A place for stories about chronic illness, disability, mental health, and neurodivergence.

Poetry

Submit your poem to Knee Brace Press! We welcome new voices and veteran poets alike.

Guidelines

All submissions must relate to chronic illness, disability, mental health and/or neurodivergence in some way. What that means is pretty much up to you. If you think your piece covers any of these topics, send it out way!

Our poems

  • here

    after i enter the bathroom, i lock the door behind me.

  • Heel

    He runs back and forth along the fence, barking at people of whom he’s unsure.

  • The photo is in black and white. A blonde woman in plaid looks to the left of the frame.

    Time Capsule

    Since the April you left us, you took the spring blooms with you.

  • Your first manic episode

    no one tells you that your first (hypo)manic episode reaches its peak in a middle school / first year teaching / fresh off a “medical leave”

  • Trauma Recovery

    When you feel the impossible breathing down your neck you’re on the right track.

  • psalm for bipolar

    there is sometimes nothing more than enduring.

  • mk zariel

    generate

    when your todo list starts with “enter a synaesthetic flow state” and ends with “send that email you’ve been putting off” you start to wonder

  • my why

    still here, unexpectedly i refuse to do the deed for them

  • Free-falling Lament

    I feel I’m free falling into depths of distress

  • what it looks like

    i don’t know what it looks like from an outsider’s perspective when i sit for twenty minutes staring at a glass of soy milk unable to make myself take a sip.