Poetry – Page 2 – Writers Resist

I’m Not Happy, the Therapy Client Says

By Suzanne O’Connell

“I’m not happy,” the therapy client says.
“Tell me about it,” I say.
She tells of a broken marriage,
a husband, who when he does come home,
is drunk and abusive.
“He tells me I’m ugly,” she says,
“I’m afraid all the time.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine how
you could find happiness
in such an unhappy situation,” I say.
She looks surprised. Disappointed.
“I thought you would have suggestions,” she says.
“Imagine you were in the midst of war,” I say,
“would you expect yourself to be filled with joy?”

Nowadays, gurus tell us to find happiness in life.
They never say how.
I feel like a failure because I can’t.
Every day there are new cruelties,
more chaos, more things that threaten.
I try to focus on the small things.
I notice the smell of a pink rose,
I taste the chocolate gelato,
I talk to someone I love.
But if we survive this,
I want the future to know
that we have survived a war,
a struggle in the darkness,
a time when happiness was hard to find.

Suzanne O’Connell’s work can be found in Poet Lore, North American Review, Drunk Monkeys, Paterson Literary Review, Chiron Review, Beach Chair Press, and Atlanta Review among others. Suzanne was a finalist in the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, 2024. Her two poetry collections, A Prayer for Torn Stockings and What Luck, were published by Garden Oak Press. Her website is suzanneoconnell-poet.net.

Photo by Abraham Puthoor 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 on our Give a Sawbuck page.

Incubator

By Bethany Bruno

You were twenty-four
when your brain went silent.
No dreams.
No waking.

But still they kept you warm
beneath the weight of wires,
your skin bathed in fluorescent blue,
your breath machine-fed.

Not for you.
For the small, curled possibility inside.
They called it life,
but what they meant was labor.

They turned your body
into a hushed room
without windows,
without voice.

A vessel.
A holding cell.
Your name was Adriana.
Say it aloud.
Adriana Smith.

Not “the mother.”
Not “the miracle.”
Not “the body.”

A woman.
A daughter.
Gone.

One pound, they said.
A child barely bigger than a fist,
lungs like damp paper,
skin still translucent.

And yet they carved her out of you
as if hope could be harvested
from a still-warm grave.

Only a flatline,
a hum in the room,
the smell of bleach and latex
masking what was taken.

This is what they do.
They drape it in reverence.
Call it holy.

But watch how they hollow you.
Make a mother
from a body
already gone,
then dress it up
as a gift.

To the women watching,
this is the cost.

They are counting your worth
in ounces,
in gestational time,
in how long your heart can be coaxed to beat
after you have stopped being.

Stay alive long enough
and you, too,
can be used.

Bethany Bruno is a Floridian author whose writing echoes the language, history, and quiet beauty of her home state. Born in Hollywood and raised in Port St. Lucie, she earned a BA in English from Flagler College and an MA from the University of North Florida. Her work has been featured in over sixty literary journals and magazines, including The Sun, The MacGuffin, and The Louisville Review. When she’s not writing or chasing down forgotten corners of history, Bethany enjoys laughter-filled moments with her husband and silly daughters. Visit www.bethanybrunowriter.com for more.

Photo of a baby incubator created by Tampa Joey via a Creative Commons license.

Louder than Silence

By Rabia Akhtar

I was raised in patriarchy.
Not an idea—
a weight.
It sat on my shoulders,
pressed into my lungs.
Silence was law.
Obedience—oxygen.

I cracked it open.
Spoke when I wasn’t meant to.
Walked where I wasn’t welcome.
Burned their script,
page by page.

Crossed borders,
thought the fight would end.
It didn’t.
It just got dressed up—
new clothes, better manners.

Racism at the table.
Sexism in a grin.
Bias wrapped in clean grammar.
Walls made of glass.
Chains you can’t see.

Intersectionality means this:
not one thing or another—
but the collision of all I am.
A name that signals faith I no longer claim,
a passport that shuts doors before I arrive,
brown skin at boardroom tables,
a woman’s voice in rooms built for men.

Each identity a thread,
woven tight,
patterns of exclusion
hidden in plain sight.
Carrying double the weight,
earning half the credit.
Always too much.
Never enough.

But listen.
I am not fragile.
Not a guest.
Not a mistake.

I am the crack in their system.
The fire they can’t contain.
The voice they wanted hushed—
still rising.
Still louder.
Louder than silence.

