POETRY
ISSUE 6
“(Sym)phony”
by Wren Campise
When I was young, I had no say
In going to my sister’s choir show
Where the band also played.
Little me, lost in fantasy
“Winter Break“
by Katherine Dempsey
Thick lavender scents of time replace what once was.
I’m not sure what I think I remember,
Or why that thought is gnawing
At my patience for the hands to center.
“The Moment Before“
by Kathryn Haig
Clear!
Wait, I don’t understand.
I see only darkness and now a tiny hand,
A baby’s fingers grasping for her mother’s hair.
“The One I Wait For“
by Tristan Greeley
I always dream about your face
in my small, soft cozy bed.
I picture every strand of hair
on your big, beautiful head.
“the weight of truth“
by Maxwell Johnson
bandage your pain,
but do not hide it.
let your heart breathe
even as it mends.
“The Same Sky“
by Eileen Kaeser
And as the sky fades
Into night, the stars
Begin to wake,
I think on skies of ancient light
“The Sun Traverses the Sky“
by Eileen Kaeser
Kaleidoscopic light against a white, peeling wall,
Robust blues and greens shine.
The sun peeks through the clouds, but
I cannot see.
“Our Kind of Damage“
by Genna Mazza
Is it the fear of being alone,
or the fear that without you I’m just another clone?
A slave to society’s expectations of me—
single and maybe not ready to mingle,
“The Lemon Tree“
by Mary Margaret Nugent
I’d like to be a lemon tree
And grow not high or tall
For I think I’d be content
With any growth at all
“Smelly”
by Mary Margaret Nugent
My new lip-gloss is the old women at church
Giving me a mint from their pockets
My roommate’s hairspray is my mother at family weddings
Ordering a glass of wine
“BABY FORGET HIM”
by Rowan Vale
When we were 17 he told me I kissed like an angel
When we were 17 he kissed me the way husbands kiss wives
As if he had memorized my lips and the places where I tucked away all the fear I was hiding
When we were 18 he told me that he was sure he would love me forever
“all i am is flesh and bone”
by Melisa Santana
i crawled across the dirt road, hands and
knees aching, bleeding me dry. everything
dead or alive slipped away a long time ago;
nothing truly matters anymore. body covered in
Killer Clown
by Kayce Lewandowski
Oils
“fantasy of the day yet to come“
by Melisa Santana
i volunteer to lay on that table
cold and bare at their fingertips. i’ve
stripped to uncomfortable vulnerability
just for them. scalpel in hand, they’ll
“i will die”
By Melisa Santana
the crunching of bones beneath the soles of these shoes
reaping soul from brittle tissue near fully decomposed, leave
with nothing but the sorrow i invoke with every step that i take
in harrowing fields or open roads or broken homes and
“Love is a Battlefield“
by Jenna Siuta
i’m scared of love
not that i’ll never fall in love again
but that i’ll never want to try again
heartbreak after heartbreak
