Heart’s Paradox

When you weren’t looking, I slipped a piece of my heart, its left ventricle, into your suitcase. This chamber pumps blood throughout the entire body. Mine, yours, ours. Waiting for a transplant, Stan Larkin lived 555 days with no heart at all. Carried artificial organ’s power source inside a gray Read more

Paula R. Hilton

Paula R. Hilton explores the immediacy of memory and how our most important relationships define us. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and has appeared in The Feminine Collective, The Sunlight Press, Writing In A Woman’s Voice, Dear Damsels, The Tulane Review, and elsewhere. Her novel, Little Miss Chaos, was selected as a Best Indie Teen Read by Kirkus, and her first poetry collection, At Any Given Second, received a Kirkus star. She holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans.

Serial Lover

Truly yours with no Resistance, Time to tell the Classic Tale, Twelve not Seven, History echoed, I am a serial lover with a Heart. Fearfully tangled in the Phantom web, From nowhere Lies came to Life, Forsaken by Thee, History echoed, I am a serial lover with a Mind. Curiously Read more

Yvy Niyom

Writing has always been my passion, but speaking multiple languages never helped me as I could never be fully immersed in one language. Having learned English last, I have felt more comfortable but also more insecure about writing. My education is diverse, and so are my work experiences. I am currently finishing my thesis in Counselling Psychology. I have a college degree in sciences, a first bachelor's degree in Psychology and Sociology, and a second bachelor's degree in Adult Education. Personal favorite saying: Love Life, Mysterious, Unpredictable

Amelia Bassano

A mistress at thirteen. Shocking for you – now. Not so for me – then. Juliet was only thirteen when she met, fell in love, and all too hastily, married Romeo. Perhaps that’s where life and art merge? The cloudy yet wholesome translucency of writing from experience. It isn’t a Read more

Emma Wells

Emma is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry and prose published with various literary journals and magazines. She is currently writing her fifth novel. Emma won Wingless Dreamer’s Bird Poetry Contest of 2022 and her short story, ‘Virginia Creeper’, was selected as a winning title by WriteFluence Singles Contest in 2021. Recently, Emma won Dipity Literary Magazine’s 2024 Best of the Net Nominations for Fiction with a short story entitled ‘The Voice of a Wildling’. Her poem ‘Rose-Tainted is the winner of the poetry category, Discourse Literary Journal, February 2024 Issue.

Drowning

Pull me in and take me under. Throw me overboard—hold me under the waves. How I wish I could drown in the expanse of you.   Take the air from my lungs and give me yours. Let me paint you with care, turn your skin smooth as river rock— polished Read more

Hannah Bagley

Hannah Bagley is a poet and recent graduate from Southern Appalachia. She is also published in The Chestatee Review and As It Ought To Be Magazine. Bagley draws inspiration from her upbringing in the mountains, nature, and the human experience through a feminist lens.

Sestina for the Unforgivable

I woke with your name still in my mouth I swore I could feel your softsweet breath still on my neck my whole body a prayer bowl ringing my trembling heart still sounding in my ears hearing you asking me to jump to let myself fall with you into candescent Read more

Rebecca Lee

Rebecca Lee is a public interest lawyer by day and writer of poetry and prose by night. A queer writer of color, she is a graduate of Yale College and UC Berkeley School of Law, where she was Senior Articles Editor of the California Law Review and co-Editor-in-Chief of the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice. Her poetry is forthcoming in Dispatches from Quarantine. She lives in San Francisco with her fiancé and their Goldendoodle, Justice.

The Perfect Reverie

We wandered once in this Zen garden, absorbing every color of sound we could hear with synesthesia as our guide. Twin flames were put out by the electric ocean we conducted out of thin air sighs, synchronizing with the galloping stampede…gliding through wind without cares. We wandered, but only once. Read more

Z. M. Wise

Z.M. Wise is a proud Illinois native from Chicago, poet, essayist, occasional playwright, seldom screenwriter, co-editor and arts activist, writing since his first steps as a child. He is co-owner and co-editor of Transcendent Zero Press https://transcendentzeropress.org/ , an independent publishing house for poetry that produces an international quarterly journal known as Harbinger Asylum. He is the author of seven books and chapbooks of published poetry and a play, including: Take Me Back, Kingswood Clock! (MavLit Press, 2013); The Wandering Poet (Transcendent Zero Press, 2014); Wolf: An Epic & Other Poems (Weasel Press, 2015); Cuentos de Amor (Red Ferret Press, 2015); Kosmish and the Horned Ones (Weasel Press, 2018); Illinois Infinitarium (Cherry House Press, 2020); and The Nightmare Mask (TBD). His debut play, Bottles of Emerald for the Demon Queen (Transcendent Zero Press, 2019), was published in late December of 2019. His most recent chapbook of poetry, the mini-epic known as The Nightmare Mask, is searching for a brand new home. Other than these books, his poems, lyrics, essays, and book reviews have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. Besides poetry and other forms of writing, his other passions/interests include professional voice acting, singing/lyricism/songwriting, playing a few instruments, fitness, and reading.

Absent neighbors

Last night, I became a taboo woman, tantric veins breaking into unencumbered branches of witched trees that fell, nearly fell. They hung in limp moaning slumber, fulfilled after the thunder had hit them like an orgasm last night. The bird feeder, still quivered beneath, on a rusted hook. Inside its Read more

Kashiana Singh

Kashiana Singh is a management professional by job classification and a work practitioner by personal preference. Kashiana’s TEDx talk was dedicated to Work as Worship. Her poetry collection, Shelling Peanuts and Stringing Words presents her voice as a participant and an observer. She dips into very vulnerable and personal contexts but also explores the shifting tectonic plates of the world around her. She is from India, now lives in Chicago and bridges the miles by regularly etching her thoughts. She is a regular contributor to different poetry platforms like OnMogul, Literary Yard, Best Poems, Narrow Mag, Modern Literature, SikhNet, Women’s Web, Tuck Magazine, Spillwords, Visual Verse. She is in the process of gathering her second collection of poems. Facebook: KashianaSinghAuthor/facebook Twitter: @Kashianasingh

The Girl with Her Heart in a Box

There once was a girl who kept her heart in a box. She met a man and wanted to show him her heart. She opened the box, and took out her heart, piece by piece, laying it on the floor for him to see. You see, another man had once Read more

Emily Algar

Emily Frances Algar is a journalist and writer. She has experience in the music industry working as the A&R on the Grammy Nominated Album (Best Folk Album) Front Porch by artist Joy Williams. Emily has been published in a number of print and digital publications including Atwood Magazine, American Songwriter, and Record Collector magazine. She specializes in both long and short-form features as well as interviews and reviews. She has written pieces ranging from the commercialization of feminism and feminism in popular culture, critiques surrounding freedom of speech and the #MeToo movement as well as recently interviewing refugees from Iran. Emily has a Masters in International Security from Oxford Brookes University. Her thesis looked at the extent to which the media shaped public opinion during the Vietnam and Iraq (2003) wars.