Rabia Akhtar is a human rights defender focusing on gender and identities in contexts of conflict and war, currently based in Singapore. Her poetry explores themes of identity, gender-based crimes, and resilience, drawing on her experiences as a woman of color navigating complex forms of belonging and exclusion while championing others’ rights. Her work seeks to give voice to stories often left untold.

Photo by Joe Yates on Unsplash.

Two Poems by Margaret Bleichman

A Fresh Take on Historic Integrity

Boone Hall Plantation and partnering architects
are proud to share that the Cotton Gin House

built in the 1850s for cotton processing

will keep its original brick exterior
to maintain its historic integrity

but will be completely renovated inside

The remodeled Cotton Gin House features
a new visitor center, gift shop, event space

a museum highlighting centuries of history
The finished product will add

to the continued history of Boone Hall

Boone Hall Historic Gin House
newly restored, a fresh take on history
provides any event a timeless backdrop

With views overlooking award-winning gardens

The Gin House, perfectly perched

in the center of the action of Boone Hall

Perfect for a party of 80 with sit down

up to 100 standing

We require an insurance policy

$1,000,000 worth of general liability

Take the Boone Hall experience to the next level

Or: How to White-Wash History

the corporate descendants of Boone Hall enslavers
where enslaved labor toiled to enrich Charleston County
with thousands of bricks made by unpaid enslaved hands
as we are the original experts of polite façade
according to our unassailable definition of integrity
we’ve removed inconvenient and unpleasant reminders

ghosts of kidnapped Africans and their children
to earn a generous profit on our “Lost Cause” mythology
designed for the comfort of the white visitor
daily and continuing violations to centuries of harm
and ensure the continued erasure of Black history

a house of deprivation, starvation and violence
as the actual history is too much of a downer
perfect for revisionist “Tara” fantasies

where barefoot children picked cotton dawn to dusk
like spiked iron collars placed upon enslaved shoulders
that was slapping, kicking, punching and whipping

on newly polished floors covering blood-stained ground
for a true fake experience, stand 14 hours without break
much as our forebears insured their human property
tho’ we accept no accountability for our past brutality
help us help you put as many levels as possible

between Boone Hall and its true history

Note: The left column contains direct quotes from local news and Boone Hall Plantation websites.

Etymology of the Erased

with deep respect to the Nipmuc Nation

Nipmuc: nippe– ‘fresh water’, amaug– ‘fish taken by the hook’   ̶  Algonquian
            Fresh water people flourish
            call Nippenet home for twelve thousand years
            cherish the lion, black birch and white pine

            thank Manitoo for abundant waters
            for largemouth bass and rainbow trout
            and pray for all living creatures

reservare: ‘to keep back’   ̶  Latin
            Wash ashores seep inland, ghostly,
            convert forest to property
            extinguish the lion

            convert Nipmuc people to Christian
            ‘Praying Indians’ (pray or die)
            then enslave or slaughter them, anyway

            and imprison the rest on Deer Island, Boston
            no water, no food, no shelter, in winter
            Few survive, some escape

Quaben: ‘place where many waters meet’   ̶  Nipmuc
            Snow-melt rivers tumble down
            a ring of mountainsides, sustain
            a fertile valley, fill a modest lake

            Boston dwellers thirst for more, claim the basin
            as their own, dam the rivers, flood and drown
            settler farms and four whole towns a hundred miles away

Qunnonoo: ‘mountain lion’ ̶  Nipmuc
            Fresh qunnonoo scat confirms
            Dakota lion’s eastward trek
            from Black Hills to the Quabbin rim

Waban: ‘the wind, the spirit’; a Nipmuc elder of the 1600’s; a suburb of Boston ̶  Nipmuc
            Mystery figure glides long and low
            through Waban yards, and lopes
            past bikes and sand toys, sleek and muscled

            its three-foot black-tipped tail
            distinctive in the pre-dawn mist
            cub or prey dangling from its jaws

Margaret Bleichman is an emerging poet, queer activist and educator with writing in, or forthcoming in, Gyroscope Review, Poets Reading the News, Kitchen Table Quarterly, Fifth Wheel, Fauxmoir, The Dewdrop, and Between Us. Their poetry has won awards in two Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry contests. A software engineer and professor, they helped establish LGBTQ+ health benefits and STEM programs to engage underrepresented students.

“Erased” by Rob Williams via a Creative Commons license.

Refugees

By Leah Mueller

for Basel Adra

Each morning, he awakens
to the same gunfire, the same pain.

He sees the enemy’s
implacable face: square body
bundled into a gray flak vest,
weapon clutched inside an outstretched glove.
His home once more reduced to rubble.

