This pain that's in my heart
Runs deep to my soul.
In which the devil has taken hold
To keep until I ask for it.
But I don't want it back.
Balthazar can have it
For lunch or supper to keep forever more
Because hell is better than this.

They don't pretend to be devils there
Or crush your soul.
They do it knowingly
And I'd ask for more.
I'll take it because this is better
Than your sycophantic friendship.

I am trapped, imprisoned
With hateful people and such sins
That god won't recognise.
Those angels he delivered have gone rogue.
They discovered **** and ethanol.
*******, bloodstains and ******.
They ask, just beg and plead.
But I don't give forgiveness so easily.

Get off your knees.
You won't be here long.
They're taking you down to room 101.
I'll see you later, for better or worse
And we will see what is gone first.

Mind or mouth,
Tongue or toes?
Arms and legs,
Or just your nose?

I’m naked again, why I am always the naked one?
As I shift back and forth and listen to my joints pop,
And feel my muscles strain and spasm like an internal tick tock
Measuring how long I’ve been sitting here with each twitch.
White paper lining is crinkling under my ***
And all I can think about is the number of *****
Of all shapes and sizes that have sat here before I did,
Waiting for the doctor to come in and interrupt
Me reading all about how to tell if I have a hernia
Or looking at a distended bladder diagram.
“Hello miss, what can we do for you today?”
Oh I don’t know could you maybe give me my pants back
And pretend I’m not the thousandth **** you’ve seen this week.
Just some stripped down body you examine like a mechanic with an engine.
I watch as she catalogues the winces and delayed reflexes,
Searching for sensitive points and any patch of skin
With the telltale rough marker of Auto-immune.
The medication conversation lasts a while,
And she mixes up a new cocktail for me for the fifth time.
We talk about my life habits, “I’m totally quitting smoking.”
But I’m not. I febreezed myself before I came in.
We talk about how my body is doing like it is separate from me,
Like it’s some entity that ruins my day and hers on purpose.
It is always the same ****. I can practically quote her.
“Well, the test results were inconclusive.”
“Another cautionary breast exam.”
“Lets try the strength test again.
Are you even trying today?”
I am, and I can tell she’s worried, but in an abstract way
Like you’d worry about whether or not war will break out in Dubai.
It’s always the same scene, and I am always the naked one,
Whether I have my clothes on or not.

By Arcassin Burnham



Before you get here,
i just want to know what your thinking,
if you were sunt here,
from heaven,
for you to be my dear,
half past eleven ,
just to see you tonight,
try different things to get a kiss tonight,
giving you some memory you wouldnt miss tonight,
its teen love,
i'll just pretend to hug you until you get here,
tonight,
Before you get here,
New beginnings will take place,
no time for basic fear,
when you get here.

I don't want to hurt you even though you hurt me, does that make sense?
I've forgiven you even though you don't deserve it , I helped you and I asked. When you didn't .. do you even care ? Sometimes I wonder am I blinded by your sweet eyes? Is what your saying just a bunch of sweet lies? What am I to you ? What am I in your eye ? Cause I've been trying to figure it out that it's always on my mind making me act different trying to shape my image in your mind so self conscious that I lost my image I don't know what do I wanna show you ?  You make me insecure, cause you are soo cool . If I could stare at you I would stare and drool. Cause I love hate you and I hate loving you. But my emotions are a roller coaster I hate then love everyone I know while your just like snow .. c o l d and though im obssessed I still pretend.
And I don't know what am I Doing to myself.

(pin drop silence)

There's two of us,
Echoes of imaginary sounds,
Echoes of silence,
Secrets along with lies,
Hearths warmed as the light succumbed to darkness,
Saw nothing but your shadow,
You chose my soul for my heart and opted to keep me as 'your secret string attached to your soul' ,
Yet ,'I love you', you'd say
Easy for you to say, all that seemed to be deliberateness though you said it wasn't deliberate, but that fractured my heart, just so you know,

Day after day,
Step away, after another step away,
Lie after lie,
We we're  falling,
Drifting apart,
Fed me with deceptional beautiful lies,
Perfection though not a friend,
You we're too imperfect,

Tired of playing pretend,
Hidden expectations,
The struggle of being right or wrong, not so sure what it was,
Lovestruck I once was,
The far we'd come was the end, or so it seemed,
Road to ruins,
You went on one knee,
And I said what you expected me to say or not,
But certainly what karma expected me to say,
And now forever you'd be, the scar never to be erased,
No! it was,
We had drifted too apart,
Beyond saving,
Not even a ring would,
Walking away would,
We stumbled and we fell and broke what was remaining of us to ever rise again,
We had scattered into too many pieces...
We bend and this time we broke......

I could feel the pulse of daylight  
becoming louder and louder

not knowing which way to look

her burning field
reminds me of my childhood

and how I would sneak out of the house
to live like the foxes

my father did not like this

I still stay up late
and pretend to hear the shadows

they are cold and quiet
and dance across my walls

I am cutting out pieces of my brain
to grow you an orchard of pomegranates

when the seasons come
eat the words that I have given to you

plant the wisdom in your belly
grow fields around your heart

and take away all these headaches

The circus is here
For all of America and the world to experience.

