REVENGE

20 wrathful writers rise

Image by Alessandra Shalbe.

The Rise and Fall of a Small-Town Rapist - Maggie McCombs

Happy, happy 21,
we sang that night- 
turned day 
to a
birthday boy
we couldn’t trust.

He gazed. Then he got
what he wanted, 
deserved. He
closed the case 
before putting away
the gun, the sear:
The weapons formed 
against us prospered, burned 
us, cauterized in lust, while

He made the grave mistake 
I fear, 
       of
          violating
                      us.
…

Well, sir, 
now that we’re done 
I’m on my way to tell the others. 
First, burn the tapes. 
The party’s over, 
so stop recording: It’s going to
make your girlfriend jealous. 

This is sick. I’m just 19 —
Don’t buy me shit to drink!
Please take me home so
I can pray shower-psalms, like 109:
— Someone: 

Please, I beg you, hear my scream
ancestral: I’m seeing flashes, black, red, here
where Mom’s about to find me wet and 
blacked-out: for you, my tarnished lover,
Foul, just had to have your fun.

----
Mother, I’m going to tell 
The others of the stars I saw: 
of Kali Ma! My vag-ilante justice
& what the gods have done.

Or was it, was it, was it me
Who pointed that barrel down?
It was ramrod straight and rotten 
when he made that nasty, nasty grunt. 

----
Motherfucker, I buried you 
in me, you see so now 
To dust you go, to dust!

While we dance around your gravestone 
Since it’s your last thing
standing
up.

The girls, six feet above you, gloat
in glee & finally cock the gun.

Our birthday suits are on, you see!
We’ve made our fun gathering 
for donning our own skin again.

Our laughter raucous, 
a joint gaffaw:
“We pour one out, pour one out! Do
all our family’s women proud.” 

We triumph because 
“He’s done 
    done,
        done!”
               Gone and dead in ‘21. 

© Maggie McCombs 2025

Image by Nikita Skripnik.

Venom Stirred Honey - Andy Edge

Within these darkened rooms where night holds court,
your essence lingers—a vapor harsh and dulcet.

I taste your absence in every sip,
of every drink.

The secrets we concealed beneath moss-covered rocks
stir with impatience, yearning for dawn.
I water them with salt confessions,
my garden of splendid, dreadful creations.

A blossoming maliciousness I cradle,
a dark jewel plucked from the sea.

Your name is a secret scratched into old walls,
like a prayer or maybe a curse and 
tonight I craft a new elixir
from honey,
from venom,
from time.

And when you return to drink from these lips,
you'll find I've become your poison, not the cure.

© Andy Edge 2025

Image by Cottonbro Studio.

Enamel Eye - Jozef Cain

it's the generational debt 
paid out in full 

it's the cold blue steel 
between ribs 

IT'S THE BLADE 

it's the words you weave 
the night of the opera

it's the phantom notes 
the things we say
when we're not around 

IT'S THE EYES

in the back of your head 

do you speak ill o' the dead
to getta rise outta the living  

and does that make 
the mundane
seem colourful 

IT'S THE RED

it's the intrusive thoughts 
the empty mind 
it's the blind rage 

it's the order 
out of spite 
for chaos 

IT'S THE TEETH

© Jozef Cain 2025

Image by Jackline Addis Ababa.

Alchemy of Retribution - The Forgotten Muse

What twisted alchemy is this?
This fetid, festering cesspool of contradiction and control,
This tenebrous concoction of peril and despair,
This Hell of Hells!

I asked for tenderness, you gave me bitterness.
I begged for happiness, you gave me loneliness.
I cried for reprieve, you gave me deceit.
You said you would make me whole, but I’ve never been so hollow.
You said I could dream, but you only gave me nightmares.
You said I was safe, but you drowned me in terror.

So maybe…,
Maybe it’s time to let you go.
Maybe I’ll no longer reach for you.
Maybe that’s okay.

A bittersweet ending,
I wish you nothing but peace.

But wait…
Perish that thought!

