Shamik Banerjee is a poet and poetry reviewer from the North-Eastern belt of India. He loves taking long strolls and spending time with his family. His deep affection with Solitude and Poetry provides him happiness.

An Ode to My Home 

Even the God of Boon cannot provide,
The ease of cool-lapped tiles which make our floor,
The cubbyhole where fatty pigeons hide,
The fecund soil that plentiful trees bore;
No less than a foreland is our lawn,
Or than high seas the purling runnel's flow,
This place is a music hall at foredawn,
When voleries their gleesome numbers blow,
The goodful air that forth glides in tree lawn,
When I am at day, I go for an ambulation.

The donative of sleep is my soft bed,
Of scenery, our little grassplot,
Wherefrom tid butterflies in blue and red,
Fly inside and sit 'pon the window slot;
Cold water from the borewell with sits loo,
The foregates open wide, sweet odor send,
Of a bubble flowers covered in dew,
The lanai where cheersome sunrays descend,
To where, does come the distant hillock's view,
As if a fairing given by a friend.

A joy as great as the scentful dishes,
That mother with her tender loafs does make,
Under her safeguarding life flourishes
And cavalier breathings that I take;
The loveable moment when I father's hair
Neaten, he simpers like a boykin gay,
Whose joyness is the affectionate care,
That assures me, of naught I should affray,
Such thoughts for me love's immersion prepare,
An hour spent in what seems like a day.

Michael J. Romano is a self-taught photo artist based in Philadelphia, PA. He developed a strong connection with nature early in life, and he now uses his art as a tool both to maintain his own spiritual connection with the natural world, and to inspire others to recognize the beauty and wonder of the outdoors. 

Short bio about Michael

“Beech Roots Grasping” is a double-exposure on 35mm film captured with a toy camera. It is a visual anthropomorphism of how beech trees connect underground. People’s roots are not just individual history – they are a shared history that connect us to our common ancestors. Beech roots are in parallel to this idea, as the communities that spawned from a common mother tree maintain their relationships through their roots and support each other through these pathways. 

Beech Roots Grasping

Follow him on Social Media

Michael J. Romano – 

Instagram @mmmromano

Website michaeljromano.smugmug.com

Roots – July 2023

This month’s theme is inspired by the importance of where we come from, the idea of home and family, and what makes us belong. Taking inspiration from this and applying it to every aspect of life imaginable, we encourage our artists / writers to explore the theme with creativity and freedom or interpretation.

     Bets Gomez.
     I stare at the name, typed in tiny letters on a page yellowed with age. It doesn’t stand out.
There is nothing special about it other than the memories it holds for me. My grandmother: the
complex and complicated women who was our family’s matriarch. Who helped raise me. But this
page is overflowing with small boxes, each containing their own tiny-lettered name. She is one in
a sea of many names typed in the same font, the same color, the same size - just like all the
others.

     I was alone in my apartment on a cold, rainy, day - flipping through an old genealogy
book my mom made for our family in the 1990s.
    This wasn't some solo-project she did in her free time that we didn’t see till the end either.
As children, my siblings and I were active participants in the project, willing or not.
     On weekends, we would all be dumped into the family car and my mom would drive us
to what felt like the ends of the earth, hunting down leads on names and collecting evidence.
Keep in mind, this was before the internet was a household thing and before there were popular
genealogy websites. This was just old-school sleuthing for…well…for dead fox.

     Flipping through this old book, warm and dry as the rain taps against the glass, I begin to
learn much more about Bets Gomez, who I was close with until she passed in my 20s. But I
knew her as a granddaughter knows a grandmother: old, loving, curly gray hair, a glint in her
eye, a trick always up her sleeve…but there was another Bets Gomez. There was a version of her
with edges like broken glass and eyes like flame. A version of her that was crumpled and broken,
beaten, with no options, and a jawline that refused to know it. There were so many different
versions of her, almost as if a mirror had shattered and every shard of that mercurial glass
reflected a different Bets Gomez.

     Bets Gomez:
- Got two college degrees in a time when women weren't even legally allowed to
have a bank account.
- Her family line included professional gamblers, children born without eyes, and a
set of twins named Maximillian and Maximus.
- Her brother was killed in his 30s by a sheriff's deputy that sped through a red
light and never faced a single consequence.
- Her father was ex-communicated from the Catholic church for marrying her
mother (a Methodist). This is a petty point of pride for me - an atheist who was
raised by Catholic fanatics - to be sure.
- Her grandfather owned a place literally called, ‘Satan's Swamp’ and claimed to
be related to the king of Spain.

      My childhood included many weekends in forgotten, overgrown, graveyards that were
scattered across miniscule, abandoned, former settlements in rural Mississippi - places no one
had even thought about in decades - as mom searched the few remaining visible headstones for
names and dates. She made etchings with freezer paper and our crayons, dug through weeds to
uncover what could be headstones being sucked back into the earth or just overgrown rocks. We
helped.

     We did this for so long that my youngest sister started to ask, "are we going to look for
dead guys again?" as every weekend approached.
     The answer was generally yes.

     Weekends would often find us not playing with friends, reading books, or canoeing the
lakes and marshes as I was used to doing.

