The sea

Once upon a time..

The sea Once a sailor asked a dove, how is it to fly? and the dove answered, you ask me because you are every day at sea and with your strong boat you tear the waves in two. You have a brave crew and you are not afraid of storms.. Meanwhile I just fly, sometimes low, sometimes high, but I always meet clouds and planes, nothing exciting. You tell me about your adventures… So said the dove and the sailor, who was the captain of a boat, began to tell about the nights with the full moon and the mermaids crying on the reefs burnt with orange and red coral, to weep for their sisters or for the fortunes of travelers

and the stars twinkle merrily high up there in the firmament of heaven. Years ago there lived a dolphin in the waters of the Atlantic and sang and played with the other dolphins of his tribe, until one day he woke up and nothing was the same as before. Everything changed in his neighborhood, they were found to have plastic bottles and tons of tires in every coral cave, the algae got sick and the dolphins got stuck in the deepest caves. -But what’s going on? The sea became sick, the ocean became infected, the mullets answered him as they also passed by, looking for better and cleaner waters. – The sea got sick, but that doesn’t happen, the sea is a living organism

with the power of self-healing, it has iodine and phosphorus and salt, thought the dolphin… deciding to rise to the surface, to go and see up close what exactly happened. As soon as he climbed a little higher, he saw a terrifying sight, plastic bags and bottles were floating, and tires from cars and another pile of garbage. The dolphin started swimming back and forth restlessly and doing somersaults. It’s all true, he said over and over again. The sea became sick and filled with rashes and sores. I have to find a solution, but how can I? I’m small and ….. as he thinks he saw the careta careta  turtle carelessly swimming around, looking for food. I will ask about this careta careta  turtle..

she will be able to help me, since she often rises to the surface to give birth to her young, he thought and quickly made hasty movements with his tail, to reach her.. – What are you saying, did Thalassa get sick? the loggerhead turtle grimaced as he munched on a seaweed, Since when; Does he have a high fever? Let’s vacuum her, he replied and continued swimming towards a more fertile ground that also had plankton. – Suction cups, what is that again? These elders talk with incomprehensible words and never explain the inexplicable to us… all their philosophies and then… we , the new generations we are   lost  and we don’t know what we should do to find solutions!!!!

Lady Turtle Caretta – Caretta , I don’t want tips or suction cups, i need help….The Sea got sick and filled with rashes, and sores . We need to find a medical help, look around you, and  stop chewing.

..The loggerhead turtle stopped munching and looked around, facing a macabre sight, with plastic bags on every coral reef and plastic bottles lying on the bottom, and car tires blocking the entrance to  the main door of  homes of  the Smyrna, of the crabs and  the starfish and a  chaos was everywhere… .

Those aren’t viruses, the turtle said flatly and continued munching on her seaweed. – Isn’t it a virus? and how do you know that, wondered the dolphin – I just know it, and I also know who is responsible for this downfall… Probably the people are responsible!!! 

– People?

what is this, swamp fish? asked the dolphin in wonder – No, they are not swamp fish, 

people are people.

 They are different from us because they can stand and walk with their feet and move outside the water, they breathe and live by eating each other.. but also us , the fishes and other animals, but they don’t know how to hide their garbage, to recycle it, like we do , and  they just through their carbage into the sea. They did that.

I have a bad experience with them, I see how they treat me and my children when I go to the surface to give birth. They are monsters!!!- The dolphin was scared but said determinedly, monsters or dragons, I will go fight them and send them back their garbage. The dolphin  said  and swam angrily towards an unknown direction.

after months it was heard in the dolphin family that a small gray dolphin was caught in a fisherman’s net and died like a hero. They said it was found, swimming on the surface and very close to coasts and cities.

They said that every night he carried plastic bottles with his snout and left them on the beach, in the morning the people who went to the beach found mountains of plastic bottles and plastic bags waiting for them and they frowned and shouted and made faces and were very annoyed because they couldn’t bathe or sunbathe and they went to the beginning and asked the Municipality to clean up the waste, because some unconscious people threw it on the shore, and it prevents them from sitting comfortably or drinking their coffee, they couldn’t from the stench .

The municipality called the garbage trucks and collected 3 truckloads of plastic, and he didn’t know where to take it, since he himself knew that plastic doesn’t dissolve easily and takes thousands of years to decompose, but wherever he throws it or buries it , it will be harmful to the environment.. .However the whole story was, he ordered the trucks of waste to be taken to the dump and melted down. . Every night the dolphin continued to carry whatever plastic bag or other plastic he found thrown on the bottom and in the yard of the dolphin’ s house.

