Mother loves postcards. I wish you could see this cathedral. I miss you. I have been constrained by tradition. I move from friend to friend. Wake in one bedroom, slumber in another. No personal markers, photos. Gifts conveying motherly intimacy. My favorite Yates novel, a radio, a train set. Living with Mother was rife with frenetic energy once Dad left. He called her a senseless dreamer. Life was defined by bottles, hissing wine. Cackling laughter, dissolved smiles. I want Mother at ease. Instead, I conjure her flitting about cathedrals, mistaking facades for joy. I tell her I’m happy. Try to believe.

From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His story “Soon,” was nominated for a Pushcart and he has also had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions. Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in journals such as 50-Word Stories, Silent Auctions, City. River. Tree. and Ariel Chart.

I try on names for mythical mother. Mother. Mama. Mom. They hold their own weight. Mother, formal, yet beautiful. Mama, the moon, wistful and luminous. Mom is too plain.

I keep trying on names, wishing. I can’t stop.

From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. A recipient of two Honorable Mentions from Glimmer Train, he has had work nominated for a Pushcart Award and The Best Small Fictions. Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in journals such as Unstamatic, Door Is A Jar Magazine, Maudlin House, and Ariel Chart.

My mother used to talk to herself, still does. It’s more muttering than talking. My sister, when I ask her, says that of course she talks to herself. My niece, the one who feels connected to me through the umbilical cord, says she also talks to herself. My daughter talks to other car drivers, but that is something I see men do. My self talk is more like my mother’s, my sister’s, my niece’s. It’s silenced talk, cowering, frightened talk, defiant talk too, but quiet, subterranean defiance, crawling, hushed, vigilant, raging, hungry to growl and bite, make men swallow words.

From Guest Contributor Edvige Giunta

When I sat at my one-hundred-year-old mother’s bedside, she told me I was adopted, that she couldn’t die without telling me. I’m seventy-three years old, what was the point when no family was left to answer my questions?

I deleted my account and never looked back.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Aviva Blonheim stepped onto the train with her parents. As the German soldier closed the door, he chortled. Aviva, only ten years old, didn’t understand why Herr Hitler hated the Jewish, and as she glanced at her people packed into herds, unkempt, smelling of sweat and urine, she became more frightened. She tightly clutched her mother’s hand.

As the poison gas entered Aviva, she grasped her throat and collapsed into darkness.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Auntie asks my mother and I to move out of her house. She says I make too much noise when I sleepwalk and my rock albums are causing Uncle Herman more brain damage from his tour of duty in Afghanistan. Upstairs, I take down my posters of Geronimo, John Lennon, and James Dean from the finely cracked yellow walls. Exhausted, my mother sits on my bed and breaks down. “It’s all your fault,” she says. As if I had the power. At night tiny policemen march into my ears. I’m not sure it’s a dream. They say come with us.

From Guest Contributor Kyle Hemmings

Kyle’s latest collection of text and art is Amnesiacs of Summer published by Yavanika Press. He loves street photography, French Impressionism, and 60s garage bands that never made it big.

Brigit, Irish Goddess of Poetry, sits at the feet of her Mother of Plenty.

Mother says, “I pray they find peace and joy in our plentiful gifts before destroying them.”

From Guest Contributor Soma Datta (@somaxdatta)

Around nine O’clock at night, mother returned from work. She was exhausted. She had been working all day. She had brought doughnuts with her for her son. She put the bag of doughnuts in the kitchen and went upstairs to see him. The door of his room was cracked open. She opened the door carefully not to wake him up. She saw him sleeping. He was looking like an angel while sleeping. She went inside and stood there near the bedside for a while looking at his son. She leaned down and kissed her son’s forehead and left the room.

From Guest Contributor Sergio Nicolas

Linda bought it for me at the museum gala. “So many wonderful things for a donation.” she said, “You should have come, my dear! Meet new people.”

I call it Maxine. Sits brooding under a lamp on my desk. We keep each other company.

From Guest Contributor Karen Walker

The gentle ripple of the waves soothes me, as I listen to the seagulls flying above searching for prey. A mother is helping her young son build a sandcastle while keeping an eye out for her daughter. “Don’t go too far out,” she bellows.

The ocean is a world of its own, and the world is the ocean.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher