by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Mar 28, 2026 | Featured, Prose
Unmedicated We were happy people once. Not naïve, just animated, social, alive. We gathered constantly. We danced at weddings, at birthdays, at no occasion at all. Even grief had witnesses. Sadness visited but never unpacked its bags; it simply...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Mar 27, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
Waiting Room Name called. Not mine. Wasn’t I here first? A new arrival spreads out. One chair always left empty. I glance at copies of National Geographic, Vogue, Woman’s Weekly — all out of date. It’s possible they expired while I was waiting....
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Mar 26, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
Brine I leave everything on shingle, meet surf like a sibling, crest over playful breakers and chase the moon’s tail. There was salt in my kisses. It preserved us for a while, resisted the putrefaction. Skin on sea-stained sheets. My mind’s water,...
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Mar 25, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
Hurst Reservoir In the sharpness of a January wind we stepped down, feeling with neoprened feet for the safety of the edge. Bags and clothes huddled on a plastic picnic sheet. We launched, lovingly into dark and silky water unknown yet benign....
by Zakia Carpenter-Hall | Mar 24, 2026 | Featured, Poetry
Sanctum Without God You did not ask for knees — They found the floor themselves. Not from command, But gravity. Your name became architecture. Something vaulted. Something echoing. Something built to make small sounds feel holy. I stopped calling...
