SPRING 2026: Lyric and Elegy

Some of you have been with The Dread long enough to remember when this was a looser, less intentional space. We published writers we loved and hoped you loved them too. That won’t change.

Starting with this issue, The Dread will move to a quarterly format, each one built around a single obsession. This spring, my obsession is poetry: the compressed wound, the things you can’t say in prose. Poetry that lives in suspense and vertical drop.

Alongside the quarterly issues, we’re continuing weekly features—short, focused, intimate. A writer, their work, and a chance for them to talk about it. Nothing else but that.

I have seen so many amazing writers in online and indie spaces doing the strangest work out there. I want to celebrate these writers. I want The Dread  to be the place where you meet them with their work.

Most of all, I want to bring you poems and stories that unsettle you at 2 a.m. and force you to tell someone else about them, just because you have to.

With that said, welcome to Spring 2026.

-M. Anne Avera

Poetry by Peycho Kanev

Vae Victis

The old woman, burdened with several heavy

bundles, walks through the forest and looks around

fearfully. Fifty meters ahead, a soldier jumps out.

He sees her, and she sees him. They stare

at each other for a few seconds. A few seconds. Then

he quickly raises his Luger, aims

at her head, and fires. Fifty meters. The bullet

flies exactly at 114 meters per second. So she

has a little more than half a second of life.

What passes through her mind? Whom does she think of

in that half second? Children, husband, homeland?

The unmilked goat, the village in flames, death?

We will never know. The second slips away. She falls

to the ground. Then the soldier quickly goes to her,

leans over her body, and says: “Forgive me, mother!”

Morning dew sticks to his polished boots.

Poetry by Emma Galloway Stevens

Bent to the Bone

I never thought of the mill town as a cage

until the day my father died. 

He died the death of complicated men—

a little boy in a threadbare suit.

Look closely at the eyes of a dying man—

you can see long lost kites

adrift in long past summer skies

above long felled hungry trees.

Death held him like a cruel father 

might hold the son he breaks across his knee,

like the cold looms in the old mill

held his battered, purple hands. 

Bent to the bone tending the looms

that tore boy from man thread by thread,

unraveling the child made for 

wild mountain rides, bright

autumn skies, flight designed

for migratory birds and boys

with kites for eyes. 

He reached for my hand with his rattling

hand on the end of a purple arm 

hanging by a thread, and gripped my fingers

with the strength of a man who was a boy who was a man,

latched onto my eyes and said

GET OUT

WHILE YOU

STILL CAN

The Milltown Wall 

Our town has a wall looming ten feet tall.

It bares its teeth at the indigo sky.

The stars are the only eyes that peer inside 

our matchbox lives. 

Life here ain’t as bad as they say. 

Pay is pay. 

Mother and I keep good credit at the company store—

this, and bread, a roof, a bed—vanity, to dream of more. 

Sometimes I don’t know my own hair

 from the long black thread

that shudders in the loom I tend

We make enough to live,

if not enough to leave. 

Here, we’re free to worship and to weave.

Besides, the wall keeps out the wolves, they say.

Last week, a loom snatched a girl’s dark hair

and tore her scalp away

Poetry by Dee Allen

HANDSOME DEVIL

She hadn't met a man

Who could easily

Lift her off her feet,

Make her float in mid-air

Above the trees,

Facing the moon,

Reach the clouds of dusk,

Give reciprocal passion

Scorching like summer wildfires

To California redwoods,

Deliver a soulful kiss

Until she ran into

This new one.

And what a handsome devil he is.

That is, if she can get past his

Grey shaggy bod,

Jutting horns,

Eyes that mesmerise

In a red lantern glow,

Outstretched leathery wings,

Cloven hooves,

Curling long tail caressing hem of dress, smooth legs—

Together they rise in love, in flight with curious bats—

W: Mexica New Year 2026
[ Inspired by the picture Love Is In The Air by Ksenia Svincova
a.k.a. IrenHorrors. ]

Poetry by Phillip Hurt

Dare Not Interrupt 

Death’s slumber is everlasting, but never waits for his next appointment / As he walks his path through the dense woods, the tree’s leaves long ago have removed themselves and are laid to rest now that the frost is upon them, nothing dares interrupt him during his journey / As he trudges forward, the ancient trees, with more rings than wrinkles, have often beared witness to Death’s parade, none brave enough to slow his procession / Unlike what many may think of him, Death actually carries a heaviness within, mourning dearly for those he must rip from the physical realm, to help usher their soul to a place which could never be found on a map / He too is burdened with eternal loss and begins to shed black tears as he removes his calling card and prepares for the ceremony. He brings forth, not the scythe that all expect of him, but an ancient bagpipe that’s older than time itself / With skulls mounted on the instruments bass and tenor drones, relics of Death’s first victims, he commences to fill the bag with air. His cracked lips wrap around the blowstick, blowing air into the instrument and then squeezes the bag between his elbow and ribcage, both absent of their flesh. The most haunting, unwavering tune fills the dense autumn air / The limbs and bark from the trees crack, some falling to the forest floor as they part, making way for Death’s song. Stepping from his woody carved path with his left foot, his right hits the pavement of a residential neighborhood / Flashing red and blue lights fill the night’s sky while finding all the crevices of the tree canopies that line the sidewalk. Beneath, emergency service vehicles and a car crash scene, held together with yellow caution tape / A drunk driver with a bandaged head, is helped to the backseat of a police cruiser as Death approaches the foot of the stretcher. An 11 year old boy, blinded by the blood from his injuries, hears Death’s tune being played on the bagpipes. After taking his last breath, the boy leaves behind his physical body for his soul to embrace a void.

