Selected Works, 2023 edition
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Hyperfixation
By Benjamin Benningfield
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It’s all that you can think about.
It comes in fits,
in bursts,
in monologues.
It’s there
in the back of your mind
when you should be doing anything else
focusing
on things other than that.
It’s all that you can think about.
It could be anything—
a game,
a book,
a show,
a topic—
the only catch is
it seems to choose you
and not the other way around.
It’s all that you can think about.
The rumble of someone’s voice,
which should be catching
your attention,
but it simply cannot compete
with what’s already there.
It’s all that you can think about.
It drowns out the important things
like appointments
or dates
or work schedules
or school assignments.
It’s all that you can think about.
When you’re aiding a friend in need,
lending a shoulder to cry on,
it comes creeping around the corner
and fills your brain to the brim.
Even when you need it to go away,
it’s there.
It’s all that you can think about.
Medicated Mind
By Benjamin Benningfield
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When breathing becomes
manual labor—
nothing here is automatic.
The night is both
too hot, too cold;
the covers are too much
yet not enough.
Sheets I haven’t washed
in weeks, maybe months—
I don’t remember which,
I don’t seem to care.
Sleep comes in fits
of nightmares
and hauntings.
There are ghosts
that walk the halls
of my brain.
I wonder then,
when I lay dazed in bed
wishing for sleep,
if the side effects
are worth it.
El Roi
By Allison Bush
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There was once an aching familiarity to emptiness,
one that echoed a masochistic invitation for
doubt and isolation to fill those hollows
meant for you. They took root at the apex
of my ribs as though they were owed
that claim and leeched the life from me
until I was left faded and lost.
But you found me in the wilderness
and whispered sweet promises
of victory into my soul.
You have seen me in my desolation
and consoled my withered spirit
with fresh waters of grace.
You have stitched purpose so eloquently
into my bones that my body sings with it.
Who am I to entertain the schemes of death?
You are the God who sees me, El Roi.
You, with your gentle hands and
everlasting love, have crowned me
as your daughter, so I will exalt you
until my every breath is a psalm and
my footsteps sound the rhythm of hymns.
For even when I fall short, your sacred arms
reach for me, and it always feels less like
falling and more like coming home.
To Breathe Poetry
By Allison Bush
​
I find tentative peace in my own little creation,
in my sweet corner of the universe
where God touches my fingertips
and my heart spills forth,
where I string words together like pearls
that whisper in the delicate language of my soul.
My soul speaks in verse,
like I’ve got the sun caught in my chest,
and each breath burns anew in a fantasy
of my own choosing, the lines branded
on my lungs, as if I ever had the choice
to keep them to myself.
This is a blessing that thrums insistently
in my veins, constant and cruel in its majesty,
an inspiration that tugs at me even when
the sun is gone, and I am worn and tired,
demanding to speak even when my voice
has gone hoarse and raw.
And I fear I am meant for nothing else,
doomed to a creation that takes and takes,
but what I wouldn’t give to fill the world
with pieces of me doused in poetry.
So, I guess I will dream of poetry,
for my fingers ache from writing and
my lips bleed from singing, but how can I
spurn a gift forged so deeply at the core of me,
that takes each broken piece and makes it art?
Never quite whole, but beautiful in its fragmentation.
This Thing That Tears Holes in Me
By Allison Bush
The wind still breathes in your voice in soft whispers.
I feel you most when it blows cold and bitter and my eyes sting
with tears, and each breeze tears through
the holes I thought I had already closed.
I swear this is crueler than you ever were,
this persistent reminder of just how incomplete I am.
Left to piece myself back together time and time again,
to burn under the weight of your memory, the burden
of my own wholeness pinned to my spine as though it was my duty,
but is it truly so selfish to be too weak to heal?
This is grief, is it not? This vicious hopelessness,
this tangible lack, these pieces of myself I’d once given to you,
now scattered and festering in the spaces you used to fill?
Oh, how it aches, to be stuck in a world that continues to spin
as though you’d never walked it.
And I want to tear my heart from my chest,
offer it to your tempest as a sacrifice so that I might find some refuge,
for I will never know peace until it rests in your hands again.
It yearns for you so acutely that every breath away from you has been agony.
Please, tell me this is not fruitless pain,
that this drowning will only make my lungs stronger,
that I might breathe once more in silence.
Tell me I will have shelter, a reprieve from this strife.
But don’t save me from it just yet.
This storm is my closest memory of you.
Breathe
By Brea Croslin
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I lay down and think
of what is to come,
of what might come,
of what will not come,
until all I am is thoughts.
Until my brain is a white piece of paper
with infinite overlapping, scribbled black lines
in a jumbled mess.
