The Gothic Pact
A congregation of 25 baroque writers
A Ghost Remembered - Laura Catanzano
past the withered cattails, 'round a graveyard, through a wood there's a house that's built on broken dreams where promises once stood the shutters hanging crooked there is rot along the eves windows shattered, gut(ters) spilling drunken lies that she believed if you're brave enough to enter if you can hear beyond the screams you'll find a version of a woman who hung herself between the beams haunted memories chase the shadows beer and bottles drowned regrets nights she never will remember nights she never can forget there she lived among the haunting echoes trapped in empty frames she lied, waste in tattered bedsheets inhaling atmospheric decay but she couldn't stay there in the ruins pouring poison down her throat She's got this token in her pocket, and her children won't remember her a ghost
© Laura Catanzano 2025
Subversion O’ Love - J. Kayla
Self-fulfilling prophecy,
a malady—
a travesty,
the subversion of love
when catastrophe becomes
the hanging apostrophe
in We’re Together.
The silken rope—
woven from trust,
from seeing,
from hearing,
from knowing—
once soft around our shoulders,
now it’s a torturer’s tool.
I had hoped it would hold me
whole but it flays, quartering
me, opening wide, exposing
the ugliest side.
Trapped cow hysteria—
the frantic thrash
of something—
drenched in the stench,
imminent betrayal,
nightmares of cream,
old milk dreams
curdle and cloak
a once-trusting throat.
We built this rope to hold us,
to carry the weight
of we—
but I dangle now,
limbs slack,
hope choked out
by the beauty,
what we might
have become.
Plenty strong,
plenty strong—
for me,
and my
self-fulfilling prophecy,
my malady,
my travesty,
my love.© J. Kayla 2025
Oblivion - The Forgotten Muse
“Don’t let go.
Stay with me.
Keep fighting.
You will be missed.
You matter.”
They say it like it’s simple
like love alone can tether a lost soul to this dreary plane,
like words could silence the tempest in my head.
If only…
I’m holding on.
But why does oblivion feel so alluring?
Why do the shadows that reach for me
grow more beautiful with each passing breath?
I’m holding on.
Do you ever wonder what it’s like?
The fading of a fleeting soul
The final grain of sand in this infernal hourglass.
I’m holding on
The shadows are calling,
soft and ethereal
And oh, the sweet reprieve —
to close my eyes
and never open them again.
I’m holding on.
The end of an era.
Or perhaps…
the beginning of something I cannot yet see.
© The Forgotten Muse 2025
Anna Swir Lauded Aloneness as Hygienic - Annie Lure
I tined the salmon, moist and pink as a clit freshly rubbed counterclockwise with two fingers. I savored the chthonic boutique coffee. The avocado like the curated skin of some torrid reptilian. I ate only a portion of my olive bounty. Dionysian testes plucked from Whole Foods. The guy squirting the hose by the jeweler’s storefront answered my call. But not the handsome Asian. Or the cosmopolitan couple. I loved drifting until my own good feet, my donkey heart, as the Syrian poet would have it, returned me to the train station via mostly human signposts. Someone had taken a shit in that café’s toilet. Human excrement floated on the toilet bowl like dysgenic fish. I wiped the menstrual blood from my Cheryl Townsend Barbie nexus of thigh and pelvis as if I were tending a man’s war wound. Had there been a Haruki Murakami tear in this chronotope, the man hovering about me would have entered the toilet and faced his atavistic fear. I was a monster more nefarious than Medusa. A woman toileting. Then trailing her accursed womanliness in a poopy pouch where the bloodying pad was rolled down underneath my hoisted pants. But who’d purloined my bag?
© Annie Lure 2025
Superimposed - Edward Swafford
***Trigger Warning - this is my first Stream-of-Consciousness piece, and no, it’s not based on actual events***
The portraiture picture is BLACK but you wouldn’t know it when everyone around calls me their catch-cry oil painting and when does static beauty ever get a chance to speak?¿?
Open mouths show teeth and I don’t want what they’re gritting but when the RUSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH is such a fucking endorphin-laced (yet lachrymose) perfection of mind/body/soul/sex who am I to throw a FOMO like some thirty seconds to fucking mars superfan?¿?
