‘Doubt’, by Holly Hirst
There is no God. I know it. I feel it in this agony. This violence. As my brain tricks my body into ripping itself apart. There isn’t. There can’t be. Please God. There can’t be. by Holly Hirst Twitter @RomGothHolly
‘everyday pain’ by Sara Elgerot
The chaos of pain in every moment Inside me Playing its jarring jazz Impromptu – No set list Whilst I exist amongst you Cloaked I normalcy by Sara Elgerot Sweden
‘The hook’, by Sarah Sasson
Our minds latch to narrative, it’s how we learn, remember, interpret. I went to hospital to have a baby, I should’ve returned more, not less. Subtracted: my ability to rise, walk, move; In my pelvis, broken bone. What is the premise? What is the character’s motivation? What is the hook? That feeling: ochre, electric, waist […]
‘The Day That Never Ends’, by Mariana Gurgis
From our window, the clouds seemed static, frozen. Orange-and-green taxicabs drove through the slush six floors down. Tilly whimpered, buzzed for the nurse, asked for Dilaudid, whispered “good morning.” Swaddled in her sheets, she breathed hard. Phenolic air. She asked me how I was feeling. We lolled in our beds, our mothers asleep in their […]
‘Nobody’, by Wayne Roberts
Four walls, Four walls and me, Four walls a fistful of pills and me, Silence Surrounded by silence, The silence that reminds me me myself and I. Except you, You’re never silent, The voice that never stops, The endless alarm that disturbs my slumber, You rattle round my brain in whispers and shouts until I […]
‘Metamorphosis’, by Marion Michell
When the pain goes I half suppose my flesh marked, transformed. A growth of lichen, say, with its warm turmeric tint; a layer of cool, silvery fish-scales; traces of the glacial burn of chain-mail melting into skin. Best of all a delicate, graceful articulation of relief on the site of its worst excesses: once the […]
‘NIGHT SWEATS’, by Blair James
you sit in my throat like a stone in shoe eyes dry as bone. bones hurt. why cry? these days that feel different but all so same. little belly wrenches all the time as though to be freed from something tonsils i should rip them from my neck. daft neck neck forever stiff but why […]
‘Poor Growing Season’, by Miranda Cichy
by Miranda Cichy The year I grew tomatoes I had no understanding that my body was failing, how the plants needed more earth than I could give them, out in the yard on a concrete bed, hunkered in pots the size of my skull. I fed them too early, I forgot to […]
‘Helplessness’, by @simonsalento
Helplessness. It’s worse for me you know. You are only suffering but you do that every day. But every day I wake up and with the reddened sky I know that I can never help you. Hopelessness. It’s worse for me. You can imagine a cure or some relief though you know – you know […]
‘The Question’ (Anon.)
Anon. Germany