One Poem Only

Morning Magic Maggie DeversA princess sits at the edge of my bedTelling fantastical stories,My sleepy head tripping over the details But in line with the nuance.She prattles like a caffeinated sage,Wisdom seeping out of jumbled phrases,Bits of stories, weaving togetherHer dreams, desires, realities.It’s all the same,She speaks her life.

AloofLuwaAloof poof, jump off the roof as proofThey use the news to deduce and reduce the abuseThrown and blown our way while we moan and groanUnable to table the insatiable desire for the fableThat makes us weaker, bleaker yet we are eagerFor we have aligned, misaligned our brains to malignImages that damages, and abscond our privileges.More from Luwa ↓@luwawrites on InstagramYou can listen and watch me read Beauty Allures by Luwa on Instagram @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

I Promise Riley Hope McPheters When you are sad-It feels that is who you are.You are not the sad of a hard day,Nor the sad of a loved one gone too soon,You are a sad that is in your blood,Cold and slow.A depression deeper than the depths of rock bottom.Rock bottom becomes your safety net-And when it is not deep enough to relate to the pain within your own walls,You scrape with your nails to get even deeper into the depths of your own sorrow.Days are warped- time is too fast yet manages to be miserably slow.The perfunctory lives of those around you drive you into an underworld of isolation that youfeel as if you don’t want to come up from.And not all do.We lose many from sadness. Inner war that comes with no peace treaty. Anger andtraumas many grow so numb to.An inner frustration with no exit point.Sadness is us. And we are sadness.However, some of us get cold to the darkness- or curious of the light up above. Some of usstart climbing,Knowing that no fall could be as damaging as the darkness below we once knew so so well.The lives of routine we once feared became the lives of ambition,Prosperity,Resilience,And strength we learned to admire the most.To feel the warmth of the light and know it was never too far. To feel the sadness seep outof the very veins that once held it.To be full of so much brightness- no darkness could outweigh what is within.To be ok with the darkness and look forward to the light.To be so whole. To be so happy.It is possible.Find your light. And accept your darkness.Growth happens there.I promise.More from Riley Hope McPheters ↓@rileyhmcpheters on InstagramShe is a member of @PoetzPortalFW, that exists to awaken consciousness and cultivate liberated creative practice through the transformative power of poetry, sound, and communal dialogue.Mentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

Happiness Navya Chaudhary If you are out there chasing happiness,Then I want you to remember this.If you're chasing it,It's definitely not yours.Happiness is not somewhere out there,It's hidden in those small moments around you.The one you don't notice very often.And sometimes,You don't even have to find it.You can create it.Why wait for someone else to bring you happiness?When you can be that person for yourself.Do the things you've wanted to do for so long.Try that new drink before it's off the menu.Watch that movie before it leaves the theatre.Buy yourself the flowers you always wanted.Go.Now.Why are you still here?More from Navya Chaudhary ↓@chaoticconfessor on InstagramHer book, Unfinished Letters, is out now.Mentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Good. She was murdered by ICE on January 7, 2026. In 2020, she won the undergraduate Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020 for this poem.Jan 5 - Becoming Again by Reya @moodmakerperson on Instagram. Her book, Teenage Tide, is available now.Jan 6 - To Fall Is to Begin by Irina Vérène @queen_of_gore on Instagram. They are featured in Haunted Words Press’ anthology, Our Dearest Devotions, which contains their flash fiction piece about friendship, fae magic, and gender transition.Jan 7 - Transmorphing by Özge Lena @lenaozge on Instagram. You can find her on Substack @lenaozge where she presents her new approach to poetry, Catapoetry. It is a poetic framework about the interwoven and inseparable catastrophes of our age. You can listen to me read luminous girl lullaby by Özge Lena on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.Jan 8 - Genesis of Her by Kiran Ashraf @kiran_ashraf on Instagram and @kiranashraf7 on Substack.Jan 9 - Part Oracle, Part Warrior by Aslam @smmaslam on Instagram and @aslammohammed on Substack. His book, Paper Boat in Rumi’s Garden, is available now.Jan 10 - The Tender Descending by Ellie A

