by Isidra Mencos It was turquoise green with black side panels—a simple sheath in stretchy nylon that fit in a fist. When I tried it on I instantly knew it was mine. I stepped out from behind the folding screen and into the main room where my friend Marisa and…
by Lana Bella The drinking girl is not dreaming because a dreamer drinks not from thirst but for the tongue craves. With the snug sphericity of a pearl, she meets the long, furious work of humming spree, boothed in stilt bar hugging stein-glassed hands, ropy on the final slogs. Tinny haze synapses into familiar water, waist…
As told by Oliver, the Bearded Collie by Carolyn Light Bell You wouldn’t know me as Scottish since I don’t have red hair, a tam, or a kilt. But my cousins, who look just like me, drive sheep up and down the moors of Scotland, rounding up the woolly ones,…
by Brian Howlett I can make out a dim silhouette of the first step in the corner of the church basement. It’s an eternity away across the heaving, sweaty dance floor – but as I look down upon my father I know it’s on me to help him ascend from…
by Lou Gaglia In my twenties I played chess and even took a few lessons from a grandmaster in Queens. He was a very nice man, and his wife and daughter were equally nice, and he was patient with me. I learned that controlling the center of the board was…
by Chris Ross Fade in: INT. GYMNASIUM HALLWAY- DAY The room is pitch black with the faint sound of rapid speech and sneakers squeaking against the floor. The door opens and the light from outside illuminates the hall. KEN “CASH” MCDONALD, 17, enters the room as the door closes slowly…
by Lisa Harris Zero holds a place of absence, a mid-point between plus one and minus one. Look closely at a pie, a cake, a world—things we cut up. Once made, they cannot be enlarged, but they can be shared in different parts, in different pieces, in different chunks. Time,…
by Jenny Andrews Days lie down crumble all around ruins obscured in mid-February shadows Sundays lost amid gods long forgotten. Sleeping in with a remembrance of his hand at the small of my back, resting there, his lips flutter behind my earlobe, the scent of him-musky like sweat, his kiss…
by Chelsea Eccleston The smoke stung my eyes, making them water uncontrollably. It burned my lungs, making me cough and unable to breathe. I crawled along the floor unable to tell where the door was. Was it in front of me? Behind? I was running out of time. I choked…
by Luke Lane I tasted blood. In my mind I saw myself at the dinner table working on a plate of dimes. Cold. When I opened my eyes I remembered where I was, and questioned why I wasn’t dead. I was covered in blood, and not all of it was…