Bare bodies layer over me but I can still make out my original sin if I squint hard enough and catch the catatonic light I feel like history impregnated futurists and out POPPED this chosen cherry and now I can’t feel anything at all?¿?
I guess it’s open slather and fifteen minutes of so-called fame lasts forever when you’re sweating HEAVEN but who is on top and who is beneath do I even mind or is this orgasmic kleptomania?¿?
Crystal glazes their eyes but they’re still pretty shades of blue green hazel grey fuck it’s a heterochromia all-you-can-stare smorgasbord and the BLOODSHOT ones don’t scare me at all I kind of dig the sleepless look because we can all sleep when we’re dead can’t we?¿?
Haze isn’t second-hand so sacrilege has to grab his own pipe but who has spare SPARKLE and what time is it because I have to be at work a fortnight ago but I think my job is safe for now speaking of can anyone with a hard cock breed me into dissolution before I pass out?¿?
© Edward Swafford 2025 
Overdose - Danni Orsi
The stars fell from your eyes like treacle Molasses Folding off a wooden spoon A crown devoured in murky water Celestial diamonds tarred too soon It was now you said it had to happen Later You thought was for the lost Like poisoned gifts on a golden platter Illusion could not delay the cost We built ourselves brick by brick Trunks Now grown with twisted limbs Gluttons feeding off each other We flew with parasitic wings Ablaze you fell in molten glory An apple in your mouth For you who loved to follow shadows There was only one way out.
© Danni Orsi 2025
Resolve - Samantha Lazar
Awake- concrete. The chain allowed reaching the bathroom; the explosion of pain fogged every
sense.
By any means.
Crawling, she spat blood; avoided mirrors.
His mistake: a phone left charging in the living room, as if to taunt her. Out of reach. He would
be back for it. Her resolve returned, sharp as the hidden metal. Swallowing four pills, she
packed bandages, antiseptic, and his sweater.
At first...
I banged my head on the entrance. After museum hours, a child’s model moon lander doesn’t
rise to adult level, and I forgot to duck. It could have been the benefactor’s open bar, and I
wandered off to seek a little alone time.
This was not an ordinary night at the museum, and I was not alone in the moon lander.
reminded me of my daughter when she was three. pushing the buttons, calling ground control,
playing astronaut
Wanna play? He asked.
Now, her body quaked as she grasped the last thing on her list: torn aluminum. Her hand– the
only thing that stood in the way of her escape.
The door.
“Hey, babe, forgot my phone!”
© Samantha Lazar 2025 - originally published in NYCMidnight as a micro-fiction challenge
Envy’s Trojan Horse - Pixel Floyd
Envy sprouts, dubious spores Puffing plumes of perfumed power. Turn now from its vapor Lest your heart be consumed. Lure lonely hearts to its gardens, Pulling Trojan Horses Across thirsty lips— To wet the tongue, To fill the lung With fragrant breath. One vape of faux flavor Penetrates— the blood-brain barrier, Sieging the mind’s interior, Planting spurious visions Of loveless depths— As vast, As cold As Lake Superior. You must turn from its vapor now— Or your heart will be consumed. With unseen infection— Scaling skin, Creeping, coursing Through veins within. Eyes turn to the ground, Looking for cracks To climb down— Where trolls dwell In bitter beds, Casting hexes, Turning souls To slaves In caverns of jealousy. Consumed by vapors of fakery. Turn, turn, turn from its vapor now— Or your heart will be consumed. Leaving phantom spores, Countless scores Of those who came before— Whose fingers blister, Red and sore, From digging plots For loveless lots. An infectious rot Warps the nail That hangs The fourth wall of envy— That twists the soul, That clings to the flesh For sanctuary. An insatiable ache, An unscratchable itch... There is still time to turn from its vapor Before your heart Is wholly consumed. Turn to her now— Draw love’s sword. F A L L On its rusty blade. Bleed a little. Let her love suck The poison That weakens Your immune system. But at what cost? Do I turn, Fall on my sword For love that consumes? To save what should not be saved— To lose myself In the process? If I die to me, Will I be reborn to love? Can our love Be a double-edged sword— Where we may both be divided But bleed as one? Is that really love? Or Am I consumed By envy?
