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by Marina Powell

It feels better to look up at the stars when you cry, for they all blur together into a great catastrophe called art. They, too, want to be remembered sometimes. But I am not one of them, at least, I am not peaceful. I am the sun, rising for you, burning for you, and painting the sky with my great fall. Every day I make my path, with smoke in my wake and pain in my eyes. And yet the poets still write of the moon. So the stars will give comfort, then. They will sing their eternal song of child, child, sit a while. You do too much. And men will go on their damaged way, and they too will sing their song as they go: little girl, you are never enough. And perhaps this is why, age upon age, we long to follow the path of the stars.

by Scout Lynch

a mother, exhausted from the child she just bore. she wails in her cell, writhing on the dirt floor tears stream down her face, they ripped her baby out of her and took it away. it’s theirs now, for their collection. what will become of it, she’s never found one. her breast milk flows out as heavily as her tears. another collection to be added to, the bucket is here. the tears on her face have not even dried when they impregnate her with another child, doomed to die and not yet born. this mother has too much to mourn. forced to live a life of creating life that expires, she prays for the day they slit her throat and roast her over the fire. this cycle continues, bringing pain to these givers of life, and we turn a blind eye so we can eat cheese and drink milk by the pint

I by Kenaz Moon