Tag: contemporary
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In Response to Myself in the Garden While Dwelling in Grief
CW: If you’re Christian, the poem is heretical. By Keira Perkins I am the god of small things.I am the god of slugs,And spiders,And bees.I rescue those that creep in the dirt from steel bladesI lift those that scuttle from deep and impassable watersAnd those that pierce my skin and draw my blood, live.They live.I…
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Someone Else’s Turn
By Erica Lee Smith It’s not eavesdropping if other people’s words find their way to you when you’re just minding your own business. At least that’s what she tells herself, as she stands by the open window above the kitchen sink, inhaling the fragrance of day lilies that she had cut earlier that morning and…
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the flamed mermaid
By Michelle Rochniak the flaky bones of ocean monsters’ preysift through the currents to my doorstep.the firewood of the merpeople village burns:opal-toned marrow ash. they said fire girls can’t have scaly tails;when i flap my flukes at the sun,their cerulean turns scarlet. it’s funny how scorpio soundslike a fire sign. i collect the bonesto earn…
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What is the Body but an Instrument?
*CW: mentions of self-harm and death By T.C. Anderson How long would it take to scratch my skin until I began to feel bone,to pluck the tendons like guitar strings andhear my body’s sweet melodies?For what is the body but an instrument of destruction and chaos,a tool to inflict its misery on the worldwith hope…
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To Love a Body
CW: Sexual situations, birth trauma, some discussion of disordered eating and diet By Julia Nusbaum Now In the half dark of my bedroom, I dig for the leggings and sweatshirt I discarded last night. This is my uniform now, leggings that haven’t been laundered in a week and a shirt with spills and stains I…
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O, Fortuna
By Paige Wyatt Forty wouldn’t exactly call herself lucky. As she took a sip from her cocktail at the casino bar, she thought about how hard she’d worked to get here. It had taken her a year to save for this vacation with her girls. She’d volunteered for extra shifts at the diner, and she…
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Red
By Shiksha Dheda *Content Warning: This piece discusses menstruation, body image, mental illness, OCD, and blood. I hate the colour red. Loud, lively– promiscuous. The stains I tried to hide-warmth trickling down mythick trembling thighs- my body literallychewing itself-spitting itself out of my vagina. Like a thick phlegm ballwhen you have a nasty cold. The…
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From Root to Rhizome
By Angela Acosta Like a plant, I seek to be rooted,watered and nurtured in optimal soil,looking skyward in comfortable seventy-degree weather,I imagine a tulip bulb burrowing into its own possibility. Finding a place for all of me is a tough task,so I settle for parts, points of connections,looking for other Latinas, other multiethnic poets,the ones…
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A Stroll Through the Fruit and Veg Section
By Carys Crossen The week the pregnancy test displayed two blue lines Elise’s baby was the size of a sesame seed. Two weeks later, it was the size of a blueberry, according to the pregnancy website she had started checking compulsively. Another fortnight later and it had the same dimensions as a grape. Elise wondered…
HLWW Featured Author
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Wild Gardens
By Hunter Liguore Slowing down time never seems more needed as when we emerge from the cold months and face a new season. All the seasons have a way of acting as checkpoints, the metamorphosing landscape deliberately reminding us of what we’ve done well and what we’ve failed to manifest. It is generally what we…
Heartland Society of Women Writers 