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only the finest of china for this trauma so i grab the best of my mother’s bowls wash it twice with wine & honey before chipping teeth on its edge i draw water for the bloodbath and plunge in the fruit of my under-ribs with fingertips too water-plump too wrinkled to remember their prints because i put bars around this heart dreamed them into citrus-fiber ate my own self out & broke back in only to be cold with love purpled with bruising wounds soaked through with wasted potential G.L. Maverick (she/they) is a being, just like you, and would like for you to remember that your days are numbered... but there's no sense in counting down. Maverick is a poet and aspiring novelist who lives with her family in Virginia (US). While more of their work can be found in Apricity Press's 7th Issue & Corporeal Lit Mag's 2nd Volume, chances are you'll find Maverick sitting in a tree or on a rooftop, pretending she doesn't exist. Feel free to monitor their nonsensical musings on Twitter @gracenleemav.

The first thing a baby can do is cry. Stimulus response, vocalised, after that first smack. Tears, and the wordless wail. That tap. Hush now baby. Hush. The first thing a baby can do is hold on. Tiny fingers grab, look at you baby, so strong not as a skill learned, but as a delicate need, innate. Palmar Grasp Reflexes disappear, but oh baby girl that need? Need never dissipates, even if small hands fail to find reassurance to hold onto. Unlearning reaching out is to be gripped by fear, instead of a helping hand. Baby, wipe those tears. It’s to seize small comforts wherever they’re found. It’s to clasp secret hopes to a broken heart. The first thing a baby can do is react. Shhh baby, shhh, please. It’ll be all right. Startle reflexes, triggered by loud sounds or movements, disappear after two months. Don’t cry, baby. Don’t. But when slammed doors are repeated refrains? Who’s laughing now? Baby doll. Huh? Reflexes transformed, tension memories transmute into impulses, averting ire with jokes, or hiding silent, until storms pass. Hey. Baby, now’s not the time. The first thing a baby can do is breathe. The most natural thing in the world is transformed, when the world narrows and stills. Shock sets in, and then wham: the world crashes back, drumming into the body, which can’t catch up. Can you breathe with me. Baby? One breath at a time. Come on. Breathe. Movement, sound and light are doors slammed into a rabbiting heart. Uh oh baby, what’ve you done now? Stuck between first and last things. Rebecca Dempsey’s recent works feature in Corporeal Lit Mag, Unstamatic, and Five Fleas. Rebecca lives in Melbourne / Naarm Australia and can be found at WritingBec.com.

There are certain writers, who you feel ‘get you’. Almost like they took something on the tip of your tongue and finished your thought for you. “Total Rhubarb”, the latest chapbook by J. Archer Avary, is a case in point. In this collection, there is a conversation with the reader. He is showing you his exploration in words that resonate on a very human level, making you feel that it’s your story too. He navigates the disappointment, disengagement, and trauma we all go through with clarity and wit. “First Day of What Passes for Spring”; a move away, second-guessing, this poem reminds me of those moments in life when we sit alongside our decisions wondering who was inhabiting our bodies when we made them. There is a willfulness in this piece and a true understanding of the flaws and fallibility in our desire to make a change. How vehemently we resist what is best for us! I love the last two lines of this poem. I won’t state them here because you must read them in context. I promise you, you won’t see them coming. There is something accidental about ‘progress’. In “Prime Seats at the Beer Garden” Archer Avary sits us in the middle of one of those new-fangled microbrews made from an old cannery or some other industry and shows us around the facade. As someone who lives in a city that is repurposing old industrial buildings into condos and microbreweries popping up on every street corner, this piece felt very relevant. The dying of an old industry, the popping up of another in its place, and the randomness of what is deemed successful skirts the edges of this piece. It’s simple and descriptive and I can’t tell if he’s pulling my leg. But that’s the beauty of this collection. It’s always a possibility. If you’ve never seen Steve Martin’s SNL skit “Holiday Wish” I suggest you find it on YouTube before reading “High in Lemony Pines”. This reveals a gift of Archer Avary’s; to put a very earnest sentiment in a form and flow, that reveals so much about the ‘narrator’ in very few words. “Give me a cabin High in the lemony pines Where i can eat steak all day