A fairytale with three wishes, enchanting fables of dragons, elves, witches. My story contrasts, recovering from weakness, aphasia, and a damaged brain. My first wish would be strength returned. The magic wand waved, made me tremble with excitement. But instead blurted out “I want disability.” So, my right side was still hobbled, but at least I could park in handicapped spaces. My second wish was to cure my trouble speaking. But instead, because of aphasia babbled “I want lasagna.” So, I still could not talk, but at least I could eat some steamy pasta with gooey cheese. My third wish was to make by brain perfect. But instead, jabbered “I want my brain frozen.” The fairy gave me an icy slushie to drink. So, I had a headache on a hot day, my brain fizzled, but at least I was refreshed. My three wishes failed, so, it is back to the beginning. Weakness, aphasia, and a damaged brain. About the author:
Rochelle M. Anderson lives in Minnesota, USA. She is an attorney who had a severe stroke in 2007 and almost died. She is still disabled with difficulty walking, and because of aphasia struggles with reading and writing. Ms. Anderson is the author of Stormy Road: Reawakening from Stroke and Aphasia. She has been published in four chapbooks, and several online and written poetry collections. Writing poetry has helped her recover, and dictation fuels her words.
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In realms of thought where dreams reside Imagination blazing, reality being Visions dance, unbounded and wide Excusing torment plans The hellhounds of demons In your head dancing Creating worlds, both strange and freeing And felicitously prancing Masked as the devil The mind, a canvas for ideas to flow With distorted evil Frightening faces of anger That appear forever In your sight dimensions Are pestiferous reflections Of falling angels unkind Moving in your mind With every stroke, a story to bestow A tapestry of wonders, yet untold In a transcending energy tune Picking your brain to a ruin For end times coming soon About the author:
A native of South Detroit, Michigan, now residing in Hampstead, New Hampshire, Daniel Miltz is a seasoned freelance writer and poet whose life bridges the realms of technical precision and creative expression. With a distinguished 40-year career as a Mechanical Engineering Designer in high-level government aerospace programs, Daniel brings to his literary craft the same discipline and depth that defined his engineering pursuits. His poetic journey spans decades and continents of thought, earning him over 1,600 accolades across various respected poetry forums, inclusion in more than 250 anthologies, and the publication of two books to date. Deeply influenced by the free-spirited, improvisational style of the Beat Generation, Daniel found his literary voice during his formative bohemian years in California—a time marked by introspection, rebellion, and a search for authenticity through words. Poetry, for Daniel Miltz, is not merely an artistic outlet, but a lifelong vocation—an enduring lens through which he continues to explore the intersections of memory, identity, and human experience.
I have no cat in this room, so I sometimes feel like prey without a pet— preyed on by rats and their misdemeanours. Not one at a time, and not once do they pillage my room with their teeth. Faster than any reflex I could manifest, they bolt into safety like criminals. Survival instinct knows no moral bounds. At least, not for these little, unrepentant burglars with dentition that can break a glass or tear into a jerry can. Sometimes, I wake in the night to their noises, just the same way ruthless robbers steal your sleep forever with a dose of PTSD. At this point, how they enter doesn’t matter— after-the-facts that cannot alter the fact that smaller mammals have taken away your peace. My corrective measures may fix the broken window net, but not the broken loaves of bread, nor the broken pieces of paper where I drafted some poems. The BS of a rodent’s teeth is the ugly side of survival that neither follows the rules nor respects boundaries. Keeping vigils to mourn my poisoned sleep for a night, and distorted sleep cycles for a week, and a disorganised body block in a month, is the new routine eclipsing the one I planned for my self-care goals. I wonder if they have the brains to consider the hours I spend drafting poems or doing other duties, and let me find rest. I guess instinct is all they have left to live for the short while before the gums trap them, or before the pesticides do their worst. Not with their squeaks, or snake-like hisses that scare the shit out of me when the light is off, or other cacophonies they create with the slightest movement too heavy for my brain. Not their rough thuds when they fall from the curtain pole. The one time I chased an adolescent rat across the cable strapped on the wall, he stunned me with a Tom Cruise stunt— standing high on my door’s angle and looking me right in the eyes. I wonder what he was up to, and I’m sure he wondered what I was up to, looking at a predator as tall as the door he’s standing on. With a reflex designed for eluding a cat’s swift paws, I knew I stood no chance— not when I was about to move an inch. But I moved at least to get a broom, and that was all for me. About the author:
