Stage Set
James Penha
…the actors who played you
rehearsing lines that couldn’t
bring you to love.
—Alex Dimitrov, “January”
“Here’s the scene: Airbnb has prospective guests
to ask about a room— They say they are going
to think about it, but they never reply. And
then someone… something breaks in the room
costing time and money to fix. Coincidence?
No way; they work together. But it’s not my
little bed ‘n’ breakfast they want to fail. They
don’t care about money or business. They just
want to drive me crazy. And they do. But why?
I don’t know. Do you?”
.
And that’s when I should enter
stage left with the lines I have spoken many, many
times before to no acclaim, to hoots and hollers:
lines like “Who are these people out to get you?”
and “Isn’t that how a business works: people come
and people go and things break and must be fixed.”
It’s not safe to play the antagonist in this drama. It’s
too real. And so I hide in the wings, miming the fool,
miss my marks and cues, speak no speeches, trippingly
exit to the lounge where I wait for this damn play to end.
Poetry:
Wither by Gina Marie Bernard
Barely by Brennan Thomas
Half-Life by Allison Walters Luther
A Younger Me’s Comfort by Rory Frasch
Rage by Afra Ahmad
It is March Again by Afra Ahmad
Disconnect by Mary Grace van der Kroef
Panic Attack by Devon McConnell Bacon
Sandman by Charlie Bowden
Sat in a New York Flat, Stirring Tea by Charlie Bowden
Reverie by Anastasia DiFonzo
I Learn I’m Left to Save Myself by Anastasia DiFonzo
That Which Surfaces by Cin Que
The Uncaged Arise at Dawn by Frank Njugi
Prose:
Momma Said by Atlas Booth
Learn to Control Your Anger by Dani Puteri
The Nature of Healing by Corrinne Brumby
Spring by Shweta Chhachhia
Biography: A native New Yorker, James Penha (he/him
Mental Rhythm Magazine 