Self-Care and the Art of Blending In

The word recovery has always frightened me when it came to my own mental health. How do I recover from something that is with me for the rest of my life? When I was first made aware that I had a mental illness at 17 years old, I spent the Read more

Richard DeFino

Ricky De Fino grew up in New York City and currently resides in Buffalo NY. When he isn’t writing about his anxiety and his crazy Bronx upbringing, he enjoys watching countless hours of television with his wife Andrea, cat Bebe and dog Zeke. Two years sober, good coffee and veganism keeps him sane. His work can be found in Two Cities Review, tNY Press, Purple Pig Lit, Dialougal and Cycatrix Press.

A Beautiful Crashing

You are right, like always. I will not take one other step without said approval. I only want to be on your road but look and see – you haven’t invited me – so I float and scamper saying this and that, trying to get your attention, and the attention 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.

Fake It Until You Kill Yourself

This isn’t a poem or a blog post. This isn’t a satirical article or a cry for help. It’s just a simple question. “What will be the price you pay for complacency? To what end will you run me rampant and into the ground, head first kicking and screaming? How Read more

Richard DeFino

Ricky De Fino grew up in New York City and currently resides in Buffalo NY. When he isn’t writing about his anxiety and his crazy Bronx upbringing, he enjoys watching countless hours of television with his wife Andrea, cat Bebe and dog Zeke. Two years sober, good coffee and veganism keeps him sane. His work can be found in Two Cities Review, tNY Press, Purple Pig Lit, Dialougal and Cycatrix Press.

And They Say, Poor Woman

I don’t know why I drink. For the way it makes me feel I guess – like so maybe the bad things don’t feel like they are all my fault. So that if I hurt you, I will remember it fuzzy-like. Like maybe you had asked for it; or perhaps 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.

Killing Myself to Sleep

I’m not complaining about being sober. The benefits of sobriety alone completely outweigh the losing prize waiting for me at the end of the bottle but fuck if I can’t sleep, I’m a miserable bastard. Sleeping sober is a trying and enduring problem of mine, and these troubled roots go Read more

Richard DeFino

Ricky De Fino grew up in New York City and currently resides in Buffalo NY. When he isn’t writing about his anxiety and his crazy Bronx upbringing, he enjoys watching countless hours of television with his wife Andrea, cat Bebe and dog Zeke. Two years sober, good coffee and veganism keeps him sane. His work can be found in Two Cities Review, tNY Press, Purple Pig Lit, Dialougal and Cycatrix Press.

Five Year Gap

Five-year gap It could have been ten, I was so young then Just sixteen, you were just ‘old’ Policing my youth, like you always knew better Me and Molly, your mall rats We partied late into the night and brought you coffee at sunrise You scolded our morning-after-those Wildberry Vodka 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.

I Was a Fearless Little Girl

I’ll never know if my mother thought that she might have had a cross dressing pre-teen son, or maybe she just thought that I was just a theatrical kid. After a quick costume change out of my denim bugle boys and into her brazier and favorite silver and turquoise jewelry, I was the most fearless little girl on the North Side of the Bronx, and that helped keep me alive.

Whirlpools and Windmills: I Choose the Present

I can be like a boat passing by and flowing onward or get mired in it trying to make it what it is not, and whirl around and around wandering in an endless thought process of, “If only.” I then get stuck on the rinse and repeat cycle, living reactively all the time, falling blindly into the holes of my history, until I give up altogether and get stuck on the riverbank of hopeless despair. OR, I can see. Recognize. Steer clear. Float over. Dance through. On, into the vast river of life. Mistaking the whirlpool for the river, I am doomed. And yet the only way out is to realize that the whirlpool and the river are made of the same substance, dancing. I am whole.

Pam Ross Porcaro

Pam Ross Porcaro began her spiritual questioning at a very young age, inspired by her Lithuanian grandmother who was a devout Catholic. At the age of 17, she was discovered by a model agent in Washington D.C., and her fashion modeling career took off. She was represented by Ford Models in New York, where she lived for 11 years, traveling around the world, and working with many of the top designers, photographers, editors, and artists in the world, doing everything from editorial, to runway, to advertising; and appearing on many magazine covers, in catalogs and in ads. During her travels and interaction with many diverse people from different cultures around the world and her deepening spiritual questioning, she discovered and became fascinated with Zen meditation. She began a vigorous meditation practice, which changed her life, and awakened her passion and curiosity for all things Eastern Culture, including, Yoga and Zen, Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. She studied and practiced Zen meditation (zazen) with Zen Masters, John Daido Loori, of Zen Mountain Monastery, and Eido Roshi, of the Zen Studies Society in New York and of Dai Bosatsu Monastery, in the Catskills. She moved to Los Angeles in 1995 and continued her Zen Studies/practice with Zen Master Wendy Egyoku Nakao Roshi at Zen Center of Los Angeles. She went to CSUN to study towards a B.A. in Religious Studies, focusing on Eastern Religions, as well as Women in Religion. Pam became a mother of two and subsequently became involved in fundraising charity work for her children’s school. In 2011, while delving even more deeply into her Zen practice, Pam had a chance meeting with Yoga teacher Steve Ross of Maha Yoga. Steve introduced her to Siddha Yoga, which opened up her meditation practice even more. In 2012 and 2015, Pam completed a total of 300 hours of Yoga Teacher Training under Steve Ross and Ish Moran. Pam attended many seminars, classes, and workshops with many renowned teachers, including but not limited to: Jack and Elissa Zimmerman, to learn the Way of Council; Candace Silvers, renowned life coach and human behavior specialist; Alison Armstrong of PAX Programs (A program that promotes peace and understanding between women and men); David Deida and Michaela Boehm; The Integral Center in Boulder (To learn the practice of “Circling”, or interpersonal meditation); The Art of Living Center (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar; teacher); The Self Realization Center ( founded by Yogananda); Oneness Meditation. Currently, Pam is raising her two teenagers, continuing her meditation and yoga practices, and developing a project with life coach and healer, Sujon Datta. She is represented by Iconic Focus Models in New York, and Innovative Artists in Los Angeles.