Tukur Ridwan (He/Him) writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Shortlisted in the Bridgitte James Poetry Competition (2025) and the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (2020), his works also appear in Afrocritik, Kelp Journal, ArtisansQuill, The African Writers Magazine, Kalahari Review, Cordite Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He won the Brigitte Poirson Monthly Poetry Contest (March 2018), authored A Boy's Tears on Earth's Tongue (Authorpedia, 2019), and The Forgiveness Series (Ghost City Press, 2022). He loves black tea, sometimes coffee. Twitter/IG @Oreal2kur
I'm sorry, I left my body here with you With no words to hear, no touch to feel No jokes to laugh at. Outside these layers Of my presence, this wilderness beckons-- Dark and misty, reeking of lurking entities Pushing and pulling me with their telepathy To channel my curiosity for mysteries. Worse, they have no name for me to register. Every voice within this forest Has me veering here and there Looking around for answers To the questions in my head. Even if I get an answer, I cannot tell from whom. Wasteful could a voice be without a name Like a dream without an interpreter. So, I'll find a name for each like semantics. Now that I'm back with you with the eyes Of my soul open to the complexion Of your mood, could you remind me Of the last thing you said, that threw me Into this dark subconscious pit, Into this trance that pitched me against My alter ego? This is how I monologue Without a word to animate my tongue, But for these words, this poetry outliving My silence. Could you jolt me back to life Again, when I'm lost beside you, my shadow? About the author:
Tukur Ridwan (He/Him) writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Shortlisted in the Bridgitte James Poetry Competition (2025) and the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (2020), his works also appear in Afrocritik, Kelp Journal, ArtisansQuill, The African Writers Magazine, Kalahari Review, Cordite Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He won the Brigitte Poirson Monthly Poetry Contest (March 2018), authored A Boy's Tears on Earth's Tongue (Authorpedia, 2019), and The Forgiveness Series (Ghost City Press, 2022). He loves black tea, sometimes coffee. Twitter/IG @Oreal2kur.
‘We should lose faith in….’ says the morning to every death.
Long ago there was a sunny kindergarten. And the Time is a galloping train. The crisscross. The brown sugar on the forehead of every battle. The unnecessary explosions in the womb. The wet gunpowder smiles at the ancient posterity. ‘Is there no wrong signal in the development?’ A voice remembers the words of Satan. ‘Let it rain in the tent….’ The ignorance in the funnel. The postcard meets the cuckoo in the middle of early autumn. Since evening there has been no evening post for the dead telegram.
Past monthly courses and curses, I am now thin-skinned. Just lickable red salt from five seconds holding the knife wrong while listening for imagined owls, while not writing “I love you” sonnets, while learning the power in weakness. About the author:
Nancy Scott has over 990 bylines in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, and audio commentaries. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Her work appears in *82 Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Braille Forum, Chrysanthemum, Kaleidoscope, One Sentence Poems, Persimmon Tree, Pulse Voices, Shark Reef, Wordgathering, and Yahoo News.
I’m too young
that’s what I always thought what I was taught you don’t get sick when you’re young It struck me like lightning sparking through my body leaving burns only I could see Illness doesn’t discriminate you can be given a life sentence without committing a crime chronic illness never saw that I was barely an adult that my life had just begun, it charged in and took control I didn’t stand a chance “I’m too young for this” an almost convincing line like a broken record ingrained into my brain telling me I should be okay 'you can’t get sick when you’re young' Yet you can never be ‘too young’, age isn’t part of the equation pain doesn’t ask for ID and sickness doesn’t check your year of birth a diagnosis doesn’t care that your life has just begun So I stand here now, without a choice learning to live with the life I was handed, pulling strength from setbacks and courage from downfalls claiming a life that is still mine unlearning the myths that society teaches
Each good day feels like a ticking time bomb,
waiting for the inevitable to explode. They say lightning never strikes twice, but maybe three, four, five times -- each hospital visit, another diagnosis, each bolt leaving burns I never asked for. The doctors call it chance. I call it a pattern etched in static, my body — a map marked with burns. I used to think lightning was rare, just a freak of nature. Now I know it waits in silence, and when it strikes, it doesn’t ask if I’m ready. They admire my strength, but they don’t see my fear. I’m more than the list they use to define me. I’m a daughter, a sister, a friend -- I’ve got ambitions, dreams that stretch beyond this storm. When will it end? I whisper to the thunder rumbling beneath my skin, but even as I crumble, I stand -- courageous, unbroken, and unashamed, a fierce light with the strength to carry on.