      I would not be visiting my grandmother, who liked me best and wore a large, gaudy,
pendant on her neck suspended by a thick gold chain. On one side of the pendant was an angel
with blue eyes, smiling innocently. Then she would grin wickedly at me, wink, and spin the
pendant around: the other side contained a winking, grinning, devil with red eyes. She would
laugh conspiratorially with me and ask what I'd been up to.

      Instead, my siblings and I would be found with our mother, in the grim and collapsing
skeletons of horrific plantation buildings (centers of slavery) that had been abandoned for over a
century - no doors or windows left, eons of chipped paint and collapsed plaster becoming a
beige, shuffling, carpet in the semi-open air of the monstrous buildings. There were ancient
letters my mother found preserved under bricks - old, metal, skeleton keys she found resting on
mantles, what they once unlocked forever lost in the passage of time.

     But now, I myself am in my 30s: the same decade my mother was in as she dragged us
through graveyards on a hunt for one of many things that I will likely never understand about
her. I feel as if I’ve lived so many lives by this point that I’ve forgotten entire lifetimes. It’s a
strange sensation: feeling so old yet being so young.

     Like many times when I’m feeling ruminative on a rainy day…a memory starts to play,
unbidden and unwanted, behind my eyes. I think back to a featureless bedroom off of a murky,
oil saturated, coast line. It is 10 years ago.
     My orange suitcase is flung open on the bed.
     The memory is seen through the heavy tunnel-vision that was quickly clouding my world
as I grabbed my clothes out the closet and flung them into my suitcase as fast as I could - but not
fast enough. I’m disoriented by the full length mirror hanging over one partition in the
accordion-style closet door. I just see my hands, pale and shaking, rapidly going back and forth
and I grab things out of drawers and off hangers. I feel like I’m underwater. I need to be faster.
But I’m not.

     Bets Gomez was once married to an abusive man (he was apparently a wealthy and
well-respected socialite) before she was married to my grandfather.
     4 months into the abusive marriage, pregnant with the man’s child, she packed up her
things and left him in what she would only ever describe as an "explosive confrontation". In the
19fucking50s. She left him, divorced his ass, and married my grandfather 3 years later. My
grandfather, who was born in a cotton field as his mother picked cotton, and who grew up in a
shack with dirt floors in rural Mississippi.

    The rain pings sharper against the apartment window. My reflection is barely visible
against the glass as I regain my focus. Looking through the faded binder that my mom had made
of it all, now, decades later - reading it as an adult and not as an elementary school kid being
dragged into the fields of forgotten parts of Mississippi on her weekends - I've made
some….grim…interesting…. inspiring….startling discoveries.

    I'll start off easy, but then I’m kicking it straight into overdrive:
The most common names in the book are Gomez (my grandmother) and Adamson (my
grandfather's people). My family came to Mississippi from the Canary Islands and from Spain in
the 1700 and 1800s.

   I turn another page and and learn for the first time, to my horror and disgust, that the
local sheriff during the fucking civil war was my ancestor. A goddamn confederate sheriff in the
most racist, sexist, place in America.

    I’m an outspoken, liberal, queer, disabled, feminist in the 2000s era of Mississippi, who
was sexually assaulted by sheriff's deputies at 15. I survived 3 more attempts on my life by law
enforcement at 30, after being a guest speaker for law enforcement on how they could better
interact with and serve survivors of sexual violence.

    They didn't like that at all.
    They tried to kill me.
    …Several times.

     Now, as a queer, disabled, genderqueer, university librarian who's work and research
centers on dismantling systems of oppression, I hope he is rolling in his grave at my mere
existence.

     When Bets Gomez was in her 30s, she was on her second marriage, raising 2 children,
and trying not to think about the 2 college degrees she had that were gathering what would
become a heavy layer of dust. She got a chair for her bathroom vanity so that she could sit down
and do her hair in the mirror while supervising her young children as they learned to wash their
own hair in the bathtub. She was secretly naming neighborhood cats after the baby that she had
lost years before.

     I knew some of these facts about Bets Gomez individually: the college degrees, the
abusive marriage. the baby that was born a few months after the marriage ended and died only
days later, the brother who had been killed by law enforcement. But reading them all together on
the page made it come to life - it connected those dots into the shape of my grandmother.

      I respect her.
      And I understand better why we were so close, she and I.
      And -

     The sound of the rain is gone but only because the memory is back in full force now. The
tunnel vision narrowed further past my periphery as the weight of him slowly sat down on our
bed next to my orange suitcase - not quite touching it, but only just. He was wet from the rain
outside, splattered as he was coming in from his truck he had just parked in the driveway.
     The distinct feeling of knowing I was the prey in this ever-narrowing room.
     - of knowing that I was now living very much on borrowed time.
     The dangerous, heavy, stillness that filled the bedroom air - charged with electricity,
ready for the match to drop and ignite it - as he realized that I was leaving him.
As I realized that I was leaving him.
     - Not even remembering getting out of the house with my suitcase and my dogs and into
my car. Not even realizing my suitcase and I were completely drenched with rain. Its bright,
nylon, material would always be warped after this.
     - Checking the rearview in a panic, but seeing no one - only my own eyes, huge and
white all the way around the irises in sheer panic.
…Someone else reflected behind me in the mirror would come later.
   He would find me.
   Again.
   and again.
   and again.

