criminal woman

by EILEEN PORZUCZEK

the fingerprints of society’s bloody hands
weigh heavy on me with sinister whispers

isolation suits you,

cultivate it,

rot in it

words laying heavy on my thick boned chest
as the oracles of prophecy gather to plot and
hide me, imprison me in attics of penitentiary—

my only crime against them being a strong woman.

Ω

Eileen Porzuczek is a creative writer, artist, and professional storyteller. She authors the poetry collection Memento Mori: A Poetic Memoir in Three Parts (Finishing Line Press, 2025), and some of her poetry will appear in White Winged Doves: A Stevie Nicks Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing, 2026). Eileen’s poems also appear in So It Goes: The Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, Creation Magazine, New Plains Review, The Raven Review, and in parentheses.

Linette Marie Allen is a graphic artist with an MFA from the University of Baltimore. Her images have been published in Quarterly West, Entropy, and Ripen the Page. A native of Washington, DC, she identifies as American BIPOC.