Unfinished Exit by Claudia Wysocky

I keep thinking
about the time in high school
when you drew
me
a map of the city,
I still have it somewhere.
It was so easy
to get lost
in a place where all the trees
look the same.
And now
every time I see
a missing person's poster
stapled to a pole,
all I can think is
that could have been me.
Missing,
disappeared.

But there are no
posters for people
who just never came back
from vacation, from college,
from life.
You haven't killed yourself
because you'd have to commit to a
single exit.
What you wouldn't give to be your cousin Catherine,
who you watched
twice in one weekend get strangled nude
in a bathtub onstage
by the actor who once
filled your mouth with quarters at
your mother's funeral.
The curtains closed and opened again.
We applauded until
our hands were sore.

But you couldn't shake the image of
her lifeless body,
the way she hung there like a
marionette with cut strings.
And now every time you try to write a poem,
it feels like a
eulogy.
So even though you haven't
found the perfect ending yet,
you keep writing.
For Catherine, for yourself, for all the lost
souls
who never got their own
missing person's poster.
Because as long as there are words on a page,
there is still hope for an unfinished exit
to find its proper
ending.

--

Claudia Wysocky, a Polish writer and poet based in New York, is known for her diverse literary creations, including fiction and poetry. Her poems reflect her ability to capture the beauty of life through rich descriptions. Besides poetry, she authored All Up in Smoke (Anxiety Press). Her writing is powered by her belief in art's potential to inspire positive change. Claudia also shares her personal journey and love for writing on her own blog, and she expresses her literary talent as an immigrant raised in post-communism Poland.

A certain point. by DS Maolalai

at a certain point:
a fulcrum –

a life is lived
and life then
continues

to be lived.

--

DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has been nominated thirteen times for BOTN, ten for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and released in three collections; "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016), "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)

As Time Helps Me Grieve by Richard LeDue

The swimming lessons I never took
taught me a healthy fear of water,
which only quenched my distrust
of the land further, forcing me
to dive into the cheapest whisky.

Saturday nights trapped in a bottle
like a ship that couldn't float,
nor sink, and as easy as glass is
to break, I was always scared
of seeing my own blood.

Now, red is my favourite colour
and winter where I'm most comfortable:
footprints going in circles,
yet moving forward as time
helps me grieve who I used to be.

--

Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has been published both online and in print. He is the author of eleven books of poetry. His latest full-length book, “Sometimes, It Isn't Much,” was released from Alien Buddha Press in February 2024, and his latest chapbook, “Mourning for the Petals,” was self-published online for Kindle in November 2024.