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The moon knows to relay the light she’s lent
with rivers and streams in subtle rays of gleam.

The sand and seas know to glow in the borrowed golden wash,
creating symphony with waves that crash.

Leaves of silver maples know to glisten
as they listen to the whisper of the wind.

Lakes know to glimmer, to play with the sheen,
to bounce and volley it like sport.

Clouds know to show off their brighter side,
to hint of their hidden silver linings.

Rainbows know that light doesn’t have to be owned
to be shown in full splendor.

Soap bubbles, oil on sidewalks, even snow and ice know
that they can render art by receiving and returning.

The earth, stars, and planets know.
Light is to be shared.

Testing death machines,
they fly them over the houses.
this facility that designs & manufactures
bots, choppers, & planes to go
decimate the Middle East is only
a stone’s throw from my relatives’ backyard.

Rattling glass & shaking the house,
making the dogs go nuts before
we even have the chance to feel the thick
WHUMPWHUMPWHUMPWHUMPWHUMP
from these death machines that ignite
the fright of others thousands of miles away;
they fly them over their houses.

Alarms scream but only in my head;
these machines aren’t coming for me (yet)
but knowing the conflict they carry,
& what mission they fuel, turns my stomach
to the floor…I must say, I cannot take it anymore.

We humans, the caretakers of Earth, are meant
to love & protect it alongside each other;
holding dear our most precious of things,
like that love I just mentioned…

Yet here we sit, on our many screens,
while the blood of children & families
congeals in streets all across the Middle East.

How are you willing to give yourself to me?
I can’t seem to get close
limbs frozen solid
Im terrified to be so open

But you’re so warm
Melt me
Arms wrap and scorch my waist
Taste my lips
I’m still so terrified.

I was missing you real bad
and wanting to feel some closeness,
wanting to relive one of those beautiful days
when we weren’t so distant and far apart.
You wanted a mango smoothie and fried chicken
from some Korean place,
I wanted to do anything I could to see you smile,
and being a thousand miles away makes me a little crazy.

It’s been a month since we’ve really talked.
You still respond,
but it’s not the same.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
If that’s the case,
then the love we built up and tore down is something other
than energy.
Perhaps we were tearing down a home.
Maybe we were digging a hole.

I have this one crazy thought
Because I love you so much
If I’m unlucky enough
And you die before me
We’ve been married for fifty years at this point
That when I die too
Probably of a broken heart
Just open up your casket and throw me in there
with you and wrap my arms around you
Of course,
that would never happen because that’s gross
but if I could have a chance to be close to you even in death
Heaven wouldn’t be Heaven if you’re not there with me

I ended up buying some of that chicken too.
I didn’t get a smoothie.
I got an iced coffee with cream instead.
I see what you mean, now.
You’ve got good taste.
Hopefully we can share some with one another one of these days.

It’s hard to tell what’s got me higher:
the weed, or the heartbreak?
Lower.

The sun motherishly embraced us while the wind lovingly adumbrated past our forms,
a sublime blend of warmth and love, ice and fear.
Sauntering towards me, breasts swaying with every step, your eyes as
beautiful as ever…
I didn’t realize how close you were, when
out of nowhere,
from the sweetest part of God’s biscuitry,
came your sweet, soft, simply
cutie-pie lips!
Taken aback, I managed to utter,
“What’s wrong?”
You looked up at me,
with the faintest of smiles
I could see the clouds slowly swimming past us in your glasses
And you said
s o f t l y…
while you put your head on my chest
and I put my arms around you,
“Nothing at all.

Eternity lies
Where each of my
Heartbeats,
Beats in time
With each of yours.
And yours,
Is my heart,
That fears romantic defeat,
Yours,
Is the soul
I want to hold
With mine,
Yours,
Can be my days,
My reason,
My time,
Yours,
Is where
My eternity lies.

Some feelings you can never get back.
Like standing outside between two closely parked parallel cars in a deeply cold night complete
with thin flurries pummeling down from the south west.

“I don’t understand why someone would start a weed habit at 40 years old” my sister Tamara
told me over the phone a few months ago. No names were named – nevertheless the truth hung
there like a cross between us.

What’s annoying is, she’s right. One contract in Colorado Springs and now I gorge on the
heavenly earthen roar of flames aflash in the pan of my throat. Wars in my head…ended. Ability
to trust in rhythms of the creation, restored.

200 mg of Fluvoxamine straight up with a twist and a slim few inhalations of an organic joint –
ethically sourced in NY State – and I am spinning plates on various planes within the
multiverse.

It shocks all three of us that having a grand child has brought out the best in you. We barter
confessional stories between us about times our pain went unacknowledged or dismissed.
Our villanelles’ refrain: Why wouldn’t she want her own children to have things better than she
had it?