He also carried bottles and tin cans of soft drinks, he had also found friends, and the caretta-caretta turtle, and a couple of octopuses were coming to help him in this whole business. But no matter how much they emptied the bottom and how much they tried, the next day, they still found empty plastic bottles buried in the sand and mixed with their food. Yesterday, the Whale almost swallowed a soft drink cap and a small plastic spoon, they didn’t know where all this dirt was coming from, until one day, the loggerhead turtle, who was around the world, explained to them that this was garbage of the human and throw all   into all the seas.

All the fish have moved out of their caves and gone to other coral caves to stay. The loggerhead turtle said that the seas have no more plankton and much of the algae has been poisoned. – But we can’t live like this, in uncertainty and misery, said the dolphin angrily. We have to show them, that we are down here living with our families and the sea is getting sicker day by day. – And what should we do? Asked the turtle,

 they have destroyed everything  the forests and the air. They will never  stop …now they will destroy the sea.

– Should we act, should we send a message to these people? – But how; The turtle once said. There are many of them and they don’t speak the same language as us. They don’t understand us. – They understand us, insisted the dolphin. There are some of them, the little people who understand us. I feel it. We need to alert the little people to help us. To stop throwing their garbage into our sea. We will find a way. We have to if we want to stay alive and with clean seas. – How are you so sure? Caretta-caretta turtle replied. – Some time ago I traveled with my family to see distant relatives,

– our dolphin cousins, who live on a piece of land that is washed by the sea. There I had a strange encounter with a small man, I guess, I didn’t know what kind of animal it was, because I didn’t understand his speech and he didn’t come to the sea, only I was approaching the shore… – You’re still alive, you were lucky. People usually kill dolphins and all other fish, either for food or to make fertilizers for their skin. Monsters I tell you, I know them well, who am forced to wait long nights for them to leave, so that I can go lay my eggs and then I quickly run away and leave the unfortunates to their fate… They are all monsters, continued the Caretta turtle

– -I believe in this little man, he didn’t hurt me, nor did he try to imprison me. We played very often and he taught me many tricks too, I will try to find him and give him a message, the dolphin continued his thoughts optimistically.

.If I manage to get to shore again, there will be a way to send him a message. So I’ll tell you, people spend hours at the sea, on days when it’s always sunny. They sit lying down, and sometimes they turn to the right, sometimes to the left, on huge quilts, I often see them, said the turtle-caretta-caretta. It will be your only chance to send them a message, but only to the little people. I will tell you what you will do, you will find a glass bottle, it will surely be there near the coral reefs, you will bring it here and tell the seahorses and the cuttlefish to come to my house. –

. – But for what reason? He asked the surprised dolphin.-I have an idea, the turtle said meaningfully and continued to chew her seaweed. So it happened, when the sun’s rays were no longer visible, they all gathered in the coral cave of the caretta-caretta turtle. She opened her desk and took two feathers and a piece of paper, she told the cuttlefish to put as much force as she could and blow her ink over the feathers, she began to write and write on this paper and when she had finished folded and put them in the glass bottle that the dolphin holds for them. He turned to the seahorses and told them in a determined voice, now you know what to do.

The sea-horses galloped away with the bottle fastened between them, they swam for some time, until it was daylight when they reached a shore. With an acrobatic figure, they threw the glass bottle towards the shore and it went and got stuck, between some deckchairs, where a family was. A child who was carelessly playing with his buckets a little further, went to collect stones and shells and found the glass bottle. He took it and took it to his grandfather, look what I found, grandfather, a glass bottle with a message inside, it must be a treasure. Grandfather took the bottle, opened the cap and carefully took out the note and read aloud:

Here in this blue land that we inhabit, and you call the sea, we live before you are even born, before you even learn to walk, before you even know what you are?   We not disturb you ,you  not care. 

We demand

Stop throwing your trash here, 

stop throwing your plastic waste in our yard and poisoning our food. Stop right now!»

