Editor – Page 5 – Writers Resist

Mask Gleaners by Donald Patten

Artist’s Statement

Almost overnight, COVID-19 had changed the way people interact with each other, and with our own bodies. We lived our lives in vulnerability during that historically significant time of disaster. The initial phases of the pandemic are behind us, but the virus remains and continues to be dangerous. The societal trauma this pandemic has caused will be remembered and felt by those who have lived through it for the foreseeable future.

In the past, master painters would depict historically significant disasters that happened to them as a way to cope. Artists of the 19th century depicted hardships and trauma in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, which began the formation of our modern world. As an artist learning the techniques of masters, I have the opportunity to create long-lasting visual information that depicts the trauma of this pandemic.

Therefore, I have created a series of drawings that represent my experiences in modern COVID life by drawing inspiration from past masterpieces that depict the embodied experience of trauma. This drawing is inspired by the oil painting Gleaners made by Jean-François Milletin 1857. Gleaners symbolizes the hardship peasants experienced in rural France surviving on gleaned grain after massive industrial farms take the majority of the harvested crops, leaving scraps for the old and poor. During the pandemic disposable face masks were common litter people would throw them away after using them. It was very common to see masks on the ground as trash. My drawing Mask Gleaners emphasizes how ubiquitous face masks were as litter, critiquing how our society disregarded masks as disposable trash, while they provided an important function to help prevent the spread of COVID.

Donald Patten is an artist and cartoonist from Belfast, Maine. He creates oil paintings, illustrations, ceramics and graphic novels. His art has been exhibited in galleries throughout Maine. To view his online portfolio, visit @donald.patten on Instagram.

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The Heron

By Sam Rafferty

Sunset was approaching when the birdwatcher kayaked deep into the swamp. She hid behind shrubs, which offered a full view of the cypress trees where several herons would soon arrive to roost for the night. The trees reminded the birdwatcher of the uncomfortable debutante balls of her youth. Their roots spread into the water like bell-shaped skirts, and Spanish moss hung from their branches like ringlets of aerosol-laden hair. Her skin still itched at the thought of the crinoline brushing her thighs while she paraded around the ballroom with a flock of other young girls, all whirring in white satin, watched by middle-aged men.

When the breeze blew past her, the birdwatcher shivered and reached for the jacket at her feet. She put it over her shoulders, marveling at how the thick flannel still smelled like her ex-husband, a mix of cheap shampoo and hand-rolled cigarettes. She remembered with a pang that today was Thanksgiving, and he was probably smoking those same cigarettes on the porch of his new home. His new wife was likely inside making a sweet potato casserole they would consider a vegetable despite the marshmallow crust on top. His new kids were probably running around the house, throwing a football that should have made its way outside.

Before the divorce, the birdwatcher and her husband had endured quiet holidays with no children playing and no extended family nearby. Their only guest was the specter of unspoken tension over the question of offspring. Like a heron exchanging sticks with his chosen mate, he had gone through elaborate courtship rituals, preparing to pass on his genetic material through the fertile body of the female before him, only to find that her body was not so fertile, and worse still, that her will was not so bent toward the development of progeny. He had seethed in his disappointment, accusing her of “giving up.” What the birdwatcher had done, however, was notice that she felt no longing to share the high-pitched “sweet-sweet” of the warbler with a child at her heels. She had no desire to hover over a squawking brood in a perfectly crafted nest. Her desires bent instead toward a quiet solitude that motherhood could never provide.

The sun sank lower, leaving an orange haze over the canopy. The birdwatcher sat still in the kayak, breathless, waiting for the loud, shrill cry of a heron. A large group of squawking ibis flew overhead, chaotic white feathers clouding the sky. The birdwatcher held some disdain toward ibis for the way they constantly congregated, digging in the mud with their downturned bills. Ibis held no great love for silence, stillness, or solitude. Herons, on the other hand, were solitary visual hunters, waiting patiently, watching, then striking their prey at the most opportune moment.

Soon, the herons began to fly overhead, coming slowly, one at a time. Their wide wings spread over her, temporarily blocking out what was left of the day’s sunlight. They settled in the branches, grouped in pairs, spread out among the trees. The birdwatcher noticed one heron set apart from the others. It was relatively small, likely a female. She seemed agitated, head turning side to side as if watching for a predator to emerge. The birdwatcher wondered if the heron had been hurt in some way. Though they were once endangered, reduced to hat feathers by opportunistic hunters, herons were protected from humans now, at least in theory. She fixed her binoculars on the bird’s yellow eyes, and it seemed to stare back at her. The birdwatcher saw her own isolation and her fierce desire for freedom reflected in the heron’s gaze. There they stayed, two solitary beings contemplating one another while dusk fell over the swamp.

Darkness thickened, and the birdwatcher felt a need to get back to the warmth and safety of her car. Putting on a headlamp, she began to paddle. Occasionally, she would see alligator eyes peering out of the water at her, shining like the headlights of beastly cars that hid beneath the surface of the black water. The sounds of night assailed her ears: croaking frogs, the hooting “Who cooks for you?” of the barred owl, raccoons scampering over leaves on the banks, the wingbeats of bats overhead.

The birdwatcher’s body warmed as she paddled, or maybe, she thought, this was another flash of heat announcing her imminent transition to crone. When she paused to remove her flannel coat, she felt an eerie sense of being watched, eyes taking in the shape of her shoulders, the curve of her neck, the movement of her hands.

Gazing around, she could not see anything unusual within the radius of her headlamp’s glow. She continued paddling, faster, but taking care not to become frantic. After a few interminable minutes, the birdwatcher was nearly at the dock, which was only a short hike through the woods away from her car. She heard a loud screech as wide wings deepened the darkness over her head. She jumped at the sound, and the paddle slipped from her hands.

Instinctively, she reached for the handle as it sank into the black water, barely grasping the end before it drifted away. She began to paddle again, then shuddered, realizing how foolish she had been to reach her arm into the water where so many predators lay waiting to sink their teeth into vulnerable flesh.

The birdwatcher felt relieved when she pulled up to the dock. Stepping on the warped wooden boards, she leaned over to hoist the kayak up. Then she heard another paddle slapping the water. She peered out, straining her eyes to take in the surroundings illuminated by her headlamp. She could see no one, so she rationalized her fear as the anxiety of a woman alone and continued with her task, beginning the slow process of carting the kayak down the trail to her car.

The trail was overgrown even in winter. Palmettos filled the underbrush beneath towering pines and sprawling oaks, the latter of which had left their leaves to become a carpet of damp brown littering the sandy soil. Hairy tendrils of poison ivy vines circled the trunks and exposed roots of the trees. The birdwatcher made her way down the little worn path, scanning the ground for anything that might impede her: fallen limbs, large rocks, an armadillo making its way through the forest.

When she looked up to see what progress she had made toward the car, her heart leaped in her chest, and she dropped the kayak. Inches in front of her was a man standing stock still on the path. Black hair hung in tangles around his shoulders. The patches of the skin on his face that were not covered by his unkempt beard were translucent. He wore thick layers of camouflage with a rifle slung across his hunched shoulders. An unsheathed machete hung from a belt around his narrow waist. The birdwatcher froze in his presence.

“What’s a girl like you doin’ alone in the woods at night?” he asked, his voice a thick, slow drawl.

“I’m just going home,” was all she could sputter as a reply. It was as though, by calling her a girl, he had suddenly reduced her to a child in ribbon-laden pigtails, murmuring a compulsorily polite, “Yes, sir.”

“Well, let me help you then,” he crooned, crossing close to her as he went to pick up the kayak.

The birdwatcher hesitated. Should she walk with this stranger? Was he a threat? She could take off, running through the trees, but could she outpace him if she did? Though he looked slightly older than her, the birdwatcher took note of the sinewy frame of the stranger as he effortlessly pulled the boat.

She walked silently beside him down the path, hoping against instinct that he was simply showing kindness, though the moonlight reflecting off his machete kept her from feeling at ease.

