by Dawn Richardson and Tiffany Ann Boyd

Assembled from works by J.M. Romig, Sheena Zilla, and Ryan P. Kinney

My first memory is of dying.
I felt like I’d lived a full life
And now I was gladly fading away.
My first last words were
“Tell Elizabeth I love her”
I don’t remember knowing Elizabeth.
I love her though, or at least I did in that moment.

“These aren’t sad tears I’m crying, I’m just cutting onions my dear.”
It makes me want to rip off my flesh and run down the street as bare muscle and bone screaming ****** ******.
It will get better once I leave this purgatory waiting room of stress and self-loathing, but until then my outlook is a bit glum.

I am terrified
Before me is a discolored, screaming, clawing, misshapen alien creature
My son takes his first breathes of real air
We are all exhausted
His mother looks at me with a look that practically screams,
“We did it.”
I plead, “But we’re not done doing it yet…
Are we?”
His gurgles turn into cries
And I know…

For some reason, couldn’t tell you why, I thought about Frankenstein’s Monster.

Some parts are really fuzzy,
I hold it close to me- the fuzzy parts against my skin.
It’s a quilt blanket, stitched together of pieces and parts of found cloth.
My father made it for me.
My very last birthday gift.
I cocoon myself in it like a womb.

I hated him for what he’d done, but I hated myself more for missing him.
I have to fight everyday to be a better person in spite of what I was exposed to.

Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

By Ryan P. Kinney and Dawn Richardson

Assembled from works by Ryan P. Kinney

This one’s for those who have let me down
Disappointed me, failed me
Failed to live to their potential
This one’s for EVERYONE

We will be naked and bare
Ugly and beautiful
Out from under the covers
Out of control
And into the light

There will be no more hiding
Not from the rhetoric
Not from the self-righteousness
Not from the lies we tell ourselves

This one’s for every woman who didn’t love me
And for every one that ever did
This one’s for every person who has ever doubted and underestimated me
For those who ever thought my life should be a mirror of their journey
‘Cause theirs worked out SO well for them

Not from the us that never was
Not from our definitions of family or love

This one’s for me
For not living up to my own potential

This one’s for those who patronize my intelligence
But yet are so easily fooled into acceptance
With a pair of plastic black frames
This one’s for IRONY

Not from the guilt
Not from the pain
Or from the shame
Not from the anger
Or the happiness

This one’s for who I AM


Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Ryan P. Kinney and Dawn Richardson

Created from prompts by J.M. Romig, Dawn Richardson, and Ryan P. Kinney

She loves him like a fire,
Enveloping, holding, and caressing the wood,
While slowly consuming every part of him

Shaking off clothes like the leaves in autumn
Their bodies exposed,
Changing from a wan pallor
To a flushed crimson hue

Their bodies burn,
Breathe drifts like smoke into the skyline
The mountains **** their horizons

The dragon flies and dragonflies in the dusking night
The snow blanketed world deadens the sound of his beating heart
Her tide slowly recedes into him
The delicate wax of his heart melts under her fury
She swallows his cries

Babies sleep soundly


Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions