I would pretend to be sleeping when he flipped on the light in my room. He would loom over me until my eyes opened. The walls would seem to lean in. Fear would distort my breathing. If I tried to scoot away, he would grab me by the arm and drag me back and crack me across the face with the flat of his hand. He was buried on a cold Sunday next to my mother. Some thirty people, mostly family, attended. It began to snow as stood at the graveside. He had finally found a solution to his loneliness.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie co-edits the online journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.

Sand rolls steadily along the prairie with a wild wind. The fox finds his home between the sagebrush and through the sunflowers. He leaps airily at ease with his snout grinning. Atop the hill, he shimmies about and slides down while birds depart. Below he creeps to the cemetery and waits for night to lay a veil. A gentle chill glides along as starlight washes over weary stone. With a swift bark and a bound, he weaves among the graves. Moonlight tickles his whiskers and mist wanders in. Here the fox dances with ghosts who once called his prairie home.

From Guest Contributor Kristi Kerico

Kristi is a psychology major at Pikes Peak Community College. She is studying to become a horticultural therapist. She currently works at a bookstore and volunteers at a zoo and nature center. She began writing after enrolling in a creative writing course at PPCC. She enjoys poetry the most, considering it’s brief yet complex beauty. She also loves writing with a focus on nature.

in this silent graveyard,
no one mentioned death.
the hair on my arms stood at attention,
like soldiers in the cold war.
temperature below freezing,
any moisture turned into ice
and fell onto his eyelashes.
just before midnight,
we grabbed a bouquet of
plastic
yellow
roses.
he quivered from the cold,
but his smile never faded.
vows spilling from his lips,
like a waterfall made of his soul.
his nose was cold against mine,
after the final words of our connection.
pulling away he looked at me,
a shimmer in his eyes,
knowing,
that forever,
he will always be mine.

From Guest Contributor Neyalla Ryu

You talk to family photos, suffer from migraines, play Chopin with unshowy facility on the parlor piano. Strangers often comment on your eyes – gull’s eyes, someone called them. The sea heaves just outside your door, and from the back window, you can see the cemetery where your father is buried. Weeds have sprouted up overnight among the headstones. You aren’t interested in stories of success, only failure. “Sunshine,” you say, “is an overrated virtue.” The words echo. There’s a feeling that something terrible is about to happen. You watch for a while and then shrug. Maybe because it’s all disappearing.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press and Spooky Action at a Distance from Analog Submission Press. He co-edits the journals Unbroken and UnLost.

The anguish of losing a loved one aches the heart. Henry knew this too well as he walked the cemetery grounds to his wife’s grave, carrying a dozen red roses, her favorite flower.

A gentle breeze blew a rose petal in the air.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The eve before Halloween I visit Melissa’s gravesite and place a
bouquet of yellow roses against her stone. She’d be thirty years old
today. The cemetery is empty, and the rain is cold against my face, but
I am here.

The rain becomes heavy and when I drive off, the petals of the roses
blow in front of my car.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Pale reaching hands slipped below powdered ash and blood-soaked mud, pressing tighter to the earth, seeking salvation in the grave-like ditch. War thundered overhead as gunpowder sparked and chorused above. The soldier turned his silver eyes over the mud—to the cemetery of barbed wire and bruised corpses.

A high-pitched scream wailed distantly from two warring steeds tethered together. He watched the blood-stained Roan shriek and kick as it fell into the sea of barbed wire; the moon-kissed Arabian jolted from the tearing spikes, her gas mask hanging from bloodied leather, not knowing whether to die quietly or while struggling.

From Guest Contributor Mikayla E. Gruber

Mikayla is currently writing a fantasy/sci-fi novel and studying English and German at Pikes Peak Comunity College. She is also working towards a CPDT-KA Certification.

Seamus liked this time of day for visiting Breige. It seemed fitting.

He reached out, smiling as the shadows embraced.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

After midnight, we climb the cemetery fence.

I’ve seen the stripes on Gordy’s back, his broken nose, of course, but when Gordy takes out a sledge hammer, winding up, I grab his arm, saying, “Do that and he wins.”

From Guest Contributor Len Kuntz

Len is a writer from Washington State, an editor at the online magazine Literary Orphans, and the author of I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE AND NEITHER ARE YOU out now from Unknown Press. You can also find him at lenkuntz.blogspot.com

The argument over the next-door cemetery was one of those that never ended, though nobody in the Miller family took it particularly seriously. None of them were actually frightened.

It was Mr. Bodewin, the retired Sheriff, who told them they didn’t live on the edge of the cemetery, but smack dab in the middle. But he maintained the boys’ deaths were an accident still. Mr. Bodewin didn’t believe in hauntings.