BEFORE THE SILENCE

By Martina Collender 

Don’t give me flowers on a casket:

give me coffee on a cracked old table.

Let your sorrow speak in morning light,

not through whispers draped in sable. 

I don’t want your name carved in marble

when I never knew the weight in your chest.

I’d rather hold your shaking story

than watch you laid to rest. 

Talk to me in half-formed thoughts,

stammered truths and restless pain.

Let the rain come down between us:

I can take it. I won’t refrain. 

Because silence is a cruel narrator,

and grief writes plays with no reprise.

I'd rather sit through your monologue

than read your eulogy through cries. 

Don't worry if the words come ugly,

if they trip, if they ache, if they bleed.

I’m not here to fix or answer:

I’m here to stay, to see, to heed. 

So speak. Before the silence wins.

Before the script is sealed and done.

Let your story fill this room tonight.

You don’t have to run.

ABOUT MARTINA: Martina is a Queer, Disabled, award-winning playwright, poet, and writer based in Waterford City and County, Ireland. Her work delves into themes of identity, resilience, and social justice, often spotlighting marginalized voices.

Martina has been commissioned by a diverse array of organizations including: Loose Screw Theatre Company, Red Kettle Theatre Company, RigOut Productions, Trinity Players, Comeragh Wilds Festival, Imagine Arts Festival, The Drama Circle, Brothers Of Charity, Rehab Care, Waterford Youth Arts, and Garter Lane Arts Centre. Her plays have been recognized for their compelling narratives and authentic representation. Her published works include Crotty The Highway Man and Petticoat Loose (Suirdzign), as well as Still, We Sing (Beir Bua Press). Martina continues to inspire through her storytelling, advocating for inclusivity and representation in the arts.

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RAGE

By Sanum Patel 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light?

No. No—

Let fury blaze, even oceans burn

At my sickness, to make wrong things right.

Rage instead at the death of the soul,

Rotting from within,

Eroded by the toll.

A slow humiliation of all that I was,

All for the illusion of love.

Love?

I hardly know what it means.

What I got was a distortion,

A dagger that masquerades as sheath.

Love is meant to cradle, to relieve,

Not make death taste like bitter reprieve.

But sometimes, death is kindness.

For sacrifice can’t always be the cure.

Not when you knowingly choose blindness,

And swear poison’s something pure.

So why did I stay?

I wish I knew the reason.

I can barely keep it at bay—

The anger, 

It bubbles, ruptures, floods my veins.

The truth I carry, sharp as shame:

I’m guilty of my own treason.

For the pain of abuse pales

Beside the pain of self-betrayal.

So no,

Don’t rage at the dying of the light.

Rage, rage at the voices inside

That whispered and assured 

That it was right.

ABOUT THE POEM: "This poem wrestles with the anger and self-betrayal I carried in the aftermath of an abusive relationship. This piece was difficult to write — but necessary — and I hope it resonates with readers who’ve felt similarly trapped between silence and survival."

ABOUT SANUM: Sanum is a South Asian writer and attorney based in Southern California. His work moves between emotional intimacy and absurdist humor, exploring themes of identity, survival, and grief. His writing is forthcoming in Silly Goose Press and Little Old Lady Comedy, and has been recognized by The Missouri Review with an encouraging editorial note. He is currently working on a novel and a hybrid story collection.

HIJACKED

By Jocelyn Katz

Why do the most pure minds

face the deepest corruption—

the easiest to hijack?

What if the abundance

could have been more full

with something else—

something other than

what you think?

A page

that never got to blossom

the way it could’ve,

had I had my mind back—

the mind that moved for me,

not for someone’s

imaginary thought

about me.

DEPRESSION

By Mike Chechik

Everyday is a struggle to get out of bed

I feel so overwhelmed with these thoughts in my head

Not wanting to eat or go out

Content just to sleep

I hate leaving the house

My mind feels so weak

Unable to feel joy or optimism

Why does my mind have to feel like a prison?

