Category: Featured

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

C. Streetlights

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.

She Still Stands

Margie B. Klein

Stalwart she stands, Vestige of an age-old battle. Despite upheaval and storm, She can’t be kept down. The jealous threw rocks in her path, Easily seen and sidestepped. Haters threw stones at her, They reverberated back to them. They made pits for her to fall in, She leapt them with Read more

Margie B. Klein

I've been a freelance writer for 28 years, covering nature, travel, education, children's, and spirituality topics. Though most of my works are nonfiction prose, I like to use poetry when it seems to be the only approach that will express the esoteric elements of my subject. My background is in the environmental sciences, and I've completed a 30-year career in this field. This type of work often involved discrimination against female employees, and this poem offers my frustration with it, while exposing the truth of the matter.

The Color Code: Underwear, An Invitation For Sexual Misconduct?

Judith Staff

“I see London, I see France, I see [child’s name]’s underpants!” (unknown origin) A familiar childhood chant, guaranteed to wreak playground-wide humiliation on the child, usually a girl, whose name was tauntingly inserted into the rhyme as she practiced perfecting her cartwheels on the grass, or flipped somersaults over the 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.

Good Girl

Julie Anderson

Go ahead mark me with your stain, claim me as your own Boisterous bravado, you think you have it made. I am a good girl, never would my heart betray the hand that strokes me. I am a good girl, here— see my new lacy knickers? They were bought just 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.

Rumi Lovers

Christina Strigas

He can move in and out of her as Rumi lovers do, the type of lover who knows your body before he touches, the sort that knows everything by asking. The one to please, send you off with prayers give you god pleasure, madly make sex turn to love. Turn 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

Downfall

Tianna G. Hansen

begin to constantly wear your disguise crown of thorns dipped in red, dangling above your head. no trace of purity or sacrifice. your name will only be shunned woven together with life’s thread but happier — apart — and every time you try to achieve the past slips through fingers Read more

Tianna G. Hansen

Tianna G. Hansen has been writing her whole life, specializing in poetry and creative nonfiction with a sprinkling of fiction mixed in. You can find her published works on CreativeTianna.com or check her out on Twitter @tiannag92. She founded Rhythm & Bones Press in June 2018 and continues to work for progressing the idea of turning trauma into art, which is what much of her work focuses around. Find them at RhythmNBone.com or on Twitter @RhythmBonesLit.

CHRISTMAS: A SUMMARY REPORT

Dori Owen

8:00 am  I cannot believe I am showering, getting dressed, and putting on makeup at this ungodly hour on a Saturday. I would have had endless time to lollygag but my brother decided to move Christmas dinner to Saturday so one of his fiancé’s daughters and her family could attend. 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.

All At Once

Victoria Addesso

It was winter. The boy…young man…child… (he was all at once) sat on the frozen ground in the middle of the football field looking up at the clear night sky. Black-blue background dotted with the white pinprick specks of stars. The moon was gibbous, waxing. The boy lifted his right Read more

Victoria Addesso

Vicki Addesso has worked in various fields over the years, full-time and part-time. In between family life and bill-paying endeavors, she works at writing. Co-author of the collaborative memoir Still Here Thinking of You~A Second Chance With Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, 2013), she has had work published in Gravel Magazine, Barren Magazine, The Writer, Sleet Magazine, Damselfly Press, Feminine Collective, and Tweetspeak Poetry. A personal essay is included in the anthology My Body My Words, edited by Loren Kleinman and Amye Archer. You can follow Vicki on Twitter @VickiAddesso.