Heartbreak and Steaks in the Children’s Hospital by Alex Z. Salinas

Each page my eyes drift to the last word.

Noticing, Karina says: “We can quit if you don’t wanna.”

“It’s OK.”

My grip tightens. Gently, she taps my arm.

“I feel better today,” she says.

“Wonderful.”

“My dad told me you can only do one thing at a time.”

I repeat: “One thing at a time.”

 I glance at her bald head. I’m barely there, seeing the end already, but I hear everything.

“Otherwise you make steaks.”

Steaks. One of us smiles first; message received.

I start over from the beginning.

My eyes drift again — so I tell the story backwards.

Alex Z. Salinas lives in San Antonio, Texas. His full-length poetry collection, WARBLES, Is out now released by Hekate Publishing .

He is poetry editor of the San Antonio Review, and his short fiction has appeared in numerous publications online.

https://www.amazon.com/WARBLES-Alex-Z-Salinas/dp/1912017857/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1573663241&refinements=p_27%3AAlex+Z.+Salinas&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Alex+Z.+Salinas

Recovery Time. By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

I can’t stand all those extended fight scene movies from Asia.

The ludicrous way every dish washer is a shaolin monk in waiting.

Hanging in the air forever riding invisible bicycle sternums.

And recovery time is big with me.

Everyone seems invincible and I get lost 

in all the fighting.

But such obvious hustles must bank well.

They keep making them for the money.

Not mine, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything.

With all those sensational flare gun posters.

Even the extras defying the basic  

laws of gravity.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly,The Rye Whiskey Review, Outlaw Poetry Network, Under The Bleachers, The Dope Fiend Daily and In Between Hangovers.

Unwanted Miracles by Scott Simmons

Nobody is perfect,
and everyone makes mistakes.

That’s why I was Born.

Scott Simmons is the editor of The Dope Feind Daily and the Co-editor of the Rye Whiskey review. His work has been featured at Ariel Chart, Anti-Heroin Chic, Under The Bleachers, Horror Sleaze Trash, Medusa's kitchen, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Duane's Poetree. His "artwork" can also be found at deranged_texan on instagram.

JAN MY GOD SQUAD FRIEND By Bruce Hodder

Jan was a sort of friend of mine

when I was running low on real ones.

I would travel to her council flat

for my dinner every week or so.

But she only came to my house once.

Afterwards, even when we passed,

she wouldn't come indoors
It was because of all my Buddhas

and the Ganesha on my window sill
The Ginsberg picture on my wall
had made her apoplectic.

She thought, when I had seizures,
that the Man Downstairs and God
were having fistfights for my soul.
"You worship graven images," she said,

without a hint of malice.

This woman was a care assistant.

I heard her tell somebody, ‘Disability’s
God's judgement on the wicked.’
And she really meant it.

One day she landed on her face,

after tripping on a wet floor sign at work

with residents behind her.

Some stepped forward to help her up.

I hid around the corner laughing.

Surely, I was going to Hell.

Bruce Hodder lives in Northampton, England. His work has appeared in many magazines. This year his poetry collection ‘The Journey Home’ was published by Whiskey City Press.