“So, you never answered my question. What were you doin’ out here?” the stranger pressed.

“Birdwatching.”

“Birdwatching! Well, I’ll be damned. I guess you could call me a bit of a birdwatcher, too. Watch ’em to hunt ’em, at least.” He let out a loud, breathy laugh.

Now was not the time to lecture on the fact that this was a wildlife refuge where hunting was strictly prohibited, so she nervously laughed instead. The birdwatcher’s mind went back to the solitary heron she had seen earlier that evening, remembering her agitation. Had this man been hunting her?

“That’s why I’ve got this knife here. Cuts right through the neck of a bird.” While he spoke, the stranger pulled the machete out of his belt, holding it up as he turned toward her. He stared into her eyes, holding his gaze for an uncomfortably long moment.

The birdwatcher shivered, ready to take her flight, but he slowly put the weapon away. She continued to walk with the stranger, listening to the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, until, after what seemed like an eternity, her feet began to tread over the gravel of the parking lot.

He helped her tie the kayak to the top of the car. Quickly, she thanked him and reached for the door handle, but his rough hands grabbed her arm.

“Drop the keys,” he demanded. She felt the cold steel of the machete hit the back of her neck. Even as her stomach dropped in terror, she felt a sense of vindication. She had known this snake for what he was and had sensed his predatory nature, even if she had fallen into his inevitable trap.

He twisted her arm painfully, repeating, “Drop the keys.” She did as she was told. He turned her around forcefully, and she saw that all the false kindness had vanished from his face. He gripped her tightly, the knife against her throat.

“I’ve been watching you, just like you watch them birds.” He laughed. “You got no husband. No family. No friends. No one to come looking—”

His words were drowned out by a loud shriek overhead. The noise caused the man to flinch just enough to lose his grip on the birdwatcher’s arm. She jerked away, running back toward the woods.

She ran from the man wielding the machete behind her.

But she also ran from the uncle she had been forced to hug at Christmas, though her skin crawled when he placed his hand on her thighs.

She ran from the high school boyfriend who had begged her so often for a blow job that she finally gave in, the taste of his semen like ashes in her mouth.

She ran from the employer who “jokingly” insinuated that sleeping with him could lead to a promotion.

She ran from the disbelieving look on her husband’s face when she told him she would not pursue another round of IVF.

She ran from a lifetime of being stripped of her autonomy and shunned when she tried to reclaim it.

She ran until those rough hands grabbed her once again. She felt her hope collapse as she fell to her knees.

Then, suddenly, she saw it. Gray-blue feathers spanning six feet, neck bent into a taut S-curve. Even in the dim light, the birdwatcher could make out a vision of the solitary female heron she had seen before. She saw a gleam of recognition in the bird’s yellow eyes as it let out a great shriek, diving down toward her assailant. The heron swooped onto his back, knocking him sideways and freeing the birdwatcher. She saw the bird dive its long bill into the man’s eye. His screams echoed through the trees, setting off a chorus of howling coyotes. Warm blood sprayed onto the birdwatcher’s arm, lifting her from her momentary despair. She felt as though she could finally flee all that threatened her solitude.

Grabbing the machete the attacker had dropped in his moment of pain, the birdwatcher ran back through the woods to the parking lot. She dropped down next to her vehicle, her hands moving over the gravel, searching for the keys. Her heart beat violently when she finally grasped them and scrambled to her feet, lurching the door open and slamming it shut. As she cranked the ignition, she could see the man, blood streaming down his face, marching blindly out of the woods toward her, rifle in hand. Then the heron flew past him once more, causing him to stumble backward. The birdwatcher took one last look at the great, terrifying creature and drove off into the night.

Sam Rafferty (she/her) is a Georgia native whose writing often explores the experiences of women in the South. Her other stories are published or forthcoming in Avalon Literary Review, The Sunlight Press, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. You can follow her writing in Instagram at @samraffertywrites.

Photo by Debbie Hall, Writers Resist Poetry Editor. Follow her photographic work on Instagram at @debbie.hall.poet.photog.

Equality: In Memoriam

By Joani Reese

Five decades stunned, gone mute with disbelief.
Fixed rules destroyed; religion bares its teeth.
Six judges’ force unwanted, fetal crowns
through pro tempore vaginas, MAGA-owned.
Five men conspired to sully settled law,
one last false flag claimed Roe too hot to touch
claimed lawful norms were stone, inviolate.
Judge Amy lied, fired Roe v. down to ash.

New words govern pudenda, ultrasound.
Impregnate everyone! Sinners, repent!
Ectopic pregnancies are heaven-sent,
and off forked tongues agitprop overflows.
We’re here to save the children, bless their souls.
It’s not about control of women’s wombs!
We’ll birth a million babes, a few may come
from incest or a rape that’s forced to term.

Have patience, mom, you’ll be alone again
in five short years,
grade school,
white male
a gun.

Joani Reese is a poet and writer living in Texas. Reese has been a poetry editor for THIS Magazine, Senior Poetry Editor for Connotation Press, and General Editor of MadHat Lit. Reese has won awards for her poetry and flash fiction. Her hybrid book Night Chorus was published by LitFest Press in 2015.

Photo credit: Richard Harvey via a Creative Commons license.

Worry

By Malavika Rajesh

Many people agree that pursuing a family hobby is important in the age of disconnectedness. Other families bond over a puzzle that refuses to be solved or a kitchen garden waiting to be sown.

Mine worries.

We do it together, instinctively, like breathing. We connect over frantic phone calls, contingency plans that we run out of alphabets to label, and gasps gurgling in our throats when someone doesn’t come home on time. My Ammamma^{^[1]} and I have it worst, perhaps—our paranoia paralyzes. Sitting nearly two thousand miles away in Kerala, she worries about fraying relationships, the number of times her two-year-old grandchild may have tripped over himself, the tiniest of our maladies. As if death is waiting to strike as soon as she stumbles into fitful slumber. As if rest is an invitation for the universe to misbehave.

I, in turn, worry about fires breaking out in the family apartment while I’m away at university, the guns in the countries I need to visit, and the existential dread of not having every minute of my life planned out.

In response, my Ammacha^{^[2]} says, “Women worry.” My Amma^{^[3]} exclaims, “You really are your Ammamma’s grandchild.” Ammamma looks appalled, and I realize that a considerable portion of her time spent worrying may be dedicated to my worrying.

° ° °

The first time Ammini sees fire, she is five years old.

Not that fire had been absent from her life before. It was always there—low and dutiful—licking the bottom of brass vessels as rice boiled over in the kitchen, as her mother scooped it up with sambhar and thrust hot handfuls into her unwilling mouth. It lived in the rows of flickering lamps that glowed each evening, dutiful guardians of devotion in a corner of the home. But until that day, fire had only ever been background—warm, familiar, contained.

At five, she sees it for what it really is. Not heat, but hunger. Not light, but warning. That day, the flames don’t just flicker. They leap.

A neighbor’s house burns, the flames licking at the wooden beams, the roof collapsing in on itself. She watches from the safety of her mother’s arms, the heat pressing against her skin, the smell of smoke thick in her nose.

“It is gone,” her mother says, voice quiet.

Ammini wonders what it means to be gone, to be swallowed whole by something bigger than herself. To vanish into something vast and red and roaring.

But after every fire, there is water.

Her child — fourth in five years — is born in the monsoon, ushered in with sheets of rain, thick as oil. Ammini labors for sixteen hours, her breath rattling through her chest like a bird trapped in a too-small cage. She does not scream. She has learned by now that suffering is best gulped down — little by little, until the lump in her throat is wholly gone. When he finally comes, slick with birth, his cries are drowned out by the downpour. Her mother-in-law wraps him in an old cotton sari^[4], presses a dollop of ghee to his forehead, and calls him a blessing. Ammini wants to believe this, but when she looks at him, she only sees a vast and terrible fear, one more body to keep alive.

