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Reminiscence is a necessary evil And the melody of love lingers Alas, we're now only strangers Oh, but that beautiful flower Bloomed only for that hour Alas, we're now only strangers Yet, those promises were prayers Bloomed only for that hour Drenched in a soulful shower Yet, those promises were prayers And the melody of love lingers Drenched in a soulful shower Oh, but that beautiful flower For the love basking folks They spoke of love as if it's true But, truth is a fluctuation too Yet, folks bask in that sappy Sun And the next moment, it's gone But, truth is a fluctuation too And tintless ocean turns blue And the next moment, it's gone All that was earnestly sworn And tintless ocean turns blue Heedless of all lovers, old or new All that was earnestly sworn Abides in the blossom, now worn Heedless of all lovers, old or new They spoke of love as if it's true Abides in the blossom, now worn Yet, folks bask in that sappy Sun

The answer in an envelope It lies on the table, lips pursed like a religious aunt in possession of the truth and the certainty that only a believer can deal with it. A believer like her. I am not a believer, not equipped for the awareness that, in another space, a disjointed elbow distant, such frail material can set my cells chattering. It can be under your fingers and a thousand kilometres away — an answer that was an itch before it became a question. My daughter is in her room, half-hiding secrets she carves out of plasma, sparks of dopamine reflected on the screen of her retina. She looks up as I pass, acknowledges my parental checking with a quick smile before returning to her episode. At least she still yawns like a child, rubs her nose with the back of her hand. Nobody has convinced her you don’t do that, yet. The answer is a tendon of love binding a muscle to its bone, the suspicion, that anything that can be torn, will be. And that tearing is deliberate — the rupture of particular fibres. He hides the answer with some other business: pensions untranslated, previous official things he wouldn’t know where to find, hopes maybe this will seem less important after time, that it might somehow lose itself in paper. Painted by numbers Your raincoat is a shade of wing-tips, the underlip of swell, contour of clouds compressed, certain stones; your face, the patient, arthritic, absent expectation of storm peeling off the Atlantic, familiar ache of island weather, the colour of resigned hostility — a shatter of mews rendered against a shatter of brine against a shatter of cut glass sky — grey raw waves of rain and gull; what you came back for, painted in a strain of white, after what you came back for had gone. Craven Man You come from the west, where a good part of the world ends, and the rest just drowns itself in winter. Surveying us with your voice of heath and shale Oh great clods of humanity, stroking your thatched moustache, wiping wisdom off your chin, deducing absence with great hands, you palpitate first your granite pockets, then a paper autopsy of poetry notes to find, what? A chatter of chairs, dulled spines contorted by wrought learning, some still busy with their Tippex poxing generations of boredom. Where you come from, soil sprouts heather and calls it surviving … … all these south Dublin boys have to worry about is which bank will put them out to golf. Have you seen it? Grey knit shrugs over darker grey shirts. Have you seen my watch? Watch? Other terms for stupidity include . . . The chronic incredulity on our faces, our resting, adolescent mistrust. Your watch? The watch you don’t have, because time is a word that takes care of itself. You learned that picking stones out of a field, counting them to make a day. You learned that as you brackened into age, the moss of your jacket binding life to itself, sandstone of your hair resisting retirement. And the day you aren’t here, there will be another drizzle of attention on the playing fields, more words put out to grass. Somebody, with a bit of luck, or a compass might carve a memory into his desk. Meanwhile, diminishing a ruler, you unseam one boy from nave to chops, fix his bemusement on your battlements. An English teacher most of the time, Simon Leonard writes short and micro-fiction in both English and Spanish, as well as poetry. When the desire for recognition overcomes the anxiety of not being good enough, he offers work for publication. Examples can be found in Orbis, Envoi, Ink, Sweat and Tears, What Rough Beast, Overheard and Sunthia, among others. Several of his pieces of short fiction have been shortlisted in competitions, although he has never won anything.

