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We go grocery shopping with a pregnant woman who does and does not want the Hawaii rolls, a woman who drops the cockroach in a salsa jar full of bleach, […]
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The longing of the round peg to become squareto belong to the holeand that of the piece of the jigsaw puzzleto be fitted into make it wholeare different from that ofthe […]
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Soft as buckskin and long as a train’s whistle, mourning dove calls drift down the summer afternoon, signaling the coming evening coolness. I listen hard and try to see what […]
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I sit and I stare, trying to peerinto the back of my beautiful sons’ eyesbecause I am looking for somethingthat I soon begin to realize,I may not be quite ready […]
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I freeze, startled by the sudden flight of a mud swallow against the backdrop of a tilt-up building, swarm of chirping notes I cannot decipher, a blur of two beating […]
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The house across from mehas caught aflameand taken it against water The firemen are comingtheir trucks yelling attheir speed. They are dressedin their shieldsand are ready to huntthe guiltleft by […]
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When it was the fashionI too measured out my life in coffee spoons It was not only to youthat some things made no sensebut to me tooFor you it was […]
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It was the kind of bar that would have had to struggle up several rungs of the social ladder to be considered a dive. Not that the clientele of “The […]
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may your eyelids be diaphanous parasols sheltering from the invasive light of the sunshielding as parables the blinding truthwhen love excites the eyesto things the heart may not accomplish may your […]
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It wasn’t like that. Our mother suckled us for years in the rank, familiar den. She chewed the deer meat until it was a fine paste she could drop into […]
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Then the Billado Block burned down, and I had nowhere to live. “Well, shit,” I said to the guy standing next to me watching it burn, “what am I supposed […]
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I exist where you’ve kicked me Your boot rings the bell Cracks the shell Invites Hell’s inverted Sisters to rent a storefront At the bruise’s edge They bring me […]
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It was just beneath the nipple of her heaving right breast. “What’s that?” asked Bordelli. Clarice didn’t seem to hear him. She kept bucking her hips and tightening her leg […]
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Having little to his name when he died, the reading of Henry Fromm’s will went quickly. Nothing surprising or contentious. On paper he never did anything surprising or contentious. He […]
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To view this content, you must be a member of The Metaworker’s Patreon at “You Meta-Work Hard for …” or higher tier Unlock with Patreon
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Someday we might meet,when time has melted in us,our lives look like dried river beds Would you then recognise my face? My face might appear unknown,remote like the rugged terrains […]
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There’s a man the silent world claims as Noah, standing at the cliff’s edge, looking down on us as we crawl across each other, his measurements already taken, the wood […]
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I guess I never told you about Texas, long and sweet in the evening, boiling jelly, about mom’s temperature, stuck in the oven: The best and worst part of the […]
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I fold the corners Of a very desperate sky. The stars I had to throw away, On highways that know Where they are going. With the attention of a last […]
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When bombs rattle the insides of houses, cafes, churches, Twisting and turning their intestines, Hurling their insides out, Bleeding them dry, What do the birds do? Other than shooting out […]
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Nights are essays in loneliness words scrawled in the darknone to be retrieved, I stretch on the bed; disheveled like my hair,twinning with the night.My flesh sinks far below, a […]
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6:47 AM The darkness turns gray; the misty fog rests over the water; the honeysuckle perfumes the air as white petals float on the still water. 7:03 AM Beneath the […]
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I don’t care if I’m dead as long as I’m still alive, in Heaven I mean though not Hell, I might be dead but I’ll still be lively, just somewhere […]
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I knew already, struck with the phantasm of a dream that I had taken the reins of my life at last. Like a drowning man finding the hole in the […]
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Dust motes dance on sunlight streaming through a dingy window. Rusty mailbox, empty, always empty. Cadaverous cobwebs mocking back at him from a peeling wall. He sits alone in his […]