Her mother had taught her that fear is a woman’s inheritance. That worry coils itself in the belly of every daughter, waiting to unfurl like the fronds of a fern. That a mother must always be alert, because danger lives in the quiet. A sudden silence meant a child had swallowed something he shouldn’t. An unlatched door invited things that had no name.

Ammini is afraid. She dutifully reads every letter from her husband — stationed out north — spelling out each word with her finger, drinking in any vestige of communication she can get. Can’t come home for another month. The trial is dragging out. They’re trying to delay us into exhaustion, and I don’t trust the way one of the junior judges looked at me. People on the other side are not playing around. Ramesh thinks they could go to any lengths here. But my lawyer thinks we have a winner in our hands. Don’t worry; I’ll be back soon. I’m being careful. I promise I’m safe. Each sentence is a stone in her gut.

Her mother-in-law leaves for her own home. Her husband will not return for a long time; a disgraced policeman entrenched in a legal battle with the state. Everyone has left, leaving the house hollow. Everyone except her and her children, who she now must keep safe. A fragile fort with doors bolted against what might come.

She does not sleep for three days. Then four. Then six. When she finally closes her eyes, the darkness behind her lids swirls, shifting in waves. She dreams of blood soaking into the courtroom floor, of a blade tucked beneath a judge’s robes.

“Any lengths,” tolls in her ears like a dull, interminable bell. She knows what it means. She imagines a long road stretching out between her husband and them, populated by all the adversaries he is fighting in court and the criminals he put away. Their eyes glinting, their knives sharpened, getting closer to her children with every step. And her.

Ammini waits in vain for the next letter, the one that would silence the terrible feeling in her gut. The one that would confirm her husband is still alive.

But it doesn’t come . . . and she wouldn’t even know if it did, for she stops letting people into the house. She draws all the curtains, even during the daytime. She keeps the front door bolted, only letting the maid in through the back and having her sleep near the kitchen. The neighbors come asking, but she never opens the door. She hides a knife beneath her mattress. She counts the children’s breaths while they sleep.

Every day brings something new. One night, she wakes up in a cold sweat when she hears hastening footsteps outside the door. She runs into the hall in the dark, and her heart drops to her feet. Shadows drip into the living room.

She asks the maid about it the next day. “Don’t worry, chechi^{^[5]},” the maid says, “I’m sure it’s nothing.” But Ammini sees the lie in her eyes.

That evening, she chooses to be brave. She reluctantly unlocks the front door and, with the new baby in her hands, takes a step forward into the verandah, letting the sunlight seep into her skin. Sridevi, her five-year-old eldest, dashes out with her, exhilarated at the prospect of finally being able to go outside. “Sri, no,” Ammini rebukes, as she uses her free hand to push her daughter back into the dark home, “I told you — we’re in danger. We can’t afford to step out right now.” Leaving Sridevi behind, Ammini advances, examining her surroundings.

And then, she sees them.

Perhaps it is the ominous sparkle of a knife that catches her eye—amidst the bushes beside the locked grill entrance to the verandah. Perhaps it is a pair of unmistakably human eyes. She is certain they’re there. “Who is it?” she calls, her voice a feeble tremor.

The bushes stay still. The world holds its breath.

She waits, muscles coiled tight, the baby pressed to her chest, his breath warming her clavicle. For a moment, there is only the rustle of banana leaves, the sleepy hum of a rickshaw in the distance, a crow cawing as if indifferent to her terror.

But she knows. She knows someone is there.

She lingers a second too long on the threshold, before turning back inside, bolting the door behind her. Sridevi watches, wide-eyed. “Amma,” she whispers, “was it a ghost?” “No,” Ammini says, voice barely above a breath. “Worse.”

That day, they do not eat dinner. The food is poisoned. The milk smells wrong. The water tastes like metal. She sends the maid away and tells her to never come back.

The children whimper with hunger. The baby tugs at her blouse, wailing in protest. But Ammini cannot bring herself to feed them. She sees the shadows from the verandah bleeding into her kitchen, and she knows that they are not done.

They are waiting. Waiting for her to slip. To open the door. To trust someone. To fall asleep.

She will not.

She locks every door in the house one by one, until the air grows stale with the scent of sweat and fear. She gathers the children like a mother cat—placing them in the darkest corner of the bedroom, away from every window. Pillows over glass panes. Saris shoved under doors. Sridevi clutches her little brother and whimpers, but Ammini hushes her gently, pressing a trembling finger to her lips.

“Play a game, Sri,” she whispers. “Pretend we are hiding from the chathans^{^[6]}. Pretend we cannot make a sound.” Sridevi nods, her small face furrowed with too much knowing.

The hours crawl, leaking a deep, unsettling silence, while the children fall into uneasy slumber.

For a moment, Ammini relishes some glorious respite.

Then the crying begins.

The baby will not stop. She rocks him, hums, offers him her breast, but his wails rise higher, sharper, cutting through her skull. Ammini presses her hands over her ears, trying to drown out the noise, but the crying does not stop. Her son’s face is dark with effort, his tiny mouth open wide, a cavernous pit.

Over the noise, she hears the unmistakable sound of footsteps. The terrifying screech of metal as someone tries to shake open the grill entrance.

Her son’s sobs grow louder—almost heavy with grief, as if he knows what’s coming. Ammini wonders for a split second if this is the way it is with animals and earthquakes. Do they sit in dread, knowing all they can do is wait for a cruel, inevitable fate?

A voice slices through the baby’s cries. It is from the verandah.

“Your husband is dead,” it calls jeeringly. “Now, we’ve come for you too.” They’ve gotten past the grill entrance. The handle to the front door jiggles, its awful rhythm adding tempo to the baby’s screams.

The realization is like balm to Ammini’s blistered mind. It is her. She is the chink in the armor. The weak link in the chain. The tether tying her children to a world of threat. Her husband is gone; what good is she without him?

The answer has never been more lucid.

She lays the baby down, knowing its cries will subside when the danger does. The door handle jiggles with increasing urgency, but she cannot hear it over the thumping of her heart. She runs to the kitchen and rolls out the kerosene can into the living room. Far away from the children, but close enough for the bad men to discover and leave.

For the first time in many years, Ammini’s thoughts are sharp. Precise. Like the fire she saw when she was five.

“Open the door, bitch,” they cry, menacingly. “Don’t make us break it down.” Her son’s cries only get louder.

Ammini moves like a panther, her breath steady, her fingers only trembling ever so slightly as she douses herself in kerosene. She does not cry. This, too, is an act of mothering. A final one.

She lights the match.

The baby sobs. The front door flies open. In a split second, Ammini sees Sridevi watching her from the distance.

She stands at the far end of the hallway, just beyond the bedroom curtain, barefoot on the cold tile. Her ribbon has come loose, her small chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths. Her eyes are locked on her mother—not with confusion, but comprehension far too advanced for her five years.

In that moment, the fire hesitates.

Not in hunger, but in recognition.

Sridevi does not scream. She only watches.

Ammini—soaked in kerosene, her skin prickling with heat, her hands trembling around the lit match—feels her resolve falter. For one instant, she is no longer soldier, no longer shield. She is just a mother. A mother caught mid-step between annihilation and mercy.

But it is too late. The match has left her fingers.

The fire takes her quickly. It is not cruel. It is merely doing what it knows—how to consume, how to cleanse, how to finish what fear began.

° ° °

Sometimes, I wonder if Ammamma feels a pang every time Ammacha calls her “Sri” in a way only her mother used to. I wonder what her five-year-old mind thought when people told her afterward that none of it was real—not the men, the shadows, or the voices; that all of it was a figment of her mother’s imagination. I wonder if she wished she could tell her mother that there was already a letter in the mailbox from her father saying that he had won the trial and would be returning home—a letter she never read. I wonder. I wonder. I wonder.

Ammamma tells me she often wished that her mother would have visited a doctor. But what could she have said? A hint of a fever. And postpartum psychosis—just a smidge. This was, after all, India in 1952. No one cared about a woman’s voice unless it was punctuated by a man’s. Not if she was screaming from the rooftops.

