Punk Monk Press/Magazine

Terms and Conditions If you agree to date someone identifying as asexual, you can't just end things because the sex wasn't amazing. I mean, what the fuck did you expect, my guy? --Bethany Cutkomp

If I told you what was in my soul  Would you just laugh at me? Or would you understand? If I told you I want to run away  Would you nod and understand? Or just wonder what I’m running from? Every night  I drive around this town  And a little part of me dies Every day I see hope get a little further  And a little part of me dies  It’s been that way for all my life  Ever since I was just a kid And nobody’d understand  If I said I wanted to run away  They just asked what I was running from  It’s been that way for all these years  And I still want to run away  Every night  I drive around this town  And a little part of me dies Every day I see hope get a little further  And a little part of me dies  --Jason Beam

It’s possible that every woman has cried the same 29 flavours and varieties of tears ranging from petty sea salt and dark chocolate to guttural blue raspberry wound / probable that our voices were trained by the same wounded Mother or lofty Father / our guts chemically subdued then hardened in exposure / the hopeful intended twist is one to weakness / to make decorative trees with no roots / all flowers / we sort this out at group therapy: / sleepovers / quilting circles / bathroom sinks where the drunkest of us offers her lotion / her perfume / her balms / says try this it actually works / here’s what you gotta do / smell sexy with me / you’re so pretty, like, really / I lick the collective memory of middle school crushes / the desperation for beauty / off the strawberry lip gloss some of us had / others of us borrowed / we all used / and feel Eve is here too / it’s been a while since I swam in the deep end of girlhood all chummy with the blood of shaving scrapes / first times / myt...

Child Star and His Service Dog Found Dead In Car In Peoria Death stalks the parched air TV stars fall from the screen Human, just like us A Child Star, most beloved for his role as the sidekick of ALF on television, was found dead in his car after going to an ATM to deposit residual checks. The checks were in the car, uncashed, after so many years of being off the scene, off the screen, and off-grid from Hollywood, did he succumb to the heat? To the fright of defeat? Or to the ravages of bipolar disorder? He lived with that beast, and also his service dog, Hans, who perished beside him in the unforgiving Arizona aridity-- the car--a coffin with two bodies, was otherwise unremarkable, unnoticed for days, baking in temperatures over one-hundred and fifteen degrees, and that’s how it happens, isn’t it? By degrees. But what really transpired? Had his bubbling circumstances spilled over, withdrawing rational thought? Where were the checks and balances that would have left this pair, quite u...

beth the summer of 2002, i turned thirteen i spent my days by the pool,  eating ice cream,  watching my friends braid each other’s hair i spent that summer in love with my life you had an abortion. we were never close friends,  truthfully i was a bit skeptical of you, because your best friend always looked like she would beat my ass, but i now know she was protective of you when others should have been.  i told my mom i felt sorry for you but she scoffed because abortions aren’t talked about in my family because it’s a sin, so i was told, but you were thirteen and my first thought was, will you bleed out, and who will braid your hair while you recover? my aunt’s mom called you and your family -trash- and  -how could you take an innocent life-  but the rumor was your boyfriend was twenty five and your parents let him stay at your house in your bed, in your pants because if you were out of their hair, they didn’t care who played with your’s.  one day aft...

Driving Through Maine when you’re unexpectedly invited to dinner but you hate to arrive  empty handed you find an open gas station on Route 1 with a young clerk her eye not really black  but shades of purple and yellow and green her hair  defiantly swept up  off her face  held back by a polka dot scrunchy the kind you wore in eighth grade her ponytail the color of Taylor’s old money blonde but she’s probably heard  dish-water and dirty her whole life you buy a two-liter of rootbeer and some festive cookies. the young clerk approves says she doesn’t buy  pretty cookies because they never  taste good but these  are “the real deal.” and you never pray, but tonight  you hope for the best.

I bought a death note journal. Poetry is the only name I wrote down. It seems to have not worked, Because time is already doing the job. I’m just here to bury the casket. Pretend to be Poe and Kaur If their high art, Walmart wouldn’t even sell your knockoffs. There's no message understandable For the common man and woman, Exclusive for the unemployed degrees. Another poet hates modern poetry. What a surprise. Give us an award. I said “us” 'cause it’s not just me; I’m speaking for the outcasts. We say let it burn, Because editors casted us out For telling “our truth.” There is no “our truth.” Reality is controlled by culture, And they’re speaking for the record That this is a rotting corpse. --Ethan McKnight

Poser I take the order of a punk with a jacket littered with patches and pins  that are not timid in the way I so often am.  The only good fascist is a dead fascist  adorns his breast and when I compliment it his face lights up, the word  brother  rolling off his tongue as he reaches out a fist to consummate  the connection.  When the next person in line takes too much time to fish their platinum card out of their Dolce and Gabbana wallet, I grit my teeth into a smile and dream of anarchy. --Conor Whalen

First Date   We were walking in the woods at night in December. I knew when I first spoke to him that he’d let me be weird, which I appreciated, so there we were. The tree branches looked like emaciated limbs. It would have been terrifying if I’d been alone. He was wearing a varsity jacket, but he was rich and only played tennis which he forced me to do when he eventually decided he was going to hate me. I don’t think we held hands, but he offered me his leather gloves. It made sense that he used to ride a motorcycle. He was so hot I figured he probably wanted to kill himself sometimes. That’s usually how it goes.  While I looked between tree trunks for ghosts, I told him about a dream I had where I stuck my head in an oven. And another where doctors were cutting my feet open to cure the Alzheimer’s I had. It’s because I’m on antidepressants. Oh my God, that’s insane, he said. I smiled at him and imagined what it’d be like to have him on top of me. He said, I used to have a th...

 Rebel Reviews is a new section of Punk Monk written by C.E. Hoffman. Click here to learn more/submit a review request.  What is behind the ghost metropolis?  I wonder this as I flip (okay, scroll) through Dabrowska’s earnest, bloody poems.  This is the kind of material Punk Monk loves to publish, and I love to read. Annette describes her debut collection as reflecting “the darker side of the mind - loneliness, mental health, trauma, but also hope, travel, and strength.”  Couldn’t have said it better myself. This collection is sincere. Searing. Surreal. So. Fucking. Relatable. I feel like my shadow can chill a minute, ‘cause Annette’s busy tearing up the room.  Don’t expect fancy shit. Expect instead the kind of gothy goodness we scribbled under the stairs, under our beds, in the corners of our parents’ basements. It brings me back to Buffy (which I’m binging for spooky season btw), Hedwig and the Angry Inch, me at thirteen obsessing over Emily Dickinso...