Category: Prose

the way home

SERIN HWANG

The woods behind my old high school burned down the winter after my senior year.
They were gone within a day, leaving behind only the ash that settled on my car and the smoke that dimmed the sky, turning the sun a blazing orange. I was home from college at the time, abandoning crisp New England autumn for a dull West Coast winter, snowless but mildly chilly, until it wasn’t. California was still burning when I got back on the plane….Continue Reading the way home

The Buyer

EDWYN CHOI
“Incredible,” the buyer answered, still looking up. If the plot of trees were a painting, he resembled a smear on the finished canvas, a sharp, dark smear. The wind was not blowing anymore. He felt a little warmer. …Continue Reading The Buyer

Ode on a Warm Sea

VENUMI GAMAGE
My fingers trace the smooth blue tile on the wall as we walk in together, catching on jagged line after line of grout. This is how I would map your body, catching on and pausing at every next new tile of you. We swing our balmy limbs onto the benches, like synchronised divers; in this moment we are perfect score, perfect twins. …Continue Reading Ode on a Warm Sea

The Pimple

OLIVIA TENANT
I’m getting ready for another night out, painting my face thick with concealer and foundation, over-powdering my face, and dousing my cheeks in golden glitter and pink blush. I’m using one of those mirrors with the perfect lighting which is supposed to help me apply my makeup perfectly, but it distracts me instead….Continue Reading The Pimple

Rotted

MERRICK LAWSON
Drew sits in a forest. There was a time that they were here before, but that is gone and it is impossible for them to recollect it. Recollect — re-collect — collected on their phone; they scroll through their photos until they prove that they were here five months ago, that they wore their flannel-lined jeans that may have been stained, or maybe not.
…Continue Reading Rotted

Omphalos

LUCHIK BELAU-LORBERG
The flavors, one after another: you, mouthing off in tongues; then breakfast for lunch and vice versa, meaning maple all around; slicked salt beneath my boots; a stretch of teething road with chalkboard clouds; the cashier and her disinterested brows, bad coffee at the cinema beside a lady smiling at a map and her breath is like eucalyptus. The rain goes on, though only…Continue Reading Omphalos

Evergreen: The Voices That Do Not Wilt

green plants in background

SOFIA AHMED SEID

It was a peaceful morn at the foot of the mountains. The sun looked coyly radiant, slowly rising from behind the hill. I must have been sitting on the cement steps because my derriere was going numb from the cold despite the warm embrace of the morning, filled with the chirping of birds and the delicate ringing of tiny bells at the fascia of the church—bells that danced with the gentlest rustling of the wind….Continue Reading Evergreen: The Voices That Do Not Wilt

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GABRIELA WEAVER
We hadn’t spoken a word – well, discernable word – for an hour. My fingertips filled the void of silence, grazing your skin, circling your collarbones. I rested in the crook of your neck, forehead pressed to your cheek. My eyes followed the lines I drew on your skin. I lifted my chin to trail kisses up your neck before meeting your gaze with my own. …Continue Reading Untitled

Snapshots of Dust

BRADY KIM
I visited my father’s house last week.  I straightened the picture frames on his nightstand, the glass caked with so much grime and filth that you couldn’t even make out the picture.  I swept the dust from the lonely halls, the wallpaper cracking and peeling at the top so it cast a shadow across the wall when you turned on the buzzing yellowish lights….Continue Reading Snapshots of Dust

Wash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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