© Pixel Floyd 2025 - originally published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself
Transforming Eidolon - Sylvia Kalina
Future in the palm of my future gaze
Sight beyond sight scrying spirals
I am Femme Divinity forming
Crucifix—condemning
(awakening and contorting)
Currents of mossy serpentine scale
—Slithering in twisting Unity,
Harmonies harmonizing (body with mind)
Calligraphic curving
In my arched temple, strolling
Verdis orbs blossoming
Limbs unfurl forward—footfall—fecund
Slick twisting dance of flesh and soul
Silent guardian sentinel
Rotating twelve celestial
(summa integritas)
Seven venena secreta
Azoth oxide prima —slipstream
Nigredo melancholia core
Horizon rising hypnotizing
My root rebirth incarnate
Providence Eye Architect
Archetype—slithering frankincense blur
Copper lung fire erupting
Embodied carnelian
Anthropomorphic being
Synthesized phenomenon
Electric esoteric Isis unveiling
Liminal goddess of my reclaiming
I am soul of immortal boundless splendor
From shadowed depth to solar flame
New eternal eidolon visia
Cipher of Cosmic Order© Sylvia Kalina 2025
Sublime - Jozef Cain
So, you think you’re worthy?
You think you deserve a seat here?
In my abode.
You can barely handle the light
at your window, in the morning.
You quiver from the dew
when you touch grass;
as you do.
You wretch at the bedside
from the bedside itself.
How do you think you’ll be able to gaze upon me?
The Holy One.
You are not able.
You murdered Abel.
Slumber is your abode.
Wanderer!
Fool!
Outcast!
The realm of the dead
won’t even claim you.
You creature.
You mortal.
The brimstone holds your imprint.
The fire calls your name.
The castle spire thirsts for your blood.
The steeple awaits the relief from your weight.
Defeat.
© Jozef Cain 2025
Blood Doll - Ann Marie Steele
My dear Casanova
so suave and so stealth
my blood boils for two
let it thaw you in and out
Through my open window glide
ride that wicked wily wind
shroud me in your velvet cape
drill me with your sin
Snatch off my ivory belt
meant to keep me oh-so-chaste
let my sweet sangria
make you sweat — oh, then gasp
Languidly sip my potion
daintily chew my lips
pointedly pierce inside
in this titillating tryst
Blood doll I will be
watch me bend, moan and squeal
no donors taste as sweet, dear
or enticing as me
Past midnight you will dine
on my milky snowy skin
in my haven ever tight
inside my piquant den.
© Ann Marie Steele 2025 
The Lucid Dreamer - Existential World
Don’t you see I’ve given you all I know And what’s more I was given the green light to do so It’s not for me to decide who goes blind Who is incapacitated by the light Or the circle of darkness that penetrates your spirit Like a closet, inside a cave, under Layer upon layer of igneous rock I am not an educator I am a tempest But I do not bring myself over your cities Or to your beds at night I do not ride the lightning Into the earth The potential for war should not frighten you Because the war has already been fought Now you must wait in your doldrums To see who has claimed victory
They will hide from you Or crawl inside you while you sleep And feast on your dreams They will chuckle at the atom blasts of your neurons Make you smoke a pack a day To hang that devilish stop sign that is 120 or less They will steal your brother Incapacitate your sister Who speaks the same language as you Thought Speak I understand fully I am no more than you or less I have raced to catch up to my captors The dreamcatchers, the ancients, and the future seekers Who all long to travel backwards And live under an unfamiliar sun I’ve left you in my dust, in doing the same as them I am here the same as I am not here I find no usefulness in stopping the pursuit of a higher realm Come with me to the house of apparitions Listen to the 432 harmonies Get in balance with the beginning and the end And know that neither exists but for the blink of consciousness We are all the walking dead Who hear music along the way
© Existential World 2025
The Stairs - Devo Carpenter
They call me I avoid them getting within 10 feet brings the hair on my neck to full arousal.
The Harlow was built in 1882 as a hotel for aristocrats then workers and last the Japanese.
It fell into ruin and disrepair until 2019 when it was completely restored.
Impossibly high ceilings beautiful details from the room doors to the crown molding
In the wee hours, it transforms back into what it was.
