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No Map for This
KB Ballentine · Poetry · July 2026
She called to say the doctors found a lump.
Hours away, universe dark above us.
Coming home from dinner, what could we say to our daughter, traveling through the night?
Hours away, universe dark above us.
Coming home from dinner, what could we say to our daughter, traveling through the night?
From iExile Press
Bulă, or How We Invented Quantum
Jaia Papitz
A literary satire about laughter, bureaucracy, and the small cosmic errors that keep reality from sealing itself shut.
eases down the page as the book ages
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Poetry
An Exercise in How Small I Can Shrink Myself
Jessica Covil-Manset
I'll start with the toes,curling them towards the ball of the footin a less imposing pose.
If I bend both legsas the knees intended,I'll leave more sky untouched.A crouch keeps th…
And if I bend the arms the same wayalong their analogous pivots,that will limit the air …
If I bend both legsas the knees intended,I'll leave more sky untouched.A crouch keeps th…
And if I bend the arms the same wayalong their analogous pivots,that will limit the air …
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Poetry
Pathos and Puns, Feeling for Heartache Beneath a Suit of Amore
Robert Witmer
I had learned not to take gravity lightly; even before the apple fell, it weighed heavil…
I knew the first couple hadn’t floated around Eden like cosmonauts in the InternationalS…
Without a DJ, or for that mattereven an AM radio station, I doubted they really knew how…
I knew the first couple hadn’t floated around Eden like cosmonauts in the InternationalS…
Without a DJ, or for that mattereven an AM radio station, I doubted they really knew how…
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Poetry
Just Kick Back, and Let the Wheel Turn
Robert Witmer
He saw through everything, and so it was he saw nothing – the nothing that is not there,…
A wise man who suffered from paranoia once wrote that the invention of absolutely safe c…
Safe places – where death cannot threaten you.
A wise man who suffered from paranoia once wrote that the invention of absolutely safe c…
Safe places – where death cannot threaten you.
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Poetry
Imagine
Jessica Covil-Manset
if we assumed humanity first;if we held our other descriptors,our demands about where fr…
Imagine if we assumedthere was enough to go around;didn't decide who the people werebase…
Imagine if we assumedall people need shelter, food,and hope, above and beyond all that.I…
Imagine if we assumedthere was enough to go around;didn't decide who the people werebase…
Imagine if we assumedall people need shelter, food,and hope, above and beyond all that.I…
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Poetry
The Art of Not Breathing
KB Ballentine
A butterfly flicks its wings and, somewhere,across the world you smile.
When I flip through old files, find your handwritingon a note, an iceberg shatters into …
Roses thrive in your new garden while our palace crumbles into dust – here a peacock cri…
When I flip through old files, find your handwritingon a note, an iceberg shatters into …
Roses thrive in your new garden while our palace crumbles into dust – here a peacock cri…
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From the archive
Jaia Papitz · 2011 · Poetry
A recovered text from the first iExile body — returned to circulation, not as nostalgia, but because it still burns.
Returned to circulation
2009 — Quest
Recovered text
2012 — Symbolics
Recovered text
2014 — Of Else
Recovered text