Medusa

By Jonathan Fletcher

The way you attach

electrodes to my scalp,

let them drape behind

my head, I must

look like a Gorgon.

Though punished

by no goddess, I feel

cursed. Though not quite

an Hippocrates, you diagnose,

treat. Though no oracle,

you foresee recovery:

Within 6 to 8 sessions,

you should begin to feel

changes in your mood.

I want to believe

your prophecy.

I want to cut

back on Abilify,

Lamictal.

I want to kill

the monster inside.

But everywhere I look,

I see stone. I see gray.

Even the computer

you have me watch.

Even the bright,

colorful, looping

images. Even your face

in the monitor.

Even my own reflection.

Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured by The League of Women Voters of the San Antonio Area and at the Briscoe Western Art Museum and the San Antonio Museum of Art. In 2023, his work was also chosen as a finalist for the Plentitudes Prize in Poetry. That same year, his work was also chosen as a finalist for Synkroniciti’s Poetry Prize for its Issue, “Broken.” He has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Additionally, he has served as a Columbia Artist/Teacher for New York City’s iHOPE, a specialized school for students with traumatic brain injuries, as well as a poetry editor for Exchange, Columbia University’s literary magazine for incarcerated writers and artists. In 2023, he won Northwest University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow.

Dorian Winter is an emerging artist and writer from Perth, Western Australia. His art & poetry are forthcoming or have appeared in Pelican, Spellbinder, Fifth Wheel Press, Outlander, and elsewhere. Additionally, he is the founder and editor-in-chief of Antler Velvet. You can find him at dorianwinter.com, or maybe at a French bakery somewhere.