Sitting in the lobby I can hear the faint voices of the railroad workers in the saloon
Hallways have the scent of Japanese cooking
The stairs are where more than one has met their demise
I wander the halls at the witching hour
Feeling a tug on my sleeve I see her
No more than 8 years old dressed beyond her years so inappropriate
Standing at the top of those stairs staring at me
It takes everything in me not to go to her
I know in my heart I will not survive the encounter
She looks so innocent, and she needs me
Then I see the shadow a grown man too friendly to her
Leaning down he kisses her in the most unholy way
He then looks at me daring me to take his prize
He puts his arm around her and turns to walk away
I must stop him
I have the overwhelming feeling this has played out before
There is a reason she chose me
I rushed to the stairs to stop him
The walls are greying the insects apparent
Spiderwebs cover my face as I run through them
When I get to the first step, I feel the shove
As I tumbled down the three flights, I realized it was her
The innocent one who needed me is the finalization of my doom
When I finally come to a stop, I am surrounded by women most my age
One reaches down to pull me up
Everything looks different, ancient, decrepit
The art and beautiful beige walls are gone
Windows all covered in grime
I feel whispers in my hair
Its ok
We got you
No need to fear my love
I feel righteous indignation bubbling to the surface
What the hell is going on
A small voice rises from behind the women
You tried to save me
She slips her small white hand into mine and leads me into the lobby
Which looks like something out of a nightmare
Broken people standing sitting leaning everywhere
She hugs my arm
You are one of us now
© Devo Carpenter 2025
Ode to a Nightmare - Maisie Archer
who treads these halls in dark of night silence cut with a maiden stare barbaric creature, might she bite swallow our peaceful slumber bare unknown within, curious home echoing empty manse I roam inside these secret rooms I hide when threats prevail, my time to bide crafted well, we have waited long for your awakening footfall now, as our understanding dawns stranger no more, mistress of all solitary solace, welcome nightmare comfort, my own bedlam
© Maisie Archer 2025
Sounds of Sorrow - Buku Sarkar
I buried my sadness next to my bed By the bakery shop The cashier I left it by the traffic lights, In the bookshop The flower shop The grocery store. And at night, darkness catches My tears That fall quietly inside— In silence, In secret Sometimes even in smiles. I am nowhere And nowhere is everywhere, Said a famous writer. I am writing this poem because I read once, Wherever you go, you will always be unhappy.
© Buku Sarkar 2025
Canary Crowns and Coal - H. R. Sinclair
The black blood
drips from atop
the ivory tower.
They stand tall
and taller ever more,
brooding and boasting
a shadow over all.
Only their egos
can see over their heads.
Their filthy fingers
pluck the strings of fate
with folly and jolly
and juvenile judgement.
They hear harmonies
while the rest hear
debilitating dissonance.
Time will tell
the same old tale
of crown and coal.
Trapdoors, false paths
dead ends, disease, dictation,
addiction, oppression, exploitation,
manipulation,
all brought to you by greeeeeeeeeed
a delivery from the Gods
of consumerism and capitalism.
See their cake and hope
to dine one day at a table
with a better view
of their cake.
Carve in your skin
their holy brand
hope and pray
they see passed your
penury past
and allow one foot in the door
on the first floor
of their skyrise
syndicate.
Please sign the dotted line
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
before proceeding
wipe your worth
and leave your soul
only servitude will save you
beyond this point
Clip your wings
so you may remain
in your lane
or fly too high
to the sun
soaring fast too
fast to see
what you were flying for
and who you were flying for
but act just right
and you may not
be plated up
tonight.
Streak up and down
dance the monkey dance
cover your eyes, mouth and ears
there’s nothing for you here
but what is served
and the shit you shovel
and the scraps left over
after they sip, slurp and spit
from their silver spoons
be grateful for the drops
that spilled out
from their their overflowing oceans.
Rid yourself of dignity
and receive gold
or glamour and guise
play their dirty games
and win the dirty money
yet fret not
you are free to
launder in their
cycle of corruption
buy your absolution
from their silk-lined tills
© H. R. Sinclair 2025
Adam’s New Year’s Eve - Julie Radford
let me crawl into you like satan did when god showed him his new favorite creation. i swim in your blood, cling to your flesh, scratch the insides of your eyeballs, break your back, bend your neck. let me laugh into your GODFORSAKEN face while i hook my fingers into the corners of your mouth, rip off your skin, tear down the walls. masks off, blow out the candles and let me fill out your hollow soul. shatter every bone. you’re nothing but an empty vessel without me, human. snip - snap - cracked in excess - the original sin, your walk of shame. now clank your chains for the intoxicated prophecy, wretched prodigy. pile up the ashes of your past, your present, your future and gather round, you miserable fucks - we’re building ourselves a kingdom.
