December 21, 2017 | Nonfiction
Christmases
Bud Smith
Carefully open the wrapping paper. Inside is Teddy Ruxbin. See his stupid face on the box. Fuck you, Teddy Ruxbin. He reads you bedtime stories if you put a cassette tape in his abdomen.
December 21, 2017 | Poetry
Three Poems
Amanda Hayes
I grew up in grass but here / everything is bladeless, // hair thinned past feathers, / sheets slick enough to grease a boar.
December 20, 2017 | Nonfiction
Juliet-the-Detective
Juliet Escoria
So a few weeks before that Christmas, I decided to do some detective work. I was interested in science and generally curious ...
The Eve Of X-mas 1994; or thereabouts
Steve Anwyll
So on this X-mas eve. There I was. Sitting in the basement. On an old blue sectional couch. Alone
Chupacabra Summer: Seminole, Texas, 1998
Abigail Carl-Klassen
Most nights we stayed behind, Tweety Bird / pajama shirts stretched over our knees, waist-length hair soaking / our backs as we sat on the floor and thumbed glossy 10mm prints.
Sam and Chester
Howard Parsons
They sat on the grassy bank, clothes clinging to their wet bodies, watching the river flow. A few raindrops splashed on the surface, tiny dimples rushed away downstream. Neither of them bothered to point out that it was going to rain.
fool's paradise
Alyssa Oursler
It doesn't take much for a curve to become a coil, for a bridge to become a cage.
None of This is a Metaphor
Jane Liddle
I was at a party for the end of the world. I came so I wouldn’t be alone. I guess so did all the other women. They must have known there’d be no men at this party because they wore beautiful
Autobiography Inside a Church
Hussain Ahmed
my parents taught me to say ‘surrender’
in a dozen foreign languages.
For All My Strangers
Keegan Lester
We were listening to the bombing over the radio while my mother drove me to confirmation class that night. The radio said We as if America was a bunch of siblings who once shared a bed together.
Goodbye Mary, Goodbye Jane
Meghan Phillips
I could take my hands off. Just unlock them at the wrists, snap them off like the heads of artificial flowers. As long as my mouth’s working him, up down up down, he wouldn’t notice if I had no
Winter in Guayaquil
Jean Ferruzola
That winter my mother takes me to her country, a little place on the equator I had not yet seen.
Power Lines
Ben Loory
The man keeps thinking about the power lines—the ones that are strung over his house.
Sometimes at night, he can hear them up there, buzzing.
It's hard to sleep with all the
Hinterland Transmissions: A Day In Dust Bunny City
Steve Anwyll
I don't like most people. And have been jealous of Bud for ages. With reason.
The rabbit's bones
Hannah Allen
Subtraction, division,
rabbit bones, rabbit lives
Fingerbone
Melanie Ritzenthaler
They never seemed to notice me, not even when I rolled up my uniform skirt, like the other girls did, and walked the stairs in front of them.
Three Poems
Jess Rizkallah
sometimes i wake up in empty fields, waiting for the aliens to take me. they haven’t yet, but any day now, i’m sure.
A Man Protects His Home
David Gerow
I’m in the parking lot, I’ve got Sarah’s prescription, Sarah’s my wife, and I see him.
Osama bin Laden.
North of Eden
Sarah Harris Wallman
We went to the college up north to get away from our families, but we didn’t leave behind our need for something like a domestic bond.
Three Poems
Bryce Berkowitz
And somehow I’m supposed to get dressed in the morning / when most days arrive like a gold chain tangled in black chest hair.
The Drive-Thru
Ashira Shirali
Aaina’s mom collects shiny things like a magpie. The one time Aaina sneaked me into her house, I walked past rows of gold photo frames, silver handicraft elephants and raindrop chandeliers.
Dreams About Water
Duncan Whitmire
“I saw you by the river last night,” Amy says, her eyes still closed and half-covered by strands of almond-brown hair. “Why didn’t you follow me?”