By John Sara
Shoe Tree by Warren Muzak
Hollow Screams by Warren Muzak
Madness hides in the backseat of a pickup,
feet blistered from running.
In the hot sun, blood
can be mistaken for sweat.
The bones of roadkill
can be fashioned
into a home.
Madness is a family, starved
at the dinner table; meat
stuck between teeth.
Your family tree is
made of skin. From
afar it looks like leather;
a dance in the orange dawn,
blades whirring,
laughing,
still alive
but barely.
About the Author
John Sara is a writer from Parma, Ohio. He received his BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University and is currently pursuing his MFA at Ashland University.
About the Artist
Warren Muzak's passion for illustrating started early, captivated by the visual narratives found in comics. He studied Graphic Design in college and from that worked at a few print-shops in pre-press. His abilities creating digital art got him a job as a production artist for a high-end carpet manufacturer where he took beautifully hand-painted gouache artboards and redrew them digitally to be used in manufacturing. In 2016, he met a seasoned UK stop-motion animator while working under contract for a small media production studio. This sparked a new direction—2D animation. Warren embraced it, finding a natural knack and genuine joy in the work and atmosphere in the studio. By 2018, freelancing became his full-time pursuit, honing his craft through persistent bids on online platforms.