March 28, 2024 | Fiction
I spent the day thinking of Elias
Maxfield Francis Goldman
I could hear the cheering of the crowd, their silent plastic mouths were happy; I could taste the dirt kicked up by the elephants, smell the liquid butter sediment of cheap popcorn.
March 27, 2024 | Fiction
Tony Big Mouth
Steve Anwyll
Now is the time to pass down his knowledge before it’s lost in a jail cell, or beyond the reaches of death.
March 26, 2024 | Interview
Alexandra Tanner on her "Seinfeldian" novel Worry
Anna Dorn
i think the other end of seinfeldian is like
tiny things really sharply observed
March 26, 2024 | Fiction
Gluten-free Date Night
Meghan Proulx
“Are you looking under Entrees?” I asked.
He whipped his menu around. “No, it's in the Nibbles section. See where it says C-section shrimp, amid a local microgreen slurry?”
“Yes.”
Group Sex Eulogy
Mic Jones
Not all her parties were sex parties and she didn’t always call me her girlfriend, but we rode that late summer into an Autumn of mostly lesbian orgies. Sabine driving the car, everyone else an
So Long Sailing
Claudia Elena Rodriguez
Few are lucky enough to realize when their destiny is laid before them. I am one of the lucky few. Mine came when my parents suggested a cruise to the Mexican Riviera from Christmas to New Year’s Eve.
Two Eulogies
Hayden Church
I begin to write a eulogy for
a guy who doesn't exist.
Let’s do this thing called life
Riley Quinn Scott
I’m my mother’s best friend. I fear she is my only friend. My mother and I live alone together in the San Fernando Valley. We used to own two cats, both male, but they pissed the bed, my bed, so I
Margot and Joey
Callie Zucker
Everyone knew that they weren’t supposed to blame Margot for Joey’s suicide, but they couldn’t help themselves. It’s human nature to place the blame, sort out cause and effect. See a bullet wound,
In the Psych Ward Having Deleted the Best Thing I’ve Ever Written
Tiffany Wright
On the drive from our apartment to the emergency room, you take Fullerton through DePaul’s campus. The silence between us makes sense, but without even your usual pop punk to pad it, it feels
The Women
Justine Harrington
Lately, it seems like all the women I know are leaving their husbands for other women. I moved from the big city back to the small Southern town where I went to college, and they began to flock to me,
Talking with Z Wasn’t Unpleasant
CR
The final weekend of January I boarded a plane to Seattle to see, for the first time, a man I had met on a kink website. Or, as I had considered multiple times over the last two months during which we
Re: Ziggurats
Ezra K.G.
When i stopped remote viewing my wife / we stopped being married
My Nina
Tamara Dragadze
But she is always here, always too strong to evaporate into some kind of hereto after.
Cinderella in Flames
René Bennett
I feel like God with dyspepsia. My soul is vibrating at ultra-high frequency. I want to leave my body. I want to throw up.
There’s makeup running down my face with sweat, but it somehow feels apt.
Chaos Questions with David Joy
Sheldon Lee Compton
I have no interest in living another 360 years. The folks I get along with have about died off and the world will be on fire by then. I’m blowing my brains out.
Joan of Arc
Joshua Palm
Today I saw a goose stare down an suv and thought of you.
it got to the other side of the road and tore a few feathers out
following me from a table outside the coffee shop to my car.
I think it
Little Boy Road
Sarah Fonseca
Josephine Aycock’s boy, Jeremiah, was due to start middle school that autumn. In the sun-soaked months spanning summer break, she found herself praying for the thirteen year-old more than usual. He
Your Second Call
Vallie Lynn Watson
I should have called out, “Marry me,” followed by your name, in that quarter-second of dead air.
Nothing too prosaic, nothing too provocative, just four beats, a stunted swirl of “M”s and “R”s.
My
Excerpts from X: previously posted on Twitter . . .
@asdkfjasdlfjd
Can't spoil what's ahead but suffice to say I may attempt to falsely accuse a fellow indie writer of war crimes in a psychotic bid for even more attention
Percocet Helps
David Simmons
Crush ten pills into a fine powder, then stir thoroughly in a glass of warm water. Put the glass in the freezer and let sit for twenty minutes. At this point, the mixture will have separated.
Chaos Questions with Leah Hampton
Sheldon Lee Compton
SHELDON LEE COMPTON: The aliens actually showed up. They only communicate through images and demand you show them one overall image that explains our civilization. You have five minutes to Google Image search. What do you type into the search bar?
LEAH HAMPTON: “Image of Donald Trump shitting on an endangered butterfly”
I Appreciate the Company
Jade Mar
Eventually, the coke got to his head. He started becoming extremely paranoid. I was on a trip.
Matt and Marie get high, get back together
Will Mountain Cox
They all knew the drugs. But they hadn’t seen each other in years. The drugs were doing well. The drugs were doing fine. The drugs were good. The drugs were good to run into again. The drugs were taller, maybe? Or, stronger?
Thamar and Amnon
Wallace Barker
All of the bedroom was suffering / with his eyes full of wings.
Mosul
Paul Thompson
Waitresses circled the room like vultures. Sometimes I dreamt of laying down on the hot sand, my spine fusing to it, nerves sizzling, going blind from the light, my chest cavity ripped open while they pecked around my ribs—the waitresses, I mean—for whatever they could salvage, whatever was still good.