Punk Monk Press/Magazine

--Tabetha P.

(CW for abuse)  and i remember watching the way vampires turned to dust  and dust is the thing they tell me  we'll all return to someday on sundays in the church pews hiding myself in my memories of television  and not thinking about the hair on my father's knuckles the smell of his tobacco-drunk 'breath as he wraps those hands around my throat after i say something about how  i think Buffy could probably beat god in a fight - Gary Reddin

Denial, deceit, doubt. It's what they spew at the odd shapes in this narrow world. The pocked marked, stretch marked flesh has become synonymous with shit.  Why are women held back from rights, respect, and acceptance just because they are too dark, pale, fat, or even too thin in the wrong places?  How is it that our bodies are only worshiped if we are deemed fuckable by snotty, uneducated teenage boys that spend Saturday nights jerking off?  When did it become a possibility to steal away the pure hyman from the  little girl who can't say no… Or even if they do- to the big, strong man who was supposed to protect her…  Can round, voluptuously soft shapes become equal to the air brushed softcore porn magazines aimed at misplaced misogyny without it being the latest trend?  Stomach in, tits out! That's the posture the female race is taught. It is embedded in prepubescent little children. No breasts, big belly, no love. No love.  No love. --Kim Acrylic

  -- Theresa K Jakobsen

  The flower behind my ear is oleander picked from the side of the highway and the sap drips down my neck to the softness where I dream of him kissing me, his lips flecked with from his unfiltered cigarettes. I would roll his cigs. I would lick the paper. He’s the type who would have worn a sheriff badge back in frontier days except now he hardly ever wears a shirt over his Levi’s so where would the pin go but into his chest? Where would the pin go but into the hard muscle, into the softness.  - Maureen O'Leary  

On the highway I pass cars just to see if their mirrors light up. It’s because blind spot detection can’t sense motorcycles. I need to know if they can see me. When they merge at me— and they always do, 4000 pounds of car careening at 300 pounds of bike— swerving is safer than braking. Braking leads to skidding, and skidding to losing control and I don’t want to die today so I need to read the space around me. I need to keep myself safe.   It isn’t hard to swerve on a bike. The trick is to see it coming. -- Natalie Schriefer