Yet some relapsing wound makes my teeth gnaw seeing my nephew be loved by you in such
unabashed glory in way I never even grazed.

Why doesn’t she want her own children to have things better than she had it?
ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABAA

My high is leveling off and that’s perfect. Now, I can settle in for a digestible episode of TV
littered with vivid shots of pleasant skies overlooking a small town of people who have
meaningful problems with resolutions. These shows always have titles resembling the names
of ski lodges.

These stories never face the deeply cold night of the truth.
What you needed then. What you need now.
Will never come.

By Elena Talia

The women lie.
The women lie here.
The women lie here and there.
The women lie here and there, the men laugh at their losses,
Letting go of their weighted chests,
Letting loose their tainted words—
An attempt to deceive the lying women.

Scattered. Shattered. Still, the women awaken and lie
Below the homes they do not own,
Below the children they did not birth,
Below the society that hates them.
They lie.
The sins spill from their tongues,
Until their mouths run dry and

The women are silent.

So, the men try.
The men try tricks
To sew their sickly smiles on to branded frowns.
The men try tricks
To tempt the sweet sting of feminine freedom
The women will never have.
Peace. So the women lie?

Not here. Not there. Everywhere.
The women lie.
The women need to lie—
To survive. To guide.
Their poor daughters in a world that despises them.
So they cry and they lie and they die wishing
For words of honesty.

Words of honesty.
The truth. The facts.
That the difference between the words
“woman” and “man” are just the wo-ken,
People who awoke,
People who wake up
And perceive that a human is a human.

A man is no more a human
Than a woman is.
And the women need not lie
To themselves or their sisters that they are any less
Than, or that their autonomy is not theirs,
But owned by some “superior” being.
The women need.

The women do not need.
The women do not need anyone.
The women just need themselves—
To speak their minds and unwind their tied tongues
From the lies that have blazed
Their beautiful brains,
And peacefully lie.

The women lie.
The women lie upon.
The women lie upon the past.
Lie upon the past until their future is clear,
Caressing their daughter’s daughter,
Until she stands.

In pauper’s field, no flowers lie,
on our graves of chosen number.
How different is grief from public outcry?
There is no comforting answer.

Is God or the state our true gatekeeper?
Both took away our chance to say goodbye.
But which one silently buried us here,
in a pauper’s field, where no flowers lie?

They abandoned the need to notify,
to strangers in the newspaper.
Unknown to our families, that nearby,
were our graves of chosen number.

Death that is silenced is now a murder
of virtue, bureaucrats can’t justify.
Tell the news crew to ask the coroner,
“how different is grief from public outcry?”

We lived as people, but they say we die,
as “state’s property,” marked by the dollar.
When justice calls, and you apologize,
we will not give a comforting answer.

The cosmos measures the truth that matters.
Heaven’s busses may run late, but still ride,
a path for those whose hearts will remember.
History must hear our raucous reply
from pauper’s field, and so we try.

Grind—grind—marching to the same refrain,
The wheel will never stop.

Hands on belts, hands on screens,
Eyes on numbers, dim-lit dreams.
Grind—grind—back and forth, the endless chain,
The grind devours all.

Factory floors and checkout lanes,
Endless emails, subway trains.
Push the buttons, pull the levers,
Sweat-soaked collars, broken feathers.
Grind—grind—churning through the days in vain,
The clock is always hungry.

Bosses laugh in glass-front towers,
Counting up the stolen hours.
Bills to pay, no time to eat,
Debt’s a shackle round your feet.
Grind—grind—stuck beneath the grinding strain,
Chains you’ll never see.

Dream of rest, dream of ease,
Dream of days you’d dare to seize.
But dreams dissolve like morning dew—
The grind has always ground down you.

Grind—grind—trapped within the system’s chain,
No mercy for the poor.

I used to believe in many things
As I got older, I began to learn
Things I used to believe in
Will not be the same
People won’t be the same
I used to believe in an “ever after.”
I used to believe when you said “you loved me”
My world used to stop
You made me weak
I used to believe “somebody loved me”
Now I’m not listening to the same song
I am beginning to not believe in your truths
How April never came
How it will never come
I believed I thought love existed
Love had no boundaries
Love meant you understood me
And I understand you
I don’t know what I believe in anymore
I used to hold on for one more day
There’s a lot of pain in believing a fairy tale
A fairy tale that never existed
No more wishing on a shooting star
No more luck
Just me not believing in our ever after
The more I write
The more I feel the tears drop from my face
My heart used to beat
And say “your name”
I still hear your voice
I used to believe in a lot of things
Love isn’t one of the things
I will never understand
Nor will I believe in anymore