Precious Time
By Christy Bozeman
 
Time goes by fast,
faster than we think,
faster than we’d want.
Forever doesn’t last
even if we wish it did.
Not a second should go wasted
when beautiful memories can be made instead.
 
No need to fuss and fight
with the ones we love,
when we only have one life to live
and all this love we can give
 
Living everyday as if it were our last,
never letting a second pass.
Making time precious.

Event Horizon
By Courtney Staib
 
  
September 22, 1990:
 
The autumnal equinox:
our wedding day.
It was the most magnificent, picturesque day of the year,
with trees donning their pulsating crisp golds and scarlet reds,
and the autumn chill closing in as she
glided down the aisle with her flower crown.
Days became shorter and that autumn beauty soon
began to dwindle.
 
 
January 14, 1986:
 
And all at once,
I understood
how unbelievably attracted I was to her.
There was no greater
revelation.
The stillness of the Earth
mixed with the entrenching
echoes
of her voice,
calling out my name.
With her delicate expressions and
resilient personality,
her unscathed being absorbed my entire
soul.
She was a moon,
millions of light years away that I,
so inconsequential,
could not fathom how she
traveled the boundless blackness
to discover
me.
 
 
October 6, 2015:
 
But the end was coming soon.
Our hospital visits became daily events.
Novas lit her body, and were spreading
to every corner of her divine being.
 
 
October 8, 2015:
 
The bleak, white walls held a dense atmosphere
containing residual energies from other ill patients.
Hospitals are the limbo where the ill prepare for
their return to the stars;
the prolonging of the inevitable.
But whose decision is it,
to decide then they depart?
 
 
November 19, 2015:
 
A thin ray of brisk
sunlight peaks through
the blanketed, grey clouds.
The trees stand bare and chilled,
naked and vulnerable.
They say all good things must come to an end,
but where is the end?
In spring, fresh-faced buds of familiar
foliage begin to sprout,
reminding us that
nothing is truly
gone
forever.
 
 
November 24, 2015:
 
As her consciousness began
to dwindle, and her heart beat
one last time,
tidal waves began to obscure my vison,
creating a world of blurred colors, fusing into
gray and black.
I was imprisoned
in a lake
filled with my own tears.
Trapped under ice.
 
 
 
Today:
 
I cannot swim to the surface.
 
With her,
I felt as though I was living in an
infinite summer,
for everyday with her was a perfectly blue,
cloudless sky; now, my blue sky has left
and the smoky, grey fog is too thick
to see through. When I am sleeping, I can feel her warmth next to me.
The indentation of her
memory inhabits the
sheets, yet when I wake
the blankets are cold 
and the trees
are still
bare.
 

For the Birds
 
So many of us
feed the birds even
though we know birds
 
can make it on their own
in any weather,
sun or rain or snow.
 
But those who feed the birds
rarely feed the poor.
Perhaps the reason’s clear.
 
The poor unlike the birds
aren’t that much fun 
to watch, are they?
 
 
Donal Mahoney
 
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TITLE: Satan's Grip: A Novella

Author: Paul Sherman
Publisher: Dreaming Big Publications
Editor-in-Chief:  Kristi King-Morgan, LMSW
Email: Dreamingbigpublications@outlook.com
Genre:  Fiction, occult, supernatural
Amazon Product Page: http://www.amazon.com/Satans-Grip-Novella-Paul-Sherman/dp/0692675639/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1461663124&sr=8-1&keywords=Satan%27s+Grip
Page Count: 116
Formats and Prices:  Paperback, $8.00. Ebook, $2.99
About the Book:   Esther’s eighth birthday. The day that her mother, Charlotte, had been fearing. As a teenager, Charlotte had gotten involved in a satanic cult and had made a promise to Satan that he could have her firstborn child. At the time, she really didn’t believe any of this was true. It was just a silly thing she did to fit in. But now… Can Charlotte save Esther from Satan’s grip? Or is she destined to fulfill that long-ago promise?

Book Review Copies Available to Reviewers in Ebook Format Upon Request. Interested in participating in a virtual book tour?  Email Kristi at Dreamingbigpublications@outlook.com to sign up for a date now!