© Julie Radford 2025
An Eye for an Eye - Silva Mirovics
Silvery slivers of moon spill heavy torn brocade drapes dust shifts as she glides past mystique trails She speaks the unspeakable, names the unnameable transcends the patriarchal monstrosity targeting sisterhood her inherent duty Empowered Eminent Empress skilled to lure seduce reduce him/them to limp lifeless nothingness Perfectly Pertinent Punishment Smirk of Satisfaction he thought it was his lucky night smooth ivory-skinned hands grasp his neck tight eyes heavy with lust suddenly widen, whiten, frightened, pleading, begging and she asks WHY? Because the bitch deserved it No remorse as her fangs pierce his pathetic skin Delicious she licks lush luminous voluminous lips deep dark red blood drip drip drips down her chin pale bejewelled fingers wipe the last remnants of him away For centuries she’s kept a tally counting dead women and the guilty another prick erased from mortal existence One last look before her hounds make a feast the sounds of his redundancy hang thick in the parlour air.
© Silva Mirovics 2025
Southern Gothic - Melanie Cole
Underneath my feet are gators Ancient and swimming Five hundred pounds of snapping jaws Waiting for me to fall off this precarious draw bridge They are fed with whole legs of goats And the crushing noise they make As they devour their food twists My stomach into knots I find gator heads in a voodoo shop and wonder Who wrangled them, who carefully applied the varnish And the glass eyes to keep the heads glossy and clean I buy one to take home Man over nature The swamps will eat you whole The first time I went to the swamp, I found a crucifix Laying on the ground In Terrebonne Parish I looked around before I picked it up And slipped it in my pocket It was either heaven or hell And I stood stupidly close to the water’s edge The cypress trees have their knees sticking out of the murky water The Spanish moss hanging as a decorative ornament The crucifix burning a hole in my pocket In the swamp— atoning for my sins.
© Melanie Cole 2025
Inferno Of Darkness - Ute Luppertz
Black veils Gray corridors Lost in the labyrinth The abyss Where am I? No mirrors, just shadows in the ruins of a life that has become Ghost Town Screams in the alleys Hushed howling in the winds A voracious appetite for blood Floating corpses Gutted bodies from incestuous lust Demons that haunt us, the lingams and yonis Whips and domination I own you Crawl to the altar, kneel, and rip your leather costume off Party over I will tie you up under the crucifix Milky figures in the mist, no light, no candle, no priest The saints are dead We’re the condemned ones Forever in purgatory Where we drink our blood and eat our own flesh And our faces turn ashen and white We’re rats, dancing the tribal dance of cannibalism The cries of the lost ones haunt our dreams The nightmare you were running from Get your feet singed in the hot embers of the fire The Inferno you were destined for The volcano of darkness is your home now
© Ute Luppertz 2025
The Place Where I Lost My Mind - Kali Fox-Jirgl
I tried to escape reality, but a darker one was found. Blotter with strength, To a sinister place, That’s where I lost my mind. I locked myself in a room for twelve hours, While corpselike hands grazed my skin. Engulfed in fire. Imprisoned in chains. Castigation for all my sins. The damned in perdition and lost souls like mine, Ensnared in ashen arms. Trapped. No escape. A drug-induced hellscape, With creatures that meant me harm. The beasts below sent the washed-out faces, With raw-boned bodies deprived of forgiveness. Grotesque. Merciless. With wrathful touches- A world with nothing divine. Delusions of phantoms, Intangible ransom, My mind had been led astray. The blazing inferno Of mental judgment My deep-seated fears had come out to play. The illusion of eternal damnation would take years to finally go blind. To heal the hypnosis Of drugged-out psychosis The place where I lost my mind.