Signature 

The creatures of the sea

 Dolphins – whales – sharks

 Corals and algae 

End 

Eva Petropoulou Lianou

Poet and author 

Blackwater Drowning’s frontwoman Morgan Riley carries herself with the kind of grounded ferocity that comes from years of carving out a place in a genre that demands both brutality and vulnerability. Her band, a five‑piece forged in North Carolina’s metal crucible, has become one of the most distinctive voices in modern melodic death metal by refusing to obey the stylistic borders that define so many of their peers.

As Riley puts it, “We’re not trying to fit into one specific little category. We want to just kind of take all of our bits of inspiration and make it into something kind of unique. And we’re not trying to fit some mold of, ‘we got to sound like this’. We just write what we feel. And I feel really passionate about that.”

Her origin story with guitarist Jeremy Bennett is one of parallel trajectories finally converging. “Jeremy and I had been in separate bands, and we played several shows together over the years,” she recalls. “Those bands ended up breaking up. I was in more of a hard rock band, but I always wanted to be more metal, and he was in a really good death metal band, and he wanted to do some more melodic stuff—because we’re both really big fans of Swedish melodic death metal.”

Their chemistry was immediate. “He started sending me stuff, and I started writing over it, and then Aria came into the picture. And several years later, Ron came in… and then Eamon joined, and he’s Ron’s little brother, so it just made sense.”

Looking back at the early EPs, Riley hears the band becoming itself. “When you first start a band, you are trying to figure out what your identity is,” she says. “We started out, I think, with a pretty strong identity, and I still really like a lot of those old songs, but now I feel we’re just more in focus to kind of the concept that we want to be. And I feel we don’t really sound a whole lot like anybody else… I don’t really hear anything that sounds exactly like what we’re doing. So, I love that. I love being a little bit unique.”

Her vocal journey mirrors the band’s evolution. Riley didn’t come up through metal; she came up through musical theater. “I actually came up in more of a musical theater household,” she says. “And I still love musical theater and singing big notes and all that stuff. So, I came upon a lot of that. And it definitely influenced the power.” Her first encounter with heavy women’s voices was transformative. “I think the first metal or hard rock woman that I heard was probably Amy Lee, as a lot of women in my generation did,” she explains. “And that was really big for me. She can sing beautifully, and then there’s this heavy music behind her, right? And then I discovered Flyleaf. And that first song ‘I’m So Sick’, where Lacey does that little scream—‘Oh my God, a girl does that! I want to figure out how to do that.’”

From there, she plunged deeper. “I went down a rabbit hole and found Arch Enemy, and became a big fan of that, just because it’s very brutal,” she says. “And Otep was a big one for me as well, because she does a lot of different things vocally. And I love the emotion that she puts into her voice. I draw inspiration from a whole lot of places. Lamb of God is a big one too. A lot of nu metal stuff.”

Her technique came the hard way. “When I first started, I literally just screamed along to Arch Enemy records,” she admits. “Messed up my voice for a few days trying to figure out how to do it, and I did it until I figured out how to not hurt myself with it.”

That duality—brutal and beautiful—is the core of Blackwater Drowning’s sound. Riley describes their motif with clarity: “If I had to describe us or kind of summarize, I always want to keep the heavy and some breakdowns. We don’t have to have breakdowns in every song—to show off our technical chops, because that’s fun—but never lose the groove of the music, and then keep the dichotomy of having the heavy, brutal stuff along with the beautiful melody.”

Their new album Obscure Sorrows—out now—is the band’s most collaborative work to date. Earlier releases were largely steered by Bennett, but this record opened the creative doors to everyone.

“We had the precedent that Jeremy was our main writer for those first two EPs and half of Sonder Satori,” Riley explains. “This is before Ron had joined the band. He joined at the very tail end of us recording our second EP. We had already had a whole bunch of stuff already written for the next one, and he contributed to that a lot, don’t get me wrong. But this time, we all kind of wrote together.”

The shift happened because the environment changed: they recorded the album themselves, with Bennett engineering. “We recorded this album actually ourselves,” Riley says. “Jeremy was the main engineer for all of that—well, the only engineer for all that. So, it was a little bit more relaxed than when you’re in the studio, because obviously when you’re in the studio, you are on the clock, and we don’t have a lot of money, so we’re not trying to waste our time, or their time, noodling around and figuring stuff out. You want to have everything ready to go, for our budgets. So, it gave us more space—I feel—to be spontaneous and creative, and with less pressure behind it.”