   Until now - when I live on the other side of the country and my legal name and physical
address are protected by the government: they never appear in the same place. This is to try and
help me survive him. To try and keep me from him and the murder he has planned for me.

  My mail is now forwarded to me under an alias name from a locked government building
- the same building that my car is registered to, the same locked government building whose
address is now on my driver's license, is on my passport.
   I look back across time:
  At the monstrous sheriff: racism incarnate.

  At my grandmother, with her thick, dark, wavy, hair and big dark eyes: standing tall,
pregnant, educated, and fierce as she slams the door behind her for the last time and leaves an
abusive man alone in that house - in an era when women were playthings, accessories, free
labor, possessions.

   I know without a doubt the exact expression that was on her face when she did it.
   I've seen it in the mirror many times.
   I look into that mirror and see my own thick, wavy, hair and my eyes that are exactly the
same shape as hers. Eyes that my father - with his thin, straight, blonde, hair and narrow blue
eyes - spitefully calls, "Sanchez Eyes". Eyes that my white friends in high school made fun of
and nicknamed me "frog" for, not realizing that they were a part of my heritage that I would
always be struggling to understand.

   I see the same refractions, reflections, scattered out across time and space and history -
my history. They are images of the same eyes but set into different faces - the same steely glint in
them, glimmering through new generations, the same chin held high and thick, wavy, hair
framing a new face. I see the same hateful badges pinned to different starched shirts, forcing
themselves into the timeline again and again, leaving blood and bodies strewn across their wake
every time. I see images of defiance and of abuse - all reflecting and refracting over and over
again across time and space - my own life now a part of the chaotic trajectory of energy and mass
cutting through gravity and dark matter.
   All of us different.
   All of us linked.

   Not a one of us knowing what the future would look like, but each scrambling
desperately to get there - for good or for bad.
   My image in the mirror is just one of an infinite multitude of quicksilver moments strewn
across time, across centuries and millennia, each shimmering moment flung haphazardly into the
stars with a gravity we simultaneously could not control - and that we somehow also created
ourselves.

END.

Zora (They/She) and her pack of adorable hounds live mostly in the state of Confusion, perpetually searching for their misplaced ink pens and chew toys, respectively. Zora belongs to the LGBTQ2S+, genderqueer, and disabled communities.
Zora is a civil rights activist, guest speaker, and resource developer in the fight against sexual violence and systemic oppression. She holds their graduate degree in Library and Information Science, and focuses their work and research on how information professions can help dismantle systems of oppression.

Follow her on Social Media

Zora Grizz – Website

Fracture – May 2023

The small things in life that marks us in specific ways, the experiences that makes us who we are by breaking and restructuring inner ourselves.

TW- Domestic Violence
Sinners and rhinestones have always gotten along, the jingle of my handcuffs in broad
Latin sunlight
Crashing the beach wave alone with my ubiquitous mind, replaying the apex of female
rage
How she screamed, and how she fought, her battle raging as her world beneath her
second brain relapsed,
Her father’s screams glimmer across the pianos, bottles of wine whose corks still gleam
wet from when he poured just a drop on her tongue; How narrow the world seems, just
seams of battered dish soap in a world brought down by video game yelling fanatics
Crooked lights track down her mother’s face her eyes look up to a moment locked in
vows
Bouquets and baronesses, Wedding gowns and ripped bows, kisses that strung the air
with intoxicated blows of romance, their extended honeymoon- , the cupboard crashes
down on her, her soul falling beneath the depths of her underbelly, the monster snarled,
she falls pitts down into her abyss, an abyss she foresaw but clammed hard to wish not,

• Their second year in the white chapel of Paris, him whispering over her while the
  gargoyle loomed over their bodies, like the sunlight jealous of the moon shining her love
  on the stars, like the seas kissed by the tides, its foam latched on to the shore to destroy
  all of creation or like the fire lights whose clandestine wings buzzed near the moths
  eyes to pry them to a night of Skyfall,
• their trips to the Russian Advocacy, his eyes, glances that tripped her falling heartbeat,
  directionless moments in pure unscriptural ekalavia, his slow moments in time catching
  her like a droplets of sand lingering on an hourglass after its final hour, whispers of
  debates on a couch, whose springs court the thorns of hallways adorned with black and
  white folk, whose invisible seams that he turned emerald to remind her of their inventory
  cascades, experiments wounding up in chemical folklore and ambulance drives to a
  publisher’s house, their minefield of ideas, vodka blizzards to rosaries in bowling balls
• “My dear” he said one evening to her, the news of their first born a stinging message in
  the air, he stared at her like she was the embalment of his daughter, he saw the future in
  her, her eyes beating the images of his next life, her hands holding the room of their
  family portraits, him and her and their light glorious in his eyes, family potently powerful

in love; But that love is potent, that a father’s constant life and love could melt into a
river in the heart of shatters, a storehouse of memory so ancient, its scrolls rusted from
beauty

