September Together

By Elizabeth Shack

Last September, we hiked the forest
beside the fog-drenched sea.
Followed a swift stream
bridged with salmon spawning,
returning from gray Pacific homes.
Switchbacked beside a waterfall
sparkling down steep granite.

Emerged into sunlight with a view
of lichen-painted rock
and the blue-white ice
that once sculpted this verdant valley.

Is still sculpting:
Just as moss and fern carpeted bare rock,
as alder and spruce sprouted,
as forest appeared where glacier receded,

today melting ice reshapes coasts,
forests flame to ash,
grasslands wither to desert,
rivers run to dust.

This September, whales still sing in the sea.

Will you fight with me
for this vibrant,
dying world?

Elizabeth Shack lives in central Illinois with her spouse, cat, and an expanding collection of art supplies and fitness equipment. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in The MacGuffin, Writers Resist, Daily Science Fiction, and other magazines and anthologies. She attended the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop for poetry in 2022. For more of Elizabeth’s work, visit her website.

Photo credit: “Humpback Whale” by J. Maughn via a Creative Commons license.

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A Woman of Good Manners

By Nikki Blakely

It is a universal truth that a man of good fortune must be in want of a wife, and Jayne set her sights on Edward, despite his reputation for being of a most disagreeable character.

On their first date, they went to Possum Pond.

Jayne had always been told the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She smiled coyly at Edward as she opened the picnic basket and placed the food onto a red checkered tablecloth laid out under the shade of a large elm tree—ham and Swiss sandwiches with the crusts cut off, red potato salad with tiny cornichons and tart-sweet lemonade, freshly squeezed.

Edward ate heartily, while Jayne merely picked at her food, as was befitting a woman of good manners. Afterward, she slipped off her stockings, pulled her dress to her thighs and waded into the pond, beckoning Edward with the crook of her finger to follow, and follow he did.

He came up behind her, grabbed her tightly by the neck, then pushed her face into the muddy murk of the shallow water and held it there until her body stopped thrashing.

The next afternoon, it surprised Edward to see Jayne strolling up the cobbled stone pathway to his house, looking no worse for wear, though he thought he noticed a slight smudge of dirt around the cuff of her sleeve.

“Darling, it’s a beautiful day for a picnic,” she said, exactly as she had the day before, and indeed it was.

True, Jayne was not an overtly handsome woman, her countenance left Edward wanting, but her cooking skills were a credit to her housekeeping. And, well, it was lunchtime and he was hungry. Edward pulled his hat and coat from the rack, and once more they set off to Possum Pond.

Today she brought crispy fried chicken, golden buttermilk biscuits, and ice cold beer, and, for dessert, cinnamon-apple hand-pies. Jayne only nibbled—she was a lady after all—while Edward ate his fill. Afterward, Edward picked up one of Jayne’s stockings that she had taken off, twisted it tightly around her neck, and pulled sharply. Her hands clawed at her throat, her eyes bulged, and her body thrashed until finally falling limp.

The next day, Jayne was again on Edward’s doorstep, with only a slight reddening around her neck.

“Darling, it’s a beautiful day for a picnic,” she said, and off they went.

She’d made a salad with fresh greens, crisp bacon and soft-boiled eggs. Edward washed it all down with Southern sweet tea, then finished the meal with vanilla macaroons. Afterward, he pulled out a knife he’d hidden in his sock, and stabbed Jayne in the neck, watching the blood first spurt, then trickle, the red stain spreading like spilled wine across the checked tablecloth.

When Jayne once again appeared on his doorstep the following day, Edward noticed a crimson spot on her collar, and thought her smile waned slightly, but other than that, she remained nonplussed. They locked arms and set off for Possum Pond.

As usual, they sat down under the cool shade of the elm, and Jayne removed the food from the picnic basket: beef tongue pie, pickled beets, butterscotch pudding and sarsaparilla soda. After they had eaten, they lay down, and spent the afternoon picking animal shapes from the clouds until Edward at last leaned over and kissed Jayne on the lips. Then he placed his coat over her face and pressed down firmly until her arms stopped flailing about and she was completely still.

“Darling, it’s a—” Edward was already waiting at the door, coat and hat in hand.

From the picnic basket, Jayne pulled cold roast mutton, deviled eggs, sweet mulled cider, and a raspberry tart. When Edward finished eating, he picked up a thick heavy log and smashed it over her head, once, twice, three times for good measure, until her body collapsed and crumpled to the ground in a heap.

When Jayne again showed up the next day, picnic basket in hand, it had been five days since their first date. She looked a little bedraggled, with the smudge of dirt on her cuff, a reddening around her neck and a drop of blood on her collar. Her bun hung askew to the left, and she walked with a slight limp.

Edward considered Jayne. She was not a great beauty, nor an accomplished woman. By her own confession, she did not possess any knowledge of the pianoforte, was not skilled in the art of conversation, and almost always lost at whist. Her prospects were most certainly limited. But her figure was slight and pleasing, she ate like a bird, and, try as he might, she would not die. What she lacked in physical attributes she made up for in tenacity. If he couldn’t kill her, he’d marry her instead. He decided to propose that day, directly after lunch.

