In Trauma
 
To the child hiding in your heart:
 
I know you are burnt and broken
You are torn and tethered
You fear when the leaf flutters
You fear the first rain-drop
It makes too much noise
And then the whole sky seems like
A terrible plot to pull you down
You fear the grown-ups when they say hello
You fear your play-mates
Whether on your team on theirs
But friend, you are not alone
Your voice is with you to guide you
Through the clouds, one by one
And bring you right here
In the sunlight
 
 
(Dr. Shailja Sharma (Ph.D.) is a psychologist and an author, practicing in Texas, USA. Apart from her scholarly publication, Dr. Sharma’s poetry has been nationally and internationally published in peer-reviewed journals, literary magazines, and radio shows. Some of her recently published work appeared in Setu: Bilingual Journal of Arts from Pittsburgh, Spillwords, Literary Heist, Piker Press (forthcoming), Life in 10 Literary Mag, Literary Yard, The Indian Periodical, Inkspire, and elsewhere. She was awarded a special literary honor for her poetry featured in an anthology of foreign language poems).

Dark, Light, Mind, Thought

We are too late for the darkness, 
Too early for the light, 
Too late for it to mind, 
And too early for thought 
Darkening never reaches the light 
As the mind never reaches thoughts 
Thoughts come to mind
 
(Anthony David Vernon, is a Cuban-American writer and a master's level philosophy student at the University of New Mexico. Some his publishing credits include A Great Fire (2020 Cabinet of Heed), 

The Fall
 
He didn't see it coming
The wholeness of his life
would be irrevocably shattered
in one split second
The stairs were old and steep
He signaled to his wife to wait
Descending first with a box
In a frightening flash he flew to the floor
As his head smashed the concrete
it felt like a thousand boulders
crushed and pinned his body
He was conscious, he could speak
Instant awareness flooded his mind
with horror and disbelief
His body felt like a frozen block
The ensuing moments
were a dark agonizing blur
as though the stars had fallen
extinguishing the light
The future became a kaleidoscope
of medical misery and mental anguish
 causing him to obsess about death
rather than live out his crippled sentence
He was a prisoner, jailed in his body
Shackled to a bed or wheelchair
His perfect mind was an isolated entity
Directing a corporal self without effect
Existing like an immobile statue
A tribute to what was and could never be
The days dragged to months, then years
With formidable emotional and physical endurance
minute movements returned to his battered body
He gradually achieved unexpected progress
But not enough to set him free
There was hope, always hope
New advances in treatments arose daily
It was vital to focus on the present
to let the past drift away
when he was active, strong, happy,
memories which inflicted exquisite pain
A spark in him burned like glowing embers
Adding fuel to his inborn fighting nature
He powered his body through tunnels of torture
Small rewards reinforced his will to live
Inner strength pushed him up the high road
Still, there were moments when
in the depths of depression and despair
Death beckoned as a welcomed release
 
(Jane H Fitzgerald writes poetry with clarity and compassion. Her four books including, Notes From the Undaunted , can be found on Amazon. Jane has been published in many journals including Dreamers Creative Writing, Open Door Poetry Magazine, and others. Jane hopes that her words will bring diverse peoples together).

The Compromise
 
It would be easier,
so much easier when she
was going to die after the transplant.
I’d wake sweating out pills booze panic.
So sure her broken form would
be a found puddle of blood in fox print sheets.
Our apartment porch’s thin bars smashed in,
the window becomes shrouds
of glass covering her red
hair, as the invisible tendrils
of elder fungus reach down her throat
and snuff her breath into a final phlegm-less
cough, that imagined week where
the donated cells revolt, rise fire, and lava
across her face, down her back,
pull intestine down the toilet’s
hell face. Love becomes screams
through a dry burning mouth. But
 
I held her hand, thin and cold,
no fire, no choking, just long
drives to the hospital, new cell
civilization the turned winter
terror to spring, and time clogged
rivers, birds born, and worry
died in mouths. She was miracle
flesh, poisoned into life, quoting
books, crying over friends missed.
Then quiet across the room, 
and the normal stab and haunt
of alcohol wipes in my nose. 
 
