Isaac Kilibwa
Sitting in a circle at the arboretum
a sister asks why connections
are called chemistry when they
are as hard to figure as physics
and as I laugh I wonder whether
that is how Christian sisters jest.
I write a testimony on a log of split wood
and throw it into the mesmerizing inferno
distracted from the night that plays with
the hairline on my nape: a precipice
of teetering pinewood before
a plunging railway line.
Natalye Childress
you are a diamond-shaped
lustre of limestone—
a stratum of sediment, swept
in/along a coursing river and
cast up in this place,
watered and weathered.
you are a pale mountain,
transparent in the light,
a polymorphic presence,
marble-mottled and unmoved,
your impurities as
opaque as your motives.
you are crystalline—born,
transformed—an order-disorder
sparkle-shine deposit, an
eroding illusion of mild-mannered boy
forged in and of this
expressway-adjacent town.
“there are dolomites and dolomites”
and you know what i mean when i say
there are many ways to mine a quarry.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The poem is about someone who is now a dear friend. I wrote this when we were just getting to know one another through letters, and was thinking about how all I knew about him was what I'd read about him on the internet, and how the public sphere can have an influence on how you view a person. So the title is kind of me trying to get at who he is as a person in this gap between what I knew about him at the time (very little), what I'd read about him (by people who don't know him), and what I imagined he was like as a person, and how he was formed by the things around him. There was this "void" in my knowledge, and I was measuring up what I'd heard vs. what he was revealing himself to be like.
Carmella de Keyser
I will wear it with dignity,
I will wear it like a volcano spills out lava in humble malevolence.
I will wear it like rain slides down a gutter.
I will wear it soiled and uneven.
My face covered in dirt.
I will wear it when I awake and when I seek sleep.
It calls and it calls,
I keep walking on,
Past the bridle path,
Over the footbridge,
Step across my shadow,
Past the houses
And into the sun.
I will wear it like a shell wrenched from its body—
Held up to my ear with the sound of emptiness whistling into my eardrum.
I will not be ashamed,
Ugly though it needs to be,
I will dress in it daily until it no longer fits me…
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I do enjoy the rhyme in the last line and it was deliberate to add a sense of perspective and signify a 'hope' for the future that the pain will eventually be worked through and outgrown. I also wanted (via an end rhyme) to suggest 'completion' of a cycle. That pain and suffering are in fact necessary and when gone through fully and in vulnerable sincerity, will help complete us.
BIO
Carmella de Keyser is originally from Camden, London, but now lives in Essex. She has a History Degree from the University of Manchester and writes poetry that explores dual identities, anticipatory nostalgia, nature, liminal spaces and feelings of displacement. She is passionate about providing safe spaces for poets to perform and share their work and is co-founder of the Harlow Circle of Poetry Stanza. Publications in The Dirigible Balloon, Your Harlow Newspaper, Dream Catcher Literary Magazine Issue 49, shortlisted for the Hedgehog Press A Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2024, longlisted for Northern Gravy Issue 13, Honourable Mention for the Dark Poets Prize 2024.
Brianna Brown
She stands there, motionless, as storm clouds roll over the horizon,
Turning the skyline a brilliant red before fading to purple and blue,
She thinks of the bruises.
She stands there, motionless, as night blackens the sky.
Lightning splinters the darkness and thunder roars overhead like lions.
She stands there, motionless, willing the rain to come.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I was thinking of domestic violence (thankfully, not of my own experience), but I think the bruises could also be a symbol of any trauma. I wanted to capture the strength of women that tend to be characterized as victims. There's a sense of calm that this woman possesses in the face of the storm. She doesn't yield to the pain; she owns it in the way we all own our histories. And at the end I got the sense that when the rain comes, she will know how to move through it.
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
—W. B. Yeats, "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"
Sahar Othmani
In attempt to do good, I tread softly.
I do not stomp on your dreams
lest I wake them up.
I have been fed fistfuls of
trampled tower moments.