The ax that cut down the family tree

With pots and pans hanging decoratively over 

the stove collecting steam from the

feast being prepared, below, three generations

mix and chop and sear and boil side by

side. Those bound by blood along with those 

by their choosing, speak only of the 

light. The elephant, deep in the shadows and 

behind the cellar door, buried beneath their

mighty crested oak, safe from its life giving 

roots, will never again be spoken of. Laughs 

reduce to tears while the painful smiles 

reverse, and as the flesh falls from their faces,

the color is replaced with a tint of ivory. The 

key was held by a whisper of his name, 

while the lock hung in suspension, supported by

the thick, choking, pea soup fog in the air.

How could such a kind boy do something that was so 

horrific? Was it something that we did to cause him 

to hurt all those innocent people? Was it our fault 

for teaching him how to use a gun?

He made confetti of his family and left it up to 

them to pick up the pieces. Questions left 

unanswered, an amplification of silence that 

lingers after the sirens go quiet. 

Poetry by Adam Coday

A Series of Sin

(1)

You left your coat in my bedroom.

You left it by the window, cracked just a little bit…

A soothing breeze spreads your scent, your smooth hypnosis,

and I live our tryst again, savoring the encore.

You could sell your natural fumes as a brand of chloroform!

Is that your business card, your goodbye token?

You left your name and number on the tag,

but you never call me back, and it’s a shame.

My tongue admires your salty lure 

and your sordid games.

(2)

It tastes like Love, this choux 

with its honeyglaze.

But it hides a crafty magic in its bake, 

unnaturally resupplying…

I had all there was to take,

yet still I ache, and want, and bite, and chew.

(3)

The dishes soak for weeks, their stagnant soups

molding and congealing, like blooms of algae

in dead seas: bubbling, glowing green…

Their noxious fumes erupting 

and spreading their radioactivity, 

they kill me! Every day, I die. 

Every night, I hide in my cocoon, and every morning

wake with wings of pale white, turning blue.

(4)

I could shed my skin, like a spider or a snake, 

of what you claim to be moles and melanomas

and audacity in my bedsores –

but mine is the skin of Grace! 

You’ve only dreamed of things so haunting. 

You must be wary of your place

to feel so strongly about 

somebody else’s face.

(5)

You have a smile. 

You don’t deserve it.

It’s not as big as mine will ever be, 

but there’s something genuine about it…

I want your smile intensely. 

I don’t care 

by what means I get a hold of it,

or if I need to make a mold of it

and recreate it 

with something rubbery

so I can dip it in ink 

and stamp it all over me –

I want to feel it on my skin!

The means are but trivialities.

Soon, very soon, it will be hanging

on a chain around my neck, while dripping red 

and caked in sweat

I’ll have a crown upon my head

of all your severed fingers and toes…

It wouldn’t raise a single hair on me

to kiss it first and taste its luminosity.

I couldn’t care less how the taking goes.

(6)

You’ll tell them lies with all that Truth in you!

You’ll tell them all the things I’ve done

that one should not admit they do –

all my grieving and thieving.;

I think I’ll do away with you

to silence you, and hush my scruples, too.

Now, nothing will save you…

Not your pleading cries, nor God 

if He materialized, and certainly not 

your charm bracelet with all its manufactured designs:

your Star of David; your sitting Buddha;

your Christian cross; your Sun and Moon…

That wormy tail between your legs,

there’s not a thing that you can do!

You invite whatever happens

when you wear the Truth all over you.

You’re like a light, bright and neon,

tempting darkness: you’re a fool!

(7)

I’m determined to rest as the best of them do:

my riches rotting in my tomb

where all who enter meet their doom.

I’ve always thought robbing graves was rude…

I want a decorated room 

cordoned off in solitude, like a Pharaoh’s crypt 

with a thousand boobytraps 

for those that dare intrude. 

Yes, I want the Valley of the Kings 

before its walls were cruelly breached!

I couldn’t stand to see such grubby hands

all over my belongings…

They’d have to mosey past my ghosts and ghouls 

to lay themselves upon me, all my papers and my jewels 

protected by my zombies.

They would make a hearty meal of such entitlement

and folly, the thieving hand their favorite cut of meat.

I’ll make them crave it, mouths all frothy.

How dare the desperate help themselves!

They aren’t deserving of what they need.

All mistakes are simply opportunities for learning.

They need to know: Life ends with greed.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

DEE ALLEN is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on creative writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s. Author of 10 books--Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black, Elohi Unitsi, Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate, Plans, Crimson Stain, Discovery and The Mansion--and 83 anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far.

Adam Coday is an American poet whose work has been published by Lucky Jefferson, Heavy Feather Review, Zoetic Press, and more. He currently resides in Mexico. Links to his poems may be found at his website, adamcoday.com.

Emma Galloway Stephens is a neurodivergent poet and professor from the Appalachian foothills of South Carolina. Her poems have appeared in Red Branch Review, The Christian Century, Door is a Jar, Salvation South, and many others.  She is a co-founder and the Educational Director of Arbor Institute for the Arts in Greenville, SC. Read more at egstephenspoetry.com.

Phillip Hurt is a disabled poet and blue collar worker based in Grand Junction, CO. His work can be found in the Black Coffee Creative, sober.com, and The Light Within. Phillip is also in contract with Hellbound books for his contribution to an upcoming anthology of dark poetry.

Peycho Kanev is the author of 12 poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA, Europe and India. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others.