Wiser Now

As I listen to him lecture in the big hall surrounded by white boards full of equations, I know I can only swallow small sips from the fire hose of knowledge that flows from his mind and mouth, flooding the audience with his insight until it streams from their eyes, light filling the room and bouncing off the windows; and I must turn my mind from his most recent threat to divorce me to how it all started: a campus lawn, a daisy, the Quantum Uncertainty of petals on the subject of love─ he loves me, he loves me not.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Moonflowers & Untold Truths

Mother waters her garden at midnight, with tears of the moon, she says. I can sometimes hear her crying, but I don’t tell her. Her garden is beautiful, with pale petals on willowy stems and dew clinging onto their souls, she says. I asked her once to see her budding seeds, but she insists that she must tend to them alone, fragile blooms. I nod because I know she is right, and because I am scared that if I don’t, she will find out, and my heart is too fragile.

Mother’s garden has no flowers, and I am still wilting.

From Guest Contributor Zeyneb Kaya

The Black Figures

He rested on the soft surface, observing one among the many roses surrounding him, the white petals layering atop each other. Whimpering from piercing screams, trembling from blaring sirens, shutting his ears tightly with his hands couldn’t help. Two black figures stood over him. One leaned closer, tenderly stroking the boy’s forehead. ‘You love flowers, don’t you?’ it whispered. He smiled, and the other handed him a bouquet. ‘Let’s leave him some peace now, shall we? And I’m quite certain he does—loved them since birth.’ It nodded, and with a thud, blocking the perceivable, the velvet lid slid over him.

From Guest Contributor Lo Xing Le

The Daisy

I feel warmth from looking at the hydrated light glistening on the soft petals of the daisy. I also feel cold from observing the water droplets slowly slipping off of those same petals as they struggle to keep their grip. The daisy, once a seed, now a flower. She contains just as much life as she did hidden in the soil. I know the daisy will not be here forever. I know I will not be here forever. I know you will not be here forever. One day the daisy will be pushed; dead. As every other daisy before it.

From Guest Contributor Winter Daisy

Winter is an author that has a deep desire to make a difference. To read more from them go to https://linktr.ee/winterdaisy.

Rain

Music is flowing around me, thought a little flower bud as it shyly opened its dewy new petals. A quiet, peaceful melody of streams of gray pouring from a cloudy sky, framed by cooling rhythm of beads of water hitting cement nearby, thrumming on rooftops of homes around its garden, drumming against wooden walls, staccato taps on glass panes. Wavering patterns of drizzle and downpour, whispers of gentle wind through branches of trees, and drips from pools of water on lush green leaves, add a dulcet cadence, forming a tender harmony to welcome this year’s refreshing renewal of mother nature.From Guest Contributor Sara Light

Sara lives in Chicago and writes poetry, fiction, and children's stories. In her spare time, she likes to paint and read. Find her on twitter @SaraLight19, and on her website, saralight.blog.

Changeling

Susan struggled against her mother’s prying hands, desperate to keep her favorite teddy, but mother won at last, tearing it free. The child wilted to the floor. “You can have it back when you apologize,” said her mother, slamming the door behind her. Susan saw the little man out of the corner of her eye, beckoning from the window, his crown adorned with fresh lily blooms. He was so polite and understanding. Her mother would never know. Susan’s mother returned and found her daughter’s window open, wind scattering lily petals across the floor.

“Susan!”

“Here,” replied the child behind her.From Guest Contributor Sean Ferrier-Watson

Sean has pieces published or forthcoming in Borderlands, Better Than Starbucks, Forces, and Illumen. His book The Children’s Ghost Story in America was published by McFarland in 2017. Follow him at www.seanferrierwatson.com.

The Sunflower

V’s sitting on the sidewalk in the sun, headphones and cut-offs, and she smiles at you, cigarette in one hand and a big paintbrush in the other, dripping yellow.

“It’s a warning,” you say.

She lifts it to the door of the sky blue bug and pulls out petals, stretching glorious to the handle, the wheel well, and the broken mirror from a perfect oval of shiny black seeds with a tiny white dot on each one and a ladybug the size of your fist right where he took the baseball bat to it.

“No,” she says. “It’s a flower.”

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook Bhagat’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Harbinger Asylum, Little India, Rat's Ass Review, Lotus-Eater Magazine, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She and her husband Gaurav created Blue Planet Journal, which she edits and writes for. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, teaches creative writing at a community college, and is writing a novel. Her poetry collection, Only Flying, is due out Nov. 16, 2021 from Unsolicited Press. See more at www.brook-bhagat.com or reach her on Twitter at @BrookBhagat.

Flower Girl

Springtime breeds passion. It is the riotous pheromones.

A vision wanders down the garden path in a sundress that waves in the breeze like the surrounding petals. Swaying, they dance together. Her radiant smile and obvious love for the flirting blossoms is what originally caught my attention. She gently sprinkles water.

One of her solar smiles would make my life soar. She doesn't notice me among all this teeming beauty. Nonetheless, in love-struck desire, I sit taller as she approaches. Surely, if she can adore flowers so fully, I can cherish her as much. If only I wasn't a cactus.

From Guest Contributor Bill Diamond

The Eve Before Halloween

The eve before Halloween I visit Melissa’s gravesite and place abouquet of yellow roses against her stone. She'd be thirty years oldtoday. The cemetery is empty, and the rain is cold against my face, butI am here.

“Hi, Sweetie. In honor of your favorite holiday, I’m having a Halloweenparty and celebrating your birthday tomorrow. I wish you could be here,”I say, tearing. I walk to my car briskly, the umbrella inside out fromthe wind.

The rain becomes heavy and when I drive off, the petals of the rosesblow in front of my car.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Ripen And Split

We both said we meant it, your hands in my hair. In the end it didn’t matter, you looked out across the desert like you were already crossing it, a dehydrated camel hell bent on pushing yourself towards purple sunsets no matter how rough or dangerous the terrain. I sat in the barely shade near a towering saguaro and braided spines and blossoms intermittently, blood flowering on the waxy white petals. I watched you go until the heat rising from the sand turned you into a wavy haze. I sighed when both hands dropped the struggle to hold you near.From Guest Contributor Sarah Reddick

Sarah is a writer, editor, and a writing professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her work has previously appeared in The Local Voice, The Mid-Rivers Review, and Salt Journal.