Not if she set herself on fire.

^[1] “Grandmother” in Malayala

^[2] Translates to “mother’s father” in Malayalam

^[3] “Mother” in Malayalam

^[4] A garment traditionally worn by South Asian women

^[5] “Sister” in Malayalam

^[6] a supernatural monster in Malayali Hindu folklore

Malavika Rajesh is a junior majoring in Economics at New York University Abu Dhabi. A third-culture kid living at the intersection of Dubai and Kerala, she is the published author of two fiction books, Watch Out! and Runaways, and the recipient of the Chiranthana Literary Award for Best Young Author. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Gulf News, Feminism in India, and a literary anthology, among others.

Photo credit: Photo by Paul Bulai on Unsplash.

What True Crime Podcasts Have Taught Me

By Esha Khimji

My husband/boyfriend is most likely to kill me
If he doesn’t and some other man does, people will remember his name and forget mine
Blue Apron is a quick and easy way to cook
I have been socialised to be too polite and accommodating and that’s what will get me killed
I will also be killed if I try to set boundaries
If I date a younger man, he will definitely kill me for my money and I will be unforgivably naive for thinking a younger man found me attractive
Blue Apron is a quick and easy way to cook
If I am murdered, the best I’ll get is pity and the worst I’ll get is too fucked up to mention here
I need to double and triple check my phone is, in fact, connected to my Bluetooth headphones lest I traumatize everyone on my morning commute
If my murderer is halfway decent looking, he will have fans
The police won’t do anything until I am actually dead
The police especially won’t do anything because I am not a pretty white girl
I can listen to more podcasts on the Wondery App
Blue Apron is a quick and easy way to cook

Esha Khimji is a new writer living in Scotland. She holds a degree in Economic and Social History, works a 9-to-5, and writes to stay sane. Her writing focuses on themes of self-preservation in the face of inequality and its interplay with desires that stretch past “one’s lot in life.” Her work has recently appeared in Short Beasts and Steam Ticket: A Third Coast Review.

Photo credit: Photo by Omar Ramadan on Unsplash.

Gathering

(written the day after the 2024 election)

We woke at 2am to a world on fire.

In dark times, I am driven to gather hidden light.

After the shock,
I wove a basket from tears
and texts “I love you” and “are you ok?”
and grit
and tatters of faith.

I lined the basket with a nest for hope,
one by one I placed in treasures
burnished in the ashes:

3am thoughts:
“They don’t get to have my peace,
I reclaim my peace”
which flung me into the moment
of deep gratitude for
our bed,
my sleeping husband,
and the stirring cat.

A Rumi poem
reminding us that where the lowland is, the water goes
and that weeping draws in medicine.

Lodgepole pine seeds, sealed in resin
that can only release in the heat of a fire.
Eucalyptus branches
that can only bud if the bark is burned away.

The masks we are dropping
to say I love you
without hesitation.

Therapists creating spaces for each other
so we can keep working.
Little sparks igniting around the world
fanning flames of connection.

A veteran, betrayed by our own military,
who could still say
“I survived my toughest days, America will too.”

snippets of conversations:
“we are in this together”
“may your shakiness deepen your groundedness”

Torn and folded notebook pages from my husband’s students
telling him how they are:
“I am really scared”
“I am angry”

The maple tree glowing fiery orange
wrapped in fairy lights.
This little oasis does not read the news.

Perhaps this is an arc of history
that I won’t see in my lifetime,
but I can do my part.

gather and listen
and offer my basket.

Take a penny, leave a penny.

Place in your grief,
your wisdom,
your humanity.
Take what you need
connection,
hope,
a metaphor,
Take each other.

I will gather more.

Maureen Kane lives with her family in Bellingham, Washington. She is a mental-health therapist in private practice in Washington and Idaho. Her work has appeared in anthologies and journals. She is a Sue Boynton Poetry Walk Award winner. Her books of poems are The Phoenix Requires Ashes: Poems for the Journey and Mycelium: Poetry of Connection. Her workbook A Guide Back to You: A workbook for exploring who you are and staying true to yourself is a Chanticleer International Books Awards First Place winner.

Photo credit: Photo by Jari Hytönen on Unsplash.

Welcome to Writers Resist the 2025 Summer of Resistance Issue

Wouldn’t it be dandy if this season were a 21st century version of the Summer of Love, but more inclined toward the civil rights movement? An uprising of all ages—of every identity!—leading a powerful return to our generations-long quest for liberty and justice for all; for diversity, equity and inclusion; for a moral commitment to our three branches of government, our pursuit of a true democracy, our vision of what we might be?

Yes, that would be dandy.

This issue launches after the 14 June protests, and we saw you all were on streets across the nation, with oh-so-clever signage, lots of peace and love, and being absolutely dandy.

Thank you—don’t stop!

But first, we’ll take a moment to offer our fondest farewell to René Marzuk, editor extraordinaire and exceptional human being. We’ve been grateful for his presence on the Writers Resist team. We will miss him sorely and lovingly.

A note from René—

In August of 2022 (more than two and a half years ago!), the editors of Writers Resist welcomed me as one of their own. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of reading and considering (mostly) poetry submissions from all over the world. Working closely with Debbie, I read pieces carefully and consistently, trying to find expressions of resistance that took full advantage of the resources available to poetry. As I get ready to step down from my role, I look back with joy to all of the instances in which I found not only what I thought I was looking for, but much, much more.

Early on, I learned that Writers Resist offers a platform for resistance and community that is in turn supported by the generosity and love of those who keep it running. Thank you so much for creating and maintaining this space, K-B, and thank you all for allowing me to be one of you during the last couple of years.

Keep writing the resistance, friends!

Saludos,
René

And now, in between protests, please enjoy the rich contents of our Summer 2025 issue—and join us for Writers Resist Reads, a virtual celebration of this issue, on Saturday 16 August, at 5:00 p.m. PACIFIC. Email WritersResist@gmail.com for the Zoom link.

CONTENTS

Work Trip by Alyssa Curcio

Manure by Robert Delilah

The Neighbor’s Goldfish by Ashley Dryden

Freedom Calls (Commemorating Harriett Tubman’s Promotion to Brigadier General in the State of Maryland) by Ellen Girardeau Kempler

s k i n by Rebecca Havens

Awaiting Harris’ Concession Speech November 6, 2024 by Dotty LeMieux

Standard Safety Recommendations: Revised, 2025 by Ryan McCarty

Stars and Stripes: Registering Voters in the Travis County Jail by Lauren Oertel

Inauguration Day by Linda Parsons

The Age of Unreason by Matthew Sam Prendergast

The Bishop by Lao Rubert

Marked by Fendy Satria Tulodo

Saved by Phyllis Wax

you’re all for autism awareness ’til by Lauren Withrow

Photo credit: K-B Gressitt, taken at Greenwood Rising, a Tulsa, Oklahoma, museum that will “educate Oklahomans and Americans about the [1921] Race Massacre and its impact on the state and Nation, remember its victims and survivors, and create an environment conducive to fostering sustainable entrepreneurship and heritage tourism within the Greenwood District specifically, and North Tulsa generally.”

Work Trip

By Alyssa Curcio

Crisply folded sheets,
strange faces—
the warm bite of Cognac
against my teeth at the hotel bar—
I must admit,
it is all rather romantic.
I’ve been sent to California
(the client needs us!)
and I’ve left my life,
excuse me, my wife,
at home.

I might just understand,
as I kiss a cigarette
on the balcony of my hotel room,
why The Men fought so hard
(they really did try!)
to keep this world from us.
The old boys club,
the working hard
(read: playing hard). . .

I might just jump ship
and join them
in their indignation that
“some things are just sacred!”
Except that
after a drink
(maybe even before)
their wandering hands
would find my thighs
beneath the table
and make me wish
that I was anywhere
but California.

Alyssa Curcio (she/her) is a reproductive justice activist and lawyer whose advocacy has been covered by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and NBC News. Her poetry has been featured in Screen Door Review and Poem Alone. A Virginia native, Alyssa currently lives in New York City.