The Tender DescendingEllie AugustinThe earth exhales and everything slows.The trees remember what it means to be bare.We gather what warmth remains in our handsand stitch our dreams beneath quiet skies.Each flake that lands upon the skinis a messenger of mercy,a reminder that even in endings,something tender still descends.More from Ellie A ↓@lines_between_living on Instagram and @linesbtwnliving on SubstackRead more from her on her blog, Lines Between LivingMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

part oracle, part warrior Aslam a crescent moon, hangs like a scaron her shoulder’s silence.her lips sealedby vow or violence.her eyes do not ask.they know.they have watched empires bleedon blades of their own lies.she stands in gray,spine unbent,each scar a sentenceshe never had to explain.call it rebellion.call it myth.a womanwho no longer waits.she is the ink and the echo,the storm braided into calm.you may look,but you will not read her.not everyone seeswhat silence reveals.so i offer you a line,a voice shaped by defiance,a presence drawn in truth.let me speak for her,since her lips are sealed:she would not kneel.she is herefor you to bow.More from Aslam ↓@smmaslam on Instagram@aslammohammed on SubstackHis book, Paper Boat in Rumi’s Garden, is available nowMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

On Learning to Dissect Fetal PigsRenée Nicole GoodThis poem was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020.i want back my rocking chairs,solipsist sunsets,& coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores(mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they burned the hairs inside my nostrils,& salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeatribosomeendoplasmic—lactic acidstamenat the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills—i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can’t point to anymore, maybe my gut—maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge that used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead.can i let them both be? this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroomnow i can’t believe—that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths “make room for wonder”—all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:life is merelyto ovum and spermand where those two meetand how often and how welland what dies there.

Genesis of HerKiran AshrafHer body is like a powerful tidelooming in an ever-flowing motionchewing on her emotions like riceshe aches to read in sheltering armswearing her chaos for a better lifeher skin is a wild thing at its bestmemories in her songs of griefnow trembled and hummed in her boneslike a silent gust of unfinished wreckageor an absent orchestra of musical hellher two eyes wander through the meadowslessons forced on her forgiving shouldersall her exhausting days and unsent textsare winding up in threads of crocheted woolshe exists in this unyielding temporalgrowing stronger among unseen enemiesMore from Kiran Ashraf ↓@kiran_ashraf on Instagram and @kiranashraf7 on SubstackMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

TransmorphingÖzge LenaThis Poem was commended for Winged Muse Poetry Competition of Winged Moon Literary MagazineAfter Harpy by Valerie HammondIn seven nights she will burstinto nothing. Now all alone in a creamcoloured void, a woundlike creature, a word hunger like no other.Soon you will meet herin the neon gloaming, after the ruby acheof not writing for a long winter,frost flowers in your heart. Her low wingswill be closed, sharp clawspointing down and down, some frozensadness on her pale face.Sunset’s vermilion beams will bleedinto your lungs as you holdher by hair, unfurl the ribbon to tie itaround your neck, to see your freedomknotted in its silk, and breathelife into her mouth. You will watch herunfold her wings wide, talonswill scratch the soft air when she cloaksyou tight until you morph intoa harpy to write a septet poem in red ink.More from Özge Lena ↓@lenaozge on InstagramYou can find her on Substack @lenaozge where she presents her new approach to poetry, Catapoetry. It is a poetic framework about the interwoven and inseparable catastrophes of our age.You can listen to me read luminous girl lullaby by Özge Lena on Instagram @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