The peace you stole from me, I now deny you.
I won’t go quietly into the night.
For once, I’ll hang you out to dry.

I’ll throw you to the wolves.
I’ll return you to the streets
you so desperately cling to
like a chewed, rancid piece of gum.
I’ll be the dark cloud ever hanging over your head.

I am the weapon fashioned against you.
Heaven help you now.

© The Forgotten Muse 2025

Image by Victor Moragriega.

Prophecy Ire - Edward Swafford

In secondhand seclusion it’s always someone holding
My helm, effaced star sign numerology numbering 12
Thirteenth is the fear, it’s foretold
God complexes come, go, come again, and thus cower
I can’t help the heavens if hermeticism comes…
With a halcyon hushhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
And what of onerous whispers, wheels of the Zodiac?
Set in predestined motions of deterministic rule, HA

Nobody rules my coin-flipped chanced encounters of
Those febrile, frangible, fourth-walled
Cosmic underlings, my nom de plume was already
Scrawled. In. Such. Salacious. STARBURSTS.
Destiny never looks up, only behind, non-believer ills
The cure is pure chicanery from palimpsest scribes
Not becoming, most unbecoming, everybody bleeds
For fifteen seconds of bradyonic r-e-v-o-l-u-t-i-o-n-s

So, spin for me on one limp, lodestar leg, until you
Feel the gravitational luster
Nix any allayed allure, it’s just delayed gratification
Cue celestial bodies atop down-to-earth quagmires
A situational morass, when will they learn to glow
Like it’s one motherfuckin’ BIG BANG
All over again (and again) clerisy creationists gAiN
The cardinal zenith.

© Edward Swafford 2025

image by Jayson Hinrichsen.

Mockingbird Sings Without Conscience - J. Kayla

It was raining— the kind of rain
no one washes a car in.
But I was there.
And so was James.

Twenty-two.
Black.
Fresh out of prison.
Mouth full of flirt
sharp enough to slice
boredom in half.

We talked pop songs, tossed jokes,
shared the kind of barbed
retorts girls my age
mistook for grown.

I liked the attention— until I didn’t.
Until it swelled too big for me.

We were all on detail that day—
until he pulled me
into a closet bathroom.

Small as a confession booth.
Dark as a dare.
You're grown.

Blackness.

Three by three.
Sink in front of me.
Stomach pressed to porcelain.
His hand— a sudden tug.

Shorts down. Quick. Sharp.

My mind left me, hovered above,
trying to make sense
of hands that weren’t mine.

“Just the tip,” he promised.

Two pushes.
Couldn’t seat himself.
Didn’t need to.

I didn’t speak.
Not because I wouldn’t—
but because I didn’t know
what words made something like that stop.
”No” was a barely
forming shape in the dark.

Light.

The door swung open before
anything barely started
could finish—
before I could name
what was happening.

Brenda— Black.
Older. Heavyset.
No-nonsense:

“You two stop foolin’ around on the clock. Little Bit, get to the office.”

And to him, a hiss:

“A white girl, James? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Her overheard words hit harder
than his body.
I wasn’t a girl anymore.
I was the problem.

That was the end. Or the beginning.
Depends where you start the song.

Celina rough around the edges,
tanned leather skin,
nicotine-stained acrylic
tips tapping on a desk.
The woman who taught me
to do makeup after shifts
asked me two things:

Did you want it? No.
Did he hurt you? No.

“Damn girl, you really shouldn’t have
been— so friendly with him.”

As if that was the crime.
As if kindness was an invitation.
As if silence meant yes.

She never asked what happened.
Never asked if I said yes.
Never asked why I looked like
I was shaking from the inside out.

No one asked how it felt
to carry silence
like it was my birthright privilege.

I didn’t lie. I would’ve told the truth—
if someone had asked.

But no one wanted truth.
Not really.

Not Celina,
who didn’t want trouble.
Not Brenda,
who wanted me quiet.

Not me—
who let shame bloom
from what no one saw,
let it blanket my protests
until I carried partial blame.

God forbid I be that white girl.
God forbid I ask for help understanding
what clearly didn’t happen.

