By: David Francis The Tempered Flame Only you know me only you have analyzed me only you have suffered with me know my pros and cons others have dipped slender ankles in the pool others have flashed thinned silver like…

By: Mythili Nagarajan Refined It defines. Crude It shreds. Spoken It breeds. Unspoken It creeds. Powerful In nature Power If nurture. Be it Nor it be – Been to Mean. Sensed – Is the Essence That is Dense In and…

By: Priya Anand Eerie and deserted,  dimly lit with neon lights flickering  Something rustles in the corner where darkness pools and gathers malaise that rustles and ripples A cockroach scurries across And disappears beneath a cracked concrete pillar desecrated by …

By: JayM Schadenfreude: Without Cruelty, where would the circus be… For humanity to seek, The magnanimity of mercy under, The crack of the whip; The collectives’ fervent desire To be entertained… Callousness a Desideratum, For a peccable quickening Of the…

By: Lazaro Gutierrez perhaps for my one true love, she bought me roses —red velvet wine, like the ones that I buy her every valentine’s. * the day that I die i hope i’m reborn, perhaps not in flesh perhaps…

By: Alison McBain BEYOND a point in time indicates finish period to a sentence finite space stopped by boundaries, contained but what if a point in time is simply continuation? beyond the ellipsis of the written word beyond grammar and…

By: Khalilah Okeke Angel Her eyes are celestine crystals. Healing through their watchful gaze. I thread them like beads to wear around my neck so I can see. Her song a scribbled scroll tongue lapping waves— words passing like frosted…

By: Selena L. Martinez “I’m tired, mommy,” I said. My eyes were fluttering shut as the night and snow surrounded us in the quiet of my room. My mother said nothing and put her hand up to my forehead, worry…

By: Linda M Crate i fear you’ll hate me maybe the reason i thought you could hate me is sometimes i hate myself, and i cannot blame you if you don’t like the darkness in me; i try to make…

By Mark Kodama 1 The nice thing about a small town is that its people always take care of you. So when my big brother Pete was injured in the football game, he did not have to worry. God is…