Coffin Rock / Within The Bottle By John Patrick Robbins

There exists my escape as there lies my demon's embrace that beacons for my return.

Seduction is within the eyes as my freedoms are locked within this ever tortured skull.

So I believe I will grab a hammer as I strike until I desecrate my canvas.

In dark tides slow albeit steady arrival I sit upon this dead-end shore.

A prisoner to my own process, a slave to choices that slither ever silently.

I can spawn chaos and ultimately destruction of oneself is a truth's ultimate course.

You desire that which I cannot control.

A straight razors surrender to the passion spilled.

Why paint in black and grays when I can just as easily paint with your blood.

Linger upon this mortal precipice to awake broken, to admire the byproduct of my destruction.

It lingers with me as its promise of death holds no illusion.

The killers allure, the poisons fire.

It all awaits as often demons do.

This battle is far beyond me.

For my fate was sealed within the flames from the start.

Where there is smoke, there most certainly is...

JPR, is a southern gothic writer this is his work and that is all he cares to share beyond this point.

Past victems list.

Disturb The Universe, Medusa's Kitchen, Fearless Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, Punk Noir Magazine, It Takes All Kinds Literary Zine, Piker Press, Spill The Words, Impspired Magazine, The Dope Fiend Daily, Sava Press.

Thin Time By Kevin M. Hibshman

Vapor thin.

Wafer thin.

Collect the wages of sin time.

Trying to survive with no lottery win.

Pennies, nickels, and dimes,

It is time to cash them in.

This doesn't appear to be what was advertised.

Who do I write to?

Who can I call?

Protest gets you nowhere when bureaucracy becomes involved.

Thin time.

Absolutely skeletal.

I couldn't afford the dentist, so my teeth fell out.

I tried eating healthy, but I don't know how to pronounce all that stuff I cannot afford.

Thin time.

Starved mind.

Chinese balloons in the sky.

This life gets more insane by the minute,

Thin line.

Shed your skin time.

Perhaps someone will pay you to live in it?

Kevin M. Hibshman has had poems published in many journals and magazines world wide.

 In addition, he has edited his poetry zine, Fearless, since 1990 and is the author of sixteen chapbooks including Love Sex Death Dreams (Green Bean Press, 2000) and Incessant Shining (Alternating Current, 2011).

This write is taken from his newest collection Cease to Destroy from Whiskey City Press.

Which is available on Amazon on the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/Cease-Destroy-Kevin-M-Hibshman/dp/B0BYRCVHCZ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=cease+to+destroy+kevin+m.+Hibshman&qid=1680212496&sr=8-1

Death in My Bedroom By Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

I welcome death into my bedroom.

I look into its dark vacant eyes.

I open up the curtains and allow the sun

and shadows in as well.

I look at death’s icy gaze

and offer it a white sheet.

I tell death to wrap itself in the white sheet.

I ask death to leave my bedroom

because its presence made it too cold.

The walls feel like ice crystals.

Death knows when it will take me.

There is no need to share my bed with it.

I have no reason to be its friend.

Who could stand such a cruel thing?

Outside I hear the crackling of leaves.

It must death’s feet burning space.

My body is in a sweat, with a bad fever,

and I struggle to breathe.

This cannot be my death sentence.

I need answers to a question I have yet to form. I cannot understand what life wants.

I sit in silence and contemplation.

I sleep in this bedroom as death lingers.

It must be death that is causing me

to choke on words that will not come out.

There is an obscure being in the corner

of my room when the lights are dim.

I ask death to leave my bedroom again.

Together, we are like oil and water.

Death finally leaves in a rage. It leaves me 

with a wound that does not bleed.

I find myself alone in meditation about

life and death. I do not believe I could

face the world without the one I love

who is out of reach. I prefer to be alone

when I doubt myself. I believe there is

more to life than what I know about it.

Luis is the author of Raw Materials (Pygmy Forest Press). His poems have appeared in Fearless, Mad Swirl, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Unlikely Stories.

Poppies Field, I Do Treasure By John Patrick Robbins

When I'm cold from an overdose in the park.

As my youth does bear witness to my current plight's destruction.

My bodies release to this empty world's souls escape.

All the mothers' children turn to the street’s clutter.

Peeled from frozen sidewalks are the victims of self-indulgence, losing themselves.

As now, we see the demons never beyond the needless tracks.

We all view the scars and say, how can they?

When we should shed a tear and question, why do they?

I sit transformed, a person once vibrant, now a dingy addict of the gutter's trash.

We were all somebody once, as we remain somebody still.

From the page to the grave.

Please resist.

JPR, is the editor in chief of the Rye Whiskey Review his work has been published in.

Impspired Magazine, It Takes All Kinds Literary Zine, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, Cotard and Fearless Poetry Zine.

His latest book is Are We Dead Yet?  from Black Circle Publishing.

His work is always unfiltered and extremely dark.

The Night I Slept Against The Wall By Skaja Evens

He hits the booze a little too much

Then declares he’s safe to drive

Later, fumbled attempts at sex

Leaves her wondering why she tolerates it

Skaja Evens is a writer and artist living in Southeast Virginia. She runs It Takes All Kinds, a litzine published by Mōtus Audāx Press. She’s been published in various places, including Spillwords Press, Medusa’s Kitchen, Ink Pantry, Off the Coast, Synchronized Chaos, and Blue Pepper. She can often be found listening to music, considering the impossible, and enjoying her cats’ antics.