Gnashing Teeth Publishing

| words that get in your teeth

New Found Veins by Kelli Lage

when I wake up I try to remember / what age I should be / on a Saturday filled with shades of champagne / not the age of my bones / but the age when my cheeks are rosy / realms of fantasy / meet in the southeast corner / on the map of our hometown / weeds pour out of my fingertips / like the new found veins that brought the abandoned car back to life / lores around here can’t be trusted / but I believe in the day greenery sprung from crying hills / forests split their palms open to claim years of rust and broken howls / if only to give breath back to a town taught to hold theirs / I do this at a cost / my spine cracks / like a skater who gave into the ice / I dig for the soaring birds / clouds stick beneath my low cut nails / the tree limbs shake sense into me / honey floods the sunset / I don’t waste a moment guzzling it down / and the warmth awakens something in the back of my throat 

Kelli Lage lives in the Midwest countryside with her husband, and their dog, Cedar. Lage is currently earning her degree in Secondary English Education. Lage states she is here to give readers words that resonate. Awards: Special Award for First-time Entrant, Lyrical Iowa.

Goodnight, Taj Mahal by Andre Peltier

Deep below earth, clay and sand, deep below roots and aquifers, it lies in wait. Like that silent coyote stalking her white-tailed deer through the brush, it waits patiently and

contain by Megan Cartwright

verb past tense: contained; past participle: contained 1. have or hold (someone or something) within. Similar: hold carry To have and to hold in our own microcosm, constructed of hope.

Listening to Words by Mona Mehas

Listening to words out of touch cross lily pads, one to the next my rules, a tiny picture frame debt of honor, repay the gift. Headlights illuminate the path listening

Blooming by Elizabeth Gade

Some days are easy and some days are exhausting the days you have to dig through the muck inside take more hits than a heavyweight prize fighter cling to life

Pomegranate Rose by Laura Peña

I want to feed this delicacy To my concubine A tiny spoonful at a time I want to watch the luscious sorbet Linger on the tip of her tongue Melt

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