Issue 6: A Day in the Life of a Survivor
Tacos by Kae Bucher
“Hi! Welcome to Taco Bell” she says as I walk through the door, so I nod and saunter to the counter where she waits for me to order, make a choice choose, know what to do the lights on the menu behind her, the lights on the menu bright with failure over and ...
Another Version by Manda Frederick
Manda Frederick holds an M.F.A in Creative Nonfiction from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers and recently completed an MA in Literary Studies from Western Washington University. Manda has published nonfiction in the White Whale Review and Switchback...
Plate Tectonics by Manda Frederick
i. Though he now occupies another coast some 3,000 miles away, I feel his shape because I feel my own, split from his, hot about the edges and quaking. ii. Beneath this bed, I feel three stories of house pushing up, and I think I see one side rising without any weight...
Standing Outside the Precinct by Anonymous
It’s been a month, and this is how I eat: I wait until I am starving, my stomach rumbling with gurgling “feed me” noises, as the world gets fuzzy and I lose focus on words, language and thoughts. Be it the conventional hours of lunchtime or dinnertime, I drag myself...
Not Home by Ashley Sapp
Ashley Sapp resides in Columbia, South Carolina, with her husband and furbaby. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of South Carolina in 2010 and has written for various publications. Her work has previously appeared in Indie Chick,...
Landscape with Written Statement by Lynn Melnick
Reprinted with permission from Landscape with Sex and Violence (YesYes Books, 2017) Lynn Melnick is the author of the poetry collections Landscape with Sex and Violence and If I Should Say I Have Hope, and the co-editor of Please Excuse This Poem: 100 Poets for...
What Happens Later – Sometimes, Much Later by Shawn Aveningo Sanders
Shawn Aveningo Sanders is a globally published, award-winning poet who can’t stand the taste of coconut, eats pistachios daily and loves shoes … especially red ones! (redshoepoet.com) Shawn’s work has appeared in over 100 literary journals and anthologies....
The Men Who Didn’t Rape Me by AK Krajewska
Agnieszka Krajewska is a poet, essayist, and combat epistemologist. She received an MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University in 2004, and was ordained as an Adept in the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn in 2009. Her poems have appeared in two...
Like Every Good Boy I Look Forward to Meeting My (the) Rapist by Akpa Arinzechukwu
& suddenly yesterday I stopped being twenty. I am tired of being found alive. It was night a minute ago. I keep losing my head — Surprised it is always found in the refrigerator: Citalopram-stench, blueprints of L. Last night I was so old I...
When He Asks Your For A Character Reference by Mary Panke
the nice guy who comes into your home to clean your windows the friendly doctor who brings mushrooms from the woods the puffed priest who eats your mother’s coffee cake drinks your father’s wine hears your confession the lonely softball coach who shows up at your...
untouched by Bina Perino
i will cleanse my body of unwanted fingerprints in a scalding shower. skin will split, melt, peel and water will run with the red, red, red of my blood until i am tissue and bone. and a blanket of flesh will hold me until i awake and become somebody you never touched....
Cover My Eyes, Cover Your Eyes With Dirt by Cris Iacoponi
Cris is a survivor of early and long term sexual abuse. It's a relief for Cris to be able to write this so plainly to a literary/art magazine. Cris grew up in Texas, moved to New York, and has settled down in Philadelphia. Cris is queer, a poet, can design a...
Back To School The Day After by Margaret DeRitter
Everything on campus looks the same, but I’m viewing it from underwater. I shake my head to clear my vision. All I see is a mask and eyes. I swim toward the surface, gasp for air. Where the hell am I? How could I critique pure reason today? Or...
The Silence and the Scream by Dana Robbins
Thirty years later, the memories come roaring back, in burning waves, like a stomach flu. Memories come unbidden when I am on the subway, in Macy’s buying pajamas or taking my children to school. The secrets I could not tell are the bile that collects...
you too by Rebecca Burke
You lie still when he finishes. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just stills his hands and pulls back. He sits up. I’m sorry. I crossed a line. I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve asked first. His words are flat, monotonous. You don’t think he means them. He...
