You picked me because I was
the best. The best you ever had.
I turned you on, you said, but wouldn’t
Turn on you. I could keep a secret,
Especially a good one, like ours.
I know you won’t tell, you said.
Too much integrity. Too chicken.
Category: Poetry
Development by Charles K. Carter
It is easy to feel small, my love.
You are not a blue whale calf
that packs on two hundred fifty pounds per day.
You are not a cow growing thirteen times its birth weight in its first year.
German Shepherds grow seventy times their birth weight.
Deciduous and Carnivorous by Rica Qiu
I considered the possibility
That the trees may be carnivores.
Because I could have sworn
I watched someone climb one
And never again touch the floor.
And when I spied on the trees
Through the thorns,
They did not mourn.
I could have sworn
They jeered and cheered.
Shallow End by Grant Young
Narcissus stares at the upper right corner of his zoom screen. he returns his gaze. professor’s lecture flounders. diluted discourse. how could school expect his attention? he tilts his head, swivels in his blue suede […]
June Bug by Courtenay S. Gray
With Bambi eyes all aflutter, I drink from the well of men.
A paper lantern hangs from every bloody coat hanger.
Under the cloak of 6 am, I am to be born again.
Lost in a June bug cocktail, I fall for a Parisienne.
He bought me roses, and I threw them in anger.
With Bambi eyes all aflutter, I drink from the well of men.
Snowflakes by Andre F. Peltier
People get really excited
about the fact that snowflakes
are unique, different,
irreplaceable,
as if uniqueness is synonymous
with beauty.
Every sore back,
every pulled muscle
earned while shoveling
those snowflakes is unique as well.
No one celebrates
the sore backs
or the pulled muscles.
A Warehouse, A Blonde Man by Sage Pantony
My alarm goes off.
I feel groggy
Because I was awake at 6 am again.
I get up and make myself a sweet coffee
Then walk down to a warehouse to ask for a job.
This one’s only 29 minutes away,
18 by bus.
They hire me on the spot.
My Name is Jennifer, and I Don’t Have a Legal Middle Name, Either by Jennifer Jeanne McArdle
When my mom was pregnant with me, they asked my older sister what she thought about her sibling still growing in the womb.
“It’s a girl, and her name is Jennifer,” she insisted a few times.
Jennifer is a very common name for girls born in the 70s or 80s. Even in the 90s we had two, sometimes three, Jennifers in my class most years.
But my parents didn’t know where my sister had heard the name. There were no Jennifers on her favorite shows or in her class. Her best friend at the time was a “Valentina”.
Picked it up on the tail-end of its zeitgeist, maybe.
My parents couldn’t consider any other name after I was born.
The Night I Couldn’t See the Eclipse Because It’s Cloudy and Supposed to Snow by Kevin A. Risner
I knew there’d be a cloud-covered sky hereon the night of the lunar eclipseknew itI readied my eye for red moonfelt cheated whenever swirls of gray rolled infirst measurable snow forecast instead, an occasionI’d normally […]
Idle Ink 