• How could she know the man she married , the father of her child, the keeper of her
  miscarriaged heart, the soulful laughter that welcomed her home after a long day of
  service, tasted her bile for ripening, knew her waking hours to glorify the absence of
  their abacus memories, memories that cloud the air and fail to latch onto their soulless
  minds, a mind grown into the love offered by man who was a husband but then grew
  into the very man he’d sworn to never become, who treated his wife the way his heart
  broke to, whose notes now rang ringlets of trembles, each step the sindhoor of her
  fades away and he stares away from his life, lost in the alleyway that presents himself
  now
  Her father is gone, the maestro who taught her poetry has faded into the rust of his
  books, his imprints have been translated into motherboard of her forgotten memories,
  His eyeroll that crept over her and her mother over the years, his jeer and insecurity now
  overshadowed her thoughts, his actions written on hieroglyphs of their portrait, the
  frames of gold and black tarnished, the man looking down no longer holding his
  reflection.
  The sunlight draws into my eyes, a blank canvas for what she is about to show me, my
  eyelashes, signing my cheekbones with an anticipatory audience, but she is alone,
  I am alone.
  Encompassed alone in the nightmare winter is her beauty, bringing death to her knees is
  her sunset, the cries of rain that litter her enemy’s cheeks, shadows of a game of tetris
  she enjoyed
  Silhouetted in the glass-fitting of the moon is she in Cinderella
  Gliding along the sculpture of an eric is she in the little mermaid
  The hollow trees with the spirit of the ancestral forest is she in pocahontas
  The rose whose sister was picked by the beast is she in beauty and the Beast
  Darkened eyelashes never belong to anyone but the wearer
  The bookmark shall hold most of the heart of the maker
  Why should she border herself because of a societal requirement
  The skies never sailed for a duo, it was an individualist loner in the middle of a platinum
  sky
  Like a john wick villainess whose mind led men be feared by
  Like the Syrian snake who chased away a religion to the fiery fruits associated with a
  harlot
  She’s everything the world never saw fit, like the first spark offered by the cigarette as its
  fumes camouflage your sadness just to burn out heartstrings a second later

Her pearly ringlets of hair sway from her temples to across her lashes, like the latch of
lust in the initial encounter of arms playing sonnets and eyes entwined in matrimonial
vows, each lost in the mirage of emotions within as they longingly inch closer as the
frost beneath sizzles into fire, and the sharp intake of breaths hitches to a halt, a world
of parrots and doves climb out,
To be lost in the ecstacy of one and another, with screams that terrify the night and
soundless moans that collapse into a collision of aphrodisia, with each other being the
delight and pain, each body being drenched in sweat and seeds of Persephone’s stay in
the underworld
The world shifts into a glimmering fog, of charring oneself with the rust of an old photo
frame, with memories to comets soaring past the yellow sky
In a world of blood and mud she became their wine
In a prison of symmetry and infidelity she became a crossword
And in the mornings of glitter and maksath she became the black and white chessboard
Her bangles now gleamed silver in the sunlight, ivory etchings decorated her vision
She is the queen on the checkerboard
She is rewriting on the rosary
She is the air that breathes your sight upon blowing the conch
She is the pause between fear and a new moment
The etching on a Shakespearean book bind
Contested by her face it moves switching from emotion to power
In her hand the hourglass tips into mercenaries
Each grain of sand an entry of a nightmare
Each cry of a child the laughter of a cliffhanger
Each hollow heart a welcome for her residence
Intelligence so forth and wise like the mermaid on winters eve
Dives into a state of emergency, absorbing each emotion by logic and detaching from
her pillar to the darkness
I walk free shambles burning away my skin to a void empty by detachment and hollow
by mystique
Prudence and Cowardice go hand in hand one for a queen’s power and the other her
brocade
For it was never the subjects who she wanted to rule
Why fill the coastline where I can deprive myself to perfection
Why fulfill the burning desire between me and him when I can succumb to the frostbite
and destined solitude
Why protect the flame when I burn the incandescent ice as my crown
My crown is heavy with the seams of my endeavours, my head crowned bloodless with
the ember of anklets, copper with the taste of my own

I look up to the heavens, their cloudy majesty draws sunsets across my pleats
My anklets drown in their beats
Each mudra flows through my blood
My head feels throughout the evening of pictures and emotions of my fortitude
My sweat sinks down like the pearls of a necklace so brittle by its value and seemed
priceless by its nature
Like bloodmoney valuable only to the wicked and not to the poor

I am a writer and poet who publishes her works of poetry on my Instagram handle @crimsonliesandunmarkedstars. I have completed seventeen years living on this planet. I live in the Emirate of Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. I engage my time in reading; I specialize in gothic literature, fantasy, and fiction. I like to thrift clothes to reduce my role in capitalism and adore writing poetry in the raven’s hours of the night. I also am an Indian and love incorporating my culture into my poetry and plan to establish representation for South-Indian WOC in the Literary World.

Short Bio about Selene

Follow her on Social Media

Selene Vina – Instagram

Fracture – May 2023

The small things in life that marks us in specific ways, the experiences that makes us who we are by breaking and restructuring inner ourselves.

