BLIZZARD By Susan Isla Tepper

Over a period of weeks 

it melted in feet

‘til less and less 

Everyone smiling 

thinking the worst is past

then a dribbling 

down through the roof

must’ve been pools

up there

hovering—

waiting

to mark its place 

in your hall of fame:

a tiny room

where you sweat things out

death and disease

those peaks and valleys

leaching their own storms.

Aside from the new markings 

 paint still looking fresh.

Like yesterday.

Impossible to forget. 

Violence so deceptive

it lingered 

a good long while 

in your structure.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer and the author of 12 published books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent novel “Hair of a Fallen Angel” was released by Spuyten Duyil, NYC in early October. Check out the Official Video for this book on YouTube 

link: https://youtu.be/W2HVIc4NrqYriter 

Tepper has also written 5 Stage Plays. www.susantepper.com

(a) Gentle Path By Tracey Sivek

Where does anyone begin to explain the angst caused by toxic choices? Words that dance around the sorrow of our own personal wanderings don’t feed the core.

As time goes on, looking back with clearer eyes and less exaggerated heart shows us the raw beginnings. Some dreams aren’t momentary visions. We sometimes try to move them into all our waking moments. Fantasy replaces the loneliness lacking in our own self-love. In this, the electronic world, with words on fire we feel in ways so powerfully because we can’t, don’t or won't feel it in our everyday life.

We become friends of the heart, lovers in the shadows of both night and day; we feel.

This resonates deeply with the disconnection we feel in a world where we no longer touch, see one another face to face or hear the truth in the vibration of our voice.

Our true need or desire is to feed the soul inside our human selves.

Sometimes failure in fantasy hurts more deeply because we were brave enough to expose the reality of our humanness, we are not technology we are real, we are physical.

Sometimes friendships form and the magic will never be diminished. It grows through every season of our being. Yes, we bloom, fall to the ground and are reborn in all seasons.

Instead of regretting the fragile moments of exposure, rejoice in the knowing that we to rise and fall. And rise again and again with hope, with a clearer view of who we truly are. Allowing us to better navigate that truth.

Forgiveness of others and self, gaining strength in each step we take to rediscover our divine essence.

Celebrate who you are in all ways. No expectations, just clarity, peace, wisdom and balance.

Just love.

Tracey is a native of Northern Michigan.

 She has work on Writerscafe and Cosmofunnel.

She is also the Author of "Zero Evidence of Life" found on lulu.com.

Her publications include .
The Abyss, Under The Bleachers , The Rye Whiskey Review and The Dope Fiend Daily.

Her latest book Navigating Grace is currently available on Lulu.

https://www.lulu.com/shop/tracey-sivek/navigating-grace/paperback/product-v6q6jk.html

I Like Playing With Dangerous Creatures By John Patrick Robbins

Please allow me to transform to suit your ever-fragile ego along with my own.

It's a dance upon the edge as it's within both our natures to kill, what can promise us hope.

I built a monument to self-destruction, dressed it up, and paraded it around as my truth.

To caress a cancer within is as pathetic as to embrace a repeated offense expecting a different result.

As you read and await my failure.

Are we not both equally twisted together in this shared dependency.

But at least you're not a mess like me, huh?

When I look at the serpent head-on, it will show no mercy, but at least it will not pretend to be anything more than what it truly is.

The venom goes down smoothly.

You can be right, as somehow I am thirsting to come out of this alive.

It's always in the silence the demons whisper to tormented souls pains equally as myself.

It's in the silence I will lose, as you will realize.

The blood is on your hands as well as my own.

I am in agony, never in wait.

Compassion knows not anyone who resides here.

JPR is a Southern Gothic writer. His work has been published in Disturb The Universe, Cold Rambler, Fixator Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Dope Fiend Daily, Horror Sleaze Trash, Piker Press, and Impspired Magazine.

His work is often dark and always unfiltered.