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 Jun 2018 April
Miira
...acting?
 Jun 2018 April
Miira
The never-ending chattering
Like a bullet train forcefully dashing
Across the endless tunnel, wondering,
“Is this a curse or a blessing? “

In the bottomless pit, clearly drowning
Clearly struggling
While others are just intently watching
Thinking it’s all just... acting.
 Jun 2018 April
Rob Rutledge
We wage wars with words,
Whetstone sharpened wit.
Wounds win rounds of applause.
A pause,
While metaphors are mustered,
Rusted dictionaries dusted,
Cobwebs shed from unread shelves.
Pikes of pronunciation
Pick apart
Portraits of ourselves.
While poetry parries,
Prose pivots,
Prepares and rallies,
Stares down violet valley below.
The violence of lavender
Shines like silver in the snow.
A scent sentenced to silence,
Flowers on death row.
 May 2018 April
Beaux
If I die in a school shooting
I'll never go home again.
My room will sit unused,
A capsule frozen in time,
A snapshot of how I was.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my dog again.
She will sit at the front door
Waiting for me and wondering,
Why I never came home.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never graduate from high school.
My yearbooks will sit stacked
Stopped short of their goal,
Missing years that should have been.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my mom again.
She will sit distraught,
Planning a funeral
For a child taken from her.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my friends again.
They'll sit together, missing me.
One empty seat among them,
A constant reminder of their loss.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my little sister again.
She will sit through high school
Knowing I can't guide her through,
That she has to figure it out alone.

If I die in a school shooting
My school will be stained.
Pools of students lives will sit,
Blood tattoos on the brick structures,
Marks of death ground into it.

If I die in a school shooting
Everyone will wear black.
They'll send their thoughts and prayers
To a town marred by death,
Forever to be the home of a shooting.

If I die in a school shooting
Will the world change?
Or will I become one of hundreds  
Of kids who have to die?
What will it take?

If things continue this way
Children will have to live in fear.
They'll look over their shoulders
Always worried and wondering,
If they'll die in a school shooting.
The state of Florida is now home to the two most deadly mass shootings in American history. Pulse Nightclub was attacked in my city, I have friends who attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland. My little sister often fears going to school. I'm afraid to graduate and leave her. I want to be able to protect her if something happens. I hate that we have a reason to be afraid... That it's reasonable to have these fears. I hate it so f*cking much.
 May 2018 April
A Simillacrum
Came from
someone once
addicted to attention

I sit in cellars now with hooked
replacement hands from when
I tried to reach

toward the same
end as my creator

It sure is lonely here.

I reach to wipe my eyes
of tears I thought beyond me
to tear the crystals out
with talon pressed and pointed

Came from
someone once
addicted to delusion

In fact she kept
her throne of chaos intact
Until the day
she died malignant
with her virulence she sat

And so my throat
spits the voice of dissent
else I repeat the same

How do I
raise the volume though
so rebels travel my way?

Enough of us
dumb enough
to forfeit
the little we hold
for the objective good
the mass is
scared to death to
once again acknowledge
Runa Duana Fortuna
 May 2018 April
Lawrence Hall
Raggedy barefoot children in the five and dime
With a Saturday morning quarter each
Plastic toy soldiers, Nazis and Yanks
Or a wind-up car – but that’s a dollar

Whitman adventure books for fifty cents
If nothing this week, then maybe the next
The Call of the Wild, with noble dog Buck
But what about marbles in a little net bag?

Tables of treasures at the variety store
Aladdin’s Cave (with a swept wooden floor)
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