That day, as Jayne had done every day before, she shook out the checkered tablecloth and spread it out under the shade of the elm. She slipped off her stockings, and Edward, impatient to see what new delights the picnic basket held, took haste to open it before Jayne had the opportunity, His countenance revealed his surprise at finding it empty, and he looked to Jayne for explanation.

“It is a universal truth that a woman of bad fortune might be in want of a good meal rather than a good husband, and there is a much faster way to a man’s heart.”

With one hand, Jayne grabbed Edward by the throat and plunged the other deep into his chest. She pulled out his heart, still beating, and bit into it like an apple, the blood dribbling down her chin. Then she picked up a napkin and dabbed daintily at the corners of her mouth. She was a woman of good manners, after all.

Nikki Blakely lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, with her partner and a precocious gray tabby named Tedz. She enjoys writing fiction of all shapes, sizes, and genres, crafting stories that evoke smiles, tears, laughter, the occasional eye roll, and sometimes even a scream. Her work has been published in Sundial Magazine, Bright Flash Fiction and Luna Station Quarterly, and others. You can find her on Twitter at @nblakely99

Photo credit: “Picnic Basket” by Paul via a Creative Commons license.

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Scylla

By Bex Hainsworth

A nymph unburdened by beauty is a nightmare.

My barnacle flesh scratches against stone
as I curl up in my cave, full of octopus cunning;
folding many limbs around myself, cruel, content.

This was Circe’s gift: to make me a monster,
a maneater. The distant roar of Charybdis
rocks me to an easy sleep each night.

I know they will take the dangerous road,
right to my mountain door. The men,
the soldiers, the heroes. The semi-divine.

They taste of revenge, of justice
for the ripped dresses, for the temple maids
who lost the chase, the dryads who couldn’t
get away, and the goddesses who never escaped.
For Leda, and Persephone, and Helen. For Hera.

This is for my own golden bruises.

I hold vigil. My teeth are tapers, glinting in the dark,
for all my sacrificial sisters. No offerings
are made in my name, no altars, no prayers.
No matter. The sea provides settlement.

You should hear them scream for me.
I rip the last words from their throats
with claws like scythes.

Afterwards, wiggling a thigh bone free
with the stick of a ship’s mast,
I recite my affirmations:

let them know how it felt beneath their bodies,
let their hearts freeze at the thought of me,
let them know what it is to be truly afraid.

A nymph unburdened by beauty is their nightmare.

Bex Hainsworth (she/her) is a bisexual poet and teacher based in Leicester, UK. She won the Collection HQ Prize as part of the East Riding Festival of Words and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, Ethel Zine, Atrium, Okay Donkey, trampset, and bath magg. Find her on Twitter @PoetBex.

Illustration of “Pesce Donna” from Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi’s Istorica descrizione de’ tre’ regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola, 1687, via Public Domain Review.

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Islands of No Nation

By Ada Ardére

We give them our children to fight in jungles and deserts,
we give them our taxes to pave their roads,
we give them our land to build their businesses,
we give them our coasts to moor their battleships,
we give them our waters to test nuclear weapons,
and we have received nothing.

Hurricanes and earthquakes ravage us
and only deafened ears sit on the mainland
as we watch the light go out in our hospitals
as we hear of emergency rations withheld at ports.

Where is the medicine needed in San Juan?
Where is the common courtesy owed the Virgin Islands?
Where are the passports for the people of Guam?
Where are the houses for Samoa?
Where are the services for our veterans?
Where are the schools for our children?

They respond.

They call us niggers, spics, and pretenders,
subconsciously lumping us into one group
they whisper: inbetweener.

They refuse to meet us on our shores,
removing us from public memory
they ask us who we even are.

They call us savage and uncivilized,
speaking slowly and loudly
they consider us for zoos.

They see us pouring into recruiting stations,
greedily licking their lips and growling
they see guerrilla soldiers signing up.

They use us hard and fast.
Emptying VA hospital funds,
they kick us to the streets.

They think us incapable of thought or reason.
While building a third theater in their child’s school,
they accuse us of overbreeding.

Until we are held in common,
until the law is not chain and whip,
until our shores are ours to have,
until our pain is paid for,
until we have a future as ourselves,
until we too are free

We can answer to no one,
no duty to higher powers,
nothing owed to foreign chambers.
We hold neither oaths nor allegiance.
We are islands of no nation.

Ada Ardére is a Puerto Rican poet from New Orleans who now lives in Kansas City. She studied philosophy of art and Plato, and loves beat poetry. Her works have appeared in 34th Parallel Magazine, Wussy Mag, and The New Southern Fugitives.

Image of Donald Trump, throwing papers towels at a press event in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017, used for purposes of commentary and education under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 allowing for “fair use.”

