Privacy. Who doesn’t want privacy? Even if you’ve sold off half your property to a persistent developer intending to put up twenty “McMansions” on it, that doesn’t mean that you […]
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The Metaworker Literary Magazine
Where great stories are forged
Privacy. Who doesn’t want privacy? Even if you’ve sold off half your property to a persistent developer intending to put up twenty “McMansions” on it, that doesn’t mean that you […]
Read moreIt was the days where the night would not come, for the sun held the sky hostage just by a look. It was the tyrannical glare of a red summer […]
Read moreChaos sings, we areDisintegrating whole, drunkWith the city’s disillusionmentHalf and half and nowhere reallysick sipping stars, picking dirt off soles unmet; yet to birth new fire –mere – the thoughts […]
Read moreDid they tell you Inferno was made from glass? Clear as truth turned upside down You can see through to the bottom of the world An everywhere that exists below […]
Read moreEarth o’ mine green red brown and blue, They ask me which colour you are And laugh when I cannot answer. Could I lie you were one all through? But […]
Read moreKurt wouldn’t eat yellow rice. Hedidn’t like that exotic food. Henarrated our trip to Iowa onesummer, had a story for every exit onevery road, tooth-whistling throughdetails while I dozed in […]
Read moreWe arrived right on time, although we had debated that. Isn’t fashionably late, well, fashionable? In the end, though, we were on time. Which was good, because she was out […]
Read moreThe destiny tree, Dark gnarled and secretly wick, Claws at you and me Across eye spaces Twisting phoenix-glass specks prance Bloated toad-faces Yearning for their ilk, Bucking the frothing cream […]
Read moreMy finger banged on the tiny doorbell. I paced back and forth trying not to fall off the tiny step. Finally, the door slowly creaked open. A girl, around my […]
Read moreI started playing Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) about three years ago. I didn’t know much about the game and approached it as something new to do with my writer friends. […]
Read moreJames, as the doctors and staff at St. Mark’s Regional Hospital in San Diego insisted on calling him, applied pancake make-up over the band-aid camouflaging the skin lesion on his […]
Read moreWe are all doomed to lose everything. I’ve lost three fingers, one arm, one eye. I’ve lost my family, my childhood home, my native tongue. I’m getting better and better […]
Read moreWhen my ear fell off I first thought of the client delegation sitting at the conference room, waiting for the meeting to begin in earnest. My boss would now be […]
Read moreDopo mezzanotte! Dopo, dopo! The door pops open, out of the dust the ocean unfolds under the ropewalker’s high gloss black shoes. He floats among the buoyant atoms- the iron […]
Read moreShe wasn’t a phoenix, but she knew ash. She painted herself with coals, with cinders. War paint disguising the woman of the woods. She felt knighted, unable to cry out […]
Read more“Time is an illusion.” – Hue, from Avatar: The Last Airbender, “The Swamp” I don’t know about you, but I feel like the days this past month have been going […]
Read moreThere used to be an edge where the world ended, where ships would tumult down cataracts into nothingness. There are places still, buffers and hallows where the edges become light, […]
Read moreI’ve fallen in love with all of them. How could I not? With their skin so soft I can watch it give way beneath my fingerprints like silt at the […]
Read moreThere’s no getting around the fact that this has been a very unusual month. Here in the States, we’re facing the first impacts of COVID-19, and I’m not going to […]
Read moreI have stood for over a hundred years in this place, endured the idiots who link hands and try to encompass my bulk, observed the overprepared hiker complete with stuffed […]
Read moreWhy do we write? I’ve been asking myself that lately because it’s been tough to find the motivation to do it. It’s not that I don’t want to, but life […]
Read moreSure, no one ever said that people were getting their powers from the rain. Tommy guessed it had something to do with all those big companies that owned the factories […]
Read moreThe small pink tube is pressed into the palm of my right hand. I am flicking the lid with my thumb, finding satisfaction in the incessant beat of the lever […]
Read moreI’ve been a sellout since I was twenty-two, technically. That was the year I turned a seasonal copywriting job in the fashion industry into a permanent one—one that included health […]
Read moreDid you, my beloved, notice the barbed wiresthat run along the length of the city,to separate you from me?Such walls of divisiveness are man-made:penetrating your blue arteries, they weavenarratives of […]
Read moreThe 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 […]
Read moreThen 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 moreI sat and held the world’s coldest hand.One whose skin had been taken by ice. The palm of a dried soul […]
Read moreSomeday 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 moreNights 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 more6:47 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 moreDust 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 moreMelanie 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 morethe 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 moreThe 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 moreEntry 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 more1 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 moreOne 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 moreI 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 moreHow 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 moreThe 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 moreIn 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 moreI 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 moreSome 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 moreI’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 moreA 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 moreHey 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 moreMegan 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 moreFour 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 moreTo 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 moreGilded 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 moreI 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 moreShe’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 moreWith 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 morecan 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 moreI 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 moreSKIN 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 moreI 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 moreThe 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 moreTonight 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 moreHe 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 moreDo 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 moreYou 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 moreI 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 moreFragments of dreams scattered among the ruins of once lofty ambitions, buried along with lost loves and white lace promises Standing tall against the crumbling visions. Whispers of gargoyles devouring […]
