5 min read
A Wild Hair
by Taylor Sykes It’s Friday evening and her lover will arrive soon and she will wear the red nightgown. She loves that word, lover. She’s...
3 min read
Ghosts of the Cabin
by Lara Ameen The ghosts of the cabin haunt you. Or, at least, you claim they do. Or are they just phantom ghosts of grief? Phantom...
14 min read
A Love Letter
by Kelsey Britt Your body is covered in bright white satin, your head is adorned with a veil decorated in lace flowers more delicate than...
11 min read
The Loneliest Man
by C.A. Schaefer David’s father would be released on the far side of the moon, away from the warm metal of his car, the rain-ruined...
5 min read
La Corrida
by Patricia Patterson There’s this game I used to play with my kid sister when we were as far from death as we could be, before she went...
8 min read
Bright Lights, New Century
by Robert Yune The gargoyles on the roof hoist overflowing bowls above their heads, transforming the drizzle into a whimsical blessing....
2 min read
Never Home
by Cherish Collins I’m not claustrophobic. I’m not… or wasn’t, but I’ve been stuck here for hours now and I’m starting to think I am....
8 min read
Another Zombie Story
by Susan McCarty The zombie apocalypse took everyone by surprise, not because it was very different from all of the movies and books and...
9 min read
You Know It’s Not Your Birthday
by Jacob Paul You unbutton his third (or is it fourth?) shirt button down and clutch a fist of his chest hair, right between the two blue...
11 min read
Death and the People
by Amber Sparks When Death came and started it all, the people on Earth had already drawn close together to wait for spring. The trees...
6 min read
Piñon Picking
by Manny Loley Shimá sipped from her can of Shasta. “Hastiin lei jiní, łah biniye náánáshdlah,” she said, laughing. “Like he took another...
4 min read
Up in Light
by Daniel Takeshi Krause
We had to take a step, hold a pose, take a step, hold a pose, on and on like that to get anywhere.
16 min read
Kiss Me
by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
“And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.” — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
5 min read
At Work
At Work by Steven Dunn
Sarah said my sister’s name, Sha’Queesha, was a made-up name.
11 min read
Thirteen
by Ryan Bradford
The day the man appears in the field, Mama says, “Oh no.”
12 min read
Every Living Thing in the Desert is Afraid
by Julia Dixon Evans
“Are you ready?” Samir asks, not looking up from his phone.
20 min read
George Bull
by Erika T. Wurth
(from Buckskin Cocaine)
For some reason it’s the sound of the big, grey van door sliding shut on her face that dusty
8 min read
Belljarred
by Lee Ann Roripaugh
At fourteen, you were completely obsessed with The Bell Jar.
6 min read
berlin : skin waving goodbye
Lance Olsen
(excerpt from My Red Heaven)
Every evening the dead gather on rooftops across the city.
6 min read
METALHEAD
by W. Todd Kaneko
Metalhead swaggers through the mall, a giant crumpled and stuffed into a sixteen-year-old boy’s scrawny frame.
4 min read
The Last Polling Station Reporting
By Jenny Ferguson
I’m watching him at the bus stop. Smells like piss, but this is the only place out of the rain, under here.
14 min read
Surrey, 1976
by Sina Queyras
Michael’s eyebrows arched perfectly. I was sitting in the McDonald’s on 152nd with my brother, Jerry,
9 min read
Longhand
by Carleigh Baker
(Excerpt from The Matriarchs)
Ember draws a portrait of Mademoiselle Morin on the foursquare courts with a piece of stolen
4 min read
Killer
by Ambika Thompson
Remember when we drove out to the coast to see that whale carcass? my sister asked on the sixth or tenth call I’d had
