Featured Poet: April Ridge

Good morning and welcome to another Feature! Today, we're welcoming back April Ridge! April is an incredible writer, and I'm so happy to have her back! It has been an absolute delight getting to know her both as a poet and a person! Check out her work below!

Jump

The further into this century we move,
the more it seems to be
that many people are attempting
to gain entry into the Guinness Book of World Records
by overachievement,
overworking themselves into an anxious frenzy.

A weird flex of muscles:
claiming to get the most done with the
smallest amount of rest,
the tiniest winks of sleep.

The pep talks
we give ourselves
each day
as we rev our engines
yet slyly ask
‘Anybody got any jumper cables?’

The True Horror Story


Living out here
in the Midwestern cornfields
of the back end of Monroe County,
sometimes there are moments
when I am reminded
of Children of the Corn.


A spooky discoloration,
a shadow looming beneath
the surface of the leaves,
a stray piece of cloth
hanging on a dried-out corn stalk.


On the drive in to work in the morning
there is an easement of
federal power lines
with a rolling fog that
comes down the tiered
cow dung-speckled grass hills.


It looks spooky,
like zombies will soon
be staggering out of it.


But my adult rationality
wipes away these
slight nostalgic twinges of
childhood fear
and I'm brought back
to today's terrors of:

What do I want to be
when I finally grow up?


Can we manage to buy
ALL the groceries and pay rent AND
pay all the bills again this month?


The boogie man
is sometimes
the electric bill.


You fear
your face
in the morning.


Has that long chin hair
been there
this WHOLE time?


Do these pants make me look fat?


Could we perhaps go back
to a time when
the main fears were
if someone put razor blades in the candy?


Where a bully may
steal your candy bag
when you're out trick or treating?


But no–
now it's student loan payments and
new shoes that rub you raw.


The true horror story of adulthood is
that you almost
never
get
to keep
your childhood dreams.


That the screams in the night
are typically precipitated by
dysfunctional family relationships;
misremembered conversations and
the silent treatment you must
sometimes give
as tough
love.


When you were a kid,
you’d sort through that candy
at the end of the night,
hoping for more Mars bars
than candy corn.


Laughing at the old ladies
that gave apples and raisins
who were only trying to
save your poor teeth.


Trying to go to sleep
with that sugar high,
waking up
sweating through
your clothes in the dark night.


Every shadow suspicious,
every creak on the stairs
a sneaky specter waiting for
your eyes to close
so they can sink under your bed.


Now it's prunes and a nine o'clock bedtime.


I'm not sure what's scarier–
Malachai with his scythe
or the nine o'clock bedtime and
the doom of the 8 to 5.

The Invisible Woman Feels Even Less Seen


She was always kind of a soft-spoken kid.


Always shy and kind of quiet,
but always in the front of the classroom.


Almost always, her school crushes were
teachers who encouraged her;
who told her she was intelligent and
actually looked at her.


Growing up, she never had any self-esteem.
She played alone until around the age of 13.
She raged in her early teens
in the college party scene.


She thrived on that which was around,
whatever was offered
that made her feel numb to
this feeling of obscurity and shame
at not having succeeded
like those teachers had so proudly claimed.


Fast forward to her 20s and
there she is, leaning up against the padded bar counter
serving professors, the best of alcoholics around,
which were always easy bait when
working in a university town.


She had a regular who was a quantum physics teacher.
She was slowly becoming friends with him.
He liked the driest of Black Thistle martinis,
extra caper-stuffed olives, please.


He had some side projects at the school and
made a little meth on the side.
It was great stuff,
made in one of the labs on campus.


He had an apartment above,
where he would invite students.


He had massive parties there,
usually during finals week,
once everyone was finally allowed to breathe.


One time he asked her to
bartend one of these parties.


She overheard him and some of his colleagues
discussing the ‘disappearing theory’ –
a ridiculous hypothesis of
mixing certain chemicals together
on a certain day, in a certain place,
to create an invisibility serum.


She grabbed a stack of cocktail napkins and
wrote down everything they were saying.


No one noticed her at these parties.