Photo credit: ChrisGoldNY via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Manure

By Robert Delilah

That morning, something jammed the automatic sweeper.

Every hour—on the hour—the sweeper pushed the cowshit that matriculated from the pens above to the waiting troughs just beneath the barn floor. Thanks to the sweeper, the sludge would be shunted off into the pit-like tank beneath it all, instead of rising through the grates as a massive, gut-churning lake. The pit was pumped clean by truck every other week or so; its contents processed, bagged, and sold off to hardware stores, flower shops and, of course, farms.

No one noticed the jam until well into the afternoon, so the troughs had very nearly begun to overflow. But instead of calling for a mechanic, Guillermo’s foreman, Ted, handed Guillermo a twelve-pound sledgehammer, one of those with most of its haft sawn off—the sort used by idiots and oilmen. Between clenched, meth-cooked teeth, Ted hissed two words:

“FIX. IT.”

Guillermo spoke English.

Rather well in fact, as he liked to brag to no one anymore.

But he also liked to pretend he could not. Ted had yet to discover this of course. And ever since Guillermo had been brought to the farm more than three years prior, the two of them had remained on a two-word basis—broken jaw or no. He’d gotten out of this sort of work before, but Guillermo clocked within Ted’s eyes a bloodshot, drug-wired mania and he knew, understanding or no, that this time Ted would broker no argument.

Two days ago, Julia was shipped off to a “facility.” One of the ones the other laborers fearfully murmured about, as if only by being overheard they might themselves be dragged there screaming.

They’d brought Julia to the farm some months back. She spoke little—one-word responses to most anything. Perhaps that was what drew Guillermo to her. But where Guillermo’s silence spoke of cold acceptance, Julia’s screamed of a smoldering rage only just held in check. She kept a buck knife in her pillow. Somehow neither the other laborers nor the foremen ever found out about it. Guillermo himself discovered it one morning when trying to wake her.

He’d lied and told the others he’d cut his hand on a bit of barbwire.

Guillermo and Julia shared meals from then on. And in the ensuing weeks the girl, barely thirteen, became somewhat of a de facto niece to him. He no longer had any family of his own, and if she did, she never spoke of them. Perhaps Guillermo was simply lonely; he suspected as much anyway.

One day, Julia was picking muddy green onions when, shrouded in the cool shadow of a domineering cloud, an uncalloused hand grabbed for her ass.

Guillermo, standing in the sun a field away, heard the subsequent pop of bird-bone knuckles cleaving jawbone. The sound reminded Guillermo of a framer he used to know in Ciudad who’d drive a five-inch nail into rough-sawn timber with just one swing. Ted awoke a while later, sporting a broken jaw and a freshly purple bruise which bled down into his neck.

ICE was there in the hour.

Guillermo felt Julia’s buck knife press against the inside of his left boot when he rounded the back of the cow pen where a line of grates led down into the machinery’s bowels. Crossing a rusted trapdoor complete with ancient, grime-coated padlock, he knelt and unfastened a cross-stitched aluminum panel, then shimmied into the crawlspace. Once inside, still stooped, he stepped from joist to joist, then back along the underpan’s entire length to find where the thing had jammed. The grate above dripped constantly. And every minute or so, a fresh cow pie would slither past him into the already overflowing troughs. There were several near-misses. And he heard little over the clang and clamor of hooves against concrete and steel just above his head. The smell within was dull and sulfurous, but a tang of metallic sweetness rested on the underside of his tongue. Guillermo had worked on this end of the farm since he’d arrived. After the first month, he’d stopped noticing the fetid reek that pervaded the place. Yet now, balancing above a veritable lake of shit, he was pressed once more to reckon with the stench. Grease-flecked and vile. Undeniable.

At last, after some tens of minutes, he located the problem: a rock—practically a small boulder—trapped in one of the tumblers. It was wedged within its teeth like a particularly stubborn seed.

Guillermo perched his foot on an angular joist to straddle the tumbler’s weighty servomechanism. The steel creaked as Guillermo felt the beam itself sag. He froze, loitering between heartbeats, waiting for the rig to inevitably snap apart and collapse.

Bracing his back against the damp ceiling, he readied the sledge, angling to dislodge the rock with one momentous blow.

WHAM.

Brittle flecks shot out as the impact marred the surface of what he realized then was a solid chunk of concrete. He shut his eyes as the spray of chips and dust flew into his face.

It was a slim, half-moment—a twitch within a hesitant spell—but that’s all it took.

Guillermo’s weight shifted, and a forgotten slick of grease leaking from the servo caused his left foot to slide, then slip out from under him. He pitched forward, dropping the sledge before extending his arms to try to catch onto the railing. But, gripping blindly, he missed. Guillermo’s chest slammed hard onto the wedged concrete. The air, forced from his lungs, came out his mouth in sputters. The ensuing impact of rib cage-to-stone was enough to unseat the chunk and Guillermo, flailing, tumbled downwards with it into the awaiting troughs.

He landed with a sickening squelch, and before Guillermo could grasp a sense of where he was or what had happened, a whirring sounded above him, and the rolling tumblers hummed once more to life. Shuffled along the top of the trough’s putrid surface, Guillermo was ferried down a waterfall and into an awaiting well of shit and cow piss. Guillermo feared he might drown and was sure he’d broken his neck. But he rose and wiped at his eyes. No matter how thoroughly he smeared away the refuse, he saw only dark.

In time, though, his eyes adjusted. He gleaned the vague profile of the pit’s sheet metal sides and figured a rough outline of its dimensions by the scant illumination shining through the gaps of the machinery overhead. Guillermo found himself strangely calm. So long as someone looked for him in the next several hours, that someone would find him.

But several hours did pass. Eventually, he started shouting, and then he began to scream.

Yet even these little desperations couldn’t carry past the grunts and the chuffs, the shuffling of hooves on steel, nor past the mechanical drone that shook his skull whenever the servos hummed again to motion. Every hour, the shoots opened and—for the briefest of moments—Guillermo saw dregs of bright sunlight peak through until another fresh load was swept into the pit to pile atop him. And each time Guillermo could do little but hug the far wall and pray.

It was when the sludge rose to his chest, when the subterranean chill had sunk fully into him, that he found himself thinking of the barn’s tin roof, roasting like the dangerous little hotplate he used to warm his coffee; he thought of tamales, cold beer and good sex. And, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, the sun most of all.

Then he spotted it.

Corroded. As thin at parts as a coat hanger. A grimy, decaying service ladder stuck out of the wall.

Hope alighting within him, Guillermo swam to the opposite wall. Shaking with the effort, buoyed by liquid manure, he lifted himself up onto the bottom-most rung set seven feet from the floor. He climbed, rung by rung, shivering wildly with chill, as his limbs howled and begged him to stop. But Guillermo knew better than to listen. He’d been through worse. He survived the crossing. Survived the Coyotes, and the Cartel. And that bastard Ted. He promised himself he would survive more after this.

So he climbed—more than seventy, eighty feet—until he was under the trap door leading up and out to freedom. Hooking an elbow onto the top rung, Guillermo lifted a hand to the trap door and pushed hard.

CLUNK.

He felt the door catch, exposing a bare inch of warmth and daylight before stopping short on the rusted padlock he’d noticed earlier.

It was locked.

Manic tears dug deep trenches down his stained face as, without thinking, Guillermo seized Julia’s knife from his boot, holding the blade momentarily with his teeth to adjust his grip on the rail. The taste of steel and copper-tinged shit was irrelevant. With a shaking hand he lifted the knife and wrenched hard against the underside of the padlock.

The blade broke with a snap and only a jagged half of it remained.

Choking, sobbing, and with the very last of his strength leaving him, the trap door clattered back into place, casting Guillermo again into darkness. He hung onto the top rung, clutching the broken knife, and cried.

Thump THUMP.

Thump… THUMP THUMP.

Hooves, Guillermo thought. Or were they footsteps? Was he imagining it?

There was a jingling of keys, and a neat click from the padlock. Sunlight blinded Guillermo as the oubliette’s trapdoor was hurled open above him, revealing a crouched and sniggering figure.

Ted flashed crooked grey-and-yellow teeth. “Got a little stuck, eh?”

Guillermo stared, fumbling to extend a grime-laden hand, but the foreman made no motion.

“How’d you get your hands on that?” Ted asked, raising a finger towards the broken buck knife.

Guillermo didn’t answer. Switching his grip, he extended his free hand towards Ted.

Ted grinned, just out of reach, his eyes still transfixed on the thing in Guillermo’s hand.

Then there came a groan and a creak. One end of the rung onto which Guillermo had hooked himself snapped suddenly free. The corroded steel screamed as it bent and warped, while the rung on which Guillermo’s feet were set began to bow. Guillermo wobbled, trying in vain to balance himself in some way that would stop him from toppling backwards into the pit.

Ted made no motion.

Fury welled within Guillermo. Where before he was cold and paled by chill, he now felt his head grow hot, felt his ears burn red. Like candle wax, whoever he was, whoever he’d been before, melted away, leaving only the burnt wick of rage—and a sole impulse.

Guillermo leapt.

The rung broke clean from the wall as Guillermo, in one frenzied strike, stabbed Julia’s broken buck knife above Ted’s collarbone, hooking him like a fish caught by the gills. There was a spurt of scarlet spray as Ted, yellow eyes suddenly wide, pitched forward. With his other hand—firm and calloused—Guillermo seized Ted’s khaki-yellow collar and yanked down, hard.

They fell. Together. Ted struggled hopelessly in the air.

But in the moments before the two of them landed head-first into the pool of liquid refuse, without any prospect of survival or escape, the last vestige of Guillermo gave thought to Julia.

He hoped she was okay.

Robert Delilah is a writer and comedian based in San Diego, California. His written work focuses on the ridiculous, the unsettling and the uncanny. Previous credits include “The Numbers,” published in Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder issue No. 17, and the comic short “Peel” as part of an upcoming horror anthology from The Panel Smiths comics collective.

Photo credit: James Whatley via a Creative Commons license.

The Neighbor’s Goldfish

By Ashley Dryden

I saw her today, the next-door neighbor’s goldfish.

They keep her in a shabby, old pond in their backyard where the lawn meets the patio. I watch her swim around the lily pads from my second-floor bedroom window, every splash of her tail makes ripples along the surface of the water.

The neighbors like the attention she brings. They’re a cheerful, young couple who love to show her off, always having parties in the backyard. And when the other neighbors learn about the pond, they learn about the goldfish too. I was never invited but the noise they make keeps me up late. The only thing that’s quiet in the neighbor’s yard is the coin jar they keep in the center of their patio table.

The wife loves to go on and on about the goldfish. She spends hours chatting about how the fish is a fancy breed and how fancy breeds often get sick and require higher maintenance. It’s the only thing she ever talks about with anyone. The husband is just happy to be there. He isn’t afraid to mention that the goldfish belongs to his wife, not him. He’s fine with it and often mentions how the wife had the goldfish for many years before she met him. Sometimes he posts photos on social media of him standing next to the goldfish.

. . .

It was a few weeks ago that I noticed something. Through my binoculars, the shimmering orange goldfish was struggling on its side when she tried to roll herself upright. Her scales had begun to flake, and the delicate fins were rotten and torn. In the murky water, I could hardly see her. The thick punch of cloudiness had caused the lily pads to wither. It took effort to see the goldfish under the smoky water, and for a moment, I wondered if she was even there.

I wasn’t sure if I should say anything at first. I didn’t know anything about goldfish. But the neighbors claimed they did. The wife was glad when someone brought her up at a party after seeing the goldfish tilting to the right.

The wife insisted it was due to the breed and that it came with health problems. She wasn’t silent for the rest of the party, laughing and smiling away. Neither was the coin jar.

The goldfish, though, kept declining and the community began to fear the worst. I remember when the cops were called to the neighbor’s house. The wife was screaming and kicking her feet as the officer took the goldfish away. The goldfish was given to the old lady at the end of the cul-de-sac. She posted pictures of herself standing next to the goldfish playfully swishing around in a clean tank. Nobody attended the wife’s parties anymore. The coin jar was empty.

But a few days later, binoculars in hand, I saw the goldfish swimming in the pond again, her scales shining in the moonlight. The wife stood on the patio looking over the pond. She had a pair of scissors in one hand and a bottle of gunk in the other. I couldn’t make out what type of gunk it was, but it sloshed around the nose of the bottle while she poured it into the pond. Then she took the goldfish out of the pond by its tail and beat it against the side of the house. She smacked it hard, the scales popped off like sparks from fireworks and blood splashed onto the patio. At the end of the thrashing, the wife took the scissors and cut up her fins before throwing her back into the pond.

. . .

It’s not long before the neighbors start attending the wife’s parties again. Nobody mentions “the incident,” and those who bring up the old lady in front of the wife are kicked out. Every so often I look over at the pond and see the goldfish, her fins shorter, her speed slower.

One day, after the neighbors leave the house, I sneak into the yard to see the goldfish. When her head comes to the surface, I show her my bucket and tell her I can get her out of this place. I promise I will take her somewhere safe where she will never be beaten again.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the fish says. “The people in this house love me. I’m not going to let anyone take me away ever again. And the coin jar needs to be fed so my people are fed.”

I beg her to listen, but she bites my finger and swims under a lily pad. I go back home.

. . .

So, yes, I saw her today, the neighbor’s goldfish. The police found her body on the patio this morning.

. . .

I’m a writer and a college graduate who has always been a fan of symbolism and horror. I’m into writing, video game making, and photography. I have two dogs at home, and I love my parents.

Photo credit: Güldem Üstün via a creative Commons license.

Freedom Calls (Commemorating Harriet Tubman’s Promotion to Brigadier General in the State of Maryland)

By Ellen Girardeau Kempler

Flying camouflaged
after nightfall, Harriet Tubman
mimicked the barred owl’s call,
signaling safety to fugitives
shadowed in darkness,
transmitting hope like
a firefly in the forest.

It’s no wonder
she chose to travel on Sunday—
the master’s day of rest—
when no press would post
wanted notices for runaways.

Following the North Star, she listened
for God’s guiding voice, led followers
through Maryland and Delaware
to Philadelphia—then up to New York,
singing, “I’m on My Way to Canada”
as they crossed the Niagara.

Through it all, she repeated
this refrain: “If you are tired, keep going.
If you are scared, keep going. If you are hungry,
keep going. To reach freedom, follow me.”

With every journey, she doubled back—
rescuing 70 souls in 13 trips. The Underground
Railroad fueled these escapes—hiding fugitives
by day, so they could fly by night.

In these precariously United States of 2024,
the General finally received her rank
for service to the Union
in our only civil war.

These anxious nights, whenever I hear
the owls’ questioning whoos or catch
the whoosh of swooping wings,
I think of Harriet, marshalling her troops.

Ellen Girardeau Kempler’s award-winning poems have been widely published in Wild Roof Journal, Mindful Poetry Anthology, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Narrative Northeast, Writers Resist, Phoenix Rising Review, Gold Man Review, Orbis International Poetry Quarterly and many other small presses and anthologies. Her first chapbook is “Thirty Views of a Changing World,” (Finishing Line Press 2017). Her second chapbook, “Fire in My Head / Flame in My Heart: Poems for the Pyrocene,” is forthcoming (Kelsay Books 2025).

Photo credit: David Hoffman‘s photograph of Aaron Douglas’ painting, Harriet Tubman, via a Creative Commons license.

s k i n

By Rebecca Havens

She is dancing by the entrance. Graceful, slow-then-fast; even Helen can neither compete nor look away.

