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 Jul 27 rick
Kara Palais
Burned
 Jul 27 rick
Kara Palais
I ride the carousel, round in my mind,
Each figure a name I swore I’d forget
A sardonic grin on the face of time,
Spinning through kisses and cold regret.

He whispered in lust making false vows,
Then vanished into the dark of night.
The shame still stains my silence now,
A bruise that blooms beneath the light.

Another wore dreams like a cheap disguise,
Painted in promises, glossed with gold.
But the facade cracks beneath his lies,
And love runs dry when hearts grow cold.

They repeat like haunted tunes,
Ghosts dressed nice, soaked in sin
A dance beneath a distant moon,
Where every ending dares begin.

Still I continue, I never learn,
Addicted to the aching thrill
To love that sours, to bridges burned,
To wounds that beg to open still.
 Jul 27 rick
Jamal Upshaw
the casualties of  war
it shocks me
to the core
the
barbed wire fences
at your door
then
we ask
for peace
once more
 Jul 27 rick
Sophia
57
 Jul 27 rick
Sophia
57
Lately my words have felt
like bullets that only
graze the edge of the target.
A feeling of emptiness saturates
my mouth as I speak.

Lately I feel like
the validity of my presence
is tied to some word count.
Like my existence
is an essay that I must write,
I just cannot find the right words.
 Jul 27 rick
سلمى
If paper and pen
understand me to my core,
then it is my voice that betrays me evermore.
I know better, yet opening up
stays my biggest fear.
I am surface-leveled,
neither there, nor here.
And so comfortably, with no fuss,
I stay a projection,
nothing more than dust.
I am your imagination,
no depth,
no width.
I am only but a shell.
An empty figure,
stripped of will and vigor.
 Jul 27 rick
Pho
It knocked
softly
a breath at the door
but I
bolted the windows
and swallowed the key.

It came wearing warmth,
but I mistook it
for fire,
for teeth,
for grief with a new face.

So I fled,
faster than joy
could reach out its hand
afraid it might feel
like home.
 Jul 27 rick
heidi
8:00 pm
 Jul 27 rick
heidi
i'm grateful for scraps
just a drop of your sweet love
a taste of honey
he can keep me hanging on as long as he likes
 Jul 27 rick
Agnes de Lods
Another gray trip to a small town.
At the bus stop:
an abandoned bicycle,
trembling in the rain,
waiting for someone,
who never came.

The coughing crowd,
getting on and off,
headed for the unknown.
Actors carrying
heavy bags of ugly food.

Out of the corner
of an invisible eye
snatches of words
drifting into a wrinkled world—
not the first, vivid green,
but the tired lettuce,
expired bananas—
a symbol of unreachable luxury.

Casual dialogues about angels and demons,
atheists and spiritual needs.
Random people battered by reality
rolling out a red carpet for their thoughts,
spoken aloud in the indifferent air,
small talk about kicking life—
an existential fight to survive.

The game downloaded
by an unfair fate.
Something put him, her, them
on this wrong level,
an extreme mode
the deepest discomfort.

Unfair purpose of pain.
For many,
not being loved is an aching way,
for others,
the lack of bread.

The multiple truths
closed in one small drop
of a rainy day without a name.
 Jul 27 rick
Maria Mitea
And
I’ll never be beautiful for anyone,
Not even for you,
I will never hide my chickenpox,
Grind me to sand, and I'll shout to the wind,
Wash me! Wash me away!

I’ll never pretend that I am pretty for anyone,
Not even for you,
I’ll let my skin dry like the Atacama desert,
I’ll let the harsh mountain storm bite my face,
The eagles eat my flesh on the tower of silence, so
There is nothing left to dream about,
Not even bone dust for the rain,

I’ll fight like gladiators, not to be beautiful for anyone,
Not even for you,
I won’t let the clouds overshadow my scalp,
I’ll pull right now, one by one, every hair follicle,

What you ask me to be is not beauty, it is a butterfly
That flies and flies around a light bulb
Until it dies

A shadow that weaves white nights,
I will not invent myself to be pretty for anyone,
Not even for you,

If you wish to enter my blood,
You have to swim in the imperishable waters,
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