(mac)ro(mic)

It is in August when the rains fall thickly and your ghost disappears. I am seated on the porch swing, my feet dusting the floorboards, our farm fields overrun and expansive in the distance. I am work-weary, grief-stricken, manifesting moisture of any sort. Our son […]

(mac)ro(mic) readers who’ve been here for a while will remember The Bridge by Lucy Zhang, a haunted (and haunting) flash we ran back in December of 2019. Lucy has a brilliant new chapbook out from Thirty West called Hollowed, and Editor-In-Chief Nick Olson recently had […]

Her finger, tucked under his top lip, roved over his top front teeth. He wondered how much longer she needed. She had been kind—her veiny hand was sheathed in a blue plastic glove, but still, the bare unpleasantness was hard to bat away. She could […]

CW suicide, abuse My grandmother described my dad’s penultimate suicide attempt in 2018 como un milagro through both of our tears over the phone when I found out about his overdose. I hadn’t talked to the man in years, and quite frankly, I was terrified. […]

It’s all about the light. It’s in the light. The light, the light. I repeat my mantra over and over again for 20 minutes every day as I bathe in the multi-spectrum glow of my SAD lamp, darkness hiding in the periphery like a hunter […]

Most days, every day if he could, a certain man tried to make something. Some days he made one thing, other days another. Then, one day, the man’s doctor gave him the news that, though he would more likely survive, he also might die any […]

You wake up around midnight and through your closed eyelids you can already sense the brightness of the moon: someone forgot to close the curtains. A week ago was the last supermoon of the year but, for reasons scientists cannot explain, the moon forgot to […]

On Tuesdays we kick up ash in the alley behind Jackson Street, tossing crumpled parchment in bins, twisting our caps until the bills crane sideways, slinging black backpacks into the empty spaces where windows should be. Aiguo won’t unlock the door until half-past-three. We never […]

In this new house — in her new house, she guesses — Rosie doesn’t know where to look. She wants to see everyone; she wants to be seen. If Rosie can’t be seen, she wants to be felt. Honestly, Rosie prefers to be felt. She just […]

Her chubby little arms swaying as she careens down the mountain are all I can think of again this morning. The way her body’s flopped forward, and she stares at the snow passing underneath her. Her dad’s holding her up, her skis tucked between his. […]

Tonight I hope something pours out of me. The LED clouds are on, ergo ambiance, and I ate the healthy food for lunch and I got the sun and the laundry is handled.  You don’t care about that. I don’t care about that—about the things […]

I didn’t used to have to prepare myself to see him. Before the trench coat and bail bonds and scabs. Before the lies and the red-rimmed eyes, and the snot strolling toward his lips. Before the pleading for mom’s car payment and before the blue-eyed […]