Learn the banjo,” It goes on to say the sentiment similarly throughout but in unique ways that peel back the onion on a character not revealed. I thought this poem felt a bit like a folk song. By the end, I couldn’t tell if he meant high altitude or high, high in Lemony pines. “Boris and Betty” is a poem where I felt that Archer Avary was using sleight of hand to reveal a love fading by diverting our attention to the grim reality of a baby hamster’s birth. He seems to be weaving this narrative of the cogent story in front of you, as a totem for the loss of a relationship. He slips the ‘real tale ’so off handily into the margins, you could swear the ball was under the first cup. But it had disappeared altogether. The juxtaposition of modern middle-class life and war in “This Hot Tub is a Bomb Shelter” is one of those poems that reveals for us that one step removed from guilt and that two worlds exist simultaneously, yet it doesn’t try to rectify this conundrum. Voila! The guilt’s there, and then it’s gone in a puff of smoke or hot tub steam. The incredibly creative and again, humorous “Items Lost in Transit” is a particular favorite of mine. The structure made it feel like I was looking at a diorama not reading a poem. A museum to what we lose both, tangible and intangible. Each section of the poem, titled by the item, what was happening at the time, and where it was found gives you a little insight into something innately human and the talismans we inadvertently leave behind for others to find. I love this poem. It’s a full experience and a bit of an adventure. “Tales of Near-Death” felt like a Gen-X anthem of disengagement, scabby knees, and deep scars. “I will bore this And future generations With telling & boisterous retellings I will shout it from the water tower Atop the beach nut building Tales of near-death” I wonder if this is what happens to us aging Gen Xers? Looking around at the bubble-wrapped generations after us, wondering where the passion has gone. Do we bury the trauma of our lonely, dangerous youth in these stories? Who are we to judge with our back alley tales of mundane self-violence, the gentleness, and compassion of those that come after? After all, aren’t we the ones who taught them this gentleness? This piece brought up so many questions for me and how I approach the retelling of my story. For example, I recently spent an evening with a group of friends who’d been so since 7th grade. They talked about how they used to whip each other with rubber fish until they left scars. With pride. This poem reminds me of that reckless experimentation, the lost hours of nothingness that we filled with painful initiations, and the dreams that never came true. The poems all have a deliciously dark humor that I find almost irresistible. J. Archer Avary’s collection embraces life in a way that feels today like a distant ache in my heart or the fish-tailed scar on the wrist. Life hurts, but the joy is in surviving, with a good laugh at it all. "Total Rhubarb" will be out 9 Jan via the fine folks at Back Room Poetry. J. Archer Avary (he/him) was born in the USA and now lives in Northeast England. Kellie Scott-Reed -AEIC of Roi Faineant Press and host of “A Word?” With Kellie Scott-Reed.

Your analogies are too cumbersome, Colin used to say. They should snap. Yours don’t snap. Colin could be a real drip. I don’t miss him but sometimes I feel his absence. He would argue that these are the same. Colin could never tell the temperature of words. I didn’t notice his absence on my birthday last month or our anniversary just the other day, but last night at the beach I thought of him because he would have been overcome it was so various and beautiful. When I was nudging my way through all those skinny empty trees in the forest, the sun blasting in between them like a strobe light I thought of him, and then on the flat beach, the horizon soldered shut, and the sky bursting with every kind of cloud and all the colours including a bruise of rain over Niagara and a pink smudge over Rochester I think was snow. And then over the bluffs thousands of birds shifting like a single organism – the kind of thing you expect goes on in the sea – but so strange and sudden in the air you feel like it’s a flash mob. Not unlike what would happen if you shook all the letters off this page. They’d swoop and stretch, turning one after the other until an instant of invisibility, and then a dark slam in a corner where they’d gather into a new shape, some punctuation loosening at the edges and so on, until they would fall back into place or nearly. That’s the part Colin didn’t understand. If you let the words just go, without trying to craft them to death, when they sink back into place they never quite catch their breath and you can feel it. Colin said my