Ink & Oak Literary Magazine

When you look at me what do you see? Do you see what I am or what I once was. Do you see who I am or do you just see cracks in the clay that make me up? Do you see a person in whole? Or just scratches and imperfections in your own welding; and perhaps those imperfections came from the welder.

Speak to yourself like a coach, not a victim like you’re teaching lightning how to remember its own name. Tell your legs to rise even if they’re shaking, because even earthquakes are just the earth deciding It’s done staying still.

Deep in the forest where the animals sleep The quiet is interrupted by a peep. One little frog playing away, Watching her babies, they hatched today!

these jokes are old and getting older my humor gets worse as I grow taller touching doorframes on my tiptoes slipping underwater in a summer stream

Carolina blue arrives before the sun fully wakes, resting itself over rooftops and telephone wires, over the slow hush of buses breathing at red lights, over students carrying entire worlds inside their backpacks.

Love me or hate me There’s no in between The look in your eyes Twinkles at the thought of my demise But have you ever thought about what that’d mean

The world is big And we are small But we can make changes

Lined up for vampire service. That’s how I think of it. Today I’m not the one, but my husband is in line to feel the sting of the vampire’s teeth in the form of a steel needle.

I have this habit of picking off bits of me I bite the inside of my lips tear away tiny pieces I used to spit them out now I swallow them deep

Looking through the glass was like watching a silent movie in slow motion. It’s all a blur now. Was I seeing in color or in black and white?

Light frees the bastard night From migrants in their sentinel sleep, Hands without guides To the ready and the yoke for their wages, Any rough job, And they wake to the bondage of their freedom

Tell me what I owe when rain beats down on a calendar of old times and scatters the riches of our friendship as a body of habits comes to death having made no notice of our bond

Idiopathic, empathetic— Hyperventilating, still poetic. Scratching, Stripping, Clawing walls; Muted texts, unanswered calls. Echoes in a crowded room “I am trying,” never soon.

What a conversation Little trading cards of Who we are Passed like middle school notes, Small laughter across a table. A flicker, A passing recognition, I think I knew you once Or maybe I was just waiting to.

Treading, Heading on a course south of north gnawing on the marrow of a harrowing rebirth

The Women Who Raised Me 1. My grandmother is a half of a woman I love both halves, the one she is allowed and the one I will never know Think my grandparents love each other, or must have once...

Elsie Jones did not belong here. Despite the soft sunlight that filtered in through her large windows, the lush pillows surrounding her, the gorgeous silk scarf holding her dark curls aloft as she slept, and the inviting platter of tea sitting on the table beside her door, the entirety of Southerby Plantation seemed to constantly ooze a sense of foreboding. It was as if the very structure itself whispered obscenities to her through the walls each night...

Kid crashed his car into the River at 2:03. It was just as the sun came into his eyes and flared that he’d swerved. Or didn’t realize he’d swerved. Not that it mattered.

He comes in those moments before sleep sweeps across my brow, sinks me into nothingness. His words mere whispers. In my ear? My mind? I can never tell. They encoil my heart and steal my breath as terror surges through me, awareness of my mortality palpable. His presence a shroud embracing me. Portending that which lies beyond my end.

Pickles the Clown was calmer than he remembered being in his entire life. Leaning forward in the vanity chair toward the mirror, he carefully drew a rag across his cheek. The thick white makeup and red freckling transferred from his face onto the cloth. He’d been with the traveling carnival for three seasons. During that time, he’d aged from runaway teenager to legal adult. The other members of the troupe had treated him like a grown-up from the beginning.