A man once told me that I would be single forever if I used ‘big words’ while talking to people When I unhinged my jaw to swallow him whole, He also told me that I would be prettier if I smiled more. Megan Cassiday is a wannabe poet and education student from Michigan. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Where is the River, Phantom Kangaroo, Versification, and CLOVE. You can find her on Twitter @MeganLyn_

With everyone so busy Eaten up by nothings I wish we’d take more time For one another With everyone so busy Wearing masks I wished we could remove the pretense And just be our naked selves With everyone so busy Confusing masks for people Bamboozled by nonsense Is it any wonder We feel so alone and alienated? With everyone so busy Can’t we just laugh at our own cosmic absurdity? And realize We’re all on a collective road To nowhere Sebastian Vice is the Founder of Outcast Press devoted to transgressive fiction and dirty realism. He has short fiction and poetry published in Punk Noir Magazine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Outcast Press, Terror House Magazine, Bristol Noir, and Misery Tourism. He contributed a chapter to Red Sun Magazine's forthcoming book The Hell Bound Kids (May 1st, 2022) and writes a regular column called "Notes of A Degenerate Dreamer" over at A Thin Slice of Anxiety. His flash piece "One Last Good Day" was nominated for Best of The Net 2021. His forthcoming poetry book Homo Mortalis: Meditations on Memento Mori will drop April 4th, 2022 through Anxiety Press.

A photograph taken in Vegas, his head tilts right to meet yours, you melt into him. Leather jacket, wedding cake smiles, your adoring, jackpot fuck me eyes. It is give up now, she is not worth the exhaustion of coming up empty written a thousand times in a language I don’t want to learn. James Roach (he/him) is most creative between the hours of up-too-late and is it even worth going to bed? He dug up his midwest roots to live in Olympia, Wa., not too far from some sleepy volcanoes and beaches to write home about.

