by: Rachel Parker | Published in Issue 58 of Beyond Word Magazine and inspired by this striking painting, “The Artist” from artist Joe Barbella | I turn the corner and there I am, scattered across sixty floors of mirrored glass. Only it isn’t me. Or rather, it's not just me. My reflection fractures—eyes multiplied, mouth divided. A kaleidoscope of myself. There's the girl who once hid in bathroom stalls during lunch, counting ceiling tiles until the bell. The teenager who

by: Rachel Parker | Published in Issue 57 of Beyond Words Magazine | In this hollow of bone and blood she waits, a small blue flame caught behind my ribs' pale bars. Her breast, round as a winter moon, pulses with memories of sky. How strange that she believes the gold chain at her ankle is stronger than her wings, forgetting what her heart once knew of wind and light and leaving. Then one night she dreams of morning's vast cathedral, how sunlight scatters like prayer across

By: Rachel Parker | Published on April 14, 2025 in Beautiful Things by Riverteeth Journal | My son is terrified of the water. Each time he steps in, his small back tenses, his teeth clench, his lip quivers. Last summer, he taught himself to traverse the entire perimeter of the pool by clinging to its border—inch by painstaking inch—rather than daring to float across its risky middle. His fingertips leave little, damp prints along the pool’s edge that fade almost as quickly