Issue #17

Free

Table of Contents

Letter from the Editor: One Life

Announcing the winners of
Please See Me’s
2025 6th Annual Mental Health Awareness Writing Contest

Nonfiction
Shadow of a Diagnosis | Monica Ross

Fiction
Unbecoming | Colleen Morrison

Poetry
The Porringer | Linda Vigen Phillips

Finding Freedom: A List of Helpful Terms for Female Cancer Patients | April Boyington Wall
Make the Drip | Katie Toler
The Depression Scale | Michael Hardin
Showing Up | William Bartlett
The Impossible Hour | AS Aubrey
I Will Prepare and Someday My Time Will Come | Michael K. White
Peekaboo | Erin Gottwald
Attempting to Soar as a Spoonie | Wendy Kennar

How to Live | Suzette Blom
Lo, the Winter Has Passed | Nancy Levine
First Code | Katie Yang
Riptide | J Bryan Michel
Talking When Death’s Been Close | Graeme Richmond Mack
Elephant | Raymond J. Brash

Letter from the Poetry Editor: Creative Writing that Empowers You

My Mother’s Cup of Caffeine, Morgan on the Couch One Last Time | Linda Phillips
Stage Makeup | Meg Taylor
3 Poems | Shanan Ballam
Wissahickon Creek | Michael Sanders
Lab Oratory & Emancipation | Alice Ranjan
Your Care of Me & A Song of Dementia | Elizabeth Ambos
I Am You & Gracie | Paul Hostovsky
During Tree Pose | Stephanie Striffler
Stopping CPR | Flavian Mark Lupinetti
In the Garden | Andrew Dillon
3 Poems | Rais Tuluka
Retention & In the Military | Ron Riekki
Resurrection, Body & Soul | Joe Cottonwood
Instructions | Kate Marshall Flaherty
On Independence Day | Donna J. Gelagotis Lee
Like Water Running Uphill | Shay Wills

Lilly Crown | Shannon Mcnicholas
Cover Image: Free | Tracy Granzyk / Midjourney