CW: violence and suicide Muted Voices Chris, the boss of ‘Wheels-to-the-Future’, a failing wheelchair sales company, organises an online conference call with his workforce. Each employee begins the session with a polite hello, then flicks off their camera, hits the mute button and carries on with their day. There’s Carl and Missy, a married couple who bicker as they scour their box spring bed and mattress for bedbugs. They try to kill them but they’re fighting an unwinnable war. The bugs have ruined their marriage. Stanley who watches cigar-shaped UFOs from his garden, calls the Home Office and warns them of an impending alien invasion. Terry who sits on a stool in his living room wearing latex from head to toe. Doing. Nothing. Then the twins, Jasmine and Florence who paint each other’s toenails while sipping fake cola. They’re so young and optimistic, maybe they’ll be fine. Davey who shoots pellets from his window at carjackers, toddlers and socialites. There’s Eleanor who smokes in bed as she composes a new surrealist manifesto about camels and perfume while recruiting an army from Craig’s list. Jessica logs off early without a goodbye. She’s going to kill herself with pills and barbiturates like all her favourite Hollywood movie stars. Terence sleepwalks to the store and back. He wakes and carefully parts his hair in the mirror then eats some cheese puffs. Tia has been gaslit by her husband, George, one too many times and is plotting to kill him with a mallet in the kitchen at dawn when he comes home reeking of booze and sweat and other women. Dan has a séance to contact his grandmother who isn’t even dead yet. Lana wants a baby so much she stuffs a pillow under her dress and takes pregnancy tests three times a day. And then the hour strikes five and Chris draws the meeting to a close, finishing his long meandering monologue. “Thank you all for your support during this pressing time for ‘Wheels-to-the-Future,’” Chris says. “I think we might have finally found a way to save the company. Any questions? Ok, same time tomorrow, have a great night.” As all the employees quickly type their goodbyes and log off, Chris feels a stark emptiness flow through his apartment, wrapping around him like a Boa constrictor. Maybe it’s because he misses the touch of a good woman (he’s been single for quite a while) or maybe he’s tired of being the boss of a mid-sized wheelchair company for ten years – it’s lonely at the top. Then he realises what the problem is. He suspects his employees are playing him for a fool. Could they be spreading malicious gossip about his Asperger’s, or his dyspraxia or how he likes to play Top Trumps with strangers’ children in downtown toyshops? Maybe they hate his overgrown facial hair and how he spits sometimes when he talks? But in the end, it’s too difficult for Chris to face the possibility of his workers’ betrayal. His business is all he has and doubting his staff would only ruin that. So, he tries to be more trusting – because everyone has their shady habits but, come on, just how irresponsible could his workers be, hidden behind their blank, muted computer screens, day in, day out? He simply can’t imagine. Hitchhiking to Oblivion A dinged Peugeot 205 - grey plastic hubcaps, duct tape covering the side window - pulled up beside Jessica, twenty years old, an athletic type, her skin salmon pink under the glare of the motorway streetlamps. “Where you headed?” said a middle-aged man in the driving seat, with a messy combover, smoking a Virginia Slim in a cigarette holder. “Seven Sisters, the beach.” “Well, that’s quite some way. But it’s doable. Jump in, I’m Terry.” She took a seat and began to text, completely oblivious to Terry’s eager stares. “What’s at the beach?” Terry said. “Huh? Oh, the sea,” Jessica said, absentmindedly. “You know, a beautiful girl like you shouldn’t be hitchhiking at night. There’s a lot of loons about.” Jessica continued to type. What could she say? She didn’t feel beautiful, her mum always told her she was a buffoon with a bulbous skull and a strange angular body. “Texting your boyfriend?” said Terry. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” “I hear that. I know what it’s like to be alone. I had a wife and kids but they died in a car crash on the way to the airport.” Terry picked up a photo of his family from the dashboard and showed it to Jessica. Bright smiles, honest eyes, a hopeful future. “That’s terrible,” said Jessica, finally prising herself away from her phone. “I’m sorry,” said Terry, “but I just don’t understand what a girl like you is doing hitching rides from strangers in the middle of the night.” “There are cameras on the trains. I’m on a secret mission.” But what she really wanted to say was, “I’ve been talking to a brilliant man, known as The Guru, a visionary who I met in a chat room and we’re going to search the sea and prove the earth is flat, once and for all.” After what seemed an eternity, they reached their destination. Jessica had been texting away nonchalantly, whereas Terry had become more and more strained. Finally, he blurted out, “Jessica, let me in, tell me who you are and what you’re doing?” “Don’t worry, one day you’ll know – everyone will. Thanks for the ride.” On the beach, as waves rhythmically crashed against the shore, a heavyset man stood in the shadows, leaning against a rowboat. Jessica trudged across the sand towards him. “Jessica?” The Guru said, stepping into the light. He wore a waterproof green shell-suit, thick prescription spectacles, and his head was shaped like a potato. “Hurry, it’s nearly time.” They climbed into the boat and began to paddle. The sea was calm and a sickle moon lit their way across the vast body of water. The Guru filmed the surrounding area with his phone and said, “The stars are perfectly aligned, Jessica. Tonight, we will prove to everyone what I’ve always known to be true.” “Mr. Guru? What’s out there?” “I believe, Jessica, we will find nothing less than ourselves.” “Wow.” They kept rowing and eventually The Guru declared, “It’s near, I sense it.” Then they heard a splashing sound and their boat began to sway. “Jessica!” said Terry, treading water below having quietly followed them all the way. “Come with me, please, this man only wants your body.” Terry tried to clamber onto the boat but he rocked it so violently that The Guru and Jessica were flung overboard and swallowed up by the sea. They grappled with each other, slapping and kicking, until they were caught in an undertow and dragged towards a mysterious reflective barrier, stretching out as far as they could see. Their bodies were catapulted up against the smooth, hard surface and images were displayed upon it like a neon-lit cinema screen. Terry saw his late wife and children floating towards him, looking grief-stricken and they reached out to touch him, smiling through their tears. Terry said, “My dear wife, my babies, I’ve missed you so much. All I’ve ever wanted is to see you one more time. I will treasure this moment forever.” Jessica was right next to Terry, experiencing her own vision. A mundane sight appeared - an image of an empty kitchen. Then a spotlight picked out a young man tottering into the room, carrying a half-empty bottle of wine. He sat at the dining table and took a swig. “Malcolm?” said Jessica. He looked up and said, “Your other boyfriends called, they want you to know they can’t stand to look at your wretched, deformed face any longer.” “There’s been no one else since you, Malcolm, you know that. I’m not a slut and I’m not ugly. I won’t be put down by you or anyone anymore.” “You and your jumped-up ideas – get real,” said Malcolm. “You’re a fool, I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You know nothing about me, this world, or anything. Don’t you realise you can’t get to me anymore? I’m free from your twisted mind games. Forever.” Then there was the Guru who was having visions of being the Son of God. But before he could truly immerse himself in visions of world domination, everything went black. The Guru, Terry and Jessica found themselves floating on the surface of the water gasping for air. A coast guard boat soon approached, and each of them processed their magical experiences silently while they were lifted aboard. As they all lay on the deck, Jessica finally said, “Did you see that?” Terry and The Guru both nodded yet refused to elaborate, compelled to keep their stories to themselves - maybe because it was too fantastical, maybe because they didn’t want to break the spell. One of the coasts guards drew a colleague aside and said, “I think...I think they saw it.” “Yeah, maybe, but don’t worry, they won’t speak. No one ever does.” So, they jetted back to dry land, their discovery hidden in the depths of the expansive ocean, their secluded dreams lost amongst the surf, never to be mentioned again.

