(Note: We are proud to have published Rose Blake this week and look forward to doing so again soon. For anyone who wants to know why we feature single short poems, it is due to the fact that when poems are bunched together it often results in one or more not getting full attention. This way it does not happen like that. Plus we say so! The Eds.)

Hey, does it hurt you as much as it hurts me to see your own child cry my pretty eyes out while you sit there chewing me out I bet it doesn’t hurt you nearly as much as me the pain collects in my chest—too much for a child to bear. Alone.

But sometimes, I think differently. That maybe, you do love me. That maybe, we both have forests of pain in our chests. Sometimes, light shines through.

Rose Blake

(The header provided by Dale Williams Barrigar, who is also responsible for the following wonderful image of the very proper Colonel)