by Dee Allen MARCH 26, 2022—8:30pm to 9:30pm PT On this Saturday evening,I take a breakFrom electricity. Decisive move,Hand to wall switch.Lights off. Candles on. Lit match to a few candle wicks.Shadows on walls and ceiling shimmy,Dance to flame’s spontaneous rhythm. Dimly litComfort zone, filled withComfort food on a plate,…
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 Joshua Snyder One thinks, usually, that with effort comes reward. Duke and Lian expected a reward to befall them after their first summer, but success was not instantaneous. The reward for Duke and Lian, as it was with most people of the nation, was financial. They hoped and wished…
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…
by E.J. Fawn A girl stands before me, donning a cobalt-colored dress. She turns to me silently, eclipsed in the typhoon of sundry blues, “Does this look good?” She asks me, hair fashioned in buns uneven. This girl is my friend, so frankly, I tell her no. The dress—we admire—has…
by Jess Earl Tomorrow comes and the thing behind my headboard scuttles along the drywall, scales chipping paint as it stretches a claw from the shadows above my pillowed head, only to retreat as I open my eyes. “Good morning,” it creaks in the floorboards of the house, “I’ve been…
by Brooke Gebhardt You’ve never seen the worlduntil you’ve seen your mother cry. When pale white knucklesgrip the kitchen sink as she questionswhether to let you see. When hazel mixes with crimson, staringback at you, sparklingwith fresh tears. When lips quiver and shoulders shake,attacking the walls of your heart and…