I once believed distance meant a lack of sound, / but lately silence screams like a falling leaf. / The morning emails offer no relief, / just time zones measured in lost and found.
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The middle of that night by Annie McGreevy
I figure I’m making it all up. I’ve been a wreck since he died—my appetite is erratic, my gait agitated, my posture defeated. So, sure—my psyche is probably conjuring him. But I welcome the visions because they soothe me.
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Two Poems by Carrie Shipers
Of the siblings / I can reach, one says we were lucky / to survive, and one gets stuck / repeating we were loved.
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James Garfield Junior High School, Westchester, New York by Michele Zimmerman
At school dances that are themed like blizzards and vampires and under-the-sea creatures, kids will hear phantom noises in bathroom stalls and other kids will scare their friends with screams. It will become generational knowledge that Johnny H. never left the bathroom stall in the hallway next to the small gym.
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When Fireflies Scatter by Rebecca Evans
This is the first time I shoot a gun, but not the first time I’ve held one. I wish I could tell you specifics. I can tell you what I remember.
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Where Beauty Goes by Joe Bonomo
Because something is gone, that doesn’t mean that it goes away. We often clutch at stories, real or those we imagine, that can help give our lives meaning against randomness and disorder.
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Place of the Shades, or: Letter to Your Laughter by José Orduña
You stood in our living room just after your first birthday as the television played aerial footage of prisoners in hazmat suits lowering caskets into mass graves. Mercifully, you’ll have no memory of it, but your early life unfolded as death felt just there, right outside the front door, delivered by a friend's fingertips, floating on a loved one’s breath.
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All Light Is Half Light by John A. Nieves
Some cold nights the fog tinkles against the wind- / ows and shushes along the roof like a paper bag.
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A Normal Interview with Vauhini Vara by Talia Kolluri
[T]he argument I’m making in the book is that by resisting the narrative of inevitability offered by Big Tech companies and their CEOs and investors, we might open ourselves up to other possibilities — maybe possibilities we haven’t even imagined yet…
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Queer Femme Asks A Man To Forgive Their Sin by Mateo Perez Lara
I wait for an arrow quiver / strike to kill my aches / & when I look in the mirror / I want to throw knives
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Two Poems by Jude Achilles Misick
I spent my childhood practicing girlhood, / wearing dresses that flowed around my ankles, / and stuffing myself full of honey
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Two Poems by Jeannine Gailey
I walk outside and above us an open mouth / to the universe – light streaming towards us, / an invitation.
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A Normal Interview with Trinity Nguyen by Hope Vang
“I think grief and loss were natural themes that emerged as I wrote. Since the American War in Vietnam is such a recent event, it touches every aspect of my characters and their story. In a sense, I couldn’t have written a novel about a Vietnamese American girl going to Vietnam without exploring the diasporic grief and these complex feelings related to home and belonging.”
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Composition by Sharon Gusky
Barbie and Ken aren’t together much these days. Ken is often with another doll he has met. Barbie knows this, too. You could not say that “the other” is taller, or slimmer, or more beautiful than Barbie. Barbie and her look alike, except for their hair color.
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Ribs by Miles Parnegg
They pass the Styrofoam cups of potato salad laced with dill, and sometimes go for the banana pudding shingled with vanilla wafers. That is the point, the sharing. They’ve grown tired of individuating, making protective decisions, catering to specific tastes.
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Surfer's Journal: Part One by Ann Petroliunas
I am three days into a new life. In a new state in a new town at a new elevation where there are other things for single 30-year-olds to do than attend baby showers and bridal brunches. Three days into a new life and I am sitting on a beach waiting for a surf instructor, fantasizing about his abs and our potential.
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Dissapearing Act by Peter McInerney
A week later and the horse is a hollow shipwreck, ribcage bared to the quartermoon. The jetsam of carrion eaters strewn amidst a palimpsest of tracks printed in the dirt.
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Bodies Leashed, Bodies Glanced, Bodies Freed, Bodies Danced by Joe Baumann
His mother’s doppelganger reached the water first. She did not break her stride. There was no fanfare, no grandiose gesture at the miracle of it all. She simply kept walking, her gait keeping its same rhythm as her feet set onto the shifting, slurping water as it rolled in and out.
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Oysters Rockefeller by Brad Kavo
News comes back your cancer has spread, / so we go out to celebrate / you not being dead / yet.
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A Normal Interview with William Archila by Angelina Leaños
This is the great thing about immersing myself in the world I am creating in my work. The tropes, concepts, the culture and history, the places and characters, they all come together.
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