by Rohan Sharma Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.― Lao Tzu The twenty-three months I spent at PICC forced me to grow in many ways. Many of the lessons I learned came not Read More
Author: Andre
Spider in the Storm
by Rohan Sharma If you have never reached rock bottom, you have never attended the school of greatness.― Matshona Dhliwayo Spending time in what is known as the “suicide wing” (back in the jail next door known as DC) was an altogether different experience. They only opened the door for five minutes every morning to converse with the psychiatrist, to Read More
Much Disregarded
by Rickey Rivers Jr. Depressing news, normalized. Can’t get away from, running like water in the brain, night thoughts. They run up the bill. Ironically I can’t pay them mind only attention. Sleep service is different from lip but leave a tip in my jar please. Help me with relief in form of speech and not pills. Trouble in the Read More
Conversationalists
by Visar Flour-sacks waving like flagson the windows in the afternoons. The people in this town sit by theirwindows, breathing on anything thatpasses. They sit on dead Volvos bearingBluetooth stereos on their shoulders,where the words are streaming, never ending. The caves in our skullshave become like whistles, to crack back sibilants at the world.Our tongues have ghosts in them, our Read More
Your Hometown Is an Apocalypse
by Justin Karcher Buzzfeed tells methat the world is endingjust as it’s always beenand they’re probably right the night sky where I grew upalways felt like a run-on sentencetoo many dashed dreamscompeting for spacethey all blended togetheryou could never tell the narrativejust that it was a desperate onethe stars were apostrophes that didn’t really belongbut we put them in there Read More
A Darker Place
by Kenneth L. A. Lineberger A blast of air hurled Kim to the ground. Sound and sand pelted her as she tucked her head. When the din quieted she rolled to her knees and brushed long, black hair out of her face. The collapsed cave entrance stood in ruins before her, rocks and boulders strewn in every direction. A large Read More
Between Wakeful Stillness and Bothered Slumber
by Sophie Kearing “Hello?” I croak. “Oh… did I wake you? It’s nine a.m.” “I know, Mom. I had a rough night. Cara had another… episode.” A judgmental pause, and then: “An episode, Margaret?” I shift under my bedding, which seems to be imbued with the very essence of sleeplessness. I spent last night watching over my daughter, who’d suffered Read More
Until They Are Well Done
by Juliet Cook and j/j hastain Everyone decomposes in the end,so you might as well turn yourself into a tree with leaves that will dropin different directions. Skinny, malformedbranches that will break. One dark redleaf might transform into a wing. Then you can fly to heaven orsome other skyward plaza.You can grow an above ground gardenbrimming with skyrocketing beeswho don’t Read More
To the doe, rotting
by Tianna G. Hansen your ribs are bare on your chest cavitywhere I imagine your heart was homed is that what the vultures consumed first?the vital organ that once pumped blood through your leaping body, long legs kickup in joy, in life. you must not have seen that death machine hurtling toward youbefore it was too late, and you became Read More
Relevant Elephant
by Pax Morrigan Picture yourself on a steppe cast in starlight withElephants gathering round the bone pitSaying goodbye to old matriarch Amba whoLed them courageously, brimming with grit Time repossesses her pachyderm carapaceTaking the ele and letting the phantOut of the bag to rove omnidirectionalHaunting all continents, ghost gallivant Waltzing through air on a jumbo safari sheArdently travels on slipstreams Read More