By John RC Potter

If I could
I would wear
a sign
for all to see,
words of wisdom and wit:

Emotionally Closed for the Season

and perhaps that
would protect me
from those who
desperately crave love
but cannot fully give it.

###

John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada, living in Istanbul. He has experienced a revolution (Indonesia), air strikes (Israel), earthquakes (Turkey), boredom (UAE), and blinding snow blizzards (Canada), the last being the subject of his story, “Snowbound in the House of God” (Memoirist, May 2023). His poems, stories, essays, and reviews have been published in a range of magazines and journals, most recently in Blank Spaces, (“In Search of Alice Munro”, June 2023), Literary Yard (“She Got What She Deserved”, June 2023), Freedom Fiction (“The Mystery of the Dead-as-a-Doornail Author”, July 2023), The Serulian (“The Memory Box”, September 2023), The Montreal Review (“Letter from Istanbul”, November 2023) & Erato Magazine (“A Day in May 1965”, January 2024). His story, “Ruth’s World” (Fiction on the Web, March 2023) was nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. His first full-length publication will be the gay-themed children’s picture book, The First Adventures of Walli and Magoo, to be published in 2024.