It has been raining all day,
The moss covered conifers drip and drain,
Their pores secrete a slick black blood,
Lichen laden branches reach toward the smudgy window like fingers,
Always reaching,
Grasping for the fluorescent light in the classroom.

Past the hand crowded window,
The misty walls of the valley can be seen,
We are in a bowl,
I hope to God the rain will rage,
Sending a heavy deluge of bitterness at the earth,
Filling up this basin,
Causing a deep dark,
Sloshing lake of cold, muddy water.

I watch the steady curtain of rain,
Rainwater drizzles down the chain link,
It drips and drops from one link to the next,
Until it hits the soil.

The soil.
Soft, damp, and black.
It is never thirsty here.
Constantly drowning,
The sobbing clouds ever present, distraught.
However,
The soil can never console the sky.

The vast expanse of simple air divides them.

By: L.D. Conner
  
     It’s dark in these woods. I might as well not have eyes. Just rip them out. Eat them with your teeth. There are teeth in these woods. Behind every tree, beneath every stone. The woods are dark at night, and I do not fear loneliness, but the absence of it. The teeth whisper in these woods. Muttering soft tones through their tongueless mouths, yet drool pools on the leaves, and seeps into my skin; into my pores. The potency of the whispers drill into my brain. Time is forgotten in these woods, the teeth keep me here; they sink into my flesh and pin me to the trees. The trees are everywhere in these woods. They lurk in the dark and block out the light; they swallow the light; hungry. I know I have been here too long. My stomach twists with hunger. My skin, I know, is pale as death. The sun has been drawn from my skin and given to the woods. The woods are not satisfied with the light. They begin to eat at my flesh. They use their teeth to break my bones. They slide my bones out of my skin. I can’t run now. My flesh starts to go; melts off into their mouths. I waste away. My bones, my flesh. My mind goes dead, and I cannot breathe. Then all of a sudden, It stops. It is now so quiet in these woods. I am suddenly alone, but I cannot keep on. I bleed out on the damp leaves. The woods have done their work. Now they soak in my blood through the soil; into their roots. My teeth are in the woods. I join the chorus of chattering whispers. I will never leave these woods. My home is in these woods.

By: L.D. Conner

Concerning my mother and my father,
My mother stayed. My father got farther,
Than I ever thought he’d go,
Was it me? Was it mom?
I just want to know,
Why did you go?

I just want to see you again,
You said you were my father,
And not my friend.
I never thought that our time would end,
But you had different plans at 6 am.

What I’m saying is,
I argue with mom,
I argue with God,
I don’t know what praying is.
Sometimes I don’t feel,
But when I do,
I feel what decaying is.

Sometimes I wonder what would have changed,
If you hadn't gone, if you would have stayed,
I know your addiction would have raged,
All over my twelve-year-old, brain.

Would I have been better off,
With a dad and a mom?