Category: Visitants

Visitants

“Bone Collector” by Khalisa Rae

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  They say the difference between a hoarder and a collector is that collectors see value in objects others would discard,    while a hoarder believes they need an item to survive. I believe I am a hoarder   of perishable people. Prized possessions my fingers strangled to hold to. Marks left on the throats of those whose labels had expired years   ago. Instead of giving them back to the earth, recycling the salvageable   parts of both of us, I affirm them, polish their scratches and set them back on the shelf of my body. How they rest  … Continue reading “Bone Collector” by Khalisa Rae

Visitants

3 poems by H.E. Casson

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@Mourning Tell us why you are sad/not sad Mad/not mad Conflicted/devastated/glad That ________ is dead (*click here for thread*)   So we can tell you why you’re wrong   It’s wrong to say You celebrate (Would you, in public, masturbate?) The dropping of a megaphone That magnified   (*buffering*)   Your suffering   To die is saintly Faintly praise Or raise them up Or raise a cup But never celebrate/debate Or mirror hate   It’s wrong to say You found your way By looking through the glass Of a villain Once they pass   It’s wrong to dance on graves … Continue reading 3 poems by H.E. Casson

Visitants

“Frankenstein’s Postpartum Depression” by Micaela Walley

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“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before. A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future happiness; no creature had ever been so miserable as I was; so frightful an event is single in the history of man.”    It isn’t hard for me to imagine that childbirth, from start to finish, could be the premise of a great horror story. When I was ten years old, my mother gave … Continue reading “Frankenstein’s Postpartum Depression” by Micaela Walley

Visitants

“Black White and Blue” by Ana Gardner

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        1. The first time a wooden hanger hit my thigh, I crawled into a storybook of Arabian nights, And burrowed through the pages, deep into silence and inky walls   Every story a new home       Save for two.   The tale of an ungrateful boy who out of greed killed his wife and mother Left me cold and angry The man who cut off his sister’s hand made me crumple the pages.   I grieved for those women, wise and good and wronged But wondered how they were so resigned to their tragedy Sad about their … Continue reading “Black White and Blue” by Ana Gardner

Visitants

“SIBYL OF THE INNER CITY” by Lorraine Schein

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She is her own inner circle, circling.  She lives alone in a fifth-floor, walk-up cave. The other side of her door is inscribed with a pentacle, scratched into the metal frame with a knife. She slams the door and enters the loft, goes to the unmade bed, and throws her coat on it. Her bed has a wooden headboard with carved columns on each side. One post holds a silk sleep mask that she wears so the sunlight does not wake her in the morning. She goes to sleep past midnight, and always sleeps till noon. The curtains are closed … Continue reading “SIBYL OF THE INNER CITY” by Lorraine Schein

Visitants

“In the Endless Perfection of Your Absence” by Sahar Khraibani

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It is here, in this specific spot, across from this sky, here, where it all began.   Monday, January 30, 2017 at 2:23 PM. Beirut, Lebanon. I have not written about the sea in a while. It has become increasingly harder to think about it, to imagine it, to smell it. I went around telling people that I am taking a hiatus from it being my subject. It being the Mediterranean, the only sea I have ever been in close contact with. I was terrified of repetition, of sounding like a broken record, of writing something I don’t understand. What … Continue reading “In the Endless Perfection of Your Absence” by Sahar Khraibani

Visitants

“She” and “Dear Future” by Marc Shapiro

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  SHE   She used to like to do it in the morning When sunlight knifed through curtains Highlighting her movements Cat like Like cool easy jazz Then one day something left her Died A single tear tarnishing cheek It rolled down Moving her into the dark Where she continues to do it In silhouette In emptiness Alone       DEAR FUTURE   I am Juan I am barrio I am Washington I am ghetto I don’t ball I don’t bang I am the neighborhood freak And I have the beatdowns to prove it I see a future  In … Continue reading “She” and “Dear Future” by Marc Shapiro

Visitants

“i found a dead poem and watched it rot” by Neha Maqsood

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    in the purple hued sunsets of london, I found a poem dead, its words crystallised to form bones. we observed, picking the letters through our teeth. the most carnivorous of us searched for the femur. they told us not to look too long at the corpse, ‘shove it in the morgue, keep it cold’ they said. don’t look at the rotting carcass of obscure words, they said. not because its traumatizing, but because of how mundane and ordinary it is. unremarkably similar to life.               Neha Maqsood is a journalist who has … Continue reading “i found a dead poem and watched it rot” by Neha Maqsood

Visitants

“Ground 0” by Russell Hemmell

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I blink, the dormitory’s white light like a slap in my face. My vision cone is restricted to pinhole-sized view but still sufficient to remind me where I am. The hospital room, stinking of chloroform and green waxed sheets, a familiar setting for a feeling that never becomes any easier to swallow. Nausea grabs my stomach and I feel migraine’s bites into my head like claw-sharp blows. I sweat blood, and tears sting my eyelids in salty rivers unable to overflow.  It is 3 am, Sunday, November 2. I’ve been sleepless for 75 hours, yet my brain refuses to switch … Continue reading “Ground 0” by Russell Hemmell

Visitants

“Esoteric Epigrams” by Lorraine Schein

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The occult wants you to know that it doesn’t want you to know.    “Reality” is bad for your health. I respect science but prefer the occult.   The unknown does not know it is unknown.   God is one name we give to our ignorance. The other is magic.   The moon is a reminder of the almost forgotten.   Poets and witches are machines built for similar energies, but at different intensities.   Poets are receivers, witches are transmitters.   Magic is control of the cathode ray of reality, and some can tune in to any station.    … Continue reading “Esoteric Epigrams” by Lorraine Schein