A Mosaic of a Life by Abbey Belling

Phase Two

After Dilruba Ahmed

For leaving the car unlocked last night, I forgive you. For imagining catastrophes instead of living your life.

For the succulents that etiolate, now, unpotted on the counter, I forgive you. For saying yes first, But screaming no in your spirit.

I forgive you for suicidal visions after marriage, brought on by loss of family. And when your husband held you together, for your angry rebuke

in the kitchen, “Why don’t you love me?” I forgive your letting dishes overtake the kitchen. For fearing your own capacity for positive emotions.

For leaving, again, your laptop at home in Antioch; for the equally mindless drive back on the rage-fueled regression.

I forgive you for leaving new library books on the couch and letting the rabbit chew them again. For putting forth only your shiny best self for your therapist instead of the terrifying chaos, I forgive you. For writing mostly

by Michal Smith

where the pages conceal your voice. For so admiring the dancer you failed to see the dance. In forgotten coffee cups

may forgiveness gather. Congregating in laundry hampers. Collecting on unmade beds. A great cloud of witnesses from eternity, relieved

of shame and petty responsibility. With them, a flurry of wings, eight swallowtail butterflies. Holy water reserved for healings and prophets. I forgive you.

I forgive you. For feeling anxious and vengeful without reason. For bearing the Holy Spirit with such torpor you worried

you had, perhaps, no tongue of fire at all. For treating your sister with apathy when she deserved complete attention. I forgive you. I forgive

you. I forgive you. For growing a capacity for compassion that is great but matched only, perhaps, by your imposter syndrome. For being unable

to forgive others second so you could first forgive yourself and at last find a way to become the home that you want in this world.

Tree of Life

by Kobe Greeley

Atop the tree of life a text. A text of meaning, purpose, and guidance. The willow hangs above our heads, sap of genius bleeding down. The sap touches many, few are recognized. The leaves of the willow fall and fall, making way for the new world. Humanity is woven into its roots, through millennia we change. The birth of all, the creation of one, every speck of life. Explosion, creation, nightfall, sunrise. All of space, all of being, all of everything condensed. Time and matter shift and expand as the leaves fall. We search and search for the top of the tree, the greatness of all. Men, beasts, disease. All come and go, the text remains. With every achievement, we come closer. With every demon, several steps back. Unite as one, as children of the tree. None shall see the light alone, none shall grasp. Corrupt, evil, heartless, try to cut the tree down. The seeds cannot be replanted, beauty eaten away, never to return. Why do we fight, why do we live alongside our aggressors? The tree is all, the tree is ours, protect it we must. Rip the axe from their hands, show them what we are. No bigot, no sower of chaos, none who shall rip our lives from our own hands. Atop the tree of life lies a text, a text that will forever remain incomprehensible to the ruinous, a text that will reveal itself to the best.

Pictured Rock

by Lauren Knisbeck

The Last Mushroom

by Kendra Sieracki

Pretty Gross

by Emilie Azevedo

Raspy Confessions of the Bodies Buried Beneath the Floorboards

by Abbie Doll

when the wind grows fierce when it roars and roars and roars the air around us changes the atmosphere turns dire hauling boisterous voices from afar each new gust, each burst of razored air propels the porch swing thrusting it into rigid bricks slamming into the wall again and again and again ramming itself into its crevasses unwelcome but insistent it crashes like waves pummeling the sand a ghastly attempt at rhythm chaotic at best, a drummer without a beat— but still, it knocks on the bricks with its splintered fists as if to say let me in let me in let me in demanding entrance to the unknown it’s an angry mob trampling through town banging on the door of the miscreant demanding justice with the torches they wield the weapons they carry each collision yields a thump an unsolicited bump it beats the house unprompted while the house struggles to conceal each new bruise showcased on its crimson cheeks the wind triggers memories of abuse of unwarranted violence swift and sudden delivered without cause the wind carries these sounds we’d rather not hear exposing everything in hiding unlatching all the locked doors revealing our secrets and sins too many to name too many to name