A Weedeater Lobotomy By John Patrick Robbins

       

Skull fucked into submission, nobody speaks an ounce of truth, but they can sure spew that bullshit.

Everyone's got a hustle; let's pull the grenades pin and seek shelter behind some tight-bodied teens' paywall.

I won't cash in my dignity for a go-fund me, but I will most certainly drink myself into the grave.

Man's desire to claim everything that is just beyond reach.

I crave nothing but silence like a cemetery, and only my thoughts alone to drive me insane.

I may shoot Clorox to cleanse my arteries because my soul is fucked.

Never sweat the decay. The earth is cold, as so is a corpse.

My cough syrup paired well with the gasoline I huffed.

I treat my brain as a test subject.

I am dying to learn the results.

Crashed the course straight into a brick wall.

I'm only temporarily brain-damaged; in other words, I'm probably okay.

JPR, is a southern gothic writer, his work has been published in Lothlorien Journal Of Poetry, Fixator Press, Impspired Magazine, Spill The Words Pres, Disturb The Universe, Fearless Poetry Zine, The Dope Fiend Daily, Horror Sleaze Trash.

His newest book is Midnight Masochism from Black Circle Publishing available on Amazon.

Fucked Up By Taylor Dibbert

As the divorce

Recedes into

The background

He feels

His heart

Continuing

To harden,

Who knows

If this is

A temporary thing

Or not

Who knows 

How much that

First love

Fucked him up

But as

The weeks

Turn to years

He knows 

That he’ll learn

Whether the damage

Is permanent

Or not.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fourth full-length poetry collection, is due out in May.

On meeting an alcoholic By B. Lynne Zika

The way the sun turns in Salinas,

women age quickly. They wake up

one morning and are old, the skin

drawn against their cheekbones,

their mouths hollow with defeat.

They preserve their youth

in strong woolen blankets.

Tourists come to buy their lies.

I imagine your invitation.

My disease floats

like sweet night air,

comes to rest. You graze

a shoulder. Desert air

seeps through windows,

nestles on my skin.

There are other things to fear:

the shock of morning,

the old man, who nods

as I walk by.

B. Lynne Zika’s prose, photography, and verse appear regularly in online and print journals. 2024 publications include Medusa’s Kitchen, Lyrical Somerville, and The Crossroads.  2023 publica-tions include Gargoyle Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, Medusa’s Kitchen, Svartedaudenzine, The Crossroads, and Disturb the Universe.  2022 publications include Delta Poetry Review, Backchannels, Poesy and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. She is the author of The Strange Case of Eddy Whitfield, The Longing, and Letters to Sappho: Putting Out the Fire. In addition to editing poetry and nonfiction, she worked as a closed-captioning editor for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Awards include: Pacificus Foundation Literary Award in short fiction, Little Sister Award and Moon Prize in poetry, and Viewbug Top Creator and Hero Awards in photography. 

Unsteady The Course By JPR

Codeine kept the train rolling, as the booze just oiled the gears. While those chance encounters fueled flames of a nonexistent passion.

That billows a smokestack’s tracing reminder of that which is a thriving future’s ghost within the making.

The sparks in vain are my attempts at a delusion.
That I was ever truly in control.

The edge is blissful, the crash just a consequence of this existence I chose.

Monsters are nurtured through the bastards of malice as eventually the lash reassembles a familiar burden and cherished scar.

It used to be an accessory, now it resembles more of a crutch.

Pick your poison with your burial plot.
Last stop: another flower bedded within the stone garden’s memorial.

Worship false Gods, never lost souls and broken artists.

What used to be, are but remnants of good intentions and sorrowful regrets.

None of which is left of me.

JPR, is a southern gothic writer. His work has been published in Horror Sleaze Trash, Piker Press, Disturb The Universe, The Dope Fiend Daily, Spill The Words, Impspired Magazine and Fearless Poetry Zine.

His work is always unfiltered.

It Is What I’ve Become By Jimmy Broccoli

I wake up in my own vomit –

It’s on my shirt - it is all over much of my pants

and all over the floor around me –

it’s beneath me – I’ve been laying in it all night -

I wake up in my own vomit because that is what I do now

It is who I’ve become…

 

I’m lying in my living room floor face down and don’t remember coming home

“Fucking Hell”, I say aloud to a room empty, other than me –

I don’t even have a dog…

 

The motherfucking next-morning mirror doesn’t lie –

I look like fucking shit – my reflection is an advertisement for being a fucking loser –

I am not mis-categorizing myself – I know what I am

____

 

“Another pint, love?”, I say to the bartender –

She looks at me with a sideways glance –

“Just one more, love” I say – “then I’ll be on my way” –

She smiles and I tip her a fiver

 

As a boy I played with tiny cars –

metal, some of the doors opened –

and I played with trucks –

trucks that went over sand and mud in the backyard –

I played trucks and cars with my dad –

He died a few years ago

– we didn’t speak for years – but he tried – he did his best –

I have no remaining ill-feelings towards him –

he tried. and I loved him, I suppose –

it’s what we do, I think

 

“Last call” the bartender announces to the few of us left…

I walk home slowly because the world seems a bit of a blur –

Tomorrow I’ll wake up to a spinning room – I’ll wake up to vomit –

because that is what I do now – that is who I am –

and I’m okay with that – I’ve come to terms with it

____

 

“I wish your life was better”, the man says – and I can barely hear him…

“I’m okay mate”, I respond as I try to get up from the sidewalk – and I’m squinting because the morning sun is fucking bright as fuck –

“I’ll take you home”, he says – “what is your address?”