 
The Things Dads Do
 
We pray. Our hands rudderless,
floppy, numb and burning,
skin ripped as red oak leaves,
the dying smell of a hospital.
The long steps up, the slow
steps down into a dinner
of tears and crackers and
dry hamburger meat. We pray
with greasy hands in the chapel,
lonely as the winter that strangles
and chokes the glass. The
cold moment with a god we
don’t know. Never felt. Don’t
feel now, same tendrils of sickness,
cannibal fingers interlaced,
pointers crossed as horns.
And yes, that thought is understood.
The sulfur wings, the comfortable
grip of the pen, the scrawled
name the only believable holy word,
the understanding of the decades
past of
fevered babies, broken lungs,
the rot behind the eyes,
the look in desperate beds
of straw, of oak,
of steel. What father would
not eat the fire, choke back
the charred decision,
tear arm from arm, any
arm. We would murder
the moon, make piles of halos
of angels and birds,
knees mashing in faces,
kid-noses, lovers, and devils.
What would dads do?
Anyfuckingthing.
 

BMT Day # 890
 
The long net of a storm
pulled the length of the sky,
tight and unwelcoming as
we trekked towards the end
of our new street and into
patch of trunks and underbrush.
 
My brown boots, the cuff
of dirt, around the midsole,
laces tighten and prepared.
Tread holds the pollen,
broken limbs of figwort
and sweet gum. The ankle
leather scraped from overgrowth,
as our shortcut dips into a deer trail.
 
It’s that moment when woods
become a forest I find comfort.
I have stood under darker trees,
under darker clouds
laden in spears, each bolt with its
own name, its own unique touch of death.
I have hiked through this before
running does not make it easier.
You learn to wait - through,
over, at, the hard decision of spring.
 
We look ahead, as the brush and branches
open, brown spring limbs spread
              into rebirth of buttercup.
Yellow caps spark in the layer of green,
next to the lone oak, strong and stable,
rocks jut as a mountain range, alone
among the invasive blossom of suns.
 
(C.L. Liedekev is a writer/propagandist who lives in Conshohocken, PA with his real name, wife, and children. He attended most of his life in the Southern part of New Jersey. His work has been published in such places as Humana Obscura, Red Fez, Open Skies Quarterly, River Heron Review, and Vita Brevis. Many of my recent poems have dealt with my 10-year-old daughter’s bone marrow transplant and recovery).
 
 

Pressing Three 

*To erase and try again press three.
 
Hey there. It’s me. I’ve been kind of sad lately.
You know how it is. Anyway, thanks for calling.
Leave a message and I’ll try to get back to you.
 
*To erase and try again press three.
 
Hello. I’m fucking depressed. I’m making
a conscious effort to be completely honest with
myself. With others. That’s why I’ve decided
not to answer the phone. Please, don’t be mad.
I’m tired of pretending happiness to be polite. This
waltz of well-mannered untruths makes me
even more miserable. Ya know?
You can leave a message at the tone
but I probably won’t respond.
 
*To erase and try again press three.
 
Hi! I don’t feel like talking to anyone.
I’ve also been really lonely lately? Please,
leave a message if you’ve got some time.
Actually, no. I’d just feel bad for not calling back.
Just. Forget it.
 
*To erase and try again press three.
 
I think I’ve fallen in love with my cellphone.
An unorthodox affair. Who are you to judge?
What else do I own more enabling for my anxiety
and ambiversion at once? No. I can’t use this one.
 
*To erase and try again press three.
 
FUCK.

To erase and try again press three.
 
*I’m sorry. The person you are trying to reach
has a voicemail box that has not been setup yet.
 
(Monica Mills is a Jamaican-American writer and poet. She is from Maplewood, New Jersey and has a bachelor’s degree in political science and English from Rutgers University. Monica’s work appears in journals such as The West Trade Review, The Anthologist, The Normal Review, and The Quiver Review among others. She enjoys rainy days and ginger tea.)

Hiding My Truth
 
A sinister energy somehow returns,
and it carries excitement and doubt.
It blossoms inside like an old parasite
and draws out my vulnerable thoughts.
This poisonous leech disguised as truth
tempts me toward sparkling journeys.
But I can’t give in and risk jail again,
so I hide behind logic and safety.
Now my insecure smiles and appropriate speech
protect me from dubious stares.
As God is my witness, I’m not really odd,
I’m just hiding my truth till the end.
 
(John Zurn has been faced with the challenges of bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder for his entire adult life.  He gradually learned that: medication, exercise, meditation and creative writing were vital for his long term recovery. Despite this challenge, he still worked as a teacher and counselor for thirty-five years.)

