the term I used to hear as a slur
linguistic descendant of “to be troubled or grieved”
a literary magazine I hope to someday get into
the feeling in my stomach when I hear ableist language
the sense of humor I most appreciate
the condition in which my niece entered this world
slang for amazing, cool, or awesome
the posters we made at the NAMI Conference
my favorite four-letter word

Where the
chasquis (1) once
crossed, step
carefully, Jonathan.
Where others
bow and bless
Pacha Mama, (2)
kneel and offer
up yourself.
Where knots
of ichu grass
thicken into
an umbilical,
grab onto,
grip tight,
as if you could
re-braid the
only connection
to your stranger.
When you meet
her, bridge
the gap between
your lives.
Weave another
one. Let corded
hair as black
as yours brush
against it.
Let dark skin
hug dark skin.
Then let go.
Cross back.
And never again
look for her.

---
(1)an official messenger for the Inca empire
(2)[Quechua for “World Mother”] Inca fertility goddess

Grandma’s on Facebook talking cabals.
Cousin’s on X saying people just trying to live are immoral.
The preacher on TV says I’m going to hell
then pulls a gun and tells me to put money in an envelope.
The electric company calls:
they caused the outage,
so now I owe more on my bill.
At the gas station,
a nine-year-old calls the homeless man a Marxist.
I buy the junkie’s beer
to stop her screaming at the clerk.
“We’re out of your smokes,” he says.
“Here’s the expensive knockoff.
Want scratchers too, sir?”
Little McCarthy’s still yelling about capitalism
at the war vet outside.
The doctor says lower your stress
or you won’t make it.
Also—your premium’s up.
You’ll need to pay in advance.
Driving home,
a pimp and two girls shout at cars.
It’s 3:45 p.m.
I turn on the TV
there’s my childhood hero
selling used cars and erection pills.
They say I should quit
as I light another cold, sweet cigarette.
Maybe I’ll quit tomorrow.
And maybe then,
I’ll save the world.

I sit in absolute peace.
I remember the words you screamed that night.
Birds chirp; the wind sways soft
“I hate you! He’s better in bed than you! Go to hell!”
I sink beneath the water—never felt safer.
“You’ll die alone, you fat trailer trash.”
Neighbor kids sing while skipping rope
“How can you just sit there quietly? No smart rhymes now?”
This might be the best lemonade I’ve ever tasted.
“You’re worthless gutter trash, just like your dad.”
Burgers sizzle on the grill—time to dry off, get out
“I wish you’d just drop dead.”
All those moments led to this:
warm sun, a swimming pool,
a plate handed with a smile.
You texted yesterday—can I send $90 for your light bill?
I bite the burger.
And barely remember you.

You left like water slipping through a glass I didn’t know was cracked.
I held you with both hands
tight enough to bruise,
gentle enough to beg.

Mornings still know your weight.
The couch sags in your shape.
The kettle whistles like it’s calling your name
but it isn’t.
It’s just steam.

Last night I folded your sweater again.
Not because I thought you’d wear it
but because I still remember how it smelled
when you loved me.

I don’t cry when I say your name.
Not because it doesn’t hurt,
but because it does
in ways tears can’t reach.

You are a ghost
I invited in
and now every door in this house
forgets how to close.

Michael Whitehead was born in Lancashire, England and has lived in the Atlanta area for over thirty years. He enjoys observing the comedy and absurdity of the quotidian aspects of life and then tries to find a settled place for language between dark and light.

i leave
my completed
crossword grids
at the foot
of hedgerows
because how else
could i allow so many people
to see my work

Ian Brownlie is a writer/poet from the UK. He can be found on BlueSky: @ianbrownlie.bsky.social.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. To date, she has fifteen published chapbooks, the latest being: not your piñata (Alien Buddha Press, June 2025).

