The unlikeliest place to find confidence
A boosted self esteem,
When others tore and ripped my mind,
My body image,
Bullied as a child and fourth it continued,
It never seized to amaze me,
The comments they threw,
Like stones they did harm me,
My name was ugly
I named myself unique
My name was freaky
I named myself limited
My name was what many thought I was then,
I named myself what I would be now.
I grew then to be the same as before,
Or so I had thought,
One day arrived at my college life,
Your camera flashed and I began to feel
Different...
They named me ugly
You made it feel as though I wasn't
They named me a freak
You used me for art
To this day,
Years after that,
Thanks to you,
I don't feel so ugly
Don't feel as much like a freak,
You showed me,
I can be infront of the camera and not always behind it.
Thank you,
For being more than a photographer,
More than a friend,
You were a boost to this bullied little girl's self worth and self esteem!

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

Turn the sound on your
dressing gown down
douse the lights
listen to the night,
rustling leaves leave lots to the
imagination and
all the time in creation to
Imagine
monsters hiding under the bed
in the bathroom
in your head
wake up
one day you'll be dead
and
was that the Moon that I saw
hanging on an unlikely thread?

Answer me this,
how can salmon run without any legs?
a fisherman's story and another unlikely
thread.

Behind the bike shed
I kissed a redhead
an unlikelier thread?

Sunday is the unlikeliest
or so the trick cyclist
tells me.

When Hector and Virginia moved onto the acreage,
Beneath and hidden under
The broad smile of a couple who had finally made it,
They felt the shadow of disappointment,
That always comes with the realization of a dream.

Of course at first,
There was the excitement.
Small explosions of rat-ta-tat conversation,
As they walked the outline of a house with a big back porch,
The back and forth as they
Chose a spot and then another and another
For the dog’s kennel,
The smile and sigh
As they scooped up the black earth
And dirtied their city hands and manicured fingernails,
Imagining a real garden with six foot corn.

And now, Hector couldn’t keep his hands off her.
On the day the sale closed he seduced her in the van,
While parked at Safeway,
The security guard had to ask them to leave,
And Virginia couldn’t resist flashing him her ***** and a smile,
Which the guard nervously thanked her for.  

When on their first visit to their new land,
Virginia suggested a lover’s hammock with a view of the valley,
Hector embraced her standing up,
Her hands raw against the rough bark of the big oak,
The wild approval of coyote howls as their pheromones
Announced a new predator had arrived, a new competitor in play.

He was constantly feeling her up outdoors,
Begging her to go *******,
Mostly so he could lather the sunscreen,
Over her *******,
Arousing in her some Paleolithic urge,
That made her brazenly offer herself on all fours.

An unspoken ' wanna’ from either one of them,
Just a look really,
Sometimes right in the middle
Of some earnest discussion about money or bylaws
And they’d make for the mattress in the trailer.
Their performance loud and operatic,
Jesus, they could have used bull horns
And not disturbed a neighbour or a passerby.

So it was hard to understand the dark border
That discoloured the edge and frame of their beautiful dream.
It was everything they wanted,
But getting it,
Left a tiny bubble of disappointment
That neither of them,
Could understand or accurately describe.

The house got built; the dogs loved the smells of danger and freedom,
The vegetables grew with astonishing speed and ease.
The *** was daily if not twice
And Hector became a pro at going down on her,
Licking her to multiple *******
In the unlikeliest of places and at the most unusual of times.

What is it, Virginia asked him one day.
I’m not sure, Hector replied and began to pull gently on his ear lobe,
A sure sign he was holding back,
I’m restless he finally admitted and I don’t like it.
I get it, Virginia replied,
We found paradise and we‘re getting bored with it.

What the hell is wrong with us, Hector asked and let go of his earlobe.
We die no matter what we achieve, Virginia replied,
And I think it is this unforgettable realization,
This Garden of Eden knowledge,
That it all ends no matter what.
That everyone dies and disappears
Means death will always undermine happiness, she said.

So what do we do, Hector was mentally ******* her again.
**** as often as we can, she said
And accept sadness as our most natural state of mind.
To be sad is to be normal, Hector asked.
To be sad is inevitable, Virginia responded, it cannot be avoided,  
And she knelt down in front him.

Reality is pretty funny
Between the strains and pains
And hunger pangs
And people who think bangs still look good
When they never did
Not even in the eighties

I've just been looking for happiness
And I found it in the most unlikeliest of places
A morbid place of loss and sorrow
Called Burger King
I bought some onion rings
And they were crispy enough!!!!!