He moves his possessions
to a different structure,
and then to another, each
more remedial than the last.

Water is scarce, food almost nonexistent.
Loaf of bread, spoonful of white rice.
Sometimes, a few vegetables.

The young eat first.
Parents devour whatever remains.

Elders know when airstrikes are coming,
sense the impact deep within their bones.
Still, they laugh. They nap. They play with the children.
They cover their wounds with strips of cloth.

Each afternoon, he hits the road:
trudging through dust, demanding freedom
that he may never live to see.
Townspeople cluster around him, chanting
as they clutch handmade signs.

Their slogans dream of a home
where Palestinians belong at last—
a land that lies right in front of them,
and yet seems as distant as sleep.

Leah Mueller’s work is published in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Citron Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Does It Have Pockets, Outlook Springs, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has received several nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. One of her short stories appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Her fourteenth book, Stealing Buddha was published by Anxiety Press in 2024. Website: www.leahmueller.org.

Photograph by Dale Spencer via a Creative Commons license.

Divertissement

By Candice M. Kelsey

I run the country and the world. –Donald Trump

Not only able to make guards bend
to her will, she also brings Creon slow madness
with one swoop of her wand. A seduction
at the end of Act IV from Charpentier’s opera,
triumphant scene from Eurpides’ Medea
where royal henchmen fall to a woman, powerful
and no longer pleading. Creon’s loyal guards
transformed into female dancers seizing the king, Médée
premiered in Paris as trials for witchcraft
raged across the Atlantic. On stage, the actress
makes a costume change, slips off her gown and stands
in Sorceress black, hair and make-up primed
for vengeance. More enchantment than distraction.
A banished woman never loses everything,
but dark waters of the Styx always betray a king.

Candice M. Kelsey (she/her) is a poet and educator living in both L.A. and Georgia. She’s developed a taste for life’s absurd glow, long skirts, and juicy opera podcasts. She roasts vegetables like it’s a sacred ritual and wears mostly black because her late father-in-law said it’s not her color. Somehow her work has received Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominations, and she woke up one day as the author of eight books. Please acknowledge her existence @Feed_Me_Poetry or www.candicemkelseypoet.com.

Photo by Chema via a Creative Commons license.

The Ministry of Truth

By Tara Campbell

The Ministry says it’s no joke: today
I broke the law. I was too woke today.

They claim I denigrated our great land.
Its sacred trust is what I broke today.

They feel it would be harmful to allow
my words to reach the common folk today.

They say I poked too roughly at our nation’s
history, fragile as a yolk today.

My only crime was pointing out the flames:
the Constitution’s up in smoke today.

Tara Campbell (www.taracampbell.com) is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse. She teaches flash and speculative fiction, and is the author of two novels, two hybrid collections, and two short story collections. Her sixth book, City of Dancing Gargoyles (SFWP), was a finalist for the 2025 Philip K. Dick Award, and listed in Reactor Magazine’s “Best Books of 2024” and Locus and SFWA’s Recommended Reading.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk via a Creative Commons license.

The Revolution Will Wear Sneakers

By Sabyasachi Roy

they said revolution
would thunder in cavalry boots—
epic, unmissable, majestic.

we’ll come instead in well-worn sneakers,
laces neon against cracked pavement,
soles worn skinny from marching
every forgotten block.

our plans won’t fit in tidy briefs—
they’ll be scrawled on café napkins,
between kombucha sips and sideways glances,
doodles of fists, flowers, flame.

we’ll scent the barricades with jasmine,
our battle-cries a rising laughter
that shatters the sleep of tyrants.

they’ll wait for cannon fire—
we’ll greet them with tomorrow’s dawn
in shoes built for the long haul,
ready to outwalk their fear.

this is how we win:
one bold step, one shared grin,
one sneaker-stamp echo
that outlasts their thunder.

Sabyasachi Roy is an academic writer, poet, artist, and photographer. His poetry has appeared in The Broken Spine, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Dicey Brown, The Potomac, and more. He contributes craft essays to Authors Publish and has a cover image in Sanctuary Asia. His oil paintings have been published in The Hooghly Review. You can follow his writing on Matador here and his photography and paintings here.

Photo credit: Jason Tester via a Creative Common license

Two Poems by Maryam, Illustrated by Narwan

More Than a Thousand Days Without School

For the last time,I heard my school’s ring,
the melody that runs us toward growth.
For the last time, I sat in its chair,
the chair that helps me achieve my goals.
For the last time, I travelled by my teacher’s teaching
to discover the wonders of the earth and the sky.
For the last time, I sang on its stage,
for freedom and peace.

