Brandon surveyed the sea of grass standing before him. The wind, which shook the trees and rained leaves down from above, was swallowed up in the green swathe so that the air at ground level was nearly silent.

He took only a few steps before he drowned in the vegetation.

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

A mere glimmer of light reflected off the patches of clammy wall not occupied by greasy lichen and water-laden moss as he hung awkwardly upside-down, blood rushing to his head.

A furious voice drifted down from above “If he doesn’t kiss the damn Blarney soon, I’m letting go!”

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Still tired, I wake in the darkness. In the distance, I hear a train and the rumble of traffic. I strain for the sound of your soft breathing next to me. An aeroplane passes overhead, now I hear the humming of the refrigerator. Eyes closed, I can feel the heat of you an arm’s length away; just an arm’s length. I reach out to touch you; I hear the angry hiss. Still not forgiven. My heart turns to stone when I glimpse your fury through clenched fingers. Everything turns to stone, hard stone. Hard words echo in the night air.

From Guest Contributor David Rae

I was once asked a question. In fact, it was the most important question in the history of the world.

Honestly, how’s a piece of shit like me supposed to know if everything happens for a reason?

From Guest Contributor Branko Tubic

where I see this beautiful creature’s frayed leash, the far end trapped under a great stone. So great I assume she cannot lift it. She tells me how time is consumptive, and while consuming us, so it must erode the stone. But the longer she or I stare, the slower it seems to weather. Is it any wonder her running throat is yanked taught? The urge to break the circle is the legacy of choice. Look at her and promise, “I cannot lift that stone. But I can sit here and wait until you do. Your wings, they’re pinned beneath.”

From Guest Contributor Nick Scott Christian

Nick’s poetry has appeared in Poetry Quarterly. He lives in St. Louis and currently studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

We thought we’d have forever, but forever doesn’t last as long as it once did. One year, seven months, four days since we wed. Your beauty captivated me. Never thinking of yourself, you touched many lives, changed them, helped people achieve their deepest aspirations. You challenged me, forced me to chase my dreams. But what about your dreams, desires? You’ll never reach them now. You were there for me, but I failed you. Forgive me?

Goodbye.

From Guest Contributor Joshua Lanham

I sat on the large stone in the middle of the picnic field. I had my notebook out and was busy scribbling away. There were couples and families and dogs and blankets. There was food and sport and laughter and a few tears. The more life unfurled around me, the faster my pencil lurched across the page.

But life is lived whether we laugh and love our way to death or record others doing it.

A young girl and her father sit on a bench and stare into the lake. They are stuck this way forever. From here on out, they must focus unblinking on the way it does not ripple, how no stone may enter and how no fish can leave. Across the park, a squirrel clings to a tree, his heart always exploding, a white dog snapping at his tail. The water reflects the moon and calls down the night, pocked with clouds– the sky split in two, half of it black, half of it blue; there is no color where they merge.

From Guest Contributor, Jeremy S. Griffin

The figure appeared out of the fog covered in blood and carrying a large stone tablet. He made it only a few steps towards us, then collapsed.

Boiled down, it read, “Stop being assholes to each other.”