Tag: women

25 Miles To Go Now

Carol Segal

“…..Twenty-five miles from home, girl…..my feet are hurtin’ mighty bad…” Maryanne’s ample buttocks shake and bobble. Her dark black satin skin glistens with sweat, and her teeth flash extra white against it. Her smile is infectious and spontaneous. She is immersed in the music. I am captivated. She dances with Read more

Carol Segal

Carol Segal was born and raised in Portland, Oregon where she was a dancer with the Portland Ballet Company in the 1970’s. After college, her expectations of a brief time in New York City turned into a lasting marriage, two children, two grandchildren, and a continually flourishing business as a Personal Trainer for nearly four decades.

I Don’t Want People to Talk About Me the Way They Talk about Dorothy Allison

Lydia A. Cyrus

Woman with crooked teeth smashed one over another from an accident causing neurotic self-awareness.   Woman whose belt loops have come undone leaving dime size, holes in the denim that does not fit,   because she could not afford better. Woman with brown eyes that betray, translating silence into pain Read more

Lydia A. Cyrus

Lydia A. Cyrus is a creative writer from Huntington, West Virginia. She has non-fiction work featured in several journals, including Luna Luna Magazine where she serves as a staff writer. Her poems can found in places like Quail Bell Magazine and Moonchild Mag. She is a proud Mountain Woman and loves her dog.

The Truths We Keep Hidden

Sara Ohlin

Barefoot, I stood on the edge of the bluff, leaning out towards the great Pacific Ocean. The wind – dry and hot against my face – tethered me to the land. I stood in awe, surrounded by the beauty of the madrone tree. A sacred tree, revered for the strength Read more

Sara Ohlin

Sara Ohlin lives and writes in Bangor, Maine. Her essays can be found at Anderbo.com (as Sara Mitchell), Trillium Literary Journal, Mothers Always Write, The Good Mother Project and the anthology, Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak About Health Care in America. She’s a contributor to Her View from Home and currently writes about life, food, grief, and motherhood at www.lemonsandroses.com

Rebirth

Brianna Scott

I peeled back the Earth I heard her scream in the hole I placed a seed the wound would heal I looked above, the sun will squeeze through the black fluff there’s a force greater than us but I lacked the tools And like the blind leading the fool I Read more

Brianna Scott

I am an 18 year old naive libra girl who is really gullible and still believes in fairytales and love at first sight. I moved across the country to northern California to find a new adventure.

Viper by @CStreetlights

Viper

C. Streetlights

Small, eyes narrowing, tracking your prey with feigned friendship — I know who you are, with your erratic charge (manipulation cloaked as passion). Betrayal as a muse {a doppelgänger, mocking}tritely bestowing your grace on those you torture, a benefactress of asphyxiation. Hollow words drip from your hollow fangs (curved from 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.

Falling Out

Alice Barstow

Will I stop disappearing if I get Botox, or whiten my teeth, or thicken my thinning hair with extensions? Will I stop disappearing if I highlight under my eyes or draw in my eyebrows? What if I strap on tights, a push-up bra and high heels? Will I stop disappearing Read more

Alice Barstow

Alice has had a handful of careers and pursuits over the years with writing being a constant friend throughout all journeys, and the place that feels the most at home. Aside from articles and columns published on local news outlets, her work also appears in the anthology "This One Has No Name"- a collection of works by a small group of writers she happily meets and writes with monthly. Alice resides in a hilly New England town mothering two fascinating daughters, an overly excitable dog, and a moody cat, alongside her thankfully very patient husband.

The Call to the Common Women

Julene Tripp Weaver

Pull away the dark screen of impossibility, the veil where the future lies—you stand a recluse, shrunken holding a small child. It is not as if you’ve wasted a life, bring yourself to the curtain open it, let light illuminate the wrinkles in your skin, the sheer weight age causes. Read more

Julene Tripp Weaver

Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle, WA. Her three poetry books are: truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, (Finishing Line Press, 2017), No Father Can Save Her (Plain View Press, 2011), and a chapbook, Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2007). Julene worked for 21 years in AIDS services. She is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her poems can be found online at Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now, and Writing in a Woman's Voice. Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com and @trippweavepoet on Twitter.

Days Like This

Victoria Addesso

Okay, picture this. It was years ago. I’m eighteen, skinny, it’s June, early on a Saturday morning, and it’s raining buckets. I’m standing on the corner at the bus stop, the intersection of Mill Road and Route 22, the hub of this suburban town. My umbrella is dark blue and 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.