Poetry – PLEASE SEE ME

How to Save A Life PSM 18 Poetry – Maureen Martinez

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 How to Save a Life by Maureen Martinez How to Save a Life Step one, you say, “We need to talk.” - The Fray, “How to Save a Life” do you know where you were when you heard it were you alone at your desk with a cinnamon coffee and a Dunkin Munchkin scripting a pre-exam meditation or responding to a question about a son’s plummeting performance do you have the answers about why ...

Two Poems PSM 18 Poetry – Ellen McHugh

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 Two Poems by Ellen McHugh Billy Miller's Blood Billy Miller rides the RTA to the clinic twice monthly for shots that tell her bones to make more blood. When she asks, Am I dying, nurse? you tell her she is not dying. Every time. She says, Look at me, Nurse. You say, I’m looking at your numbers, Billy. What do they say? You tell her they say she’s beautiful, You tell her they say the lake’s extra blue today, You ...

Two Poems PSM 18 Poetry – Donna J. Gelagotis Lee

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 Two Poems by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee When the Disease Is Winning It’s a “well” day. Sunny. 70. Perfect for you. No migraine attack in sight. Yet what to do? Whom to see when you finally, today, can see someone? After a decade, your friends have new lives. And you are not on their schedule, as you aren’t a reliable scheduler. And where can you go anyway, now that it’s Saturday and the new world loves fragrance more than ...

Two Poems PSM 18 Poetry – Christine Harapiak

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 Two Poems by Christine Harapiak Foreign Travel Our bodies now are foreign lands we never cared to visit. Doctors find strange things that may or may not spell trouble and carve their names on our insides like young couples leaving traces of their love on trees they may need to burn later. We watch people falling away some early some late some right on time, and wonder what our expiry date might be. Until then we keep getting up, getting ...

Two Poems PSM 18 Poetry – Hayley Ross-Settineri

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 Two Poems by Hayley Ross-Settineri Waffles Don't Scream at You bagels don’t bite you in the nose, strawberries don’t stain the rug with tears, red velvet doesn’t rip your still beating heart out and feel its pulse against its palm, broken veins in between its fingernails. Life is easier when you are eating. The world seems so big when you are a toddler, the only thing you need to make it feel just a bit smaller is a towering ...

Don’t Kill Your Darlings PSM 18 Poetry – Allison Whittenberg

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 Don't Kill Your Darlings by Allison Whittenberg Don't Kill Your Darlings I recall being close to you very but I think no now, I can be far away, unfortunately. Our quarrel, though recent, now seems a whim. Truth can be insignificant. I believe that one should be selective, that many many things need not be explored or even murmured. The truth can be vile/ unseemly/ unwelcome -- thank you. It's simple (We give it complexity.) The more you love someone the less they deserve that ...

Living Online PSM 18 Poetry – Deanna Davidson

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 Living Online by Deanna Davidson Living Online Childhood habit of sitting in a rolling chair, I’m captured by the arms of addiction. Entranced by the blue light of a computer screen. Worlds collide, active online, I’m desolate in person, weight gained, posture lost. Power outage reboots the router, game over. Hours wasted while my muscles waste away. Deanna Davidson reads “Living Online”: Deann Davidson has a Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing from California State University, Northridge. She writes dystopian, fantasy, and horror short stories, as well as poetry. ...

Three Poems PSM 18 Poetry – Josiane Kouagheu

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 Three Poems by Josiane Kouagheu the rape's sanctuary January 25, 2026. Njombe. Cameroon. the sleeping guitars have tattooed the sounds of their destruction inside the silence of my body. and the torturers of the motel have started the process. the rape meeting. salt. spicy. black. red. they have started the requiem of my sanctuary. visages. like light familiar antagonists. like a mask of Njombe. it is the blossom of the threats. it is the final birth of their anger. it ...

A Second Leaving PSM 18 Poetry – Ted Taylor

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 A Second Leaving by Ted Taylor A Second Leaving Of my Facebook friends Nine so far are now dead. Their pictures remain. I could delete them, But I don’t. I’ve been to many old cemeteries. They intrigue me So serene and timeless. And I read the stones. The names and dates. I try to imagine them. As they were, a four year Old girl in 1820, a captain Who served with Grant, Mother 1644-1699. But when I look at the older Stones, the sandstone ones, They’re ...

Three Things about Routine Surgery PSM 18 Poetry – Joe Cottonwood

Poetry Issue #18: Choices April 20, 2026 Three Things about Routine Surgery by Joe Cottonwood Three Things about Routine Surgery She is under the knife inside a maze of hallways. I could pace, read my phone and simply be near in case she suddenly dies or something (in which case how could I help?) but no. I walk into rising sun and sit at a cafe window where a mosquito hawk with hair-thin feet is testing the glass— up, down, a barrier, a desire. Shut out. ...