Still I lose
Still I hold onto
What I never held in the first place
And I lose my faith
And I lose my hope
But I still find a place for humor

I still laugh

And I'm the king
Who you want to be
I'll have empty hands and empty pockets
But everything is mine

So grab those onion rings
With both hands
And let the crispness guide you

I’ll never start a fight
Indeed you start the flame,
And I’ll explode
Perhaps it’s my crimson hair that attack’s my soul
But stereotypical propaganda aside
I have nothing to hide
Indeed you call me out
I’ll trash your name
I live for love and peace
But there’s only so much hate one woman can’t escape
I beg for release
And pity your air
You walk with your noise so high
All just to hide your shame inside
All while making me look the fool
But I refuse to take blame for something I didn’t do  
I’ll never start a fight, it’s beneath me
But I will finish it
And sometimes it’s in the unlikeliest of ways
But the best part is really just not caring what the hell you say
Your words rot and decay like ash to the wind
I like to blow them and spit fire, it’s just the way I am
I don’t take any kinda mess or fuss
It’s beneath me

©Jessica Stull

Dead Stone
The marble being dead then why does energy surge through my soul and my heart becomes inflamed
Cold lifeless hard but still waves of love assail most gentle as a mantle it ascends within its cloak genius
Breaks all norms the brain mysteriously charged down it flows through shoulders arms and at last in
Fingers you caress with voice you speak of its promise you hold it with a hard look that matches its
Own hard exterior but deep within the softest pulse beat is felt creative desire takes it’s first faltering
Steps heart of flesh seized by the stones hidden riches blindness drops away as powerful tantalizing
Sight holds you there is no release from its grip this will only occur after you have rendered and freed
The statue within after an arduous labor of love a young women will stand before you her place in the
World will be varied but always extraordinary your personal vision you see her set within a grotto that opens to a open air couryard where
Lovers stroll especially at night with amber lights low assisted by the great enhancement of loves
Singular powerful beams silver moonlight it strikes her they fall to revered silence already in intense
Moods that flow with the softest feelings all aglow now breath taking in holy hushes they hold hands
Whisper words that the depths of the heart only can utter mesmerizing privilege is observed on their
Collected countenance made by the powerful visual impression they feel she being lifeless although
Gives greatest testament to life and true possible expectation the sculpture went beyond known regions
Of expression he unknowingly passed into sacred dreams and touched the heart of the impossible and
Then cast it in the unlikeliest reality marble stone.

Share me the light you’ve won with efforts
Not lazy; I'm just too weak to learn anew
My bones crack, my brain's old, my spirit dims out
I don't have the strength to replant what once grew

These screams in my ears are too real
This pang of pain, this grief; excruciating
“Just jump into it,” they say, with no feel
They’ve never lived, yet keep advising

I set up my own path, a line of antique bricks
It ran from my backyard to the village temple
And ruined it was, by men hunting for relics
While I was on a trip to preach and fix a muddle

I built a new path in the next following days
A stronger one, lined with fine wooden fences
And I left again to dispel lies and hearsays
Protecting strangers from possible offenses

Coming home to find my soul path torn down
I reminded myself, "They knew not what they did"
I fixed it once more, then went to a sacred town
All prayers to gods to take care of what I built

Years after blessing mortals and doing good,
I returned to my lovely birthplace and cried
Seeing my house flat on the ground, my path removed
I told myself, “This slight unease won’t take my light”

I could weave wisdom from unlikeliest sources
Stones, mountains, a witch’s curse, a ghost’s wail
I've turned many wounds into revered forces
A weakling to strength, a stuck ship to sail

Too busy with other people’s plights
I thought my light was self-sustaining
It was not eternal as I was told—it died
Had to pretend it was there and burning

The sun of my youth has set in the west
Under the dark, I’m now awaiting stars
Despite its howl, I’ll force my heart to rest
None I can teach it, but accepting its scars

Share me the light you have learned
This passing time I cannot back turn

When nothing is sacred and there is no sin
we might as well be living from
the outside within,
where the devil drinks blood on the streets of the 'hood
and the good die young,
never place a reliance on chance,
you won't ever win,so
get used to living from the outside within.

Save me a seat at the table and we'll meet the prophet of doom,forget
empty places,the faces you knew,
the living goes on and the dead never do,but it's true and we know, seeds
of hatred can grow in the unlikeliest space,
and on the dead sands of biblical lands a trumpet will sound when the ground opens up and swallows,
I see it must follow on from where we went wrong and I wonder if this is the twenty first plague,
hard to gauge when you live from the outside within,hard to know if it's true and if so what to do.
When nothing is sacred and Lord Melqart is king we shall all be the same living from outside within.

the worldwide battle,
drowned in the blood of
all races and stained with
the spittle of darkness,
had reached its last breath;
as the two unlikeliest of
heroes climbed into the liquid
fire, the bravest of them all
stood against the horde of
the last evil one.
after centuries, the king was
crowned, and the people
were freed, at last, from the
fear of the black land.
some of our heroes adventured
on to their green holes and
blooming forests and sparkling
caves, whole but seeing
the world anew.
but the rest were left
transformed, present in body
and flesh but wandering of mind.
those few gathered at the harbor
and left their tale at the docks,
marking the beginning of a new
age for their loyal companions,
another extraordinary story
never to be told.

in those concluding moments,
the last words printed so delicately,
i felt a part of my soul leave
from the harbor also.
the cessation of a story is sometimes
a wonderful and beautiful passage,
but my eyes wept the tears of
a bittersweet end to the first epic
that moved my heart to swelling delight.
as the perfectly sculpted vessel sailed
with poise into the golden sunset,
i felt another sunset within myself,
not gold but blue and purple.
it was the culmination of a fantastic
journey, and dusk fell upon me.