The light flickers and I
am yet again reminded that
Had I not reprimanded myself/her through life,
I/she would have been
happy without your gaze.
Your stirring is a current of creaks,
the bed frame rattles like the cage
your mind has been locked
In—under the guise of liberation.
You’ve fed me/her
Fistfuls, and you’ve been fed
The same: delusion.
This cocoon burst, rips open, and now
I have reincarnated
as the moth/her on your nape.
I find it the only means to receive any warmth
Or any trace of fire.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
"Moth to (your/my) Flame" is inspired by the famous line “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams” with a Kafkaesque metamorphosis twist to it. It carries a reflective theme with particular focus on mental health and self-image. The my/your is intentional in the title. I want it to be a bit confusing, a bit dizzying.
BIO
I write in order to draft versions of myself that I can remember. This last year has brought much into perspective as I finish my PhD and venture into other areas of life.
Frank Njugi
Somewhere between a prosthesis & an alternate history,
I am lost in the illusion of seabirds.
& neutrality be damned, I must choose between
the iteration of grief or its subsets.
In my land at times our pores are wineskins of old,
they carry the margins of boundless fields.
We take lovers as the mundane seen as operatic,
& boys as the blend of constructs.
But the good side of my people is how the passage of eras
is taken as the exploration of dreams & all its mystical.
For this is the land of spirituality, a young blood is
the canvas for ethereality.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Uvumba is a Swahili word which translates to "Incense".
BIO
Frank Njugi is a 25-year-old who writes from Nairobi, Kenya.
Merlin Flower
like Pluto,
i am at the edges
not here,
not
anywhere else
almost
everywhere
like god
but without the
Power
staggering in drinks to the grill
—on meat fried
and
roasted.
a snake slid with a sound,
the same sound
as it was fried to be
eaten
secure in
vices
i was exiled
with neem wood
i made a casket
for myself.
when it’s time,
they will burn me
which won’t smell like
fresh rain on a misty
mountain.
BIO
Merlin Flower is an independent artist and writer.
Yewande Akinse
starting afresh
seems like a winter morning
without snow
seems like autumn
without fallen leaves
it is cold and it is painful
learning the ropes again
learning to walk again
and to talk again
and to be.
Isn’t this what living is?
a fresh start.
Noura McNelis Mahmoud,
NOMINEE, PUSHCART PRIZE 2025
At 38,898 feet the particles of my thoughts
disperse too much to ignore
(it’s an excuse, I know the cabin is pressurized)
and in the fitful sleep of transatlantic flight
I wonder about the angels’ last journeys;
maybe we were never meant to be able
to be this far from each other,
to need tons of poison, trash, and aviatory pioneering
to reach the ones we love—to leave
others behind;
I think of all the ways I closer and farther
to you. Or you, and in this manifest of 276
we risk freak accidents and the death of our planet
to make something of our loneliness:
flight is no longer miraculous,
the science barely hard,
and over Edmonton I count
all the people I will never know again.
Crystal Taylor
Chapped, they cracked red
but there must be three washes to be correct.
One.
—Happy birthday to me.
Did I lace my fingers too tightly?
—Happy birthday to…
The water is too cool.
—Happy birthday…
Did I really get under my nails?
—Happy…
One.
—Happy birthday to me.
No one clapping.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
"Three" references the pain of living with contamination OCD. I have intimate experience with this condition. Though washing is not one of my rituals, it is one to which I can relate.
BIO
Crystal Taylor (she/her) is a neurodivergent writer and poet from Texas. She loves to birdwatch with her dogs, and freely admits she likes dogs more than most people. Her work lives in Rust & Moth, One Art, Ghost City Review, and other sacred spaces.
Mariella Angela H. Olden
I checked your oxygen saturation level
using an oximeter:
%SpO2 PRbpm
00 00
——————————
It won't tell me a reading.
I & mom started panicking & calling
your name. I searched, & searched,
& searched for a pulse rate
even using a stethoscope for a beat—
Nothing.
