Volcanic Ice

It’s all lost in the fire I can smell, see, touch every emotion Every Sensation heaving through me at once I’m Fire It’s all Fire Not the good kind of fire that leads to rebirth The bad kind Volcanic Glass Frozen fire The dark crystal petrifying whatever souls died in Read more

Shareen Mansfield

Shareen Ayoub Mansfield is a veritable font of information, compassion, and attitude. She is a first generation, American of Arab descent. Widely known as both an airhead and genius. She is a Jill-of-all-trades resulting from her Lebanese heritage plus compulsion to learn everything once and learn it correctly. She has a soft side. It's her back side. If she's facing you and you've ignited the wrath of her inner dragon, duck or burn. Your choice. Aside from balancing ferocity with kindness, Shareen has been trained for Red Cross Disaster. She has helped train dogs for emotional support and Search and Rescue. She's studied Nursing, Dietetics, Journalism, Kickboxing, cooks better than your mom, is active in her children's school, is a runner and has a third-degree black belt in the creative use of "fuck" and putting megalomaniacal narcissists in their place. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook or connect by emailing her at Shareen.Mansfield(at)me.com Shareen is a Social Butterfly choosing to connect with her favorite authors on all platforms. Consider her your biggest fan. You can find her poem Compromised Field listed in The Writes Of Women. Read her on Raising MothersHer personal poem of her journey into the inferno of Hell & addiction and how it impacts the lives of those you love featured on OTV's Team Wizard Raymond Baxter's site The Relationship Blogger. Her raw & unfiltered experience with An Eating Disorder featured Nourish Your Soul published by the prolific author of Hush by Nicole Lyons on TheLithiumChronicles.com. Shareen is a Publisher, Author, Social Media Whisperer on: OTVMAGAZINE.Com Twitter : @ShareenM Website: OTVMagazine.Com

dear shelley: (the one who says I’m a whore)

not shelley, +++ the one I taught +++as a 6th grader not shelley, +++the one I know +++from chicago but shelley, +++the one from ohio +++who says I’m trash does it make you mad +++to know your words +++make my fire burn brighter? your anger delights +++my power, it validates +++my 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.

Alcoholic Betty

Alcoholic secretary smokes a pack a day. Hides in her car at lunch puffing shame fags alone – Hangover Betty – she is a sorry case. Too bad to deserve a pregnancy – God recognizes this type – this type with veined and reddened face. Pathetic fat Betty; at thirty Read more

Elisabeth Horan

Elisabeth Horan is a poet mother student lover of kind people and animals, homesteading in Vermont with her tolerant partner and two young sons. She writes to survive and survives to write - We are all battling something. Let's support each other. Elisabeth enjoys riding horses and caring for her cats, chickens, goats and children (not necessarily in that order). She teaches at River Valley Community College in New Hampshire.

Epilogue: It’s Almost Christmas and I Forgot to be Sad.

A friend recently asked me how I was dealing with holiday depression. Until she asked, I hadn’t given it a thought. What a difference a year makes. On this day twelve months ago I wrote, “Can We Just Cancel Christmas This Year,” describing my Lemony Snicket series of unfortunate events 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.

Beyond The Ether

You do not have to be here now all day, everyday Searching for cosmic signs, all that guru bullshit You don’t have to be perfectly good all day, everyday Life is exhausting and overwhelming It’s okay and welcome to check out once in a while Give yourself permission to eat Read more

Jacqueline Cioffa

A retired, international model, and celebrity makeup artist. Co-Author of Model Citi Zen, the guide. Founder of http://modelcitizenmakeup.blogspot.com/. Author of numerous prose pieces in various literary magazines. Most recently published in Little Episodes Brainstorms the anthology, among esteemed artists Sadie Frost, Melvin Burgess and Todd Swift.

What am I alive for?

What am I alive for? Is it to breathe the easy insolence of the wind, to see it circle around a cherry sky strike violets against the blue (birthing violence into a calm) causing merciful ripples into a dead lake. Is it to feel the fables rustle the leaves dense Read more

Paakhi Bhatnagar

Paakhi Bhatnagar is a student from India and an avid reader of historical fiction. She is a passionate feminist and blogs about current politics and feminist issues. She also possess the uncanny ability of turning everything into a debate.

female socialisation

let her deal with it but give her some gauze some booze for wounds to rub with burning and catch the colours of her face as her blood betrays her for a gratuity and watch as they find an in beneath a nail and widen the wound with their lips. Read more

Jennifer Wilson

Jennifer Wilson lives in Somerset, England, with her husband and spends her days as a faceless retail drone. Her work has previously appeared in Awkward Mermaid, Chaleur, and Molotov Cocktail, and is forthcoming in Elephants Never and the YANYR anthology from Rhythm & Bones Lit.

Prize of Poison

I want it. No,need it, the panacea; Or, perhaps the exhilaration of the release trailing after it – unsure which; Does it matter? Drink to numb. Calories purged. Caffeine pulsing. All drenched in familiar relief. The isolation I don’t want, but it’s mine, handcuffed to me, by a rusted padlock made of shame. Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.