Priorities

By Ashley Niedzwiecki

121 men die every year while taking a shit.
They just try so hard
that their heart gives out
and they die.

Four men die every year
while having sex.

It’s about willingness and effort.
Just something to think about.

Why Don't You

By AJ Kelsey

When night falls and the world fades away,
And you’re left with the silence, why don’t you
Hold yourself scared, afraid to wake upon the fire burning your flesh.
Worried for the immortal soul casted into the pits of hell,
By the light when it calls us all forth, bound forever damned!

Masquerade with papier-mâché,
Colored in paints that are not your own.
Afraid for when the music stops, the face beneath the will be revealed
As they walk away with distain marked on their faces
Knowing that friendly cards will turn in the eyes of truth

Or feel the fear of walking down the streets, then, out of nowhere, being attacked
By a mob of men, beaten for the sin of being who you are, face nearly
As bloodied and broken as your soul.

Why don’t you shamefully conceal the love of another
The love of another to whom you’d give your very life for
The love that you’d walk through shards of glass,
Wait a thousand lives to be with, because the world can’t see what you see
To hear the words of hate as you walk down a street
“You’re all going to hell”
Not knowing that you’re already there
For beneath the ever flowing, never ending stream of tears
Taking their leave from your body, your soul is dying

Why don’t you whisper the words fix me, heal me, make me better
As you take the jaded blade to your wrist
Deeply you pierce, to bleed out the pain
Wanting it to end you
Taking the blade to rest it upon your neck,
Oh the sweet peace it would bring
To cut the unspoken agony
But something outside of yourself restrains you
As it has done too often before
Tortured, defeated, there’s nothing left to do but will yourself to sleep
Wanting, hoping, to purge yourself of the shame
Of not understanding why you are the way you are
People laying claims to your name by derogatory means

So many throw the stones, but have never been hit
They speak the words of hate, but never felt their sting
Are my words opening the door to understanding?
Or do you still see without seeing?

The Box I Choose

By AJ Kelsey

Pick a box, that’s what they say.
Straight, bi, gay, pick one and own it.
If you’re straight, you must love football Sundays, beer drinking,
womanizing, dominating – I am man, hear me roar.
If you’re bi, you must be a confused. Like your cake in eat it too.
You can’t be trusted – with a guy, you’ll be looking at the ladies,
and with a girl you’ll be looking at the fellas.
If you’re gay, you must flamer, work your hips like a girl,
speaking words like “what’s up girlfriend,”
oh, yeah, and must be a hoe.
Fuck you, I’m not going to wear you labels –
wear a sign for your peace of mind.
I can’t be read like a book pulled from the shelf,
my title is classified and undefined.
I won’t take a side like some fucked up school yard –
Red Rover, Red Rover, send that faggot on over…
Bitch, please. My layers are far deeper than that.
I am the music that soothes your soul.
I am the voice that causes your consciousness to awaken.
I am a feminist, a warrior for women.
I’m a bitch that takes no shit.
I am the passionate lover who can bring you to your knees
in ecstasy – reveal your hidden desires.
I am a son, a brother, a lover, a stranger.
I am complex, made up of things you don’t even conceive.
I cannot, will not, be put in a box,
Forced to conform to some fucked up ideology of society.

Honeysuckle Thoughts

By Ashley Niedzwiecki

Lips form the words
I always thought
seemed cold as the night
air in winter, but they come
from a place inside where
it is warm as any day in June –
springs trickling playfully
at dusk as the warm
and gentle breeze stirs up
honeysuckle thoughts, and cherry blossoms
gather in a pool along the bank,
the knuckle on the hand of Mother, passing
sweets through metaphorical mouths,
so I just let the words form in
the warmth of a seemingly cold Truth.

Poetry

By Ashley Niedzwiecki

Poetry
can let you
wear
the sky,
speak
salty words,
kiss
the stars,
dance
with a fish,
breathe
vast secrets,
listen
to the grass laugh,
devour
the breeze,
wake
to a stream of flowers,
ask
a tree a question,
think
with the rhythm of eternity,
and trust
that the wild air lingers.

Burning Poetry

By Ashley Niedzwiecki

I threw one of my poems
into a fire
just to feel the heat
of my words
cutting through the cold night air.
To see them
glow red among the embers,
twisting and curling with the flames
that licked their chops longingly.
To hear them
crack angrily and hiss their wants,
the way the black ink
that tied them to the page
never could.
To see their remnants,
gray and frail,
float up, furling and unfurling
with the smoke,
to join the ranks of the stars.

Founder's Hall

By Ashley Niedzwiecki

I am a reflection in the window,
faded, mingling with tree tops.
I float above a rippling pool
encased in concrete,
no more able to flow freely
than I am to fully exist.
My face is masked
by the florescent glare
on the square pane
that separates me from myself –
the square pane
on which my very existence depends.

