“Mama” by Nancy Adames
“Pink dress just as she requested. As I requested. Pink nails.”
“Betrayal’s Bitter Symphony” by Julia Barber
“Embedded in the curvature of my spine / digging into my innocence”
“Cemetery in Spring” by Lexa Branson
“Bright, mournful flowers struggle to shine in the / Absence of light, slowly dying as they return to Earth”
“Painted Clouds” by Lexa Branson
“How does the artist paint without / Defined lines? They must know where sky ends / And cloud begins.”
“The Mighty Don’t Fall Far” by Lexa Branson
“Icarus has fallen, the heedless, daring son of myth.”
“Time and Time Again” by Lexa Branson
“Let it run its course. / It’ll be over soon.”
“Lying in the Dark” by Dani Colona
“Craggy cracks in shoddily patched drywall / do not transform into/ ghostly banshee nails”
“Woman of a Girl” by Maddie D’Annunzio
“Your body is only worshipped when the world is done ruining it”
“10pm on 22” by Wilmary De La Rosa
“Adrenaline pulsing, no pain was felt”
“Happiness” by Taylor Faw
“Where is your happy place?”
“Home” by Taylor Faw
” I have come to appreciate the quiet stars in the sky / All the crickets’ songs”
“A bed, a bench, a tree” by Naeyli Fenandez
“A bed for warmth and welfare, / a bench for solace and staring, / and a tree for light and living.”
“Alternate Universe” by Naeyli Fenandez
“For I have universes upon universes/ With their own versions of me, so many Me’s”
“From the Stars” by Elizabeth Fihlman
“I slip past my skin, I succumb to the voice”
“Drowning” by Heather Gil
“Death is your well-deserved reward. / Why won’t these voices stop?”
“Kindness Over Hate” by Heather Gil
“How my kind dies when they realize that we’re the ones they hate.”
“The Sun” by Natalie Hasert
“Joys of its simplicity, / lightens days that radiate gray.”
“Heaven” by Mads Hennings
“A choir of angels standing to greet you. / You were good.”
“barley” by Sarah Inhoff
“sunbeams flash across fields of flaxen fur”
“Eventide” by Sarah Inhoff
“I sit behind thy window staunch and firm / To measure porcelain limbs for custom graves”
“Home” by Sarah Inhoff
“Baby blue streaks through sapphire, / a glimpse of summer sky”
“Locked at 90 Degrees” by Liberty Jackson
“I run, I encourage, I sprint, I endure this”
“Whiskers” by Liberty Jackson
“The love I feel for you, do you feel for me?”
“Dearest Dead Dame” by Vienna Kutz
“Golden waves that reached her waist and lush plumped lips I used to taste”
“Snow Days with You” by Nadeen Nassar
“And I remembered the importance of family / How time passes by quickly”
“Imagination” by Melanie Val
“A mirror, dirt, and dust / Caked on.”
“All-Consuming Love” by Sarah Westphal
“You are the blood in my veins. / The air in my lungs, / You consume me. “