They just shook their glasses of ice at her,
or occasionally pinched or slapped her ass
when she was turned around
to grab something she needed.


Yes, still invisible, unnoticed in plain sight.


She started catering faculty parties for the University
just to get closer to these loud mouth professors
bragging about their side projects,
their little school girlfriends,
their little thesis dicks hardened
at the thought of after-class meetings with academic sluts
who would do anything for a little extra credit.


Did you know
you can put up with
just about anything
if you have big enough goals?


She saved up a lot of her tips.


She started applying for
programs at the university.
Perhaps she could begin getting her degree,
possibly in chemistry.


Look ahead 12 years later and
she has mastered the art of chemical compounds.


She has laid upon the periodic table
spread eagle, for science.


She now is a teacher's assistant at
the chemistry lab below the apartments
where she used to party in her twenties and
made a lot of the tips that had paid for
her bachelor's degree and some of her grad student classes.


She has finally broken the code.
She has created all of the ingredients and
done many experiments.
Some failed, but a couple of them successful,
causing whichever object she tried to disappear
to have a shimmering haze around it,
nearly invisible to the naked eye.


But still, you could tell something was there
behind the wavering disruption of space.


Ironically, the time and place best
theorized to create a successful potion was
April Fools' Day, in New York City, in Times Square.


She had no problem getting there.


But flying with her equipment,
now that was another issue.


So she had to drive all the way from
the Midwest over to the East Coast.
The furthest she had ever traveled alone,
and certainly the longest her beater of a car
had ever made it
without breaking down.

This was definitely going be a one way trip.

She Sings Lazarus


for Kimberly McNeil


She moved fearlessly
into the veil,
never looking back.
Her long dress trailing
behind her,
satin,
low cut,
but always fucking classy.


She’s hung flowers on her own grave.
Her own style of bouquet,
perhaps with a funky feather boa,
maybe adorned with a little hat
or a spiral of smoke
winding its way
through the poetry
of her movements,
through her love of the tired,
but lovely, petals.


The juxtaposition of
beautiful words
splashed upon the page
in a terror of sadness.


Defiant of tears,
she yells at despair.


She sings Lazarus
and eyefucks Death
as it leers at her from
the corner of the bar.


I’ve always loved her
floral arrangements,
her mask of bold color.
The blush standing out
red on the page
amid the shadows
lining her darkened path
toward home.

Jesus Takes Driving Lessons

I'm driving south on the state highway
when I see a sign,
handmade and tacked to a tree
by the side of the road
that says 'Jesus take the wheel'.

And it gets me to thinking,
what does this cliché phrase actually mean?

Do these religious zealots
posting their weird,
sometimes misspelled, signs
at the side of a highway
believe that Jesus could handle
being behind a V6 engine and
who knows how many horses?

What would he make of the windshield wipers?

How would he handle going so fast
after traveling by sandal
across desert so many years?

To canvas in yet another town full of lepers,
hoping to be able to see a vision
he could speak of-
to approach the people
with a viable miracle,
he would have to walk for days,
just thinking on this,
hoping and praying
that his Daddy in the Sky
would bestow upon him some kind of sign
that all of this walking was worth it.

And now, two thousand years later,
to give us miscreants these cars,
the brains to invent these cars,
these roads,
these networks of towns?

What would Jesus do?

April Ridge lurks in the rural hilltops of Monroe County, akin to Mothman’s tomboy cousin, listening for hints of poetry on the wind. She enjoys horror films, the sordid affairs of 1920s circus performers, long walks in pitch black tunnels, and the occasional waffle cone from Jiffy Treet.

April serves as the chair of the Writers Guild at Bloomington and is a poet and spoken word performer at heart, but she makes room in her diet for spooky movies and has a quiet obsession for all of the Universal Monsters, specifically Bride of Frankenstein.

Her debut chapbook, Monstrous by Pure Sleeze Press, was released unto an unsuspecting public in September 2024 and can be seen in glimpses in the periphery of the mind’s eye. Her work has appeared sporadically in deep space, circling black holes until the dinner bell of eternal fame rings in its echoing chambers.