Winter evening
neon light flickering
concrete ceiling overlaying
pipes and metal rods
a steel screwdriver and bolts
thrown away on the floor
perhaps forgotten
during lunch hour
by the plumber worker

against the door to the lift
laid a blue plastic bag
full of household shopping bags
an elastic band on the floor lost
squashed page of a grocery list
scattered in the corner amidst
crumbles of crisps
chocolates and smarties

                                                                                                               a place of transition
                                                                                                     for modes of transportation
                                                                                              a space not to remain in infinite
                                                                                        passing less than five to ten minutes

president of a committee
governing the property company
ever setting foot on the premises
is another question with no answers

unsightly tech equipment
plumbing pipes lights
blaring to the eyes
from a ventilation system
electric fans rumbling noise
pertinent in the background
evening the silence of the echo
stark and cold resonates across the basement
an atmospheric feeling reigning as a constant

seeing lights flicker from the bulb that was ending its days
smelling petrol, diesel, food oil from the chips burgers honey glaze
tasting the scent of the curry meal of the last passenger
touching the icy steel metal frame of the people carrier


I hear water running through the drain pipes
the door to the gas unit storage banging
someone surely forgot to use their keys
blue, grey and white prominent colours
endless range of vehicles in the park perched
each one barely touching the other
leaving hardly any room for the driver
                                                                                                               a place of transition
                                                                                                       designed for a destination
                                                                                                             a place of in-between
                                                                                                             never to end or begin

Winter morning
neon light dimming
concrete floor overlaying
from yesterday’s dust settling
shiny gold coin beside the door
thrown away on the floor
one of the rarest and valuable a regal
1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle

Melanie Lam is a London-based creative, from Mauritius of Chinese heritage. She is a qualified accountant, an actor, a playwright, and a poet. Sharing a poem publicly for the first time with Creating Apart in 2021, motivated her to further develop her craft. Subsequently, she contributed to the limited edition anthology of the Chinese Write Now 2022 festival. Her writing delves into themes such as feminism, migration and displacement, and loss and hope. Her instagram account is MelanieLam_UK.

I think I saw you on the river cruise
(your distant Canadian doppelgänger)
Elbows up, cheating at the pub quiz with mom and grandma
combing your long, red, hair like bored Rapunzel
wishing yourself home through fjords and fish.

But it wasn’t you. She bore a name
from a bad comedienne, now long gone.
But like you, she had merciless gray eyes
(and probably like you) had a nasty
edge. Treating everyone with acid and honey.

I think I’ll bear that grudge as long as the
baggage carousel goes round in airports.
The same cheap luggage, same cheap platitude
You, mistaking rudeness for attitude.

as you barged past me, your maple suitcase
a distant memory as the taxi came.
Took me to another plane, and then another plane.
I think we passed each other. I saw wind turbines.

Blind open, seat in the upright position.
You saw windmills, perused the inflight magazine
and chased a plane you couldn’t catch.
The gate has closed, the wheels are now up
I was on a connecting flight, last year.

The streets are full of lacto-free narcos
Shouting at Tesla Wankers passes the time.

I’m slightly dislocated since coming home
Nothing appears to make sense anymore.

So, out of prison, the fun-sized fascist
call out genocide, get called a racist.

It’s just the age of ipsedexitism
where white people say they invented rap.

These are the single-deckered sunny days
we’re all just sitting on the hot engine

trying to get home to domesticity
whilst spoilt teenagers facetime their sex life.

I think we’re all just waiting for Groucho
who’d puncture this balloon

with hot cigar and a salacious gag.
But every comedian is now elected

including the pub-bore part-time MP
a bad shepard of the dispossessed
 
So, I think of another place to exist
and if survived Thatcher, I’ll survive this.

It’s misty mountains sliding by.
The smell of stockfish drying slow
That giant ship, sailing in a bottle
pulled up a hill by it’s Captain.

And even when seasickness got me
I was still at home with stuffed foxes
and trolls hungry for goats and tourists
my mum on a gallery wall.

And how do you live in daylight
when the light is coruscant?
Even Maccies becomes Santa’s grotto
(after midnight, past my bedtime).

The fact is: you let yourself go.
Go out at midnight in Tromso.
with your new friends. And it’s not the
late karaoke bar that defines us:

It’s the fact we travelled so far
so short. And when we go back home
people will say ‘Who are they? I knew
them before the ice. It can’t be them’.

Kev The Poet is originally from Liverpool, but now resides in Devon. Kev’s work has featured on BBC Devon and weekly on Shaun Keavney’s show on Community Garden Radio. Kev gigs regularly across the South West.

I am as still and as solemn
as a statue
in the suburban 8 o’clock morning light
partly because I can’t sleep.

Partly because of my depression.

Partly because of myself.