Few minutes passed, mom was still
in denial & kept shouting your name
but I saw how your lips & hands changed
from color pink to a dark purple hue
I am no doctor yet
I checked the time on my grandmother’s
watch I am wearing that day
I made sure to record it & embed
it in memory & I then declare the time
two hours & fifty-one
minutes in the morning—
You left exactly on your wife's birthday.
BIO
Mariella Angela H. Olden has hopes of using her pen and voice with purpose—she’s now embarking on a journey into the world of creative writing while navigating the field of life. Mariella is an emerging writer, journalist, and biology student from the Philippines. Her works have been featured in House of Poetry, Friday Flash Fiction, National Flash Flood, The Write-In, Hot Pot Magazine, and Paragraph Planet.
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi
The laziness of the knife
as it slices through beetroots and cauliflower;
how the blade, too, must become soft
to make love to a soft thing,
how lightweight the heavy burden of devotion.
The heat of the heart—mountain rock place
of the hefty issues—quenching
the cold weather of logic. O how
the weight grows numb;
I lug like Sisyphus this burden
more bearer.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The poem "Lightweight" is a minimalist meditation that explores the interplay between rationality and emotional labor. The knife symbolizes the tool of struggle between these complexes, as it must render itself gentle to handle the delicate nature of the vegetables, which are symbolic imageries for the different facets of human experience: the beetroots, with deep red color, suggesting passion, heart, or emotion and the cauliflower, pale and cerebral, suggesting logic or purity of reason.
BIO
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, TPC XI, is a medical student, poet, essayist & Poetry Editor of Fiery Scribe Review from Nigeria. His chapbook "A Mouthful with Cinders" was selected by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes for the APBF New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set series (forthcoming, Akashic Books, 2025).
Durodola-Oloto, Olaore
Once, I had seen him stare condescendingly at us,
From his gracious throne of garbage pile,
With a sneering look from the corner of his dirt-coated face.
I watched from a safe distance,
As he peacefully coexisted with concomitant relics and residues,
His odd demeanour sharply contrasting with our comported one.
He squeals and laughs freely, just as we do.
But, in a rather eccentric manner.
You think he's mad because you fail to comprehend his state of mind?
That he's gone bananas because he converses alone?
That he's a deranged scoundrel because he sometimes attempts to concuss you?
Because he appears to exist in a mental realm that differs from ours?
Well, he thinks of us the same.
We seem to him like animated mannequins,
Searching for credibility.
He laughs at the inconsistent ideological stances of our sane selves,
Snickering at our resignation to the dictates of social constructs.
Strange how I envy his liberty in this sane world of ours,
Living without minding the things that define his sanity,
Nor cowering at the thought of losing his humanity.
You may think me to share his predicament,
But, I only intend to follow my inner moonlight.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This poem embodies a sense of didacticism and emotive reflection.
BIO
I am Olaore Philip Durodola-Oloto, a 3rd-year undergraduate at the Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Lagos. I'm a young writer with a dazzling interest in poetry and fiction. My works have been featured or forthcoming on Brittle Paper, JCI Magazine and elsewhere.
Maggie McCombs,
NOMINEE, PUSHCART PRIZE 2025
I once thought my parents would thrive there until one or both died or, better, I did. We’d drift off on a careworn quilt overlooking the woods where we used to clear paths by picking up sticks. Like how I always imagined it. A dulcimer sounds a hymn from somewhere far away.
Harrowing to think of it now, to care only of—clearing, making, painting, loving, praying, dying in the Northwest Georgia mountains. Here, when this house was a building ground, sacrosanct. I will suspend myself there—regardless of when I left and how much I visited. Because the girl picking up sticks and singing had faith, if only in the forest, and would have made it home more often.
….
But you, officer, you showed up, sirens on, parting the gravel as we stood wide-eyed in the driveway. We had zero warning. Such an injustice to us! Don’t you, of all people, take trespassing seriously?
We never called 911 after all: We could have handled this sorry mess ourselves, sir, divvied things up illegally. I can’t believe they sold the house to you, with daddy being a libertarian. He signed the paperwork and everything, no tax evasion.