willingness to write imperfectly was a cop-out. He said my similes were sloppy, my coincidences unlikely, too many run-on sentences and inconsistencies especially with punctuation. I didn’t defend myself. I didn’t tell him I think mistakes create a sort of intimacy, and that I like to write in the honest atmosphere of their residue. When the birds finally sank into the trees at the bottom of the bluffs I kept hoping they’d turn up again but they didn’t, so I looked back at the lake. The moon, slumped on one side, was lodged in a darkening sky and right below, like he’d fallen from it like an egg, stood Colin – big eyes and round mouth as usual – resting-surprise-face I used to call it. Beside him was another me. I wish I could say she was taller or thinner or that her hair was a different colour or she had opposite taste in clothing or we weren’t both terribly pale – but I cannot. We shared moon-faced hellos before I loped away and sank like the birds into my dark car. That night, I let the phone ring three separate times. Of course it would be Colin trying to explain why he broke it off with the real me in the first place but I didn’t care in the same way I don’t care about mistakes and omissions. All I cared about was the wine, the salty cheese room-temperature and sharp, and the cat – our cat – applying a sort of pressure on my lap each time the phone rang as if the shrill of it increased gravity. One of the things I liked about Colin was he never knew where to put his happiness so it stuck out all over the place in an alarming and hilarious way. Also that he didn’t have a sense about how he looked – not a clue – which at first I thought was a hoot but after a while I wished he would tone it down because in those secondary colours and Steve Martin plaids he could look like a clown. I suggested grey and other monotony and he fell out of love with me the way something falls off a bridge. There. Did that fucking snap? Sherry is from the wilds of Ontario. She writes the kind of stories she longs for and can rarely find. Feeling Funny

CW: ableist slur He came to town as a first round pick, expected to only be making a minor league pit stop before getting called up by the Flyers. Then, suddenly, three years passed and he was a third-year Sacramento Railroader. On this night he was in some dumpy motel up north. The Roaders had gone up by The Most Dangerous Lead in Hockey, two goals to nil. Call it superstition or call it statistics, the lead was surrendered. The Yakima Maniacs won 4-2. Some men have gone out of their way to inform me that this isn’t actually the Most Dangerous Lead. I don’t give a shit. When our little alternative press paper grew to have a sports page, I was promoted to its editor (read: burdened with its responsibility). I used to write about music, man. For our ritual postgame facetime, I called him in his dumpy motel. He answered wearing sunglasses. A piece of paper was folded in front of him as a name plaque, THE SOUTH DAKOTA KID scribbled in Sharpie. “What went wrong tonight?” I humored him. “We played like shit, Yakima eats shit, we never had a chance.” “Coming up, Saturday night you play the Olympia Senators. What’s gotta change going forward?” “Let me tell ya, we’re about to go all Julius Caesar on some Senators, baby.” “Is that on the record?” “Huh?” “Caesar was killed by the Senators. Not the other way around.” He sighed and took off his sunglasses. As it happened, he would neither attempt nor risk assassination. When the team bus left from Yakima he wasn’t on it. He was traded in the night. This time a phone call. No cameras. Everything off the record. A blunt of indica had rendered me utterly In Da Couch. I could hear my voice deepen every time I spoke between the puffs as I tried to follow his mania. “What the fuck! Portland? Fuckin’ what! I don’t know anything about Portland!” “I heard it’s weird,” I offered. “Right. Right, and we have to keep it that way.” He said we, so I asked, “What does this mean for us?” “Dude, I’m fuckin’- - - I gotta - - They’re gonna call me, to set it up or whatever. Probably gotta get off the phone soon, right, you know, to - - Fuck! I used to be good at hockey, y’know? I was always the best, growing up. School, college. Now I’m the one holding everyone back. How do you deal with it?” “Um?” “Maybe this is a good move. Maybe they’re affiliated with some booty buttcheeks team like the Coyotes, maybe I’ll get promoted easier. Do you know who they’re with?” “They don’t have an affiliate.” “What do you mean?” “They’re unaffiliated. There’s no promotion out of Portland.” He didn’t say anything. I had to say something. “So, earlier?” Smoke wafted out of nostril and mouth. “I’m gonna assume you meant the indefinite ‘you.’ When you asked about holding everyone back. Not the personal you, as in me.” “Sabrina, don’t act like I’m not retarded.” “Don’t say that.” “I am though!” “Don’t use the r-word.” “Can we not talk about words right now? Whether they’re - - indefinitive or whatever?” Should I point out again this habit, this intrinsic entitlement, how he thinks he can get away with saying anything because he’s “just sayin’?” “I don’t think, I just talk.” As if that’s a defense! Will he ever hear how he’s a product of the pillars he was placed on in some flyover backwater because of prepubescent talents for a game… I lost my train of thought and returned to him mid-lament. “What can I even do now! I’ve been sentenced to hockey purgatory.” “Puckatory,” I offered. “Fuck,” he agreed. I took another drag. I couldn’t tell if I could hear him smoking too or if I was just hearing myself. “One thing,” I started, then coughed. “One thing you gotta admit.” I coughed more. “One thing you gotta admit! You’re still playing hockey. That’s nice. At least your dreams have a minor league. A lot of careers don’t have that. There isn’t a minor league for chemists or lawyers or, uh… Spies?” “If you think there aren’t minor league lawyers, you should meet my divorce attorney.” We laughed. I’d met him when he was twenty-two, half a year in with the Roaders, four years younger than me, and in the middle of a divorce. He said getting married young was the small town way. I said I was born and raised in Sacto so I wouldn’t know about small towns. I was a product of the 916. I hated the Lakers, and would forever, and loved the Kings and the Roaders and sagebrush and skyscrapers, and would forever as well. My great-grandfather had been a construction worker and wa buried in the wet cement of Folsom Dam. He said it was weird to tell him that on a first date, and we’d fucked ever since. I defined our relationship so flippantly because commitment comes to me as a terror unlike any other, but by the time of the Yakima game we’d been together longer than his marriage had lasted. I stabbed out the blunt. There was silence on the line. “I don’t know what this means for us,” he said finally. And because the concept of purgatory always makes me think of Waiting For Godot I said, “There’s nothing to be done.” Which I guess is how we broke up. Burke De Boer is an Oregon-grown, Texas-based writer and botanist. His western novel "In Sheep's Clothing" is available from Third Eye Sockeye Press.

We Watched a Dog Die on the Weekend of a Wedding We sat -my daughter and I- on a park bench eating a snack. A treat after a long walk; a restful pause before a busy day of family and friends. Across the path another family and their dog. A large ball of fluff and fur resembling a shabby wolf- lying still. Close beside it lay another dog- wagging its tail. A few family friends stood nearby all waiting and watching. We sat, snacked, and watched. We sat and snacked and I began to comprehend. Unknowingly, we had joined a vigil. A mournful wait for an impending release, and final goodbye. A moment imbued with love and imminent loss flush with the light of a midday sun. The stillness of the moment was broken by a needle produced from a white van A short walk and a shot is buried into fur into the pink flesh beneath all that fluff and fur. The dog dies Right before our eyes. We sat there and… I thought of our dog at home. I thought of grandparents, parents, siblings, spouse… of hospices and palliative care teams, visitations and funerals I thought of loved ones and friends of tragedy and truth. I thought of my young daughter sitting close beside me Uncomprehending, uncomprehending, uncomprehending. The silence of the scene was disrupted by my daughter’s curiosity: What are they doing? Why are they crying? I fear a day of real comprehension For her For me. What was this we were witnesses to? This haunting scene- this Holy moment- So exposed to the elements to all eyes and passersby. The second dog continued wagging its tail. Uncomprehending, uncomprehending, uncomprehending. We packed our snack And returned to our walk. What else were we to do? A Waking Thought I dreamed a nostalgic nightmare The cool caress of a lover’s hand once so familiar, now distant and nearly forgotten returned to me in my rest. I wake haunted by the memories this vivid vision has invited so rudely into this room. As my partner, my friend, My chosen companion- lay asleep beside me. Why trouble my mind with such fantasies, Dream-weaver? deceiver, who seeds my thoughts with what-if’s- What was… What could have been… As my waking mind begins to shake The dreary dreamlike state and return once more to the reality that is- I love this life: all that has come and all that is and perhaps all that will be. But damn my dreams that break this bliss causing my mind to wander this restless wonder when I wake.

