Always Everywhere

She's haunting him everywhere he goes.

She's reflected in the mirror when the lights go black. She's in the storm clouds chasing him through the day. She's the hum of the air conditioner cranked ten degrees too cold. She's the wetness soaking through his clothes in the rain.

He doesn't mind. Ghosts lose the power to terrify when you're addicted to the jump scare. She promised him she'd never leave and if nothing else, knowing that she's true to her vow is enough for him to hold on to.

He never would have imagined himself living in a romantic fantasy.

The Blackest Black

Everything is black, but blacker than your black, with pinpricks of light sparkling in your blindness.

A total black, outside your eyelids or maybe behind the mirror. And it’s always there, somewhere, waiting to crash over you like a waterfall.

You're walking the yellow curbside line, balancing on the edge of night, one slip and you fall onto the black pavement, and luckily it's just a mind's game and you start again. Happy just to be playing.

You've played so long you're no longer scared. But it doesn’t matter because when you get there you won’t be there waiting.

The Lost Notebook

I looked for it everywhere I could think to look. Under chairs and beds. In the clutter on the kitchen counter. Behind cushions. No luck. I’ve lost my notebook or had it stolen. The notebook is nothing fancy, a simple assignment pad like the ones we used in school. But I might as well have lost my soul. The notebook contains notes for poems and explosions. I’ve been unable to proceed without it. Words won’t obey like they once did. I’m a mirror without glass, a rocket ship without blastoff, a donor heart without a box to put it in.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest poetry collection, True Crime, is scheduled to be published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.

Quantum Entanglement

Like a string of fireflies, we were at first one, then two; then two paired and paired again until the dark spaces between us led us to mirror a necklace of uncountable stars. Now, as I float in a glass-bottomed boat on waves that meet the river's edge, I watch a scene unfolding: watercolor sunset over breaking waves, night wind in the willows and finally the gold sunrise through the green of this island where we once searched for Sirius among the stars, your voice in the breeze saying, the greatest illusion in the world is the illusion of separation.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Drunk

First, there's a moment when you are just crossing the threshold from complete oblivion, wrapped in blankets and darkness, to reemerge into the light of the living. You are not a person yet. You have no recollections or anxieties. This is probably what it was like right before you were born.

You don't realize you have a hole in your memory until you're halfway to the bathroom. How did you get home last night? Where's your car? Why is the floor slanting away from you?

You stare at yourself in the mirror and promise you're never going to drink again.

What The Stars Saw

The stars saw her face, someone who wishes wildflowers never died, thunder always accompanied rain, and the sounds of the waves were something that left the shoreline. Even the tears she shed when she thought it was only her and the items of clothes on the floor because the mirror just did not look right. The stars saw the smile she wore when he cherished her in the dark and the tears she lost when she was left to her own company on the worst nights. Some nights the stars were enough. Some nights, she wished they would do more.

From Guest Contributor Caitriona Mullenix

Rainbow Potato

I tell myself I don’t belong here, and I don’t. The place is home to depressives, insomniacs, winos, recidivists. Trains pass through without whistling or slowing down. Meanwhile, stacks of coffins keep arriving in the dark by truck. The first thing I do most mornings is examine my face in the mirror for signs of fresh trauma. There was one morning when I asked Google if rainbow and potato rhyme. The answer came back, “Not exactly.” A handsome young drifter, stepping off the overnight bus from Providence, smiles plausibly while wearing a necklace of human ears tucked inside his shirt.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest book is Frowny Face, a mix of his prose poems and handmade collages from Redhawk Publications.

Platero And I: Father

I have always known my father as a man with a beard, Platero.

He was a proud man—always mounted the fiercest stallion, never a simple donkey like you.

I sometimes saw him standing in front of the mirror with small scissors to remove rebellious or – with years passing – white hairs.

As a child I thought it was a fake beard, but I never risked tugging it.

According to the customs of this country it is up to the eldest son to remove the beard of the father, the undertaker said yesterday.

Guess what, Platero, it was real after all.From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted.

Kingdom

I want to assure you we are all safe here. We have adequate resources to wait until all of the infected have died. With our fortifications and firepower there is no way any plague carriers can get in here. Furthermore, all of you have been chosen for your talent, intelligence, and genes for repopulating the country when the time is right. As long as you trust me as your King, we will prevail against all challenges. Questions? Yes, my good friend Geraldine Jackson. King, have you looked in a mirror lately? You have a red splotch on your right cheek.

From Guest Contributor Doug Hawley

Family Tree

Robots Contest Entry:

I was born in the rain and dark. “Cure me or kill me,” I begged the doctors in attendance. But apparently only when silent was I able to be heard. I’d been assembled by someone who couldn’t be bothered to read the assembly instructions. Seventy years later, I look in the mirror and see bits and pieces of a stranger’s face – a long, fleshy nose, protuberant eyes, a domelike Shakespearean forehead. My now grown children stand well off to the side, uncertain whether to huddle or flee. As I tentatively approach, I clutch a rose, shoulder high like a dagger. From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's books include the prose poetry collection THOUGHT CRIMES, scheduled to be published in fall 2022.