They Only Come Out at Night (Kara Melissa)
I had a dream about my son, S, a few days after he was born not breathing. I was in the bathroom and his brain was a monster and it was dying. Or it was being eaten by a monster and dying. I never told anyone about it. I was afraid they’d think that I…
Heavy Enough to Kill A Man (Mallory Smart)
Every time I see a typewriter, something in me shifts. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to make the room feel off-balance. I own three typewriters. Two of them work. The third, my Royal Remington, came to me broken. Carriage string snapped. Bought it that way. I told myself I’d fix it. I haven’t. Sometimes I take…
2 Flash Essays (RL Selden)
“Why Don’t You Write About [ ]?” Because it’s all blurry or gone Because I never went to [ ] meetings or [ ] meetings Because I have trouble with the word recovery Because when [ ] died I had just bought from him a week ago and all I could think was damn, he…
Sweat (Andrea Georges Dolan)
I have this recurring nightmare where a faceless boy dangles me by my ankles and drops me from our second floor balcony. The boy has no face, but he’s a Black boy, maybe nine or ten years old. Me, a baby. Not older than three. I can never remember how I got there, but I…
What was in the journal I lost (Kassie Rene)
You lose your journal in a coffee shop in Madrid two days before you leave. You get excited and distracted for just a moment when they bring out your jamón tostada, setting it down mid-sentence beside you, and forget to pick it back up. It is only an hour before you realize it is missing…
Call it anything but love (Zoe Xenakis)
“I understand what happened. We trauma-bonded.” This is what my ex-girlfriend says to me when we meet for the first time since we left each other in a maelstrom. No contact. Just small discoveries of her silk dresses and black boots stowed away with mine for weeks after, on account of sharing identical sizes. I…
Meet & Greet (MM Kaufman)
Atlanta, Georgia. 2006. It’s my first concert. A John Mayer concert. And I’m in love with John Mayer. My dad’s girlfriend gets us “Meet & Greet” passes to meet John Mayer before the show. I’m nervous and excited and nauseous. My dad, brother, and I are waiting in this patio area at the venue when…
Where There Used to Be Razors There are Barcoded Hanging Cards (Lauren Lavin)
No one keeps picking up at the safeway [harmacy, which is a typo I’m going to keep. I leave please-help-me-but-don’t-judge-me-as-desperate voice messages every two days until I lose count. No one keeps calling back and I keep withdrawing, my husband asking Are you okay? No one calls back. You seem down. Today someone picks up…
what might be Bear for (Daniel Joseph)
I bears fuck you up and i don’t mean their claws and teeth and your forgetful bacon grease by the campsite; sure, there are stories of the mauled beyond repair, the cylopsed survivors but my care is your move out to the edge to that house with the stained porch encroaching on the forest and…
Wonder What He’s Up To (Jillian luft)
The crustached scrawn bod with a flutter of raven wing bangs, who gave me a ride to a friend’s to watch Wesley Snipes’ The Fan, fondling the knives nestled in his sun visor, watching their blades reflect the streetlights on our dead-end streets with deadened eyes, lacerating my earholes with the aural wet dream for…
Today, I’m 40 (D.T. Robbins)
My wife, Alyssa, keeps a picture of me on her desk. A picture of a picture actually. She took the picture of the picture on her phone in 2019 when she saw it hanging in the hallway of my family’s home in Lousiana. I don’t know how old I am in the picture. Maybe one?…
Safety Plan (Suzanne Richardson)
“I don’t feel lucky,” I said. “You will, eventually.” “When?” “Soon.” I start to cry. I want to tell the man on the phone how difficult this is. I can hear him crunching chips. I wonder what made him want to work a Saturday night in July at a suicide hotline. I imagine him in…
Saint Outsider. Holy Anorexic. (Vanessa Aricco)
“The only way to cut this knot—this tangle of “natural” rights and claims to authority—is with a supernatural blade.” —Simone Weil My gastroenterologist suggested I read Simone Weil. He was taking an online class and was alluding to the fact that my stomach issues were mental and maybe some existential philosophy might “cure” me. Simone…
If I could only cry (Brittany Deitch)
When I feel really terrible I think about other times that I have felt this terrible (they become easier to recall). They come when I haven’t eaten or showered close enough to right now, I lay in an infant’s face, crackling apart before it begins to sob, collect in my own filth, which is mostly…
San Antonio Fast Food Nights (Drew Buxton)
Jack in the Box I worked the 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift. At 9 p.m., the night manager would come in. He was in his late twenties and would bring weed and beer for all us high school employees to enjoy. He sold pills out of the drive-thru. We thought he was cool. We’d…
Heavy Hands (Jack B. Bedell)
It’s late and I’m already half gone when my son walks in and sits on the edge of the bed with his laptop. He tilts the screen my way and asks if I recognize either of the guys in frame. As soon as my eyes focus on his computer, I let out a laugh and…
mending mettle (Selena Langer)
When the scratching starts at the window screen, I know it is the raccoons, and that their long claws are raking through each screened-in square, drawing holes until their noses can poke through, and I know that they’ll push and push and push until they’re there, in the room with me, and I can picture…
A eulogy for Psittacosaurus, devoured by Deinonychus in the Colossal Book of Dinosaurs (Brenden Layte)
I was six when I first saw you. You were eating, your body nestled into a thicket the same color as your emerald skin. You ate deliberately, tearing leaves from branches and swallowing them whole so they could be ground down by the stones I’d just learned were in your stomach. I wonder what you…
We and Him (Amruta GAiki)
We start off well. We don’t know him and he doesn’t know any of us. The year progresses and we descend into indifference. We tolerate him by not paying him enough attention. We are lowkey impressed when he tells us that some lower castes in Telangana have last names ending with -aiah. We know his…
3/2″ and 30 lbs (Samir Sirk Morató)
You’re watching Attack of the Killer Shrews when your dead classmate raps on the window. It’s late. You’re awake, a bowl of buttered popcorn in your lap, a quilt around your shoulders, snowy new pajamas hugging your limbs, and that skeletal face is at the window again. For a heartbeat, you consider ignoring him. The…
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Rejection Letters 