I met John Yamrus through an online forum. I was a newbie in the poetry world, published for about a year. John invited forum members to contact him with questions and comments. So, I did, with no idea of who he was. Or what he wrote. As he and I continued to chat, I found out that, over the course of a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, John has published 35 books, including poetry, novels, memoirs, and a children's book. When I asked him which of his books would be a good introduction to his work, John recommended that I buy his latest book, “Selected Poems: The Director’s Cut.” When the book arrived, I was shocked at how thick it was. Was I ever going to get through it in my lifetime? I read the first poem, and I was hooked. I finished the book in one sitting. How is that possible? John’s poems are compact. He sucked all the fat off, including imagery and capitalization. All that’s left are the bones. Excellent bones. he asked me how do i write a poem, and when do i know that it’s done. that was a fair enough question, so i gave him a fair enough answer. i told him that i write it all down. i write it all down and start cutting. i keep cutting till i hit bone, and when i do, there’s your poem. “The Director’s Cut” isn’t a book. It’s a gift box full of wonders and surprises. So, sit on the floor with me while we unpack this box. Believe me, you should sit on the floor. One of the trademarks of John’s poetry is surprise endings, and you don’t want to fall down laughing like I did. A poem might bubble over with memories, and end with a swift punch of reality, such as: you lay in bed and there’s a train whistle somewhere off in the distance and it takes you back to a place and a time you don’t even care to remember where it was or when. back to a place with dirty sheets and dust in the corners and under the bed and you start thinking about why and who and where and how and you know it doesn’t really matter because there will always be trains and beds and sheets and the sun coming up as you wait for another day that’ll bring you that much closer to whatever it is that’s out there, waiting to finally do you in. I love the poems he writes to and about his wife. They are unabashedly, nakedly honest, and John clearly adores her. "stop opening things with your teeth,” she said. “number one, you’ll break a tooth. number two... well, it’s just a nasty, ugly habit. and i don’t like it, so, cut it out.” she was right. she always is. “besides, when you do something stupid like that it makes you look like an ass-hat.” i couldn’t argue with logic like that. so, i put it on the table, thinking maybe this time i actually bit off more than i could chew. You’ll find poems that shrug their shoulders at everyday realities like fishing, weeds, relationships, housework, and drinking beer. If you’re looking for answers, John won’t give you the pleasure, although he might pose some funny possibilities. he kept her picture in a drawer next to the bed and every now and then would take it out and look at it, hard, like it held all the answers. it didn’t matter that the picture was more than forty years old, and she was a no-good, squeezing bitch. no, what mattered was a man’s always got to have a dream, and this was his. I don’t know a poet who doesn’t write about writing (including rejections, poetry readings, interviews, and other writers). If I ever had the balls to respond to a rejection of my poetry, I’d definitely send the editor one like this: "Dear John: Concerning your most recent poem... as always, it’s engaging and technically correct, but you’re beginning to sound a bit one-note to me. How about trying a poem that isn’t about other people’s poetry – or, better yet, a poem that doesn’t even mention poetry?” hi; i’m writing to you to let you know i appreciate your concern for my literary safety... but, poems are like cookies... sometimes you just get cravings for one particular type. right now, i’m into chocolate chip. that being said, in taking your comments to heart, i went back and checked... i’ve sent you exactly 39 poems, 13 of which are about the writer’s life, or writing. i have no real defense for that. i’m afraid i AM a writer, and the only subject matter i have is me. however, that still gives you 26 other poems to consider. you can also be happy in knowing that of those 26 poems, there’s not one mention of writing... there are also: zero unicorns zero faeries zero dappled daisies zero mentions of cutting my wrists zero use of the words “life sucks” and zero poems entitled: "Life, Love or Death." you can also feel confident of finding poems that talk about picking my nose, going to the fridge for a beer and watching my dog take a dump. thanks for your continued interest... best... always... john Then there are his dog poems (I’m a dog mom, I think they’re wonderful). This is one of my favorites: the neighbor’s dog is old and deaf. she sleeps all day, pees on the rug and throws up every chance she gets. i promise i won’t do that poet thing and compare myself to her. i can’t. i’m not deaf yet, and it’s been weeks since i even came close to peeing on the rug. John knows how to portray the joys of aging and impending death, for example: i never thought i’d end this way. chronic pain 24/7. it hurts to move, it hurts to sit, it hurts to breathe. that wasn’t supposed to be me. i expected to be hitting my 60s fully formed. the crazy old guy who hit all the elevator buttons and ran. never, no way did i expect for this to happen. but, that’s okay. you play the