ODESSA IKELS
Claire crouched in the cool wet sand, marveling at how the topwater surrounded the sides of her feet, small sandals abandoned behind her. The ocean roared in her left ear, cliffs invading her peripheral vision as she examined the place where the water meets the shore….Continue Reading Wash
Category: Issues
In This Litany, A Lost Lantern

KAREN LEE
This kind of day called for an intervention of sorts, or at the very least, a grand meeting at the town hall located in the heart of Lanternland, where all the lanterns would gather and take stock of the situation. …Continue Reading In This Litany, A Lost Lantern
Philadelphia/Alasehir
SELMA ACAR
Girls are strung along the meandering banks of the Delaware and Gediz rivers. / Conceived as a foolish gudgeon bait fish, removed from the womb with their fists clenched. / Have you ever held your death warm in your palms?…Continue Reading Philadelphia/Alasehir
Like Kublai Khan
TOBY ROSEWATER
I still remember how I got the tricycle. I was about seven years old. My parents gave it to me for Christmas in 2007. The night before, snowfall and freezing rain had iced the streets, giving the roadways a shiny glare as if God himself had paved them with aluminum….Continue Reading Like Kublai Khan
Corner of the World
ALEX WOMACK
Part of me wonders if the only reason I’ve hung on this long was to keep writing. Filling more and more of these pages with any old thought or memory, or complaining about my boring life – you must find me a bit unhinged. It’s either write, sleep, feel myself starve, or succumb…Continue Reading Corner of the World
I Still Can’t Swim

AMAYA RANATUNGE
“I don’t know how to swim.” / “I’ll teach you.” // Water weaving through my hair, / soft and steady, / Blurring the edges of the world. / Lilies brushing my skin / faint and silk, / singing melodies of the dawn. / Moss coiling ‘round my fingers, / cool and warm, / pulsing quiet beneath the touch….Continue Reading I Still Can’t Swim
Tell Me Again
AYANA ALLES
It is a strange thing, when a lifetime of memories consolidates into the tiles and sheets of a hospital room. The world narrows to white walls and blue curtains, beeps and cries, a persistent chemical stench. It’s not like there are gaping holes in my mind. It is more like: I do not know what is gone. Who is gone. I cannot miss them, so I do not feel an ache for their loss. Until they visit me. …Continue Reading Tell Me Again
Returning to the Christmas House
CLARA CHIU
The worn trail of your back and forth, lacing floorboards with footsteps, with a premonition that rattles the interior. Shiver and call it awe, please and thank you. At the hearth, the chairs arranged to watch evenings arrive; a domestic tableau we enter with practiced distraction. Here is the firewood, halved into silence….Continue Reading Returning to the Christmas House
Closing Time
HARRY FINNEGAN
He asks this of the short man with the long cue stick. This man has the long cue stick but it is currently leaning against the pool table. His hands are already occupied by an empty pint. The beer is in his stomach. There is no beer left. …Continue Reading Closing Time
Half Baked, Fully Burned
IZZY BAIRD
It was the night of our last party. Your parents didn’t care to see you graduate and your lease ended that Monday, so Friday night was the last time we piled into that one bedroom apartment. May’s heat felt like July and your AC was busted, so we panted like dogs while sitting around your TV, huddled in the smell of our sweat and cigarettes. …Continue Reading Half Baked, Fully Burned
Ithaca
AIDAN CAHILL
Someone jabs their thumb out on the side of the road. Olive green headband. Wicked shades. Early 20s, she’d be a model in New York, just a drifter out here. Who is she, anyway? Should be a bigger deal than this ragtag hippie straight outta Woodstock….Continue Reading Ithaca
Sempervirens
JUDE TAIT
A small child weeps as parents bury a bunny in the backyard. Hastily planted petunias stand vigil under a clouded sky as the tiny body disappears beneath the earth. The child can still feel the warmth of the bunny’s belly, can still smell the familiar comfort of its fur. …Continue Reading Sempervirens
Love Poem With a Punchline

KATE BESTALL
Truth is, I never get drunk but I make an excellent party girl. You, / who always misunderstood both me & the alcohol, you’ll swallow / the moon & startle when it burns….Continue Reading Love Poem With a Punchline
Misty Stone, Sweet Petrichor
KATELYN PARROTT
I thought I caught it last night—felt the verdant warmth against my palms / but in the morning, fresh petrichor misted stone earth / as fat blue raindrops wept on powdery soil / dry with yearning, quiet with tired…Continue Reading Misty Stone, Sweet Petrichor
고향 (gohyang)

