October - Poem 19

I Regret the Things I Did for Love / Lilly Frank

Saunter into the room with a heavy apathy.
Consumed by thoughts of himself, he
forgets that I too, exist outside of whatever
ill-constructed version of me he has
created inside of his head. I fit into his
world in the way he contorts me into, and
for him, that is pleasing. For me, it grew
irritating. It grew into resentment, it grew
into frustration, it grew him into a stranger.
With little care or regard, he would come
and go on his own time. His watch must’ve
ticked a beat slower than mine, his timing
was always so off. Loved completely
through conditions, seen completely
through the lens of his own utopian vision
of the person I was. It is so soul sucking,
blood boiling, and gut wrenching to be
loved not for the person you show up as,
but for the person that best fits someone
else’s narrative. And the devastation leaves
me beside myself when I come to realize,
all I wanted was to be the person he loved.
At whatever cost of my autonomy, I would
have paid it all in suffocating torment even
for a moment of his approval.

Days of Summer  ​/ Anna Ojascastro Guzon

My dog barks to indicate he wants to go outside. I open the door and see that it still hasn’t rained. I walk to the sidewalk and examine the hibiscus beside my mailbox. The leaves have become spotted and pale. A police car approaches and I watch as it slows to a stop in front of my home. The officer lowers his window and asks if I’m from this neighborhood. “This is my house,” I say. I call for my dog who comes running. 

Pausing at the doorsill, / Kathryn Johnson

the dried and folded body of 
a spider catches my eye when 
I step out to collect the mail. 

Its curled legs hold many 
possible horrors. Death, obviously, 
but also the phantom skittering 
of legs across the sleeping face. 
Or the shivering unpleasantness of 
walking through an invisible web. And 
certainly the image of any invader that fails 
to die at the door, be it spider, beast, or man. 

But what scares me most is the little corpse’s 
desiccation. It reminds me too starkly of 
myself today, when words are slow to come. 

In Youngstown October 2025, 7:30am / Kimberly McElhatten

A sunrise rainbow arcs behind the Mahoning County Court House—a shock of psychedelic pink behind the three copper statues at the top. Two women in flowing robes, Justice to the south, holding a fasces and to the north, Law with a rod. Between them, a man with a sword, Strength and Authority. Engraved at the base, A nation cannot outlive justice. Where law ends, tyranny begins. Later this day, long after the rainbow fades into the pastel of the sky, thousands [millions] will gather here [across the country] with signs. No thrones. No crowns. No kings. Power belongs to the people. Day of defiance. Reject tyranny. We the people. This isn't a protest. This is a revolution. I'd like you, dear reader, to know pink rainbows are rare–only in morning or evening and during a high-pressure system–a sign of blue skies and stability on their way. 

HPA AXIS  / H.T. Reynolds

When my body forgot how to breathe,
swapping my throat for a straw,
I learned how time can stretch—
a balloon in a bottle—strangulated.

When my body forgot about its legs,
I spent the winter memorizing its fiber
glass contours from tip of toe to thigh,
spread apart with a broomstick—immobilized.

When my body forgot to turn in its paperwork,
it delayed the regulator’s progress, all growth
stunted until the numbers could reconcile
my age, my body juvenilized—arrested.

But my lungs, my bones, my body can’t forget
the smell of mother’s cigarette.