I speak to you now, soft twin of silence and song--
not in dread,
but in dialogue.
Let this be a reckoning, not a reckoning by force--
but one by tenderness.
 
You have been
the site of wonder,
the seat of shame.
 
When I was young, I covered you,
wishing invisibility.
I mistook self-consciousness for humility--
before I understood vulnerability
as the birthplace of worth.
 
You emerged slowly, like truth,
late-blooming.
And when you came into your own--
not grandly, but fully--
I stood taller beside you.
 
You were never loud,
but you were mine.
And later, loved.
Held in warm hands.
Praised in the hush of midnight.
My fleeting confidence rose with you,
and even in its impermanence,
there was joy.
 
You fed life once.
You poured out milk
like a quiet miracle.
You were more than symbol.
You were service,
love in biology.
 
Now, they scan you.
They mark you with numbers and doubt.
A possible betrayal--
but even in decay, you do not lose dignity.
 
If there is disease,
it is not who you are.
You are a vessel, not a verdict.
 
Society still names you
fetish, scandal, battlefront.
But I call you connection--
to my child, to my lovers, to myself.
To the years I wore you with hesitation,
and the ones I wore you with pride.
 
Sometimes I rest my broken glasses on you--
a moment of absurd tenderness--
and I wonder:
do you still want to speak?
 
If so, speak now:
Tell me how you feel
about being feared,
about being watched,
about carrying a lifetime of meaning
without ever being asked how you feel.
 
Tell me if grief lives there.
Tell me if courage does too.
 
Tell me if, like me,
you have been waiting
not just to be examined--
but understood.
 
My breast,
if you must be taken,
let it be with ceremony.
If you must be saved,
let it be with reverence.
 
And if you are fading,
let it be as moonlight fades--
with quiet beauty,
with memory intact.
 
Because you were never just flesh.
You were always a feeling.

About the author:
Meg is an Australian self-published new Author who has one book *Story: Reflective Poetry* (2017), and a number of poems published to journals, in which some include: *Tipton Poetry Journal* (IN); *The Sunflower Collective* (LA); *SKYLIGHT 47* (UK); *Lifelines at Dartmouth* (MA); *Nature Writing* (UK); *Eureka* (Australia); *ditch* (Canada), and others.

Meg was lucky to have positive press coverage in newspapers across the state of Queensland, and a positive written review by The Red Room Company (Australia) regarding this book which shows a reflective style of writing. Meg’s writing demonstrates elements of whimsy, transparency of feelings, abstractions, and may present as illustrative through her use of sensory and colourful words and imagery.

Meg is self-taught and formerly worked in mental health as a therapist and support person. Meg’s education and qualifications are in Counselling. Meg is now retired due to an illness and has taken to writing as an outlet.

Meg really admires and feels inspired by renowned poets local and international, such as Sam Wagan Watson, Dylan Thomas, Lord Byron, Les Murray, Clive James, Judith Wright, Dorothea Mackellar, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Yeats, Ocean Vuong, Kevin Young, Sharon Olds, Henri Cole, T.S. Eliot, Mary Oliver, Wordsworth, Jacob Polley — and many of the Bloodaxe Book poets.

 Your voice was an iced fruit apple slice to us, Shared while seated outside every summer, Though you never travelled in any season. Your laugh was a comedy catchphrase.
You were the pink Marks & Spencer meringue nests, Crystal-cut glasses of cherryade, and amethyst birthstones on bracelets. You were the bag, laden with photographs, postcards, Prayers, and magazine tips for houses.
The school I confided in you about, And the certificate I earned from there— You were the imagining of it framed on hospital walls.
You were the marble-handled, soft-bristled hairbrush, The Revlon make-up, the hot drinks before bedtime, Silky blouses, blazers, and slippers.
You were the grandma we prayed for a miracle for, As we willed you to get well.
Now you are the neat, grassy path I know by heart And tread with utmost care; The earrings of your sister we must arrange to repair, The door ajar at a certain moment, The good luck wish, the tiniest horseshoe, And rosary beads we last left you with.

I have noticed the other side of love
By the withered rose and the river at night. 
I collect and water them to give to the dove
And raise the flag of truce with the wings of a kite.
I bow down to love ignoring the proverb-
‘In war and love everything is fair’ and right
And keep at the threshold the point blank arrow
Hoping one of us may die without sorrow. 

They told me the curse was a kindness,
a spindle’s prick to spare the kingdom
from the burden of my broken mind.
“Let her sleep,” they said,
“Her thoughts too sharp, her tongue a thorn,
her dreams too vast for walls to hold.”
But I did not sleep.
Not in the way they meant.
In my cage of roses, I lay awake,
each thorn a needle threading whispers:
What if the curse was never kindness?
What if the silence wasn’t mercy?
What if my dreams were a forest
they feared to enter?
I grew wild there.
The briars were mine.
When the prince came, blade in hand,
I laughed to see him bleed--
for once, the world bent to my thorns.
He begged for a kiss to break the spell.
Instead, I offered him my dreams:
a tangle of shadows too sharp to untie.
Let him sleep now.
Let him know what it means
to carry a forest inside.

Pinocchio was born into poverty in desperately bleak times,
he was the eldest of ten children, half human, half scavenger,
always battling illness and hunger, barely living, just surviving,
on a long narrow street which didn’t allow natural sunlight.
 
Pinocchio was forever dreaming about being made of pine wood,
so he wouldn't have to be hungry and thirsty all the time.
His angry ugly rumbling tummy gurgled and guzzled and gobbled
him up, all up. He longed for a blue magical fairy to save him.
 
