Jabber-Walk

I was a colossus in the center of the room, but when I saw you see me and expose your cavernous mouth, I’d creep into the corner— cry like Alice. You’d always been deft at making me small.   No more yesterdays.   Jabber-Walk at me, breathing obscene ‘tween seething teeth. Jab. Jab. Jabber-Walk beat …

We Will Not Be Silenced Launch Event II

Join us for our second launch event on Facebook! December 7 at 7pm-10pm The editors and contributors are concluding a week of events in honor of the publication of We Will Not Be Silenced: The Lived Experience of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Told Powerfully Through Poetry, Prose, Essay, and Art. Our live events are …

I Knew My Worth

I knew my worth when I was hot as fuck and boys all lined up to pet my cleft at the blind side of the playground— dirty fingers mercifully uneducated in the intricacies of female anatomy   I knew my worth when I was hot as fuck in middle school, despite my flat chest and …

Anyway, Always

Kindra M. Austin

Thinking about it now, I’m not the least bit

sorry for the hateful shit I’d said to you

eleventy years ago, when I was a kid

and you fucking knew better.

I rescind my apologies.

Not that my sorries ever meant a good

goddamn to you, anyway—

they were ever only as true as your own,

anyway.

Insincerity: a common factor.

No, that’s not true…the truth is complex.

I wish I hadn’t apologized so much for defending myself

against you.

And I wish you hadn’t rolled over so easily whenever

I called you out. I wish you’d properly raged against

the reasons you were the way you were. Sure,

you’d spoken of the ghosts that breathed inside of you—

warned me of them—but never did you

exorcise them. Never did you make them scream in terror.

Not that your armor went unused. You’d fought your best all your life…

I…

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For Me

You are the moonbeams streaming through my window when I’m awake at 3 a.m. I wonder what you would tell her whenever she throws her hands up in defeat.   She’s at it again with the shit talk—   I’m so over life right now. I guess life is always just gonna be shit.   …

I Hit a Dear with an Automobile Not Mine

Ooops! I thought we were “Team Awesome.” Ooops! I thought we were best friends. Ooops! I thought you’d be the last person on this godforsaken earth who would draw the line between what’s yours and mine.   I hit a fucking deer, and totaled my car. Sorry, I mean your other car. So fucking sorry. …

Quest for Wellness

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder   Intrusive   thoughts take hold of my hand, and lead me across the street where shades who are, and have yet to be sing ring-around-the-rosy whilst dancing in the daylight— so bold have they grown to stray away from night.   What medicine exists this side of death that can save …

Blackness

It was easy to break her marinating heart on a Friday night when she was sat at the candle-lit kitchen table, chain-smoking and listening to Janis Joplin, or The Eagles, or Rod Stewart; sometimes I didn’t, but most times I did because the tone of my voice, or the choice of my words, or the …

Malevolent Melody: a collaborative piece by the curators of Blood Into Ink

(Aurora Phoenix) Your Urgency Pierced My Marrow with vanilla milquetoast pleadings you spun a web the envy of Arachne smeared in syrupy cajolery - I supped on hand-dipped flattery your urgency pierced my marrow with flim flam (Kindra) Dilly Dalliance Bound Me Lavender dipped indulgent tongue dripped incantations, salacious songs— your abuse was tender dilly …

Dormancy Denied- Aurora Phoenix

the wintering wind strips aged remnants from her stalwart frame biting shark-teethed at tenacity. she stands barren in the raw  upright awaiting the onslaught.