Read moreTsuki Amai’s wristwatch emitted a soft click, and she tugged gently at her ear to make sure, for the tenth time that day, that she was awake. Her mother hated […]
Read moreIt’s not smoggy like they say it is in London, at least I don’t think so, but the River Thames is filthier than I had imagined. I saw it from […]
Read moreDarling, listen. no matter what we do our fingers will end up blistered, our palms bloody if we look into the mirror long enough to know anything, if we pull […]
Read moreSomeone would love to have you for a daughter; Wouldn’t mind you in the attic, stealing their things. The walls would be yours, as would your body And four […]
Read moreEditor-in-Chief’s Note: Gerardeen Santiago is a poet and publisher I originally met at Glassless Minds in Oceanside. When the Metaworker staff was suggesting new people to interview, she was at […]
Read moreEvery year, from the first I was assigned to the graveyard, I would watch the headstones from my place upon the highest pine tree. My job was to make sure […]
Read moreWe sit on the precipice of Heaven and pollution; you hand Me an empty box and promise Desultory protection. Our bodies, superimposed From two different tangles of lake water […]
Read moreObsidian, black, but when held up to light it is semi-transparent. Also known as Apache Tears. Roughly circular in shape, about half an inch by half an inch. Received by […]
Read moreYesterday you were five foot ten and today your toes don’t touch the base of the bed. You cocoon yourself deeper into the blankets, stuffing your face into fluff and […]
Read moreSometimes I like to reimagine religion and the stories I was told as a child, so that it fits the way I understand the world now. I tell myself it […]
Read moreI lost my heart last night. It must have happened in my sleep. I didn’t notice at first, but when I looked in the mirror this morning I saw the […]
Read moreIf I were to outlive you, I would feel the poet in me blackening, nails pulling in like a sea of petals in the mouth at the end of the […]
Read moreThe letter I wrote Lilly first thing after I found out talks to her in the present tense, like she still exists, because she does still exist for me, or […]
Read moreEvery morning I look in the mirror and hope for a different reflection. The problem with makeup is that it doesn’t cover every scar. And I’ve got a lot of […]
Read moreI reveal the parts I want you to see you think you know me masquerade ugly thoughts inside my head mourning at the side of a haunted bed empty womb […]
Read moreI hold the moon like a baby in my arms. If I let it go, it will fall. The light of the night will die. Out of the corner of […]
Read moreHypertension: Each bus line a grime-filled artery, Each soup line snaking concrete corners, slithering in human filth like wet soil, wet and thick and fast like noseblood; Each […]
Read moreLet’s make this a pissing contest. Place your bet with mine. I’m bound to win if winning means a longer yellow line. ‘Cause yellow’s the color of smiley faces, Daffodils […]
Read moreI don’t think in Bengali, I think it is just one of those things that fold my body the way my grandfather used to. At least that’s what my mother […]
Read more“He laid his head in my palms And I watched as he grew a garden of roses Across a dying field. He had the power to entrap me in flesh […]
Read more1 My grandfather lived next to two wheat farmers. I secretly wished my grandfather was a wheat farmer. I would bicycle along the edge of their fields, picking stalks that […]
Read moreCatacombs and catastrophe fill my head. I cannot sleep. We end up going for a drive. The car pushes past streetlights and traffic stops— little by little the comfort of […]
Read moreWait until your mother and brother have left the house. Then, call him. Four oh eight, five five five, seven three eight oh. You’ve had the number memorized since he […]
Read moreMadeline loves it And sits as Mother would. The priest is like her Father Dressed all in grey, Palms fluttering with Paper clowns, Legs and arms spinning anti-clockwise Like the […]
Read moreThis one’s a very special post. We’re presenting to you the work of the highly accomplished Albanian Poet Irsa Ruçi, both translated, and in its original language. Irsa Ruçi […]
Read moreI’m always finding myself writing about fire Maybe because I always got so much to burn maybe cause I’m a fire sign it’s easy because I smell a hint of […]
Read moreRachelle Pinnow is also a professional geologist and a part-time writer. A graduate of the University of Calgary’s creative writing program, her short stories and poetry have been published in […]
Read moreHello, everyone! It’s Friday again and we’ve got another extra thing to share. When we were all talking, we realized we’ve all shared some of our writing on this blog […]
Read moreTo celebrate the release of her debut novel, we are pleased to present an interview with Alex Clare, author of He’s Gone. Read an excerpt from Chapter Two of He’s […]
Read moreI used to think girl meant pink meant birthday cake roses wilting for safety & always use your inside voice but sometimes it means shout and they will still ignore […]
Read moreWe at The Metaworker are excited to bring you something a little different this Friday. We’ve been given the opportunity to work with Impress Books, an independent publisher in the […]
Read moreRachelle Pinnow is also a professional geologist and a part-time writer. A graduate of the University of Calgary’s creative writing program, her short stories and poetry have been published in […]
Read moreHello! Matthew here with another announcement! And this is one I’ve been waiting for. Those of you who have been reading our about us will have already noticed this, but we’ve […]
Read moreI ask carbon, what does it feel like to be backbone? To have multiple arms? To be mother to all of me. Mother to all of them? She says, […]
Read moreLate night insomnia in la ciudad that never sleeps is a gift. I slip between the dusk, waltzing weaving between hum of streetlamp. Twirling in shadows and embellishing myself in […]
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