hand you’re dealt. besides, inside i still am that guy i wanted to become. and whoever’s responsible for that other thing... you and i gotta talk. The shiniest treasure in the gift box is John himself. In his poetry, you’ll find him fearless, funny, realistic, and a man who pours his guts into every poem. Read this book, and you’ll find yourself liking him as much as I do. *** In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, John Yamrus has published 35 books (29 volumes of poetry, 2 novels, 3 volumes of non-fiction and a children’s book). He has also had nearly 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A book of his “Selected Poems” was just released in Albania, translated into that language by Fadil Bajraj, who is best known for his translations of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Pound, and others. A number of Yamrus’s books and poems are taught in college and university courses. His most recent book is “Selected Poems: The Director’s Cut” (Concrete Mist Press, 542pp). *** Nolcha’s poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her three chapbooks are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry and for Open Arts Forum. Interviewer and book reviewer. Faker of fake news. Website: https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats” https://amzn.to/3uEKAqa “The Big Unda” https://amzn.to/3IxmJhY “How to Get Me Up in the Morning” https://amzn.to/3RLDaKc Twitter: @NolchaF Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nolcha.fox/

after the song “Pink Venom” by BLACKPINK Thick edge of paradox no other appeal to sex quite as persuasive: four women sing syllepsis, steam smooth, and break your brain. This is not a game, but Fun making fun make fun in a Fun Factory. I recognize the play from womanhood, the expertise of a phrase tangled in a wrench, turning a careful wild sequence. Listening to the song, I think, what am I allowed? What can I take, am I too thread-stripped a different woman now, but the syntax I know: every drop in the beat a dare – (like a comma) mark a rest, then double down. Alison Heron Hruby is an associate professor of English education at Morehead State University, where she teaches courses on adolescent literacy and directs the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. She completed the AWP W2W program this past summer in poetry as Amorak Huey's mentee and is new to submitting poems for publication.

all green was the name in the house where they lived rose colored it was and full of anxiety hamlet and papa hamlet fell out because hamlet would not get a haircut or stop having sex in his room or stop smoking that hash or give over playing bass in our band or even go to school papa hamlet was rich and so never felt shame but writhed in disgrace and rage mama hamlet wrung her hands with woe over what was to become of her longhaired dopestained son there was always a lot of shouting we did our best to ignore it one gray and windswept day we were there for a jam in a room on the roof where the maids did laundry old school tintin was there with a brand new nikon so we smoked a few cigarettes for show leafed through some playboys mugging for the camera i had some new boots on i hold the picture still later we strapped on our gear and played through our set always loud sometimes good into the last act with doubled vox distortion boosters tintin burst in shouting run for your lives and we did there from the rooftop we saw a giant waterspout weaving and looming over saint georges bay we watched like rabbits frozen by the awful sight as the funnel made landfall down by the sporting club and the crust of the land broke its back and it staggered on the biscuit colored streets a great bath of salt fell from the sky on the neighborhood of manara and the lighthouse tall and striped black and white they say fishes and seaweed and sand fell too but i never saw them all green was the name rose colored the villa one day I went by to find them all gone and my guitar on the front door landing safe and sound in its case w v sutra was born in Africa and raised in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, borne hither and thither on the surging tides of cold war and soft power. He has been at various times a rock musician, a public health professional, and an educator. He began writing poetry during the Covid-19 lockdown. His work can be found in various online journals and at wvsutra.com . He lives and works on a horse farm on the shoulders of the Holston Mountains in East Tennessee. Twitter @w_v_sutra

Then, slumber wrapped my brain in fog. The sun, in hiding, shrouded black, escaped my reach. Atop secluded heights it shone for others, and while the cold of autumn fell on us, struggling against the remnant light, this age embraced abjection and condemned itself. In arabesques, the plumes to heaven soared from desolated lands, unseen, unwitnessed; a numbing angst had done the work: all eyes, once stabbed, had been replaced by made-up gems for flayed survivors to forget their fall. I'll somber into night head on. I'll carry the sparks to keep the fire on. And through darkness inform, I'll cut my way; and led by crows, I'll climb the mounts toward the skies. Once found, I'll mourn it, for it died—this sun. Romain P.-A. Delpeuch is the author of Hypnagogia (Terror House Press, TBA). His poetry and short fiction appear in New English Review, Terror House Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, Ekstasis, D.F.L. Lit, JOURN-E, Atop The Cliffs and The Decadent Review.