To Fall Is to BeginIrina Vérènei won’t be draggedpast the pearly gates—i’ll leave of my own volition.with these heavenly rulesstifling my breath,i must say,it seems a wise decision.amidst the flamesand the curling smoke,i shall rise anew—after all,a fall from heaven,a descent to hell,is a baptism, too.More from Irina Vérène ↓@queen_of_gore on InstagramThey are featured in Haunted Words Press' anthology, Our Dearest Devotions, which contains their flash fiction piece about friendship, fae magic, and gender transition.Mentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

Becoming AgainReyaI didn’t rise like fire —I rose like forgiveness.Lost me once, still trying,sky’s the limit, I’m craving the climb.Thoughts that once broke menow make me alive again.Words find me, like a heart reborn —one heartbreak broke a million dreams,but that heartbreak built me stronger —heartless enough to fight for them again.More from Reya ↓@moodmakerperson on InstagramHer book, Teenage Tide, is available now.Mentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.Dec 29 - Eclipse of the Self by Ruvaani @ruvaani.unclaimed on Instagram. Her book, The Sunken Daffodil, is out now.Dec 30 - Cold Plunging by Kristin Yates @beautefantasy on Instagram. You can find links to her published work on her Linktree.Dec 31 - Of love and hell by Kajal @mermaidspen_ on Instagram and @mermaidspen on Substack.Jan 1 - New Dawn by Benedicta Kyeremaa Addai @Kyere_mah on Instagram. She was published in the anthology, Ancestors, answer me, a compilation of shortlisted poems entered into the 2025 New Voices Poetry Contest Curated by Creative Project Ghana. The New Voices Contest was born from a desire to give poetic voices in Ghana a platform to celebrate the richness of Ghanaian expression, language and imagination. A copy of the anthology can be found at the website of New Voices Poetry Contest or Creative Ghana Project on Instagram.Jan 2 - January Born by JC @theincidentalpoet on Instagram and Substack.Jan 3 - "My heart is a museum of every person I've ever loved" by Megan Phillips @metaphor_megg on Instagram. Her book, Uncomfortably Present, is available now.Jan 4Crawl SpaceMaggie DeversThis was the year of the snakeBut I didn’t realize it until the endNow I feel free from my itchy skin Like emerging from the steam roomPores open, every ounce of old squoze out...

“My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved” Megan Phillips My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever lovedMy Dad’s birthday is national start over dayYesterday I told the ocean that I would let go of all the victim bullshitI would let the past me be in the rearviewI will be new after washing my feet in the sandVenus, I said,I will have more funAnd loveAnd I won’t be bitter and sadAbout what I don’t haveI will appreciate being 34 and on vacation with my husband aloneI will appreciate the new pet sitter who I know will train my dog I will appreciate the rabbits I saw 3-4 times this weekI will appreciate the small crab on the beach who was walked on but god damn it, he livedMy heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved His Mom is Portmeirion plates and ‘Hey there Delilah” Because she thought it reminded her of usWhich made no damn sense but it’s her song nowMy heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever lovedMy grandfather it’s coffee shops and poppiesMy grandmother it’s yellow daffodils cigarettes and knit sweatersMy mom is MAC Red lipstickMy Dad is tanned freckled skinMy husband is blue eyes and big handsMore from Megan Phillips ↓@metaphor_megg on InstagramHer book, Uncomfortably Present, is available now.Mentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

January Born JC I was winter’s child,wrapped in borrowed wool,breath small as frost on windowpanes.
The world outside was brittle then,trees bare-boned againsta sky that never learned warmth,roads lined with grit and quiet.
Inside, there was laughter,steam from mugs that foggedthe kitchen glass,a lullaby of radiators clankingas if they toowere proud to keep me alive.
January taught me patience—that buds sleep long before they bloom,that light returns in rationed teaspoons,that beginnings aren’t always bright,but they are strong.
And so when I look back,I see my first days threaded with cold,yet stitched with care,a child born not to fireworks,but to the hush of snow,the steady hands of a yearjust learning how to start again.More from JC ↓@theincidentalpoet on Instagram and SubstackMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

