Dana Stamps, II

July 2025 | nonfiction

Why I Hate to Read

Trimming a bonsai tree is probably better entertainment. Listening to good music, from classical to jazz to rock-n-roll, is so much better that I cannot overestimate the difference. Watching television is even more addictive nowadays with YouTube’s endless gobbledygook. Looking at paintings at MOCA, or at my local Art Walk, is much better than reading. Read this. I simply don’t like to read, even a little bit—plain fact.

And, since for many readers, this anti-reading confession of mine hits too close to the wobbly eyeballs, let me just say, though, that I like to have read most of what I reluctantly read. That is, I like to have the knowledge that comes with reading, the erudite vocabulary, for example. I like to learn new ways of punctuating sentences, too, and especially of complicating sentences. Or fragmenting them. I even like learning about crap I wouldn’t otherwise care about. Work?

Reading is work, period. You see, I grew up watching TV, lots of “I Love Lucy,” and funny movies starring Eddie Murphy. Reading was something that teachers made you do, not something you did for pleasure. The movie The Matrix has its characters learn jujitsu and how to fly a helicopter instantly, with no reading required. I would sign up for that.

But if I must read, poetry is my favorite. I started my latest poetry book, a longish anthology, at the end, reading backwards, poem by poem, so the experience wouldn’t seem a chore, fooling myself (almost) that the obligation is not a whole book, but just one poem, then done. Mostly, only poems with intriguing titles get read, but this time around I intend to read each poem, trusting the editor, not wanting to miss a good poem, an important poem … to learn from. Reading is research for me, always study. If inspired, I stop reading, and I try to write a poem. In this manner, like a pendulum progressing inexorably forward with each lumbering swing as the world creeps through space, I have been a prolific writer, and well-read, too.

So, why don’t I quit? I’m not in school. I seldom get more than a contributor’s copy for my efforts. Well, I think it is inertia … yes, that is why I still write. I have put in too much time to quit now. And I hear you arguing with me—like a remedial English teacher proofreading a slow student’s work, saying, “Why did you ever start writing in the first place … if you don’t like to read? Dunce! Nincompoop! Why produce writing—work, work which you, by definition, say that you don’t like?”

The answer: I wanted to validate my life, to give a deeper meaning to my experiences, my haphazard life, my astonishing life, my great life! And, of course, to express my unrelenting ennui … and love, such as it is.

Dana Stamps, II

Dana Stamps, II, is a bipolar poet and essayist who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cal State University of San Bernardino, and has worked as a fast-food server, a postal clerk, a security guard, and a group home worker with troubled boys. A Pushcart nominee, poetry chapbooks “For Those Who Will Burn” and “Drape This Chapbook in Blue” were published by Partisan Press, and “Sandbox Blues” by Evening Street Press.

A Message from the Ones Who Fly Above Me

April 2025 | nonfiction

A bird shit on my head today. It was at the bus stop. The shit is black and white. I am on my way to work and—

Drop.

I like my job. I get to teach people. I get to stand in front of a room. I get the attention. Normally, I wouldn’t get attention. Normally, I was nobody.

Drop.

Everybody is a nobody. I accept that. I still like being called “professor.” Even though I am not a full professor. I feel special. I feel like I am flying. Even if it is an illusion.

Drop.

I wish the bird shit was an illusion. I don’t have napkins. I don’t want to bother people on the bus. I don’t want to bother with the shit on my head right now.

Drop.

Birds don’t bother with shit. They shit where they want to. On the ground. On my head. It doesn’t matter. Their shit leaves them. It is far beneath them. But this shit on my head. It’s unavoidable.

Drop.

My hair is curly. The shit isn’t going to come out. It’s going to dry in there. It’s going to crust. My hair’s shape will be formed by the shit. I will literally be a shithead.

Drop.

I am used to shit in my hair. Inconveniences are a regularity for me. An email here. Oh, now seven emails here. All at once. You need to come to this faculty meeting. You didn’t grade my paper. You have one day to take this course offering. It’s in six months from now. You will barely make a living. And forget your free time.

Drop. Drop. Drop.

Maybe birds do bother with shit. It seems they are always chirping. Some must be annoying chirpers. Maybe those annoying chirpers command orders. Stand on this power line. Chirp with this frequency. Shit on that man’s head.

Drop.

I consider myself quite defiant. I know how to stand up for myself. I tell my bosses when I want more courses. Or if I have other plans. Or if I don’t like a policy.

Maybe the shit isn’t so bad. I can wash it out.

And maybe I can do more for myself. Not go for status. Go for appreciation. Make a stand. Tell them who I am. Tell them what I stand for. Even if they don’t care. I will be the one to change the world, the one who makes a difference in thought, a discreet social revolutionist, a martyr of sorts, throw my syllabus on the ground, set it on fire, even.