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Reputation

TW: SA

By Frances Koziar

He speaks of his reputation
while I think of fates worse than death,
his name, when I would gladly give up mine
for a good night’s sleep, to see those nightmares
shaped like ordinary men slain
before their groping hands reach me; he speaks
of having a life ruined, not knowing
what that really means, not understanding
how men can form packs like wolves
at the first sound of a woman’s
assertiveness, ready
to tear that voice from her neck, carnage
be damned, not seeing our loss of reputation
every time we speak our names, our shame,
even when the evidence convinces anyone
who’ll let it; I laugh
when I want to cry, hold still
when I shake with fear, walk with poise
when I am running away, because attention
is the most dangerous thing of all. Smile
they tell you while you bleed out from the throat;
Speak, Pretty One,
but only if you say frivolous things; Sing—
but I can only hear screams.

Frances Koziar has published poetry in over 35 different literary magazines, including Vallum and Acta Victoriana. A young (disabled) retiree and a social justice advocate, she lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Visit her website and follow her on Facebook.

Photo credit: “Eve in Shame” by Stanley Zimny via a Creative Commons license.

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REMINDER: Writers Resist Reads this Saturday 28 Jan 2023

Join us on Saturday 28 January at 5:00 pm Pacific

for a virtual reading by the contributing creators of the December 2022 issue of Writers Resist.

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88356614245?pwd=a1FRMndJYzI3VzE1Ym9yZUU2ODhHdz09

Meeting ID: 883 5661 4245
Passcode: 247349

Read the current issue here.

Contributors include:

Christina Bagni

Lisa Brand

Tara Campbell

Jacqueline Jules

Karen Kilcup

Livvy Krakower

Kathleen Kremins

Dotty LeMieux

the Maenad

Renee McClellan

William Palmer

Yvonne Patterson

Stephen Sossaman

Holly Stovall

Samy Swayd

Writers Resist Reads is a quarterly virtual reading hosted by Writers Resist, a feminist literary collective born of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. We are dedicated to creative expressions of resistance by diverse writers and artists from around the globe.

Welcome to Writers Resist, the December 2022 Issue

In case you didn’t know

Writers Resist celebrates each quarterly issue with a virtual reading, and you are invited to join us for this issue’s gathering.

Writers Resist Reads • Saturday 28 January 2023 • 5:00 p.m. PACIFIC

Zoom information:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88356614245?pwd=a1FRMndJYzI3VzE1Ym9yZUU2ODhHdz09

Meeting ID: 883 5661 4245
Passcode: 247349

In the meantime, we know the world is fraught with conflict, so give yourself the space to enjoy our December 2022 issue featuring works by:

Photo credit: K-B Gressitt

Justice Clarence Thomas Ate My Fucking Plums

By Christina Bagni

after William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

and which
you were probably
relying on
forever

Forgive me
you didn’t deserve them
they were always
mine to take

Forgive me
but the icebox
was always meant
to be empty

it came that way
and that’s how god
told me
it should be

So I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

to return order
to your cold
empty
world

I did it for you,
you see.

Forgive me.

Christina Bagni’s creative work has been published in Asterism, Lit202, and Underground Literary Magazine, among others. She is the Chief Editor at Wandering Words Media and a writer on the Captain Bitcoin comic book series. Her first novel is forthcoming with Deep Hearts YA (2023).

Photo credit: Public domain.

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The North Wind & The Sun

By Jacqueline Jules

“Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.”
—The North Wind and the Sun, Aesop

The woman seated next to me
on the plane, sees the star
around my neck and begins
asking questions.

How can I be happy without eating ham?
she wants to know. Or live in America
without a Christmas tree?

I could tell her to ask the internet,
my eyes as cold as the tiny soda cans
we’ve just been served.

I could bluster and howl
like Aesop’s North Wind
forcing her to pull
her blue silk shawl
tighter and tighter.

Or we could have a conversation.

And I could be like Aesop’s Sun,
shining with gentle beams, until
she feels too warm to stay wrapped
in her misconceptions.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in more than 100 publications, including K’in, The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, and One Art. Visit her website at www.jacquelinejules.com.

Photo credit: Garland Cannon via a Creative Commons license.

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Two Poems by Renee McClellan

Black Listopia

I feel like an idiom that drips from Baldwin’s pen
“that” angry Black woman negotiating sin
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO! A thing to be had
Thick lips, curvaceous hips, or a fashion fad
You can’t set me like diamonds
Or string me like pearls
Pick on my afro, then appropriate my curls

I AM A BLACK WOMAN
Black, Brown, and Yella, too
Why are you fucking with me? I don’t fuck with you.

I feel like a literary assault by Langston Hughes
An angry Black woman and her Weary Blues
I, TOO, SING AMERICA, a pejorative dream
Ghosts of my ancestors flow in my blood stream
That white picket fence and that sweet apple pie
That dream wasn’t mine, that nightmare’s a lie
Like a Raisin in the sun, do I fester, do I run
What happens to a dream Deferred, you’re looking at it
You haven’t heard?

I AM A BLACK WOMAN
Black, Brown, and Yella, too
Stop fucking with me and I won’t fuck with you

I feel like a mythical logophile, words linger & prod
Like Zora Neale Hurston
MY EYES ARE WATCHING GOD
Truth be told, Every tongue must Confess
Like Dust on the Road, I’m God’s perfect mess
Perfectly flawed and divinely conceived
All of Africa holds the mystery that is me
Ripped from my familiar, felt the soul of my seed
My daughters are raped and my sons can’t breathe
I’m a paradigm of potency, a leather-bound force,
An African fused American on a reparation course

I AM A BLACK WOMAN
Black, Brown, and Yella, too
I will NOT apologize for this trauma, FUCK YOU!

