
VERSIFICATION

dECEMBER
special edition
a VERSIFICATION
degenerate
DISTURBING WORDS
GRAPHIC CONTENT

Fucked Christmas
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by Yash Seyedbagheri
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Now on sale, visions of sugarplums dancing in people’s heads
which you can buy for 25% off
and still be 75% in debt
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just like Santa’s elves, doing slave labor in malls
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while indolent fathers drink, passed out naked in a hall.
Shawn Berman

"Sudden Changes" - AES
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
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by Phoenix Leigh
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Spent Christmas Eve unwrapping Jesus’ body bag
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With my hands and my credit card, snow-struck.
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Last Christmas, I called child protective services,
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same teeth chattering, same bloody nose.
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Barratt Fierens
Autumn AKA The Beautiful Death
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by Barratt Fierens
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You are majestic decay
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All ribs and brown wrap
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‘70s wallpaper
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Low dazzling sunlight across
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littered muddied slopes
Good to the Last Drop
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by Fred Shrum, III
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The bottom of the bottle
Makes its way to my stomach
Liquid gold
Ignites my nerves like flame
I think I made a mistake again
But I don’t know when
I don’t know what day it is
I stumbled up the driveway Christmas Eve
Sometime between late and early
What have you done
She screamed
What have you done

Gerardo Pelayo

Gratias tibi
by Theodoros Chiotis
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The only thing I remember is
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the faces that looked like a mural:
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I was licking the globes of their eyes while
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trying to figure out the most efficient combination
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of benzos, anticonvulsants and knives.
Sara Dobbie
chestnuts roasting on an open pyre
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by CJ Knight
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no christmas tree needed
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nothing to celebrate anyway
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besides-
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feels really weird to party for god’s son
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when you know he has no interest in you at all

Brynna Ferguson
welcome
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by Vic Nogay
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the live oak trees have low branches
that creak in the sway of strung ghosts,
who linger on lands bearing murderous names,
where the blood-stained banner still flies
beneath the star of bethlehem.
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Deep End
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by Brad Beau Cohen
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Concern yourself with where to simmer
in broken water is where you choose
bladderwrack skin nap shiver
of fishbones choking pipes
driftwood candles a blown wish
for deep end reek & acoustics
that ring out to explain away
the storm-wrung bath detritus
"Storm-Wrung Bath" - Jessica Rae Lewis
Park Street on December 25
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by Sreemanti Sengupta
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the night is throwing up its last carnivals
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bored sinatras dunk their fedoras at broken elvises
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i try to hold on to the vision of cold smoke
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struggling against the biting wind
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leaning like phantom santas unto frosted bakery glasses

"Decadence" - Sreemanti Sengupta

Akash Ali
Serves One​
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by Helen Bowie
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The citalopram haze settled
Like dry ice on sliding doors
Vegan Christmas style dinner for 1
Staring so long into the freezer
The freezer stares back at me

last year's christmas morning​
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by Laia Sales Merino
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we were fucking in your room while
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your roommate and i shared a joint
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then we waited for my taxi outside
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all hungover and electric, speaking portuñol
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then a couple with their kids came out all elegant
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they stared at us and we all shouted
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merry christmas!
Gina Sales Merino
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Kiley Lee
silent screams
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by Ankita Sharma
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Like eerie desolate mansions
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Where silence screams stories
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There was something in those eyes,
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Unsettling, silent yet screaming
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When she pawned her only gold earring for milk
Merry Christmas
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by Bob Carlton
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in a corner
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of the bar
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growing old
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alone

Kip Knott

Akash Ali
Pretty Lights
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by Logan Roberts
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Couldn’t tell if it was the
Christmas lights or the painkillers
that made the house
burning down so jolly.
Holidays:
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by Rami Obeid
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Out maneuvering speed demons
To get dinner from the dollar store
Picking up presents
From the pharmacy
Passing out in front of the tv,
Watching Mr. Bean get his head stuck
In a turkey
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Sara Dobbie
Different Bells
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by James Lilley
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I jingle, the empty bottle of bells,
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Swerving all the way,
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Oh what fun it is to be an addict,
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I always have to act the prick.
all over my new silk pajamas
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by L Scully
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on christmas eve
i scratched my face
until it bled