It doesn’t seem fair, does it, that homes get overwritten so easily—a fate worse than rotting, when we’re deprived of reasons to look back? Well, paint me out, shackle me, but I’ll have you know I am still in the walls. We stained them gray just for you, but I have one last feverish dance in front of the mirror left in me. I’m swiping finger-paint murals on the closet door, while boys plastered their letters all around you, so insincere: Can you hear it? This place, it bludgeoned us, and we hid by hemorrhaging.
I made your house a studio once. Choosing the colors for each room, christening them in yellow, sage, mushroom—reflective of my pastoral visions, homeschool afternoons in warm dormers with rhyming poetry read alone in honeyed solitude. Is that something that you can get used to in your sitcom existence of head-back laughs at everyone less privileged than you?
You should know too—your home was a hospital, strewn with insulin syringes; multiple, concurrent diagnoses and bad news paperwork of doctor’s scratch crumpled on the table: God, I hope you’re not ableist. How dare you bring gluten crumbs into this house? We eat cardboard here and only the good cholesterol. But it’s ok, we make do.
In this house, we serve the lord and work hard to stay well. It’s tiring, I hope you understand, when someone’s always prodding you, telling you something’s wrong with your body while they keep poking you to “Pray harder!”
There’s a grass-tinged treehouse out back, too. Take a break, then humiliate everyone the next day who’s partaking absent a badge, but, sure, pull me over for paraphernalia because you don’t like my hair color and cigars.
The pool is yours too, of course, the trashy swim-up bar where I nearly drowned skinny dipping with my friends the night I also chipped a tooth, victimized by wine. I try to stay above ground and hope not to offend, you know. But is it too much to ask for scenic highways and pine hills to hold me while I’m drying up?
On this site, there once rested a house church, sterile but noisy with visitors rolling in from the interstate without any notice—a kitchen table full of accents like ours. They’re all mixing religion and politics, filling their plates with it, shouting conspiracies that would get any normal person locked up while traumatizing onlookers.
So you can have the key I guess. I forfeit, officer: You win. I’ll leave. Let me be objective for once—this house has been worse than a jail and could use some law and order.
BIO
Maggie McCombs is a managing editor, poet and neurodivergent neurodiversity advocate hailing from Lexington, Kentucky. She has work in Half and One, Wishbone Words, The Write Launch and The Word’s Faire. She lives with her husband, Anthony, and their four pets.
Saki Arimoto
The day begins
with a colorless sunrise,
a heavy exhale,
thick with disdain.
Sipping a bland cafe latte,
my mind drifts
into the empty spaces
between thoughts.
The blinding screen
of shattered ruins—
to be on fire,
I imagine.
I’d rather see
a violent crimson
than a dull,
dying sun.
BIO
Saki Arimoto is a Tokyo-based poet, freshly published in Dear o Deer, navigating life at a global consulting firm by day and finding solace in poetry by night. Raised in the Philippines and living in Japan, her work explores the clash of cultures, personal struggles, and the beauty found in chaos.
Ishola Joshua
The news after the cock’s crow
is now sacrilegious to the eyes.
A town has been blown down.
From the screen, a woman is letting
loose a peal of inconsolable grief,
her hands bearing her dead child,
the other children are dead.
The other mothers are tributary to
a stagnant stream of ruins of dead bodies.
Her husband is dead or must be among
the lucky, rescued disembodied survivors.
School will not happen again.
The teachers are dead. The pupils are dead.
Results of bandits’ evil machination.
Farms will be dead, so will the markets.
The dead have no appetite for survival.
Nigerians hope that these pesky tragedies
will be the last this time then the last
time isn’t their last as expected.
BIO
Ishola Joshua is an unpublished writer who is keenly interested in humour, satire, and sarcasm. These ideas are what he often explores in his unpublished works, most especially (contemporary) poetry. He is currently an undergraduate, studying veterinary medicine at the University of Ilorin, Kwara state, and he resides in Nigeria.
