'Flash' writing anthology about chronic pain - submissions welcome!
To venture,
forward
#1
The lost playground
of my youth,
Is never gone.
It lingers in my gestures,
excitement’s frozen glance.
The whoosh and swoop
of swing and slide
a cadence upon my
worn out sigh.
I will hold on
and maybe, this cotton-wool world
will grow again,
one day
If luck
and circumstance
collide
as soft surrender,
To envelop me in rose
England
greenhouse girl
nerves of glass
splintered in my body
reaching outwards
to make feral contact
with their perpetrator
they cut me as they pass
bleeding from the inside out
i have been this before
i have known the exquisite pain
from too much love
too much world
weighed down upon me
until I become immovable
but I have ripped it off
stripped layers
from me so I can look
steadily out again
from vestibules of fleshy trauma
terror a withheld snipper
my wet womb wood
grows in celebration
of this fresh hell’s paradise
crystalline upon the floor
the loss is something awful
(i catch a laugh
run hot along my windpipes
before I cry glass tears
radiant your skeleton shimmers
a beggar’s wink in servitude)
England
| ‘Bus stop’ by Matt Alton |
The passer by denies my existence
with the confidence of their gait,
the steadiness of their gaze.
I peel back layers of skin
to show the shining mess, but
each time I’m swallowed by earth –
which in case you’ve forgotten
is cold, full of dead, sharp things.
It’s like fucking an iron maiden –
which, in case the information passed you by,
is a fictionalised torture device.
Make of that what you will.
United Kingdom
The passer by denies my existence
with the confidence of their gait,
the steadiness of their gaze.
I peel back layers of skin
to show the shining mess, but
each time I’m swallowed by earth –
which in case you’ve forgotten
is cold, full of dead, sharp things.
It’s like fucking an iron maiden –
which, in case the information passed you by,
is a fictionalised torture device.
Make of that what you will.
– by Matt Alton
United Kingdom
I woke up a wilted rose
My petals were crushed
a thousand tempests
My thorns turned inwards
striking my stem
Worms crawled all over me
Yet
my roots were intact
– by Angelina Bong
Malaysia
Welcome to my evening. I would love to simply kiss my husband goodnight and doze off. TURN OVER, I have taken my evening medication, all six of them. TURN OVER. My husband starts his evening purrs, just his rhythmic tiger sounds use to aid me to slumber. TURN OVER. No more can I find that useful vessel called sleep. TURN OVER My glass is no longer half full, there is no glass at all. TURN OVER. The TV is on very low but to me it’s screaming, TURN OVER. Its now wintertime and I have only a cotton sheet on me and heat is emitting from all my pores, TURN OVER. TV off and say my prayers please Lord flick this switch that screams my pain, let my strength in you regain. TURN OVER. It must be 3am now and still no sleep, maybe in the next hour…
UK
It came to visit last week. No warning at Three am. One turn in my bed and here it is. Stealing my long breaths. Grasping the hand rail, I try to turn on my side. The red-hot cattle prod steals my spine. The pain splinters through my nerves screaming. One, two, three jabs in seconds, breathe I try to tell my nerves, muscles and sinews to rest. To no avail. I need a wee, no hope here. Hold and breathe. Stuck like a fly in a web. Its close by and ready to pounce if I try to breathe too long, if I try to twitch a muscle it will attack. I feel glued in on this bed, like a weight is pinning me down. It stayed for five long days before freeing me from its snare. Trapped nerves you are despair.
UK
Punch views images from the lead-lined room
of hunched, misshaped bones.
Punch dances round the room –
head on a pole,
chest iron-maiden bound
with extra spikes,
hips a claggy crucible,
wooden knees.
Mismatched red socks sneak
past frozen feet,
up past stiffened ankles.
Punch plays St Sebastian.
Punch is put to the rack —
stretched, heaved, bent, twisted.
“You manage quite well, considering,” puffs the osteopath.
Locked inside the Lord of Misrule’s body
I don’t know whether to be pleased – or not.
England
There is a snuffing out
when the synapses stop firing.
The ex-wives fade to black.
His hawks blink.
Extinguished.
The Co-op, Jesus, trains and snow glimmer.
Cut.
Planets spin off the axons.
Our kisses are ashes
blown to the wind.
He lies alone, like a great house
with all it’s furniture moved out;
windows smeared with grease,
electrics, plumbing in such disarray,
builders would suck their teeth,
shrug, turn away.
Flick a switch, see the neurons crackle.
Smell the burning.
United Kingdom
Too young to understand,
Too scared to stay
Wales
[The image features a form with chaotic hair spanning the entirety of the piece, lines and dots show the chaos of the mind]
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