Poetry: "Invisible" by Cait Gordon

When you look at me, you see a smile.

You hear my laughter.

You compliment my hair and my makeup.

You celebrate my joie de vivre.

You think I’m the life of the party.

You’re glad when I show up to an event.

You say I’m the picture of health.

You ask me, “Isn’t this so much nicer

than staying at home?”

You introduce me to all of your friends

as the happy clown.

You congratulate me on leaving my

cane at the door.

You tell me I don’t need it as much

as I think I do.

You are confident I’ll be okay with

a little more exercise,

and getting out with people.

Your friends explain to me about

diet and yoga, and an article

they just read.

You all agree I’m way too young

to need a disabled parking pass.

One of your friends says I’m too

upbeat to let things overcome me.

Attitude, you agree, is the ticket.

And the entire time my joints

and muscles are searing.

My nerves screech with fury.

I’m having trouble keeping track of

the conversation,

and find it hard to remember

what I said 30 seconds ago.

I rested for three days to come

out for three hours.

I wanted to be with you.

It hurt to style my hair, but I wanted

to look beautiful.

I wanted to get out and laugh.

I wanted to have fun.

I didn’t want to be alone another day.

But you can’t see my struggle.

You see a pretty face.

You hear me tell jokes.

You listen to me giggle.

You watch me walk but cannot

sense my pain.

You think I will eventually get better.

You simply cannot believe in what’s

invisible.

And I’ve given up trying to

convince you.

Poetry: "Foreign Countries" by Megan Buckley

The first foreign country I ever visited
Was my body.

Unmarked land
And empty soil
Stretched over bone and skin,
Hard and soft.

Poetry: "Whale Watching" by Kathleen Gregg

"Whale Watching"
with a line borrowed from Second Honeymoon, by Leslie Monsour

Whales come here every year to mate and breed.
We watch them from the pier at San Luis Bay;
witness “heat runs,” a humpback ritual of need –
bull bumping bull until one wins the fray,
clicks and groans his resonant, throaty song
to attract the cow, copulate and be gone.
Not exactly romance, yet stirring just the same
in its huge complexity, its wondrous instinctual way.
Compared to this, our lovemaking is tastefully tame:
a narcissistic coupling of expectation and sway.
Yet, we’ve come to Avila for clarification, for healing;
for the ocean spray to soften what is unyielding
in both of us. You ask me what I want from you.
I want courtship, my love, intuitive and true.

Poetry: "Thoughts" by Megan Buckley

Sometimes my thoughts are like
A long piece of thread
Wrangled by knots.
The kind that are impossible to undo.
And then sometimes
While I’m running my fingers
Over the string,
Absent minded,
I finally find the cause
And pick them undone,
One
By one.

Poetry: "Amazona" by Artemis Saleh

To all the strong Souls that #didnotreport

She was alone. 

The old stories and songs walked her by, 

as if they would not remember her anymore. 

She had betrayed 

her own ones.

She was sitting alone.

No one would ever 

sit next to her again. 

She knew it.

She was sitting way up, 

on her tree, 

that she had planted once.

Her heart 

Didn‘t want to have to do with her anymore. 

Her mind 

was droven hysterically.

The hate 

had first swallowed her 

and then spitten her out again.

She was a woman.

Hot tears flooded her scarred corpse. 

Filling the hollow on her ribcage, 

where once had grown a breast, 

that she had taken off a long time ago.

Back then, 

If she would have been given 

the opportunity 

to decide for someone 

and against something.

She would have done it 

without hesitation. 

But things had happened. 

In the madness of trust.

So how should something 

be regreded, 

that hasn‘t been done 

by oneself?

She felt no fear 

for the beauty of the future 

that could have layed in front of her. 

No.

The returning memory of the past. 

Its arrival 

was what she feared.

She was paralyzed.

A piercing scream escaped her chest, 

distressing 

bone marrow and roots of the tree.

She lost the feeling. 

First for space and time. 

Then for warmth and coldness. 

And in the end for dream and reality.

She flinched 

and started falling. 

Smashed 

against the cracking branches. 

Some scars were opened again. 

Other gaping wounds arose on scarfree skin. 

A branch 

bore itself through the gums above her incisors, 

after catching her tounge severing it 

and boring on through her lip. 

It teared open.

Her long hair 

got tangled up into the branches 

and pulled itself out her head.

Through the brunt of falling 

her corpse skidded against the trunk 

and cutted itself 

where ripcage and lower back meet each other 

deep into the flesh.

She striked the ground. 