Drinking in the shadows, I imagine all the shapes violence comes in, collectively stomping her meat into the pavement. I am one with the darkness—but I swear, I can see each layer of skin even through this candlelight, even from across the room, even with her flitting about this place, hip bones on full display. I will painstakingly peel, layer by layer like an onion, to form small arrays of flesh, penetrable by the light.

I will hang them up to create monotone papel picado. Sheet by sheet spread onto my windowpane until it consumes the sunlight that tries to come through the door to disturb this dark romance. How is there so much skin unraveled? How is there so much skin still on her? Spread as thin as a whisper across mountaintops, I could cover the vast seafloor with her remnants. A declaration of some sort. Man makes meaning out of fluff; so I will construct meaning out of this pastime as well.

Dermis, thicker. Slowly, would-be tenderly, unearthing filthy filmy sacrifices to a god I do not believe in. Lung tas claiming stake to this apartment, to these long plank floors and its dust-catching corners, just as I am claiming stake to her.

To love is a craft—but so is it to hate.

Tissue, fat, muscle, that fleshy softness and her blood. Spreading, spreading, I cover my desk, my best coffee mugs, my trash can and the sink in the vacant parts.

I Sweeney Todd her innards, mixing her meat with other meats to create a bouquet of unmatched delicacy. Potluck indeed.

And a heart. I want to pour resin over this heart, I want to taxidermy it and keep it close. I want to whittle wood into its likeness. I want to create an altar to this grim offering.

Next time you tell me “boys will be boys,” I will smile my mischievous smile, drop my head, and nod to acknowledge this sin.

Rebecca Havens is a happy person. They work in the political space. They mostly write fiction and poetry, but adore everything.

Photo credit: Christian y Sergio Velasco via a Creative Commons license.

Awaiting Harris’ Concession Speech November 6, 2024

By Dotty LeMieux

A woman adjusts the flags lining the stage
just so, as if perfectly draped flags
can protect us from the ignominy
of the next four years.

On stage, the flags wilt
despite folding, tucking,
crimping.

A young man in the crowd raises
his iPhone high above his head,
its flashlight beaming out.
With his other hand he holds
a plastic water bottle
on top of the phone,
a pale tribute
to a lost Lady Liberty.

While a nation holds
its ragged breath,
polar ice melts,
oceans die,
billionaires increase
their wealth and power.

In Texas, Oklahoma,
Georgia, Indiana—
Women bleed
in parking lots,
on hospital gurneys,
waiting—

Waiting

still waiting

My pronouns are she, her, hers. I often write what might be called political or topical poetry. Much of it is in my five chapbooks, three long out of print, but the most recent are Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune from Finishing Line Press, 2021, and Viruses, Guns and War from Main Street Rag Press, 2023. My work has appeared in several anthologies, Writers Resist, Gyroscope, Rise Up Review, Poetry and Covid, MacQueens Quinterly and more. I live in northern California with my husband and two active dogs.

Photo credit: Adam Fagen via a Creative Commons license.

Standard Safety Recommendations: Revised, 2025

By Ryan McCarty

Honesty may no longer be the best
policy, depending on who’s asking.
And sometimes accepting a ride
from strangers is the safest way home.
Do not secure your own mask
before helping children or others.
Listen to your body, though.
Carrying heavy weight at arm’s length
can stagger you. Bent knees alone
will not be enough to do all the lifting.
Hold what needs to be picked up
close to your chest. Share warmth
with people who are in the cold.
If you smell smoke, do not wedge
a wet towel under the door. Listen
for coughing and the scuff of bodies
looking for fresh air. Always let them in.
It is still better to be safe than sorry,
because jails and mass graves
will never be emptied by apologies.

Ryan McCarty is a writer and teacher, living in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where the poems walk around talking to each other and doing the good work, even though it seems like there’s more to do every day. His writing has appeared recently in places like Abandoned Mine, Blue Collar Review, Door is a Jar, Left Voice, Michigan Quarterly Online, Rattle Poets Respond, and Trailer Park Quarterly. He also writes at ryanmccarty.substack.com.

Photo credit: Wordshore via a Creative Commons licsense.

Stars and Stripes: Registering Voters in the Travis County Jail

By Lauren Oertel

We see stars in their eyes—the legal technicality
allows them to imagine voting for the first time.

Then the stars fade
like the overwashed
thick stripes on their shirts.

Heavy doors buzz, razor wire-topped pathways
snake between buildings.

Guards mutter Make America Great Again
when they see our clipboards and registration forms.

It’s the shower shoes—thin, terracotta-colored,
plastic sandals, barely protected feet.

We might expect old glory to save us.
Save us from this man with scars on his face
that run not as deep as the ones on his heart.

Save us from that man whose injured hand
shakes as he signs his name.

Are they not here in the name of my protection?

Back out to face the wall, arms up, legs spread,
brace for the unwelcome hands. Back into cells.

Lauren Oertel is a community organizer and passionate supporter of authors, books, writing communities, and local bookstores. Her work has been published in The Ravens Perch, Evening Street Review, Steam Ticket, The Bluebird Word, The Sun Magazine, and more. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her partner Orlando and their tuxedo cat Apollonia.

Photo credit DonkeyHotey via a Creative Commons license.

Inauguration Day

By Linda Parsons

                    I’m bleeding
                              I’m bleeding
          on the sheet and pillow    not
my monthlies        so many moons    gone.
          On the sheet   a red thread
                     unraveled
in sleep    stain hardened    to rub and soap.
                              I bleed
like a girl   the coldest winter    I’ve known
          splits    skin       streaks
my pillow   sheet    pulled to my chin.
                    I’m bleeding
for my daughters    and granddaughters
                    soft bodies
          sold in the marketplace
                              the coldest coin
          I’ve known.   All of us
                    dying
                              in moons to come
sheets pulled    to our chins    bloodied red.
          Won’t someone    breathe
                    soft    on our skin
          lift stains    from winter’s cold
                    bed?   I cannot bear
               the weight   my skin    sacrificial
          torn loose   these longest    of nights.
                    Daughters, granddaughters,
bear this    dark day.    Rage    rage    curse
          the draining   of light.
                              I bleed
          for this blue and red
                    gash of country, for the drums
                              beating past
     Lincoln’s feet.   Let the streets    run
with   girls   still believing   let
                    their birthright
          burn    white heat.
                    Only bright day
will wash   our bodies    past broken
          belief    blood    in its mercy
rubbed clean.    Only then   will we    break
          this cold bargain,
                              until then
                    you will see
          how I bleed.

Poet, playwright, essayist, and editor, Linda Parsons is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published in such journals as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, Shenandoah, and many others. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Photo by Haberdoedas on Unsplash.

The Bishop

By Lao Rubert

–for the Right Reverends Mariann Budde, Anne Hodges-Copple and Scott Benhase

Before dawn she packs her briefcase
swivels its four gliding, revolving wheels
and marches through the door
in puffy down, long underwear
beneath her slacks. Garment bag
slung over her shoulder. Snow boots
grip black ice as she clicks
the car door open, slides in.
She arrives early, in time for the thick
El Salvadoran coffee Ana brews.
She has a speech to make.

Inside the drafty cathedral she dares
to lay a single word upon a silver tray.
Perhaps it is the audacity that offends
as she declares Mercy, and then again,
Have mercy, draping the phrase
like a string of pearls around his neck.
Disgraceful, insulting, fear-mongering,
he yelps, his power pricked.
Supplicants jeer, the street’s upended.
He stays up late, combats the words,
demands a mea culpa be extended.

There have been death threats, she smiles.
They’d like to see me dead.
No apologies. Instead, she packs her robes,
rochet and chimere, white and scarlet,
alongside her embroidered black tippet.
Outside, the traffic roars and wails.
Beggars make their afternoon requests
and the Bishop counts the miles that she must go
as tributes mix with calls for her demise.
Some say she’s blessed.

Lao Rubert lives in Durham, North Carolina. Her poems have appeared – or will appear – in Atlanta Review, Barzakh, Collateral, Mantis, Mom Egg Review, Muleskinner, Poetry East, The Avenue, The Marbled Sigh, Wordpeace, Writers Resist and elsewhere. Rubert has spent a career working to reform the criminal justice system.

