Watch. Always watch. The day watch. The night watch. Never turn your gaze. There will be signs. This is how the mouth will curve. How the brow will bend. The eyes will have that look. That look. Listen. Listen to the language of sighs. This is the […]
Formation of a Fissure Line by Brooke Randel
Between Ava’s Nana saying you’re a growing girl, eat and her mom telling her that should be enough, a fissure line forms across the dining room table. Where before there was surface so flat she never noticed it, the ocean to a fish, her body […]
I think I love by Faris Salhi
I think I love her. I really do. I love her speckled face, freckles like crumbs across the bridge of her nose, falling down her cheeks to the corners of her lips. I love the way she sees. The way she looks at things, not […]
Would You Recognize Me in the Wild by Megan Cannella
Today, I discovered The Moment You Stopped Loving Me. Just sitting there, casually, out in the wild. I was shocked that it didn’t even seek cover when I approached. Later, after some research, I found that The Moment You Stopped Loving Me doesn’t have any […]
Not Blaming K by Dylan A. Smith
Though in her defense K really did fear that Paint. I saw it take shape like that myself more than once, say when she’d step inside the barn to ask me something strange—say strange like: Art, suppose that’s throwable clay making up the red shores […]
They ate my grandmother’s cat by Irene Cantizano Bescós
During the Spanish Civil War, they ate my grandmother’s cat. If you were to meet her, she would tell you the story and get sad. Now her present is receding and her cat is getting closer, so sometimes she is seven again, alone in the […]
Stealing Valium by DL Shirey
Stealing Valium from my father used to be easy. After school, before he came home from work to drowse in front of the TV, I rattled the orange vial and dropped a few in the toilet. I hoped his doctor would notice how quickly the […]
The Hard Way by A Whittenberg
You never know peopletill they dieyou gingerly pagethrough their privacy Those fresh, fateful photos:mothers in mauve miniskirts,fathers frying hash browns, wearing floppy hats After there is nothing at stake,you find out all that you could have given A little air comes in,combats the forming mold […]
Pieces by Christopher Locke
CW: abuse When my mother was eight years old, she climbed to the top of her neighbor’s greenhouse and leapt, convinced she would fly. Her body crashed through the glass and she landed on top of a table filled with bright yellow daffodils. Her right […]
It Was Probably Nothing by Carleton Whaley
In the new apartment, the couple patches a hole in the drop ceiling, waiting for the noises to start again. Patch may be too strong a word for the frantic application of duct tape, the shingling together of the tiles, but they can hear the […]
I Wonder What My Little Brother Thinks About My Period by Lauren Cortese
It’s the night before Christmas Eve. I am twelve and three quarters years old. I come home from swim practice and see an unexpected splotch in my underwear that looks like blood, but brassier. This color is not represented in American Girl’s Keeping and Caring […]
The Careful Preparation of Vanilla Cake by Will Musgrove
2 cups of flour I slide my index finger across the measuring cup. The excess flour sprinkles into the bag below. I wipe what’s stuck to my finger against the bag’s papery skin. Waste not, want not. Dad’s catchphrase. I inherited my old man’s slender […]