Hats off to you, Mr. Clown
Seated in the Oval Office,

Juggling our country
As if it is a toy for your own amusement
Dropping ***** everywhere.

You sit there with arms crossed,
Your pockets full
Your heart depleted.

Rich in dollars
Poor in spirit.

You are the fool
Ready to jump from cliff to cliff
Taking our country with you,

Never looking back
To see the sewage you leave
In your muddy tracks.

You are the itching powder
That gives our country a scaly rash.

You are orange dye
In a well-preserved tube of poison
Ingested by fools
Rejected by those with common sense.

You pretend to love women
Secretly fearing them
Knowing that if it weren’t for a woman
You would not be here.

You, the all-powerful king would not exist
If it weren’t for a woman.
So, you must show them who is boss
Because you are so **** afraid of them,
Of your own loss of control.

You fill up your angry gut
With know-it-all tactics
And then you crap all over the sick
With your insurance plan for the rich.

You knock down people with preexisting conditions,
People that can’t afford a bottle of Insulin,
Heart surgery,
Cancer medication.

You knock down babies and children
Diagnosed with lifelong illnesses
They fall prey to your ugly world of disillusionment.

You help the insurance companies
Handing them a free pass,
a pass that lets people die
If their wallet isn’t deep enough.

You just nod in approval
As the large companies thrive
Murdering the sick with their indifference.

You know nothing about people
The people who make up this world
The people who count
And you blame everybody but yourself.

You bathe daily in your power
Yet you leave such a stench
An odor of greed,
Obnoxiousness,
Racism
and Homophobia.

You drip profusely with your own self-importance
As you clumsily trip over your giant orange ego
As it follows you everywhere
From tweet to tweet
From fiasco to fiasco.

You leave the public With jaws wide open
The White House becomes an unprofessional screening
For your larger-than-life Reality TV show
As you continually play games with our country and world.

We chuckle at the daily puppet show
At your do-gooders and cabinet members,
As they are dragged across the floor
Right into your madness
Hanging on for dear life
To your fickle coattails.

We watch daily
As you slowly implode from the inside out
Your ice-cold exterior doing little to reassure us
That you are not simply insane.






2017 Stacey Handler

My mind is a thousand rooms lit on fire,
a fuse crawled on every window,
pins and needles holding up posters of blank faces,
for the person that belonged in that body is not the same as the memory.
My mind is the intersection at dawn,
lazy cars drowning thoughts,
red lights on all four corners,
until the light turns into a green frenzy.
My mind wisps like tendrils of coffee,
sweet bitter dreams,
that never does quite come alive
when it only leaves a faint taste.
My mind cannot erase the doors you walked in,
or the smiles that blew my way,
and the air you scented in your perfume
of hay and horses from your Saturday hobby.
My mind likes to pretend that I hated you,
that I despised how we sat two desks away and we never said hello, even though it’s been three years since we’ve spoken a word.
I’m doing all that I can to not crumble when I see you have moved on.
My mind constantly replays that night at the football game,
and the conversation we had a week later that said
“I don’t want to say it. But we can’t be friends anymore.”
It broke me like a summer hurricane.
My mind doesn’t know how to let you go.
It, and I, are having a hard time
finding something to fill the space
you have left
in my mind.

I don’t like you.

You’d think that wouldn’t be such a big deal, but honestly?
I’m not that type of person. I won’t pretend that I’ve never
Disliked someone before. I dislike plenty of things, and people
Tend to be on the list, when they’re tiresome. And you, man
You are tiresome to the next degree.
Like a project worked on all semester only to be told that it’s been cancelled
Tiresome like a conservative christian in a debate about homosexuality
Tiresome like a gun toting person demanding their right to hold weapons
While also taking away the right to speak out against them
Tiresome like all lives matter. Tiresome like our president.
Tiresome like another person killed because they look like me.
Tiresome like writing a poem about you instead of about any of that.

I don’t like you.

The funny thing is, you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong.
And I mean, that’s not your fault. When it comes to communication, hey
I haven’t been forthcoming. I’m not forthcoming when it comes to that, and you know?
I’ve been working on it, sort of. It’s comes in starts and stops
But **** when you’re recovering and meet a person like you,
Honey boo, listen, it’s a lot to deal with
I have my own **** going on, I have my own problems
And you know? I’m only asking for some authenticity

I don’t like you.

You don’t have to put your whole life out there, but if you say you’re jaded
And you say that you want to keep it to yourself, and I respect that
But then you go and blurt it all out anyway?
Jaded? Honey that’s not jaded. Jaded is holding yourself back from everyone you know
Jaded is not telling your mother, not telling your best friend,
not telling people who’ve known and understood you for years,
Jaded is trying to tell people and not being able to, your words
Caught.
Frozen in a throat that wants nothing but to be understood.
Jaded is opening up a little bit to only to find firm and instant regret
Jaded is arguing with yourself over every. single. word.
Honey, you’re not jaded
If anything you’re glassed.