The Nest
 
I imagine you looking at the robins’ nest in the Maple outside your bedroom window. 
You can’t see the blue eggs, but you watch the male bring his partner dry grass and twigs. 
He brings dirt, too, dipped in a birdbath or gathered from a swampy spot at the yard’s edge.  
The female cements the nest, protecting her brood of four or five. 
 
Sometimes you stare at your body cast, a remnant of your spinal surgery, 
but most hours you watch the tree, the birds, the clouds, and the sky. 
The days pass slowly, but at the two-week mark, you see tips of yellow mouths, 
like tulips or other flowers you used to smell in the lawn beyond. 
 
You think of the day your hardened mold cracks open and you walk outside. 
How you will look upward, mouth open, scanning the blue and clouds and sun, 
hoping to glimpse a fledgling, or any free bird, flying far across the sky. 
Where it travels is not your concern. Your joy is that it does. 
 
 
(James Mulhern’s writing has appeared in literary journals over one hundred and fifty times and has been recognized with many awards. In 2015, Mr. Mulhern was granted a writing fellowship to Oxford University. That same year, a story was longlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize. In 2017, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His novel, Give Them Unquiet Dreams, is a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2019. He was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2021 for his poetry. Recently, two of his novels were Finalists for the United Kingdom’s Wishing Shelf Book Awards.)
 
 

I am you you are me
 
One time or another we’ve all needed help
If you deny it you’re fooling yourself
Depression, anxiety take root in us all
and hide us from others behind a cruel wall
 
Bipolar disorder or eating afflictions
some are genetic, some are addictions
Some need more help, some need a nudge
In either case, yours not to judge
 
God put us here to look after each other
would you turn away if you had your ‘druthers?

(Joseph Tradii won numerous creative writing awards for his work in advertising before turning to poetry. He has taught writing at Central Washington University and his poetry has appeared in Hevria Magazine. His interests also include classic Hollywood cinema and crawling old, independent bookstores.)

Dear Future
 
 
don’t judge me on my numbers, my
flawed mathematics of
sick survival
 
don’t believe what they say about me –
the suppression, the serenity, the endlessness
                                                            of my symphony
            remember I was a storm in a teacup
            just never quite mastering the language
            of everyone else’s revolution
 
don’t preserve my photographs –
reluctant spectres, frozen smiles, submission
 
don’t walk in my footsteps –
most of them were wonderfully quiet
                        left no impressions except
                        sometimes
                        charcoal
 
don’t ask my friends my contemporaries who I was -
they’ll only give you themselves
 
don’t ask my lovers for my secrets
I left those knots tied figure-eight, they’ll
take a lifetime to untangle, they’ll never pull free
 
don’t believe whatever bullshit gets etched into my gravestone –
I wrote the epitaph aged 19, I was high and
anyway
I told them I wanted to be cremated
 
look for the stains I never meant you to find –
            blood-ghosted tissues in the wastepaper bin
            sweat-stained underwear
            chalky handprints on the fine leather couch
            toothpaste spat at the empty mirror
look for the traced outlines –
            the cats who thought I was a crazy one of them
            the ones I loved so badly I stammered them out of the light
            the coffee spilt on the carpet
            the regret
 
look for the ghosts
or for god’s sake find yourself a (less haunted)
(better remunerated)
destiny

(Anna Rivers is a UK-based, Belgian-raised PhD student at the University of Warwick, where her research focuses on the interrelationship of the philosophy of sound and rhythm with ghosts and hauntings.)
 

Diagnosis
 
Since April 1976
I’ve lived in a Dali painting--
surrealism in reality.
Or maybe Escher,
impossible never-ending stairways,
water that flows
both downhill and up,
life that goes on
but is viewed skewed.
 
My world became a child’s drawing.
Stick figures,
     smeared colors,
           odd perspectives,
a place that wasn’t real.
 
Dreams that had been painted in color,
ready to be placed
on the walls of my life,
suddenly, were black and white
washed-out visions
of my future.
 
Since April 1976,
insecurity has spiked
the water I sip all day.
Fear hides in my mind,
in the corner,
where it can always find me.
 
(Margaret Krusinga was diagnosed with MS in 1976. She conducts a small writing group and was a finalist for the Ritzenheim Poetry Award. She lives on sixty acres near Lansing, Michigan, USA, where she and her husband raise chickens. She pens poetry leaning toward nature and the meaning of life.)