PRISCILLA LEE
What I am about to tell you is completely fiction. I never met a man named Stewart—or as we called him, Stewie—and I never tried to make him mine….Continue Reading I Write American
Tag: ’25
Fertility
ANNIKA BAJAJ
She’s walking through the woods by her house. The trees grow whole trees instead of branches, and soon enough she’s clambering through sideways, upside-down, criss-crossing, tangled trees. …Continue Reading Fertility
Remembrance
GRACIE ROWLAND
My father’s oversized leather jacket is the first item I’d save in a fire. It has a broken zipper from my heated impatience and a splotch of neon green acrylic paint on the left pocket from my tired clumsiness….Continue Reading Remembrance
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 —
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
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
introduction with no end
MEL ARTHUR
2. / Sometime in late, / i fragment at my being, watch my body turn itself up in the shape of a palm that claws at my feelings, marking my gut with heaps of silence that ever so often bursts into sound….Continue Reading introduction with no end
Seeping
ZOE ALARCON
i once thought my body was / empty of me, other than the light / buzz of energy, unease // until I learned the weight / of remembering could swallow / me if I didn’t swallow it…Continue Reading Seeping
How to Teach Your Younger Brother How to Fly
SARAH WU
You scream the first time you fly. This is only okay if you practice in your own room. You start from the top of your dresser and jump. That way, only the walls stare at you as you bloody your knee…Continue Reading How to Teach Your Younger Brother How to Fly
The Perfect Man
MACKENZIE DUNSON
A row of homes. Perfect homes, like they were pasted from the pages of a catalog. Sprawling white picket fences ran over the hills, connecting the houses in a puzzle, endlessly together…Continue Reading The Perfect Man
প্রণাম (Blessings)
By TAPTI SEN Kneel. A light touch on your temple. Rise. Kneel: Touch your head to their feet. Your knees sting against the cold marble. Your fingers brush their toes. Seconds pass. Hours pass. You hold your breath, trying not to look at curled up toenails, worn with age. Laughter up above you. Shoulders tremble….Continue Reading প্রণাম (Blessings)
Resurrection Ferns
SONIA CHAJET WIDES
waving forests carpet tree branches / trunks, Dragon scales and hair sprouting / sometimes so dense that the bark is made invisible / the tree / becomes a tower gorgeous / fractal ferns…Continue Reading Resurrection Ferns
Illusioned
PAULINE BISSELL
Look: / I once believed my blood ran blue in my body, just because my veins told me so. We keep telling ourselves little lies. We’re not supposed to believe them, but I do….Continue Reading Illusioned
Awakening of Reverence
MEL ARTHUR
…the researcher nibbles at [murmurs] and learns what it means for hands to enfold in one, too, tree steps. Tensions that are touched upon include affliction…Continue Reading Awakening of Reverence
lone goose
RUTH ZURAW
how lovely to be alone / to trace a winding route in / piercing white. // how lovely to crave / to yearn for wood paneling and grimy tile / that failed to grace your bulbous eyes. // how lovely to creep and crawl…Continue Reading lone goose
Palm
M. LAWSON
The assembly line continued: the other angels carded the wool, dip-dyed it pink in the great tin pot on their table, and fed it into the spinning wheel, which they wound on a cone that F— knit…Continue Reading Palm
Salted
KAREN LEE
Crinkled sheets and cascaded shadows / Oh sinful sun, I gobbled it whole / Rolled around my mouth, underneath my tongue / Silken days were no longer / Underneath starlit skies because back then…Continue Reading Salted
Joy
ZOE ALARCON
at this time is relinquishing i / fall up my throat and pray, / to non-thoughts of non-time, / to hardly grasp // i Blaze and remember i’m / Free to remember / Free to press myself against the fire of action…Continue Reading Joy
Starry Night
GRACIE ROWLAND
I feel cleaner, my fears farther away, after staring at the stars in their great cosmos. / They allow me to find beauty, allow me half a moment to forget my sorrows…Continue Reading Starry Night
The Water’s Not Waiting
GABY WEAVER
His home sits on the edge of a cliffside. It had once sat a few feet further from it, but the sandstone has eroded in his lifetime. He rests on a rocking chair, the ocean view unobstructed in front of him…Continue Reading The Water’s Not Waiting
stuplimity
GABBY AVENA
the tree kneels / at the pond the tree / kneels to touch the / pond touch neither the / tree nor the pond / which the tree wants / touching your fingers / which cannot touch…Continue Reading stuplimity
Orphic Overture LXXXI
FAHIM ZAMAN
I met him the night before / In that signature diner / Where all the cars go to die / Where green stars hide inside / With the man who wears the suit. // Who has milk and cookies, and waits till / The Beatles plays on the radio …Continue Reading Orphic Overture LXXXI
Hymn
ELEANOR WALSH
And when I hear false my tongue twists G-o-d / But in street lights I see / The moons all around me / Foxes follow me home to you / I pull the Priestess / Your lips are red / The ring I lost months ago…Continue Reading Hymn
Wonderful
ANNIKA BAJAJ
Swinging my legs in technicolor, fourth-grade, all-purpose classrooms with history on one side and “World Weather Map” on the other, I stared down the boy sitting across from me…Continue Reading Wonderful
WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE
GABBY AVENA
we had to learn to share, my sister-and-i. / older by a year, she laid claim to the color purple. there was only one color left for little girls. i hated pink, but it was mine: my-pink, her-purple….Continue Reading WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE
A Cross Walk In a Labyrinth
DUSTIN COPELAND
My mother said that the pedestrian bridge over arrow-straight Route 1 was finally finished and that we were going to stop to talk a walk over it and my brother said what, why…Continue Reading A Cross Walk In a Labyrinth
Good Life
FAHIM ZAMAN
John Borges, we would love to award you, / Before you leave, for a good life / Lived, Johnny – / If not for a few objections. // Let’s see here, ah, at four some years just, / You cursed in Church…Continue Reading Good Life
dead on arrival
M. LAWSON
There was a sale at Ace Hardware today: forty percent off washers, so Ophelia walked home with tiny metal discs pinging around in his coat pocket….Continue Reading dead on arrival
Perfect and Yellow-Starred
SOFIA TENNENT
[They…] are larger than when she last spent time observing them. A headache threatens her temples as she questions yet again what might make this home look right for a family….Continue Reading Perfect and Yellow-Starred
Km:mk
MEL ARTHUR
what do you feel in the silence / what do you feel in the warmth / what do you feel in the center of your being / whatdoyoufeel between / silence what–wheredoyoufeel / the warmth lies…Continue Reading Km:mk