1994
Butcher
Standing by the entrance to the butcher’s, Maddie can’t take her eyes off Victor. Her braids tight, her nose – a pointed nettle. On her freckled bronze cheeks, a glowing blush.
I watch the soft corners of her lips stretch, as if pulled, her mouth opening slightly, and from within, a laugh breaks free—an escapee (Maddie is a prison). It’s as plump as a balloon. As thin as silk thread. It inflates and bursts like bubble gum.
Continue reading “Maddie is a prison by Tatiana Samokhina”
He smells late-spring grass.
Cold, wet dew caressing his cheek, Stanley blinks rapidly for focus. In dawn’s peachy glow, he is face-deep in dandelions and the lengthy shadows of his white picket fence.
Continue reading “Manifesting Raspberry and Apple by Lincoln Hayes”
On Sunday! See you on Sunday! I await you all. He called out, his voice brimming with unrestrained cheer.
What’s happening on Sunday? Someone would ask him with a mocking smile.
Continue reading “The Man with The Frozen Clock by Georgia Xanthopoulou “
A ring of strawberry lipstick circles the smoothed edge of the blunt as she passes it to me, and I try, I really do, not to imagine what it would be like to kiss her—to taste the berry directly from her lips instead of getting my hit secondhand from this pineapple flavored cigarillo wrapper.
I’m unsuccessful.
Continue reading “Acid Drop by Samantha Barrow”
I’m well aware there are endless possibilities, limitless universes where people live rather than die, where situations work out rather than fall apart, where superb memories are made rather than never created, and where love blossoms rather than weakens. I’m unsure how to reach these complex destinations, but I know they’re out there, situated somewhere on a higher dimension or hidden behind the veil we call reality. They conceal all the could-have-beens, circumstances that might have occurred if given the opportunity but, of course, never came to fruition due to some seen or unseen event…
Continue reading “The Could-Have-Beens by Mason Yates”
“Mommy! Mommy!”
As the summer sun neared the horizon on this longest day, the heat of late June only fading slowly, Ann drew fingers through her dark hair, trying to work out the beginnings of a tangle. I should just cut it short, she thought. Everyone else my age does.
Continue reading “Night Stranger by Torger Vedeler”
A Hermit-Crab Hiding In the Shape of a Husband
Continue reading “On Warmoesstraat, A Triptych by Antony Osgood”
They call me an English movie addict. True that. I watch every movie, web series and show streaming out of Hollywood. Not watch. Binge watch. Everyday. Till my eyes ache and my head hurts. I watch those images on my television, riveted by those pretty houses and manicured green lawns in what they call the suburbs, the crowds in…what they refer to as downtown, walking briskly to work, women in heels, men in blazers and overcoats…. the glamor of beaches, blue oceans and snow capped mountains. Even the sunlight seems different…. a golden hue showering gently on the landscape. Basking in the sun was a term invented for them. Here it is a blazing sun scorching the earth and burning us. But out of these pictures, it is that of a woman driving to a bar for a drink that I’m addicted to.
Continue reading “What’s in a Drink? by Sushma R Doshi”
He stood in the rain to wash his sins away thinking it would do the trick, cleanse his soul, invigorate him once more, to be what he once was. That’s our hero, Viking Arel Tor, neighborhood leader, pointer of straight or straighter paths, finder of fame, good luck, saving for you the best lady of all in your welcome arms, for now and always. Viking’s way in the world.
But where did he go wrong, our Viking?
Continue reading ” Standing in the Rain to Wash the Sins Away by Tom Sheehan”
Friday night, Nick cranks up his Spotify playlist, a plethora of Tchaikovsky. The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Eugene Onegin.
He’s home on Friday, he’s twenty-six, but he can party.
Continue reading “I Love You, Man by Yash Seyedhagheri”
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