Nancy Jensen

The Room

I am alone in the Room.  It has dirty old orange shag carpet on the floor and no furniture except a trash can.  The windows are boarded up so you can only see treetops and sky at the top.  On the other side of the Room are French doors, also all boarded up.  A person standing on the other side of the French doors would not be able to tell that there is a Room beyond those doors.  In the Room a light bulb hangs down from a cord, but the control switch to turn the light on or off is not in the Room.

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Fanney Björk Ingólfsdóttir

Fragments of a Story

1.

It‘s hard for me to describe my surroundings. Maybe because I just keep looking down at my hands or maybe because the tears are blurring my vision. I can clearly make out my mother’s voice. How stern it is, rough as always when she is giving someone a piece of her mind. But at the same time there is a tremble in it now, a nervous vibration that I have not heard before. Almost as if the sternness is breakable, at the verge of shattering at any moment.

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Sara Hobler

The following poems are from Sara Hobler’s poetry collection, E=MC^2.

Holy Lunch

Chief complaints are boredom and back pain

And Hunger, puts the body under a strain

Hungry makes arthritis hard to ignore

They weren’t lying when they said it keeps the score of your life and mentality

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Beth Sheeran

Sonnet 43

I begged them for the tools to move in with you

I promised to tear down the shack called medicine falling down on you

I wanted my hands to blister and age and wrinkle putting up new walls to cover you

I wanted to bring you wildflowers in the morning to enjoy with your coffee and greet you with a smile

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Rebecca Donaldson

Dear Little Girl, I’ve Got You: A Letter to my Inner Child

I look at a picture of you and smile at your botched bangs. Whoever cut your hair must have had their eyes closed. The left side is definitely shorter than the right. You’re cute though. Adorable. Your green eyes look just like mine, and I can see we both like flowers. You look a little sad. I wonder why. There’s a hollowness to your eyes. Either you haven’t learned to smile for the camera yet, or you’re trying not to cry. I can’t tell.

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Sofia Stremlin-Adams

Maed

At five years old I had an impressive resume: aspiring coven leader, professional frog wrangler, and avid Michael Jackson fan. Absent from my curious resume was the ability to spell my own name. Even though I would be repeating kindergarten in the fall as a result of my creative spelling, I was in no hurry to uncover what seemed like an impossible cipher.

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Carol Krause

Love Letter for the Broken

When you’ve lost every hope, give thanks. For we will be waiting, with bouquets of light. In your grief, we will rest beside you. We will weep with you, without saying a word. You can cry out in desperation. We will cry out with you. Even if you bury your eyes in the darkness, we will not forsake you. I tell you this, because I know there is a hole in your soul. And I know the world gets inside the hole. Then you feel everything that is outside, inside. This is why you break. I could offer to fix you, but then who would break for the world? Instead, we have come with empty flowers that you can hold in your hands. And a lullaby that can last a lifetime. If you open the bottom of your ear to the sky. We have come to tell you not to change, not really. For the hole in your soul fits our world inside. And when you weep, we rejoice. Instead of making you into something that does not break, how about we show you how to shatter without restriction? Then we can cry out together. For life is cruel and unjust. While every day asks much of the heart. We will hold your hands, in the shadows. And you will hold our hands, in the light. That’s what love is. There’s not much else to say. Just thank you. For the hole in your soul. That tends the whole world, inside. 

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