The orchestral elements that thread through Obscure Sorrows came from a trusted ally. “It’s actually our really good friend David,” Riley says. “He had been working on doing orchestration stuff for fun, and then also to put on albums. And Ron and him have been friends for a long time, and we’ve all played shows together. He’s a fantastic drummer, and we contracted him to write the orchestra parts. We’d send him the half‑completed song and be like, ‘Here, do your thing’, and we gave him some notes. And I think I’m really proud of the final product. I think it sounds really cool, and it’s something that we hadn’t really done before.”

Conceptually, the album began as a folklore‑driven project. “Originally, for the album, we had the idea that it was going to be a concept album where every song was going to be about a piece of folklore,” Riley explains. “And as we went along, there were some songs that I didn’t relate to any piece of folklore. I didn’t want to just write something and force it out, because that’s against my entire ethos. It’s got a… a song has to call for it.”

Still, folklore remains a strong thread. “The Sixth Omen was based around the legend of La Llorona,” she says. “And we did another song that was about a giantess—maybe her husband got killed, and no one has any sympathy for her, and she’s just a monster to them. And then ‘Incubus’ is… I mean, we knew what an incubus is, and it’s really just about that subject of, you know, you run into these people who are just an energy suck, you know? Drain you of everything.”

The album also reaches into depression, betrayal, generational curses, demons, and the afterlife. “I think obviously depression and stuff—that is always a strong theme in a lot of heavy music, and just music in general,” Riley says. “I think we all experience it to some degree in our lives. And then the afterlife—I think we all are really curious about what happens after, because nobody really knows.”

One of the album’s key tracks, “Storm,” is rooted in feminism—though Riley refuses to be heavy‑handed. “I have another song that’s more about feminism, which is ‘Storm’,” she says. “Because that’s a subject near and dear to my heart. But I didn’t want to be too on the nose with it, because that’s not really our thing, but I still want to say what I feel.”

Her feminism is grounded in history, not celebrity. “I feel I’m inspired by not necessarily any one person in particular, but just the body of work that feminism has done,” she explains. “And just when you look at history and how new some of these rights are to us—even in my grandmother’s day, we didn’t have some of these rights—and that’s wild to me. Just all the women who have come before me who have paved the way for the things that I have now… there’s so many of them, I don’t know if I could really choose just one or even a couple.”

For Riley, the most powerful part of being in a band isn’t the technical achievement—it’s the human connection.

“We did a tour, and we’re going up north, and a guy drove three hours to see us at this… we’re playing at this sushi bar,” she remembers. “And he has continued to follow us. He’s been following us since our first EP, and the fact that someone cares enough about what we’re doing to keep up with us… he actually got his very first tattoo was our band logo. That’s so cool.”

Then there are the quieter testimonies. “People tell me sometimes how a song helped them through a hard time,” Riley says. “And that always really touches me. I just love the human element of being in a band and affecting people’s lives in ways that you don’t even expect that you’re going to.”

She writes with that in mind. “When I write this music, when I write my words, I am talking about things that I’m going through, and maybe something a little bit more esoteric sometimes,” she explains. “But I always try to keep some element of relatability in there, so that despite the brutal setting, you can still empathize with what’s going on, and maybe it speaks to you. And if it helps you through whatever bad time you’re having—that’s really awesome to me, and that means a lot. Because as a metal band, you don’t expect someone’s going to be, ‘This helped me through my depression. You’re screaming.’ Well, it was really cool when that happened.”

Her conclusion is simple and devastatingly true: “It’s so rewarding as an artist to know that something that you created out of your heart and mind touched someone else’s heart. You connect with people on a deeper level that you’ve never even met. And that’s such a cool part about any kind of art. And that legacy carrying on is what makes artists immortal.”

Blackwater Drowning’s music carries that immortality: a fusion of personal history, theatrical instinct, metal lineage, and emotional honesty. Riley stands at the center of it—calm, powerful, grounded, evolving. She is part of a new generation of metal vocalists who understand that heaviness is not just sonic; it is emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. And with Obscure Sorrows out now, she and her bandmates have crafted a work that feels poised to carry them far beyond the borders of North Carolina’s metal scene, into a space where folklore, feminism, horror, groove, and brutality coexist in a single, unmistakable signature.