A Wispy Remnant of Myself

By Ashley Niedzwiecki

I come from the wheat field,
lain flat beneath my not-yet-developed form,
where the only thing stopping me
from joining the wispy remnants of elephants
drifting lazily above me
was my firm grip on the grains
that made my resting place.
A view uninterrupted
by anything earthly
invited me to fall
into the atmosphere
and become nothing more
than a wispy remnant of myself.

Playlist

By Ashley Niedzwiecki

Oops, I did it again –
The Tootsie Roll,
because I’m too sexy
to walk like an Egyptian
when the whole world
is walking on sunshine.
I will walk 500 miles
if you wake me up before you go go,
but I’m going slightly mad
while I’m waiting on the world to change.
Maybe I’m just misundaztood,
so give me some respect.
We are family…
so what?
Let’s bounce –
the devil went down to Georgia,
so I wanna go to Vegas.
Its my life,
and I wanna bang on the drum all day
in the love shack
with that brown eyed girl,
cause she’s a black magic woman
and she dropped a bomb on me.
Her strange magic
makes me wanna zip a dee do da
til the break of dawn!
So let’s dance!
Bust a move –
hey ya,
everybody dance now,
it’s all right,
but you know you can’t touch this
as I jump around
to Rapper’s Delight
while you do the YMCA
because you think you’re a Macho Man,
but really you’re a malchik gei,
So you should be doing the cupid shuffle.
I’d ask you if you wanna shoop,
but you’re a tubthumper,
so I’d get amnesia.
Like that time
with the black horse and the cherry tree.
It wasn’t just a fairy tale,
it was a nursery cryme,
The way you ran into that brick house
singing “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,”
while I wrote you a love song.
If you could only see
that I wish I was your lover.
I would dip you in peaches,
but that’s trouble,
since it’s all about us,
and I decide
when I soak up the sun.

Scars

By Ashley Niedzwiecki

A man sits in a bar surrounded by empty beers
and cigarette butts.
He tells the crowd that gathers about his scars,
making up every word.
He tells of the one he got in Korea,
“The chinks had me surrounded, and I had to fight
them off on my own,”
he says,
“One got close enough to stab my shoulder,
and it was the last thing he ever did.”

Meanwhile, his wife is at home, putting their six children
down to sleep.
The baby cries in her arms as she tries to wrestle
her three boys into their pajamas.
Their oldest daughter marches past the chaos and
rolls her eyes,
muttering under her breath about the party she
wanted to go to.

He tells of the one he got hunting grizzlies
with Smitty and Clyde.
“The bear charged at us and then stood on his hind legs
and let out a roar
louder than Smitty’s snoring,”
he says, pausing to appreciate the laughter.
“Then he took a swipe at me and got my chest,
ripping through my jacket. He came back
for more, but before he could, I blew his head off.”

His wife glances at the clock, blaming it for her
husband’s absence.
She goes to his tool box with a sudden resolve and
grabs a screw driver.
Without a word, without even an expression on her face,
she changes all the locks.
Goes into the bedroom they’ve shared for 14 years
and packs all his clothes.
She puts them on the front lawn, with a note.

In the bathroom of the bar, he stares at his reflection
in the mirror, leaning on the sink to
hold himself up.
He stares at the scar above his left eye, remembering the
time his father grabbed him and threw him into
the wall because he took too long to milk the cows.
Anger boils up inside of him, and he punches the mirror,
so that broken glass and blood litter the floor.
The bartender cuts him off and offers to call a cab, but he just
yells at him to mind his own goddamn business,
grabs his keys and staggers out to his truck, almost hitting
a group of men as he swerves onto the road.

She changes into her nightgown, making sure to face
away from the mirror so she won’t have to look
at the bruises on her back from the night before.
Goes into the bathroom to wash away the make up
she used to cover the scar on her cheek
from his wedding ring.
She checks to make sure the kids are all asleep, shuts off
all the lights, and climbs into bed alone,
crying herself to sleep,
his gun on the nightstand, just in case.

He sees his suitcases on the lawn and reads the note,
and yells “bitch” at the darkened house
until his throat won’t let him anymore.
When he gets no answer, he drives off into the night
and stops at the railroad tracks where
his mother, drunk with pain,
raced a train to her death.
He throws his beer at the tracks, remembering everything
the booze was supposed to help him forget,
and cries more freely than he has since
he was eight years old.

He spends the next year getting dry, and then another
six months begging for forgiveness.
He doesn’t talk about his scars anymore,
truthfully or otherwise.
Just changes the subject angrily whenever they are
brought up,
and finally, looks the other way when his grown son
goes to the bar every night
to drink away the scars his father gave to him.