pretty blonde american lady
by Julia Kinu
her eyelashes resembled little tooth picks,
long and blonde and sharp.
she always told me
keep your wings to a point;
that way, you become
your own weapon. Continue Reading
the angel tree
by Monique Quintana
Crystal and Seth were fighting over who got the last bit of tequila eggnog, and they knocked over their mother’s Christmas angel. Knocked it off the kitchen counter where it stood, its hands clasped, its lips pursed in prayer. Continue Reading
Pure
by Ever Dundas
2 April 1977
Goddamn. Those sonsofbitches have sure messed up my brain. I feel myself slipping away each time I go in. I forget. Hours and days and weeks are blank. It only feels like seconds. Write it down, I said to myself. Write it down, spit it out. That’ll do it, Frankie. That’ll sure do it. It’ll keep you on track. Keep you from drowning in the electric light. Remember who you are, Frankie. Remember where you came from. Remember your love, your passion. Continue Reading
Dear Sal
by Jeremy Radin
Dear Sal,
Again your hair spills from the drawers
in sheets of burnished carrot. The dark dictates
I replace this cookie with a shotgun. So un-Jewish, Continue Reading
Velcro
by Calvin Gimpelevich
When the doctors told me that I would lose all sensation, that the procedure required unhooking my nerves and repasting the flesh, and I wouldn’t have breasts but a flat, what they call masculine, chest with a little red line to mark out my pecs, the subtraction, and I’d be able to walk on the beach with my shirt off, to go to the gym, to show my senseless dead nipples in public, I decided against the basic needle and thread, for them, the doctors, that is the surgeon and his assistant, to use velcro instead.
Continue Reading
Infinity and the Juicebox Boombox
by Anna Geary-Meyer
School’s out for the summer, sister, so meet me by the pool. You’ll wear a rainbow choker and I’ll chew bubble gum, we’ll sink to the bottom of the deep end, hold our breath forever, swim till our skin’s pale and shrivelled. Bloodshot eyes, a small price to pay for your blurred silhouette, kicking, splashing, heading for the light. Continue Reading
The Tea Room Girl
by Tonisha Robinson
She sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor of The Tinted Tea Room, scribbling furiously in a tatty old notebook. He saw her there every Sunday, hunched over, tongue protruding slightly in concentration, barely ever looking up from her notes. Continue Reading
Mermaid Show
by Kristen Clanton
The pocketknife next to my typewriter
wants to write about mermaids in the sea Continue Reading
Hostages
by Melissa Fitzgerald
If I had to decide, I’d say my biggest regret was the flimsy skirt I put on before going on this stupid trip to Stacy’s cottage. In doing so, I doomed myself to die in a flimsy mini skirt. When I fall down dead, the skirt will inevitably flop up and reveal my red lacy underwear. Then the first thing whatever man—and I’m sure it will be a man—who happens upon my body will see is my red lacy underwear. And that’s how I’ll be remembered. Continue Reading
history lessons
by Paul Tarragó
We have renamed our city Dark Star
rejoined the This Many Feelings Club
then held another yard sale
for funds
so we can view view view
the Death Watch channel
featuring: Boy Band Gun Squad,
Violent Appraisal,
and The No-Hands Diet (Sundays at 8pm).
Continue Reading