So I folded my innocence
like a uniform I no longer fit.

Tucked it beside my voice
and went back to work.

I was seventeen.
Still a kid.

But I learned how the world works
in three feet of darkness.

Apparently,
my silence was easier to budget
than the truth.

Apparently,
my innocence and identity
were just the cost of running a car wash.

To Kill a Mockingbird was required reading in high school.

Mockingbird song— mocking me.
Mocking justice.

I wonder if the memory bothers them
the way it still bothers me.

I never needed to kill the mockingbird.

Just to name it.
Name what it was.

Even after I left for college,
they still asked about Little Bit—
like I didn’t outgrow that name

the day I stopped being
a girl, the day I learned
rumors could cover over |
innocence with the sound
of washing cars.

© J. Kayla 2025

Image by Daniil Konstantin.

Caroline - Ruth Boukhari

Paint me blond and sanguine savage. In your image you moulded
me, your student of subterfuge. Condemn my grief, say I never stood
a chance with impulses such as these seared to your bloody deeds.
Heaven was a tolerable thought until I made you the source of ALL. You
of ichor and golden flecks. You, devourer of sweethearts and lascivious
love. Will you abandon me? The desperate and on her porcelain knees,
with hand on the switch that will turn the world amaranthine. Am I
your lover or your monster? If you run, what happens next will leave
bloodied stains on your lucent hands for all the lives I annihilate. Feel my
mouth clasped to your heart — desert me and that mistake will be your last.

© Ruth Boukhari 2025 - originally published in The Mad River, and revamped for REVENGE.

Image by Ulaş Ocaklı.

I Crave It - Shay Brené

Can I be vindictive?
Can I hurt you as much as you hurt me?
Could I do that and not blink an eye,
While I look you straight in yours,
So, you can watch me torture you.
Could I distort your mind?
Could I leave you lying on the floor unconscious
Then, wake up confused—
You don’t understand how the hell you ended up here.
You scream for me to help you, and I will watch you suffocate.
You are left trying to save yourself, as I sleep peacefully in bed.
I will feed you false promises,
Share with you dark secrets,
And allow you to believe that you are valuable,
All to take it away.
I will leave you on the verge of overdosing off this drug I forced upon you.
I watched you trip, and almost die
But, I do not crash with you.
I will laugh instead at your misery.
Knowing that in the morning, I got mine and I will be fine.
While I leave you there to bleed.
You've violated my womanhood,
Gaslit me,
Berated me with accusations, false narratives
That you forced me to believe
You pinned me against the window by my neck
Drug me to the point I can't recall again
You didn't care
So, I ask,
Can I be vindictive?
Do I have it in me to do you like you did me?
Just know there's a bullet with your name on it
With fury coursing through my veins
I crave it, the revenge

© Shay Brené 2025

Image by Rodolfo Clix.

I Threw You a Funeral - Melanie Cole

You never brought me flowers
Except for a single tuft of yarrow
How fitting as a declaration of war

I planted a garden of dahlias
The black dinner plate variety
Each one, a symbol of your betrayal and demise

I gathered up some lilies
White stargazers, real showstoppers
And threw you a funeral that you quietly did not attend

I opened up a flower shop
And every single red rose
I painted black by hand

I used the scissors that you gifted me
To cut and maul through stems and twigs
As if it were your effigy

I hope there’s a little voice
In the back of your head at night
That whispers:

“Don’t fuck with florists.”

© Melanie Cole 2025

Image by Milad Farhani.

The Worst Traitor - V. Walker

women are born under the rubble
so, tell me, 
how could you break another woman
like she was nothing?

you never considered 
my humanity, 
never considered
the heart in your hands. 

you continue 
your falsities of friendship,
you continue 
crumbling my castle.

how does it feel
winning without consequence?

how does it feel knowing
you made another woman’s
heart bleed?

how does it feel knowing
I lie in wait?

© V. Walker 2025

Image by Ulaş Ocaklı.

