the paper was clean and whitethe pencil was so sharp it snapped its leadthe broken pencil was a metaphorfor something but what? the broken pencil was uselessthere was a gaping hole like a volcano craterwhere […]
THREE PRAYERS (Matthew Burnside)
I. In Defiance, RE: The Brazen Fuckery of These Darkloom Days (DEAR WHOMEVER,tired of mirrors slitheringtired of pasting facestired of every pittedpensive pendulumabove all tired of being tiredfed up from feedingall these fanciful metaphors of […]
Pincushion (Colin Lubner)
My mother tells her future husband what he means to her by saying to him, “Silly, silly man.” At the same time she tells me what I mean to her by easing my passage into […]
BREAKERS (Robert Warf)
1] I’ll tell you something I don’t often tell. I’ll tell you what I’ve seen. What I see. I’ll tell you. Just you. 2] White feet in white sand. My feet. His feet. His hand […]
Elegy (Claire Taylor)
The thought pops into her head and she can’t shake it: she’s going to have sex here. This keeps happening. They’ll be somewhere innocuous, if not downright inappropriate, when a heat pulses through her so […]
There Must Be Blood (Elizabeth R. McClellan)
For Honest Lewis “There must be blood”—the unbreakable lawof revolutions and fairy tales.This I knew. We grow up knowing. The emperor was cleaning outthe granaries we had filled for winter,the burse, even—kitchen maids whisper— selling […]
Rate Your Suffering At Neil Armstrong Middle School (J. Bradley)
Instructions: Use this checklist to rate your suffering at Neil Armstrong Middle School. Once you’re finished, refer to the table below to see how your suffering rates. If you checked … Then … Nothing You […]
Crashing Towards a Break (Sidney Dritz)
I left my hearton a Greyhound bus on the nightof the lunar eclipse when my seat-mate drank vodka and neon-red fruit punchfrom a soda cup, called every relative he had,and begged them to look out […]
Good Night (Joshua Hebburn)
It was Thursday evening, and they sat at the little table in the kitchen drinking beer while the spaghetti boiled and the canned sauce warmed up. “Do you remember Goodnight Moon?” “No.” “You didn’t read […]
Rejection Letters 