A moment like / the moment when I accidentally chewed on my tongue / instead of food and realized / how powerful and dangerous I am
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The Salesman by Terek Hopkins
In two days, Roger turns twenty-seven. But Roger doesn’t want to turn twenty-seven. He’s more afraid of it, of turning twenty-seven, than he’s ever been of anything in his whole life.
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Ape Destiny by Ethan Chatagnier
I’m at the high school to meet with Derrick’s counselor. I don’t know I’m about to say those words, don’t know what they’ll mean. I’m even mistaken about why I’m meeting Mr. Crenshaw, but there he is, waving me into the library.
Read MoreRoundtable Discussion: “Lessening our Existential Despair,” a Conversation with Fiction Writers, Emily Wortman-Wunder and Jennifer Wortman by Emily Sinclair
I read these stories as, in part, witnessing our current political, environmental, and cultural exigencies and the way they push on our interior lives and our relationships. Of course, it’s easy to read everything that way these days, given the lightspeed of our news cycles and the dire tones of our news.
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Resolution (in Twelve) by N. H. Azmi
He was her first in a list of firsts: first kiss, even though that should have been in high school; first hook up although that should have been in college. He was a second or third love though, but the first to ever leave her imagination and take root in reality
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Primum Non Nocere: First, Do No Harm by Michael Bishop
Consider for a moment the end of your life.
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Anatomy of a Flower by John Moessner
A flower / is able to reproduce with itself, or wait for a bug to float / on the tongue of the wind and visit the bell of its face.
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Prodigal Daughter by Clara Trippe
Generations of us did not migrate to bluer places to remain dry on the shore.
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What Will Become of Me by Samantha Tetangco
The human body weighs / less in the moments / after death. / Or so says the scientist / seeking proof of the soul.
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Two poems by Kristin Emanuel
A woman across the street watched her canaries / phase through their cage like melted candlewax.
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Black Widow Spider by Sherry Shahan
I stood in the bathroom where they were strongest, inhaling sprays, sticks, and creams, wondering if my parents even liked each other.
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1996 by Marian Kilcoyne
En route from New York to Albany / a majestic stag pranced along the wire / fence.
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Panic Attack by Beth Kephart
There is security camera proof of where and how my father fell. The evidence shows that there was no daughter beside him.
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Reconsider the Lobster by Kathryn Gougelet
The black eyes of one of the biggest ones swiveled, probing the air for information about this sterile fluorescent place. Its eyes swiveled in our direction. Fisherman and writers: we were a human blur.
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Two Poems by Mark Irwin
We were Americans, black, white. We were Asians, Slovak,
Italian, and Poles, all of mixed descent, all at this school
of advanced learning, learning different and new ways to kill,
asking always the same question. How far is the enemy?
Dear Daughters, Dear Linda: Essays from 'Terrible Crystals' by Victoria Chang
Saying things others want to hear is easy for an immigrant’s child because language is theatrical.
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Is it Me?, or Withering Sadness, Self-pity, Loneliness, Abandonment, Spiritual Desperation, the Loss of Romance, of Love and of Childhood as well as the more obvious Rage and Frustration by Joe Bonomo
The story of one’s adolescence, choked with romantic notions, wordless dreams far more exciting than tedious daily life, is difficult to tell with a clear beginning-middle-end. And I think Townshend knew that.
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Only Obligation by Kathryn Waring
Obligation, defined as: “an act to which a person is morally or legally bound.” Or, as a verb: “to make someone indebted by conferring a kindness.”
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Neural Pathways to Love by Jody Keisner
Time plus love equals ordinary disappointments, which as it turns out, has been enough to harm the good feelings and brain reactions Jon and I used to have for one another.
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Leatherface by Carol Claassen
“In the past two years she’s known him, he’s told her almost everything about the movie. No surprises. She knows how it ends.”
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