Category: Dating + Relationships

The Shot and The Draw: Teenage Heartbreak

Amye Archer

I still remember the feeling of my first heartbreak. I’m not talking about –you’re over there and I’m way over here-heartbreak, I’m talking about the heartbreak sitting right here on my chest, the looking over my shoulder, breathing in my ear heartbreak. The heartbreak that holds you and never lets Read more

Amye Archer

Amye Archer holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Her memoir, Fat Girl, Skinny, was named runner-up for the Red Hen Press Nonfiction Manuscript Award, and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She has two poetry collections: BANGS and A Shotgun Life, both published by Big Table Publishing. Amye’s work has appeared in Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Hippocampus, Mothers Always Write, Nailed Magazine, PMS: Poem Memoir Story, PANK, and Provincetown Arts. She is the creator of The Fat Girl Blog.

Dear Steven

Dori Owen

Dear Steven, I know I owe you some kind of response but I am at a loss for words. Yeah, me Wordless. I left our conversation without answering because I was blown. away. You were a first love. A part of me will always love you. Yes, reconnecting has reminded 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.

“Hi, My Name is Tom”

Susan P. Blevins

Hi, my name is Tom, (or Dick, or Harry). I just turned seventy and I’m alone in life. I’m in great shape, except that my fears of commitment have hardened like another man’s arteries. I guess that’s the Big C that I’m afraid of. I had several great girlfriends, but Read more

Susan P. Blevins

Susan P. Blevins was born in England, and escaped at age twenty on her life quest, moving first to Italy for 26 years, and then to the USA, where she now lives. The older she gets, the more passionately involved she becomes in the world, and the more she wants to make a personal contribution. She believes that we can all make a difference, one hug, and one smile at a time.

When I Was Twenty-One

Jacqueline Cioffa

Our eyes met across the smoke filled bar The Boss playing on repeat on an 80’s jukebox I was a big girl doing shots Laughing, dancing and singing with my girls Not a care in the world or one fuck’s sake In my short skirt, ripped tank, fishnets and combat 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.

For Better of Worse

Jennifer Wheelock

It was a Sunday when the new recliner flew off the Ford, Daddy having failed to latch the tailgate before he roared onto the southbound, following a semi and an argument with Mother on the finer points of the Sabbath. Sunday is a day for rest, not a day for Read more

Jennifer Wheelock

Jennifer Wheelock's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including Post Road, Lake Effect, Stone River Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems (Negative Capability Press), Flycatcher, Diagram, Quill’s Edge Press, River Styx, Atlanta Review, New Millennium Writings, The Inflectionist Review, and North Atlantic Review. She lives and works in Los Angeles and is also a painter.

Floating the Day Away

Jacqueline Cioffa

Tell me something good You look so pretty with your long, blond mane tied back in a ponytail So stop racing around the track Tell me something new Your eyes sparkle when I see your linen dress swaying by the bar Dancing alone barefoot and keeping time with beat As 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.

I WANT

Dori Owen

I want to be the one you chase in your dreams I want to fill your head with nothing but thoughts of me I want you to write my name over and over and over I want you to struggle to compose love poems to me I want you to 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.

Our Forever Flowers

John Michael Antonio

fearsome orgasmic blooms in a jealous world deceptive fragility of steely petals and stems roots entwined with the hopes of childhood sunbeams miraculous and defiant like the vivacious dreams in your smile beauty should never apologize and our love baby is flora in the midst of death for the rest Read more

John Michael Antonio

John Michael Antonio is a freelance writer, photographer, poet and screenwriter. He claims his Midwestern roots while at the same time admitting his incurable and insatiable love and addiction for all things New York City. He has been the husband to his wife, the love of his life, for almost thirty years and is a father of three wonderful children. He is an unapologetic male feminist as well as a passionate lover of fashion, art, movies and music from all eras and genres. An endless dreamer, John Michael is also an avid historian, ex-punk rocker and a legendary Internet surfer who sleeps, on average, about four hours a day. His work has also been featured on The Good Men Project.