The grown child now wears furrows on his cheeks; 
A happy world he knew once, now he shrieks 
wretchédly for his childhood's face is gone 
and immersion youth's ocean, is done. 
"I shall", says he, "soon be with the Lord's light, 
at foreshores deep and station'd 'tween the sight 
of fire and flake; where mortal world's abridged 
sail cannot reach till its dear life is sieged; 
Now, at his harbour,with this shortened time, 
he obtains the most of each chance and prime 
and honours his chest which yet does bestow, 
gentle breathing-sagging and dipping slow, 
receives this life though it's tenure is small, 
to repute gladly, till Death does befall. 

About The Poem,’The Grown Child’: This poem talks about a serious realisation I had in my childhood,from third person’s viewpoint.This poem talks about a child’s early awakening to the reality of mankind’s existence.He understands that one day,he will die and be away from the dualities of life (fire and flake,high and low). As soon as he realises this, his playful juvenility vanishes and he no longer remains immersed in youth because this thought sheds his state of being young from his mind’s perspective. He becomes mature prior to reaching adulthood and learns to make the most of each moment, optimally before this short life is taken from him. He appreciates his state of being alive and also harmonizes with the fact that one day, Death Will Befall On Him.

Explanation of the Poem by Shamik Banerjee 

Follow him on social Media

Shamik Banerjee – Instagram

Fracture – May 2023

The small things in life that marks us in specific ways, the experiences that makes us who we are by breaking and restructuring inner ourselves.

“Dance with a shadow”
oil on canva
80 x 120 cm
2023

While creating this painting, I was thinking about the beauty of courage to face your fear. Meeting and dancing with your fear is like a snake spell, it is up to us to control it. Thus, by meeting our shadow, listening and accepting it in all its true form, we gain strength and our true radiance.

Dance with a shadow by Olha

Minnie’s Lament 

Embroider me with sorrow. 
hook ecstatic silks through my clavicles. 
adorn the bone with buttons, 
tortoise shell domes dot a shield 
across my chest. 

Crochet me, crumbling into my blood. 
call the clots stretch stitches: 
nucleic notches denoting 
donated machinery. 

Embroider me with sorrow. 
sow promises through my body. 
pull them up with your teeth, 
spit the thread into my hands. 
quietly, I put them in the dustbin, 
like a very good girl. 

Continuous with the water 

I wonder if there is 
anything left 
brewing in this body. 
Squeeze it free; 
a pearl from clam’s lips, 
a pebble to build a nest. 

With sound. 
With feeling. 
This time with her choir. 
All the filaments 
of her chest 
pulled up. 

A pure bridge 
strung in music. 
a broad song of pleasure 
to her future 
garden sown. 
Silent statement of faith, 
this time with fruit.

Her’s 
Composed of 
constellations of spectra, 
viscous and ungendered. 
A deck stacked 
with aces and apples 
and nourishing ghosts, 
guiding us where 
the triumphs are hidden.

Olha (Olia) Kravchyshyna is a Ukrainian contemporary multimedia artist. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1997, now she lives and works as a full time artist between Kyiv and Hamburg. Drawing inspiration from myths and fairy tales, she creates deeply intimate artworks in which she explore the inner world of a woman’s feelings and experiences, based on her personal inner searches and the path of her mental healing. In her works she talks about the completeness and uniqueness of being a woman, her feelings and her invincible strength, the topic of self-love and celebrating woman sexuality.
Olha trained in painting at the Freie Kunstschule Stuttgart, Germany and received an BFA in Political Science in Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine .
Her recent exhibitions include Connected Art at Galeria Zannart.Stydio Warsaw (2023), Pure Collective at Pure, Hamburg (2022), Art4Ukraine at Nobel Peace Centre, Oslo (2022).

Short bio about Olha

Follow them on Social Media

Onyinyechi Jessica Ogwumike – Instagram

Olha Kravchyshyna – Instagram

Fracture – May 2023

The small things in life that marks us in specific ways, the experiences that makes us who we are by breaking and restructuring inner ourselves.

Compensation for Rape and Sexual Assault Victims Act 

Purpose: To provide financial compensation to victims of rape and sexual assault in recognition of the emotional and financial trauma caused by these crimes. 

Section 1: Definitions 

a. Rape: The non-consensual penetration of the vagina, anus, or mouth by any body part or object. 

b. Sexual assault: Any non-consensual sexual contact or behavior. c. Victim: Any person who has been subjected to rape or sexual assault.

Section 2: Compensation Fund 

a. A compensation fund shall be established to provide financial compensation to victims of rape and sexual assault. 

b. The fund shall be financed through a combination of public and private sources, including fines levied on perpetrators of sexual crimes, donations from individuals or corporations, and taxes on products or services that are often associated with sexual violence. 

c. The fund shall be administered by a government agency designated for this purpose. 

Section 3: Eligibility 

a. Victims who have suffered emotional or financial harm as a result of rape or sexual assault shall be eligible for compensation from the fund. 

b. The compensation amount shall be determined based on a range of factors, including the severity of the assault, the victim’s age, the extent of financial or emotional harm caused, and any ongoing medical or therapeutic expenses. 

c. The compensation amount may be adjusted based on the perpetrator’s ability to pay, with higher compensation amounts awarded in cases where the perpetrator is a wealthy individual or corporation. 

d. Victims who have received compensation from other sources, such as insurance or civil damages, may still be eligible for compensation from the fund. 