While slim, there is a chance that I could be a part of something bigger, create an even better life for myself while doing so, no longer be treated like a pleasant luxury, be treated like a necessity that is irreplaceable. I could be valued.

But then again, I feel like I’m valued. I just need to stick through it and—

Drop.

Christian David Loeffler

Christian David Loeffler is a fiction writer, teacher, and editor for Curious Curls Publishing. His work draws heavy inspiration from interests that span science, literature, philosophy, video games, and anime. His favorite book is J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and he will not stop talking about it.

Humpty Dumpty

April 2025 | nonfiction

I was in the waiting room of a hospital.  Someone burst through from behind the reception desk, making a loud crashing sound.  He was in a blue gown, tied in the back, barefoot he ran out, not seeing me, into the street. I screamed, “That’s my son!”. On a cot, he was sedated.  “Mom”, he said and sobbed open mouthed into my neck.  Our crying was meteoric, messy.  The two guards looked straight ahead.  I sat in a chair by his side, leaning towards him, my hand in his. At 4am, I drove home alone. I felt like an egg, cracked, oozing, with no way to gather myself.

Valentine Mizrahi

It took almost 50 years for Valentine Mizrahi to allow herself to write and another ten to get published.  She was recently featured in the Style Section of the Sunday New York Times and won first prize for nonfiction at one of her favorite literary journals.

Night Drive

January 2025 | nonfiction

Steam rises in swirls, wisps, moves like a candle snuffed out, then smoke curling. This road on a Wednesday night in the middle of Italy is dark except for the headlights that cut through the fog, barely, and the city of Macerata in the distance. I know this land. I left an entire country for it and now I have it mapped on my palm, penned out in ink, twenty years — the up and down, the hills that move, shift, medieval towns that cluster and roll to the Adriatic Sea. The soft grain, fields of sunflowers like matches lit, crimson poppies that carry the wind on June afternoons. It is a homeland perhaps, and for years now I’ve been pretending it’s mine.

But tonight the road is unrecognizable. On the drive from Ancona, where sunset strikes at 6 o’clock and you can watch ships sail into harbor, see the sky go blue, my American friend Ruth is still in the hospital, one more night and then she’ll go home to her Italian town  — I am not myself. I didn’t know these years would pass so quickly. I didn’t know the waiting for home would turn to wonder, turn to this shape shifting, these fields like blankets on my own made bed. What if it’s time to get out of here, to leave this place behind, opt for Lesley Avenue, Washington Street, the Taco Bell on the corner of Arlington and 10th? What if I should have left years before, back when the maps were still open, unfolded, brand new? Would I know how to get home, if I needed to? Would I recognize myself, twenty years later, on the front porch of my city? Or will I live and die right here insead? I take one turn, then another. The radio off, silence beats as softly as a newborn heart. A cat huddles on the roadside. Power lines catch the light – a swooping pterodactyl. The night shivers, goes dead. A porcupine, pale and prickly, crosses quickly just as I start to drive by.

Jacqueline Goyette

Jacqueline Goyette is a writer from Indianapolis, Indiana. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in both print and online journals, including The Forge Literary Magazine, trampset, JMWW, Lost Balloon, The Citron Review, and Heimat Review. She currently lives in the town of Macerata, Italy with her husband Antonello and her cat Cardamom.

On Death

January 2025 | nonfiction

1. I was born almost dead, the cord wrapped around my throat.
2. A doctor(ate) actually said the words to me: “You carry Death close.”
3. Death has stood by my side, time and again, and said, “It’s not her time yet.” I’ve accepted it.
4. Damaged lungs from 9/11.
5. Volunteering in Iraqi Kurdistan, mere hours from Mosul. The multitude of checkpoints along the Syrian border with masked men with guns far too large, held far too lazily in one-handed grips, leaning against their shoulders, as they confiscated my passport and tried to pull me to the small, windowless building that was somehow present at every one.
6. A village decimated by ISIS, and in a small city where I was the lone American naively going on early morning runs and exploring the destroyed buildings, painting over the swastikas I found with paint “borrowed” from nearby construction sites, and still Death said: “Not yet.”
7. The village elders of Duhola asked me to help spread the word of their people, of the Yazidi forgotten entirely by the international community. I promised I would. I still try. But I am just one, small person.
8. So, Death, what is it exactly about me that you think I have yet to do? Is there a chance, however small, that you think I might make some sort of difference in this world? What is it that’s going to happen before you gently greet me, take my hand, and tell me I can rest?

Maia Brown-Jackson

After the incredibly practical literature degree from the University of Chicago, pushcart-nominated Maia Brown-Jackson braved the myriad esoteric jobs that follow, until straying to Iraq to volunteer with survivors of ISIS genocide. Inspired with new focus, she caffeinated herself through a graduate degree in terrorism and human rights and now investigates fraud, waste, and abuse of humanitarian aid in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Also, she writes.