Once there was an island that lay in the middle of a clamorous sea. She had beautiful flowers adorning her like jewels and large trees draping over one another, their leaves blowing on a lazy breeze. The birds gave music and the bugs crawled over her land chomping soil between their mandibles, taking in death to make their living. She sighed into herself and planted further into the ocean. The tide would attempt to overtake her but the sweetness of her soil coaxed it to caress her borders rather than ravage her shores. Continue reading “Oya by Rai Ahmed-Green”
Dreams by Caitlyn Morehouse
The Sleeping Dreams:
- My dream started by an outdoor pool, where the sun was shining and reflecting off the water. A dead woman lay on the concrete next to the pool, and my dream Grandmother (neither of my real Grandmothers made an appearance) sent me on a quest to protect a box (Pandora connection?). The quest brought me to a huge cave battle against flying monkey demons, which could be my subconscious telling me that I’ve seen both The Wizard of Oz and the Hobbit movies too many times.
- The recurring one that I had when I was five about being lost on a cliff with my cousin, Brittany. When we found a house and knocked on the door, a witch made Brittany and I eat dirt. The dirt made all of our teeth fell out. It was scary enough that I had the dream three times. A manifestation of my mind trying to make sense of irrational fear and anxiety (which is the common interpretation for any dream about losing teeth).
- All the dreams that I had where I was about to be murdered. The interesting thing here—there was always some sort of supernatural twist to the plotline. Sometimes the dreams start out centered somewhere in the vicinity of reality, but they always manage to veer off course into some sort of supernatural/horror adaptation. This could be attributed to my love for all things fantasy and an overactive imagination, which hasn’t been stifled by my attempts at adulthood.
Hugh Hefner Laid to Rest Next to Marilyn Monroe in Private Ceremony by Kate Gorden
“I’m a believer in things symbolic,” he said. “Spending eternity next to Marilyn is too sweet to pass up.”
Many admirers of the late celebrity gathered
to pay respect to a sexual icon, a man
of such prestige and prowess to shame
Zeus. Ravenous.
A few flecks of white blemish the pure
blue sky, but there is no threat of
rain – he would not want any of the funeral guests
to weep for him, and so the sky complies.
Today, Hefner merges in eternity alongside
the blonde that never became a rabbit. The Helen
about whom thousands of magazines were printed.
Her face is the muse of many, her body
the model of countless fantasy. Her mind a broken
cog in the otherwise ideal product.
Her voice a painting of the Madonna.
Her soul the lord of the abyss
he did not foresee.
They join together in their stone wedding
bed, pomegranate seeds strewn
across the sheets that drove her
into the depths of damnation. Seeds fed to her
in life by her new bedmate and leagues of others.
Poison hidden behind sweet devotion. She swallowed
them whole, naked. Just how they wanted her.
Just how he liked her. Silent.
She complied because she had no voice.
In the kingdom of the dead,
Marilyn speaks.
And as Hugh enters Hades, he does not
enjoy Persephone’s fate.
She makes sure of it…
Rather, that is what I tell myself.
The Tunnel by Caitlyn Morehouse
The world is made of glass. It is fragile, harsh, and filled with light. At least that was what I believed, until the day the world shook. This was the day that I fell into the darkness.
When I was little, my father tried to explain the ways of our little world of glass to me. My father said, “The world is fragile, and people in it are even more so. You need to stay in the light. Every now and again the world will shake, and you may find yourself falling. However, you need to find the strength to stand up and continue on. If you don’t, you will die in the dark.”
“What is the dark?” I asked him.
“It is a part of all of us, but do not fall victim to it. Do not let it consume you.”
I told him, “I won’t.”
I was in high school when I began to feel the darkness within me. It slowly gained strength inside of me as it bled into my thoughts. The darkness consumed me and I fell. Why is this happening? What is happening? I was slowly losing the peace that I had built in glass. I wanted to stop the destruction of the glass walls that surrounded me. All it took was once and my whole world shook. It hurt. This sweet fall into the darkness hurt. Continue reading “The Tunnel by Caitlyn Morehouse”