#writersread

By Lita Doolan

What I need is a boyfriend The tablets are making me sick I could stop But I will lose my hair Then I won’t get a man And that’s what I need See how he touches Watch how it feels Hair makes me happy The medicine does not

By Ntaoleng Mokotini

the sky is pink. in an existentialistic sense, it represents the dire straits that reside within the daily event that occurs as the sun wages war  against the night sky in the battle to stay alive. we represent this war. we represent this strife in love because the love that we seem to feel these days is no longer red. it is pink,  diluted, battered, and maybe blue. 

By  Cosupreme

My roots stay soaked in the ashes of your embrace. My branches grow strong, and my roots grow deeper. When spring comes around, my love for you blossoms with a color as vibrant as the sun, a pink sun. At times, I bear fruit that everyone loves, but that fruit is never stationary. Like all things, it goes away. It always returns, but it’s never consistent. My exterior bears resemblance to darkness, but I promise there’s more to me. In all things, I can be beautiful and so can the things I possess. Give me time and I’ll grow…grow towards perfection, never reaching it, but maybe with you, I’ll find something better.

By Lynda Hutchinson

Please keep this secret close to your chests -

I don’t understand most things and mistrust the rest.

All the things I’ve been taught, all the words I have read,

they merge, unmerge, tangle - a huge mess in my head.

By  Pei Koroye

And when the night came, I saw girls just beneath the film of my fever, many as spider eggs. Under lightbulb moon, with nursery rhymes told all wrong, with catfish, lingering maternal horror, I took my girls in and did incubate. Not in the hollow of my hips, that is to ground up for formula powder. Nor in the cluster of rib-trunk through which whistles the distant hum of playground laughter. But from my back. 

By  Enis Pekic

There’s this feeling inside of me, tearing me apart. Demanding to be freed, not wanting to die inside. So I fight it with all my might; with all my strength, but I cannot win. It wants to get out so hard, that it doesn’t care if I’ll survive or not.

By Ntaoleng Mokotini

i would have sacrificed myself for you given my sanity in exchange for yours  used my body as a shield between you and your harmful thoughts i would have given anything to open the doors to your mind at the time, you seemed so absolute,  so resolute, yet brittle, and tender  the structure you represented spoke for you,  you could be vulnerable without question,  and the words that left your lips  became my prayer to the god’s that you don’t even think exist,  your mind (heart) was an impenetrable fortress,  you never wanted to let me in,  so i haven’t thought of you ever since