Archive for December 2025

Barbara Ford The end was marked by a blooming archipelago, violet and maroon with highlights of green colonizing the terrain like algae, his going-away gift   forever wedded to the convergence of circumstances preceding it, how a sliver of bone was chipped off the underside of the pelvic curve on impact, how the mirror revealed…

Dion O’Reilly Since My Parents Were Godless I had to find god in broken bones,   broken on blacktop,   find god in air, smacked from the gut,    god in the exquisite   smashes to my elbow, in falls    from recalcitrant stallions  I was forced to ride.    I could go on and…

Ali Haqq How could I be so blind I let my self-worth be destroyed in harm’s way. I would play by your rules, losing every moment of my dignity for you. As you never remain true to me. Time after time, I try to get free from your darkness. I was a prisoner to your…

Mary Zelinka Just to be upfront, this essay has no tidy little wrap-up at the end where I say I am grateful for all the hell you put me through because it made me a better person. Stuff like that is bullshit. Anyone is capable of becoming a perfectly fine person without having to be…

Anonymous Can a woman who is repeatedly beaten and ferociously pummeled remain completely clear-headed? Not for long. According to Bessel van der Kolk, an expert on how trauma changes brain processes, the woman’s brain will secrete endogenous opioids to numb the pain and ease the terror of these beatings. If she has enough of them,…

Dr. Sarah Jefferis What My Father Michael Gave Me In Virginia  I. votive candles,  a bowl to wash my feet    twenties, my first driving lesson       a sea monster seagulls from the James    Olive Garden leftovers    a caged bird the Psalms       a pickle bin a checking account   a concussion from a tent pole…

Anonymous i don’t know how I got here whose life is this? he never loved you nothing but a sex toy   flick.   but I want to… you’re all mine, I’m all yours but you want to… i know you liked it…   flick.   you didn’t know wish it was cleaner you couldn’t…

Deborah Barrett The Bed I Made The rocking calmed my fear as I sat watching my husband sleep, his chest rising and falling in rhythm with the back-and-forth of my chair, like a metronome measuring the beats of our life.   In sleep, he appeared peaceful, his features strong, firm, handsome so like Michelangelo’s David,…