Since then, I’ve been caged in four walls of my home,
for more than a thousand days.
I gaze at my school’s uniform
hanging on my bed,
not putting it in the closet,
hoping one day I could go to school.
I remember the last day
at my school.
Everyone congratulated me for upgrading to 7th grade.
My scores shone on my result sheet,
but my eyes had blood crying.
Instead of being happy and celebrating my upgrade,
I mourned for it, wished to be failed,
so, one more time, I could go to the dream world.
The monsters had banned the dreams
for girls beyond the sixth grade.

They could close the doors of dreams,
but not those of my mind.
They are frightened of my pen,
because it’s stronger than their guns.
My pen is my weapon
against their guns.

Dear World, Dear Humans, Why Are You Silent?

We are collapsing in the unfairness of their ignorance.
We are locked in the cage of their selfishness.
They bury us while we are alive.
We are dying under the stone of their torture.
Our wings are clipped, our pens are broken,
our freedom is lost, our dreams are burnt. . .
In the quiet stillness, the world watches our gradual death.

Dear world, could you hear our plea?
Could you tell me where human rights are?
Or are we the exceptions to that?
Dear world, is it too much we ask for?
Our classroom symbolized our hope,
the blackboard, the chalk that whispers our dreams
Our uniform: black dress and white scarf that express our piety.
Dear humans, is it too much we ask for?
To not clip our wings, not break our pens?
To not bury, to live; is it too much we ask for?
Dear world, dear humans, why are you silent?

Maryam is a young Afghan poet and writer who weaves words into resistance. Her voice rises from a land where silence is survival, yet she dares to speak of lost childhoods, of girls without schools, of the unheard. Through her poetry, Maryam carries grief and hope, and creates light where darkness insists.

Narwan, creator of “Girls Not Permitted,” is a 13-year-old Afghan artist who speaks through her pencil what many cannot say out loud. Her drawing reflects hidden pains, quiet strength, resilience, and unshakable dreams of girls in a world that silences them. With simple lines, she tells powerful stories.

They Tell Us

By Dawn Tasaka Steffler

I

Wait until buyer’s remorse sets in
Wait until it hurts the farmers
Until it hurts the veterans
Until the social security checks stop coming
Until they take away birthright citizenship
Until they take away freedom of speech
Until they take away the vote from women
Until another pandemic rears its head and hundreds of thousands die again

Whispers circulate
But what if we don’t want to wait?
Where are the protests?
What are we so afraid of?

Actually we are very afraid
We only act brave

They tell us we are the sleeping bear
And you know what they say
You don’t want to poke a sleeping bear

And one of us asks in a clear young voice
Why don’t we want to poke the bear?
If we wake the sleeping bear won’t the nightmare end?
Everyone nods their heads in agreement

They tell us
No, we’re going to roll over and play dead

Wait, are we a sleeping bear or a dead bear?

III

They tell us wait until the midterms
If they want to hang themselves give them plenty of rope
Don’t stand in the way of the process

Perplexed we look to our left and our right
to the person standing next to us

One of us whispers
I don’t think they know what they’re doing
This has never happened before

Ah- but it has
another one of us whispers
Just not here

Dawn Tasaka Steffler (she/her) is an Asian-American writer from Hawaii who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a Smokelong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow, winner of the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and was selected for both the 2024 Wigleaf Top 50 long list and 2025 Best Small Fictions. Her stories appear in Pithead Chapel, Fractured Lit, Moon City Review, The Forge, JMWW, and more. She is working on a novella-in-flash that explores the challenges and joys of parenting queer kids. Find her online at dawntasakasteffler.com and on X, BlueSky and Instagram @dawnsteffler.

Photo credit: Ged Carroll via a Creative Commons license.

NOPE

By Alina Zollfrank

I’m an app balker. Proof?
            You can do this on your cell phone,
eager salespeople soothe
                        and I, I refuse –
            Just check in on your screen,
the medical clinic suggests
            and I, I walk right in and demand
                        the eye contact that’s owed –
            It’s easy to transfer funds this way,
pesters my credit union,
            and I, I stash wadded cash
            to the tune of no one –
                        But that’s how we do attendance,
school staff bristle
            and I ink-scribble my autograph –

My rebel smile so wide
I can taste the earwax.