Cilla
The children have lost their voices.
"Why", you ask? They have made noises
To the deaf ears of their mother and her sealed
Mouth has uttered no reply. They are drained.
This time though, it is different. The mouth
Of the mother is parted, with a slight smile,
As if to speak. However, in a tenth
Of a second, her smile grows ugly and vile.
The mother erupts with laughter
As she gazes with contempt, upon her children's hope.
The children sit, with gloom placed on their shoulder
And wonder if their mother will ever love and lift them up.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
My intention was for "shoulder" to be singular. The children in this context refer to the citizens and by using the word in its singular form, it depicts that the children (though plural) come under one unit and have just one burden: the abuse of their mother, the nation. The use of "shoulder" as opposed to "shoulders" also helps to achieve the rhyme scheme with "laughter" used two lines preceding.
BIO
Priscilla (Cilla) is a law student who loves to write. She has a number of published novellas used as academic prose books for students. Subsequently, she hopes to use the voice of her pen to make positive changes in the world.
Doniell Cushman
He let me go like I was nothing
For all intents and purposes, I was stale
Weakened systematically from loss and health
He continued to pull away until
I was just an expendable burden
What misfortune it must have been
To have a millstone such as a wife
Her forgiving and loving nature interference
To learn to love her right
Would have been like moving a mountain
I cannot fathom the significance
But I have no option in this calamity
I don’t have it made, so to speak
Yet he sees this and waves from the shore
And I realize: I’m better off without him
BIO
Doniell Cushman is from Washington State. She received her education at Washington State University, and the University of Maryland, University College, and holds a B.A. in Humanities. She currently works as an office professional by day, a private piano teacher, composer, and arranger by night, and is a member of MTNA, HSLDA, SCBWI, Poetry.org, and an alumna of the Highlights Foundation’s workshop series. Doniell has recently had her work published with 34th Parallel. She is currently writing her memoir of abuse with the intention of bringing sexual, emotional, and physical abuse into the spotlight so that early intervention can help others. Doniell currently resides in Spokane, Washington with her son and dog.
Ocheni Kazeem Oneshojo,
NOMINEE, PUSHCART PRIZE 2025
I saw my father lying helpless in a four-cornered abode,
surrounded by shouts of tears.
His soul roamed with an aching heart:
to him, death was the most beautiful escape.
His life was marked by the writhing of his organs,
plagued by all forms of sickness.
He shouldn't have died, yet he should have died.
He knocked on the windows of Heaven and Hell,
his body dripping with stinking sins and regret.
Fate captured my father
and his days sparkled like stars in the Milky Way–
glorious yet dark.
His soul ruminated on the rumples of green leaves
and the silent whispers of the beauty river.
His soul regretted his actions;
he shouldn't have died, but he did.
His organs grumbled in distress.
In his days, he took to clattering deadly watery glasses
and pouring addictive poison into his fresh soul.
He befriended an addictive man
who stole souls,
and his life lost direction.
I stood at the door,
I didn't cry or smile.
My father's days were numbered.
I yearned to see his face once more,
but the pain of destroying the addictive water held me back.
I vowed not to befriend the addictive water
and to die by the shout of his longing legacy.
BIO
Ocheni Kazeem Oneshojo is a Nigerian poet and writer who debuted in Opuiluiche Journal, a platform for critical and creative writing. His poetry explores love, nature, identity, and social justice, incorporating African culture and tradition. With a growing passion to express himself, Oneshojo writes from the heart, driven by a desire to be heard and make a meaningful impact. He's a rising talent eager to connect with readers and inspire reflection. He is a contestant of the 2024 ZODML Poetry Contest.
Shashanna Hummer
A cheek kiss, un beso,
After all this time.
It used to be like breath,
Back when I stepped out of myself;
A debutant discarding a ball gown
Cramming and shoving and sucking it in
To fit where I never belonged.
