Punk Monk Press/Magazine

In a spiraling world of finite time and broken promises We get to experience this thing called life Beauty will fade Smiles will crack Bodies will age We all fall apart eventually And the best hope we have is to find Someone else to fall apart with -- Adam Levon Brown

LIFE MOVES FAST I haven’t seen you for years– not since long drives of oaks to school in snowy Februaries both of us unsure where we were going after graduation and now you have a kid I may never meet though I want to see you on sunshine coast red hair blowing where it may go --James Croal Jackson

SHUT THE FREEZER DOOR I am frozen in a block of ice stuck in the absolute zero of time how it’s rushing water slowed down into frozen eternity I mean it’s my birthday today yesterday & tomorrow being young within universe expansion transient in desire to shift across continents & eras what I want is to be known past murky ice the good parts melted out into a messy bowl --James Croal Jackson

Why I’m Still Her(e)             When I tried to leave you came to me and held my hand called me your love, told me you wanted to fuck me that was all it took because I’m easy that way. I remember thinking halfway through that I really should tell you to stop, I mean it I’m really going to leave this time but the flickering of the overhead lights was too distracting. The endless rumble of passing trains lightning and haphazardly-thrown buckets of rain kept me close to you, even after that night it still feels like a sign.             Of the Long Way I’m in love with the lonely ones, the hairy jungle children that watch from beneath the wide spread of green leaves and vinery, clutching rocks smeared with feces and coconuts meant for throwing. Angry and violent they are wrapped in thoughts of consequence and self-loathing. There is a Heaven waiting...

Young people locked away for petty crime, they wanna stop the criminals by giving them time. come politicians won't you listen to me, if you wana stop the crime you have to stop poverty, 'cause everybody living in this society has got the right to live good and with dignity. stop fight amongst yourselves, fight the powers that be for centuries now they've been your worst enemy. dividing the people and confusing our minds, while they stick together just to keep us in line. cause and effect a universal truth, about time the table's turned and we made our move. change up babylon, we can't start again, change up babylon, this system. everytime we plant a seed they dig it up before it grows, it's about time now we plant a seed that sows. deep down in our minds, where nobody goes, so when the time comes we can rise up and overthrow. this topsy-turvy system just has to go. there's a battle going on between the good and the bad, the positive and negative, the yin an...

From the evening of our first fuck until the afternoon that I buried what was meant to be our child within the mineral-rich, Midwestern soil, I collected his essence within a wide band of porous leather that I kept strapped around my left wrist. As his most primal aspects had, over time, seeped into the fibers, the once stiff cuff softened and molded to the curve of my arm like a second skin. Suffice it to say, I carried him and each one of our shared experiences with me everywhere my journey led. I wasted nothing of our early encounters. The sweat that ran along his freshly-shaven skull and across his temple, that sweltering Wednesday evening which imprinted me in the last gasp of an extended Indian summer, tripped along his jaw joint and released, one bulbous drop after another. His vitriolic excretions splashed onto my face, blinding me for the briefest moment with their salty sting. A couple of months later, the viscosity of his cum, which I had learned so well, ...

i'm just content sitting here not yet under the jurisdiction of the fucking worms --Rob Plath

Sometimes my joy feels and looks a lot like pain Today I’m exactly where I ought to be my Life has been waiting for me to arrive here and I feel that in the nerves of my stomach Leaving one thing and arriving at another gives me aches I am mourning the death of what once was while celebrating new Life born within and around me Sometimes acheiving feels and looks a lot like a flashback I am suddenly remembering all the trauma I’ve lived through and feel a need to reflect on my whole Life for weeks after the fruitful change It’s like a sadness pouring out of me along with all the times I thought I couldn’t couldn’t do it, see it, feel it, it’s a painful release because the only way out is through I will claim a spot on the couch or bed where I will stay for hours in my own haze Taking space to be in my own world until I’ve fully rearranged what my world is anymore My energy is low I want space but also affection and Love I’ve learned t...