Now first off, thank you for caring to listen. Or I presume so.I waited a long time to speak about the conspiracy that tried to bend me to its will and deny me mine, starting with my right to self-pleasure at the age of 12, to be master of my own body.
Continue reading “The Little Red Who Survived by Aleks McHugh”
Frequent visitors will remember Freshta our brave author from Afghanistan. We are pleased to present another piece from her series ‘Black Oranges‘
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I was more gloomy than ever. As my steps drew closer to the house, the warmth slapped on my face, a slap exactly like the one of the man whose beard is black and white, like our TV and like my shoes and like me and my black and white life. At the same time that his fingers imprinted, my broken pride mixed with happiness and shame as a five-finger image on my cheek, I was a light year away from happiness. I absorbed the grief, or no, the grief was absorbing me. What does it matter, whether I absorb it or it absorbs me, I was the loser and that’s it. Grief followed me all over Mustofiat to Sufi Abad, as if I had killed its lover, or was in debt to it. It was following me, I could feel it struggling until suddenly, with its own permission and not mine, grief left my eyes, turned on my cheeks, rolled itself over my cheeks, lower and lower, so my mouth became salty and life became colorless as death. Through the capillaries to my heart it spread like a corona deep into my being. Grief made me cough so much that tears reached my nose and started pouring out my eyes like Niagara Falls. I didn’t want grief to be spectacular, and for this I raised my head.
Continue reading “Why by Freshta Azimi Ayeh”
Prelude: Native American legend has it that the Pascagoula tribe preferred death by drowning to lives of enslavement by their enemies. According to one “mist of time” story, men, women, and children were heard chanting to their ancestors while walking en masse into this Mississippi coastal river. Receptive listeners, recreating on these waters, have long reported phantom music. In 1985, historians successfully lobbied for a name change, from the Pascagoula to the Singing River.
Continue reading “The Night the River Sang by Claire Massey”
Kiin, kiin, kiin.
You wake up at 5:00am. There is a swarm of flies finding light outside the window. Your two toddlers are sound asleep, swaddled in patched up clothes. They yawn unexcitedly. The dog beneath the table drools. Before it is a plate of mashed kenkey.
Continue reading “Kiin Kiin Kiin by David Agyei-Yeboah.”
Before my Hinge date I amuse myself by making faces in the mirror. I purse my mouth like an overripe strawberry, beckoning future rot. I slide oil through my hair, expensive oil that’s supposed to be very different from the grease that will seep through the roots after two days without a wash. A few minutes before sunset I slip on my combat boots and trendy trench coat and we’re out the door, me and the fragile home of my body.
Continue reading “Teeth by Amy Katherine DeBellis”
Callahan wishes the voices would stop, but they never do. Some are soft as a caress, some are screamed out shrill. Some are wistful sighs of longing, some are determined mantras. Some are woven with glee, some are drowned in sorrow. No matter what they are, they never stop, swirling around his head, taunting him to listen, daring him to comfort, daring him to help, daring him to laugh, daring him to cry.
Continue reading “Autumn Eyes Lost, Autumn Eyes found by Anmitra Jagannathan”
It’s not difficult to understand how she did it – liver and lungs. They can only take so much abuse, then they quit. I knew for years she was trying to kill herself.
Continue reading “They’re Asleep by Thomas Elson”
I fucked up. I did. I admit it. I messed up bad. Some have even accused me of child abuse, and those accusations have come from members of my own family. You might have heard something about this mess already. Now, what I’m asking you to do is set aside whatever you heard and listen to what I have to say. I did mess up, but I wasn’t alone, and if you get the backstory, it might help you understand what went down.
Continue reading “The Name of the Game by Frederick K Foote”
With time and reflection comes meaning, or so I’ve heard my therapist say many times. But what she doesn’t understand, even with all her schooling, is that despite all, a person can never go back in time to seize an opportunity, to rectify a wrong. At least within the luxury of these solid walls, and as is usual at this time of the night, when all is quiet, and neither breath nor movement intrudes, I can remember the facts as they suit me.
Continue reading “The Incident with the Knife by Monika R Martyn”
Her box on the shelf at June’s Miniature Mart is getting dusty. She watches through her plastic window on the world as her aisle is put on sale. “50% off! Get ’em before they’re gone!”
Continue reading “June’s Miniature Mart Off Highway 101 by Sage Tyrtle”