Trenchant Remark - Ann Marie Steele

No, you can’t rehash the past
pretend it away
what it is, what it was*
words — caustic — scathing from your lips
those trenchant remarks
no, there are no redo’s

I said I’d swallow
but not all of your muck
in this movie song* called life
why still ride this train —
tandem — together?

If cleanliness is next to godliness
then I guess my roller girl* façade
trifling ingénue to your set
skating away
take after take
groping for your prism
that rare exuding gleam —
flailing, I’ll eventually

flatten on the asphalt
feast on gravel
once and for all;
nothin’ will wash that down.

That part of your soul
you wear like a crown
coming only in cycles —
your lunar rainbow
I glimpse when you’re
not drowning,
forgetting your lines,
inundating those demons
what they did
your older brothers’ friends —
we deserve more than
what it was, what it is
we do.

© Ann Marie Steele 2025 - originally published in Scrittura, and revamped for REVENGE.

Image by Murat Esibatir.

Icy Secret - Linda Kowalchek

Cloaked in the imperfection of your gargantuan home.
A gaudy monstrosity compiled of raw concrete and spalling bricks.
Rodents deem the decor offensive and refuse to occupy its crawl space.

Neighborhood rats are sickened by the sight of your submissive wife and subservient children.
A family brainwashed by your lies and delusions.
They genuflect as if you are their deity on the rare occasion you grace them with your presence.

But I know who and what you truly are.
Less than a weak and pitiful shell of a wanna-be man.
A never-was who basks in the glow of stories of glory days that never were.

I know what you did.
An act so vile the most sinful of sinners shiver at your sight.
They hang their heads in shame on your behalf as they know you are incapable of remorse.

I never told anyone what you did.
Do wifey and your spawn know your secret?
Do they know our secret or are they oblivious to the sinking depth of your depravity?

I hold the cards now.
My winning hand will take everything from you.
Your false facade will crack and crumble bringing you to your crooked knees.

Your oblivious little family will have to worship someone new.
They will forget they knew you.
Speaking your name will cause more pain than they can bear.

When shall I destroy your world?
Shall I do it now or wait until you are ripe?
But why pluck you and free you so soon? You deserve no mercy.

Close your vermin-like eyes and go to sleep.
When you awake, perhaps that will be the day everything in your wretched life changes.
Or maybe the sands of your luck will be plentiful and continue to run through the hourglass.

Revenge is a dish best served cold as ice.
I’m getting hungry for something deliciously frozen.
You are cordially invited to be my main course.

© Linda Kowalchek 2025

Image by Ario Stories.

Your Merciless Mirror - H. R. Sinclair

I sit across from you
with this stake in my back
blood dripping from all corners
just how you like it
rare
and raw

You coloured me blue
wanted it so
so made it so
and now the lights all gone
drained from the depths
leaving on darkness

Not even these candles
beside your careless chalice
will illuminate passed this past-shadow
binary boundaries of black and white
keep you at just arms length

But arms length is enough
arms length is all I need
and I’ll serve your silver plate
—ice cold to touch—
just the way you are
but cut far deeper
than any gash now graze you have me
far deeper
than you ever could

My jagged knife will rip and tear
into you like a medium rare
sirloin steak
This You will be your my last supper
how deliciously I will dry you out
every last drop of lie
and consuuuuume.

© H. R. Sinclair 2025

Image by Klaudia Rak.

The Risks of Playing in Nature - Samantha Lazar

Do you think he will recognize my head?
The one which (if plans work)
will hit the floor right before set break.