Section 4: Claims Process 

a. The government agency administering the fund shall establish a streamlined claims process to ensure that victims have access to the compensation they are entitled to. 

b. The claims process shall involve working with victim support organizations, medical professionals, and legal experts to ensure that victims receive the assistance they need to navigate the compensation process. 

c. The claims process shall be designed to minimize the burden on victims and to protect their privacy and confidentiality. 

Section 5: Funding and Administration 

a. The government agency designated to administer the fund shall have the authority to determine the amount of compensation to be awarded to each victim. 

b. The agency shall be responsible for ensuring that the fund is adequately financed and that compensation is paid out in a timely manner. 

c. The agency shall be required to provide regular reports on the fund’s finances and operations to relevant government agencies and the public. 

Section 6: Effective Date 

a. This act shall take effect upon its passage and shall apply to all acts of rape and sexual assault committed on or after the effective date of this act.

Megan Auður (b. Reykjavík, Iceland) is an interdisciplinary artist and community organizer currently based in Iceland. Her works explore pervasive myths of neutrality, through creating frameworks for dialogue and support.
Megan holds a BA in Fine Arts from HKU University of the Arts Utrecht (2020) and is currently obtaining a MA in Fine Arts from LHÍ, Iceland University of the Arts.
In her practice she has co-initiated various long-term collaborations – such as the initiative Tools for the Times (2019- ongoing), and the advocacy group AIVAG, Artists in Iceland Visa Action Group (2021-ongoing).
Megan Auður has previously worked with The Living Art Museum, Basis Voor Actuele Kunst, Kunsthalle Wien, and the Impakt festival. 

Short Bio about Megan

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Fracture – May 2023

The small things in life that marks us in specific ways, the experiences that makes us who we are by breaking and restructuring inner ourselves.

This piece portrays the beauty that can be found in fracture.

Scenery

In this short fiction piece, I have tried to explore the little details of relationship dynamics and their consequences. 

Blanka Pillár

I forgive him for the little lies. The little fibs that slip away and the broken promises that go
unkept. He always tells the same lies, and sometimes I believe him because the story paints
itself like a vivid oil portrait; first, the figures are painted, then the background, then the
corners, edges, contours, and finally, it becomes as if it were a real scene on the canvas of life,
but only the immensity of human imagination has made believable what could never be real.
It tells me what I most desire, so I reach for it with all my heart, stretching out my soul’s arms to
preserve all its lips say and hold it within me for eternity. I love him with
all my heart, but when my reality is keen-eyed, it sometimes smells like the scratch of jagged-
edged infidelities in the dawning light or the wistful night. The cold realisation slips into bed
beside me or touches me as I walk.

Today we take it into our heads to walk around the riverbank. We get caught in the cool
January breeze, and he starts coughing. I take off my thin pink cotton scarf and wrap it
around his neck with careful movements. He gives me a weak half-smile and walks on. My chest
gets hot, even though my whole body is shivering from the winter’s minus temperatures.

Sometimes we stop. We look at the broken-legged seagulls on the slippery waterfront stones,
the sloppy sidewalk ahead, and the footprints of giddy pedestrians. He rubs his hand as we spy
on one of the old buildings covered in melted snow. His fingertips are almost purple, so I tug
off my black fabric gloves and slip them on his frosty palms. He thanks me quietly. His silent words creep into my consciousness like angelically soft notes, wrapping my trembling body in a
gentle embrace.

Barely perceptible, the milky-white sky opens, and it drizzles, but we are unperturbed. We sit on
a stinging bench and stare silently at the glistening toes
of our wet boots as they tread the snowy ground before us. Somewhere in the distance,
expensive hand-painted plates clink, light pages of newspapers crinkle in the
city breeze, the iron bells of a dilapidated church jingle, and a delicious golden-skinned duck in a
warm oven is being prepared. I feel him move beside me, and I put my head down. He
sways back and forth with folded arms while tiny particles of dripping snow fall on his
knitted flame-red angora sweater. I slip my thin arms out of my expensive loden-lined coat
and place them on his back. He looks me in the eye. My tongue curls and confesses at seeing his
delicately delineated perfect face. It humbly confesses the truth it has admitted so
many times before and hopes. It hopes that, for once, its love’s answer will not be a lie. But once
again, he replies, I love you too. I-love-you. He utters this gracious lie delicately. The first
syllable is trust, the second is passion, and the third is loyalty. He feels none of these, yet he
testifies to them. He savours the shape of the voice. First bitter, then sour, then finally
swallowed. After all, it’s only one word. But for me, it’s so much more: I put myself in his hands.

Maybe that’s not how it all happened. I’ve been sick for a while now; my lungs are weak from
the January freeze. Every time I close my eyes, I try to remember our last story. Embellish it,
add to it, rearrange it, change it. Maybe one day I’ll grind it to perfection, and that word won’t ring so false. Or the memory will turn yellow, like old letterhead, and no longer matter. Or
maybe ‘‘I love you’’ will become just another fluffy word to be whispered in the harsh winter,
bored, picked up by the wind, carried far away, across the world, to where it means nothing.
Far from the eager, greedy arms of my soul.