Angelou knew and her encouragement wise
Like a phoenix from its ashes – Still I rise
A PHENOMENAL WOMAN, phenomenally
I’m a Queen like Sheba with the bones of Lucy
With all that was taken on that infamous boat ride
My womb for stock and trade for my babies genocide
I should be angry, it’s justifiably so,
You auction the fruit of my womb then call me a ho
You ripped from mother African, the Proverbs of her son
And refused to Honor her for the work that she has done
Her children will RISE like the sun bathed in blue
Ebony warriors and the daughters of Shaka Zulu
I AM A BLACK WOMAN & I’m angry as fuck
But forgiveness in this moment, bitch, Good Luck!
I’m not the PEACE you seek, I wont lay down and die,
I wont turn the other cheek, I want an eye-for-a-mother-fucking-eye

I AM A BLACK WOMAN
This is the America I Sing
But you keep fucking with me,
HERE!
Hold my mother-fucking earrings!

That Tree

Strange fruit hanging from that tree
The crown shudders with each crosswind
Leaves of humanity blow like flecks of dust on the sea
Seeds sprinkled on top of soil
The roots spiral deep and strong,
The branches sway,
reaching for the sun limbs refusing to break
Spiny twigs like fingers closed around a tight fist
The trunk solid taking shape
Searching for a place to exist
Branches reaching toward the warmth of the sun
But meeting the coldness of too much shade
flailing in mercy

No sustenance to nurture its existence

Life dangles from that tree
Dangling shapeless
caught in the ambiguity of the whistling wind
the fruit falls from the tree
pulled to the ground by desire
thick tentacles of hope
Strange fruit growing on that tree

Renee McClellan, a Chicago native and writer of the EMMY award winning PSA, Pick Me! – Toy Loan, began her career performing with elite theater groups in Chicago. As a film and television actor, she performed in such productions as Brewster’s Place, Seinfield, and Deep Impact. She continued on to writing, directing and producing various film and television projects. A graduate of Chapman University with a BFA in Film Production, she also has an MFA in Screenwriting from The American Film Institute (AFI). A Long Beach resident, Renee has produced many award-winning productions often using Long Beach as the backdrop of her artistic expression. She is currently a professor at Pepperdine University, a best-selling author, and an award-winning filmmaker.

Photo credit: Lynne Hand via a Creative Commons license.

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23rd of July Fireworks

By the Maenad

There are four children playing on the playground below my office window. (The same one that was the target of a drive-by shooting a few weeks ago.)
I heard the recognizable sounds of a familiar script being shouted and went to my window. No cops but
The four children down there are in two groups. One of them is on the ground being told by the other two to turn over face down and put their hands behind their back.

The two who are playing the cops walk around the others, and it’s sad to hear, because they know the cop script just as well as I do.
None of these kids are older than ten or maybe eleven.
FACE ON THE GROUND POP POP POP says one of them.
The other stands over one of the other children on the ground and mimes putting a gun to the back of the other child’s head then

Bang

BANG

Immediately, the dead boys on the ground (from appearances, three are Black and one is Hispanic) switch places without a word.
The dead boys become the cops and scream GET ON THE GROUND AND SPREAD EM and it starts over.

By the time I think to start writing this down, they have cycled through this three times. Everyone gets turns being victim and executioner. During one of their transitions, I overhear one of them saying, in a jocular tone “You gotta be prepared.” And it hits me. They are, in the way that children do, drilling. Training. Preparing for a hostile world.

Then it starts again. “GET YOUR ASS ON THE GROUND CONVICT” while the other “cop” just starts firing their pop gun. “STOP RESISTING OR I WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT RIGHT NOW.”

The Maenad. (She/Hers) Transgender Goddess
Activist, Artist, Performer and Publisher, Author of Creative Nonfiction, Erotica, Fantasy, Science Fiction and Social Criticism
The Maenad writes voraciously about gender, class, sex, inequality, mental illness, and the intersection of these points. Also writes about culture, games, space, futurism, and the human condition. Always thinking of other possible worlds and how best to help this one we all inhabit.
Co-editor and founding member of Viridian Door with @AtlasBooth
Her work of trans erotic liberation, the Ishtar Cycle, is available from @lupercaliapress

Photo credit: puuikibeach via a Creative Commons license.

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Prolapse

By Tara Campbell

The uterus is tired.

The uterus is sorry
but it can’t seem to stay
in one place anymore,
which isn’t surprising
considering how often
it’s been poked
and prodded
and pricked
by congressmen’s pens.

The uterus would like
to get in a word of its own,
just one, even edgewise
just one goddamn word.

The uterus wishes
it could remember the words
to that song you sang
when you didn’t have to worry
about your uterus all the time,
when you didn’t have to be
so goddamn vigilant,
didn’t have to keep twisting
and turning away from men
shoving laws into it
edgewise.

The uterus is tired
so very tired.

