Lazy Days

by Mary Grady

Sitting here on A lazy afternoon. I see a perfect place, Dreaming in a daze. Smell of the roses

And the flowers, Sweet and pleasant A calm relaxant. The grass is like A sea of emeralds, Glistening like diamonds

As the sun warms within. Hot and needing shade, the Trees over there seems perfect. I finally found a place to Sit and rest my head.

D3 smells of grief of shame of hope of closeness of women. They could hold hands across the space between their bunks, these strangers forced together, some of them there but for God go I, and likely there but for God go you. They are state property with no identity save a number assigned upon conviction. They can be punished for damaging state property if they cut their hair get a tattoo or suffer a sunburn. Their humanity is taken away, yet they endure, taking the stones they are given and somehow making the sweetest lemonade.

by Lacey Veazey-Daniel

It’s sad, really.

Where is Joy?

By Jasmine-Joy Ignacio

Because I used to be so in love with life.

So in love with the world.

How it held so much.

The color, the potential, the diversity, the discoveries, the adventures.

Every child believes that the world revolves around them.

Because when you’re a child, It does.

And me?

I had so much love.

A love that couldn’t be contained in a world that was now seemingly so small. I genuinely found joy in learning about the world

About the land, the languages, the people.

And maybe that’s why it took a little while.

Took a while for the world to knock me off my feet and crumble to the ground.

Took a while to become disgusted with the wasteland the land has become.

Took a while to become adjusted to hearing such vile language.

Took a while for me to stop giving all my love and trust to people of this world. And I try to keep searching for it.

Searching for that time

That feeling

That place

Where everything was, as I read, “good and handsome and kind.”

I wonder

I wonder if they ever knew what they did.

What this world had done.

To a child.

To Joy.

A subscription of words speaks wonder, letters weave together to create art against backdrops of dreams and nightmares set under invisible stars struggling to speak a language lost. Danger lurks behind those words, their masterstrokes combine, tantalize readers. We lose track of our emotions, levees fail their quest to hold back the deluge. Our self is captured, held rapt, not hostage the way of needing escape. We fear flight. Dread rescue. We find triumph in losing our self. Poems of essence reject tradition, birth fiery desire by last stanza’s end line.