Bets are:
It will bounce fiercely like the ball which
shattered my grandma’s garage window

Others wager, likening it to bowling–
the clapping of pin against pin
the collapsing of towers
making league champions
out of my volatile parents
while I sit transfixed in the playroom
listening to the caregiver introduce Shel Silverstein

My sister thinks the POP will be necessary to vocalize
as dandelion blooms don’t give like a cork
but more like a paper tear–

bitter and potentially poisonous
the risks of playing in nature

But removing my head will do nothing of those proven traits
of separation, release, and collision
It will operate out of its own set of elements
and other-worldly laws of physics

If I have it my way, the timing will be perfect.
One twin will watch his brother push for the bar
during second-set tuning–
a trick taught by their father,
other than the one where you just hand the hostess a hundred
in order to skip the line–
entitlement has yet to meet an uncrossable boundary

He’ll trip over my head, while distracted by the lights of the soundboard
nosing too close so people will think he’s with the band

And my eyes will open, glowing blue from the floor
like icy vapor
my hair still wet from last week’s rain
my lips still raw from his stubble

And he’ll cry out in recognition
and maybe that will teach him
the meaning of consent.

© Samantha Lazar 2025 - originally published in Scuzzbucket, and revamped for REVENGE.

Image by Cottonbro Studio.

Not Worth It - Maisie Archer

cold
carnage
merciless
wrath as justice
exacting revenge
exhausting endeavors
heartbeat like a manic drum
siren twin pulse triumph defeat -
retribution for your betrayal
craves a bloodthirsty price I will not pay.

© Maisie Archer 2025

Image by Jefferson Gomes.

Beneath the Surface - Dondi Springer

In this wasteland, these shattered mirrors,
I am the nightmare that refuses sedation,
A black hole devouring light at the edge of
Memory, my veins run with tar and static.

They said trauma lives in the marrow,
But mine has grown teeth and claws,
Stalking through the ruins of my childhood,
Leaving footprints filled with scorn.

I’ve become fluent in linguist language of
Ghosts, each syllable a razor against my tongue,
Each sentence is a slip knot around tomorrows
Throat, that taste of ash never quite leaves.

My shadow stretches longer than my body
Now dancing with demons, I call accomplices
Their whispers like broken glass against my ears:
“This darkness was always yours to keep.”

I wear my scars like armor,
Polished to a gleam that blinds the innocent,
Scraping beauty from decay,
Feeding on the voltage of old wounds.

This is not a story of redemption—
It’s the savage hymn of surviving
When the world expected nothing but dust,
Like a battle cry from the vexed within.

© Dondi Springer 2025

Image by Polina Tankilevitch.

The Girlfriend Experience - Debdutta Pal

The blushing shovel on my faded t-shirt holds your attention. It’s not every night that a woman invites you to a dive bar and proposes to cover the tab.

I wonder if I can even call myself one right now because I roll like a dream.

I wish you updated your rants to the 21st century, but given your lack of self-awareness, I can glue the missing pieces together. My laughter pierces through the 80s soft rock filling our space—that you mistake as your own.

I say I don’t plan my life beyond the next hour, and you spill your pint.

We move in a silent dance, one brain producing another’s cravings. Words remain unspoken, and each time you ignore me, I pretend it didn’t happen.

I applaud when you barely finish something—days after it is overdue.

Your friends love me, but not too much. We spend most of our time indoors in a fort made of empty pizza boxes and piles of messy laundry serving as cushions. I prepare to deflect personal questions, but you never ask them.

I don’t need to read you like a page-turner because I already know you.

Days morph into weeks until we cannot tell them apart. It’s a montage, yet you hear the faint whispers of doubt. I notice the dark circles. A massive twitch in your jaw when I say I don’t care and cue you to make decisions.

I save your text saying you’re getting back together with your ex for a boozy game I play every weekend. But it’s the next one that makes my heart blink.

It’s from her. She thanks me for calling your bluff, ecstatic from triumph.

I pin your photo to my crowded board and gift myself a good night’s sleep.

© Debdutta Pal 2025 - originally published in Short & Weird, and revamped for REVENGE.

Image by Aydin Sefidi.

Revenge in Invisible Spaces - Kali Fox-Jirgl

Within the eschews of my vengeful mind,
a wicked darkness stirs.
A seething rage
unleashed from its cage
with twisted bloodletting spurs.

A heart absorbed with bitterness,
poisoned me with a vengeful kiss,
the perception that love meant pain.
Ensnared in abuse
I couldn’t break loose
From the shame-locked unbreakable chains.

