Month: December 2025

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

I ate sloppy seconds for breakfast: fresh golden pancakes halved, then again, melted chocolate crisps, blueberries with the gently whipped cream on top, everybody gets a slice, locks like honey, obvious apples glistened in my eye, starved and ravenous, her temptation relief to unbearable travesty, when it’s gone, what’s left but give it all away,… Continue reading TRAGIC Poem: I Ate Sloppy Seconds for Breakfast, by David Ellis

The Courage to Heal has paper almost As thin as the Bible makes me Wonder how many men Who wrote it had hands dirty From their daughter’s bodies How many women lost god To their holymen fathers The clergy has never been what I would call clean, just gilded, guilty Is not the same thing… Continue reading TRAGIC Poem: If I Forget Thee I am as Complicit as All, by Mouse Moseley

It’s not the kind that pours from a cut or memorializes itself as a scar. There is no wound to dress, no story of a fall or fight to explain it away. It is a constant, quiet seepage from some internal fault line I have never quite located. It simply exists. A rust-colored testament to… Continue reading TRAGIC Poem: There is Blood on my Hands, by Yemanja Paula

Sitting in front of my desk, I stare at the lifeless reflections on the windows on skyscrapers, where there is supposed to be the moon. At my hand, the great grassland in Hulunbuir sits quietly in an old photo — It was morning. The sky breathed to redraw the land where waves of swaying grass… Continue reading TRAGIC Poem: LOST SKIES, by Yuan Wentao

The marks on my body will tell you all about me, All you need to know anyway. For, even if you hear my story, you won’t listen. Those nights I spent on white linens, They mean nothing to you. I am but a box. Nothing to think outside of. Only the stains, and taints, are… Continue reading TRAGIC Poem: Written in Stone., by Kailey Cruz

In amber lamplight of earliest memory, I’m sitting on your lap in print footie pajamas, turning the pages of Mother Goose. I was so young when we lost each other, sundered by divorce. Over and over I woke from nightmare crying out your name, powerless to bring you back. For years, I could only finger… Continue reading TRAGIC Poem: Letter to my Father, by Deborah Bachels Schmidt

When we were whole My brother and I laughed with mirth Jumped without reason Spending smiles carelessly as if without worth Hugged and touched and kissed one another Fairies fairly magically inclined Surreal soaring youthful wonder Diwali lanterns floating personified When we were joined We never would know That we would splinter And maybe never… Continue reading TRAGIC Poem: When We Were Whole, by Sawan Patel

my birthday was today right before a national tragedy is that why i am the way i am or is it some other convoluted reason? i have been eating through books like money grows on trees thirty bucks a volume, but it must be worth the escape it brings how shameful seventeen now and still… Continue reading TRAGIC Poem: bones., by Olivia Harris