By Margo Gillis How abstruse it must be to be the wall I bounce my thoughts off of. It must take such self-control to sit and listen to the spiral leaving my mouth and flowing out into the world where it will be shortly forgotten to all but you. I think you’re the wall I bounce my thoughts off, but in reality, you’re the container I discard them into and promptly move on from. But meanwhile, you’re still there holding onto to all of my daily blather until you have no more room to contain it.

By Olivia Reger A thousand lights upon the earth the snow falls deep and fey. I watch it close, my heart asleep, and let it set me free. Within the woods across the stream I see them dance and play. A memory once forgotten, now finds its way to me. A dream of mirth, a dream of myth, I dream a child’s lost day. A dream of winter magic, and a mark of childhood plea. I see the stars as they once came, a finger’s touch away, And wait to lift me patiently into their sky’s deep sea. For only there in the snowflake’s song will I be content to…

By Nora Miller “Are you suicidal?” I asked my son on Christmas Eve. “I think about it every day,” he said. “Tell me your plan. I am a mama bear and need to protect you.” “No. I’m not going to tell you, because you will then take it away.”  By asking that simple question, by having that conversation, and by acknowledging his mental health, my son got the care he needed. Two years later, there is light in his life and he seems to want a place in this world. I am breathing a little easier.

By Deb Codding Today was tomorrow yesterday, Today will be yesterday tomorrow, So make the most of today!

By Brant Hylinski Awaken to alluring azures. Boisterous breath begins billowing. Collecting cold, crisp, cavernous air. Do I depart from the duvet? Eerily, I emerge. Fortunate for forward fold flexibility. Gratitude grounds me to the geosphere. Harmonious happiness of headstand. Immaculate indigos infiltrate the interior. Jostling justifiable jubilance. Kinesthetic karma. Lovely.

By Dave Onofrychuk At dinner, my son goes, “What’s a yo-yo’s favorite snack?” “Dunno,” I say. “A yo-yogurt,” he says. “Get it?” “Good one.” He smiles. Six years old and he’s crushing it, the humor thing. “What’s Pokeman Go’s favorite snack?” I ask him. “Go-Gurt,” I say. He chews his chicken in contemplation, frowning. “That joke is dumb, Dad,” he says.

By Rosanne Pagano “Tell the one about Uncle Benny’s toe!” “Or the time he shot BB’s through the bathroom ceiling. Tell that!” “The chicken and Uncle Benny’s cigarette is funnier. Let’s hear it again.” Benny is my long-deceased father, endurer of these and other minor scrapes in a brief but mirthful life.  Told and re-told by cousins who may or may not have borne witness, my dear father’s life has become lore, venerated by laughter in kitchens every Saturday night.  Look at us, this next generation of jesters, sipping our espresso with Sambuca, raising china plates for another slice of cake. 

By Steve Rubinstein You find yourself standing at field’s edge looking back over summer as though it were a season not a lifetime carried out in one riotous leap of faith. From hope to flowering fruit from seed back to soil; two false leaves emerge upward, outward, inward downward and home again. You find yourself standing lose yourself walking rows between rows in rain running down raised beds pooling for a day then gone. So, this is how you grow raising yourself up aching knees in muddy loess toward intangible sky without night without end.

By Stanislav Moiseev The sooner you realize That you have only one life The sooner you will start to live.  Time is fast, Don’t lose your chance to do What you thought or dreamed about. Act now.