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for a while there I was worried I had cancer. I even joined a gym though I don’t know why I thought it would help. didn’t quit smoking or drinking, […]
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I have always wondered About the mood, Inside houses that dress themselves In yellow tungsten bulbs, Once evening descends Like children running down the stairs. Flowers of Van Gogh yellow, […]
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Melanie Gaughran is a university student in the city of subdued excitement, Bellingham, Washington. Particularly concerned with her internal workings and misworkings, she finds that putting them to paper can […]
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Thank you to everyone who continued to follow us during this hiatus, and thank you especially to those submitting to us. We’re back, and better than ever. (I think? Hopefully?) […]
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the dust storms whineagainst the windowas cherry dreamsslide inside.Searching a marigold,a child’s eyes bob tothe tunes of morningas do butterflies rise fromchrysanthemum jars.And so does the coupsurging from a younggirl’s diary […]
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The air is thick with a bovine stench. We’re driving eight hundred miles through desert and oil fields to our new home on Dyess Air Force Base. Five days ago, […]
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Stand at ocean-side, exhale screams cut through dense air, her throat tightens releasing weird screeching caterwauls. The ice melts and Sibyl climbs the tower; in gown of white with gold lace; coat-less, […]
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Where I earn my nine fifty and change each week, rules of physics make the surreal far from cheap.
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Entry Door Yes No Damage to exterior? X Interior? X [The lease says “no nails,” but upon her arrival in December it was a matter of days before […]
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Under a sulfur streetlamp, your crisscrossed polymer strips that carve berths for beverages from empty air reminded me of the elastic and steel rigs worn to hike stockings tight across […]
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1 These mornings, I wake to find silver threads in my hair — gleaming as if dipped in the winter moon. I have always loved oxidized ornaments and grey pullovers; […]
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INTERIOR FAMILY HOME – EVENING ADULT, any conscious human, late 20s to mid-30s, watching television in a beautiful suburban home they could never actually afford due to crippling student loans […]
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It was the upper floor of a solid 1950s style house in Piraeus with heavy ceiling fans and dust-laden blinds obscuring a view of the interior patio; they hadn’t been […]
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One fanciful Calcutta summer the world maps were ripped off from overused geography textbooks in an act of innocent revolution. You cherry-picked ecstatic reds from sunsetty Russian sky-palettes, scooping […]
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The war brought a boost to the flowermen’s activities, to which were added antiwar agitation among keelpods & rounding up draft dodgers. The great wave of immigration in the 1880’s […]
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Not like in the motion pictures but we had our moments. There is no record, no pesky scribe seeking the “hows” and “whys” of it. No scoops, no cover stories. […]
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We will not subside, for there can be no epiphany; we march into the sand for the egrets, hunting them with our knives. No other faith is real to me […]
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I live in the pulse of unconscious patterns. My civilized mind remains incapable of interpreting the illuminated life I experience outside the limits of ordinary consciousness. Today, I am an […]
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Halcyon and hurtful coexist in an apiary. On helicon’s rote appropriate ones reveille. In the middle of a horseshoe of memories I mime the lines I need to hear. They […]
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everyday I am born like this – nothing ever happens for the first time I collect my shattered promises and get back home to my frailty the neon sign does […]
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Come with me, it won’t be far; we have all night, and the seasons with it, in your heart: I’m dying. I’ll tell you about the nearer part of it, […]
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“Pickup for Angelo.” He leaned on the counter. “For who?” “Angelo.” He jerked his chin up—he had been told he mumbled. He had a deep voice and people often had […]
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[w]ham-o Sam-o [Suitors Up!] [yellow] [look out!] [look out!] rainbows of [arrows] candies of crushes [beads] and bangles [open the vessels] hit it now [hit it] rack up the [hearts] […]
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Unrelenting passion in a sonneteers delusion moving in rhythm with the windblown grasses hand in hand on a path through the hemlocks written vows of brazenness within a sensation. Transactional […]
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How can I forget you If your breath is on my skin, A peppermint sweet cloaked around my neck, Hair chaotic against my chest, Eyes as dreamy where my Eden […]
