It's Not About the Flowers I grieve for my battered garden bed. But it’s not about the flowers. We recently experienced a destructive...

In Your Mind A butterfly flits through a garden The rain nourishes the grass I contemplate simple beauty While looking back at an ugly...

24 GOSPELS OF GORE Twelve Japanese soldiers knacked me in wicked sequence, and twelve more filed outside my cell, donning grins of glee...

Phantom Moon When vicious sadness lances Spears that disembowel, My soul on which pain dances Emits a silent howl. But the moon to which...

Between a Light and Fire Between a light and fire arose Your buried appetite again last night I found it in a shoebox in a poem Every...

Only a Pebble Between Us I was walking my border collie through town today in the furnace of the noon sun, heading to the park just past...

The Score My body knows the sum total of quick-quick heartbeats adrenaline too sick to fight too heavy for flight So long I lived in a...

Frankenstein’s Daughter, 1967 Previously published in Memoir Magazine Cigarette smoke hangs thick in the kitchen of my dad’s two-bedroom...

Spattered The Tough Mudder race in Minnesota is only for the very tough. Contestants run through brambles, wade in water pits, and slog...

Anorexia The soundless scream of torturous pain, The story of which I cannot explain. Ashamed of my needs, yet I want them met,...

The Secret The secret was to be kept at all costs. The judge said if he did it again it would mean prison. We wouldn’t want to break her...

A Midsummer's Horror Memory that tiny house which once held grandma’s wonderful smells is no more it only returns from time to time in...

What Does a Survivor Look Like? I'm standing in front of my mirror, a pile of clothes at my feet. I look at my reflection and try to look...

Daughters She douses them in admiration, throws a careless match in their direction. Look at them. Are they not beautiful! She’s in her...

Allaying Throes You and I, All the fallacies of young love Cliched excuses So many “firsts” Ponderings of existential dread “Why can’t...

False Memories My ten-year-old sister was nearby that day, though I don't know what she saw or heard; I was six. Saying he wanted to show...

Without a Single Touch The sudden chill returns to my bones It’s a faint sting that seeps through my core I don a sweater hoping to dull...

How We Forget Mary Anne pulled the bologna and off brand butter from the fridge, wielding the squeaking refrigerator door with the heel...

Surviving Childhood Sex Abuse Freshman year of high school, as I was about to use the restroom in the main building, a vision hit me so...

“Mom, I’m going over to Tammy’s,” I call as I run out the door. Tammy is my best friend. “Don’t cut across the field. Use the road....

They want us to be quiet Originally published in Witches Mag Sinister gentlemen sway, past boundary. Stale ale whispers of sweetheart....

Rewatching, Retelling, Reclaiming: The Drama Queens Podcast In November 2022, in real time, I listened to three womxn—Hilarie Burton...

159 Grandpa’s fingers investigated with precise measurements one thousand, one hundred fifty-nine times around the clamshell opening of...

[Oxy-students-announcements-l] CAMPUS SAFETY - TIMELY WARNING CLASSIFICATION: FONDLING DATE: January 11, 2018 TIME: 12:28 PM LOCATION(S):...