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redrosethorns journal
Conscious raising, frequently utilised by feminists, involves individuals sharing their experiences to enhance awareness of social, personal, and political matters. This method has proven highly effective in fostering unity, building communities, and shedding light on broader issues affecting diverse demographics worldwide. It's a means of expressing our identities and experiences, ultimately empowering us.
Inspired by this approach, redrosethorns launched an online journal publication aimed at facilitating conversations about mental health, gender, sexuality, self-care, and empowerment.
ISSN: 2978-5316 (online)
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Tears Of Laughter
I’m Not Crying, I’m Laughing
My Tears Are Used To Come Out Anytime
Today I’m Not In Misery Nor Grief
I’m Not Crying, I’m Laughing
Believer Musa Waterson
Aug 271 min read
Love At First Sight
I Saw You
Deep Into Your Eyes,
You Were Brave
I Couldn’t Greet You
I Couldn’t Handle You
I Stuttered Professionally
Believer Musa Waterson
Aug 271 min read
A Secret for a Secret
With a bottle of cranberry juice tucked under her arm, Laura plucked a box of urinary tract health supplements from the shelf in the family planning aisle of Walmart Neighborhood Market. Her bladder protested as she read the back of the box. She’d woken up with a UTI—again—and spent the morning chugging water and pissing like a fire hydrant, but it still burned, and she still didn’t have the money to spend on an urgent care visit for antibiotics and a lecture on proper wiping
Emily Babbitt
Aug 275 min read
Swallowtail
In western North Carolina, the world outside the dharma center became muted, and life was feeling slo-mo. My body was sore from four days of meditating several times daily. The simple, delicious meals felt like luxury, and sleeping was a welcome respite from the hard work of calming the mind.
In the dorm, several twin beds were set against the wall with dividers like a linear honeycomb, each cell with a shelf, fan, and several hooks.
Maria Gelabert
Aug 274 min read
The Diagnosis
Driving to Trout Lake, Washington, with my husband, I relied on anticipation to carry me past my fatigue. Making sense of the recently identified origins of this exhaustion was still a work in progress. But I didn’t want my lack of oomph to sideline this trip. Good thing I was an old pro at doing-things-while-depleted. We stopped for lunch at a small-town, old-timey diner that made me wish for longer sleeves to cover my arm tattoos.
Katrina Irene Gould
Aug 277 min read
Last Wishes
Please bring my shoes, he reminds me,
I’ll need them when we go home.
He must know in that secret, unspeakable
way that he won’t see home again.
Sharon Scholl
Aug 271 min read
Wish Logic
Dear You (the One Who Pretends to Be the Grown-Up),
I think I was made from dandelions—
those yellow puffballs that aren’t flowers
but still try their best to bloom.
I used to blow on them and make wishes.
Now I mostly just hold my breath.
Holly Brazzle
Aug 272 min read
The Jungle: Risks of Contact
What happens when our deepest human impulse—the hunger to discover, to learn, to connect—becomes the very force that could destroy what we seek to understand? In the heart of the Amazon, where uncontacted tribes guard ancient wisdom behind walls of deliberate isolation, this question cuts deeper than a machete through jungle vines.
Barrie Brewer
Jul 305 min read
Hurt Feelings
Did I hurt your feelings
When I called out your bigotry
And petty narrow-mindedness?
It was not my intention,
Although your actions and policies
Have hurt the feelings of many.
Mary Beth Magee
Jul 302 min read
At Banshee, Bar
Here is the scene: it’s 9 p.m. and the sun / dips like it’s last call. / I order a Malbec and a plate of
fries / when I notice the girl behind the bar — / her name tag says Amelija — / slam down her
phone. Her lips / pull, and my body remembers / how I’d use that expression to feign sleep, to
escape / my ex-husband’s pungent smell, to avoid / the sound of his voice. / I’m alone, so I say,
Hillary Smith-Maddern
Jul 303 min read
Dead Girl Stories
I was once the kind of person whose
bikini strap twisted, whose pale
shoulders said April aloud and prayed
for rain. Spring was always caught between my lips,
and now even that brief phoneme leaves me exhausted.
Hillary Smith-Maddern
Jul 301 min read
In 5th Grade, Victoria Beckham Was Not Her Real Name
It was Posh, and I hungered
for her ilium, its stiletto
bite. Lips knit thin,
I practiced her exercised
indifference, all I would ever achieve
of her, except a closet glutted
with black clothes. Lord knows
Hillary Smith-Maddern
Jul 301 min read
Joan and the Scary Book
An assemblywoman
A hero in high heels and nail polish
A rock star among pinstripes and grey worsted
marching up to the podium
like she owned it
Woman In Hiding—my book—
clutched in her fist.
Kathleen Hoy Foley
Jul 303 min read
The Dike I Wanted to Be
A flabby eleven-year-old
what did I know about dykes?
But when I saw her,
I wanted to be whatever she was.
I did not own the word dyke
Or butch
Surely, not the word lesbian.
Kathleen Hoy Foley
Jul 302 min read
Angelina
Angelina was murdered, strangled to death. At the edge of a farmer’s field. In the mud--the last vestiges of an unseasonable thaw. As the fronds of parchment grasses rasped in the bitter wind. And a pair of rusted cultivators—stalwart sentinels--sat abandoned in the middle of plowed ruts frozen into dirt waves. Their shadows an eerie sight in the moon shine. It was an ugly place to die.
Kathleen Hoy Foley
Jul 305 min read
Fine China
Mold me, hand over hand, dirt
underneath each nail. Sift through every detail of
the process:
1) The conception
2) The Idea
3) The Rough Draft
4) Peer-Reviewed
5) The Revision
6) The Finalized Project
Alexis Borbon
Jul 301 min read
Monsters Lament
I wonder what Narcissus saw in his
reflection, what could have been so amazing
about looking at yourself?
I stare into those waters, and all that reflects are
a storm and unpleasant memories—years of
Alexis Borbon
Jul 301 min read
On Coles and 8th
The first time I fell in love with a girl, it was my best friend.
I am sixteen and in my junior year of high school — I tell my friends I am bisexual, though it is never more than puppy love with a pretty girl I see in the hallways. But if I tried to count the boys I crushed on, I wouldn’t have enough fingers. The rebellious boy from youth group who played the bass, the class clown who spent his free time teasing me. The basketball player whose games I force my friends to go
Alyssa Lian Bacay
Jul 304 min read
dead dove: do not eat
two truths live in my head:
i am loved.
i am loathed.
all by the same people.
i can’t seem to reconcile them.
Alyssa Lian Bacay
Jul 301 min read
Falling
As a little girl, I had a waking nightmare that haunted me just before sleep came-- my bed falling through the bedroom floor, through the cement basement- falling through space and time while I sat helpless, wrapped in my bedsheets and blankets, a closed mouth soundlessly screaming for help while my parents glanced unconcerned from their space on the couch, the television captivating more attention than I could manage to garner.
Jill Euclide
Jul 303 min read
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