Journey of the Heart

  Perfection b y Christina Tsirkas   What exactly is perfection Aside from someone's individual reflection Of how a woman should look, act, or be An idea that prevents us from feeling free All these ideals society commands Are nothing more than reprimands Restraints on our individuality Attempts at controlling our mentality For those convinced they don't fit in Are easier to instill with chagrin Conforming to be accepted No matter how much their psyche rejected Whatever concept they've embraced Just to avoid feeling disgraced But what if we could transform perfection To send us in a positive direction Not outward but within Helping us to reimagine A direction few endeavor to delve One leading to our authentic selves A profound journey deep inside To see us through our own eyes For we are perfect as we are Even with every flaw and scar To be ourselves is an honor One from which we should not wander. Christina Tsirkas is an aspiring poet, writer, and wild horse advocate who

Hip-deep and emerging by Tracie Nichols  trailing my eyes through replete green I am hip-deep in now. daffodils. erect moss. brash onion grasses punching round blades from frost-heaved soil. Cooper's hawk drops, skims, misses, shouts his hunger and the red maple buds, and the red-winged blackbird, and the soft new air. Tracie Nichols , M.A. is a poet, copyeditor and facilitator. She works and creates under rustling trees in southeastern Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband, a very determined ginger tabby named Strider, and, for an unexpected moment, two of her adult children. Her work has appeared in four print anthologies of women’s poetry and is forthcoming in Rogue Agent Journal. If you're intrigued by the power of words to spark personal and community transformation, check out her workshops and more of her poems on her website. You can also reach her at   tracienicholswriting@gmail.com *For submission guidelines,  click here. *

  Ode to Maiden, Mother, Crone By Misty Dawn Shakti Sharma Can I show my skin and my shadows? The deep wounds are like glaciers.    Can you see me and bear witness to the sorrow I have carried? I'm not the only one who has carried things too heavy.    I am woman. A deep vessel for the sins of the mortal.  I have borne more than my bones should be able to carry.  When I was young, I was pillaged.  When I was postpartum, I was useless.  When I was old, I was forgotten.  I woke up to what I am in the depths of my family's twisted stories.  I took a breath and stared those ugly demons down.  They cowered beneath the force of my womanly anger! Anger that has built upon generations.    I understood so many things that have been stripped from us women.    I know I did not come from a man, instead it is Man who is birthed from me! I am the Divine Portal between the spirit world and Earth's Plains.    I am not irrational. I have an intuition that cycles with the moon. You've fea