About the Author: Alex S. Johnson

Alex S. Johnson is a novelist, poet, editor, journalist, and cultural historian whose work threads the dark fantastique, bizarro surrealism, punk lineage, and countercultural satire into a singular voice. His fiction and poetry has appeared alongside Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Edward Lee, Joe Hill, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and Poppy Z. Brite, and he has been hailed by John Shirley as “the Baudelaire of our time.” He has performed with such legends as Punk Rock Royalty Iris Berry from Lame Flames and Ringling Sisters, 2.13.61 (Henry Rollins) authors Tricia Warden and Ellyn Maybe, and SPIN magazine featured poet and cult author Danielle Willis (Dogs in Lingerie).

A veteran of the underground press, Johnson has written for Metal Maniacs, Zero Tolerance, Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, and Metal Hammer. He is the founder of Nocturnicorn Books / A Collective Paw and curator of the Pawsie Awards. He is co‑writer (with Nicole H. Sixx) of the dark‑comedy slasher screenplay Serial Date.

Forever and always with you

I find the beauty of your soul growing

With your blues

Thunderstorm over this town

I can escape burning with your hand

The little unnamed flowers along the path

where river flows a sublime zeal

Dance and music nature’s flowing through

Shimmering and shining with your cityscape

I always find a reason to be with you

My forever and always earthen song.

This month’s issue addresses the Unfinished Business of Living.

The Talmud states: “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” This quote emphasizes the importance of taking action and doing good, even in the face of overwhelming challenges. No one can do everything that should be done, but we can all do something.

We look at different types of human ventures, including literal business and entrepreneurship, but expanding out to art, literature, cultural preservation, maintaining relationships, living within nature, peacebuilding, and just figuring out whom to be, how to exist in the world. Perhaps the deepest work of a human life is learning how to belong, to land, to history, to one another, to the difficult truths we carry, and to the dreams we still have the courage to pursue.

First, an announcement: our regular contributor Rui Carvalho invites readers and contributors to submit poetry to the next annual Nature Writing Contest.

Our contest, Nature 2025-2026, is a new opportunity that we, as organizers, create to reach the rest of the world. Every Contest is a challenge for authors participating and to people that make it happen. This year we invite all authors to write poetry about:
(i) Flowers;
(ii) Trees and wind;
(iii) Water;
(iv) Nature Conservation;
(v) Turtles;
(vi) Love for people and nature;
(vii) Hope and Happiness.

Rules and submission information here.

Now for The Unfinished Business of Living.

Ismoilova Madinabonu Jaloliddin qizi reminds us of our need for and connection to the rest of nature, and this single insight threads through nearly every voice gathered here. We are not isolated atoms; we are woven into a living world.

Business leader Safwan Ahmed outlines mind-shifts that can assist entrepreneurs in his upcoming titles The Solo Founder’s Kite and the Maverick Strategy, suggesting that how we orient our thinking determines what we can build. Dr. Jerry Olivas reflects on how, like sports, life sometimes doesn’t allow do-overs—a bracing reminder that presence and intention matter now, not later. Shah Jehan Asrafi reimagines silence not as absence, but as a latent, creative force, pushing back against the modern terror of quiet. Ananya Guha loves the difficult, noisy, demanding parts of life, even barking restlessness, insisting that vitality lives in the friction, not the ease. Umida Sayfulloyeva encourages society to look at stress and social pressure as we would any other epidemic. Elmaya Jabbarova captures the spark between people when love could have started, and the feeling after the moment passes. Amonboyeva Shahnoza reminds us to notice and reach out to lonely people around us—a small, radical act of repair in a disconnected age.

Mark Young playfully alters the color and texture of Australian geography to craft unique landscapes, showing that the ground beneath us can be reimagined, not just endured. Priyanka Neogi relates a trip to colorful Guayaquil, celebrating the beauty and culture of the developing Ecuadorean city. Su Yun’s Chinese elementary school students’ poetry, which he translated into English, focus in on ordinary, relatable experiences. Abdukarimova Farangiz discusses strategies for helping Uzbek students learn English as a foreign language, bridging worlds through language. Timothee Bordenave finds Jesus Christ within his ordinary life: in legends, in his craft, in his quiet room, not as a doctrine to be believed, but as a reality to be lived—a spirituality of the everyday, not the cathedral. Amina Sunnatullayeva underscores the importance of remembering and teaching history to maintain one’s cultural identity, a thread that runs through several contributors here. Dr. Reda Abdul Rahim traces the history of Palestinian political and military uprisings, grounding memory in the specific, contested weight of lived experience. Lan Xin acknowledges the long and rich history of the Dongba culture in China and her partnership with Dongba elders to preserve the culture through education. Rushana Shomurodova pays poetic homage to Uzbekistan’s scientific, medical, and literary history with her tribute to the works of historical writer Abdulla Oripov.

