh, when the flowers finally bloom, and the yellow petals fall to the mud, I see cigarette smoke wafting out windows, and oven-crisped cookies sliding from the pan onto dirtied white floors, and Grandma’s refrigerator is humming.

And the bumblebees are humming, and their yellow hue is familiar.

If the soil were to be peeled back and the dirt dried by the yellow sun, then the grass would turn yellow and die, and the flower roots would turn yellow and die, and the leaves have turned yellow and died, and I wonder when it became Fall again.

It was just yesterday that the dragonflies nibbled my ankles, and the skin on my shoulders were freckled, wasn’t it? The air crunches again, as does my chest with my fiberglass inhales. My yellow lungs heave like the chest of my grandfather.

The Autumn air brings a stale smell, but it is not a painful stale, because it is the stale smell of grandmother, and you remember how she cooked for you while you sat at the kitchen table picking apart napkins, and she wore an apron lined with yellow lace.

And the lace was as thin as her skin and as yellow as her refrigerator.

Abigail Mathews is a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where she is pursuing a major in creative writing.

In a Living Room

7 May 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Tanner Rubino

Warm yellow sun slipping
Down couch cushions
Of a
Loveseat, light green-grey
Stamped with trees and hatch marks
Potted plants position their shadows
Like vines along the vertical lines of the door
Winds peel petals from autumn branches
Solar eclipse of oak leaves across my eyes
Light fights like the leaves
To hold on
Neither can do it forever

Tanner Rubino is a fourth-year Professional Writing student at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. Her work has been published in Champlain’s newspaper, The Crossover, and their magazine, The Well. When she’s not writing, Tanner likes to spend time outdoors or inside attempting a new art form.

selective focus photography of red waterlily flower in bloom — Photo by Couleur on Pexels.com

We Went Walking

6 May 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Heather Sager

I remember that June
when we went walking.

The day stayed up late.
The orange orb floated high in the sky.

And you, dear, were walking
by my side.

You told me you’d
keep me company.
You knew I walked often
alone.

And the warm warm sky glowed
though it was getting late,

and we saw the busy summer street,
the lush summer trees.
We went around the pond
three times, talking.

Sunrays illumined your red shirt
and your wide eyes.

And the sun carried us,
together, into the nighttime.

Heather Sager lives in Illinois where she writes poetry and fiction. Her most recent work appears in The Orchards, Fahmidan Journal, Magma, Red Eft, Version (9), The Bosphorus Review of Books, Shabd Aaweg Review, The Fabulist, Willows Wept, and more.

The Package

4 May 2022 / Editor

Microfiction by Kenneth M. Kapp

Bob was a joker with a permanent smile. If asked, he’d answer: “Told myself a joke and it’s a corker.”

Now a widower he lived in a small Milwaukee bungalow. A sign on his mailbox pointed to a milkcrate below: Please leave all packages here. Old and still smiling, he made his final arrangements.

His time was up. His cremains were delivered to his home and left in the milkcrate. A curious neighbor checked and discovered the package he had preaddressed. A cloud enclosed the return address: If unclaimed return to SENDER (a large arrow pointed up).

Kenneth M. Kapp was a Professor of Mathematics, a ceramicist, a welder, an IBMer, and yoga teacher. He lives with his wife and beagle in Wisconsin, writing late at night in his man-cave. He enjoys chamber music and mysteries. He’s a homebrewer and runs whitewater rivers. Visit www.kmkbooks.com.

nephelococcygia

2 May 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Alyssa Harmon

you say
it is rare for two people to see
the same image in clouds.

we see each other’s hands
drifting away in the wind and
pretend the blue sky
is not dividing us.

Alyssa Harmon is working on her master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of West Florida. Her poems have been published in Merrimack Review, Minerva Rising, Shaking the Sheets Magazine, and Odet Journal. You can find more of her work on Instagram @alyssa_harmon_.

arachnid artistic blur close up — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The Lost One

1 May 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Lisa Spencer Trecost

I look at the sky and see a cloud
So I talk to you but not out loud

You left me here on the ground
A place at times I cannot stand

I hear the noise as people speak
But for the one I listen I cannot see

I feel you in the vast blue sky
I feel you in the tears I cry

I taste salt air and remember when…
So I reach for you but touch only wind

You’re near but far, a heart without beat
While mine still races as I desperately seek
The one who is missing
Me.

Lisa Spencer Trecost is a heart-centered writer who loves to travel with her husband and dogs.