The uterus would like
just one goddamn moment
to itself. The uterus just wants
to be. The uterus is sorry
it can’t give you that.
The uterus remembers when
it was barely aware of itself
which sounds like a contradiction
but was merely a state of grace.

The uterus is small and pink
and lovely and valued
and sacred and blessed.

But no, the uterus doesn’t believe
its own press. . .
well, it didn’t. . .
well, it shouldn’t have, and now
the uterus is continually disappointed
to find it is neither valued
nor sacred
nor blessed
nor even safe.

The uterus is tired
so goddamn tired.

The uterus is sorry it’s letting you down
because now it’s letting itself down
slowly, uncomfortably—
this is called “prolapse”
and the uterus wants you to know
this is not your fault either,
and it would have told you
everything sooner, but the truth
just gets the uterus bullied,
harassed, and threatened with rape
for upsetting men
(and, when the truth
is too educational,
it just gets the uterus kicked
off the socials for “porn”).

Some days the uterus feels philosophical,
and some days the uterus feels angry—
who are we kidding,
most days the uterus feels angry
if not for itself
then on behalf of other uteruses
who are told they’re overreacting
to getting bullied,
harassed, and threatened with rape
for upsetting men.

The uterus is often depressed
but today the uterus is simply tired
the uterus needs a break
to forget how everyone
is always talking about it
even when it’s not in the room—
especially when it’s not in the room.

The uterus is tired,
and the uterus is tired
of being asked why it’s tired.
The uterus no longer wishes
to be interrogated.

The uterus just needs a little time
a little goddamn time
to itself, and who can blame it
for feeling heavy
for wanting to slide
just a little bit lower
and rest after everything
it’s had to endure.

The uterus simply wants to sit
in the warm and the dark,
mind its own business
and quietly sink, baptized
in silence, blessed
finally
with one goddamn
moment of
peace.

Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University’s MFA in Creative Writing. Her publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, CRAFT Literary, and Writers Resist. She’s the author of a novel and four multi-genre collections including her newest, Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection. She teaches writing at venues such as American University, Johns Hopkins University, the Writer’s Center, Catapult, and the National Gallery of Art.

Photo credit: Ittmust via a Creative Commons license.

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hegemony: footnotes in future history

By Yvonne Patterson

bookended with blood, The Reaving Era births in the conflagration
of Origin Crusades, subjugates the populace and banishes science,
ending in funeral pyres of anti-pogrom riots: The Reclamation Years.

closing scenes, unlike the exuberance of symphonic finales, manifest
in discordant notes. bright allegros falter. sonorous glissades collapse
in coarse staccato. dark notation seeps into public view. audience exits.

the Great Court assumes sombre hues: meticulously carved mahogany
chairs line the High Bench in a barren row. the antique red carpet, woven
with faded battle sigils, colloquially known as the river of blood, stagnates.

only stalwart readers remain, squinting, hunched over Library manuscripts
chained to tables. the edifice, deeply veined with cracks, blackened
with ingrained dirt, brittled with fetid breath of centuries, suffocates.

fables of self-proclaimed hegemony, echoing former eminence, lie
embalmed in stained glass windows. glass shards, encrusted with grime,
colours leeched by vicissitudes of relevance, obscure daylight, mute hubris.

Yvonne Patterson is New Zealand born, living in Perth Western Australia, proving that kiwis do fly. She enjoys the freedom of poetry after a career in human services in clinical psychology and policy in mental health, disability, community and justice areas and holds an M.Psych (Clin) and MBA from UWA. Her poetry explores borders and fault lines around us as human beings living within social and political contexts. It asks questions about the ethics of how we behave towards each other and our environment. It draws from career experience and personal interests in arts, science, politics and especially social justice and equity. She has poems published in Anthologies and Journals including Not Very Quiet, Grieve Anthology, Writers Resist, Creatrix, the Australian Rationalist Journal.

Photo credit: Marco Orazi via a Creative Commons license.

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On Hearing of Russian Soldiers Booby-Trapping Dead Ukrainian Civilians with Land Mines

By Karen Kilcup

How do they do it—
lift a heavy head
and place the bomb
beneath an ear? Slide
the metal disc under
a shoulder or thigh?
Or worse: do they slice
the swollen
long-dead chest, flies
fluttering, the stink
unbearable, nearly?
Do they carve
a red-rimmed cavity
large enough to implant
the device, which mimics
a hockey puck, a nippled breast?
How could they tuck it in?
How could they close the
hole, back away,
hope for the best?

A teacher and writer for more than forty years, Karen Kilcup is the Elizabeth Rosenthal Professor of American Literature, Environmental & Sustainability Studies, and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at UNC Greensboro. She feels fortunate to work with many students of color, first-generation students, and LGBTQI+ students at this Minority-Serving Institution. Their courage and imagination inspire her and give her hope. Her forthcoming book, winner of the 2021 Winter Goose Poetry Prize, is titled The Art of Restoration.

Photo credit: Chi Wai Un via a Creative Commons license.