Ell uses watercolor markers, semi-gloss art paper, highlighting elements such as gold and silver paint, acrylic & oil paints, canvas, pencil, professional photography, mixed-media, hand lettering, pen & ink, and high resolution image conversion processes. They create signed, high-quality, one-of-a-kind pieces whose vibrancy and glow work to inspire joy in you.
They draw inspiration from stories they read, fairy tales, folklore, mythology, descriptive song lyrics, and the outdoors. Their art embraces color and movement, showcasing the beautiful ways that they can interact.

Short Bio about Ell Cee

Blanka Pillár is a sixteen-year-old writer from Budapest, Hungary. She has a never-ending love for creating and an ever-lasting passion for learning. She has won several national competitions and has been a columnist for her high school’s prestigious newspaper, Eötvös Diák. Today, she is not throwing away her shot.

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Fracture – May 2023

The small things in life that marks us in specific ways, the experiences that makes us who we are by breaking and restructuring inner ourselves.

“The Seasons Woven with Static” is an iridescent collage celebrating the passage of time and the different seasons we go through.

By Ell Cee

Guiding Maps

The second poem talks about stretch marks that exists to make you feel insecure however this poem celebrates your marks in the way that it deserves and in the way we haven’t been taught about in school or within our community to accept our bodies in the way it is and embracing all your body scares and acknowledge it’s presence with acceptance and happiness, I see it as a beauty of womanhood that it is a blessing and hopefully the reader can see it as the same.

Amira Hassan

Marks on your skin,
darker than the midnight,
came from the unknown
and arrive to an unknown destination,
while you are sitting waiting on the sidelines of the train of life.
Around your waist they stay,
hugging you like its your last breath,
hidden from your world, forgotten at times, visible at once.

Creating a guide to vulnerability, born in high school, 
that one single ambiguous map
that your teachers forgot to teach you:
how to deal with marks and scars in your everyday life.

Do you hide it or do you show it?
Would you listen to your sister telling you 
to put cream on it,
that makes it disappear,
or would you listen to your soul telling you:
It looks beautiful, just the way you are.

Looking at your reflection in the mirror, ever so proudly, 
discovering new maps,
ways to comfort your soul,
listening to that voice in your head saying:
It looks womanly,
The onlooker is mesmerized , as much as the one looked upon,
while you affirm deeply that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Haunted by the memory of that revealing moment, 
Longing for that touch of an angel,
looking at you with bewilderment,
like that kiss you received from a first lover.
The moment when your eyes meet and hands shake, 
like admiring the beauty of the sunset
on a bench in front of the creek,
contemplating your dreams while
looking at the bridge covered by color.

The beauty of youth is the guide for your soul.

The epiphany is this;
you’ll never love another body as much as your own.
You live once,
die once and
surely
resurrect in alternative form.

Therefore between life and death, 
you have this one form of living. So live it wisely.
Live it fully.
Remind yourself that you are young,
and these gorgeous moments come once in a lifetime.

Mediating on this poem
while nourishing my scars
with Shelby naturals body oil
while pronouncing my prayers for midnight, 
it comes with its darkest thoughts.

I withstand the times,
the young and the old with this philosophy that 
beauty comes with spiritual nourishment
and a different perspective of life.
This can be a saving thought while my mind wanders to the sky
looking at that golden light
that comes once the sun kisses the earth
ever so gently.

Amira Hassan is a poet and artist that believes in discovering the soul, exploring human desires, and reaching more for self-expression of freedom as a way of life. her collection of poems ” Letters from the Heart” are published on the uncoiled magazine website, you can read them here.

Short bio of Amira Hassan

Ell uses watercolor markers, semi-gloss art paper, highlighting elements such as gold and silver paint, acrylic & oil paints, canvas, pencil, professional photography, mixed-media, hand lettering, pen & ink, and high resolution image conversion processes. They create signed, high-quality, one-of-a-kind pieces whose vibrancy and glow work to inspire joy in you.
They draw inspiration from stories they read, fairy tales, folklore, mythology, descriptive song lyrics, and the outdoors. Their art embraces color and movement, showcasing the beautiful ways that they can interact.

Short Bio of Ell Cee

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Amira Hassan – Instagram

Ell Cee – Instagram

Fracture – May 2023

The small things in life that marks us in specific ways, the experiences that makes us who we are by breaking and restructuring inner ourselves.

Photography by Taylor Butler

The Birth of Venus 

Spring is a beautiful season that symbolizes beauty of change and growth to a new version of ourselves, I have experienced growth in me with the support of a dear friend who understands the struggles and the darkness we all go through, I’ve understood the power of words and poetry and how it can add value in our daily live therefore I present this poem for the love of beauty, flowers and nature that colors our eyes and add that spirit of freedom in us. 
Hope we all have a beautiful rebirth this spring season.

Amira Hassan

Spring is coming, 

the change of the weather is in my soul. 

I’m reaching closer to you, 

the rhythms of the sun and  

greys of the clouds are on my mind. 

I was in my twenties when I first met you. 

