by Stasha Powell Even then, I wrote delusions, nightmares easier to slip into than face the truth. I traced perfect curves on crooked lines, lost in the rhythm, losing time, punctuation a casualty in the chaos of my mind. I hid secret friends in the cracks of fantasy, their whispers easier to hear than the noise outside. Phone calls…
by Joan Mazza You are the master of your unspoken words, but a slave to the words you have spoken. ~Winston Churchill To hold a small treasure hidden in the palm or pocket,to know no one knows what you know, the delicate,intricate details of lacework, net of devious deceptions, distractions,…
by Rebecca Ponichtera Two long weeks have passed since the young girl’s parents first admitted her to the crumbling hospital in the center of the city. Like her own waning heart, the sanitarium hopelessly continues to beat against the expanding reach of death as it captures one broken street at…
by Rachel Lawrence Godfrey *This story contains sensitive content.* As twenty-five-year-old Nancy Godfrey headed into her first pregnancy’s twenty-three-week embryonic scan, she was giddy with excitement while apprehensive about the procedure. The ten-week ultrasound image looked like a Jelly-Belly candy. Her husband Patrick had nicknamed it Jelly-Baby. This scan though,…
by Karly Tomasi My dream that night was darker than black, something more vast and fluid. As I swam through the dark, a tinge of restless sleep curdled my vision of inky smoothness, but I couldn’t wake the sleeping raven beside me, so I simply ignored the discomfort. I let…
by D.R. James A butterfly’s flapping over Costa Rica,it’s sometimes considered, could initiatethe chain that leads to tornados in Toledo,hopping and ripping the heartfrom every-other quotidian home. Or maybe its deft stretch-and-glidecould instigate the violent Mississippi’ssurprising rise beyond its subtle, stolid realm—the dainty queen behind that vast rebellion. So I…
by Jennifer Harris I exited the vehicle, and strolled across Publix parking lot, as the radio announcer said, “Speaking of a date, it’s May month, and that means two things, Floridians, hot and hotter!” The #21 bus stopped at the shed nearby and two elderly people slowly got off. A…
by Chloe Maron The state of the American publishing industry is one that fosters a brutal type of competition, self-doubt, and loneliness that makes it hard to dream of even the simplest victories. Spots available to hopeful writers remain limited as the industry cannibalizes itself in the name of profit….
by Blake Kilgore I teach my students the SocraticMethod – questions on questions, thepickaxe, the shovel, the digging down, downto the truth. An honorable path, onethat can lead to some light. I also introduce Mithridates, the Pontic Kingwho drank poisons, day after day,against fear of lovers, assassins,anyone who might harm…
by James Croal Jackson we need not gatherrice in the trash stickywith friends’ handsstill friends their handsa question of study whatwe collect with these rakesour long limbs in themuddy puddle of breath