by Courtney Williams Carter Cast of Characters Pearl: mid-forties solid, strong physically and emotionally, the oldest sister of 3, and the leader of her family. Benjamin: Pearl’s husband, mild-mannered, supportive, loving, and a hard worker. Ginger: preteen girl, sullen, mischievous, intelligent, wears black and a Discman at all times. Jordan: three-year-old boy, active,…
by Jennifer Predny “Janet! The SuperShuttle is going to be here any minute. We gotta go, or they’ll leave without us.” The words barely penetrate the fog that encompasses my brain. I know he said something. I know that the words have meaning. They mean something…something. I continue watching the…
by Haley M. Forté It all began with a hummingbird feeder that hung from a maple tree. Watching the buzzing birds flit from perch to perch as the emerald leaves faded to their autumnal states was how Little Emilia wished to spend her mornings. Mother was always busy, and Father…
by Amanda Valerie Judd a poem is an ocean full of depths and reefsfilled with sharks and sailors and seaweedfilled with plastic and whale spermwhipping up a tidal wave and a hurricanea poem is an ocean working for industriesa poem is an ocean losing its relevance as a living thinga…
by Mackenzie Bodily “Rat-a-Tat” placed fifth in Southern New Hampshire University’s 2023 Fall Fiction Contest. Marlyle watched the words “BEACON ACTIVE” slide over the walls of his one-man cruiser. The cabin was dark, illuminated only by the stars outside the window and those words projected in bright red by his…
by Jess Earl Mama told me that thunder is just the sound of angels bowling. The angel outside my window doesn’t have hands but maybe it just can’t bowl, like how Katie can’t eat peanut butter. The angel doesn’t look like the ones in Mama’s paintings; it looks like a…
by James D. Mills There is a term used in support groups to describe a sudden onset of extreme emotion. When the dam of composure that you so carefully built comes crumbling down and there is nothing that can withstand the raging rapids of your own despair. The Grief Share…
by Amber Allehoff thoughts like polka-dotscircular and scattered.shattered dreamsa million beams of lightthat never mattered.
by Amanda Valerie Judd The oceans are a poem –The continuous ebb and flow of the tides,Stanza after stanza in the greatest poem ever written;Each wave a line, punctuated by dolphins,holding a different meaning for each coast it caresses;every word a grain of sand, spoken by the surf,before being tossed…
by Ivy Rozen This poem was originally published in Hot Pot Magazine. We ate avocadoson toast, in salads, with chips.We craved their pits.We saved them inventi plastic cups, logo fadingbut my mom’s misspelled nameremained in Sharpie. Tap water, lukewarm:only fill it half-way.Stab the heart with wooden stakesto hold it up,…
by Joshua Gessner (This story contains a dead body.) “It’s weird to see a dead one up close.” Those words felt wrong. All dirty and naked; they were almost like a baby. When it first comes out, wailing and red, pretty but in a gross way. I don’t recall Jane…