Sara Dobbie

Kip Knott
Residential School of Tongues
by Kevin Gooden
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Sister Agatha nailed my tongue to the desk
Said Native language is speaking in tongues
Father Bruce stuck his tongue in my cunt
Made me recite the lord’s prayer while he raped me
Then the fuckers made us use our tongues to sing Christmas carols
Lol, Procrastination
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by Bina
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It's already ten past ten and looks like
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I haven't done this, I haven't done that
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I'm a big pile of shit that should roll up
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into a ball of candy crack and die
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- Santa
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Sara Dobbie
Taco Bell Is Open on Christmas
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by Meagan Johanson
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The papery crinkle
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of the takeout bag
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is almost like
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opening presents.
In Red Ink
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by David Hay
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My mother is brain dead,
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and my dad sectioned;
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I have a cigarette and nothing
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but time to remember
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how things were when
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everything was simple.

Shawn Berman
CHRISTMAS DAY
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by Amy-Jean Muller
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I remember when Santa came to repossess the car on Christmas Day
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He rang the doorbell
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and there were no surprises
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then mom cried
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and it wasn’t the last time

Chris G
Cocktails that Show Red Light Through Them, On the Rocks
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by Abigail Swire
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It’s Christmas Eve and I’m alone
at a corner bar in Reno.
(Just a short walk in the cold, too dry for snow.)
I guess I was 21. It never mattered.
We spent the day in the warehouse by the tracks
making neon signs for the Passion Club, bone cold,
with a barrel of burning objects.
You say you’re no good for me. You’re going out
alone to do what you do.
There’s a man beside me going on about Area 51.
And it’s only when I get up and put on my coat I notice the
sign above my head:
“Ladies, please do your soliciting discreetly.”

Sara Dobbie

Unexpected Gift
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by Kip Knott
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The dog ate the fruitcake and shit
a festive yule log beneath the artificial tree.
No amount of pine-scented candles and incense
can mask the odors of Alpo and citrons
that festoon plastic branches like garlands.
Sara Dobbie
[a friend gets laid in an unmarked grave]
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by K. K.
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-oh-god-this-is-less-like-
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-Mar-y-Shell-ey-more-in-trus-
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-ive-thought-of-se-men-slow
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-ly-seep-ing-down;-
3 AM Shower​
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by Austin Davis
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The shampoo you left in my tub is called “Himalayan Salt.”
I don’t know what the fuck that means, but it smells like snuggling after sex
so I rinse my hair six times. I feel like an alien pretending to be human,
reading a newspaper upside down on the subway. I twist the knob
hotter and hotter until the pipes squeal inside my walls, until the pain glows on my skin,
until I can’t feel anything but my body softening to bone. The drain gurgles
something sad, as if to say, everything is random and no one cares, baby.

Sara Dobbie
fragments of a childhood nap
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by Megan Nichols
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desert air december early evening seat belt pinch shh shh!
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soft slam window crack wait fetal position wait
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watch strangers wait stay silent wait
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her return her shame smell her smoke
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that buzz busted headlight vengeful curb ice cream

Shawn Berman
David Calogero Centorbi Presents:
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A Long Time Away From the Manger
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After a hard day in His father's woodshop, Jesus and His buddies went out for wine and fish at the Garrison, a Roman bar and tattoo parlor.
They got drunk. And rebellious. Then they got inked.
When Jesus came home He showed it to his father. Joseph bowed his head, hiding his eyes.
When He showed it to his mother, Mary gently put her hands over her heart and began to weep.
Years later on that abandoned, dark, Thursday night, as He knelt in prayer in that foggy, dank, garden, He realized then why His tat--Born To Die-- pained His parents so horribly on that youthful night when He came home from the bar.
Hot Lava Holiday
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by Nate Hoil
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Santa took too long with my Christmas wish,
now I’m selling my soul to the Devil.
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Find me tied up and gagged in your mother’s bathroom.
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I’d blow kisses at anyone who cared to look.
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Fuck poetry. All I hear is a leopard print g-string
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rubbing against a stripper pole.

