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A S H IT H OL E P ROD U C T ION S K I D MA R K  These are traditionally offensive images and gestures that reflect the most positive and supportive mentality, because we go through content and into intention. - ZB “There’s Another Train Coming” Sean Cooley  “Usually what you need and what you have are two different things the Shithole makes it very clear what you have and at the same time that it's everything you need. Shithole gives you the freedom and courage to try something new and reach for the next artistic en devour. As long as you are prepared and passionate the Shithole will latch on and hold you.” -Kev “Shithole is an opportunity to create without fear of judgement. Judgement from the audience and performers, but most importantly, judgement from yourself.” - Zach "The ShitHole is the ultimate artistic outlet. A place where experimentation is encouraged in every medium and everyone is treated like family."- Dan "The energy and inspiration that flows through Shithole is limitless. To me, it is art in its truest form. There is no intention other than to create and express what we love."-Loren  The Concussers Tom Wisdom Most people's best guess is that Jesus turned it all back himself. Just after midnight on Memorial Day (also World Turtle Day so who knows how personally we should take it), every bar, liquor store, tiny hotel fridge, underwear-drawer Dasani bottle, frat house trash can and monastery cellar suddenly became zero proof, and shortly thereafter was chemically assayed as containing a liquid identical to what comes out of kitchen taps in South Bend. It all stayed in the containers, so it wasn't technically a flood, so He hadn't broken His rainbow promise. But He also hadn't given anybody advance notice so they could build a giant hip flask or something. Nothing was spared. (I didn't immediately notice since it's not really my thing, but the DEA and most of the recent economic growth in Colorado and California also vanished almost overnight.) Lots of shaky fingers began pointing at once, and (completely ignoring drunk drivers and the makers of everything with -arita at the end of its name) many members of the public decided that snobs like me had made the Big Guy mad. We should have been content with what was given to us and not been so uppity, seeking knowledge of IPA's and single-batches and artisan bitters, and serving wine at occasions other than weddings. So beverage appreciators of any repute have been hounded from daily existence, and we gather in small groups to commiserate. No one has yet found a cave or toilet tank that's hidden enough from the Great Warden to ferment anything, so we've mainly been reminiscing and comparing notes. But some of us are working out the best places on our heads to hit, and the finest varieties of sticks and stones to hit them with, to responsibly work up the courage to propagate the species. Brandon Kirkman  Next to my window is a painting deep dark woods with a small cabin, sturdy and weathered. I wish it was my window. My unbridled view of my life. My windows are bandaged with blinds turned up so that no one can enter be a part of this room see this painting see my longing My grandmother painted this She chose the number of trees, the length of the grass, the depth of the daylight, She chose the cabin, And would you look at that, It doesn’t have any windows. “Flower Ideas” Claire Friedman Anonymous  “GOTTA GET UP” Soulfume “So I Busted Out This Piece Today” Logan Dean  ORBIT ROOM Thomas Simmons There's a 27 year old lawyer sitting at the bar and he looks very much like a 27 year old lawyer -- his chin has disappeared into his neck, there are ridges across the slope traveling between whatonce-was-chin and neck where the flesh stresses under a nod or a head bow or a long-term glance at his phone, his hair is long black and greasy, an oil slick trailing down behind him. The bartender is a 32-year-old bartender smattered in cash-toned tats and he looks like an unsuccessful Scott Wieland -- his chin is defined, his hair well gelled, and he is probably doing coke in the bathroom, because everytime he comes out he talks to himself about what drinks he's serving like thinking out loud a common everyday thing. And maybe a coked-up wannabe rockstar is a common everyday thing. The 27 year old lawyer complains about a client taking advantage of him, not paying the $6,000 owed to him on a claim. The 32 year old bartender tells the 27 year old lawyer to get more aggressive in collecting his money. The 27 year old lawyer feels bad about it. The 32 year old bartender tells the 27 year old lawyer that he would threaten to kill anyone who owed him that much money. I intervene to suggest the lawyer need not feel bad about a person taking advantage of him. The 27 year old lawyer tells me his guilt stems from his job being the result of his father's connections. The 32 year old bartender continues sharing with us his impotent violent fantasies. The 27 year old soon begins to ignore me, a foreign body, to continue his conversation with the strong yin to his smart yang, because there is no one in the bar at this point in his drunk existence who can be smarter than him or stronger than the bartender. One of the only poems I wrote that I remember was in high school. It was about a group of men running a race. They encounter a whole lot of obstacles, emotional and physical, before they see the finish line. And right before they reach the finish line, mere inches away from an objective victory, a meteor strikes Earth and eliminates all life from its surface. “A Photograph” Gabrielle White  “Monsters” Dan Wilcop A Soulfume x Goob Collab  Strange Beds Ariel Atkins We lie together in a bedyours. Pull me in tight to your body as if I were made to fit there. This is easy. Not sure if it’s you or have I become too used to strange beds with strange men? Maybe, but wrapped up in you my missing puzzle piece for the night I stare at the windowsill accented with her things and am reminded that you are damaged. I am the rebound, I am the one to be abandoned when the goal is reached; when healing takes. Who was she? Was she perfection? Was she sunlight in stale lifeless caverns was she honey down a raw hacking throat? Was she breath? Love is breath. Love is waking from a coma you never knew you were in. Love is knowing where your life begins and ends. Love is home. Was she home? I am the caulk to plug the crack to keep the wind from getting in to kill what’s left in you; Until you decide to start over, rebuild. Until you find home. I am the transition: The halfway house The bottle The needle I am the escape. I am no home to anyone anymore. I don’t allow men to make me home for I find no homes in them. I lie with you in strange bed, my hand in your hand, palms up wanting to be filled with something, anything to own and I feel fear. My heart knows this will end. I struggle to live in the now. I struggle to enjoy present bliss. I struggle for the impossible.