“Breathe.”
Today is a new day and
I have things I must do,
a million things, each one
bigger than the rest.
So the stress skyrockets,
and my thoughts come out
in the form of a river flowing
from my eyes.
“Breathe.”
And tomorrow I have to do it all again.
Now my thoughts become a Boy Scout,
and tie several fisherman’s knots
using what can be found in my stomach.
I think the core of the tension is the worst part,
but somehow it climbs up, and I find myself ill.
“Breathe.”
I lay down and think, again.
Tonight I start with what will not come.
My thoughts turn into a tornado,
and every ounce of reason is sucked away.
I can’t control what I think.
“Breathe.”
I want to “breathe,”
but this time I forget how.
The walls close in on me
and my body expands.
I want to “breathe”
but I can’t.
Consumed by Nothing
By Brea Croslin
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I wake up empty,
and I just think, No.
No to eating, doing, or even being.
But I have to go out, so I do.
I trudge through my life,
watching the world move slowly.
I watch faces blur,
hear voices echo.
I’m just a bystander
thrown into a life I don’t control.
Everyone thinks I’m fine.
They don’t know of the
nothingness
under my smile
or behind my bright eyes.
They don’t know that I see
their world in black and white.
But I always hope to myself that today
is the last I will have to pretend.
Truly, I feel that my 40 days and nights
will go on forever.
So, I finish my day early and return
to my understanding bed:
my only friend,
the only place where I can allow
the darkness I see to consume me.
I lay under the comforting
weight and warmth of my blanket,
letting the feeling win again.
Sunset and Sunrise
By Lucas Foley
Don't miss me for now.
In the future, I shall rise again.
Now I am forever ingrained
Into your memory.
I am not
your life washed away by time.
I am the marker for each day.
Say good night,
Prepare to rise in the morning,
Clasp your hands and pray.
Know what it is you wish to achieve
As I continue to rise and fall.
One day I shall rise, but you shall not.
But for now, both of us are still here.
“How are you doing?”
By Maya Madden
“I’m okay.” I smile to hide a grimace.
Pain radiates through my leg
like a violent wave beating against the shore,
disturbing the sands of my life.
“I’m okay,” I remind myself,
popping my finger back into place.
I pick up my pencil and begin to write
as an invisible hand tugs on my finger.
“I’m okay,” I whisper as my vision blurs.
The world fades in and out;
my body and mind are playing tug-of-war
with my consciousness like it’s a fun game.
“I’m okay,” I reassure my mother
as nausea overwhelms my senses.
My eyes leak as I sit on the floor,
fighting my body as I have never fought a bully before.
“You’re okay,” I command myself,
pain radiating with every movement,
nausea crawling up my throat.
The dizziness. But I can still move.
“You’ll be okay.”
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Unbalanced Scales
By Lauryn Martin
There is a snake
wrapped around my heart.
His name is Dread.
Each morning he sinks his jagged fangs into my heart.
His noxious venom courses through my veins,
and my heart gallops at a breakneck speed,
attempting to burst through my chest.
My mind grows frantic, tugging on random
synapses without regard for precision.
The resulting cacophony of sirens
alerts my natural defenses,
signaling urgency.
Frigid chains are wrapped around my heart,
replacing one snake with dozens.
Their grip resembles the weight of an anvil
as the pressure crushes the breath from my lungs.
I’m anchored in place.
A bright new day awaits.
The snake crawls back again.
Heart of Glass
By Lauryn Martin
The deadline was midnight. That much was clear.
But there was an illusion of magic
in the air that distracted her austere
scheme. A flaw that could prove problematic.
Despite the gleaming glass upon her feet,
she danced with poise and grace above her class.
Cinder and ash chosen over elite
as the prince took her hand without impasse.
Her heart was aflutter, a mute war cry,
gazing through the window of his dark soul
that reflected the obsidian sky,
paving the path toward her ultimate goal.
As he bent down to gift a goodnight kiss,
her once hidden dagger robbed his faux bliss.
Muse of the Sea
By Lauryn Martin
She was an angel leading heaven’s choir.
He was entranced, caught in a dulcet spell.
Her voice needed no flute, organ, or lyre,
yet he failed to hear the fateful death knell.
The sails of the sky billowed then released
tears of ink that stained the ocean pitch-black.
The storm was fervent, a raging sea beast.
The sailor knew there was no hope to turn back.
He sought his sacred angel of the sea,
but her visage had sunk beneath the waves.
He dove to rescue his Calliope,
sealing his fate to the ocean-bed graves.
The witch had given the siren a choice,
the sailor’s life in exchange for her voice.