How does being absent only make your presence more imposing? I remind myself of your boyish frame, the way your shoulder is level with mine. But somehow you’ve become a skyscraper. A shadow living in the periphery of my vision. I try to vanish my feelings of delusion, re-read a birthday message to serve as a reminder, I didn’t hallucinate our tender bond. A seminal phantom in life, you brought me first experiences of grief. In cursed adolescence, I sat in the pew and watched you falter at your mother’s funeral. I cherished you then as I cherished you at twenty-three. Stomach sick, unrequited ache. Even when we materialized romance from lifelong friendship, spent weekends together, loneliness loomed. You kept me at restless perimeter, believing I couldn’t reach you because I was unworthy, framed you on a lifelong pedestal as too cool, too smart to see me. But now I know your distance is a worn identity, one you owe more loyalty to than you could offer me. I’ve transformed since your final text, charmed my skin with more rebel ornaments. Got a haircut and a stable partner that doesn’t drift or vanish in a capricious shroud. Stopped seeking answers, I even gift understanding to the scar of you. Yet, there are tantrums of journal pages screaming your name. Your imp face greets me in meditations, haunts me in dreams. Of course it does. I fell in love with an untouchable apparition. Forced myself to swallow a lifetime of affections, now they overflow in ink. I greet your absence with these words, compose lines where we don’t break. In secrecy, and humiliation, I try to conjure your response.

Untitled II The skin across my face Is hot and dry and drawn The hairs of my beard Itch in singularity And I just can't Stop Scratching These are bad moon days When my skin doesn't fit And my fur won't fluff And I flex the muscles Which hold my body tight In hopes it will all split And fall away And shed And slough And die And be left To an abandoned corner Of the old shed The one with the moss On the old gray doors Perhaps one day Tonight or tomorrow Or one day next week My eyes will focus better And my bones Will not shiver Without cause Untitled III Strip somber sleeves and show scars of Scared and sacred sanctuary where Old ghosts drift back and fro and down Through muslin hallways hanging onto Bits of broken wax fruit that cling to Black velvet paintings like a Rembrandt Against the walls of the glassy sunshine. Pull the pile of shag through knotted up toes Green as golden brown Bermuda grass That never quite grew as well as on the Golf course just yards away from the house That we all lived in for just a couple of Sad and worrying years before fortune Found us and told us we were special. If I could do it all over again at least once more Maybe no one would write my name down In their little black books for black-balled Writers who just wanted someone to praise Stories and poems that dripped from Fingertips onto cathode ray computer screens In the wee hours when they were truly alone.