Saymurodova Madinakhon Zokhidjon kizi discusses the cultural associations given to the sound of various languages, revealing how hearing itself is shaped by belonging. Gulyor Matchonova highlights the importance of reading for personal education, the quiet technology of becoming. Maftuna Rustamova encourages steady work towards our goals and consistent study in order to learn, in a manifesto that attempts to empower ordinary people to achieve aspirations. Elmurodova Charos also notes the importance of history and national memory to Uzbekistan’s young people, so that they can appreciate the sacrifices of their ancestors and the value of hard-won peace—a generational chain of gratitude and awareness.

Silke Heiss reviews Abigail George’s novella Did You Get Married To Her While I Was In the Mental Hospital? which is a fierce, boundaryless fusion of mental illness, womanhood, and political rage, where survival lies not in being a “writer” but in being a woman who lives, acts, and cares for others. Abigail George’s new poem relates the experience of family life shaped by addiction, illness, and the commandment of silence, the things we are told not to say, and the cost of keeping them buried. J.J. Campbell writes from the trench of a life lived hard, with no romanticism, no filter, and no apology. Yet his poems are acts of resistance: he’s still here, still writing. 

Mahbub Alam’s poem reminds us of the power of a simple word or bit of attention from a friend or loved one. Nidia Amelia García reflects on a love that has healed her, not through rescuing, but through consistent and tender presence. Maja Milojkovic draws on elements in nature that balance and complete each other as metaphors for romantic love. Sumana Bhattacharjee describes love as both otherworldly and grounded in reality, a spiritually grounded physical journey. Gaurav Ojha’s essay brings a philosophical perspective to the experience of falling into romantic love as Milena Pčinjski evokes a quiet, tender, and sacred rhythm of romance unfolding away from the world’s eyes.

Christina Chin’s haiga presents a simple, yet tender, image of departure and separation, the ache of distance rendered in few strokes. Tanja Ajtic portrays the anguish of intimate loss and grief. Milka J. Šolaja acknowledges the grief intertwined with the beauty of aging, losing physical and mental prowess even as we develop wisdom.

Duane Vorhees’ work explores false promises and hidden costs: sometimes we don’t get what we expect or bargain for in life. Rehaan Khan’s piece is a plea and prayer for a visit from the divine, or from a departed loved one—the hunger for presence beyond the veil. Joseph Ogbonna’s simple yet profound piece reminds us that life and death are paths traveled by all. Graciela Noemi Villaverde weaves a vision of loss incorporated into future life, transformed into future growth. Dr. Debabrata Maji’s poem shows that togetherness transforms losses that would break you into something you can carry. Bahtiyar Hidayet mourns the devastation of war and longs to return to the days when people and animals were cared for and respected—a vision of peace that includes the whole created order. Danijela Ćuk insists that peace is not a distant ideal but something we give each other, moment by moment.

Alan Catlin’s poetic portrait illuminates the humanity of school shooting survivors. Stephen Jarrell Williams suggests that humanity has a last chance to wake up, speak up, and choose sanity over destruction, both personally and globally. Christopher Bernard’s story portrays young children caught between idealism and the betrayal of national institutions.

Saeed Koushan’s work illuminates love that arrives and departs in the same wet night, leaving nothing behind but the memory of something that briefly, impossibly, shone. Noah Berlatsky’s piece speaks to the gap between spiritual ambition and clumsy, human reality—the comedy and tragedy of trying to be better than we are. Hassan Ismail Adekunle shows how one doesn’t build a bridge only by laying steel, but through asking, listening, leaving room for mystery, and honoring the ones who cross with courage and return with compassion.

Jacques Fleury’s poem brings humanity together in solidarity against injustice: it’s always a fresh new morning for someone on the planet. Marjorie Thelen’s short story “The Alien Jazz Band” is about found family, identity, and escape from a broken system, while also serving as a cautionary tale about AI, surveillance, and the loss of human agency, a warning that the technologies we build can sever the connections we need. Bill Tope’s short story is about the gap between what people see and what a person is really like, and how, for some, allowing the gap to remain is a refuge, strategy, and quiet form of grace. Saymurodova Madinaxon Zohidjon qizi points out how ownership of the English language has shifted from a small group of native-speaking nations to the global community of users, a democratization of voice that mirrors the broader themes here. 

