From my window, I watched the pool’s plastic pit return to its former glory. Only when the refurbishment was complete, the pool refilled and made usable, did I discover Cathy existed, that the dull-but-probably-well-to-do couple next door had a daughter the same age as Gretchen Lowe.
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Minor Lightning by Victoria Barrett
We walk straight toward the things we want or need or have to reach, leaving a wake of our longing in the bare dirt behind us. We roll our eyes at the olds’ advice to slow down, to “savor,” such corny bullshit, we’ll slow down, maybe, when we arrive.
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The Antipodal Point of Fear by David H Weinberger
After discovering antipodal points and remembering Australia, I immediately started digging. It made no sense to believe that I could dig through the core of the earth but it didn’t make any sense to live the way me and my family, my neighbors, were living: threatened and afraid all the time.
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MISCELLANEOUS GRIEVANCES by Ji Hyun Joo
My doppelgänger smells like wet fur and Old Spice. Even when we’re sitting in the dry air conditioning of my Jeep Cherokee, the scent — heavy with notes of yeast and nutmeg — is overpowering.
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Moms by Marguerite Alley
A few times, he reached for her breast, but the moment his fingers collided with the skin of her chest she involuntarily felt herself disengage in surprise, as though shocked that this should be a place his hand might be inclined to rest, to explore
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Henrietta by Dan Shields
Scuttling toward me with the fat pink knuckles of her claws, assembled inside the shell I’d just thrown. Her body at home in the ugliness I’d created. She was my best friend instantly. I named her Henrietta.
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Horses by Walter Weinschenk
"We run as one, staunch, impassive, each of us different, all the same: bay, roan, pinto, palomino, as many types as there are dreams imaginable but we rush as one array, jet-like above the gravely ground at horse-speed, a single panoply that thrusts forth in perpetual motion and straight pursuit, headlong into pitiless wind"
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Aquifer by Sean Theodore Stewart
"When I spoke, I surprised myself by saying things I had been too bashful to admit to the aquifer before. I gushed. I waited for her response. The water enveloped me."
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HOW WAS SALLY ON THE NIGHT OF THE BREAKING? by Abigail Chang
Sally’s dresses were too big, they swallowed us, gobbled us up, we tied the cords too tight and they left these great, swooping Xs across our bodies. The day was drawn, frigid, there were goosebumps running across our arms. But Sally wasn’t there and couldn’t say anything. Sally was dead.
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The Elephant by Riley Kross
My wife kept to her alcove. I kept to my nook. The elephant played between us.
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Selenium Sulfide by SJ Sindu
I’m here tonight because a week ago I woke up and discovered that my inner thighs had started turning white. Not chalk-white. White-girl white.
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Neither, Both by Nadia Born
You forgot that this is home sweet home and the shelves have a hundred different cereal boxes.
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The End of Coney Island Avenue by Roohi Choudhry
In this country, a man could be lost and no one would know enough to grieve, not even his own mother.
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Drafting a Eulogy by Hannah Feustle
We all know that this is because they recognize pain and want to do something. None of us have to name it.
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This is a Parable by Isabel Quintero
“Your mother is afraid of lizards. This is a constant. In the present or the past, she is always afraid of lizards. When you were a child, one crept in the house when your father was out, probably getting high––though you cannot blame everything on addiction. He might have been working.”
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Tractor Town by SJ Sindu
My cousin is late. And handsome. And very late. And, technically, not my cousin. But sex would be complicated, and he’s probably a virgin, and his English is not so good, so I let it go.
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Orchid Children by Becky Hagenston
They sprouted leafy tufts around their necks, their feet took on a moldy sheen, their toenails were atrocious. You couldn’t keep these children inside.
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Hema and Kathy by Anita Felicelli
“Hema immediately wanted to please him. Theo was black-haired, handsome in a vulpine way, stocky and muscular, yet agile, and a little older than Kai. He was French, and played professionally in London for ten years before coming to the United States. He’d played for France’s soccer team in 1998 when they won the World Cup. He wanted the girls he coached—girls like Hema—to be tough and fierce, to be consummate sportswomen.”
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Foreign Objects by Lexi Pandell
A horse can grow a stone in its stomach the size of a grapefruit.
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A Woman Without Origin by Elaine Hsieh Chou
The woman went abroad and began to lose her grip on things.
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