AIDAN COOPER
Where the chunks notice childhood / behind the awning of our mouths. How we’re domesticated dogs / with teeth sharp only for peanut butter. / Move me to the place you learned the crust carries …Continue Reading Peanut Butter
Archive
there was a door that i knew
SARAH WU
and i knew it intimately, the wooden door that sat in front of my room. it was a friendly presence, solid, and comforting. it held up the drooping ceiling of the white, caving plaster, and kept the little mice in the kitchen out of my bed. …Continue Reading there was a door that i knew
Fall 2023
By SARAH WU, MEL ARTHUR, and GABBY AVENA Mel Arthur:Rot, in simultaneous existence with crumble, disintegrate, stain, decompose, corrupt, sink, worsen, wither, descend, fester, and spoil. To inhabit the space of terrible beauty where the world and the bodies that exist within it circle around what has been made absent. Rotted as an attempt to…Continue Reading Fall 2023
to an evergreen who is me written by a self of mine far from here
AIDAN COOPER
there is no way to get you, not / really. // there is only marble column in rippling bloodstain — / the leaves are clattering, you clutch your breath and your coffee…Continue Reading to an evergreen who is me written by a self of mine far from here
Arachnophobia
EDWYN CHOI
Most people are unable to feel spiders, their spindly legs and round bodies. The species does not matter — recluse, widow, trapdoor; they all run and climb the same…Continue Reading Arachnophobia
Life after the phone call ends
JACKELINE FERNANDES
After the phone call ends the wet cobblestone beneath my feet zooms into focus as the cracks between the rocks partition my field of vision and I look upwards as the world begins to recrystallize around me…Continue Reading Life after the phone call ends
This place and the other
MADI SUH
It was on the corner of Wilder on the way to the 7-Eleven / that you first stopped me in my tracks, and I didn’t notice / the car that would have killed me…Continue Reading This place and the other
Red
SHREYA HEGDE
A Jet moved across the sky / a Meteor to hit the Sun awry, / yet it escaped unscathed / saving the Sun’s fate!…Continue Reading Red
Rot Girl Summer
TAPTI SEN
Decay exists as an extant form of life, or so they say. So even my rotting, motionless body must be continuing to live and breathe. Is it bearable? It could be, if I so wished it. Do I wish it?…Continue Reading Rot Girl Summer
Weathered to Sand
ALEX WOMACK
I came to visit today. / Claire told me not to, that it would only hurt me more. But even if my therapist is normally my first opinion, this time I just can’t agree. Why wouldn’t I want to see him?…Continue Reading Weathered to Sand
Prisoner’s Dilemma
ANNIKA BAJAJ
“I think I might be in love with you.” Y leans against the cell wall with hands behind his head, foot tapping against the cell wall. (The other cell wall; the cell was very small.)…Continue Reading Prisoner’s Dilemma
Shooba
AWA DIOP
Every Sunday at dusk, her moans dragged down our Sunday sun and beckoned it to set. The unnatural sound always rang too loud and plastered to every inch of space….Continue Reading Shooba
Ruby and Rose
BEA AGBI
It began around the time I got back together with Booker. They thought he was too simple, too easy to read. He wants what everyone else wants….Continue Reading Ruby and Rose
Under the Sun
BRYAN JIMENEZ FLORES
It was tradition that when I’d finish enough of my work I’d take the rest to the kitchen table and accompany my mom and the chores….Continue Reading Under the Sun
Saudade
CLARA CHIU
The envelopes began arriving over two months ago: blank white rectangles slipped through the mailslot at odd hours of the day. …Continue Reading Saudade
Haunted
CRAWFORD DAWSON
She bit her lip. What she was about to do was a felony, or at the very least, a crime. But she simply had to do it. …Continue Reading Haunted
Paralyzed Pole
ELIZA BECKER
Korris winced at the scissors’ first zip. Her ear had never been nicked while having her hair cut professionally, but she felt it to be probable, inevitable…Continue Reading Paralyzed Pole
Falling Apart
EMILY WYKOFF
Will this love die if unattended? / Abscising our petals, like peonies decaying / Feed for squirrels and worms and everything else / That wants to eat us alive …Continue Reading Falling Apart
Nine Lives of A Cat
FAHIM ZAMAN
Who knew behind the twelve trees’ / ceaseless tears of fiery leaves / and those hundred and one river / coves of green shade there were / only a lone pair of amber eyes?…Continue Reading Nine Lives of A Cat
I’m Sorry, I Need A Moment —
GABBY AVENA
I mean — I need a moment to move through — an image to see with — an orange on an altar, rotting on speedlapse…Continue Reading I’m Sorry, I Need A Moment —
How to Fall in ROT
GRACE ESCOE
I am not ashamed / That I have not known much intimacy / That I never had a hand that fit the curvature of my own / That I never had someone whisper my name…Continue Reading How to Fall in ROT
Choice
GRACIE ROWLAND
Georgiana and I tangled ourselves in each other’s arms on the stairs to the loft. We were sitting in the only place we knew to sit whenever our Mama and Daddy fought….Continue Reading Choice
becomeingto
JIHYUN PAIK
here; / take before / you, see, behold / extravagance extraordinarily unceasing in splendor / traces lingering without diffusion…Continue Reading becomeingto
I Wanna Show You Someone
JORGE RODRIGUEZ JR
Their father threw a faded quilt in the middle seat where Ulysses would sit. Ulysses developed the habit of wetting himself when he felt the slightest urge to go. …Continue Reading I Wanna Show You Someone
Disappear
KAELA LIU
The five senses: touch, taste, sight, hearing, smelling. These five senses make up how we perceive the world. As we grow up, we accumulate experiences. …Continue Reading Disappear
The Great Peat Bog Body Bonanza of Who Knows When and Who Knows How
LAURA ALMEIDA
It was the beginning of yet another end. It didn’t like this; for one, being an it. There was a scream that resounded through the bubbling bog as it recalled, violently, its true life as a sprawl us and them and I…Continue Reading The Great Peat Bog Body Bonanza of Who Knows When and Who Knows How
Statement of Matthew Ingersoll, Regarding Earthworms
LELAND CULVER
I’ve always hated earthworms, you know. Repulsive slimy wriggly little monsters. I know they’re supposed to help turn over the old soil redistribute the nutrients from all the rotting things, but I can’t see them like that…Continue Reading Statement of Matthew Ingersoll, Regarding Earthworms
Roadkill
LILA SCHLISSEL
The best thing about having / two eyes wriggling around in your / head like minnows is that they / have already learned to blur / and your retina is cracked and crumbling…Continue Reading Roadkill
Do Zombies Dream of Electric Guitar
M LAWSON
Up here, on the podium, is our subject’s soul-liver during the first stage of zombification… infection of the brain is a Hollywood lie….Continue Reading Do Zombies Dream of Electric Guitar
the horror inside, beautiful faces
MACKENZIE DUNSON
My mother liked to style her hair based on the white magazines, Vogue, Cosmo, the nice ones that she had to get a special subscription for, 5.00 dollars every month and delivered straight to our front door….Continue Reading the horror inside, beautiful faces