One Poem Only

Love Letter to the Lesion in My Brain Erin Zarro TW: explicit language, illness, mentions of death Here’s a secret. This thing in my brain – this mass of cells and tissue — it’s not my friend – is it going to grow? Is it going to kill me? Because I’ll tell you now: The Grim Reaper will have to drag me, screaming the whole way, from my life. Because it is mine and I’m not fucking ready. Not. Fuckin...

I want to escape this world. And sit with somebody in a quiet place. Looking at the stars, imagine a new world. Drinking silence in a cup of coffee The chaos-free, serene space A cessation in this running world Walking on green grass barefoot Running wildly in green, loose space Exploring myself in the woods Reading books in a tree house Lit up the world with tiny stars of night. O What a majestic...

Where will we get With the attack? Will the caged bird Finally bend the metal? Or should it learn to pick the lock? Where will we get With the oppression? Will the Princess Be forced to use her hair? Or be allowed to put on pants And climb her way down? Where will we get With the ego? Will the lion pounce at every chance And fail? Or choose wisely, Waiting for the pride? Where will we get With the...

House of Childhood Nataša Benedičič I would rest in a secret garden Watering my unsaid thoughts For they had no other place Since they were “too much” Waiting for life to unfold Like a flower before me With unplanned moments  Yearning to arrive where I belong  Little knowing that some people  Search for their purpose all their lives Constantly feeling they bloom in the wrong places...

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead. Oct 6 - Remember by Olivia Woods @owibia_writes on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. She is currently writing the first draft of her novel, What Remains Of Us. Oct 7 - "Nobody is coming to save you" by Georgia Groza @catastrophic_yearning on Instagram Oct 8 - "Gone are the days" by Rusha Chatterjee @blooming_ru...

Twenty-First. Night. Monday Anna Akhmatova Twenty-first. Night. Monday. Silhouette of the capitol in darkness. Some good-for-nothing–who knows why– made up the tale that love exists on earth. People believe it, maybe from laziness or boredom, and live accordingly: they wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting, and when they sing, they sing about love. But the secret reveals itself to some, and on t...

"If a tree falls" Amelia Dunn If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to notice does it make a sound? Does its impact even hit the ground? Will the wind still whistle Or will silence echo in the burrows of what once was what once was must be forgot for leaves will fall again next autumn and shoots will spawn in the spring does sadness fill you as you stare at an empty home or do you dan...

Another Day in May Anthony Robinson Now more coffee and Brian Wilson And skittering creatures. I've eaten Tacos for three days straight and Dad Is still on oxygen. To feel intense grief Not right now is also to feel guilty Concerning elements and microbes What makes a man sick is also What kills him, what kills a man Is also what sustains him. Here, love Is a concept. Mercy is an act Of unshabby i...

"Gone are the days" Rusha Chatterjee Gone are the days when my house felt like home, now the rooms filled with thousand memories feels like a cage, suffocating and cold, laughs from my childhood echoes throughout the space maybe to light a little spark of hopeless hope. The mint colour walls are now pale and grim, the lack of warmth is surely from within, the rose wood furniture was a beauty to be...

"Nobody is coming to save you" Georgia Groza Nobody is coming to save you Stitch it back up, learn to live with it. The world doesn’t begin and end at the kitchen table more than likely everything is preceded by a bed. It ends with or without a death grip With or without the altar and the humming With or without divine intervention or a prayer or a poem Don’t correct me if I’ve told this story bef...

Remember Olivia Woods Your apples were as savory as sunlight I can’t remember the last time they seemed so sweet The last time they were as red as roses The last time they smelt so great I fear there is nothing left here anymore I can't remember how long I've been here Or when the maggots came I can’t remember when the taste had changed From sweet to sour When the rose color began to rot When thes...

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead. Sep 29 - Lebensabschnittspartner by Sarthak Mukherji @sarthaksays on Instagram and TikTok . Sep 30 - Taemong by Kimberly McAfee @writerpoetkim on Instagram. The Savior/Shadow Principle: A Self-Help Technique and Philosophy Using Archetypes is out now along with, The Savior and the Shadow Queen: A Fantastical...

Bloodfruit Abby Zhang Say it, like you used to peel blood oranges with your teeth, Ma. The flesh splits soft and shivering under the pressure, its rind stuck under your fingernails. Juice spilling— licking your lips with the same golden, bitter heat. Let the pith cling to your hands, burrow there like spoiled lace in the creases of your knuckles, a ghost of a daughter you couldn’t bear to name. Sa...