I know more about his country than mine:
Candombe, maté, murga, Mujica
Asado, y asado, y mas asado, por siempre.
He got his culture in the divorce.
But
maybe,
does Uruguay miss me too?
AUTHOR'S NOTE
José Mujica was the 40th President of Uruguay from 2010-2015 and is popular for eschewing the trappings of political life and remaining down-to-earth while in office. A translation of the Uruguayan Spanish terms:
Candombe is a type of music and dance that originated in Uruguay from the descendants of liberated African people who had been enslaved. Maté is a drink made of herbs and is poured into a gourd cup; it is popular in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. Murga is a type of singing and musical theater, often performed during Carnival and characterized by close vocal harmonies. Asado, asado y mas asado, por siempre translates as “barbecue, barbecue and more barbecue, forever”; Uruguayan barbeque is cooked on a slanted grate and present at every gathering, for every occasion.
BIO
Shashanna Hummer is a mother, board-certified music therapist and musician. She is the author of two self-published books of poetry: Survival Haiku: Poetry About the End of an Abusive Marriage and Cancer Doesn’t Give a F*ck: Poetry About Surviving Breast Cancer. Originally from Washington State, Shashanna currently lives in Florida with her sweet son, loving boyfriend, one dog, two cats and a butterfly garden.
Brandon Shane
There's a day in winter I look out,
the numbing air is pressed against my face
and coughing like a chimney
ridding enough dust to include bones,
and the rain is falling through cracked tiles;
to be fooled as we are every year,
so cold the edges of soft things have grown hard,
the pecking season of quiet discontents,
the usual birds are muted to mere sight,
insects wise and gone,
some of us finding the condition symphonic
on porches netted with every bit
of snow and the remains of branches
now bare as the last few leaves
swing upon our laps; how beautiful this is
exhaling months of summer torture,
we thought the heat would kill us then
and that the frost would never arrive.
How green are these plants, and shrubs,
that managed to survive, and so ordinary
they were, we only remember the collection,
but now that only mere pieces remain,
they are venerated as cathedrals
standing after siege and massacre,
the steadiness of the lone mass-produced plant
after worms had taken everything but it;
this plant is now sacred, a divine species,
venerate it; venerate it now!
Light is reflecting off the snow,
and they too appear as stars falling from clouds
never so cotton white, and dense;
the sun has not enthused me so,
but like water it creates the best cocktails;
you can't have anything without it
at least at the start; the storms
and blizzards, and light rain on a dewy valley,
fog rolling over grassy hills
and through forests
we thought to know,
but as pets get loose or children wander
they are something else,
and I sit on the porch, thinking of cathedrals
atop mountains, mounts, skyscrapers, and
tipping over waterfalls, flattened
against the palm like dough;
unable to muster all the places
they could fit.
It will surely end, everything that exists,
but in the meantime, this season will go,
and a familiar face will return,
and the same holidays will decorate
the same streets; in my young age
the repetition drove me mad,
thinking nothing is by chance, but now
I listen to the few remaining fauna
and caress the few bits of green,
massage the tender
muscles of hope.
BIO
Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist, born in Yokosuka, Japan. You can see his work in trampset, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Berlin Literary Review, Acropolis Journal, Grim & Gilded, Heimat Review, The Mersey Review, among others. He will graduate from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in English.