The Art of Falling Out of Love
by Abigail Beane
 
Phase one:
 
You're a liar. You lied over and over and I'm stuck here wondering where I went wrong. Where did I go wrong?
And while you were well on your way, I was begging you to move on.
And I understand that I hurt you but God damn. I say I'm okay and I feel okay because misery loves company and I've become accustomed to the constant suffering triggered by the endless reminders of you.
And every time I smoke, I think of you and for a second I feel like I'm going to throw up or pass out and then I remember your own fucking words, " Have fun killing yourself with that cancer stick." Another drag, while a smile plays on my bloody, cracked lips and I'm thinking, "Oh baby, I will."
Sometimes I dream of you, other times I'm trying not to think of you or how guilty I feel for for falling for you or hurting you. I feel bad about all of it.
You're always on my mind these days.
Please leave me alone.
 
Phase Two:
 
She wasn't wrong you know. She said she'd rather stay and make it work because even though looking at him now brought up bad memories and it hurt like hell because she couldn't trust him, losing him would've been worse.
And that made me think of you. I can't deny that I hurt you but damn. I was never as bad as you made me out to be.
And this wouldn't be the time to say it's all in your head because that's how you feel and your feelings are valid. Sometimes I feel like I should yell at you because I wish you'd understand that my feelings matter too.
I hope you know that I never meant to hurt you and then you got to thinking. You demonized me like I was going on with my life to spite you. Like I hurt you over and over. Purposefully.
And I know I hurt you because that is how you feel so I can't say that I did not.
I can say sorry and although I couldn't find the words to express how sorry I am, I'd mean it every damn time.
And I'm the one sitting here inhaling smoke, begging you to treat me like a human while you make me feel like a walking, talking, too alive burden.
That's where a line is drawn and crossed.
The line that was blurred because I was drunk on the idea that you could grow up because I know you are hurt and I'm only trying to keep quiet as I watch you play the victim like some broken record stuck on a loop. Back and forth. Back and forth.
You love me but I destroyed you.
And I'm only human. You claim you're terrified to fall in love because my flaws hurt you. I'm terrified to fall in love because I am flawed. We both wanted it to work but, ultimately, I am flawed. And you couldn't make your peace with that. But you swore you would, and I knew you wanted to. But then it was too hard.
I'm terrified to fall in love because you fought like hell for me and my heart and soul were on your side, but you still lost.
So stop telling me about how I hurt you, because I'm fucking falling apart. Stop telling me how impossible it is to love me because I saw your bloody hands that only meant to touch my too sharp soul, and trust me. I fucking know.
You're not the one who has to face the guilt every day.
You're not the one who hurts people simply by being.
So stop reminding me that it's all my fault because I think about it every damn second. And it’s killing me.
 
Phase Three
 
I'm tired of being here, sitting pretty. Impossible for you to love. I want to hate you. God! I want to so bad. That would be easier than knowing. Understanding. Hating myself for it all the same.
I love you. I love you so much. I just wish it was past tense.
I light a cigarette and I hear your voice telling me to have fun killing myself with that cancer stick. And my tired rebellious mind says, "I will" but it was 10 a.m. when I wanted another one, chuckling lamely because you equated addiction to love and it was 10:15 when the feeling subsided. And at 11:06 I was hoping a clock wouldn't sneak into my vision for the next ten minutes. It always did. At 11:11 I wished for endless sleep. At 11:12 I realized that would mean I was alive and breathing and still not good enough for you.
That’s when I started fantasizing about how much closer everything brought me to death.
And I'm not saying I want to die because I don’t. All I'm saying is that I'm sick of how things are and I really don’t mind that I'm as temporary as the memory of you is permanent, because one day it'll be over.
One day I'll be crossing the street, cigarette in hand, mind on you and it'll just end.
Or maybe I'll go in my sleep, dreaming of the thing I was before I was so empty.
I'm not sad. I'm not depressed. I'm not lonely. I'm just here. Day in, day out, trying to deal with all this anger and heartbreak because god damn it, I don't have it in me to hate you and the thought of you makes me sick to my stomach.
Everything about who you're pretending to be makes me feel a lot of different kinds of bad and the thing is, I'm tired of who you are now tainting something that meant so much to me not that long ago.
But one day, it will end.
 