Photo Credit: Steve Robbins via a Creative Commons license.

Marked

By Fendy Satria Tulodo

I was twelve when I figured out the world had already decided what to call me. Not the name Ma whispered soft as a prayer when I was born. Not the one my teachers read off the roll sheet. Not even the one my little brother mumbled when he had bad dreams.

It was something else. Heavier. Something that wrapped itself around me like a second skin, tight and unshakable, no matter how carefully I moved, no matter how many times I tried to stand taller.

It started with a look.

Not the kind people give when they’re just curious, when they’re trying to remember if they’ve seen you before. No—this one stuck. Followed me. Slipped into rooms behind me. Hung around in places where I should’ve been invisible.

But I wasn’t.

The Store

The first time I knew I was marked, it was a Wednesday. Just another day. The air smelled like fried food and gasoline, thick and familiar near the station. I had a few bills in my pocket, enough for a drink. Maybe some candy if I picked right.

The shop was the kind with a rattling fan in the corner and shelves full of things that never seemed to sell. Dusty bottles of soy sauce. Batteries in faded packaging.

I walked in, hands in my pockets.

The man behind the counter looked up. His gaze landed on me—and stayed there.

At first, I ignored it. People stared. That was nothing new.

But then I took a step toward the fridge. And he stepped out from behind the counter.

“Need somethin’?” His voice was sharp, cutting the space between us.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

I reached for the door handle.

“Which one?”

I blinked. “What?”

“Which drink you want?”

I frowned. “I dunno yet.”

His jaw tightened. “Then hurry up.”

The way he said it—like I didn’t belong there, like I was some kind of problem just for existing—made my hands tighten at my sides.

I reached for the blue bottle, the same one I always picked. I already knew I was short on change. Didn’t matter.

The second my fingers brushed the glass, he shifted.

Not fast, not loud. But definite.

A shift in his stance. A glance toward the counter. A weight in his right hand.

I dropped the bottle.

Didn’t even hear it hit the tile.

“Out.”

He didn’t have to say it twice.

The Walk Home

The street felt different after that.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been told to leave a place. But it was the first time I felt like I wasn’t just leaving a store. I was leaving something bigger.

I walked fast. Past the laundromat where the old ladies sat with baskets full of stories. Past the barber shop where Mr. Joko always gave me a nod like I was somebody. Past the cracked sidewalk where my little brother liked to draw lopsided stars.

At home, Ma was folding clothes. The air smelled like detergent and warm fabric.

She didn’t look up when I walked in. “You get your drink?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

I swallowed. “Didn’t have enough.”

She kept folding. Her hands were steady, smoothing out wrinkles, tucking in sleeves.

She didn’t ask anything else.

But that night, when she thought I was asleep, I heard her on the phone.

Voice low.

Sharp.

Angry.

“How do I tell him this is just the start?”

The Return

The next day, I went back.

Not because I wanted to. Not because I was thirsty.

But because I had to.

I needed to know if it was real. If it was just that day, just that moment. Or if it was something deeper. Something permanent.

I stepped into the store.

The bell jingled.

The fan rattled.

And the man behind the counter looked up.

His eyes landed on me.

And just like that, I knew.

It wasn’t about the drink. It wasn’t about the coins in my pocket.

It was about me.

I walked slow. Let him see.

I stopped in front of the fridge.

Opened it.

Took my time.

The air from the fridge was cold against my face. My fingers curled around the same blue bottle.

I turned.

Met his eyes.

And I dared him to stop me.

The Line You Can’t See

The counter felt . . . off. Like it had backed away just a little. Maybe it was in my head. The bottle was wet, slipping slightly as I held on tighter. A thought whispered—leave it, just go, see if he even reacts. But I wasn’t a thief. I was doing nothing wrong.

I stepped closer.

His stare locked on me. He didn’t budge, but his fingers twitched, just barely. Like he was gearing up for something. Like he saw a line in front of me that I didn’t even know was there.

I set the bottle down. Shoved the money forward.

He didn’t take it.

His eyes flicked to the security cam, then back at me. No words. Didn’t need any. I got the message.

He was measuring me. Deciding.

The air between us was heavy.

Then, slowly, he reached for the money.

The register beeped. A drawer clicked open. A moment passed, then a crumpled note landed on the counter. Change.

I picked up my drink. Turned.

I made it halfway to the door before he spoke.

“Don’t linger.”

The words weren’t loud, but they hit like a slap.

I stepped outside.

The bell jingled behind me, sharp and final.

More Than a Store

I stood on the sidewalk, bottle gripped tight, the pavement burning through my soles. People moved past—some fast, some slow—but none of them noticed.

None of them saw the line I had just stepped over.

The world kept moving like nothing had happened.

Like I hadn’t just been marked.

But I knew.

I turned the bottle in my hands, watching droplets slip down the plastic, vanishing into nothing. Such a small thing. Simple. But the store didn’t feel small anymore.

It wasn’t just a place to buy a drink.

It was a gate.

A test.

A reminder.

You don’t belong here.

You can leave, but you’ll still be carrying this with you.

I opened the bottle, took a long sip, and let the cold settle in my chest.

It didn’t change anything.

But it was mine.

The Lesson Ma Knew

That night, Ma was quiet. Not in the way she usually was, when she was tired after work. This was different.

She was waiting.

She knew I had gone back.

I set the half-drunk bottle down on the kitchen counter.

She looked at it, quiet for a second, like the words were stuck somewhere before they finally came out.

“Did he say anything?”

I hesitated. “Just told me not to linger.”

Her fingers tightened around the dish towel she was holding.

Then she exhaled, slow.

“Good.”

I frowned. “Good?”

She turned to me, eyes steady. “Means you didn’t let him push you out.”

I wanted to tell her it didn’t feel like I’d won anything. That it still felt like I was standing outside that store, even now.

But she already knew that.

She patted my cheek, her fingers rough but warm. “Now you know.”

“Know what?”

Her smile was sad. “That this isn’t about you.”

I didn’t understand what she meant.

Not yet.

But I would.

Marked, But Moving

Days passed. Then weeks.

I walked past that store almost every day. Sometimes I went in. Sometimes I didn’t.

The man never said anything more than what was necessary.

But the look stayed.

That weight. That mark.

It never left.

And yet—

Neither did I.

I stepped into other places, other rooms, other streets where that same look followed me. And every time, I carried that first lesson with me.

This isn’t about you.

But it still touches you.

Still lingers on your skin, in your shadow.

I could let it push me down.

Or I could keep walking.

I knew which one Ma would want.

And so, I walked.

End.

Fendy, a writer, musician, and creative mind from Malang, Indonesia, explores fiction, nonfiction, and business theory. His works have found homes in literary magazines and academic circles, reflecting his diverse storytelling and analytical depth. When he’s not writing, he explores storytelling through music under the name “Nep Kid.”

Photo credit: Photo by Robinson Greig on Unsplash.

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Saved

By Phyllis Wax

This time
will it be an ark
or a spaceship
when God decides
to cleanse the earth?

When rising oceans
submerge the coasts
and fire, flood and wind
ravage the rest,

when wars and wickedness
are rampant, when compassion
collides with greed

who will gather their loved ones
to climb aboard—

the righteous
or the rich?

Phyllis Wax writes on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI. She grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, and is distressed by what is going on there these days. Her poetry has appeared in many publications, including Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Spillway, Peacock Journal, Gyroscope Review, Wordpeace, New Verse News, Mobius, Your Daily Poem.

Photo credit: jaci XIII via a Creative Commons license.

you’re all for autism acceptance ’til

By Lauren Withrow

Lauren Withrow is an autistic disability advocate, mother of two autistic children, diverse writer, TikTok creator (@thegirlbehindthe_mask_), and Lead Registered Behavior Technician. Her poetic writing explores themes of autism, identity, love, and justice drawn from personal and professional experience.