Instead, he was sent far, far away, to ease the burden on his parents, 
to live in a village with his mother’s family. All he ever wanted
was to see his mother again, to feel at home again, to be healthy,
happy and not have to suffer so many ordeals, over and over again. 
 
Pinocchio’s journey was full of terrible trauma, so much tragedy,
so much sadness, even the fabulous adventures made him sick.
The world was so beautiful but also so dreadfully ugly, it made him wish
all the more to be a wooden pine puppet living in a better world.
 
In his dreams he saw the magical Blue Fairy, who gently whispered:
Prove yourself brave, truthful and unselfish,
and someday you will be a true real puppet.
A boy who won't be good might will never be made of wood.
 
Pinocchio tried and strived to be brave, truthful and unselfish,
he tried not to wish for the moon, the oceans and the stars.
He gave so much to everyone, helped and helped till he couldn’t give
any more. Exhausted he slumped down, despondent and scared.
 
He felt sick down to his stomach at this terrible world, only in his
magical dreams of fairies did he see a way through, Oh, Fairy, Fairy!
Why am I still not made of pine wood? I’ve been brave, truthful and unselfish.
And Blue Fairy smiled so warmly and whispered, You already are.
 
And Pinocchio wept and wept with traumatised joy, sadly unaware that
whilst he was away, his family suffered tragedy as six of his siblings died.
Pinocchio was the lucky one to escape, to be free, but he never saw
his mother again, never spent one perfect day together, never was home.

About the author:
Peter Devonald is a UK based poet/screenwriter who has lived with disability most of his life. He is winner Waltham Forest Poetry 2022, Heart Of Heatons Poetry Awards 2023 & 2021, joint winner FofHCS 2023 and second in Shelley Memorial Poetry 2024. Finalist in Tickled Pink ekphrastic contest 2024, highly commended Hippocrates Prize and Passionfruit Review 2024, shortlisted for OxCanalFest Poetry 2024, Saveas & Allingham 2023. Poet in residence Haus-a-rest, Forward Prize nominated, two Best Of The Net nominations and widely published including Broken Spine Anthology, London Grip, Door Is A Jar, Bluebird Word, Vipers Tongue, Voidspace and Loft Books. 50+ film awards, former senior judge/ mentor Peter Ustinov Awards (iemmys) and Children’s Bafta nominated.
www.scriptfirst.com
Instagram: @peterdevonald
Facebook: @pdevonald
Twitter/X: petedevonald

If sex were a flower head, as it is meant to be,
I’d respond to sunlight better than to rain.
 
If only I could convert the positives in life
to food but I’ve always gorged on the past.
 
Maybe you’d have to have been a child whose
father died to understand. You take what you have
 
and weave story cloaks from them. I’d be
a sloe berry, best picked after the first frosts.
 
Have you ever noticed that moorland plants  
carry on growing however often the mists
 
entangle them? I’m woody now, thick-stemmed
and when I sway in the wind I rage up a ruckus
 
before my fruits fall. See those moor ponies
with their unfriendly ways? When I sing
 
into the cold, they nestle against my shoulders
and breathe their warmed air with mine.

I Know Of A Boy

i know a boy. raised & bred
in a land defined as "abject infertility"
 
by his dead father's friends & frenemies.
yeah. i know of a boy whose hind skin
 
always kisses the earthen-chilled floor
every night. inside his father's, now
 
his, paradise– the hut. tilted. half covered
with dried palm fronds. the other half
 
lost to the ferocious & unconcerned wind.
he barely sleeps in the long & crawling nights.
 
yet wakes to the first cock-a-doodle-doo
of his old mama's cock & set out
 
for the farm. shrithing all alone
like a lost black bird navigating the cloudy
 
sky. when nature calls & illness strikes
him with a big cudgel. who is he to
 
lie back without mustering the minuscule strength
in his wretched body & set out for the farm again? lest he
 
be screwed by ulcer-causing hunger till
he draws his last breath. like it did his father.

​Au revoir As A Metaphor For Forever
 
sitting all alone. on this old squeaking
bench. outside my father's house.
with my back leaning with comfort
on this chilly wall. & eyes fixing the
moonlit sky. romancing the warm
company of the beautiful stars. the
thoughts of the last time we met
meander through my mind. we sat
on this same old bench. not minding
the blistering cold. or the chirping
of hundreds of crickets. or the hooting
owls in a stone throw from us. you
submitted your head on my shoulder
& i had my hands curled around you
like a blanket. my booming MP3
player playing ed sheeran's Perfect.
you gazed at me from the corner of
your eyes. your alluring eyeballs
radiated into mine. & said "i will always
be here for you…" & climaxed it with
"au revoir" & a kiss planted on my
forehead. hands of time ticking at
light's speed. it's been years within
a twinkle of eyes. yet still no words.
i scourge & scourge every nook &
cranny. alas  "au revoir" is a metaphor
for "forever". so much for "i will always
be here for you". wish i could run into
the speed force & go back to that night
to stop you from finish articulating the
statement. or cease the ticking hands of
time. it's same sky i look at now. yet the
stars are out of place without you around.

 About the author: 
Olayioye Keji Akintunde, studies Pharm.D at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. His writing explores the self,contradiction and contemporary realities. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming on Inertia Teens, Spillwords, Nnọkọ Stories and elsewhere. Besides Pharmacy & Poetry, he's intrigued by good & soul-reaching music. He's nicknamed Catechol. He tweets @Catechol01, & is @Catechol1 on IG.