Before the Fact
By Summer Diane
i am good friends with Despair i met her as a child
but She recognized me long before i recognized Her
She often gets mistaken for Depression
but like Death,
Despair is born naturally
She exists as She exists
She does not inflict destruction
She does not do The Killing
rather
She is the blood that seeps from
your warm heart
as you break
those fragmented pieces stick through
to
your Insides
the pain reminds you
you are alive
worry not unless one day you find
you can’t break you can’t hurt you can’t cry
numb and zombified
Death suddenly seems fine
but be warned,
for Depression has stolen Death’s mask
it’s His most famous trick
the very last act
call him
Accessory Before the Fact
This isn’t poetry
By Drew Nicholson
This isn’t poetry. It’s me. Saying I need an EKG. I need to get tested for Lyme disease. I need to find out why I can’t sleep unless I drink. Is it really just anxiety?
This isn’t poetry. I’m scared. Maybe I’m just a hypochondriac. Maybe I have sleep apnea. Maybe it is just all the anxiety, and I never truly relax. Or is it my heart, my spleen, my lungs? All I know is that this is me saying I’m not guilty of much, but I live with the death penalty everyday.
It’s not poetry. This is the sound of a voice I can’t put into words without crying. This is the sound of anticipating death so hard that it follows you everywhere. Not looking for a Nobel Peace Prize, just a noble peace of mind. This is the voice of me bandaging my raw wound with alcohol and pretending that it’s all fine. So can I stick to beer and go to bed before having another interferes with tomorrow’s parties. Can I go to bed at a reasonable hour and see getting things done as getting to do things.
It’s not poetry, it’s self therapy.
Star-Crossed
By Jill Hartmann
One little girl
Wears a Star of David
On a chain of silver.
She spins the dreidel,
The children’s favorite game—
“Gimel!”
Wins all the gelt in the pot.
Who wants more latkes?
“Me! Me!”
The little girl runs to the kitchen
Potato pancakes hot out of the frying pan,
Sour cream and applesauce,
“Yum!”
The Shamash at the center
lights a new candle,
Eight nights in a row.
“We’ll open presents
After we say the blessing.”
The Menorah candles burning down,
We join hands in the circle,
Dancing and laughing—
We sing the Chanukah song.
The same little girl
In her red velvet dress,
Hangs ornaments on the Christmas tree.
“Let’s sing Jingle Bells!”
Mommy bakes Christmas cookies
Shaped like snowmen and baubles.
The little girl runs into the kitchen—
The sweet smell of sugar and gingerbread.
“Can I leave out cookies for Santa?”
Christmas carols on her record player
Sing the little girl to sleep.
It’s Christmas Eve—
Mommy puts the presents wrapped
In colored paper,
Tied with shiny bows
Under the Christmas tree.
One star-crossed little girl
Lives in two different worlds
With a full heart and open hands.
And then one day—
She grows up.
And it’s all different.
There is hate,
And fear.
She asks God, “Why?”
There is no answer.
“I’ll be different!”
The star-crossed woman cries up to the sky.
“I will love.”
Rhymes
By Bob Mitchell
One day a pretty maid made, while holding her son under the sun to keep him warm, a lei that would lay around his neck.
The scene was seen by many bystanders. Some wanted the sum of all the flowers, others wouldn’t give a cent for the scent and sent the two to the sea (see). Others knew the new lei was many mini flowers that were not in a knot. Here we hear the flee of a flea stuck in the flowers. The flea knew a new place to be without a bee. With his aunt the ant. There their whole hole was tight all the way down. His aunt had a tale to tell about a tail a bare bear and a plain plane.
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