August 20, 2020 | Fiction
The Last Set of Mothers
Emily James
Each year, the clouds lowered. Each year, the boys' hopes crept closer to their grasp.
August 20, 2020 | Nonfiction
An Honest & Complete Dating Profile
Amie Whittemore
She never sticks around for harvest (though she convinced you to plant rosemary, lavender, zinnias, to think of time as a full moon, as a thrush’s song), you’ll say, but O the planting season. The spry seedlings at the start.
August 19, 2020 | Fiction
Shards of Glass
Michael Pikna
Arranged in front of Papa were a cup of coffee, his glass eye, and a shot of whiskey. One by one, they would patch him up before he left for work. The sun hadn’t yet chinned the horizon, and we sat
Pom Pom
Florina Nastase
Still, he wants me to keep strutting down my freak lane, says “Gucci” like “Coochie” on “White Freckles”.
My Magic Pussy
Elizabeth Teets
My almost-ex was freaking out in the way only men with egos can.
Dream Husband
Melissa Stephenson
Always, I am navigating some half-abandoned landscape— part future, part past. Whenever I have a companion, it is my ex husband—the man who, after our divorce seven years ago, moved states away, leaving me to raise our kids mostly solo. On this particular morning, it finally occurs to me that these dreams may not be normal.
How It Was When We Were
Noah Stetzer
Jeff O told us that he and Brian H split after watching Chasing Amy...
Louisiana Dental
Mik Grantham
sat on my couch for twenty-four hours popping oxycontin while I watched a full season of Gilmore Girls. Lorelai and Rory were not on speaking terms and I missed my mom.
City Music
A.S. Coomer
My brother always comments on how big the sky is in my little stretch of western Kentucky. We crane our necks and peer at the sickle moon, the unblinking stars.
To Know Nothing of Rifles
Caitlin Feldman
It doesn’t sit right anymore, so neither does he. But in the Brooklyn neighborhood where my mom grew up, he’d walk on his hands for an audience of Irish-Catholic children. Older now than he was then, they’re still in awe.
the last time you wear a
L Scully
There’s a picture of you at queer prom, in the photo booth, faces alight with total bliss.
Boris Yeltsin Roots through Your Pantry
Nora E. Derrington
One evening you come home to discover Boris Yeltsin standing in your kitchen.
I'm Going to Butcher This
Farah Ghafoor
a man stands on stage his cue cards flashing...
Pacific Theater
Brett Stuckel
Twelve hours later, I surrendered to sleep at a rest stop.
What Haunts Me
Molly Magid
The text said: Hey! I think I just saw you cross the street (I’m in the red Prius). How are you?
Knowledge
Peter Witte
On Human Origins
You take a half-person’s body, then another half-person’s body, and you connect them together and put them inside the mom’s body. Then they grow and grow and grow. Then you
The Surrender Game
Suzanne Richardson
This is how we played: one of us would lay on top of the other fully clothed, “go dead,” and see if the other could move. He relished it. I would lay on him, every part of me heavy and slack. It was
UNTITLED IN A WORLD CALLED MONEY, LOVE, AND FAME
Chris Hutchinson
On Day One, Larry-the-Lizard quits smoking
and eating saturated crap.
Day Two: he buys a hard pack of Dunhill King Size
on his way to Fatty Patty’s Burger Palace. Why?
Because the purplish
February
Erica Trabold
I bought a compilation of Michael Jackson Number Ones when the Wal-Mart Supercenter finally opened. It feels right to have viewed the future from my bedroom, door closed, music up.
Opana, Dying, in Baltimore: An Excerpt from Fucked Up
Damien Ark
I return to the kitchen and walk in on Jodeci pulling a syringe out of her neck. She takes the rope from my hands and uses it as a tourniquet for my arm.
Letter To My Sixth-Grade Self As He Constructs A Bomb
Neil Richard Grayson
In fact, even if I could reverse my reach through the years spanning us and stop you, I don’t think I would.
girl/rampant
A. Prevett
“But beauty wasn’t enough.”
– Gretchen Marquette
Nurturing as a kestrel checking your sheets for mice I am a woman designed. Because I was designed
it follows that I was