Chidimma Ewelukma illustrates what it means to be there for someone: to witness their difficult moments even when you can’t solve their problems, and to stay with them through the different seasons and versions of themselves over time. Srijani Dutta’s collection of poems and paintings embrace questioning, resilience, and self-discovery as a way of living, through recurring images of light, water, wind, dawn, journeys, circles, and flames. In Patrick Sweeney’s monostich poems ordinary moments, memory, faith, and imagination constantly intersect, revealing how people search for meaning amid imperfection, mystery, and everyday life. J.K. Durick’s poetry captures the feeling of being a tourist in one’s own life: perpetually out of place, unable to change situations, and curious about the mysterious lives of the locals around you.

Photini Karamouzis Chalkias’ work reflects a journey through deprivation, survival, and a desperate attempt to find meaning and connection in a world where truth is veiled by blood and silence. Cyril Etchev’s work highlights the power of the dreaming, loving, creative spirit to rise from the grounded, the silent, the ordinary and transform both self and world into light. Mykyta Ryzhykh depicts a reality in which time melts, language fragments, bodies decay, love becomes entangled with violence, nature becomes contaminated by human suffering, and death seems to be the only stability—a counterpoint that makes the acts of connection elsewhere in this gathering all the more urgent. Türkan Ergör expresses a nostalgic wish to return home where she feels she belongs, although life has inevitably changed her. Alex S. Johnson’s interview with musician Militia Vox highlights how for her, authentic artistry is forged in the stubborn refusal to abandon the raw, relational reasons you started, and reclaiming that impulse is itself an act of rebellion. 

Dr. Jernail Singh’s piece argues for ethical action on a broader timescale, regardless of visible consequences in our lives. Sayani Mukherjee’s speaker seems to ask: What truly makes a nation? The answer is not simply borders or governments, but the memories, emotions, songs, cultures, and stories shared by its people. Shlok Pandey explores the weight of generational trauma and impossible social expectations through a mother-daughter story, the inheritance of wounds and the possibility of healing. Thi Lan Anh Tran’s piece suggests that childhood is often happy because then we know how to be fully present, wonder at small things, and love without condition.

Brian Barbeito offers a meditation on authenticity, simplicity, and the harmony that exists when humans, animals, and land live in honest relation to one another, circling back to the opening note from Ismoilova Madinabonu Jaloliddin qizi.

Shannon Scoates speculates through a tone poem on a decaying piano on what remains of our art and creation as natural cycles and time pass.

Finally, Madina Shodmonova encourages us to summon up all our courage and live our dreams with gusto.

What emerges from this constellation is a single, insistent truth: we are beings whose survival and meaning depend on the quality of our connections—to nature, to history, to language, to the divine, to the lonely, to the difficult, to the departed, to the dreams we have not yet lived. The work of being human is not to transcend these ties, but to deepen them, to show up for them, to carry what breaks us together, and to keep writing, making, and loving through the wreckage and the wonder alike.

The Silent Epidemic of the 21st Century

Centuries ago, epidemics were visible. Their symptoms could be seen, and their consequences were measured in overflowing hospitals and rising death tolls. Today, humanity faces a different kind of epidemic—one that often leaves no visible scars. It is called stress.

Unlike infectious diseases, stress spreads quietly. It affects children struggling with academic pressure, university students uncertain about their future, employees facing demanding workloads, parents carrying financial responsibilities, and older adults coping with loneliness or illness. Regardless of age, profession, or social status, stress has become one of the defining challenges of modern life.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than one billion people worldwide live with a mental health condition, making mental health one of the most urgent public health priorities of our time.

Ironically, we often fail to recognize stress because it rarely announces itself dramatically. Instead, it appears as constant fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating, insomnia, emotional numbness, or a persistent feeling that something is wrong. Many dismiss these experiences as “just being tired.”

From my own experience, I have come to believe that our emotions never change without a reason. Feeling emotionally exhausted, becoming unusually impatient, or losing interest in things we once enjoyed is not a sign of weakness. It is often our body asking for something we repeatedly deny it: rest.

Unfortunately, modern society tends to celebrate productivity over well-being. We convince ourselves to keep going despite exhaustion. We continue studying, working, and meeting expectations while ignoring what our minds and bodies are trying to communicate. We act as though we are machines programmed to function without limits.