© Kali Fox-Jirgl 2025
Another Sunday Evening at the Funeral Home - Linda Kowalchek
I’m eight-years-old. It’s six p.m. Supper is over. It’s time to get moving. I’m too young to stay home by myself. Climb in the car with mom and dad. Mr. Jones, one of our neighbors, has died. We must go visit him at the funeral home. Five miles into town and we’re there. Walk up to the brick building. Open the door. It smells like it always does. Too warm. Dim. The muffled sound of whispers and quiet-talking in the background. Mr. Jones is in room number three. Enter slowly and silently from the back. Look around to see who is there. A good turnout. He was well liked. His wife sits to the side. Smile and nod to her as you approach the casket. Mom guides me forward by my shoulders. The casket is open. Kneel down, fold your hands, and pray. I don’t know what I’m supposed to pray about. I stare at the stranger’s body. Like I always do. The finger nails are interesting. Thick strokes of flesh tone polish cover each nail. The skin on his face looks dry but waxy. A lamp with a pink lightbulb stands on either side. I wish I was home. The Disney show is on tv tonight. There are supposed to be cartoons. Pinocchio or maybe even Mickey. But I am here with my old parents. Visiting their even older friends who are dead now. Shouldn’t people have visited each other sooner? Isn’t now too late? Mom says we visit the dead to show respect. And to say a prayer to help them get wherever it is they are going. And to make their family feel better. And to sign a book and leave money. Three decades later I am at the same funeral home again with my mom. She is in the casket this time. Dad was here a decade earlier. Open caskets for both. Turnout was good. They were both well liked. I knelt. I prayed. I must not have prayed hard enough. Because I don’t think they got where they were going. I feel them next to me still. Especially on Sunday evenings.
© Linda Kowalchek 2025
Woe Is He - Jaelon Jones
Woe is the man who gets to suffer heartbreak after heartbreak and live to tell the tale. Brave as a bull, weaving his sorrow into artistic expressions such as music, poetry and film. Woe is the man who dares to try loving again, when he sees his nation doesn’t know love. As a student, he learned what love wasn’t to try becoming the latter and teach his lovers. Woe is the man that is able to love himself for unconditionally loving, with nothing to gain. Thinking that maybe a second chance will be what’s needed to pull back another layer, but if the person is only of impurity, they are merely more layers of disappointment and dismay. Woe is the man who fears of dying alone, he is hopeless and also scared of again going numb. Even through traumas, his love knew no bounds and it would reach the souls of those he was intimate with. He knows his power and is infuriated he hasn’t met a worthy match yet. Woe is the man that blames God for all of his inconveniences, not heeding to his own life experiences and lessons once learned before. It’s as if his trust in the flow is one of the most deceptively helpful skills in his psyche. Trusting that all will be fine in the end, it’s as if he signs-up for being an emotional dummy. A double agent surveying the field for Intel. Woe is the man who turns his betrayals into. abandonment from society, and distrust. He sees that being vulnerable offers vultures something intolerable yet invigorating to them. Giving way to the exploitation of his well-intended presence. He struggles thinking humanity deserves an anomaly like him. Woe is the man that is tired of being the man he is writing about in 3rd person always. He wonders if he only wrote happy things that are facade, if it will eventually become reality and he will manifest destiny via affirmations. In his studies, he is scrambled and doesn’t know which belief system to cling to for answers sometimes, so he relies on his subconscious mind to provide them at its convenience. Woe is the man who is morbidly tired of being right all the time, wishing of blissful ignorance. Using past experience, psychology, pattern analysis, intuition and philosophy, he always has a good hunch of the atrocities he will face. and is feeling burdened by the weight of his wisdom. In its presence, his kind spirit dies a bit more every time someone proves him right. Woe is the man who pities the damned, and in turn, the damned pity his enlightenment. It is here where he calls home, garnishing a robe made of imposter syndrome. Is this the curse of the awakened? To be cast aside like trauma, unwanted memories & suppressed emotions? An expendable in the dependables of the functionality of homeostasis in homosapiens? Woe is he that trudge on, through mental sewage spewing mucus of toxic sutras. With all his might and every last bit of a shred of hope he clings onto, fraying at the seems of the edge of the universe, the pendulum swings freely towards his head, and folds like a quantum leap into the peculiar. Perched at the pinnacle of a Godsend, and Lucifer; he pretends that he is the only constant in the atmosphere. Woe is he who writes to console his soul, and knows solely that it may be the one thing that keeps him out of the psychiatric ward, awards. These words, thoughts, visions, feelings etc. are those of a dead man. I kill a version of me every time I relieve the pressure of keeping these things inside, metamorphosis. The artist is a metaphor for life, undergoing the hypnosis of belonging to a society that doesn’t recognize them as one, a true diagnosis. How do you tell a society is collapsing? Prognosis stenosis of any vital substance, humans are congested with inferiority complexes. Claiming superiority is those wielding atomic weapons.