I don’t like you.

I don’t mean to discount your trauma, your hurt, no, not at all
Your pain and emotions are valid, just like mine, and hers, and ours,
But god, god you don’t make it easy do you?
Trauma is not a one way ticket into the cool kids club, alright?
We didn’t want to be this way, we don’t flaunt it
I don’t want your meager tumblr-style fourteen year old
edgy emotions with your Three Days Grace hat and your Slipknot hoodie
And your “no one understands me”

I don’t like you

And come on, man! I even like those bands! I still listen to them!
Three Days Grace and Slipknot and everything from that phase is still strong
It still has weight, words have power, but you, you you you
You have the power to take even the most amazing thing, the most powerful
The most pleasing and peaceful and transform them into something
Troublesome. And tiring. And overdone. That’s you
And I’m sorry, I am, I’m sorry that I’m reacting like this
I swear that since highschool I’ve been better at snap judgements
But I took a chance on you and you shat on it, man
You ******* took my chance and tossed it in the garbage compactor
With your low budget, discount, B Movie Teenage Angst
That still has the audacity to be hurt by the Oscars “not noticing you”

I don’t like you.

And this isn’t an attention thing, okay?
I am a huge advocate for seeing people doing things for attention, and giving them that
Because that’s a cry for help, that makes sense
Looking for understanding, that makes sense
But god, to do it and then shun those who try to relate
To do it and then look down your nose
To do it and then turn your back
To do it and then flick your hair and say “you guys wouldn’t understand.”

I don’t like you.

And the thing is, when I have problems?
When I don’t like things, when I get uncomfortable
I fix them, I make progress, I take steps
But with you? Sweetie no,
I don’t want to try with you,
I don’t want to fix this with you
I don’t want to deal with you

I don’t like you.

I sit and watch a camel train go by and as it limps across the pale blue sky,shrouded in the clouds,I wonder if I could get upon a camels back and track along,could I learn the camel drover’s song?
A ditty,not so pretty,more a humpalong than any song I’ve ever heard with words that I can’t understand,though familiar in the camels land up in the sky,
Where I watch them going by.

Hip ,hop, clop, clump being a camel gives me the ****,how I wish to be a fish deep in the sea,like a whale.
I like a scale,a doh, ray, me,as far as I can see I’ll be a camel all my days and wander through a desert haze but my gaze is fixed as I roam free, on a cool and clear deep ocean sea.

Once,
I was a little thing until I grew and learnt to sing and now I don’t know anything,except
I want to be free,a fish in the sea,won’t some kind body please untie me,slip the noose and then un-sky me,set me on the coastal road,with my ****,without my load and let me smell the ocean breeze and slip into those lovely seas.
I want to be free and this you can see,before the clouds all break apart and with them goes my breaking heart and you could at least pretend to start to set me free.

I am a tainted heart with a replenished soul.
I wonder when the shadows will take a hold and pay the toll.
I hear screaming in my head with the silence of the night.
I see the future in my way without a guiding light.
I want to hide from the reflecting emotional troll.
I am a tainted heart with a replenished soul.

I pretend to be the hero but I’m really in distress.
I feel like fitting in with every girl but I’d like myself even less.
I touch the darkness where it meets the light, when the sun becomes the moon.
I worry about the vicious fight, the princess verses the goon.
I cry when my heart becomes a weak unreachable hole.
I am a tainted heart with a replenished soul.

I understand the melody that’s rising with these flames.
I say I love who I am but I’m tired of the games.
I dream about a man but I can never see his face.
I try to find the puzzle piece, one that fits in place.
I hope to be the diamond, not the unfavorable coal.
I am a tainted heart with a replenished soul.

i.
I am a short, stout girl in the corner of the room
my arms were much smaller last June
I search for reasons not to relapse in shadows like corpses
they're all dead, anyway
because my roommate is obsessed with the gym
because my best friend is obsessed with fad diets
even though I have at least fifty pounds on both of them.

ii.
I am forcing myself to use recovery speech
because it gets me through therapy more effectively
"fat is not a feeling"
my mind scoffs as I speak
every word copied and pasted from someone else's recovery blog
but my recovery is not avocados and yoga mats and veganism
it is complicated
it is painful.

iii.
I am the small, queer girl in the pew at church
so nervous as the skin around my nails begin to bleed
the scar on my ******* says "*******"
to American evangelicalism
and yet my lips still sing the loudest
the product of the "moral right"
how lovely it is to pretend to belong.

iv.
I am acting like my body knows what it is doing
as I reach for the hands of my most recent lover
I drop hints to my Republican parents
church members
best friend
but still,
I am struggling.

v.
I am trying to undo the codification of bulimia
from the fibers of my bones
I relearn daily
spun like wool through the continuum
of someone else's broken body
I become a success story
for some
but for others
I am still fat.

vi.
I want my eating disorder
my abuse
my queerness
to look normal
to be typical
some say
assimilation is liberation
so why do I still feel
chained and bound?
why am I still
unfinished?