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Created by Rakan Sindi and Kali Baker-Johnson, ZAHRA THE SHADOW FLAME is about a young woman named Zahra Darwesh, growing up in the fictional country of United Arabia, who is the last […]
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Below, The Metaworker presents an exclusive interview with the creators of the new comic book series, ZAHRA THE SHADOW FLAME. Check out this companion post for a sneak peek of the first […]
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comforting chatter from front-facing seat soothing justified cries in empathetic debate smoothing frosting onto clumping, cracked cake overflowing trashcan. No—it can wait Chemicals carve; his burning brain. supplanting endurance for […]
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the click of the corkscrew against the bottle and art tore up and destroyed with matches. I see poetry now full of people wearing shirts and very tight jeans to […]
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The rain cut me a river wide enough to savour my numbered gardens— each with their own cloud. And in each I bred a different flower— a single rose: blood […]
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It may not get any better Despite the that’ll-do-pig-that’ll-do condescending words of some highly carcinogenic celebrity whose comparative lifestyle may as well make them a three-eyed telepathic Venusian with ten […]
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Home, a major chord, played to sustain. Pattern of wallpaper’s texture ingrained into décor of mind. As chorus hook plays over reminisced wonder, synapses fire to warm chills of time […]
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In the heat of the summer, back when Willow’s mother slipped in and out of lunacy, sometimes she’d wake up at night to find her sitting on the edge of […]
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The snow in my lawn isn’t white. It is rusty like the color of my flowerpot. “Papa, can I go out and make a snowman?” howls my son. I say […]
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Spindrift from your biocellate field leaves me smooth and serene, your voice hijacks my uneasiness. In the parlor of our pact flurries of foregoing circuits miss their bourn. In […]
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I force myself to open the closed lids To catch a glimpse of my surroundings Try my utmost to overcome the lethargy Shake myself free of the stupor Tiredness which […]
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the snow melts grey into late december and mean music is making a sudden comeback in the bars saxophones and tatters of rattled live drumming after that santa stuff’s been […]
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daytime gutter vomit scared to change your way from one that has been making you money color-segregated schools for the blind the increasing pressure to pass— indeed, identify—as one of […]
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Some lands are royalty in just existence: the dragging of the boat from sand to sea, the thick of the tongue on the roof of the mouth – that is […]
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“This is not a Democracy!” More equals loss… Fight like this great and disgusting world is laughing at us. We let this happen, we march and stop. The phoney made […]
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I’ve been awake since 4 a.m. But that was twenty hours ago, and now we’re here, at the party, and the sky seems low and […]
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Love like Eucalyptus or Lavender was sabuline. Cacoethes for your company I understand now: the arenosity I had to encounter by cholla-like jabs too. Nursery a green-thumber creates when […]
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A road divider on our thoroughfare has been constructing since three major eclipses, going under the idea scalpel by fickle engineers – flowers or trees – it’s a hard decision […]
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Damian Campana is a Creative Writing student at a community college in Rochester, NY. He is an aspiring creator. He is passionate about telling stories through different aspects of […]
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Life is supposed to be music But we are the notes not the listeners Maybe we are God’s music Chords being strummed on some cosmic level Leftover reverberation echoing from […]
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Her new boyfriend had a ship inside a bottle. You’d ask him how he got it in there, and he’d act like you had to be a […]
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Can your mind sustain the burden for the beating heart to heave? Will you bare the heaviness of being within a lightness of the form? Does the little weevil relent […]
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Editor’s Note: Per the author’s request, we have left this piece untitled. * These crumbs are from so many places yet after every meal they ripen sweeten in time for […]
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D.M. Rice is a non-binary writer from Dallas, TX whose work has been featured in the Aletheia Journal, Sybil, The Bandit Zine, and the anthologies Rec*og*nize, Nameless Woman, Kill Line, and […]
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It was late enough that she didn’t even feel tired anymore. Clarissa squinted so hard her eyes hurt. She tried see through the fogged-over windshield as the onslaught of rain […]