Silver Filigree Travers Charron Before the day unbuttons its sky, while morning’s breath still clings to the grass, I find it— a single web, threaded between two branches, a silver filigree trembling in dew. Each strand, so thin I dare not blink, holds the soft breath of the waking earth. No grand cathedral could match this tender architecture— woven by instinct, lit by grace, enduring the weight...

i am not a poet Kole Kealey i touched rock bottom before i ever touched a pen, so do not call me a poet call me your mother tongue, burning the back of your throat making your blood boil, a taste you can’t quite name but rhymes with copper and death, with misery and despair, the taste of childhood meant for someone else, one you didn’t experience but through the rose-colored lenses of your broken...

Grapes Frankie Reed we hung together — tight, green, not yet sweet. small things, skin against skin, no space for air. you leaned into every breeze. I held still. neither of us said what we knew about weight. we ripened unevenly. you softened. I didn’t. the stalk grew thin between us. not broken — just tired. when I fell, there was no sound. just grass. just air. just me, not where you were. you s...

Taemong Kimberly McAfee After Li-Young Lee* My mother had a dream of me, when she and I were one. She dreamed of a snake coiled on her belly. It was her taemong, her conception dream, of me. How Adam and Eve were so deceived! A wily snake, the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Introducing suffering on this earth. A snake condemned to writhe about the world on its belly. I was strange when I was youn...

Lebensabschnittspartner Sarthak Mukherji Lebensabschnittspartner. Life - section - partner. A gorgeous German distillation of something about as mystifying as splitting an atom and the violence that follows, the wondrous shine. Have you ever sat with your hand on your side covering a pain you can't quite understand but as soon as you are diagnosed a relief washes over you as this phantom is lassoe...

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead. Sep 22 - "a walk from my Eve to my Lilith" by Eva Garg @thelifedraft on Instagram. Sep 23 - Nikomis by Shelby Larkin @calamityverses on Instagram. Sep 24 - Ash and Gardens by Jessica Sorya @jessicalynnvision on Instagram. Her book, Pinch, Breathe, Burn , is out soon. Sep 25 - Clouds Have Always Been Women by...

Cliff Ofelia ferch Rhos Salt spattered on chalk carves out the rough-hewn shape of thought: the cliff is a canvas where they escape me, and become mammoths on sandstone, scattered by stick-figured spears. Magpies perch listless as dew and wing their words over the sea. The water ripples their birdsong agon. Clouds crowd in anticipation- I am the heavens surrogate on earth they would rapture me, an...

Winds of reverie Philippa Drake A lord soars into the azure expanse forsaking blood bonds chasing the winds of liberty to repose in distant islands where no man yet resides. Friends of wondrous creatures he dreams in coves and tunneled caves at one with moonlight and dimensions of mystery. There he waits for time to spiral faster and faster into a relentless vortex that transports him to a sparkli...

Clouds Have Always Been Women Nanki Kandhari Clouds have always been women— braided in softness, swollen with stories they were never allowed to pour. They gather, quietly, between gossiping winds and forgotten rooftops, holding storms in their belly so that the harvest may thrive. They do not arrive with announcements— only anklets of thunder, skirts stitched with rain, and a scent like old lulla...

Ash and Gardens Jessica Sorya She asks me, “What did I want at nineteen that I have now?” I answer, “Nothing. Everything I wanted is gone.” Every man I pedestaled, fell. toppled over, head heavy. Bless ‘em. Cowards. I’ve always been surrounded by women scurrying, cleaning dirt from their nails, scrubbing blood from tile, handling shit when shit needed handling. They stitched silence into their spi...

Nikomis Shelby Larkin Your smile sung out to sunshine & carried it across ages & every sunny day has a piece of you in it I think of you when a butterfly lands gently on a Black Eyed Susan Or a humming bird shimmers through the air I think of you when a warm breeze touches the tree tops & they dance, glittering like emeralds I think of you when childhood ease whispers gently against my...

a walk from my Eve to my Lilith a swim within my own soul One was made from your rib, the other, from the same soil as you. One sacrificed herself for your love, the other loved herself Until there was nothing left to hate. One poured herself into empty vessels until they overflowed. The other filled her cup first, Before she emptied yours One accepted the truth she was given, the other bent reali...