It’s Not Okay
By Deenah Jacques She screams, her throat turns ripe and red her mother’s body lowered into ground. A woman rushes to her, “It’s okay, It’s okay” grasping shoulders, her words flocking in the air, like dazed starlings. I look over to this scene from a distance dirt shuffling around feet, flowers placed on …
Give Me Back Mine
By Chelsea Sanchez Baby I want to smash bottles Against the wall Plates splintered On the hardwood floor But I can’t bring myself To care You are the only one Who can pull my strings The only one allowed To wind me up So I can move and dance And cry and …
Sisters
By Katie Durant When I was nine or so, I boarded the wrong school bus home. too afraid to speak up, I rode all the way through and out of the small town I lived in. We passed a taxidermy office and a pond I had never seen before. To keep myself from seeing more …
Photograph
By Sharitza Pardo I see her standing in her bright pink leotard fake microphone in her hands, ready to sing her heart out to a song with words she can barely pronounce at that age, eyes focused and brows furrowed, her little sister in a bright blue tutu, curls falling around her shoulders, shaping …
The Restaurant
By Grace McDermott I didn’t think I was putting myself in a position where I might be in danger when I first started working at the restaurant. I was just worried about whether or not people would like me. After all, I was a hostess, not a lion tamer. It seemed like a …
I Am Violet Monroe
By: Claire Destroismaison I watched her pull out an American Spirit from her blue Versace purse. She looked exceptionally well today. Long, flowy, purple skirt, black ballet flats, with red and purple bangles dangling from her perfect wrists. Her red manicure still looked fresh from the week before. Every morning same time, 9:05 a.m., she’d …
You know what is the best feeling ever?
By Jacqueline Krozy Snuggling your loving daughter on the carpet, staring up at her nightlight, giving her soft cheeks warm kisses to twinkle little star— right before she goes to bed… then returning to her crib before you slumber. When you enter her room, See her cuddling her books You pick her up, Cradle her …
All things happen when they are meant to be … in time
By Jackie Krozy They said, he said, she said, I mechanically wag my head, But really, I do not accept these words. Lava grumbles and lurches, Opening crags in my stomach, As mindfully, I make that hesitant smile, hear their hypocritical advice from greedy hearts That have that sacred thing That my whole life …
“Not Today”
By Krissy Bradley Do you love me still? Could you fix the drafty door? He replies, not today dear, but soon I will I’d rather play black jack down the hill I’ll wait to do that chore Do you love me still? I rake the leaves alone in the autumn chill I know …
Sunday Dinner
By Krissy Bradley Grandfather’s Guinness grows on our maple tree Like shiny coins or crisp bills His glass half full or mostly half empty As he sits in a leaning house with broken window sills While Mother’s meatballs simmer in sauce Handmade with love and garlic so sweet The magic she makes and the …
Hands
By Gail Mooney I. Against the night harbor sea roses open, loose petalled and trembling with scent. My mother cups a flower to my nose saying They smell most beautiful as they die. She points to a peeled birch her hands freckled like the camouflage of leaf and shade, her palm smoothed across …
Graffiti
By Amanda Hayes I wish a part of me could forget the art of you, wash away the memories you canvassed on my lips and the way you spray painted my thighs, simply wipe away the paint you stained down through my hips. Three years elapse and I painfully grasp the notion of you …
How to Survive Pyrotechnical Difficulties
By Jada Diaz It was bright spring day at John Buroughs High School. All was normal. The Cliques were all in perfect harmony. The Seven Quarter War between the Drama Club and the Cheerleaders had finally come to a truce, and no one had to worry about taking sides or alliances. Until The Announcement was …
Soul Guardian: Stryker’s Fury
By Michael A Roccia III I hate hospitals, they are so cold. Not the temperature, I could care less about that, it’s the feeling. White walls, white floors and even white counters that the nurses hide behind. I stand outside my little girl’s room with only my umbrella, a stuffed rabbit and a lily in …
Interview: Jeffrey Northrup
Jeffrey Northrup is a professor of Journalism at Middlesex. This is his last semester teaching for he is hitting the road in his RV to travel the country on the road. His blog, hittheroadjeff.blogspot.com will be his ongoing journal of his travels. How did you decide on the idea of traveling the country in an …
Evil Joe
By Rose Titus I know it’s strange to just say it like this, but Joe was evil. I don’t mean that he was messed up, or disturbed, or anything like that. He was evil. Really. Joe was evil. It’s true. I know what evil looks like. Let me tell you this. Evil is good …
Father
By Amanda Hayes You promised me sea glass but gifted me crushed shells. You left me choking under the pressure of the ocean. Stranded and stuck, I endure the anchor of disappointment. I dreamt that you mattered to me. I called you daddy when the waves got too rough and wrapped around my …
Sacred Teas
By Carolyn Mayer In the wax and wane of our conversations we would sometimes misunderstand each other’s words or misunderstand each other’s thoughts or she did not hear the words. On Wednesdays, we shared our noon teas and secret conversations just my mother and I soaking in the numinous intimacy of a new day. …
Ash Wednesday
By Carolyn Mayer the finger of black dust– forgives the pleasure of sex and chocolate forgives the day’s wine and leisure forgives collections of cashmere sweaters and the garden of clay angels with broken wings nest lost fledglings Ash Wednesday penitent forehead of dust.
