I am pre-conscious, and hitting reality
like A Honda Civic sunk into a lake filling
from the tires up,
but I was leery of distance. you slept
under our shared covers, a ring finger
away and I know I am alone.
Poem by Taya Boyles
Image by Adam Strong
Taya Boyles is a Richmond-based writer, a neurodivergent woman of color, and an undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University pursuing a B.S. in English
Sparks cascade from a semi’s axles.
An abandoned Happy Meal
smiles sideways.
Faceless man with a moustache
offers to buy houses for cash.
Poem by Rosalie Hendon
Image by Adam Strong
Rosalie Hendon (she/her) is an environmental planner living in Columbus, Ohio. Her work is published in Change Seven, Pollux, Willawaw, Write Launch, and Sad Girls Club, among others. Rosalie is inspired by ecology, relationships, and stories passed down through generations.
I am running
frozen still
life is going
That life out there
where people simply walk as they wish
and the wind blows the leaves in the trees
I wait
my body appears to wither
like a browning leaf
waiting for the wind to carry me
Poetry by Laura Turzo
Image by Adam Strong
Laura Turzo is a writer of poetry, short fiction and narrative non fiction. She currently lives in the Berkshires in Lenox, Massachusetts.
My lies etch into your heart, and I wish you never believed in mine. The lilies in mom’s garden morph scarlet. Fingers sprout in place of pedals
to writhe. Coach passes down a weathered blue belt.
What kid deserves to don dead cloth chanting goodbye? Monroe witnesses my name manifest in ways mundane. Stars shift with Sirius to spell it.
Was I that iconic? Why must we all breathe even when drowning
in boney soil?
Why must this town topple and toil
as if it has lost? Exhale. I am now a sunflower, malignant roots ever obscured from view.
Set to decay in an overgrown alleyway, I will never be able
to again hurt you.
Poetry by Harlee Harris
Image by Adam Strong
Harlee Harris is a writer and soon-to-be English graduate out of Northern Louisiana
the alarm clock
blows to pieces
there’s a flower on
the toilet rim
it is Tuesday
and my throat is dry with laughter
Poem by Allen Seward
Photo by Adam Strong
Allen Seward is a poet from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. His work has appeared in Scapegoat Review, Pandemonium Journal, Skyway Journal, and miniMAG, among others. His chapbook ‘sway condor’ is available on Amazon thanks to Alien Buddha Press. He currently resides in WV with his partner and four cats. @AllenSeward1 on Twitter, @allenseward0 on Instagram
My mother says if you brush your teeth after eating berries, you will harm them. You have to wait half an hour. Also, she says the average person eats over a pound of bugs per year without even knowing it, mostly in baked goods and cereal. She loves facts about food. Castoreum, she says, is a secretion from the anal glands of beavers, and they use it in flavorings. Which flavorings? I ask. She says vanilla. So I stop eating vanilla. And cereal, and anything with flour (because of the bugs). Also, berries (to spare the teeth) and in fact all fruit, which she says is sprayed with pesticides. And jello, which she said comes from the skin and bones of pigs. Not to mention meat, which is killing the planet. No wasting, she says, when I scrape my full plate into the trash. But I cannot help wasting. Food is perilous and tainted. Contaminated in ways you cannot see. One must not eat it, I tell the doctor from my hospital bed, for it can kill you.
Micro by Jayna Locke
Image by Adam Strong
Jayna Locke is a Minnesota writer with roots in the Northwest, who has also lived in California and the Northeast, and loves to infuse her stories with a sense of place. She earned her MFA from the University of New Hampshire. Her work has appeared in Portage Magazine, in Bright Flash Literary Review, and in two short story anthologies, and will be published in an upcoming edition of Great Lakes Review. She is reachable through her website, https://www.jaynalocke.com, or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jaynatweets.
I found a piece of myself
behind the refrigerator.
For years, it crouched
inside my wiring,
mesmerized by the motor’s
slow hum. The fragment
looked irritated, like it
had waited a long time
and expected a better host.
I will give it a place on my shelf
between family photos and
all the books I never read.
Perhaps, after a few decades,
it will finally call me home.
Poem by Leah Mueller
Image by Adam Strong
Leah Mueller is the author of ten prose and poetry books. Her work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Citron Review, The Spectacle, Miracle Monocle, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She is a 2023 nominee for both Pushcart and Best of the Net. Leah’s flash piece, “Land of Eternal Thirst” appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Her contest-winning poetry chapbook, “The Failure of Photography” will be published by Garden Party Press in Summer, 2023. Website: www.leahmueller.org.
It’s the first day of seventh grade. I’ve flayed my skin with beaked nails and benzoyl peroxide, applied two snow coats of deodorant, clicked on a few sprays of peony body mist, and used my mom’s concealer that darkens my blemishes in tan dots around my rosy face. No one tells me I have the color wrong. No one tells me I have pimples, either.
We get our yearbooks. My picture is printed in shiny gloss, and I see my splotchy half-mom face. Google shows me “How to Identify Your Skin’s Undertone,” and I examine the blue wirey veins inside my wrist. Am I golden, am I cold, am I neutral? It’s the last day of seventh grade. I don’t know what my face looks like. I don’t know which color to use to hide it.
Poem by Haley Sharp
Image by Adam Strong
Haley Sharp was born and raised on the island of Kaua’i, Hawai’i. She is currently finishing her undergraduate degree at Whitman College. This is her first publication. Find her on Instagram @hhaleysharp
the Pain goes on for miles
listen like I listen
the acres of it
mercifully opening
like the Ohio into vagrant joy
Poem and Image by James Diaz
James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) and Motel Prayers (Alien Buddha, 2022) as well as the founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their most recent work can be found in Rust + Moth, Sugar House Review, Chaotic Merge Magazine and Thrush Poetry Journal. / Twitter: diaz_james
I miss drinking gin
On summer evenings I hoped
To remember well.
Poem by S.F. Wright
Image by Adam Strong
S.F. Wright lives and teaches in New Jersey. His work has appeared in Hobart, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, and Elm Leaves Journal, among other places. His short story collection, The English Teacher, is forthcoming from Cerasus Poetry, and his website is sfwrightwriter.com.
Backwards Trajectory 