I am finishing my third cup of coffee,
thinking about having a Coke with that New York poet O’Hara,
wondering why in the world anyone wakes up.

She comes barreling down the stairs.

“I’m tired,” I say.

“Me too,” she answers.
“I give up,” she says.

“I don’t care anymore.”

Then pauses.

“Call your mom
and tell her not to come over Saturday.”

I wish I could.

I wish there was nothing but time
to do nothing in.

She climbs the stairs
to get back to her computer
for a Zoom with the CEO
of the company she works for.

I stare out the window
at the old maple tree across the street
and watch a few lingering
yellow leaves on the branches,
drifting like people outside a plaza.

I close my eyes.

My hands feel like they were stabbed by a fork.

I imagine cutting them off,
feeding them to the dog,
watching it eat it all the way down
to the heart of the onion,
until it turns back to look at me

and pauses.

It’s all very quiet now.

I want to go back to sleep.

But I have to get to work too.

I finish my coffee before the day begins
and see my mom has texted
to confirm we’re still on for Saturday.

I replied:

Yes! 

she fell
into an

empty vase

with murky
rose water

and

drowned
in sorrow

again

wandering in
the autumn

streets behind

her eyes
spilling onto

hardwood

standing
in a puddle

of nightmares
mourning herself

before

putting her
face on

for work

as if it were
her choice

I still see round cheeks when I close my eyes,
Feel tiny fingers folding into mine,
Hear hushed breaths rise and fall against my chest.

South signs, sweet lullabies sung in the still of night--
A language only Mothers know.

I was the sun, and you, my moon,
Pulling tides with every sleepy smile.

Gravity held me in orbit around the fire of your little hearts.

Warrior mothers learn to share their children when love turns sharp,
When longing lingers, when half a life must somehow now be enough.

Fathers may forget the womb that wove these previous hearts,
The home that held their pure souls,
But no curtain-- now matter how cruelly stitched--
Can sever what is sacred.

We are woven,
A pattern unreadable, a thread that time cannot tangle.

We were promised forever.
I still believe in that.

One day, our garden will bloom in the sun,
Wild and wondrous, radiant and rooted,
Wrapped in the arms of Divine Love.

I dream of you.
I cry for you.
I cry for me.

But always, we will find each other.
Through shadow and sorrow, silence and space,
We return, relentless and radiant.
Because we are peace. Because we are love.

My darlings, look to the moon--
Wherever I am, my light reaches for you,
Even in the deepest dark.

You are my warmth, my song, my meaning.

And when the path is hidden, when the night feels endless,
We trust the source of all Light--
The force that forged us, the love that leads us--
Until we rise,
Until we are whole,
Until we are free.

It's calling me from my bones,
That place where grief meets grit--
A quiet anger, tempered by weariness of years,
But still a spark, a fight.

The part of me that knows-- I am not alone.
We all carry our burdens,
Our demons,
Our antagonists who shadow us
In the quiet hours of the night.
Worrying, howling to the moon with wet faces.

I answer the call.
The angel's voice,
The lion's roar,
The fierce goodness of nature herself--
Entwined with the tapestry
Of Women who walked before me.

I will not stop.
I will not break.

Strong, brave, wild, free.
I stand in their echo and hear their call.

You can try to tear down, abuse or erode,
But my souls, like stone starved by the sea,
Will not crumble.
For I am shaped by forces stronger than fear--
By time, by blood, by my Mother's hands,
Who has built, and burned, and rebuilt again.

The boldness of my creation is not a mistake,
Not a thing to be quieted or tamed.
It is an ember carried through by generations,
Lit by the mother's, grandmothers, and daughters yet to come.

And we will not be silenced.

They rise with me.
Like an army.
Like a river breaking the dam.
Like thunder rolling through the marrow of the earth.

Blessed are the peacemakers--
But peace is not the absence of the storm.
It is the knowing,
The unshakable certainty,
That I have been prepared for this moment
Since the foundation of the world.

What power does the wind have over the sea?
It rages. It crashes.
But the sea will always be.

And so will we.

JESS FOX is a Mental Health Therapist residing in Flagstaff, AZ. She is a single mom, abuse survivor, post-Mormon, bisexual woman living in liberation that came at a high cost. You can find more of her writing on IG @OF_ANDROMEDA and professional work @wildwomenwell.