November 29th
By Carolyn Mayer Through the smokey haze of the pine lit candles, and the blaring closed caption TV, I held my ear close to Nana’s reaching words. Her tales of chipped and worn ornaments became myth angels, stars and bells. With the blaze of her lit cigarette, her slow and vast utterances trailed into …
Pharmaceutical Blues
By Mary-Kate Haley I can feed you lines so beautiful, much like your eyes in May. With your lines and lies, this is doable. Those blue eyes caught my attention like abusing pharmaceuticals. Filled with wonder, relapse, questions; I knew you would help me decay. You helped to write a line of my …
The Wind
By Mary-Kate Haley The frigid morning wind blew leaves past at 7 a.m. Phone off the hook, dangling from the cord like the swaying strings of my heart. “He’s gone,” the voice had said. Like seasons come and leave so suddenly. The wind blew everything past. but everything seemed motionless– still, my …
Over
By Jaime Lyn Twombly They stare at each other across the table and that’s all it takes to for her to be wrapped around his little finger. Shaggy brown hair and a laugh that’s contagious; she lost before she’s even conscious of it. It isn’t supposed to be anything more than dinner. Her walls …
Secrets
By Jaime Twombly Grown from a sapling into an Awkward young thing Nibbling on fingertips, clumsy And tripping over shoelaces tied Not so carefully I tried to write you a poem Rolled the words over my tongue, Put them inside packages tied With little blue bows but They never made it onto paper …
Sunday
By Jaime Lyn Twombly It is Sunday and there is nothing but the newspaper and last night’s clothing scattered on the floor A trail to the bedroom from the front door where little feet and big feet are tangled, hanging off the edge of the bed Sweat on your brow and my dirty fingernails …
Witnessed
By Jaime Lyn Twombly She was gripping the railing as if she would fall and crash to her death if she let go. Her knuckles turning white, blood rushing from her face leaving a pale and empty mask behind. He was staring at her, the guilt written on his face like scarlet letters, his …
No Preexisting Medical Conditions
By Chelsea Sanchez I die several times a month My heart pounds, chest aches, palms sweat My soul floating out of my skin Is as familiar to me as falling asleep Sharp pains shooting through my back Are shrugged off with commonplace ease Just another Tuesday Sometimes my lungs are paralyzed No …
Simone
By Michael A Roccia III I stand in my brother’s room watching him sleep. I call him my baby brother, but he really isn’t an infant anymore. He is thirteen now, his birthday was actually just a few days ago. It’s hard to believe how fast he is growing up, not that I am …
That Fragile Thread
By Tricia Nindel My sister Julie floored the gas as I slid Frampton Comes Alive into opening of the eight track player. The speakers in her Mustang flooded the car with the mellow music, perfect for the sultry afternoon. As we drove down the expressway headed toward Nantasket Beach to see her boyfriend’s band, …
Deep Inside the Truth
By Alberon Gundim, Jr. The nail I once hammered into the beige wall of my bedroom, at my parents’ house in Annapolis, Brazil, stayed firm and strong enough to hold a big, heavy mirror that became the ears I spoke to for a while. I had it perfectly centered to reflect my whole body …
Beware “Clown”
BEWARE “CLOWN”: based on actual events By Dan Graffeo I didn’t come home from war to deal with this. Tawny and I had an argument. She wanted us to take Ryan to the circus and I forbid it. She got tickets while I was overseas and assumed I wouldn’t think anything of …
Afterdeath
By Joseph Nardoni The coffin slid back into the red placental blaze, the door swung shut, like life’s own womb prolapsed inward— she was gone to ash and atmosphere. He returned to empty house rustles, open-curtained shadows falling from the lips of an end table graced with a dusty coaster and a beer …