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Duplex with Gun

By Dotty LeMieux

The gun tucked neatly in the large man’s waist
I avoid his stare, move slowly, lock the door

I move slowly out the door
Cap pistol held at the ready

The gun moves out in the large man’s hand
Children run fast across the lawn

I cross the lawn going pop pop pop
Children scream and then they drop

Children scream, I watch them drop
One by one, as the big man shoots

The children laugh, they jump up, shoot back
Harmless popping under the sun

The popping stops, the sun is gone
The gun tucked back in the large man’s waist.

Dotty LeMieux is the author of four chapbooks, Five Angels, Five Trees Press; Let Us Not Blame Foolish Women, Tombouctou Books; The Land, Smithereens Press, and most recently Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune, Finishing Line Press. A new chapbook is forthcoming from Main Street Rag, likely to appear in 2023. In the late 1970s to mid-1980s, she edited the eclectic literary and art journal Turkey Buzzard Review in the poetic haven of Bolinas, California. Her work has appeared in numerous print and online journals and anthologies, including Writers Resist. Dotty lives with her husband and two aging dogs in Northern California, where she practices environmental law and helps elect progressive candidates to office. You may read more at her blog.

The photograph, “Halloween at Gun World, Burbank,” is by Stephen Sossaman, a writer living in Burbank, California. His primary resistance work is within the peace movement.

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Smile

By Lisa Brand

They only told me to smile, like they know what that means. It’s time to show you who I am. . . . It’s scary, isn’t it? I show some teeth and suddenly you’re all over me like an animal, I should have bared my teeth, I’m not the person that you expect me to be. “You’re prettier when you smile, why don’t you smile for me?” I should have hidden from you, I should have walked away and never looked back, but I couldn’t because then I would be the villain, and you would be the victim. Because you were the one that deserved a chance, because you can be so loving, so charming, but really you’re a pig, consuming whatever is in your path, not caring what it is. That’s just the way you were raised, you deserve the world, you deserve anyone. So when anyone turns away from you, it’s only natural that you get upset. After all, they don’t know you, so you go after them, it doesn’t matter how they feel because you’re a good person. Please don’t try to make me laugh, please don’t touch me, please just don’t get near me. Just because I laughed doesn’t mean I’m interested. I’m actually scared. I don’t know what will happen if I turn away, decline your invitations, and the last thing I want you to do is cause a scene. I’m just trying to make money at an ice cream shop, I don’t know why you’re even trying this here. I have to smile here, I am always smiling here, no matter what you say, I am going to smile at you. If I’m not nice, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, I could get yelled at not only by you, but by my boss. After all, if you’re not trying to do anything, I already know they’re gonna take your side because that’s just how people are. When I look at you, I think of death. I think of what could be, what has happened to other people like me, but I smile through it. Awkwardly laughing at your advancements, I speak of someone else who wouldn’t like this. I wish that person existed, maybe one day I’ll find someone not like you. Where I won’t end up on the floor, beaten, bruised, left for dead. That could happen to me, all because I smiled. Tonight, when I get off of work, I’ll walk to my car, keys tightened between my fingers hoping to any God out there that I won’t see you waiting. Hoping that I will never see you again. And every car I see in my rearview mirror, I’ll think it’s you, your voice will haunt me for a while. But if you do try anything, just know that I will fight until you’re the one screaming bloody murder, then I’ll actually be smiling. But I don’t tell you that, because you deserve the world, you are the world, so for now, I’ll just smile, give you some ice cream, and hope you leave my life forever.

Lisa Brand is currently a bartender. She spends her free time writing short stories about whatever comes to mind. With five stores currently published, she hopes to one day publish a novel.

Photo credit: Cavale Doom via a Creative Commons license.

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just-ice

By Samy S. Swayd

don’t drink from this dripping
cracked cup, for it’s my own heart—
my beats poured into words for broken
lines, making this page perplexing
and pale.

but if you take a taste, you must sail with
a deep breath and an active mind, and paint
a spirited sign to remind you of Thoreau’s
tender daring triplet daughters—
“simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.”

unlike the daughters’ times, today’s
world is complex and keeps birthing
busy people, or people with big blind
spots, causing stable slices of life to slide
back into the deepest, darkest ends.

only sensible sailors see
the ice silencing
the just
in the name of justice.

as for the i, me, and myself—three wide eyes,
on Monday, we weep and wail

watching caskets of kids
and baskets of gun-shells
piled in schoolyards’ corners.

on Tuesday, we whistle with tears

seeing bees and birds, with
chemicals-washed wings, seeking
sustenance and safe landings.

on Wednesday, we witness or overhear

the same simulated politics—
tuning down voters’ intellects
and pruning people’s primary rights.

and then it’s all over again, like the rain,

not of America’s Alaska,
but of India’s Meghalaya.

so, what are we to do, besides being mindful?
turtle-talk our minds to articulate

the many similar unfolding trends?

circle-walk our hearts to remain humming—

despite the Court’s “daggers” and bites?

quick-axe the frightening forecasts

and the long-term side-effects?

or book a room inside our heads

and ask denial for a dance?

Samy S. Swayd is a retired adjunct faculty-researcher in religious studies, who has taught in a few Southern California universities, mostly at San Diego State University. His courses included American religious diversity, spirituality and the environment, and comparative mysticism. After a decade long career in administration, he then earned initial degrees from the University of Washington, Seattle, and a Ph.D. from UCLA. The present selection is from a book manuscript in progress on spirituality and goodness.

