I hardly dared open my mouth, even to say something innocuous like “Sure, I’m hungry. I could eat dinner.” My words might be analyzed to reveal something knotty, something sinister I didn’t know I felt but really ought to know I felt.
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A Normal Interview with KB Brookins by James O’Bannon
Rage is a thing that has to be birthed, because we do so much course correction – or at least my experience has felt like, at multiple times, someone has done something anti-Black to me, someone has done something racist, homophobic, transphobic, and I feel, in that moment, I can’t react the way that I want to.
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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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Two Poems by Sher Ting Chim
Why is it
when we die,
We always remember most
the song from our childhood?
It's Not About the Cat by Kerry Folan
I could not have explained this to my mother, but I was uneasy in those moments. The kitten was so tiny, and caring for her felt so serious. I tried in that first week to come up with the perfect pet name, one that would reflect her too-big coat and her shy meow, but I couldn’t. I think I felt unqualified for the job.
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Royal Pine by Travis Dahlke
Davis is like an actor who saw their scalp on-screen and paid to get hair plugs only for the show to be canceled before its second season ever got to air.
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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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My Country 'Tis: Listening to Ishmael Read by Ru Freeman
this King & Kennedy country
that fast draws
that kills slow
Foreign Objects by Lexi Pandell
A horse can grow a stone in its stomach the size of a grapefruit.
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A Normal Interview with Maya Pindyck by Caleigh Camara
"I think we grapple with those stories we cannot reconcile by writing them again and again, maybe each time with different 'others' in mind, and for a future people we hope to touch."
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My Country 'Tis: Learning Their Letters by Ru Freeman
the justifiable fears
of waking from an American fantasy of arrival
in places that require defense, let him go.
A Woman Without Origin by Elaine Hsieh Chou
The woman went abroad and began to lose her grip on things.
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Lodestone and Weathervane by Jae Towle
“One never changes the past, Roshelle says. Fundamental misunderstanding. Each incarnation of reality must be internally consistent—that is, if one goes backward in time, it’s not a disruption of the plan; it’s what always happened.”
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A Glossary of White Traditions by Michael Bennett
Erasure: Not the 80’s brit-pop band, although we do enjoy “A Little Respect,” (not quite a cover of Aretha’s version, but a nice alternative).
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My Country ‘Tis: Say My Name by Ru Freeman
they
said it was uncivil but not a crime, it is never a crime when
you die; should I begin from the beginning should I add the women,
Renisha, Rekia, Chantel, Tyisha, Yvette, Gabriella, Miriam, Jessica
Just So by Nance Van Winckel
Just so, for a decade or two, the family before the TV had watched one life as they waited for another. Meanwhile sputterings flew every way from both.
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On Nerves by Karen Babine
AT SOME POINT, all nerves get old. The body cannot regenerate in ways it is accustomed to doing.
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