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1.     Wake up before dawn because it’s the only quiet time in the day. 

2.     Wake everyone else up. Get out of bed.

3.     Make all the your beds.

4.     Make yourself coffee before making everyone else’s breakfast.

5.     Pack lunches.

6.     Pick up last night’s mess. 

7.     Drive to school, then work.

8.     Work in the small quiet office where everyone knows not to bother or interrupt you.

9.     Eat dinner leftovers, apple slices, and cheese for lunch. 

10.  Rush to finish work early despite trying to take your time.

11.  Leave work early for school pickup.

12.  Pick up the mail. Sort envelopes in piles for each recipient.

13.  Make enough dinner for growing bodies and one picky eater.

14.  Water the thriving Boston Fern. 

15.  Read Middlemarch. Again. 

16.  Go to bed late because your dreams are the only boisterous part of your day.

List Poem & Artwork by Amy Marques

Amy Marques grew up between languages and places and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She penned children’s books, barely read medical papers, and numerous letters before turning to short fiction and visual poetry. She is a Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net nominee and has work published in journals and anthologies including Streetcake Magazine, MoonPark Review, Bending Genres, Gone Lawn, Ghost Parachute, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Reservoir Road Literary Review. You can read more at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.

It’s undeniable, 

wherever you are is the center of the world

I’ve come to, to admire the distance 

between us.

-Pretend you’re married, your marriage is

falling apart.

In the courtyard of a one story school

you find a hundred dollar bill.                

-There was a plastic palm tree in the corner,

the television was turned off.

You’re boring, you said. Decades later

I read Boring Is the New Interesting.-

Before central air you were fortunate 

enough to have electricity, and put a plug

in a socket. A fan cooled the corner

where you sat reading Readers Digest.

– Turtles with orange shells wouldn’t bite,

Snappers with black jagged edged shells

would. Small green turtles in pet shops,

you took three home.  They swam

with tiny claws in a round plastic dish.

All you had to do was practically look at one

and it died.

-Youth is foolish.  He held you by 

the ankles as you upside down dangled 

over a banister, above a fight of stairs.

Instead of trying to pull you to safety

I laughed. 

Poetry by Peter Mladinic

Image by Adam Strong

he tried to stride

down    alley

but age infirmed

caught his 

gait    the knees

hunched him

sacklike 

   bundled out 

into the open

stars spotted deep 

blue

the beach invited

    sand stippled

his toes     left

his identity

behind

shuffled past

midnight bathers

and walked

straight    the sea

Poetry by Robert Nimmo

Image by Adam Strong

Bob Nimmo lives in Pegasus, New Zealand with his gay partner.

If you are an actor

You need company.

You cannot act alone,

How long

Will the mirror also act with you?

Reality isn’t like clouds

It doesn’t rain until you get wet.

My abstraction

Is the only thing

I wish to decode.

When you accompany me

In the misty nights

A glass of loneliness

Could do no more shared harm.

I act life,

I open and close

My glass window,

The raindrops choose to disperse,

My poetry pages

Grow like a blooming cactus

I discard the thrones,

My perception battles with me,

I look for flowers beside the thorn.

Poetry by Sushant Thapa

Photo by Adam Strong

Sushant Thapa is a Nepalese poet from Biratnagar-13, Nepal who holds a Master’s degree in English literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has published four books of poetry namely: The Poetic Burden and Other Poems (Authorspress, New Delhi, 2020), Abstraction and Other Poems (Impspired, UK, 2021), Minutes of Merit (Haoajan, Kolkata, 2021), and Love’s Cradle (World Inkers Printing and Publishing, New York, USA and Senegal, Africa, 2023). Sushant has been published in places like Sahitya Post, The Gorkha Times, The Kathmandu Post, The Poet Magazine, The Piker Press, Trouvaille Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Impspired, Harbinger Asylum, New York Parrot, Pratik Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, Atunis Poetry, EKL Review, The Kolkata Arts, Dissident Voice, Journal of Expressive Writing, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Spillwords, Mad Swirl, Ink Pantry, and International Times among many.

All day I have been hearing my voice
ricocheting in the silent solstitial house.
It is like a mewling cat caught in a trough.
We hear from every apartment until we do not.
And then we understand death.
I used to keep a bowl of cat food at the chut’s mouth.
The bowl had ‘Hope’ inscribed on it.
An overflow of ants startled me.
The bowl shattered. I washed my hands
again and again, opened the medicine cabinet,
rattled the orange vial of the pills all expired
long ago.

Poetry by Kushal Poddar

Photo by Adam Strong

Kushal Poddar

The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe. 

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

A teenager, prideful
they’ve scheduled a cull
of the phoenix park deer herd.
apparently a politician
almost had an accident
which then came to the wardens’
attention: the herds have gone
out of control. it’s been in
the newspapers: they’re doing
a shoot – will close down the park
and have men walk with rifles
to kill numbers back down
to reasonable. July I developed
a habit of cycling evenings –
occasionally remember my health.
I would kick through the park to see sunlight
turn grass into brushed terracota. would stop
at the end for a beer and then cycle
back home. occasionally they’d gang
at the footpath and mill; I’d pause
and they’d pass quite politely – some buck
like a teenager, prideful
and shy, and the trail of his does then
like teenagers also; how groups of them
stand up at bus stops. walking
so confident, seeing your
eye; showing a beautiful haunch.

Poetry by DS Maolalai  

Image by Adam Strong

DS Maolalai has been nominated eleven times for Best of the Net, eight for the Pushcart Prize and once for the Forward Prize. His poetry has been released in three collections, most recently “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)

You drifted back in with the spring
caressing everything so blissful, hazy,
I can barely blink my dreams out of my eyes.
Serendipities this sweet
they’ve stained my fingertips a sticky, cherry red.
I dust off the retro-wheeled projector
inside my mind’s eye,
and watch us years ago on grainy film.
How little did they know.
A growing sense of this all crept in,
the premonition nestled up under my ribcage,
I sipped it from my tea leaves.
Our demise was spelled out right in my hand of cards.
I swear I tried to play nice with it.
And doesn’t that speak to human’s hubris,
Or the drunkening nature of passion,
Convincing myself I could outsmart something long decided?
And isn’t it beautiful that you were so worth it,
I chose to love you anyway?

Poetry & Photography by Jude Ross

Jude Ross (they/them/theirs) is a twenty-two year old poet based out of Columbus, Ohio. They have previously a published short essay as well as a poem, “To Speak in Tongues,” in The Feminist Agenda, an online publication affiliated with the Feminist Graduate Student Association at Florida Atlantic University. They currently attend the Ohio State University as a Social Work major, and Creative Writing minor.