“Cheers”, I say – and this is the last memory I have until I wake in my bed

 

It’s a fucking workday – I’m late, but I make it…

My boss is all up in her tits and I don’t know how to respond –

“Fucking hell”, I say – and it doesn’t go over well –

An early day home for using profanity at work – I’m okay with that –

I stop by the mini-market for a bottle – no, I stop by the mini-market for 2

“I fucking got this”, I tell myself aloud as I walk home

“life isn’t fucking shit”, I say aloud – and I’m not convincing anyone…

____

 

The neighbor’s dog is fucking loud as fuck in the morning –

barking like fucking titties in a fucking twist –

“Shut up”, I respond – “shut the motherfuck up”, I say –

 – and the dog continues to bark…

“I need a fucking drink” I say aloud

 

It’s Thursday, and I’m sober until the end of the workday –

On my way home I stop at the pub –

“A double”, I say as I pull bills from my pocket –

“A double?”, the bartender asks, as she looks at me like she’s worried

“I’m okay, love”, I respond to a question that wasn’t asked

I light a cig and look out the pub window as if there is a purpose to look out the window

____

 

“It’s because I’ve got a big motherfucking dick” I say to the small congregation around the bar

“That’s it!”, the bartender says as she escorts me to the front door –

“I can’t help that I’ve got a big motherfucking dick”, I slur –

she smiles at me like she’s empathizing with a dog –

“Okay”, I say – and, then, I stumble home

Because that is what I do nowadays

It is who I’ve become

____

 

It’s 4:00 pm and I’m off work early for appearing intoxicated on the job –

“I’ll have a double”, I tell the bartender –

She looks at me, hesitantly, and smiles –

“Okay”, she says – “one, and then you go home…”

“Yeah, one”, I say – and I almost hold to my commitment

 

It would be different now if he had breathed –

So different now if his breath hadn’t stopped –

If I didn’t see my newborn son turning blue…

And have to watch his mother fall apart as I was falling apart –

If he was still with us…

If only he was still here –

Fucking hell. Fucking fuck all of it.

Fucking fuck it – fuck all of it

He isn’t here anymore – she isn’t here any longer –

Why? Just why?

“A second one, love?”, I ask – and she pours me a second with an empathetic grin…

She smiles at me – and it’s the highlight of my day

____

 

Sometimes there is nothing a man can do –

Sometimes the way things are – are the way things are –

A fucking short draw of the fucking straw

 

I watched his face turn blue…

 

“A double”, I request – and she smiles and prepares my drink –

“You be careful”, she suggests – and I tell her I will be –

“An’ no more talkin’ about your knob to the other customers, eh?”, she follows with a smile

“Yeah, I can do that”, I reply

 

There will be vomit on my shirt tonight – and on my pants –

and all over my wooden floors -

If I remember how I got home, I’ll be lucky –

And I don’t care – I don’t really fucking care –

His face turned blue – and he died – and she left me

 

It’s who I am –

It’s what I’ve become

 

It is what I’ve become –

And that is just how it is

Jimmy is the author of three poetry collections, "Damaged", "Rabbits", and "Boy". He enjoys walks along the beach and playing with puppies".

Project of a Lifetime By Taylor Dibbert

He underestimated
The damage that
The gaslighter
Had done,
She told him she was
Getting better
And healing up,
She told him
That the gaslighter
Was firmly in the
Rearview mirror,
Where ex-husbands belong,
And now that he’s
An ex-husband,
He knows that
The reality
Was always
Far more complicated
And that
Recovering from
A toxic relationship
Is the project
Of a lifetime.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. He’s author of the Peace Corps memoir “Fiesta of Sunset,” and the forthcoming poetry collection “Home Again.”

Relics Of A Forgotten Trial By JPR

 

Do you desire her confession even if it means her blasphemy?

Stacked or stretched, hung from the rafters.

If the pain is exquisite we shall admit any truth as the guise of the father is a poison of  non-acceptance. 

History does not lie as we choose to bury what does not suit the false product we sell.

How many did they murder in the name of mass insanity?
Love is not fire’s brutality, as to erase is the nature of the scourge that is the lie-forged truths of so-called organized religion.

Lust is nature to take in dungeons what should be embraced underneath the full moon embrace as the Goddess is equal in truth what the ignorant will always fear.

What is free in spirit will always be held within contempt of the repressed.

Dance, my children, around the flames to embrace the night and lives past.

Dance to spite the true pestilence of that which must exist in past tears of bound oppression to remind us.

Mass logic is suicide to all original thought.
Remain free and forgive nothing.

JPR is a southern gothic writer his work has approached in Fixator Press, Piker Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Red Fez, Fearless Poetry Zine, Disturb The Universe, Sava Press and The Dope Fiend Daily.