HANNAH KWON
From above the bridge, you see half-frozen streams and hear the rush of water pulsating beneath layers of ice. And as if in immediate response, your body hums alive, blood rushing to your numb fingertips, the static-like buzz a reminder of how fragile the flesh you blanket over the thing that lurks inside of you actually is. …Continue Reading 고향 (gohyang)
Specks of Dirt
MARIAM BESHIDZE
She walked in and the smell of fresh grapefruits and magnolias walked in with her. Her head was bent: an overripe fruit hanging from a young tree branch. Her eyes searched the mosaic tiles of the floor. She seemed to look for an ancient map hidden in the crevices, but instead her eyes bore into the neatly accumulated specks of dirt…Continue Reading Specks of Dirt
&
MEL ARTHUR
it begins but doesn’t end with the earth, / only a memory you don’t keep / anymore,
because the first snow was / clouding your mind, my camera, the two / green chairs that surrounded us // even / my gloves that were on your hands / because I was cold but you claimed / your fingertips were colder…Continue Reading &
even evergreens can rot
VARSHA PALANIYANDY
Zeus—the crime boss, not the actual god—was arrested. His terrifying reign over non-demigods, of taking, taking, taking from everything and everyone under his thumb, was no more….Continue Reading even evergreens can rot
Turnabout
MIKE ROSENTHAL
For all it was his idea, the old man carried less of the body’s weight than me. We stumbled across sprawls of uneven roots and underbrush snares with it dragging between us. The creepers and ivy of the Forevergreen hung a few feet off the ground, neck level for six-foot bipeds. And there was only one animal like that in the region….Continue Reading Turnabout
Ways to Keep Your Flowers Fresh
JENNIFER CUI
Memory of the pencil portrait merged with the bust standing in front of me now, alabaster, white as snow. I reached out and touched the bridge of his nose, then the corner of his eyes, lightly, as if the heat of my hands would melt him away. …Continue Reading Ways to Keep Your Flowers Fresh
The Tree
KIDANE PINCUS
The Tree stands atop a knoll amidst rolling, grassy fields; yet no grass grows upon it, its slopes bare and lifeless even in vibrant heights of golden summer. Its roots reach deep into the soil, worming their way through soft wet earth like eels, and its thick pale trunk rises high into the cloudless sky, its bark smooth and unblemished…Continue Reading The Tree
Untitled
OLIVIA LAW
Somewhere at 7:43 on a Sunday morning, two girls have collapsed into a web of limbs on a twin sized bed. Their wrists, each marked with a college grade stick-and-poke pine tree, press against each other….Continue Reading Untitled
Spring 2025

By MEL ARTHUR, SARAH WU, and GABBY AVENA Mel Arthur:Once the theme of Thing Theory was suggested, I could hear everyone’s (including myself) mind go blank. The collective question of what even is Thing Theory permeated almost every meeting. Sarah even asked me to do a mock Q&A where I attempted, using my muse, Toni…Continue Reading Spring 2025
Mango

BEA AGBI
I didn’t want the mango. I didn’t / want it I was full Just let me have a bit / but my mother said no bites, / peeling and putting it / into my hands, yellowredgreen soft / and malleable in its ripeness, eat / the whole thing. …Continue Reading Mango
Devour
BRIANNA ZHANG
It is baffling that these people garner millions of likes, considering how they spend twenty four hours like it’s nothing! Sleeping through a third of the day—unbelievable. Ten minutes of meditation? It took me one hour to complete university……Continue Reading Devour
family dinner: still life in silence and salt
HANNAH KWON
and this salt would spread quickly, like grief / always does, trickling into red pepper paste / and flakes of anchovy skin, salt desecrating / the soup we’d double-dip our spoons into, / so when metal met our lips, …Continue Reading family dinner: still life in silence and salt
In Lieu of Language
MADI SUH
in lieu of language, / i stuff my mouth. / i do not know how to say the words for all the banchan. / i only know how to eat, / how to be hungry, how to ask for more….Continue Reading In Lieu of Language
Lunch-Box Note
OLIVIA TENNANT
Good cooking requires time and patience – neither of which my mother has. Born and raised by Chinese parents in New York, aggression, assertiveness, hostility, hard work, and short-temperedness are inherent personality traits built into her blood. My mother stops for nothing in order to achieve success. Except for in the kitchen. …Continue Reading Lunch-Box Note
Growing Pains
By FEDORA LIU
So sugary sweet / It rotted my teeth // Back then there were boundless pools of sap here / I thought I would never go hungry // I thought I would live forever….Continue Reading Growing Pains
Spiced Apple Cake
MACKENZIE DUNSON
The last thing my mother made for me was an apple spice cake. She always took pride in it because of the expansive apple tree that was the luminary of our backyard. It has always been the most beautiful thing about our house. The branches reaching for the sky, leaves and breath filling my own lungs, its fruit filling my stomach, and its blossoms filling my mind….Continue Reading Spiced Apple Cake