brain games With a tiny little hammer And a tiny little chisel I am going to straddle you (The way you like) And crack open your skull And scoop it out like pumpkin seeds So I can see what you think of me - (That’s not how brains work, you said I don’t care!!!!! I said [I get it, you’re a fucking scientist]) I’m going to plop it into a tureen And pull it apart with my hands And take all the fibers (Or whatever’s in there I don’t actually know how brains work) And I’m going to be like those guys on tv You know, on the cop shows I’m going to stretch them out like red string And tack them to a cork board To see if you’re lying about - (Why would I lie, you said You’re already in bed with me, you said I don’t care!!!! I said) Liking me (and listen; if you’re lying about liking me, it’s fine we can still hook up, you know me but if you didn’t watch the videos i sent there will be hell to pay) december My fingers are greedy, trying to track these loose threads to plait them into something I can touch: A tongue inside me, my knees pressed into sheets like a baker presses his hands into dough, my forehead touching the wall with every rock. I thought you would fall between the twin beds housekeeping thrust together for us. I do this every winter: relitigating every memory, December wind like a whetstone used to sharpen the dulled edges. Things are different this year: I have been running. I hated running before. I think if I can train my muscles, and pull them into something taut and new, maybe I can do the same with the rough red stretch of my mind. Maybe with each footfall, I am discarding the soul hewn from others’ landscapes. “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever been with,” you said. “I hope you’re not lying,” I said. “Why would I lie?” you said. My heart was a door swung open. I want to believe that this exists in a vacuum, that the world comes to a sharp halt outside this door. Maybe this is an elaborate game of dress-up. I want to know what shampoo you use, what you ate last You can’t look at mirrors; I put away my mirrors. So this is what I am trying to outrun, the folding of the small details of you into my skin. Samantha is from Chicago, Illinois. Basically she is writing so she doesn't die. Find her at @saaamrowling on Twitter.

I’d dupe them all with my clever green disguise, A mere man, mingling among brooding beasts. No—it was worse. For the bar was cursed, A lair for the lonely and longing souls. The patrons were dragons of old, woeful witnesses of tall tales once told, chugging elixirs and potions of death— potent remedies to recharge their breath. They were the monsters, the misunderstood, the antithesis of all that was good, festooned in doom, adorned with horns and scales, long tangling tails with sharp stiletto tips, tapering out to stocky heavy hips, and they were maleficent in their myth— the whole wicked wretched disgusting lot: Bill, Darlene, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, wrinkled and frail from many battles fought, and won—the end days of a life of fun, Caroline, last of an ancient bloodline, in a full flight for a young healthy mate, and Gertrude, withered and grotesque, but great. she no doubt had a mean ugly lifestyle, if I’m to believe the legends are true. She was a large lumbering type—vile— ravaged a town or two, as dragons do, but could it be? I suppressed my denial, and casually maintained my composure. A look of shock would risk my exposure. Collectively they’d torn the world apart. They spoke of broken homes and broken hearts, from capital cities to old back roads, conquering the most chivalrous of codes. Sooner or later they’d be spitting fire, as dragons do—for authenticity, and they’d have the whole damn bar in a blaze. a cruel but fair fate for the fool that stays. Behold the dragons of old and their might, towering over the brave fearless night, steadfast through volatility and pain, boldly declaring, “I will not be slain!”