Issue 3: Something Wicked

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F i r e f l y A r c h i v e s

Issue 3: Something Wicked October 2022

Contributors

Sonia Charales

Sonia Charales is a South Indian American writer and artist. Her work involves exploration of South Indian culture, the beauty of nature, nostalgia, and healing. Her work appears most recently in antonym, Suspension Literary Magazine, The Firefly Review, Cordelia Magazine, and elsewhere.

Kristiana Reed

Kristiana Reed is a writer and freelance editor. She is the Editor in Chief for Free Verse Revolution, a literary & arts magazine. She has self published two poetry collections, Between the Trees and Flowers on the Wall and her work has been recently published in Anti Heroin Chic and The Hyacinth Review. You can follow her on Instagram @kristiana.reed. .

Angela Patera

Patera is a self taught artist that likes to make art of who and whatever inspires her. Her original art usually contains elements of

and/or

can

and she also

to draw scenes from

the

Ruchi Acharya is the CEO and Founder of Wingless

She has garnered much acclaim for her

received her summer

from the University of

of

in

resides in

Angela
fantasy
horror
loves
nature. You
find her on both Twitter and Instagram as: @angela art13 .
Ruchi Acharya
Dreamer Publisher.
poetry book, Off
Cliff. She
graduation
English Literature
Oxford. As
2022, she
Chennai, India enjoying the coconut water, palm trees, sandy beaches and sunkisses..
Table of Contents 06 Rotten to the Throat The body as a haunted house (after 07 Joelle Taylor) 08 whispering old lady The Scarecrow 10 12 Exoskeleton Volunteers 14
Save The Date! 10th January 2023 A new beginning.

R o t t e n t o t h e T h r o a t

To live in a mouth Full of filthy harsh words Parasitic hatred stemming From every groove and crevasse Between each tooth

Strangling the tongue Stuffed down the throat The speaker chokes before coughing Words live among the worms

Feeding on decayed letters

Wondering what died in here For such filth to develop Only to find the remains Of tired and tried linguistics For anger to emerge from this tongue Twisted and tangled every which way To be met with mockery

The mouth gave up To spew such harsh words

When told no longer to speak The loss grew into uncontrollable vines Splintering any self control This tongue might have prospered If only the world were kinder

SoniaCharales

T h e b o d y a s a h a u n t ed h o u s e

Three witches tower, then cower in the doorway, beckon visitors closer before vanishing, nothing but wind atop a thundering heath.

Visitors are left to roam, to fall in to my flesh, my smothering attempt to love, to hold, to give birth to anything but dust and blood clots.

A piano plays in a distant room, invisible hands across ivories, visitors know the song, know it is a knell, an invitation

afterJoelleTaylor to bury themselves beneath my floorboards, to sing until their throats close and twist, asphyxiated bliss.

KristianaReed

I am the shell, the husk, within which they search for home, a mother they never knew, the one who drowns her own children, or breaks their pretty bird necks, call me Medea, call me Medusa or Macbeth, a hollowed out story, a feeble endeavour to live without the soft caress of death.

TW:death/allusiontochilddeath

w h i s p e r i n g o l d l a d y

RuchiAcharya

Do you hear the whispering old lady? An unknown and unwanted visitor in my dreams She's out of sight hidden somewhere in the darkness where luminosity beyond human's reach where sins never forgiven and forgotten. Do you hear the whispering old lady? Grieving in the pouring rain in the October's red sky Am I cursed to hear her melancholy lullaby? The pain she hoards, the helplessness she goes through No sign of lives, she is forlorn in lone stillness.

Do you hear the whispering old lady? Infinity fears filled in her eyes Home echoes with unfathomable children's cries Wood burns and the cornucopia of horror comes to live. My mind emptied my body and my soul has left Seeing the Grim reaper ' s merciless and deathless death. 'One will live and the other must die', s

My grandmother doesn't want to die, It wasn't her time. She wonders, Where to find the diamond light? Her wrinkled skin was burnt alive protecting a mortal infant and I survived.

The Scarecrow

Artist: Angela Patera
"There is a sense of glamor and confidence that comes with being wicked."
Artist:
Sonia Charales

Editor in chief: Dominique

Director: Reiha

Reader Director: Rosegold

Editors: Cassidy Jackson, Nafeesa

Staff Writers: Lyn, Pearl J, Sage L., Willow Kang, Mahek

Designers: Jaz

Readers: Sammy

Volunteers
Writing
Submission
Graphic
Submission
T H A N K Y O U T O E V E R Y O N E !

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