The willful ocean wave has one job to do
and so do I. An orca in a clownfish-
schooled sea. An app balker in this,
this land of feigned connect – I forge
communion. Drummed lone morse code
washes away the unnecessary –

My smacking flukes d/i/s/r/u/p/t

Alina Zollfrank dreams trilingually in the Pacific Northwest. She believes artists and writers are humanity’s true pulse, social media might just kill our essence, and produce should be shared with neighbors. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize and recently appeared in Orchards Poetry Journal, Heimat Review, SAND, Eastern Iowa Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Comstock Review, The Braided Way, and others. Alina is a grateful recipient of the 2024 Washington Artist Trust Grant and committed disability advocate.

Photo credit: Amit Gupta via a Creative Commons license.

The Moment

By Zoey Knowlton

I followed you to your car
he says
To tell you that I think you’re hot
beautiful
he corrects

A stammer of thanks

Inside, I am
            beaming
            validated female
            affirmed trans woman

Later, the what if
            creeps,
      slinking through
                        the euphoria

What if
            he hurt
            he grabbed
            he         persisted

I tell my story to
            a room full of
                        women
They nod, understanding
            too well

Welcome to us
            to the sisterhood
            to femininity
            to existence

Zoey Knowlton (she/her) is a transgender author who lives amidst the redwoods in the Pacific Northwest. By day, she is a Health Educator who works with at-risk teenagers and young adults. By night, she reads, she writes, and she spends time with her wife and children. As a woman in recovery and transitioning, Zoey enjoys exploring the themes of change, progress, and uncertainty in her writing.

Photo credit: Photo by Nicolas Spehler on Unsplash.

Mad Libs Drinking Game

By Anna Kiggins

Game rules: replace nouns with alcoholic beverages in Trump’s infamous January 6th speech à la the classic children’s game.

Media will not show the magnitude
of this Kentucky bourbon. Even I
when I turned today, I looked, and I
saw thousands of Kentucky bourbons
here. But you don’t see hundreds of thousands
of Kentucky bourbons behind you because
they don’t want to show that!

All of us here today do not want to see
our moonshine stolen by emboldened radical left
Democrats, which is what they’re doing.
And stolen by the fake news media. That’s what they’ve done
and what they’re doing. We will never give up, we will never
concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede
when there’s moonshine involved.

We will not let them silence
your old fashioned. We’re not
going to let it happen, I’m
not going to let it happen.
(Audience chants: “fight for old fashioned!”)

We’re gathered together in the heart
of our nation’s capital for one very, very basic
and simple reason: to save our Moscow mules.
We want to go back and we want to get this right
because we’re going to have somebody in there
that should not be in there and our Moscow mules
will be destroyed and we’re not going to stand for that!

The weak whiskey, and that’s it. I really believe it.
I think I’m going to use the term, the weak whiskey.
You’ve got a lot of them. And you got a lot of great ones.
But you got a lot of weak ones.

And then late in the evening
or early in the morning, boom
these explosions of hot toddies!
And all of a sudden,
all of a sudden it started
to happen.
(Audience chants: “hot toddies!”)

And you know what else?
We don’t have a free and fair gimlet.
Our gimlet is not free,
it’s not fair. It suppresses thought, it suppresses speech
and it’s become the enemy of the people.
It’s the biggest problem we have in this country.

And after this, we’re going to walk down,
and I’ll be there with you,
we’re going to walk down,
we’re going to walk down

because you’ll never take back our White Russians
with weakness. You have to show strength,
and you have to be strong.

I’d fight, they’d fight. Pop pop. You’d believe me,
you’d believe them. Margaritas come out.
You know, margaritas had their point of view,
I had my point of view, but you’d have
an argument.

I now realize how good it was
if you go back ten years, I realized
how good, even though I didn’t necessarily love
them, I realized how good.
It was like a cleansing shot of Everclear, right?

You will have an illegitimate screwdriver.
That’s what you’ll have. And we can’t let that happen.

With your help over the last four years,
we built the greatest mint julep in the history
of our country and nobody even challenges that.

And again, most people would stand there
at 9 o’clock in the evening and say
I want to thank you very much,
and they go off
to some other life.
But I said something’s wrong here,
something is really wrong,

and we fight—we fight like hell.
And if you don’t fight like hell,
you’re not going to have tequila sunrises anymore.

I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless
sex on the beach.

Anna Kiggins writes poems, essays, and hybrid works. She recently earned an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University. Her poetry can be found in Puerto del Sol, The Basilisk Tree, AvantAppalachia, and The Brussels Review. Her reviews can be found in The Hollins Critic. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and works in behavioral health.

Photo credit: Steven Miller via a Creative Commons license.

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.

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.

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.

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.