My String of Lights

V1This string of lights I hold in my hands always looks so prettySo bright, so perfect and hangs just soEach bulb is where it is meant to beThere are no knots in the wireOr broken filaments And each part hangs just where I want itAll making sense way up high on 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.

I wasn’t here.

You didn’t see me.I wasn’t saying anything.You didn’t hear me.The time passed.So much of it good-Quality.But I wasn’t present…Lives created, grown and graduated- Inside of me.Through me-From me- But I had nothing to do with it.Because…I wasn’t here.You can’t see me in photos.That wasn’t me.Skinny.Blonde.West Coat.I’m rounder now.Dark hair.And East Coast by Read more

Fault Line

Don’t cross the fault lineYou will trip and stub your toeAnd plunge into the deep abyss belowIt will swallow you wholeAnd leave your demons exposedYou will never bare your flaccid spineDon’t cross the fault line Don’t rouse the earth’s quakeAnd bare the dark secrets you must ownIt will expose your Read more

Dave Pasquel

After living under a rock for nearly 25 years, Dave had his eyes opened wide to the world in 2010 after marrying his crazy cat lady wife. Intrigued by controversy, culture, lifestyle, current events and history, Dave has traveled to 41 states and a handful of foreign countries. Defined as ‘metro’ by his three kids, you will often find him cleaning the house instead of working out in the yard. In his spare time, Dave likes to write sappy love songs but will be the first to admit that he can’t carry a tune.

lost mail packages

I discover kernels, in poems. The shell breaks open to a singed blossom of hair. Before I spit the weirdness out, I savor it a reeling storm in my nose and mouth. For a split second, I see a topiary. I awake to dreams, perhaps they are catchers to my 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

“he and she and all of them”

I’ve fell in love with one hundred different people for one hundred different reasons. I knew no matter what they would be there for me how selfish that I loved that the sound of their voice made me cry, and they who never broke a gaze. how appealing that I Read more

Lauren Anders

Lauren Anders is originally from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where she graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Oklahoma City University. She recently completed a master's program at the New York Academy of Art and now lives and works in Manhattan pursuing various artistic practices.

A Gurney for Me

Two nights ago I argued with a man tall as the ceiling, jagged teeth filthy and piercing, standing over my son intent on stealing his breath racing his heart, charring his fevered brain. The man seeped into my blood while I fought him and clutched my gut crawling to the Read more

Melissa Mulvihill

Melissa writes from northeast Ohio where she lives with her husband and sons, 18 and 22. She has been published in multiple issues of The Blue Nib Literary Magazine, Intermission E-Zine, The Write Launch Literary Magazine, Poet's Haven Digest, Strange Land Anthology, The Distance Between Insanity and Genius Anthology, and It Was a Dark and Stormy Night Anthology. Her poem, Your Phone Call, appeared in The Blue Nib 2017 Anthology. She writes about homeschooling and growing kids during a decade long battle with stage 4 Endometriosis and she shares stories that demand to be told from her childhood in Danville, Illinois. She writes for the same reason's she reads poetry-because it's crowded in her head and heart.

a person alone, under a blanket of “friends”

And still you longed for someone To give you the kind of love they show in movies The one that doesn’t end with an empty text, One which flows through flowers and Wine bottles pouring at dinner parties. One which sings through tears, Birthed together in our very own refuge. 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.

Lavender

Do you understand I destroy every fragment of lavender I touch? I swallow lavender—soak my wrists in lavender. I take the tiny bulbs. I slice them with a wooden blade. I toss them in the bell. I throw them in each pot. I breathe lavender. Exude—elude you with lavender. I Read more

Kari A Flickinger

Kari A. Flickinger's poetry has been published in or is forthcoming from Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Burning House Press, Door Is A Jar, Isacoustic, Ghost City Review, Eunoia Review, and Riddled with Arrows, among others. She is an alumna of UC Berkeley. When she is not writing, she can be found playing guitar and singing to her unreasonably large Highlander cat, as well as obsessively over-analyzing the details of neighboring trees.