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
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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, […]
Read more
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, […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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?) […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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, […]
Read more
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, […]
Read more
Where I earn my nine fifty and change each week, rules of physics make the surreal far from cheap.
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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; […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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. […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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, […]
Read more
“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 […]
Read more
[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] […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
“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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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, […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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; […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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. […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
Do not let this be the end. Do not bisect, dissect our time with before and after, with Now and Never. Do not spill […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
My earliest memories involve skeletons. I remember watching The Nightmare Before Christmas with the same vague fascination that grabbed the hearts of basic goth children everywhere. (That has to be […]
Read more
Once there was a man who found a forest in his pocket. When he came home after a day’s work he would take it out. His house would fill up […]
Read more
As the dusk creeps through the summit the once luscious sun dips below the rocky mounts And flocks of birds soar away weaving intricate patterns in the grayish sky […]
Read more
Do not allow the quietness that saturates the halls of night break through the dawn. For it will shatter all perception of time and space, grabbing reality by […]
Read more
Gracefully inept at life’s perfection gleefully disorganized and simple who put the milk in the top freezer? Sometimes I think gremlins reside here glowing and rising with the autumn sun […]
Read more
The peace inside the giant glass bell is almost always short-lived. Soon the translucent, riblike curves will spark with electric-blue orbs, followed by clouds of glittering cosmic dust, followed again […]
Read more
You come home, half gallon of milk in one hand, the other snaking around my waist. Head buried in my shoulder, no words, just small noises that I can feel […]
Read more
Once upon a time, there were two big kingdoms and two small kingdoms. The two big kingdoms were called Khakia and Doogland. The two small kingdoms were called Bibbleton and […]
Read more
I was born a human jigsaw puzzle. I emerged from my mother’s womb, not as a whole baby, but in scattered pieces. The doctors worked non-stop as they assembled me. […]
Read more