Category: Women’s Issues + Awareness

Dear Harvey

Dori Owen

Dear Harvey, you weren’t the one who wronged me. The real life boss who stole my self-worth, my dignity, and put strain on my marriage with your 2 am oh-this-is-about-work phone calls. My stomach turns that anyone would ever think I wanted your attention, or god forbid, that it was Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.

The Quickening

Jesse Albatrosov

My favorite part of pregnancy was the idea of aliens inside me— limbs prodding beneath layers of muscles parted, tissues stacked tucking essential human elements of me and them together so we could feed off of each other symbiotically. I loved how they teased the outside world with impressions from Read more

Jesse Albatrosov

Jesse is an emerging poet living and writing in the Central Florida area, with her husband and five children. She moonlights as a seamstress for her Etsy shop and is currently working toward her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and English with a concentration on Poetry. Her work is published or forthcoming in THAT Literary Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Mothers Always Write, Press 53's Prime Number Magazine, Streetlight Magazine and others. You can find her online at www.jessealbatrosov.com or on social media.

Mama

Julie Anderson

I know you gave it all away Mama, I know this you don’t have to say it Mama, I know you wanted more, you left your past all by yourself you knew that there was a way Oh, gosh Mama you tried to dig a trench to escape the real Read more

Julie Anderson

Julie Anderson is the Creator and Publisher of Feminine Collective. Julie was inspired to create this safe place for women to share their secrets, desires, triumphs and pain as the antithesis of what mainstream media offers women today. In her column Pursuit of Perfection, she explores the importance of rectifying the balance of inner and outer beauty through essays, poems and articles on self-esteem, shame, family, and self- acceptance.

Bitch Please, I Don’t Need Your Words

C. Streetlights

There is a fundamental truth that is recognized by many to be by Mark Twain (though it is doubtful Twain every said such a thing) that “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” In fact, while the advice is sound, the quote itself comes from Alfred Read more

C. Streetlights

As a child, C. Streetlights listened to birds pecking at her rooftop, but instead of fearing them, was convinced they would set her free and she’d someday see the stars. Southern California sunshine never gave C. Streetlights the blonde hair or blue eyes she needed to fit in with her high school’s beach girls, her inability to smell like teen spirit kept her from the grunge movement, and she wasn’t peppy enough to cheer. She ebbed and flowed with the tide, not a misfit but not exactly fitting in, either. Streetlights grew up, as people do, earned a few degrees and became a teacher. She spent her days discussing topics like essay writing, Romeo and Juliet, the difference between a paragraph and a sentence, and for God’s sake, please stop eating the glue sticks. She has met many fools, but admires Don Quixote most because he taught her that it didn’t matter that the dragon turned out to be a windmill. What mattered was that he chose to fight the dragon in the first place. Streetlights now lives in the mountains with a husband, two miracle children, and a dog who eats Kleenex. She retired from teaching so she can raise her children to pick up their underwear from the bathroom floor, to write, and to slay windmills and dragons. She is happy to report that she can finally see the stars.

On Mental Health Awareness Month

Dori Owen

Music sweet music, I wish I could caress, caress, caress, manic depression’s a frustrating mess. —Jimi Hendrix, Manic Depression Please allow me to introduce myself. I am not a serial killer. I have never been a character on Criminal Minds. All I really am is just a girl with a Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.

Don’t Ask Me

Kristin Garth

Don’t ask me why I didn’t run — against my cheek a silver gun. My sister’s sobs are all I hear, another gun inside that fear. Momentum only breaths and throbs. Don’t ask me why I got inside — a life at stake that isn’t mine. A gunpoint push becomes Read more

Kristin Garth

Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola, Florida. She is a knee sock aficionado and a sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked the pages of Luna Luna, Occulum, Anti-Heroin Chic, Ghost City Review, Drunk Monkeys, TERSE, Journal and many other publications. Her chapbook Pink Plastic House is available through maverickduckpress.com

On Being Starstruck

Christina Strigas

So you want to be a poet you think you can punch in and out So you want to be famous wear Gucci and parade across catwalks with a book of poetry in one hand list of writers you have never read in another. So you want to be beautiful Read more

Christina Strigas

Christina Strigas is an author and poet, raised by Greek immigrants, who has written four poetry books. Her poetry book LOVE & VODKA was featured by CBC Books in, “Your Ultimate Canadian Poetry List: 68 Poetry Collections Recommended by you.” Her most recent poetry book, LOVE & METAXA, has garnered positive reviews, including Pank Magazine. Strigas’s poems have appeared in Montreal Writes, Feminine Collective, Neon Mariposa Magazine, Pink Plastic House Journal, BlazeVOX, Thimble Lit Magazine, Twist in Time Literary Magazine, The Temz Review, and Coffin Bell Journal, among others. Her poem, “Dead Wife” was nominated for best of the net 2020. In Spring 2022, she will be releasing her fifth poetry book by Free Lines Press, a French indie magazine that publishes experimental poetry. Twitter: @christinastriga Instagram : @c.strigas_sexyasspoet Facebook: Christina Strigas Author