Photo credit: Liz West via a Creative Commons license.

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Ode to My Reflection in the Mirror (on just one day)

By Kathy Kremins

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” – C.S. Lewis

We are better than this No, we are this Always have been

Columbus mission schools Tulsa Race Massacre Charlottesville
La Operacion children in cages smallpox pipelines voter suppression

We are better than this

Michael Brown Vieques ICE Indian Removal Act fracking Jim Crow
Breonna Taylor Ponce Massacre MAGA Trail of Tears lynching

No, we are this

16th St. Baptist Church bombing Trayvon Martin Hurricane Maria
Trump California Gold Rush slavery Emmett Till Elijah McClain

Always have been

Japanese internment camps Proud Boys Wounded Knee Ku Klux Klan
Charleston church shooting Tuskegee experiment eugenics Brett Kavanaugh

We are better than this No, we have never been

Kathy Kremins (she/her) is a Newark, N.J., native of Irish-Catholic immigrant parents and a retired public school teacher and coach. Her poetry chapbook, Undressing the World, was published by Finishing Line Press (2022). Kathy’s recent work appears in Gallery Affero’s ongoing Poem Booth Project: Make Me Want to Holler, Drunk Monkeys, Digging Through the Fat, Limp Wrist Magazine, Platform Review, Paterson Literary Review, Soup Can Magazine, The Night Heron Barks, Stay Salty; Life in the Garden State Anthology, Stillwater Review, Lavender Review, and Divine Feminist: An Anthology of Poetry & Art By Womxn and Non-Binary Folx, and other publications.

Photo credit: Cathy Baird via a Creative Commons license.

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Sunny Is Going Through a Depressive Episode

By Livvy Krakower

“The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” – Nathan Rabin

When Sunny was eight years old her mother fell down the stairs. That doesn’t seem important now as you sit across from Sunny and run your fingers up her thigh. You can feel the goosebumps on her skin and you read them like braille. I want you, they tell you.

You see her outline before you see her eyes. You kiss her neck before you kiss her lips. You grab her hips before you grab her hand. Saturday nights always feel that same in the city. Outside the club, Sunny holds your hand as she explains to her friends that she is going to go home with you and that it is gonna be ok. You trick your brain to believe that her words are spontaneous as you watch a guy throw up in a corner. You hope that he will look up and see you with her. Sunny tugs your hand and pulls you back to her.

Let’s go, she says to you. Her words are soft and she smells of coconut rum. As you walk away you think that this girl is gonna change your life.

Sunny’s lips taste like blood. When you ask her why she tells you that she is addicted to biting her lips to the point where they split open and explode like a volcano. You play the floor is lava with your tongue. Her blood is hot and sour. You kiss her for an hour until she tells you that she is very tired and wants to smoke a cigarette. You walk outside with her. Sunny lives in the middle of nothing. Actually, she lives in Brooklyn, but when you are with Sunny it feels like you guys are nowhere at all. You watch her draw the cigarette from her mouth, and you see how the tip of it is stained with her blood. You look at her and she grabs your shirt, pulls you in and puts her open lips against yours. When she lets go, you exhale and you see gray smoke dance from your mouth—transported from her to you.

Sunny reads a book about the potato famine. It is a Tuesday morning when you kiss her. She tastes like lukewarm coffee mixed with vodka.

It was terrible, she tells you.

The famine? you ask her.

Yes of course, what else would I be talking about?

You are disappointed.

Sunny lies down on the table. Her yellow spring dress is hiked up. Her knees are up in the air and open. She looks like a skinny rotisserie chicken, the one no one buys from Costco. The speculum must be cold because Sunny squirms as the doctor puts it in. You stand by her side and hold her hand. The sweat from her fingers makes her grasp around you weaken. As you look at her, her face all red and squished like a rotten tomato, you can’t help but find her unattractive.

You will begin to feel some cramping, the doctor says to her. She responds with a gasp and a small ow. Her hand releases from yours. When she looks at you, you feel like a fish stuck in an aquarium staring at a human and wondering how this could be. She begins to cry. You have never seen Sunny cry. You always imagined that when she cried her green eyes would become even more vibrant, similar to how the taste of lollipops becomes crisper after you run them under cold water. But instead, her eyes remind you of dying grass. She asks the doctor if it is in yet.

Not yet, he says and mumbles something about her having a very small cervix and that it is very difficult to get the IUD in. She looks at you and another ow escapes her mouth before she passes out from the pain. She must hate you.

I want to scream. I want to scream. I want to scream. Sunny keeps saying to the air as she paces around the room.

Scream already, you yell at her. She is giving you an awful headache, she is constantly giving you an awful headache.

I want to scream. I want to scream. You look at her wandering around. She is reminiscent of a ditzy bird that keeps flying into the same glass door.

Just scream!

I want to scream. I want to scream.

Scream!

I want to scream. I want to scream.

Just scream already you bitch!

Sunny looks at you and slaps you hard in the face.

