Issue 1 index


Editorial
Meet the Editors & Designers


Contents

St.Tobaq
Rhys Shanahan

Rice Paper
Damon Young

Hopkins & Hallam
Note from Naomi Lebens

Before I go I have to say...
Kate Pursglove

Some Other Where
Steven Matthews

Weekend Poems: Breakfast
Eleanor Burleigh

Aged 7
Jean Watkins

Childhood & Plastic People
Zeng Chen

Street Scene
Peter Robinson

A Martian Writes
Michael Hutchinson

The Tarot Reading of The Fool
Anonymous

Stop Making Sense & Bla bla bla
Jenna Fox

Fringe Festival
Claire Dyer

When you have hope of life returning, this
Kate Noakes

Broadwood 7362
Gill Learner

A Drop in the Ocean
Lindsey Jones

Pitch of Ghosts
Vic Pickup

23rd February 2021
Kitty Hawkins

The Sofa
Tara Bermingham

Trophies on a Windowsill? & Still (monetizing) Life
Laura Rozamunda

Good to know perhaps, but nothing to be done
Kate Noakes

Heading Out
Michael Anania

The Threshold
David Brauner

Birds
Hannah Lily

Park Recollection
Liam Anslow-Sucevic

Balloons
Rhianna Bryon

Ephemerality of the World
Salma Haque

The August Elvis Died
Gill Learner


Reprieve
Michael Anania


Hit Me Gently
Daisy Dickens


Balloons


When I was eight, my sister jumped me so high on a seesaw
that I went right over the handlebar still clinging on as tight as I could.
My blood made the chipped red paint look fresh
and I wonder if things would have worked out better if I had
just let go.
Sometimes my fingers are so smooth that I can’t even
keep hold of my other hand. I think life is a helium filled balloon –
you either hold on to it until it shrivels and shrinks out of shape,
pop it and turn heads, or unclasp your hand
and watch it fly.
I’ve learnt to tie my anger to the ankles of pigeons and watch them
flap away with it. To send my sadness with the rocks I skim
across water and let it skip and jump somewhere far away.
To wrap up my self-pity, self-criticism, lost loves, lost dreams,
lick and stick the stamp and post them across the world.
Now I smile when I see a sky full of balloons
because although there may be a hundred children crying
there are also a hundred palms open, empty.
Give me a minute to work out what’s worth keeping –
just hold on.



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