Phase Four
 
It will fade fast and I'll get so tired if holding on and just like that, you'll slip through my fingers and like any responsible person I'll wash away the remnants of you with lukewarm water. I'll dry my ivory skin with the luxury of a better tomorrow. And then I will smoke and I will smoke a lot. Simply for the high because this time I did not think of you once.
And when I'm ready to write again, it will be sewn with the thread of all the words the broken hearted need to hear. And maybe I'll call it "The Art of falling out of love."
Because, as the story goes, I woke up today and everything hurt less and this poem turned to shit because I never meant to want this all to end. This life. With or without you.
And I'm just saying that my words won't drip with longing or heart ache anymore. So please understand, my heart is no longer in it if it's about you. One day your name will be like all the rest. Completely obsolete. Used to mean a hell of a lot more.
Today, tomorrow and always I'll love you, But I'm finally falling out of love and I honestly feel liberated. I can breathe again. So in a way I guess this as close to closure as it gets.
And I'm finally okay with that.
 
Final Phase:
 
Here's to first loves, first heart breaks and for the love of God finally falling out of love.

MY REVIEW:   3 stars.  I had mixed feelings about this book.  I’ll address my thoughts on the overall concept, design and layout first.  I would give a 4.5 or 5 star rating based on first appearances.  Since this is a book on marketing, of course one would expect it to be visually appealing at first glance.  This book does look nice.  The color scheme on the cover works well, the layout looks professional, and the title is catchy and unique.  It all looks good.

The reason for a 3 star rating, though, is that in my opinion the contents didn’t live up to expectations. On one hand, I know that it is too much to expect one book to cover exactly what I need to help with marketing my business because each business and the needs each one will have is different.  Therefore, to cover the bases, generalities are to be expected.  I found the information in this book to be more about explaining why good marketing is needed rather than providing information that I can practically apply to my particular business.  To explain this another way, I’m a psychotherapist.  There are books on theory, and then there are books on how to apply the knowledge in a clinical setting.  Books on theory are good, but then how do you apply what you have learned when you work with your clients?  Workbooks.  This book was less of a how-to workbook and more of a theory.  The book seems to be more useful to the author in selling his services and promoting his business than it is to the customer buying the book.

The whole thing comes across as a sales pitch for why you should hire the author to do the marketing for your business instead of a DIY marketing guidebook, which is fine if that’s what you’re looking for.  I'm the type of person that doesn't want a sales pitch and gets wary right away if someone tries too hard to sell me something.  I want to see prices and hard facts/details right up front.  So I decided to visit the author's website to see if there was a pricelist of services.  I didn't see anything that jumped out at me screaming "click here for prices or packages" or anything like that.  This may just be me personally, but when I'm shopping for a product or services I want to be able to compare costs up front, and when I can't do that, I usually skip on to the next one.  I didn't like the fact that nowhere in the book or in the website could I find even a ballpark estimate of prices.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for a review. I was not required to post a positive review, and all opinions are my own.

America in 4013
By Donal Mahoney
 
Is that lava or simply mud
dripping from the cheeks
of this old woman asking me 
why this library has no books? 
I ask her where she's been 
for the last 2000 years.
Under a rock? In some cave? 
After all, the year is 4013
 
and now the only book extant   
is the Bible and the only copy 
of the Bible is in Rome where 
a few monks older than she is
sit in catacombs all day 
copying pages of it
 
onto yellow foolscap, hoping 
to create another Bible
no one will read, as was the case, 
I'm told, when dusty Bibles 
were in almost every home
and computers were a luxury.
 
But then I soften up because 
I can see this woman was born 
without a cell phone in her ear. 
I tell her if she wants to read 
something wonderful online,
as soon as a computer comes free 
 
I'll call her even though she has 
no cell phone in her ear.
First, however, she must show 
a number, not a name,
tattooed above her navel,
the only form of identification 
accepted in America in 4013. 
 
Donal Mahoney
 
——————————————————--
Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had work published in various publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at  http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html
 

The Unseen
by Christy Bozeman

The little girl with strawberry hair
and a single broken shoe
always seems to have
the broadest smile.
 
The large, lonely man
confined to a wheelchair
always shares his sandwich
in exchange for conversation.
 
Those who have been through
the toughest situations
always manage to show the
most thorough appreciation.
 
Trials don’t last forever,
or at least that’s what they say.
We just have to keep on going:
take it day by day.