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Hey everyone! Matthew here, we have a special Friday post for you! You may remember Alex Clare as the author of He’s Gone, a mystery novel starring the transgender detective Robyn […]
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Whatever be the season, perhaps you are the reason, for the shadowed man whom limps down the narrow lane. With help of a burled cane, or such unequivocal refrain within […]
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Megan Denese Mealor has been published widely in numerous journal, most recently Children Churched & Daddies, Beakful, streetcake, and Harbinger Asylum. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her debut poetry collection, […]
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Four tea cups lay unattended since Mittag – on the black, bedraggled table in the canteen. You and I – drinking each other in— Slow, dainty sips. Each tea […]
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Now that you’ve passed-through woods deeper and darker than these — climbed into eternity — can you tell me, when our hearts stop, and we’re poised among the mysteries that […]
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You’d expect the power button to be a rare diamond fueling a holographic desktop, folders overflowing in bitcoin. Or that answers just appear, thoughts as search engines. But in fact […]
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To know life is to greet knowing you won’t unmeet. To know life is to see your creators split into demigods, degrading into man and woman. They can’t be fixed; […]
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Gilded morning shatters sleep, dreams cling on with tenacious teeth. A confused reality sorting through a fragmented emotional state. Warm bed, cold toast. Sensations linger throughout the day. A […]
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I have been raised to fear my footfalls in the dark to be a walking skirt is to sacrifice safety, sway like an open gate for danger. but I collect […]
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She’d had a cupcake for breakfast every day for the last month. Thick on the icing, more often than not with sprinkles, occasionally filled with sweet cream or more icing. […]
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With Lines from “The Apple Trees at Olema” by Robert Hass Shakes me by the raw, white, backlit flaring of her lightning streaked hand. Fingers whip, burn my veiny branches […]
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can people see when you look at their facebook calories in chocolate shake calories in wendys chocolate frosty how to get into hiking hiking for depression hiking for people who […]
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I watched you slide swiftly into the fog encapsulating Eagle Junction railway station. Scraps of rust leaking with oil-stained dew flung into the past, and in the faint glinting of […]
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SKIN is the bodies first line of defense. our metal shell wrap-around sometimes, your body can confuse fortress for prison, my mother is able to show me exactly where the […]
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I was born an old soul they say, a quiet spectator mulling over muddled thoughts, about what I don’t know, perhaps a previous lifetime. I woke to bird sounds in […]
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The weed is helping. I can’t survive without it. Honestly, it more or less serves as a natural replacement for Lexapro, because fuck that shit. It’s like lightening your hair […]
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How did the despair become fluid for clear, dry eyes to shed? Why did the burden on the heart allow the stress and cause the beat to finally stop […]
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Tonight the battle will begin. But first, as the concealer smooths across my eye folds, I picture her breathlessly saying hello to him, always making sure to say his name […]
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Note from the artist: Though a montage which utilized different computer programs to create the effects that photographers of not-so-old created during acid bath development, this image, and the Water […]
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I never saw my mother smoke; didn’t smell her lingering breath or see her brown stained teeth; nor did I take in the stench of the smoke. I was told […]
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No art without startle No belief without a lie No character without an act No business without sin No coffee without a fee No culture without a cult No entrance […]
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A Gymnast propels through the air after launching off the springboard. Camera flashes capture blurry movements: Facebook posts for later, if She wins. Judges dress in hooking avenue suits, out […]
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Do not let this be the end. Do not bisect, dissect our time with before and after, with Now and Never. Do not spill […]
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He stood outside the door asking for directions, lost hope in hand. Paying the toll with a pocketful of dreams. Aspirations evaporating at the sound of his own voice. A […]
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