That year was a turning point for me, 

11.11 writing came to birth. 

In august, I was reborn. 

Venus was my alter ego, 

her voice inside of me.

She inspired me to write 

poems from the heart that 

I never knew I could write. 

I kept you in my diaries 

hidden away from the magnificent world. 

My mysterious pleasure in life 

that kept me warm 

on the coldest nights. 

I was reborn 

from that darkness that surrounded my days, 

to see the shining light again. 

Looking up with a hopefulness 

that things will be alright again, 

I had endless creativity bursting to be heard. 

You‘ve listened to my heart,

shared your days with me and talked all day long. 

Your love for classical art and traditions inspired me. 

I love hearing your beautiful voice, 

making me dream of hearing you sing the opera. 

Oh honey,

What a beautiful way to start your day. 

I still hope to feel your hand in my hair, 

on those midnights, 

when you are on my mind and 

I feel closest to you. 

Dreaming of you makes me feel whole. 

Talking to you makes me feel desired. 

The intimacy we had was divine,

the present became my motivation 

to be a better person for you. 

Talking about my past was so bewildering for me, 

but you made me feel comforted and reassured. 

Being with you is like exploring the seasons. 

I feel I’m in a wild twilight meadow, 

surrounded by orchards and flowers on a midsummer day. 

I discovered new sides of friendship with you 

You are as savory as an apricot freshly picked from the tree, 

the gentleness in your voice comforts me, 

the kindness of your soul fascinates me. 

The fire and drive in you became my value and 

you’ve created an aesthetic as beautiful as your soul.

To me, you are rain, books and coffee.

When I hear your voice, I fall in dreams. 

Remember you are the sun, 

I believe in us and always will be 

I will always love you.

Amira Hassan is a passionate poet working as an editor with the Uncoiled magazine. She discovered writing in her early years when she received her first diary as a gift, she continues to write down her thoughts and dreams in self-healing methods on her Instagram page. Her way of being is to become a legend that inspires generations to come with her words of wisdom, romantic poetry, and creative content. Amira believes in discovering the soul, exploring human desires, and reaching more for self-expression of freedom as a way of life. her collection of poems ” Letters from the Heart” are published on the uncoiled magazine website, you can read them here.

Short Bio of Amira

Taylor is a budding photographer from Australia, currently based in Edinburgh. Her work aims to capture the beauty of life around her and turning it into everlasting moments of time.

About Taylor

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Taylor Butler – Website

Rebirth – April 2023

Explore works of art and literature from around the world inspired by the beginning of Spring, the changing of the Seasons, and the anticipation we feel after the standstill of winter.

Inspired by her life and emotions, Matilde Milano creates what she calls “Visions”, usually figurative scenes characterized by a key component: the silence – places and people appear surrounded by a quiet atmosphere.
The main focus of her art is to convey and share her feelings, using a metaphorical and often poetic language. This originates from the need to tell her experiences, even though in guarded and allusive ways, giving birth to cryptic images.
Most of her work is heavily influenced by symbolism and by the natural world, both always present in her creations.

Untitled by Matilde Milano

Flicker

“Flicker” is about a relationship where I was giving more than they were, especially at the expense of myself. It’s about choosing myself even when it hurts.

Anna Samson

The light flickers once
I can’t do this.
It flickers twice
I’m gonna be sick.
It flickers three times
I don’t love you anymore.
The lights fade to black.
I can feel you watching me in the dark,
trying to understand where it all went wrong.
I’m grateful you can’t see me right now
or you’d see how much this is hurting me too.
We were supposed to be forever
but I can’t keep tending our candle,
while my flame blows out.

Matilde Milano is an artist based in Turin, Italy.
She graduated at the “Renato Cottini” art high school and thereafter she studied for her painting bachelor at the Accademia Albertina of Turin, where she discussed her final dissertation on March 2023. She also attended the “Faculdade de Belas Artes” of Lisbon (Portugal) for one year (2021/2022), as part of the Erasmus+ project. She took part in a few collective exhibitions in Italy, like “I colori delle emozioni” (at La Certosa, Collegno, Turin), “Works 1” (Cooperativa di Consumo e Mutua Assistenza Borgo Po e Decoratori, Turin), “L’arte e l’iconografia infantile” (Biblioteca
“Passerin d’Entrèves”, Turin) and “HERE” (Cavallerizza Reale, Turin), in Portugal, where she showed her work during “Galerias Abertas das Belas-Artes” (Faculdade de Belas Artes, Lisbon) and “POP UP Belas Artes” (Nada Gallery, Lisbon) and in United Kingdom, with the latest “Canyon” (RuptureXIBIT + Studio, Hampton Wick, London).

About Matilde Milano

Anna Samson (they/she) is a desi, queer, disabled writer, poet, and disability and mental health advocate. Their work has been published in Incite Magazine, Wishbone Words Magazine, McMaster Unspoken, and Project Wellness Magazine. They live near Toronto, Canada and spend most of their time reading, writing or hanging out with their pets.

About Anna Samson

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Rebirth – April 2023

Explore works of art and literature from around the world inspired by the beginning of Spring, the changing of the Seasons, and the anticipation we feel after the standstill of winter.