Blood for Water: Hands
I could begin with how I often lay in bed thinking about the blood running down my arms while looking out at the flowers from my window. I could trace my laying out to the fact that we don’t talk about Jerry. Jerry, who supposedly was cleaning his gun in the laundry room and the gun went off. I could talk about the ways the story changes over time from person to person.
Continue reading “Tiara Raven Marie Clover”
It’s that time of year: December Letters Project preparation time!
We invite you and/or your families, clubs, organizations, schools, and communities to be part of MITA’s – 2025 – December Letters Project. This is MITA’s annual local literacy project, but we encourage others to run a December Letters Project in their local communities if you’re not local to the greater western New York region.
Continue reading “2025 December Letters Project”
Piece 1:
A woman stands by a mountain at night
prodded and plodded by authoritarian men
she rests her head as a specimen
and in the morning that follows wakes up to be hollowed
Continue reading “Kukkamari Gröndahl”
Ode to my kidneys
Until recently, I didn’t know you were there. I didn’t think about you or worry about you. You were my unsung lifeline.
But now, you are showing signs of exhaustion. I feel you, nestled somewhere beneath my rib cage, one of you on each side, breaking a little bit more each day. I feel you, dying.
Continue reading “Lee Blackbird”
Within Sterile Walls
For so long I could still see the hospital from my dorm room. With its concrete structure perforating the landscape as an incessant reminder. The windows that crawled up its sides like ants, with each one seemingly whispering to me, and I’m repulsed. I can always feel the visceral response welling in my body when I see it, somewhere between comical and infuriating. Now in the mornings its form haunts me, and in the evening when I close the curtains, it still manages to live in the dark and silent room. It swallows tranquility, spitting back up a mocking tar like mass that attaches itself to my skin.
Continue reading “Elise Boria”
Saralene Tapley’s Gallery
‘Blue Portrait,’ acrylic on canvas, 26 x 30 inches, 2025
Continue reading “Saralene Tapley”
Uncomfortable, Yet Familiar: An Asylum Experience
I take you to my room on a cold April morning. My head usually feels like the boulder Sisyphus had to push up the hill but that day it was much worse. The littlest sounds felt like I was being waterboarded. Drip, drip, drip. They came to me like drops of water slowly hitting my head. Each one more agonizing than before.
Continue reading “Natalie Forsyth”
Underwater
Your partner, Megan, greeted me at the airport with a warm hug. We communicated by phone the three weeks you were missing. When we saw each other, there was an instant knowing, a recognition of deep grief that we both carried.
Continue reading “Alison Dawson”
The Emperor Has No Clothes! Resist Zionist Reason!
Mad Studies in Palestine Solidarity
Johanna Rothe
It is November 2023. My friend and I are sitting on my couch in my Berlin home. We are discussing a draft of my friend’s upcoming conference presentation. The presentation is about the case of a teacher in Berlin Neukölln hitting a Palestinian student. German media and government framed the incident into a scare about Palestine threatening the peace in German schools. We are finished discussing, in a way, when I advise my friend: “Someone at this conference is going to ask you to condemn Hamas. You should think about how you want to respond.”
Continue reading “Johanna Rothe”
Come and See Me at the Intersection: Navigating My Gender Identity, Faith in Christianity, and Mental Health
God, I love you, and I know you love me. You have made me who I am today, and I believe you make no mistakes.
Continue reading “Soe Win”
Madwomen in the Attic 