Djie Astria
And a few years later
I’d say you look no older
than the day I first came across
your wild blonde hair
homogeneous with your nature, and the snowstorm
ratty beanie askew upon
pushing me onto the snow,
crooked grin fingers half the size
of the gloves you clearly stole from your other "siblings"
at the big yellow house down the block
where my shoes wore out
lips the colour of the sky parting,
teeth wearing a lattice of pearls, dressed to the nines, chattering,
my mouth unzipped itself
it screamed of missing trips, burnt marshmallow,
and the language that only two spoke
the passage of my voice burns with
the sound of mother’s cries still echoing
the hum of them on my feet
her tires pulling out the driveway
cradling my head
like a young child
whisper threats fashioned as sweet goodbyes
rock me back and forth like a three-legged chair,
hoping I’ll fall
as the lights and the rustle of documents become lullabies
the curve of the frostbite melts,
drips upwards into your eyes and gravity pulls them back down
dissolves like sandcastles and sunburn and things that aren’t real
I scrub my skin unexposed to the silent shower
the water stream muted as the tape rewinds
the music track is so noisy, the lyrics are glazed with words
that should not be uttered in our current world
I feel wanted as a lone signature curls around my name,
on the black and white document as I’m signed away like a pet for sale
to my father
the diamonds in your eyes flatter again
thick red wine dripping from my face and my arms
I veil the red and blue sirens washing his face, the clink of metal wrapping around his
tanned wrists, the garage keys jingling in the left pocket with the hole unused and not
darned for weeks and the wine dripping from his hands, pooling,
as the second car’s wheels screech in the driveway
and I join you at the big yellow house.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Regarding the wine, it represented blood but could also be interpreted as my father having been an alcoholic.
BIO
Djie Astria is studying aspiring (praying) to be able to study law one day. In the meantime, she priorities poetry and works of fiction over her real responsibilities.
Folorunsho Ahmed Adekunle
The land is thirsty like a desert,
Waiting to drink from the sea of my word,
The stage is wailing
Crying for the lullaby of my knowledge.
The sound of the clap commands,
Making the atmosphere bow like a tree in the wind,
Friends & loved ones waiting like for the coming of a savior,
With Earth of expectations rotating in their heart.
Oh!
I was overwhelmed
& relentlessly fought the war within,
Sadly, the stage fright fought me high,
The Mic was deaf to my weeping thoughts begging to be said.
My voice was cracking without earthquake
My soul was helpless watching words flee from me,
&
My self-esteem was drowning on a hill.
Oh!
What a bad good day
With a show of demotivation!
“Head up!
It’s a step to a journey of greatness
A path of failure to the point of success”
Says my instinct.
I learn and unlearn in the podium of anxiety;
I ate the lion head and became brave to Mic
Speaking my poetry with a steady lip.
BIO
Folorunsho Ahmed Adekunle is a Nigerian Poet and Essayist (shortlisted in the US Archaivarian 2023 Essay Writing Competition). Some of his works are featured or forthcoming in Decades of Nine Hills and Thrills (an anthology in honor of Prof. Wole Soyinka, Noble Prize Laureate); AAUASU Magazine '23; Turning a New Leaf; Epistemic Literary; SAND Literature & Art; Seaford Review; and a long-anticipated chapbook. One of his popular social-justice poems is "Messenger of our Plights", written as resistance against the Twitter Ban in Nigeria in 2021.
Peter Devonald
imagine a star at the centre of the universe
surface temperature five thousand five hundred celsius
five billion years old
a perfect ball of hot plasma
heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion
reactions radiating energy
there is no objective reality anymore
just interpretations
unspoken creeping fragility of us
beneath the elms
we all go west
beyond the veil
sun stretches
ninety-three million miles away
if we travelled
five-hundred-and-fifty miles per hour
would take nine years and three months
just to fly there
twilight of autumn
past rainbow bridge
till reality wakes us
to the absurdity of this
how our souls ache
the frailty of desire
Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
You are ungiving,
immobile—cemented
in prison walls
crafted of delusions
that you’ve now become
a tree.
Rooted deep,
you carry absurd burdens
upon feeble twigs,
blind to winters
on the horizon
brewing thunder.
So, if I tell you,
I want no seat at your burial
under hardened snow,
will you accuse me
with frostbitten fingers
of abandoning you,
be convinced of fiction
in my unspoken affections,
write me off as a mistake
or an illusion,
before you insensate
for eternity?
BIO
Tejaswinee Roychowdhury lives in India and is a lawyer, writer and the founding editor of The Hooghly Review. With fiction, poetry and more published across the world, she has recently been nominated for the 2025 Best of the Net Anthology and longlisted for the 2024 Wigleaf Top 50.