#metoo by Wilderness Sarchild
I know a woman who knows what it means to be held down by ten boys and raped repeatedly, who didn’t tell anyone for twenty years. I know a woman who knows what it means to have her girlfriend’s father slide his finger up her thigh at the kitchen table, who...
Trust by T.m. Lawson
T.m. Lawson is a poet and a writer living in California. They are currently attending UCSD, working on their Creative Writing M.F.A. They've been published in White Stag, NILVX, Entropy, Poets.org, Other Journal, and Women's Studies...
Where I’ve Been by Heather Bartlett
The Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center is quiet. It is too quiet after the sobs and the sirens and most of all the loudest sound you’ve ever heard – your own heartbeat. The sound of pumping blood was racing, pounding, echoing in your own ears. Before it was beating...
Girl Stuff by Mary McBeth
You are dressed and ready to go. The radio is on, as well as certain strategic lights. As you check that all windows and doors are locked, you look through all of those panes of glass to ensure no one is lurking around your house, ready to spring out and shove their...
When They Come Calling by I. Grey
I don’t remember the weather or what I had for breakfast, but I remember my outfit: a pastel sweater of green, pink, and yellow with pink leggings to match. I preferred life in the background, but I felt pretty in that ensemble; not the kind of pretty other people...
Short Stories by Raina Greifer
My life became pure fiction A statistic of Whether I can show my legs I have to remind myself it wasn’t my legs That were touched My chest is covered in fingerprints instead Turtlenecks can be warm And in heat I am safe Sometimes under running water I’m scared to...
I heard heaven but they didn’t hear me by C.Z. Heyward
2 July, 0125 Young vivacious voices sang in the next room A church choir rejoiced on TV Their singing echoed in my head as if it were hollow But I laid there Frozen He was done with me Shredded my loins ...
Input: PTSD/Output: Hypervigilance by Jessica Nirvana Ram
Jessica Nirvana Ram recently graduated with a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University in May 2018. Jessica has written poetry since learning the malleability of words. Poetry is what has helped Jessica process the assault experienced last May....
What I Was Trying to Say Was Don’t Stick Your Hand Down My Dress by Gabriela Gonzales
when i wore that dress to his birthday party, what i was trying to say was don’t stick your hand down my dress. that’s what i try to say with everything i wear, but sometimes more than others. like when i go to a party by myself. like when i get drunk. like when i get...
Consent Violation I & II by Julian Mithra
Julian née Sara Mithra hovers between genre and gender, border mongering and mongreling. At local festivals, they exhibit handmade chapbooks and cut-up zines. Read their words on paper in Versal 12, Milvia Street, Storm Cellar, ANXY, Written on the Body, and The Other...
Doomed From Conception by Patricia Richardson
I was Doomed from the day of conception Poisoned while still in the womb Lost my cherry to daddy at 4 He'd creep in my room every night My brother took my body to explore Pushed face to the wall pulling out strands of my hair my cousin would use the back door Put my...
I Will. by Sarah Lawrence
Sarah Lawrence is an English student at the University of Michigan and recently completed a first collection of short stories. Sarah has a background in drama, having completed the scripts for three full-length plays. In 2013, Lawrence’s play, '”Flowers for a Ghost”...
That which is tragic in time is meaningless in eternity: An internal PTSD dialogue by Cathryn Glenday
Images downloading like new software From the net, Cocks, fists, belts, needles, screams, flames, noise! Real and not real, Happening and not. NO, NO, NO, NOT AGAIN! Can't talk, can't tell, be quiet, disappear. No one must know! Keep going no matter the cost. Look...
Distractions by Trish L. Rodriguez
A. One Friday after school, my mother entered my bedroom. She had a look on her face like when she had to tell me that my pet hamster died. I was twelve years old and impatiently waiting for puberty to knock on my door. She sat down on my bed and took my hand. “We...