A Troubled Girl by Wayne F. Burke

who drags a suitcase all over town;
she tells people where
to go too
only there ain’t no people
here
only squirrels, birds, and
me
on a bench
in this park
carpeted with golden leaves
from trees with
bare branches
stretching like arms
reaching
toward the sun
hidden behind
puff-balls of
nothing.

--

Wayne F. Burke's poetry and prose has been widely published in print and online (including in DISTURB THE UNIVERSE). His eight published collections of poetry include the highly praised A LARK UP THE NOSE OF TIME, 2017. He lives in Vermont (USA).

False Statement by Michael Anthony Ingram

I said that I wouldn’t look back at yesterday,
but I did.
I had to know.
I had to feel what I felt before I risked venturing into what is today. In that brief moment of madness,
I revisited yesterday’s beauty and its foulness;
its simplicity and its complexity;
its blackness and its illumination.
I said that I would not look back at yesterday, but I did. I had to know.

--

Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram, host and producer of the globally acclaimed poetry podcast Quintessential Poetry: Online Radio, YouTube, and Zoom. He is a retired university professor who champions the arts, especially poetry, to highlight issues at the intersection of power, privilege, and oppression. A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, he is also celebrated internationally as a spoken word artist. His eagerly anticipated second book of poetry, Metaphorically Screaming, will soon be released. For further details about the podcast, please visit www.qporytz.com.

Last Poem, December 31st, 2024 by Jonathan Hayes

The balloon losing its helium falls then pulls itself back up
like a junkie floating high on heroin and nodding away.

--

Jonathan Hayes lives in Oakland, California.

One Eye by Kushal Poddar

Someone left an eye on a seat.
The janitor finds it. The speech
ended hours ago. A little gale
stilled in the room swirls the papers.
The janitor sweeps and fills up his
black plastic sack with words and logics.
He takes the eye with him, gives it
to his son, albeit he doesn't like
the slimy mess. Late that night
the janitor's wife wipes and wears
the sight, gazes at the star
studded sky, see the superimposed
memory-mime of a motivational
speaker on a termite ridden stage.

--

The author of A White Cane For The Blind Lane' and 'How To Burn Memories Using a Pocket Torch' has ten books to his credit. He is a journalist, father of a four-year-old, illustrator, and an editor. His works have been translated into twelve languages and published across the globe.

A Stupid Fucking Story by Jamey Gallagher

A stupid fucking story that’s not even a story just a steaming pile of shit masquerading as words

This is a stupid fucking story. You might as well stop reading it right now. There is really nothing in it for you. No heartfelt shit. No characters learning things. No ideas worth holding on to it. It’s just one steaming pile of shit.

I have spent a long time trying to write stories that weren’t shit. Stories with characters that you were supposed to maybe care about. Their lives and predicaments were supposed to be so-called real. You were supposed to feel things about and with them. Empathy and all that. It was like a bad magic trick. Sometimes I thought I pulled it off.

NOT ANYMORE!

I am done writing shit stories that are supposed to be good. Now I’m on to writing shitty fucking shit that is supposed to be shitty shit. Do you smell that? It’s the smell of this piece of shit piece of writing just steaming off the screen. I DON’T CARE ANYMORE. The world is such a piece of shit anyway, why bother.

I’m sorry, but there’s really no point in trying anymore. I spent years, YEARS, getting up every morning and tiptapping on a little laptop— using a notebook before that, writing in a cramped cursive no one could read. For almost forty years I’ve done this! Making shit up about made up shitty people doing made up shitty things. Leaving their families or being forced into crime by some stupid fucking circumstance or doing fuck-all with fuck-all else.

What was the point of any of it? Who the fuck knows?

I had spent most of my life reading other people’s mostly shitty writing and fooling myself into feeling things about their shitty fucking characters. It was all a game! It was all make believe! I realized (recently) that I had never really grown up to live in the real world! I was still a child! I looked down on people who read fantasy and sci-fi stuff but here I was fooling myself I could understand what anyone felt about anything. What a stupid fucking schmuck!

I published a bunch of stories in small online journals. Maybe a dozen people read my stuff. One or two of them liked it. I FELT GOOD ABOUT THAT! Like I was doing some good in the world. Not just jerking off. But that’s all I was doing. Over and over again. Every morning.

BUT NO MORE!

Now I am only telling the real truth which is that NONE OF THIS MATTERS. NO WORDS will ever add up to anything. We will ALL DIE!!! And no one is better than anyone else just because they read a bunch of shit about made up people.

I am basically an anarchist. Really. I don’t believe in divisions.

You want to read about dragons and shit? Do you.

You want to read about crimes committed by made up weirdos? COOL.

You want to think you’re special because you can read weird shit written in a weird way? COOL.

I SALUTE YOU. But I, for one, am not doing it anymore. Good-fucking-bye.

--

Jamey Gallagher lives in Baltimore and teaches at the Community College of Baltimore County. His stories have been published in more than seventy venues, including Punk Noir Magazine, Poverty House, Shotgun Honey, Pembroke Magazine, Bull Fiction, and LIT Magazine. Look for his collection, American Animism, published by Cornerstone Press in 2025.

snail by Jennifer Choi

ten thousand teeth gnaw at the red-stained iron gate,
as the sunlight fades into evening,
the red glow spills across the house,
& the dark shadow follows.

a pot on the balcony, its name erased,
inside, empty & still,
snails hide beneath the dust-covered soil.

as darkness settles,
the snails push through their shells,
ivory-colored heads emerging,
sliding across the balcony tiles,
searching for the moonlight that will soon slip in.

soon, the thick darkness presses down on me like drunkenness,
the damp breath that torments me in the pitch black,
& the twisted curses from my father.

i crawl under the blankets,
curling my legs up to my chest,
hidden in the soft folds,
like an ivory snail.

grief leaves its trace on my cheek,
the dampness on my face.
i lift my hand to wipe it away.
will there be traces left where i've crawled?

again today, the house turns red.
i peek out from the blankets,
leaving long shadows on the red light as i crawl,
over the iron gate,
searching for the moonlight
that will still shine even as darkness spreads around me.

--

Jennifer Choi is a passionate high school student. Her work has previously been published or is forthcoming in Incandescent Review, Altered Reality Magazine, Academy of Heart and Mind, and Culterate Magazine among others.

A Caribbean Spring by Linette Rabsatt

just another cool day
or maybe tepid
rain and sunlight play
as we search for shade
or a covering
while we admire
the blossoms
promises of succulence
the heartbeat of
Caribbean excellence
the warmer the weather
the sweeter the outcome

--

Linette Rabsatt is a Virgin Islands poet with roots in the BVI and USVI who began writing in 1996. You can find her work in her Kindle book, "Be Inspired: Poems by Linette Rabsatt," in Pulse Poetry Magazine, on her blog, Words of Ribbon, and on the Visual Verse and Micromance Magazine websites.