Mother takes her bath at nine and is benevolent enough to allow me to reuse her bathwater. I sat there for a long time just staring. Uncle Larry phoned about the annual softball game. Third base is fluctuating between parody and metaphor. Read the newspaper obituaries on the porch. Ninety-five percent of all thought is conjecture. Post was late again so I read the comics, that little red-haired girl is still enticingly noncommittal.

Mendocino County #1 Some regions like bodies have pain. You know it in the way the air smells, the way the trees burn, the way the water tastes like ash. The dry sun ignites the season like a wick and everything flames out like leprosy. Mendocino County #2 It's like falling into God, and God is angry and busy updating Dante's Hell. Mendocino County #3 When I woke the sun was scarlet maybe dimmed down a notch or two, a smokey red. The air tastes like coal and breath is labor-- the west coast is on fire, some small Armageddon, a tiny apocalypse. Practice for when we fall and when it all burns down. Visit the author's website at: www.robertallenpoet.com

18 11 18 11 1 A random dude with an inner calm that did not reflect in outer moves In the first instance, bad news A mirror-walled room in his ex-house where your reflection did not move to correspond you Curved as a sickle moon, you gaze down at me and bracket your story sheepishly, and say: look at me, boring you I forget, was this before or after I claimed that the moon could easily be Jupiter if one wasn’t particular about red spots and such, mere astronomical rules 2 18 11 18 11 time and date on a mooned wallpaper You photograph in blurry haste I throw around the word associate I suppose I mean, how could the photograph at a later date, not but remind me of your face, scoffing so rakishly at my unscientific, cosmic claims Narrating oddly memorable random tales Nobody takes the stairs anymore Bitten smooth lower lip A mirror later, while wiping off kajal, registers a glow. Cheeks in bloom. Watermelon juice with & no ice, last drink. Missing earring. I have never been able to ascertain, the extent of your affection or the degree of your inclination towards me. AC interior of a car, your shoulder cushioning my head, held hand. Held as if I matter. Three months, you sounded so certain. No Solomun, indifferent to persuasion, the DJ. Mixing cranberry and vodka with a pint of beer, while reflecting my wonder at your counter-intuitive preference for women with feminist bent, not contrived you said. It just so happened. Stairs, shall we take the stairs? The impression I got, sometimes. Preference order: substances, interests, work, me. Of course, completely understandable. But other times, like on brightly lit stairs, you hold as if there's nothing else you can see, nothing else you'd rather be doing. You hold as if I am it. A goodbye inscribed in salt. Nobody takes the stairs anymore. Not deep, I know. Maybe three months is all it'll take, to fade. Holding my hair back, a smack, ah the suggestiveness. Is the body indiscriminate or can I read into the touch, the embrace? My disproportionate eagerness is something I've reconciled with. A goodbye done well. Just enough left behind, to maybe, meet again. Guilty pleasure Contempt felt in part but not with real zeal Amoral you Hard sugar candy Delighting to suck on but the kind that inevitably leaves the mouth smarting Carol D'Souza: tea-drinker, walker

Merlot with the Moon I row my paddle boat midway across the olive-green lagoon, and stare at the stitched quilt of night. Patchwork planets and constellations climbing Sea Goat stringed Lyra barking Big Dog pieced together with irregular threads of light above me. I pour a glass of merlot, raise it to the moon. Invite her to join me. Lunar lips sealed, Moon cannot swallow even one sip. I drink her share and dance. Clumsy, drunk shadow sways. Friends forever, I swear. My voice ripples out over water. I fall asleep, promising we will meet again. Happy Hour All evening, Luna moths linger near pools of blue moonlight pouring over iced rocks of midnight sky. Open wings dipping into the nectar of constellation cocktails —blooming cosmos, galactic gin fizz— they swoon, falling over stars, drunk until morning wakes them. Brief bio: Poetry, fiction/nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications. Coyote Dreams (chapbook) forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.