I want to reach out and scream loudly for help

But I am so scared that I will never get well

Happiness seems like it will never arrive

What is the point of anything? I just want to die

Curling up in a ball on my bed, just to cry

I don’t understand how people are happy to be alive

LIGHT TO DARK TO GRAY

By Riley M. Frank

Just as my hair has changed its shade

Through my long life’s manifold stages

So has my attitude to decisions I made, 

Just as most of us throughout the ages,

From that born of naïveté as a boy

Finding joy from unwilled ignorance

To one of disdain for my folly, my ploy 

As I discovered the explicit evidence

Of the futility of seeking perfection.

But now I see some sort of balance

Can be struck between such extremes:

When one’s experienced perspective

Allow that life is not all that it seems,

Neither perfect nor always bad or sad,

And there between the start and end

Are many, varied shades of emotion

That can shape us to a perfect blend

Of imperfect perfections leading us

To a more humane type of devotion.

ABOUT RILEY:  Riley has been many things in his life: from excellent student, to Navy Hospital Corpsman, to a bronze foundry artisan, and even a copywriter for a direct reseller of computer hardware and software. Now he spends much of his time creating art of different genre on his Apple iPad, from poems to digital sculptures.

WHERE I END AND THE RAIN BEGINS

By Ella Grimes

It always rains now.

Splattering all over my world and painting it in bland water.

Altering it in unnoticeable ways. 

It suffocates me till all I can do is breathe in the droplets.

fill my lungs with water,

and let it slowly take me because I am already drifting. 

Barely surviving, not me. 

I lost myself when the water took me.

I was frantic to escape but ended up escaping myself.

Or so I thought.

I never escaped it. Never. 

I was trapped in a world that was an illusion

slowly filling with rain.

A brush striking the world and spinning it.

Now people ask why this happened

but they don't see the droplets 

that are sliding down my cheek. 

Continuing to merge the lines between me and my artwork.

ABOUT THE POEM:  "This poem is about body dysmorphia and how it can alter what you see in the mirror. It talks about how this disorder affects every part of you."

ABOUT ELLA: Ella is a young, striving poet from Medway, Massachusetts. She has had a couple featured poems in the past, hopes to have some more! In her free time she likes to play piano and sing. She hopes that everyone who can relate to her poems are striving, not for tomorrow, but for a year from now. She promises: it is possible to recover.

SILENT SCREAM

By Riley Morrison

The words that come out of my mouth,

Words I try to express as well as I can,

Nobody is listening.

On the outside I live with a smile,

The smile that hides everything inside,

Everything hurts. I don't know why.

All I do is scream for help,

Nobody listens,

I’m in the deepest trenches of the ocean,

A quiet air that is so dense nothing can reach the shore.

I look left, right, up, down,

All I wonder is how I can be as happy as the people around,

But are they even happy?

These people could be just like me,

Wondering how to be happy, 

A smile that hides it all.

The inside holds so many secrets that I’ve never been able to get out,

The cold truths of everything,

Help me,

All I want to say,

But nobody listens to me.

Oh poor little girl they think, it'll all be ok soon,

But will it?

I'm holding on by a pinky,

Not much longer I can hold on,

Holding all this weight and nobody will take it from me.

Everyday feels like i'm drowning deeper and deeper,

Nobody will save me,

My head that throbs every day,

Feels like it’ll explode if I live one more day,

Please, someone hear me.

But then,

In the silence,

I hear the faintest whisper,

Not from someone else,

But from me.

A voice so small I almost missed it,

Saying, 

“You've made it through every day so far. 

Maybe you can make it through one more time.”

The water is still heavy but now I see a flicker above me,

A ripple of light dancing on the surface,

Maybe it's not a rescue,

But maybe it's a way out.

So I breathe, barely,

And let that whisper carry me,

Even if no one else hears it,

I do.

And that has to be enough. 

For now. 

This voice,

So soft like a lullaby,

This voice, 

So fragile,

It could snap in a blink of an eye.

Do I trust this voice?

Do I tune it out?

Or do I follow it?

This voice,

Constantly ringing in my head,

I want nothing more than for it to leave me alone,

But if it goes, what comes next?