Yet the human brain does not work that way.

When we experience stress, our body releases hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones are essential in short-term emergencies because they help us respond quickly to danger. However, when stress becomes chronic, constantly elevated stress hormones can disrupt sleep, weaken the immune system, impair memory and concentration, and increase the risk of anxiety and depression.

Perhaps the greatest mistake we make is believing that stress must be defeated immediately.

Whenever we notice ourselves struggling emotionally, we often try to escape the feeling as quickly as possible. We distract ourselves with social media, loud music, crowded places, or endless work. While distraction can sometimes provide temporary relief, it is not always healing.

Sometimes the healthiest response is simply allowing ourselves time to recover.

Crying is not failure. Spending a quiet day resting is not laziness. Sleeping longer after weeks of emotional exhaustion is not something to feel guilty about. Just as an injured muscle requires time to heal, an exhausted mind also deserves recovery.

This does not mean ignoring life or withdrawing indefinitely. Rather, it means recognizing that healing is an active process. If emotional distress persists for weeks, interferes with daily functioning, or becomes overwhelming, seeking professional psychological support is a responsible decision—not a sign of weakness. Effective treatment and support are available, yet many people never receive the help they need because of stigma or limited access to care.

There is a saying that resonates deeply with me: Ignoring a problem does not make it disappear; it only gives it more time to grow.

The same is true for stress.

The greatest challenge of the 21st century may not be technological change, economic uncertainty, or artificial intelligence. It may be remembering that behind every achievement is a human being whose mental well-being matters just as much as productivity.

Perhaps the strongest people are not those who never break down.

Perhaps they are those who recognize when it is time to pause, listen to themselves, and begin healing before silence turns into suffering.

Instructions for Building a Bridge

Begin

not with steel,

but with a question.

Ask the child

what the other side

looks like.

Ask the fisherman

how the current

learns every name.

Ask the woman

who crosses each morning

balancing fruit,

hope,

and tomorrow

on her head.

Measure

not only the river,

but the distance

between strangers.

Leave room

for birds

that refuse

to recognize borders.

Leave room

for silence,

because every honest conversation

must pause

long enough

to hear another heartbeat.

When the bridge is finished,

do not name it

after the richest donor

or the loudest speech.

Name it

after the first person

who crossed

without fear,

and the second

who turned back

to help someone else.

The Library of Borrowed Voices

My grandmother

never called herself a historian.

She simply remembered.

The names of rivers

before they were renamed.

The recipe

that survived three migrations.

The lullaby

that crossed a border

without a passport.

She shelved stories

inside ordinary afternoons,

between washing clothes

and slicing mangoes,

between power cuts

and the first drop of rain.

When she laughed,

entire generations

leaned closer.

When she fell silent,

the room understood

that forgetting

is the first language

of disappearance.

Now I write

because memory

is too heavy

for one heartbeat.

Each poem

is a borrowed shelf,

each line

an invitation

for tomorrow

to recognize

the voices

today refused to lose.

The Cartographer of Smoke

They hired me to map a country

that refused to remain still.

Every border lifted at dawn

like birds startled from a field.

Mountains traded names with rivers.

Cities folded themselves into pockets of fog.

Even the compass developed a conscience,

turning away from every certainty.

So I drew with charcoal.

Not because it lasts,

but because it remembers fire.

Each morning, the wind corrected my work,

crossing out kingdoms

with the patient hand of weather.

Each evening, I began again,

learning that failure is only another alphabet

waiting for a different mouth.

I met an old woman

carrying an empty basket.

She said,

“You cannot measure a place

by the roads that survive.

Measure it by the footsteps

that refuse to disappear.”

Then she walked into the horizon

as if distance were merely

another kind of doorway.

When my employers returned,

they asked for clean lines,

accurate distances,

a legend explaining every symbol.

I handed them a page of ash.

“This,” I said,

“is the only map

that tells the truth.

Everything living

keeps moving.”

Hassan Ismail Adekunle is a Nigerian poet whose work explores memory, family, place, resilience, and the quiet beauty of everyday life. His poems seek to uncover moments of grace and humanity within ordinary experience through clear, evocative language. His work has appeared in The New Verse News and Willy-Wash Webzine, among other literary publications. He continues to write from Nigeria, where he is at work on new poems.