Woe is he
Woe is she
Woe is we
Woe is me.
© Jaelon Jones 2025
Feeling - Maarten Bleijerveld
An empty page sometimes says more than all the written words in the world. It stares back, bare, like silence louder than any voice I’ve ever known. With a heavy heart full of emotions— unfiltered, tangled, raw— I fear to look at the next one. Will it be empty, too? Or worse— filled with truths I’m not ready to write? I hover, pen in hand, but it trembles under weight unseen, a weight words were never made to carry. Often, language betrays what I mean. Some things I want to say, but I also want them to remain untouched, unreachable— too fragile to live on a line, too sacred to spell out. So I let them hover in the in-between, between silence and speech, between intention and interpretation. We reach out we always do but often through echoes, half-truths, a glance, a pause, digital pulses pretending presence. We are reaching so much, but are we touching? Are we even close? So it should never be— empty or not but maybe that’s what scares me most. To get lost in that feeling— the sharp softness of a heart that’s both whole and broken in the same breath. Of all these emotions— rising, falling, crashing in silence. No words. No clarity. Just weight.
© Maarten Bleijerveld 2025
Midnight Mass - Adrian Njoto
I hold a midnight mass With versions of myself. We spend the night well, for we'd die By the first light, Not knowing which one Would show up at dawn When I wake. My common sense is cornered Under the shadow of a mountain Of tats I once thought Were beautiful— The day I bought them For my campy dress. We love to talk about the climate, Ruminate on the rot of humanity, Or just dance to the music, With veils, tattered cloths, And towels for crowns. One of my twenty said, Kill every light. Let your dark take hold, ’Cause we were never meant to last.
© Adrian Njoto 2025
Even the Dead Need a Sympathetic Ear - Mark Armstrong
Life was pressing down on me It’ll do that Even when you’re dead When you’re on a cruise ship On the River Styx Especially when Foghat’s Playing Slow Ride The dead have feelings, too Ask anyone who’s been in a coffin That’s slid down church steps And T-boned a hearse Dropped by a pallbearer Who ate a donut And forgot to wash his hands (Who smirked and laughed about it later May his greasy bones be charred in the fires of Gehenna) I needed to talk To someone who’d understand Another rotting corpse who knew the oppressive weight Of rocks and dirt Whose heart (Now reduced to gristle) Was still in the right place And (according to GPS) Several cruise ships Ahead of mine I called him on my iPhone I was buried with it, as was he with his (All praise and honor to Mort Rigor and His Deathly Grip) We brooded and we stewed In the same old rancid juice It was almost Like being Alive He said his cruise ship Had KC and the Sunshine Band Death, it appears, Is tough all over
© Mark Armstrong 2025
Hertis Rote - Tina Leavitt
hold your heart with my hands freshly eviscerated body amputated from soul life severed by death blood spilling over my hands smelling of dirty old pennies i taste you in my mouth i cry to sleep at night without you, left with visions of my death, of my funeral the sharp edges of a blade dark rooms empty fragrant with moth balls walls bleeding yellow nicotine i cry to sleep at night without you, left with illusions holding you in my hands wet and dead carrying your love around preserving your heart with arsenic and lace i made a manhattan in the hollows of your devotion when you are resurrected and remade will you know who i am i cry to sleep at night without you, left with shadows living in the corners of my eyes edges reaching out like spider legs crawling around mirrors crawling into my mouth stuffing me with cedar resin and myrrh the dead are carried out feet first so they can’t mark the living hold your heart with my hands stuffed with stargazer lilies wrap your heart in linen hide you next to my body if your heart was placed inside of me would we melt together waiting for your soul to meet mine reanimated without your heart will you look for me across the fires and empty deserts of the hereafter
© Tina Leavitt 2025 | A guest post by
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