The arrows 

that had fallen out her quiver 

and the battleaxe 

she had tied around her thigh, 

sank almost patternlike 

into her already raped corpse.

But nevertheless. 

She was still breathing. 

Slowly, 

like a rushing and calm water. 

Hardly perceptible. 

In this raging madness. 

She was freed. 

Through the fall into the coarse pain.

She flew 

into the comforting arms of delirium.

She smiled 

the most horrible smile 

the tree had ever seen 

of her. 

She laughed 

out of the depths of her corpse, 

even though 

she could not make a noise 

without her tounge. 

She almost choked on it, 

but no. 

She breathed out. 

And then in 

as deep and sincere as never before.

She disappeared.

Poetry: "Did I Tell You" by Israel Collier

Did I—

tell you ‘bout the

time I denied

my attempted suicide?

Did I

tell you ‘bout the

time that I

tried

in fact to

crawl under a rock and die?

I did!

I did!

…thought to slit my wrists,

vertical you see,

jump off a bridge,

smack the ground,

Boston cream’d,

not needles or pills,

not pipes or booze…

Did I

tell you ‘bout the

time I denied

my attempted suicide?

Did I

tell you ‘bout the

time that I

tried…

I tried in fact to

crawl under a rock and die?

For a second I thought

if I could just hide

from the ugly, the failures

the poverty and fakers…

But I changed my mind,

I fried my lapse

of judgement see,

of foolish

and dwelled instead

on the good,

the need.

Did I

tell you ‘bout the

time I denied

my attempted suicide?

Did I

tell you ‘bout the

time that I—

tried

in fact to

crawl under a rock and die?

Did I?

Did I?

I mustn’t have cuz

you’d know that I,

I tried it a couple times!

Well, in my head at least

I pictured the noose

and errthaaaang,

But then I thought

Naaaah—

I can’t.

I got too much to live for,

Too much to do and see…

I got responsibilities.

Did I

tell you ‘bout the

time I denied

my attempted suicide?

Did I

tell you ‘bout the

time that I

tried—

I tried in fact to

crawl under a rock and die?

But I didn’t succeed.

Poetry: "My Little Kings" by Elisa Fortise Christenson

I met you on the road of Longing,

As you took me hand in hand,

My heart burst with love wide open,

And so our journey began.

My Kings, my life is yours,

I have lived to this moment for you,

And from this very breath until my last,

I am devotedly yours in all that I do.

We splashed and played that day,

Along the water's crystal edge blue.

As the grey heron gracefully glided,

And the gentle, green lace lay softly in dew.

I looked at my First King and asked,

As his eyes sparkled crystal blue,

What will you teach me this day?

For it was what you were born to do.

At that moment, I barely caught him,

As my dancing around him led to a fall,

And although I knew he was hurting,

With tears he said nothing at all.

My heart, at the mere idea of,

Causing my Little King pain,

Like the most delicate glass it shattered,

And I vowed to never be so careless again!

"My Dear Mom, don't you understand?

A perfect you is not what I seek,

I want a mother who is brave enough,

To dance with me when I'm strong or weak!

Your love for us is without limit,

In all that we are and that we do,

Give us the gift of loving yourself the same,

Be gentle and forgiving of yourself too.”

My Youngest King ran up to me now,

And the sun sparkled off his golden hair,

"My Dear King, will you still find me beautiful?

Even when my glow and shine are no longer there?"

"My Dear Mother, there is no beauty,

Like the beauty you are in our eyes,

As we are to you, the green in your world,

You bring the blue to our skies."

There in the forest, I began to sing,

My sons' favorite lullabies,

And suddenly the birds all joined in,

Flitting down to us from the skies.

Although my voice cracked horribly,

And I constantly changed to a worse key,

I noticed the boys smiled and hummed with me,

As if I was in perfect harmony.

As the sun glittered down through the trees,

Casting green and yellow light shows all around,

I understood for the very first time,

To them I was the perfect act, perfect sound.

“My Kings,” I spoke, slowing a bit,

My eyes on the earth's raw floor,

“What if I just don't know the right things?

Don't know the best or need to know more?

What if I misguide the King's best ships?

Or lead his finest ponies astray?

What if you look to me for help in need,

And I fail you on your most critical day?”

My tears dropped heavily onto the wide leaves, 

And my heart beat hard at the thought,

Cruze slipped his small hand into one of mine,

And Neeko the other, then gave what I sought.

“Our, dear, sweet mother we ask nothing of you,

Except your love and acceptance, nothing more.”