New DawnKyeremah ‎Smile on me,‎the Sun is awakening.‎Yesterday and today left no crumbs‎We begin from there.‎‎I won't tell you how to live ‎But be happy, ‎be happy ‎‎One step at a time ‎Love, eat and pray‎Give thanks and make merry.‎‎Today will be gone ‎So will you, someday ‎But what will matter‎Is that you lived well.‎‎So be happy,‎be happy. More from Kyeremah ↓@Kyere_mah on InstagramShe was published in the anthology, Ancestors, answer me, a compilation of shortlisted poems entered into the 2025 New Voices Poetry Contest Curated by Creative Project Ghana. The New Voices Contest was born from a desire to give poetic voices in Ghana a platform to celebrate the richness of Ghanaian expression, language and imagination. A copy of the anthology can be found at the website of New Voices Poetry Contest or Creative Ghana Project on Instagram. Mentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

Of Love and Hell Kajal Of how the hell fell in loveand went straight to heaven, I know the story of a dovewho used to weep for a raven.Nights when Earth criedfor tearing Sun and Moon apart,When horizons used to pain world,there was no war in the name of art.Take me back to the timewhen agony was not a trend, time of ancients,where lies beginnings end.More from Kajal ↓@mermaidspen_ on Instagram@mermaidspen on SubstackMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

Cold Plunging Kristin Yates Breath leaves my lipslike a bird, andI feel the cardinalsand the chickadeesand the coldin my handssing.I become the shiverof saying it:I love youenoughto let you live.More from Kristin Yates ↓@beautefantasy on InstagramYou can find links to her published work on her LinktreeMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

Eclipse of the Self Ruvaani I dissolved in the shadow of my own becoming,where every heartbeat was an echo of absence,and every breath a question unspoken.The world pressed against my ribs,but in the hollow between despair and forgetting,a seed trembled—ancient, patient, luminous.From it rose fire unbidden,not to burn what remained,but to weave the fragments of meinto a new geometry of being.I walked through the ruins of yesterday,not seeking light, but becoming it,each step an unmaking and a return,each scar a hymn,each tear a river that bore me home.And when dawn finally leaned into my chest,I did not rise as I was—I rose as I had always been:a soul forged in shadow,tempered in loss,and rebornin the quiet, unrelenting brilliance of myself. More from Ruvaani ↓@ruvaani.unclaimed on InstagramHer book, The Sunken Daffodil, is out nowMentioned in this episode:Join the mailing list to be the first to know when OPO submissions open ⬇️🖋️ Read My Newsletter: Free Flow 🖋️

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.Dec 22 - From a Home, to a House by Gunneet Kaur Bhamra @wordsmith._.witxh on Instagram. She's founder of a creative club for teenage writers, called The Pioneering Pens. Members learn new forms and styles of poetry, have monthly theme based challenges, edit weekly newsletter and make every voice heard. If you're interested in joining, DM Gunneet @wordsmith._.witxh.Dec 23 - For the Pines by Amanda Galeotti @amandagaleotti on Instagram.Dec 24 - The Miseducation (How the Sugarcane Remembers Us) by Lia D. Elen Listen to me read another poem by Lia on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.Dec 25 - “little tree” by E.E. CummingsDec 26 - Silent Echoes by Zahra @zaarraaaa__ on Instagram.Dec 27 - Return to Light by Gordan Struić @gstruic on Instagram, @gordanstruic on Substack.Dec 28Her Name Maggie DeversHer name is not the Venus of Willendorf,But she will answer to it.Her name exists in another tongue We no longer knowA language that came before Venus.I imagine her name meant bounty,Her name meant overflow,Her name meant life.Scholars say she shows us the ideal of ancient beauty,But I see woman.And the weight she holds in her hips Outlives her carver,Outlives the rock,Outlives mountainsTo find us and fill us with her form.More from Maggie Devers ↓My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on...