It doesn’t take death to kill a person
if the words are spoken just right.
With underhanded lies
and psychological demise,
cruel intentions laced with deceit.

He made it his mission to kill me inside,
to punish me for my wrongdoings.
A gun to my head.
Hostile words said.
Endowed with degradation.

An evil gift
so I would never forget
that my soul was not worth saving

Violation of my body and mind,
taking that which he thought I owed him
He loved me and hated me
while gaining control
to ensure that I would go numb.

Resentment and anger
A facade of smiles
inflicting scars never leaving a trace.
So no one would believe
the silent manipulation
or the torment of his cruel grace.

His indignation was concealed
in my muted suffering.
Freneticism in the storm
where cold fires burned
with the fuel of callous zeal.

Machiavelli revenge
hell-bent to avenge
with a slow malicious decline.
Invisible wrath
down a darkened path
is vengeance of the worst kind.

© Kali Fox-Jirgl 2025

Image by Kuiyibo Campos.

Lex Telionis - Laura Catanzano

sliced lemon squeezed and dripping
sour words spilling into paper cuts
bandaids covering open wounds
but you still smelled my self-inflictions.
you were a praying mantis
shifting jabs when I wasn't looking, I was
a lost aphid on a downward tumble
you relished in my weakness.
small and trembling and always
searching, never quite at home
you turned off the porch light
and I knew that I was truly lost.

your demise was written by a power
greater than even your traitor's crown
you didn't see it coming when I shoved my revenge
between your hollow ribs

but the blood was covering my hands,
my face and when I saw what I had done,
I knew the blood was mine, and you were
once again the victim

and I am just a fool standing with a knife in my hand and
blood on my sweater.

© Laura Catanzano 2025

Image by SHVETS Production.

Ab Igne, Voluntas (From Fire, Will) - Sylvia Kalina

[Silent film cinema scene]
[Roll]

Darkness holds sway before light’s display
Birth in dark cradle dawn
Clutching tatters gripped flame
Bloodied [blood]
Exhumed [fumes]
Laceration wounds
In shifting crimson hue
Velvet ash powder spew
[Choking]
Exposed shadow bruised—Mind
Twist and crawl ghostly sprawl of
Shifting crimson powder plume
First born ash form
Shell of shattered grace
And bone...

[Wide angle] lens pans capture of contortion
Cracked whispers [shatter scene] embrace
—Amor Fati— Love of Fate consumption of hate
These moments I accrue [translate] Amor distorts
Fati relates [macro] shattered face —or mirror—
Glass glazed eyes, glimmering rage, engage my
Memory [cannot erase] hell’s bound hands encase
Throat gone mute descending blaze —Ignis Mutat—
Ignis, Ignis igniting chants ad infinitum circulus circle
Circling [wide] —visceral— funeral cremation chroma
Chromatic pyre, billowing, burning molten genesis fire
[Grip] inferno Mutat Omnia, Omnia circulus
Melting tears —Omnia circulus— transform all fears
Voluntas super! Will above power, power of will
Overlapping surging —Fiat Lux— light re-surging
Absurd reality [new authenticity] integration from
Maime self proclaim [shadow remains] —Ab Igne Resurgo—
Beyond any good from fire I rise igne resurgo
[Merge]

[Theater view]
[Swallow]
Caged thunder, hammer in cage
Enrapture
The feast of primal engage
[Capture]
Individuation's dawn
Spectacle spectrum
Eternal recurring, sacred
Destiny [ground] in deafening rebound
Logos beast [become]
Trailing flame incantation
Force of transformation
I dissolve, soul coagulate
For you—I will now translate:
In fieri, non in facto esse
Be in becoming, not in being
My revenge [on you] I will enact

My fate is now what I dictate
My own becoming, watch as I create
The shadow's fallen free
My essence is my decree
In my becoming's rise
Your hold—I now despise
From ashes' pyre
My will consumes—burning—higher
Your binding thread
[I cut]
And I leave you
[Dead]
To memory's chains, I say
Release!
In this new being
I assert
My peace

© Sylvia Kalina 2025

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