Sophia By Amelia Frey Montgomery Blair High School Fifteen years. It was still there. I set the handful of zinnia and soil down beside the letters and cautiously run my fingertips over the engraved name, my engraved name. The rock is chilly and nips at my fingers, a smooth roughness. The memory hadn’t faded with … Continue reading High School Contest Fiction Winner
Enough
By John Grey Enough is enough. It's also a strip mall where the woods used to be. And a housing estate that doesn't know from cornfields. And people are indifferent. While they sleep, the big box store is chewing up the pond. Everything's cheap, they boast but I remember what my mother … Continue reading Enough
Brace For Impact
By John Patrick Robbins I wrote it out perfectly the letter would say that which few ever cared to admit. The news wouldn't shock anyone. Most in all honesty wouldn't bat an eye. Another writer takes his own life leaving behind the page and nothing more. I had no children. I had no wife. I … Continue reading Brace For Impact
A Find
By John Grey Poetry disturbs homeless man who finds coffee-stained magazine in trash barrel, while his comrades in the alley pass a bottle from hand to hand, catch a drop or two of liquid on the tongue, a holy elixir for the wildwood state of no comprehension required. He huddles in a corner as … Continue reading A Find
I Will Say Goodbye Here
By John Patrick Robbins She read the words and wondered why they could never be about her. Why the stories that made publication never did include one about her. He wrote beautifully about another that wasn't worth a damn while she remained ignored only to share his bed . She knew he loved her but … Continue reading I Will Say Goodbye Here
My Health
By John Grey It's all screwed up, that's what I know. Working more hours for less pay. College degree and flipping burgers - that's combo number 5. And debt - I've got more debt that you've eaten stale buns. Credit card debt. Car loan. A month's back rent. And the ten I borrowed from Jake. … Continue reading My Health
To The Young Writer
By John Patrick Robbins Live your work but not as I before you. Don't allow a good time become a addiction. Forgive yourself rather than carry the burden of guilt. Don't allow others fucked up actions scar your existence. Never listen to the ignorant that will place there labels upon you. The only true whores … Continue reading To The Young Writer
The Class
By John Grey Large and small, dumb and smart, emphatic strides, indifferent straggle - the classroom fills. Some heads stare eagerly at the blackboard, others twist, bob, whisper. A few are clear about what they want. Most are attuned to getting by as best they can. The dunces wonder what they're doing there. The teacher … Continue reading The Class
41
By John Patrick Robbins It stands as it is. We will all know it someday and now it faces me down. Every line is now more polished the truths are far to real and the scars are deep and many. The numbness never does last the magic is gone and now I try in vain … Continue reading 41
Classic 70’s Chick
Classic 70's Chick (V2) By Michael Lee Johnson Classic 70's chick scent of these times gold digger want to be. Poet & scholar stuck on T.S. Eliot “The Waste Land.” She tracks down a few stray men, prospect hunks, & greenback dreams. Her long legs stretched out beneath this dinette table, these high wooden heels hang … Continue reading Classic 70’s Chick
Academy of the Heart And Mind 