I don’t understand you, you say to her. She walks out of the apartment and you wait for her yell, but instead you hear absolutely nothing. You punch the closest window to you and glass cuts your hand. Sunny comes back in. You watch as she takes a pill out of her pocket and swallows it. She holds your hand and runs it under warm water until the blood is gone. After she sucks your fingers dry, she pulls off your shirt.

How many men have you been with? you ask Sunny. She lies down in your bed. She is very tired today she tells you—something to do with her increasing her dose of Prozac, something to do with her hormones, you are not really sure. All you want to be sure of is how many men she has slept with.

How many women have you been with? she asks you, you expected this.

Four, you tell her, and it is the truth. Number one was Gwen, who lived next to you in your freshman dorm. Number two was Eden, who you met at a bar. Number three was Fiona, who you met online. Number four was Jackie from work. Eden. Fiona. Jackie. Gwen. They were great, but they weren’t Sunny. Sunny was different from all the other girls.

Sunny closes her eyes, trying to avoid your question with sleep. You rub her arm softly to wake her up.

So tell me, how many? you ask again.

Twelve, Sunny says, not even bothering to open her eyes.

Twelve? you fail to contain your voice.

Why is that a problem?

No, you stumble, it isn’t a problem at all

You think I’m a whore, Sunny says to you and nuzzles closer to your chest.

No I don’t, you say unsure why you would even bother lying.

You used to count your steps and hate your father and jack off with the lights on and take Lexapro and read vintage pulp fiction and long to be a famous screen writer. You sit in the shower and tilt your head up. Hold your breath. It takes 40 seconds for an adult man to drown. 39, 38, 37. . . just before you hit twenty seconds—you breath—the gasp leaving your mouth like a deflating balloon flying in the air. You haven’t written since you were in college, but the night after you meet Sunny you open your laptop and begin typing for the first time again.

As Sunny speaks you hear nothing. In your mind you imagine her traveling the world. You see her going out dancing, her knees bouncing against each other. You see her reading in a park on her stomach, her bare feet in the air. SUN – NEE. You let the syllables rest light then heavy on your tongue. SUN – NEE.

Between kisses, she tells you that when she grows up she wants to be a mother and have two kids—a boy and a girl—the boy will play basketball and the girl will do art classes—for their birthday’s she will have them bring in brownies not cupcakes for their elementary school class to share—she hopes that they will have her green eyes, but not her mind.

You take her bra off ,and her words fade from your mind as you kiss her breasts—leave marks on her neck.

You can feel the vibration of Sunny’s leg shaking through the floor of the coffee shop. She drinks her coffee black. You find this poetic. Whenever she parts her lips, you believe she is about to break up with you, but instead she just takes another sip of her drink. She is constantly praying that the caffeine will work. The barista here knows Sunny’s name. She comes here every morning with you or without you. Sunny says that this coffee shop is the only thing consistent in her life. The barista is an old, round man and something about him makes you think of warm beer, microwaves, and minor league baseball teams.

I hope he is a kind man, Sunny once said about him, but the truth is he’s probably just nice to me because he wants to sleep with me.

Sunny’s leg is shaking even faster, the rapid bouncing of it transcending into you. Vibrating, bubbling, up and down and up again —a hurricane that only you two can feel—you are about to implode—spontaneous combustion.

You know I love you, you say to Sunny, not as a question nor a statement, but as something else.

You take her hand, the shaking has not stopped. She looks at you. Sometimes you wonder if Sunny is even human.

And you know I love you too, she responds in the same way. Whatever is between a period and a question mark is how you both speak to each other.

She finishes up her drink then stands up and walks over to the barista. She touches his wrinkled hand lightly as she hands him her cup. He refills it with no extra charge.

You watch Sunny in the morning. It is early in the winter and the outline of her naked body reminds you of fog. She gulps as she swallows Prozac and Valium and another pill that you do not know the name of.

Sunny?

She looks at you, she is so small.

You motion for her to come lie next to you on the bed and she does.

What is it?

You look at her. There really is so much that you want to know. You open your mouth to say something but she kisses you before you can speak. She pulls down the elastic of your boxers and you realize that she does not want you to talk—she doesn’t want you to talk at all.

Livvy Krakower is currently an undergraduate student at UMass Amherst. She has previously been published in Blue Marble Review, Roadrunner Review, Jabberwocky Journal, and more. She has pieces forthcoming in The Washington Square Review and Wrongdoing Magazine. You can find more of Livvy’s writing on Instagram @littlepenguinswrite.

Photo credit: Ion George via a Creative Commons license.

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Hollow

By William Palmer

What happened January 6
was forgettably minor,
the most popular Fox host
claimed on June 9, the first night
of the House Select Committee’s Report,

so forgettably minor
he did not allow any
commercials during his show,
decreasing the chances
viewers might stray,

or might consider the view
that what had happened was
unforgettably major

and that the host
was therefore
lying

and that when they hear him
claim January 6 was not
an insurrection but simply
vandalism, they might
question what he says
in the future

and hear the thump
of his hollow heart.

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Cold Mountain Review, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, and Poetry East. He has published two chapbooks: A String of Blue Lights, and Humble. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

Photo credit: John Spade via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.