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Goodbye My Best Friend |
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Lonely
Painting by Monica Barrameda |
Rachel Busnardo |
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The
Price You Pay by Clayton Beach |
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The
Tale of the Queen of Endor by Clayton Beach |
Green
grasses and fresh earth rendezvous together where blistered finger tips trace their familiar greetings while she stares blankly at the red plastic pinwheel in front of her. Someone had put it there as if its cheerfulness and simplicity made things better as if its movement brought life to this dead place. The earth dug like fingernails into her right cheek and the right side of her body, her new black linen dress added no protection to the harshness of the dirt. Red maple leaves dance around her like the ones they had to sweep from their tree house fort. The one they built together. The same fort that could still be seen from her bedroom window where they would retreat when Billy Tomain was threatening them and she would say “Quick Teddy pull up the ladder!” He would because he would do anything for her they would get married one day and have a Chocolate Labrador that would learn to climb the ladder to their tree house fort and eat macaroni every night with pop rocks for desert or sometimes chocolate chip cookies on special occasions. Even now she twirls the pink plastic ring he gave her around her ring finger and stares at the pinwheel thinking “it’s my fault, it’s the black cars fault…” “Why couldn’t I scream?” One day she would cancel a first date with a man because he picked her up in a black Lincoln and would cry when her own children would ask if they could build a tree house fort. The warmth of the sun petted her left side while the harshness of the dirt dug at her right, life and death, but the red pinwheel kept spinning. |
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Wintersong
by Clayton Beach |
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Mad
Dogs Bite by Janet Berend |
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Desert
Firefly by Taen Bounthapanya Third Place Winner, Poetry |
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Virtual
Reality by Taen Bounthapanya |
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Early
morning staring at an ugly fountain
by Breelyn Burns |
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Ten
Year Old Militia by Breelyn Burns Editor's Choice Award, Poetry |
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Arrogance
Unplugged by Rachel Busnardo |
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Goodbye
My Best Friend by Rachel Busnardo |
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At
a Small-Town Club by Jessica Conaway |
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Red
Stiletto Heels by Jessica Conaway |
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Naked
and Perfect T.C. Cook Second Place Winner, Poetry |
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Too
Far by T.C. Cook |
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Someday by Jermane Cooper |
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The
Girl Who Wrote This Stands at 5’ 2” (on a Good Day) by Shayna Coplan |
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Pontificating
Drunks by Dennis Dorsey |
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The
Symptom by Dennis Dorsey |
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Saturday
Night Pick-Up by Tanya Duer |
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Lost
in a Moment by Jamie Dykstra |
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Denizens
of Brilliance by Holland Elder |
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Between
His Futon and the Bedroom Wall
by Rachel Jones |
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Getting
Lost in National City Trying to Find Acapulco by Rachel Jones Angelo Carli Poetry Prize |
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Having
to Hide by Rachel Jones |
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I Used To Take My Anger Out On Plants by Rachel Jones | ||
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The
Piano by Rachel Jones |
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Words
Like Clay by Rachel Jones |
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Begetting
Tragedy by Chris Joy |
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My
First Last by Chris Joy |
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There's
No Problem Officer by Brittney Krier |
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Ernest
Hemingway (My Cat): A Villanelle by Melanie Maheu |
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The
Small Beauties of Marriage by Melanie Maheu |
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Do
The Punks Still Raise Their High Pumping Fists in the Air? by Brendan Mitchell |
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Love
by Natalie Parker |
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Watching
TV While Having Sex by Jessee Pugliese |
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partner by Ruth Rice |
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Blood by Rachelle Shull |
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Fall by Jacob Triffo |
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Time
Served by Matt Tweedie |
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Romance
to Reality by Aga-Marie Wehrly |
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Solicitude by Matt Whitney |
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Why
We Write by Karen Wooton |