What would I do without it?

So small yet so powerful,

If nobody listens to me, 

Maybe I should listen to myself.

The small voice in my head,

Telling me to listen to my heart.

My heart aches,

How could I ever possibly listen to my heart,

I could never trust it. 

But maybe trust doesn’t come all at once.

Maybe it’s built from broken pieces,

Held together by tiny choices.

Like breathing when it hurts,

Like standing up no matter how much it hurt,

Like writing this down, 

Instead of giving up.

My heart is scarred,

But it continues to beat. 

Maybe that means something.

Maybe that means I'm still here.

So I won't silence the voice today.

I'll let it speak.

I'll let it tremble.

And maybe tomorrow,

I'll listen again.

Even if the world doesn't hear me, I'm starting to hear myself.

And maybe, just maybe,

That's the beginning of being okay.

ABOUT RILEY: Riley is new to poetry and lets her feelings write themselves onto the page. She’s always struggled to speak her emotions out loud, and she wrote Silent Scream for the people who can’t either.

FINDING ORDER IN DISORDER

By A.S. Manjari

They call it a disorder—this need for control,

A yearning for symmetry, for clean lines and wholes.

But is it madness to long for perfection's art,

Or simply a deep-rooted affection of the heart?

Who doesn't crave a world perfectly right?

But mine is a battle, often hidden from sight.

It's more than a locked door checked twice,

More than turning off the stove to feel nice.

Repetition once may comfort the mind,

But when it owns you, it ceases to be kind.

OCD isn't always neat routines,

It's the war behind what outwardly seems clean.

Handwashing's fine, a line uncrossed,

But unyielding urges mean control is lost.

Many claim this name post-pandemic's sting,

But for some, it's a deeper, endless suffering.

Mirrors don't define the test,

It's what you see that steals your rest.

Not just a spot, a passing trace,

But flaws that magnify, consuming space.

Praise isn't the core, a simple cue,

But constant reassurance proves it true.

Collecting's a joy, an art form's pastime,

Not like the clutter ripping me apart, defying time.

Old caps, torn paper, never thrown,

I can't let go, though overwhelmed and alone.

Hair loss happens to one and all,

But pulling it out answers OCD's call.

Pet grooming's touch, so kind and low,

But plucking fur till there's nowhere to go—

No simple play, no casual touch,

Just compulsion's grasp, demanding much.

Touching skin, a natural urge, can be fine,

But inflicting deep pain, to cross a fear's line—

That's where the break occurs, stark and raw,

Where OCD takes hold, defying nature's law.

My actions may seem strange, my reasoning obscure,

But I am human still, flesh and bone, I assure you.

It's the OCD that feels alien, a separate entity,

And all I ask is to be truly, completely free.

These rituals, these endless checks, I didn't choose,

This relentless storm of thoughts, I constantly lose.

Yet, behind this facade, you might not perceive,

Resides a focused mind, inner strength, and beliefs to achieve.

My cupboards shine, my language clear and concise,

My mind, though burdened, is sharp and precise.

I am whole, I am worthy, I stand my ground—

A silent warrior, by strength and purpose bound.

So—

Choose love over judgment, a gaze free from stare.

Acknowledge my courage, for the battles I bear.

See me for all that I am, beyond the confine—

Not just my obsessions, but as a true friend of mine.

ABOUT THE POEM:  "Finding Order in Disorder," offers an intimate look into the experience of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), aiming to shed light on its complexities beyond common misconceptions. It explores the internal struggle, the distinction between typical behaviors and compulsive acts, and ultimately, a powerful plea for understanding and acceptance.

ABOUT MANJARI: Manjari is currently pursuing her doctorate in Psychology at Christ University, Bangalore. Her research focuses on developing and testing the efficacy of a mental health awareness and destigmatisation program for adolescents in schools. A passionate advocate for mental health, she is deeply committed to raising awareness and eradicating the stigma surrounding mental challenges. Beyond her academic pursuits in teaching and research, she enjoys exploring the human condition through cinema and uses her writing to address social issues, mental health struggles, and personal reflections.