Today, the pain wears pearls, sits politely between my ribs. I dress her in cardigans and loose language: "I'm just a little tired." No one asks tired how it learned to limp. At the pharmacy, I forget my own name but remember every pill by shape, not color—color lies. The woman at checkout tells me I don’t look sick. As if illness should dress in spectacle, as if my body forgot to audition for their idea of broken. Some nights, my limbs forget they belong to me. Memory peels away like wallpaper in a flooded house-- who was I before the diagnoses piled up like eviction notices from my own skin? People offer cures wrapped in politeness, like scripture: drink more water, think happier thoughts, be grateful it’s not worse. Sometimes I nod. Sometimes I swallow their kindness like a shard of mirror, because even pity can feel like attention. I am the archive of every "you're exaggerating," every "have you tried yoga?" every "maybe it’s in your head." Yes, it is. It lives there. It eats there. It sleeps curled beside my dreams, drooling its fog into the marrow of what I once called normal. I carry absence in my spine. It pulses when I smile too long. I’ve buried friends beneath my silence, lovers in the shape of questions they were too afraid to ask. No one sees the room beneath my skin-- where the lights flicker and all the windows are locked from the inside. I have written letters to the version of me they would believe. She walks without flinching, remembers birthdays, laughs without consequence. But she does not exist. And I am still here. Unable to find parking in the complicated structure that is my life. About the author:
Gloria Ogo is an American-based Nigerian writer with over seven published novels and poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Eye to the Telescope, Brittle Paper, Spillwords Press, Metastellar, CON-SCIO Magazine, Kaleidoscope, The Easterner, Daily Trust, and more. With an MFA in Creative Writing, Gloria was a reader for Barely South Review. She is the winner of the Brigitte Poirson 2024 Literature Prize, the finalist for the Jerri Dickseski Fiction Prize 2024 and ODU 2025 College Poetry Prize both with honorable mentions. Her work was also longlisted for the 2025 American Short(er) Fiction Prize. https://glriaogo.wixsite.com/gloria-ogo.
Every witch has a magical familiar, but outsiders cannot understand them. They are a witch’s poison and puppet. My mistress loved to bake. “To lure the dear children in,” she’d say. Their bones littered her garden. Two brave ones tiptoed inside once, without her knowledge, without my usual warning. I wanted to see how far they’d go. The boy was on a mission, his sweet tooth crying out for the gingerbread men, who waved, sneering and daring the boy to munch on their bodies. The girl was more cautious, hesitating at the open spread feast my mistress had spellbound eternal. No one is able to resist, not even the girl, and one bite can corrode control. Like flies to honey, the pair fluttered to the food, and I sighed in disappointment, aware that my mistress was hurrying, salivating from my call. Mistress trapped them in the kitchen and prepared the oven, but the fire refused to grow hotter. The girl volunteered, claiming she knew a trick with extra firewood. She knew a trick indeed. I watched helpless, as she pushed my mistress into the oven and sealed her inside. My mistress burned. Her screams polluted the air, her fingernails marked the oven door, as her flesh blackened to ashes. I never saw the boy and girl again, and though it pained me to lose my mistress, my host, I can’t say things will change much. Mistress called me Sugar, invisible, chronic, unknown, whispering children inside my gingerbread walls like a sickness. About the author:
Corinne Pollard is a disabled UK horror writer and poet, published with Black Hare Press, Carnage House Publishing, Inky Bones Press, Graveside Press, Three Cousins Publishing, The Ravens Quoth Press, Raven Tale Publishing, A Coup of Owls Press, and The Stygian Lepus. Corinne writes reviews and the weekly newsletter for The Horror Tree. Aside from writing, Corinne enjoys metal music, visiting graveyards, and shopping for books to read. Follow her dark world on: https://corinnepollard.wordpress.com/ |
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