Standing here on this frigid night, I look out over a frozen landscape, and I can’t help but wonder why?. There is still hope. Maybe one day, this land will come back to life, the trees will grow, the water will flow, and the air will smell fresh and clean.

But the land is not dead. It’s only sleeping, waiting for inspiration or something green to grow the days away.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

He smiled as he walked toward his mistress—beautiful and depraved. When he got close, he saw the green glint around her eyes and began to recognize their malicious intent. Her thick, dark hair covered much of her face, and a faint scar ran from her ear down her neck. He noticed that she was still pale. She would have no colour for a while, he thought.

“Not exactly,” Her mouth fell open slightly.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Everything appears gray or white, and after only a few days, I start to miss seeing things that are green. The people I depend on for advice don’t want to talk about it or even acknowledge a problem exists. I scan the morning headlines. Bosnians are still finding in woods and fields and under building rubble bodies from the genocide their leaders claim never happened. A year passes, two. The dentist bangs on my tooth. “That hurt?” he asks. I smell grass, hear birds chirp. It hurts. So what? A bird hasn’t an arm but the continent of the sky.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022.

We have walked about 30,000 miles together. That’s more than once around the circumference of the earth. On clear mornings a sliver moon greets us. Autumn brings magic. From summer’s green comes a cacophony of color. Winter evenings are deeply dark. Light the torch to check the footing.

“So what do you talk about?” A few have asked this. We communicate in silence. Each small step a giant leap for matrimony.

From Guest Contributor Sam Brody

The clock tower, situated in the center of the town square, afforded views of the entire valley. No shadow could hide from its rapacious stare.

When the clock resumed, Rebecca and Victor, despite being certifiably sober, returned to their homes after once again awakening from a stupor under mysterious circumstance.

Rosa watched the Christmas lights flickering on the house across the street. Green, red, blue and white, gleaming through her window. She took a sip of tea and let the warmth settle in her stomach.

Every year Rosa continued putting the box under the tree and never opened it.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Winter surrendered. Riverbanks croaked a single splash with each muddied footstep. Wild Sweet William’s dainty lavender flower mingled lush green leaves and twisting vines of yellow-hued buttercups and scarlet sumac. Scraps of ocean blue ribbon and coral-colored yarn frantically entwined weaving sticks and leaves, nesting six brown-speckled eggs. Wild turkeys gathered strutting rowed corn fields. Beneath the refuge of centenarian pine fawns struggle against tottering wobbled legs. Snapping turtles lazily sit side by side sunning on downed oak logs across the trickling eddy. A deluded hummingbird, hoodwinked by an empty bird feeder, tells me to get busy.

From Guest Contributor Christy Schuld

Blue is a breeze blowing wisps of hair across my cheek. Red is juice running down my chin as I bite a sun-ripened strawberry. Green, the scent of freshly cut grass, blades rippling and tickling the soles of my feet. Purple is the fading warmth of a summer’s evening. White, a smooth window pane on an icy winter morning.

I feel these things because I was born deaf, and my vision melted away soon after. I sometimes imagine fleeting specks of color from my first glimpses of life, but those memories exist only in the moments between sleep and waking.

From Guest Contributor Megan Cassidy

Megan is an author and English professor currently teaching at Schenectady County Community College. Her first young adult novel, Always, Jessie will be published by Saguaro Books this spring. Megan’s other work has been featured in Pilcrow & Dagger, Wordhaus, and Gilded Serpent Magazine. For free excerpts and deleted scenes of Megan’s work, check out her website or follow her on Twitter

There once was a girl and she was blue. Everything she saw, thought, and felt was blue. She thought of pink, green and purple, but no luck. Everything was still blue. She thought of how much better things would be in a different color; brighter, warmer, easier. She kept thinking she should change, so that the blue would disappear. She would imagine vibrant turquoise and even bright whites. Then one day she took the plunge. She followed the light; the hope. She walked as far as she could walk. Then she floated. Now things are red. So very, very red.

From Guest Contributor Maureen Ferguson

Last Saturday, I woke up to discover I was allergic to the color green.

The thing is, as Superman, it was bad enough with the kryptonite thing.