Punk Monk Press/Magazine

  Artist's thoughts:  "Poppy, aka Moriah Rose Pereira, performed at the Danforth Music Hall on March 28, 2022. Her “Never Find My Place” tour came after the release of her last day album “Flux” which focuses on the trauma/abuse she faced in the beginning of her music career and the feats she has accomplished since rebranding with a new label.  The high energy and emotion at the concert mirrored the image she has moulded for herself; strong, passionate, and wild." --Lauren I.

              My father’s family came to the United States from England and were at the time called recusant Catholics (which means they refused to convert to the church of England when most abandoned the Catholic church along with Henry VIII.)                   This in theory was an indication of the resolve of my ancestors, of their strength of conviction, their refusal to give in to the demands of a mad king and the sheep who would follow his will. In practice, we seemed to inherit all the worst qualities of both the “WASP” Anglo superiority that is so prevalent in the Northeast of this country, the buttoned up, sweater vest to family affairs, country club hopping arrogance that is far more concerned with the appearance of perfection for the benefit of the help than any actual substantive perfection in practice; while also taking on the shame based, vengeful tendencies so common amongst Ca...

What Would Sylvia Plath Do  Embrace your weirdness.  Above all else this is your true expression. Harboring harbingers steal knives in the night that mock the very lines of your jugular. There is no balance of peace and emotional irregularity. Blue vapours pass through lace and ivory, breeding within the very marrow of your bone. If you are as I, escape whilst you can and "blissfully succumb to the whirling blackness that I honestly believe is eternal oblivion". Deny Deny Deny the owls talons. The false barrage of Baal's lightening transfixed upon your cranium.  There is no pleasure, even the ghosts of consciousness that hide in the recesses of nocturnal reality release the pain, of the insane the little moments that weigh you down again and again. You're going to drown so... take control.  Change the deciding narrative with a mask of a jester's intent. Fool the foolish as you are the fool with dissident distraction detachment.  Kool Kool play by the rules, outw...

Don't I Bleed? Coming home didn't feel like home. Not anymore. Every stitch pulled tight through his tension. It felt like each of the 6 stab wounds wanted to remind him they were born here. But what else could he do? He should have been moved to a rehab ward for the week, but he refused and signed himself out. He thought he would be able to handle it.  When he came back, the blood-stained carpet was already replaced, the bullet hole in the wall fixed.  He hated it. He refused to take his pain meds. He had to be alert. And he was. At every sound and perceived movement in his periphery. He went to bed exhausted and nearly pulled a stitch thanks to nightmares. Daily, he would try to go back to normal. He tried to distract himself. He ran through so many dressings he had to have spares delivered. He refused to call a soul. He ate toast and sometimes a bit more. Then one day, he woke up. He walked to the shower and broke all the knuckles of his right hand on the tiles lining the s...

  Welcome to Scribbles & Spills, our sister podcast where creatives of all kinds expound on their art and spill their secrets.  Our first episode is with Mallory Smart, a Chicago-based writer  and the Editor-in-Chief of the publishing house,  Maudlin House . She talks music and literature on her podcast,  Textual Healing , and her first novel,  The Only Living Girl In Chicago , came out from Trident Press in August 2021. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @malsmart Listen on Buzzsprout , Spotify , or click below! Remember to follow Scribbles and Spills on Twitter .

you would be four years old when you saw your brown skin the other kids would say how ugly it was to have skin as brown as the galveston waters when most other white kids would not realize their whiteness until the age of 18 until they were adults you would sit in  front of a mirror at four years old and stare at your skin you would run soap and water over your arms thinking dirt washes away  quickly you would play the role of evil because criminal characters looked like you  on tv your class was  only a pile of snow you would grow to learn dirt was inevitable that underneath the green grass of suburban homes were piles of soil the first time you got pulled over you would pray to god you didn’t get asked to  leave your car and as an adult you would always wonder why you were never good enough why you were always the soil and they were always the grass -- Izzy Torres