And just as I lifted my eyes to see them,

I heard a distant mother lion roar.

“You are perfect just by being ours,

Our Queen, our Mother, our Love,

Just as we, your Sons, your Little Kings,

Are your perfect gifts from Heaven above.

Come walk through this life with us, Mom,

And let use show you the many ways,

We can share our lives and the joy they bring,

In all of our many glorious, sunny, days.

And when your gift of unconditional love,

Has turned us from Little Kings into Great Men,

We will present you with gifts to show you our love,

A new set of Little Kings for you to love again!”

Poetry: "Cursing Cursor" by Ramona D. Pina

My cursor curses you into otherworldly dimensions of this 1D digital page.

Words scatter and then come together at my dyslexic enraged livid-ity.

Meanwhile, lucidity shines no light on the bigger picture

and I grab my magnifying glass to gain perspective.

It cracks,

and shatters like frozen ice on the street under the weight of a Mac truck.

Must I control alt delete my reasoning because the logic falls beyond the margins?

Must I hit escape on this cultural bias program,

which decides who I am before I speak,

but has malfunctioned and is now inaccessible?

I bold my personality, italicize my identity and underline my wholistic self.

Prejudices work to underscore my existence, but here I am.

As brightly blinding as sun rays bouncing off of snow banks.

I try the .doc again in hopes of healing.

Praying that it work this time.

I hold my breath and alas my work was saved

and I can carry on, continue where I left off, and realign my focus.

Coded hocus pocus ails whatever pained me

and the cursor winks encouragingly.

Poetry: "Beginning Again" by Susan J. Mitchell

Furniture, boxes, my very breath lay

in an SUV, its back door a mouth open

wide as if gasping for air.

There is a sofa on my shoulders

and spider webs on my tongue.  Those who

provided the muscle during this undertaking

smile, proud of accomplishing a tremendous

feat: moving everything left of my life

in three hours.

I step back into the apartment, see what

remains. This part of life is

moving much faster than I prefer. 

I wish the world could stop,

give me back my son and

let me meander through the city of

This Won’t Happen to Me

the rest of my days.

I don’t like being shoved into

It Just Happened Anyway

without a passport. I hear Customs is difficult

to go through when you have no ID.

Maybe, I could take a plane and

ask them to drop me off in

I Don’t Want to be Here Anymore. 

I hear the weather is hot, mosquitos

are relentless and I will not like it there.  

Someone calls to me from outside. 

It is time to go.

Time to take the last load

before the rain begins,

then off to get pizza in Let’s Pretend

to Celebrate a Job Well Done.

Poetry: "That I Have Lived" by Emily Nelson

These wrinkles are the hands of time,

The journeys I've been on

They've seen me through a thousand days,

And ev'ry victory won

These fragile hands, With exposed bones,

Are not a fearful sight

But rather, they, my faithful partners,

Rocked babies through the night

These eyes are weak, They see much less,

Than yours they've seen much more

They've guided me through birth, through death,

Through grief, through hurt, through war

These ears can hear so very little,

Yet they've learned to listen much

They perk up not for gossip now,

But for a heart to touch

Those younger often look my way,

With pity looks to give

Yet this old body doesn't mean I am dying,

But rather, that I have lived 

Poetry: "Smashing, Smashing, Smashing (not a fashion statement)" by Mary Kay Knief

It’s that annual visit

no woman wants to make.

But, there she is, half naked,

facing the machine

again, helpless as it

mauls her body.

It’s a strange way to treat

a living, breathing woman.

When it’s over, she goes home,

waits for the usual letter

that says “All’s well.”

Instead, much sooner,

a phone call:

“We want you to come back.

Can’t tell you why.

Don’t come for a week.”

She’s afraid, near tears,

imagining the worst.

Late at night, lying

next to her sleeping

husband, she’s wide awake,

thinking of friends

called back,

no longer here.

She faces the monster again.

It responds

grabbing on and smashing,

smashing, smashing.

(more)

Smashing, Smashing, Smashing, 

“Can you take more?

Just a little?

Hold it, hold it.

Okay, breathe.”

Next, kinder machines

are called. She watches

the screen to see the tiny invader

magnified.

She’s back in a week

when they suck out its contents,

find a run-of- the-mill nothing,

pronounce all well.

Resting under warm blankets,

she almost falls asleep.

Then, it’s “Up, up, up.

Take it easy at home.”

They walk her to the front door,

stand there waving good-bye

just like her parents at Christmas.

“Come back next year.”