Nate Hoil
authors exposed
BINA
A solid 20 years old, Bina is currently living and studying in the city of Cambridge, UK, but hails from up north in West Yorkshire - God's own country. She enjoys knitting, bouldering, the colour red, hills, digestive biscuits, and forming collages out of pictures of diseased organs. Bina also likes writing and reading dark poetry (naturally).
HELEN BOWIE
Helen Bowie is a poet, performer and podcaster based in London, UK. Helen has one cat, and several bafflingly strong opinions on highly trivial matters. You can find her laughing at internet culture and ranting about structural inequality on her podcast @yabunreasonable, and her tweets about food, words, politics and sadness @helensulis
THEODOROS CHIOTIS
Theodoros Chiotis’s work has appeared in Litmus, Datableed, Forward Book of Poetry 2017, 3:am, Adventures in Form, Shearsman, Riggwelter, Prototype, Perverse, Aleph, Lune, aflimpseof, Tripwire, amongst others. He lives in Athens, Greece but his head is all over the place. Find him on twitter @selfcoding.
BRAD BEAU COHEN
Brad Beau Cohen’s (he/him) poetry has been published globally by Fourteen Poems & Elska Magazine, American literary journal Versification Zine, anthologised twice by Fincham Press, exhibited in The Hilbert Raum and SomosArt House. His erotica ebook ‘Outside These Lines’ (Berlinable) debuted at No. 8 on Amazon’s gay erotica bestsellers list. Cohen is a queer writer from Guernsey based in London. Cohen is currently approaching publishers with his debut chapbook. More information about him can be found on his website bradcohen.co.uk. His social handles on Instagram and Twitter is @bradbeaucohen
KEVIN GOODEN
Kevin Gooden is a Canadian writer with many First Nations people in his family. He writes about numerous topics and has words at The Sirens Call, Dwelling Literary, The Daily Drunk, and others. He looks forward to the various insanities of 2020 ending in 2021, so we can get back to work on improving our regular crazy stuff, and treating each other better. He says the envelope will never move, unless someone’s willing to push it. He’s on Twitter @KevinGooden
DAVID HAY
David Hay is an English Teacher in the Northwest of England. He has written poetry and prose since the age of 18 when he discovered Virginia Woolf's The Waves and the poetry of John Keats. These and other artists encouraged him to seek his own poetic voice. He has currently been accepted for publication in Dreich, Abridged, Acumen, The Honest Ulsterman, The Dawntreader, Versification, The Babel Tower Notice Board, The Stone of Madness Press, The Fortnightly Review, Nine Muses Poetry, Green Ink Poetry, Dodging the Rain, The Morning Star as well as The New River Press 2020 Anthology.
NATE HOIL
Nate Hoil is a demon disguised as a human. His demon body is not very hot. You can find more of his work at natehoil.com. He’s on Twitter @natehoil.
JAMES LILLEY
James Lilley, 33, Married Father of three. From Swansea, Wales works by day as a network engineer, is a retired professional boxer and active Bareknuckle Fighter and MMA fighter. Has been writing as a hobby since he was young, deciding to take the hobby more seriously this year enrolling for a Part Time Degree in Creative Writing.
VIC NOGAY
Vic Nogay writes to explore her traumas, misremembrances, and Ohio, where she is from. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Versification, Anti-Heroin Chic, (mac)ro(mic), Ellipsis, and other journals. Twitter: @vicnogay. Read: linktr.ee/vicnogay.
LAIA SALES MERINO
Laia Sales Merino is a poet from the Catalan Pyrenees currently based in Barcelona. Her work can be found inharana poetry, I’ll Show you Mine Journal and perhappened among others. She is currently out of work which means that she's smoking and cursing from a different balcony every week. Fuck. IG: @lai_to_the_sound
SREEMANTI SENGUPTA
Sreemanti Sengupta hates talking unless it’s with a green dot, the ones that glow with every breath. Being naturally impractical, she is perpetually heartbroken. She edits The Odd Magazine and tweets at @sreemantisen. Read her stuff at https://senguptasreemanti.wixsite.com/sree
YASH SEYEDBAGHERI
​Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. His story, “Soon,” was nominated for a Pushcart. Yash has also had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, Café Lit, and Ariel Chart, among others.
ANKITA SHARMA
A writer, artist and a compulsive book hoarder, Ankita Sharma resides in India. When not petting other people’s dogs, she can be found writing, reading or creating artworks. She has authored four books. Her poetry has been published in anthologies such as the BRAG Magazine (UK), Versification Zine and Lakdi Ka Pul-II and III. Her artworks have appeared on the cover pages of a few Indian and international books. Her latest novel ‘The Linear Tide’ is on Amazon world wide. Quite happy being a daydreamer, an over-thinker and a misfit, she posts her works on Instagram @ankita.s.26 and yells on twitter @AnkitaSharma_26