Nonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Breathing Water at the Bottom of the Ocean by Pamela OHara or many nights after my husband admitted in our first marriage counseling session that his car wreck the year before had been an intentional head-on collision, I could not sleep. I laid awake wondering if our new therapist had processed his revelation. Surely if my smart, successful, charismatic husband admitted to a suicide attempt, alarm bells with strobing ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Touch and Go by Diane Funston hen I was seven, we had a kitten named Frisky. He lived with us for five months before he was sent to the pound to be put to sleep. We weren’t sure what it was, but Frisky had uncontrollable bouts of aggression. He would get up, come across the room and begin to attack us. These attacks always took us by surprise. ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Mending by Millie Jackson Mending She abandons her paints, .......her brushes, .........the needles and tapestry… ...........lays down the spoon that mixed the batter. Her eyes exhausted .......from depression .........that follows mania. She explodes .........and melts ...........overandoverandoveragain No one understands .......hushed whispers blame ...........“She’s at it again.” .......As if .........she can control .............what is happening .......in .........her ...........brain .............& ...............body. .......Sometimes .........she is locked away, ...........throw away the key. .........The house falls silent ...........Is there silence in the hospital? ...................No, never in the hospital. .........It is full of noisebustlewordspillsshockreatments. Drugs dull her .........quiet .............her creative vigor ...............muted .........she feels like death. And so .......she ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 A Greek Myth and a Long Illness by Veronica Ashenhurst A Greek Myth and a Long Illness Phaeton longed to drive the day, to steer Apollo’s sun-chariot through the sky. I might have warned him not to go, but he would have defied me. His fate quickened: the horses reeled, the coach plunged, with searing sun, to earth. To save the globe, Zeus pierced Phaeton with a thunderbolt, and tucked him in paradise, a constellation to his ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Post Partum by Jody Brooks ere’s my confession: I have shhh-ed in anger. It’s the quietest scream you’ll ever hear. Clutching this wailing newborn to my chest, I exhale in forceful gusts. I feel the slow release of rage, and I feel guilty. This planned pregnancy and nine precious months so why am I angry? And why is this loud anger, shhh-ed through gritted teeth, soothing her? She ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Three Poems by Kelly Cass Falzone The First Sound Before I had a drum in my ear, before I had an ear even, I had sound that was no sound: a pulse through my heart when I was mostly only a heart, a slim of spine, and curled brow. I knew the slosh of slick liquid on my skin, that transparent sheath of almost only water. I knew the tumble of my heavy head-first, that buoyant seahorse bobbing-business, suspense. I knew ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Refining the Art of Unraveling Fashionably by Amelie Peterson art 1: The World’s Worst Tetris Player I tossed a Purple GelFlex™ foam mattress and a newly-assembled IKEA™ writing desk down on the asphalt next to a locked dumpster, in a middle school parking lot. It was 3 AM on a weekday. I had not slept in forty-eight hours. My shoulders, legs and lower back all ached, from frantically hauling ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Two Poems by Jill McGrath After An Illness I have come back to life, and the heady joy won't leave me, an at-last at-last mingles with every bird's cry, the insects themselves parading and humming delight. I have the all of it, the sensuous bliss of it, body again body, free to move, delighting in the motion, mind unfogged to leap around an old jazzy thinking that flickers and enchants me. Spirit unchained, I emerge from all darkness, jump into this beautiful fire ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Crossing the River Styx by Maureen Martinez Crossing the River Styx Can I talk to you for a minute? My student asks standing still as a tree in a snow globe forest framed by my glass office door with festive Christmas decorations backlit by hallway fluorescents. I don’t know how to say it. He says after seconds of silence, tears streaming fast, time slowing, eyes downcast as he contemplates the liminal space between us. Sit down, take a breath. ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 epitaphs and eulogies by Ajibike Lapite epitaphs and eulogies flowers belong on tombstones but I never found the courage to see yours: I bought three bouquets from CVS and I pulled out the twigs, the flowers who had forgotten to bloom, and the ones that did not deserve to be yours – I tossed them off the balcony without fanfare and trimmed the stems of those that remained I have wondered if my posture is different when I am ...
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