About the Author Kayla Ziefle · University of Central Missouri Kayla Ziefle is a UCM graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English. She worked with Arcade Magazine, where this piece first appeared, as a managing editor and poetry editor. Kayla…
facetime, Saber Paustian Ever since Cecilia Harrison’s father told her that no one ate cinnamon raisin bagels anymore, she had made it her personal mission to order only cinnamon raisin bagels. She preferred egg. Even so, cinnamon raisin was palatable…
Light in Hand, Liza Hollenbeck my mother dreams me unafraid and wedded. don’t sleep with boys until you need to marry a citizen. in my sleep, i dream of girls in skirts fluttering like pages from a fallen passport. marriage…
Memory, Veronica Torres a (un)Holy war: white or Arab, American or Lebanese, fought between broken noses almost blue eyes a spangled hijab church bells a bald eagle perched on the branches of my homeland’s cedar tree a grandmother who always forgets…
Portrait of a Friend, Noah Bavonese I believe in being Haitian. Haiti has always been looked at as poor and dirty because it is a place where everyone takes from but never appreciate. Being born and raised in Haiti I…
Sweet Dreams, Hannah Elizabeth High The helicopter noise your car makes when you open the windows on the highway, The static on the radio, The ringing in your ears. Your lies that drip from your mouth like tar. The…
Flickering Strings of Love, Paul Knight i see the guiding vision warping, changing “we stand in solidarity with sex workers’ rights movements” becomes “we stand in solidarity with all those exploited for sex and labor” a lone trans pride flag,…
Golgi, Soren Carlson-Donohue “Don’t slouch, Gazelle, you look like an alley cat.” Sister’s chidings are lost on me now as I sit on our steps. Her steps. My steps now. I am alone. When did Sister become Bride become Mother?…
Do You See It, Mommy?, Hannah Elizabeth High I. Back then we were just bodies. We would watch Cosmos on Netflix and wrestle on the couch, knocking over empty beer bottles with our eyes closed. Sometimes, Jackson would pause to…
Blue, Linnea Shurig surely not the ghost of your body inflated with the hudson like an old mylar balloon the kind a child begs for and then abandons to wander through hallways until it withers and dies i imagine you as…
The Japanese House, Effie Jia They pick marrow from their teeth With calloused fingers and fish bones Outside because the sweet night air and smoke from the street vendor’s tawa Is only slightly more delicious than warm skin More…
After the Impact, Sarena Pollock Walking up to the house had been strange, perhaps even suspicious. The building was a two-story monument to the cotton-picking genocide of days supposedly gone past, and the way the sunset had framed it did…
Moving Forward, Brittany Lenze The day Summer disappeared, you were at home, feverish and ready for the phone to ring. You’d been waiting for that phone call all morning, hovering moth-like around the old-fashioned landline in the kitchen. Your friends liked…
All for One, Ella Van Haren “What’s something you like about yourself?” My counselor sat across from me in her office, leaning in so far her brunette bob pitched into her face. She spoke in the high, breezy voice she…
Little Architect, Natasha Hirt as is tradition for the women / of my blood, / I shop too much. will sacrifice / a paycheck like a lamb for the chance to conjure up / a fresh silhouette. & I am…
Cellular Hierarchies, Effie Jia i’ve heard about the man who eats boys in the backseat of cars—we all have, learned to fear him, the weeping pustule. i didn’t think i’d come to know him, let alone share his blood— shame…
Light and Dark, Grace Long now der’s clothes to wash and suppa to fix the missus want it all done quick she hate my black ass cus when i walk in a room she smell her husband on me she watch…
Disrupted Cannon, Colleen Simmons i wanted to be a slow dancer. then i wanted not to move my body at all. not even a ghost in upbeat funeral dirge should come this close. once, when i ascertained the formula, i…
Pins and Needles, Kamron Williams In 1987, my mommy and papi met through God. My mommy was seventeen, spreading the love of Jesus Christ in Chapopote, a remote village on the Tamesí River in Mexico. My papi was twenty-four and fiercely…
On the Edge of the Falls, Sarah Moore Some things I’m afraid of: that the burglars have taken the DVD player but not the VCR, climate change, a library book I forgot to return in 2006. I guess it would…
Comfortable, Jihyea Jang rotten peaches, over ripe plums, splitting along …
Hands, Katherine Rogers Shannon wipes her hands down the front of her apron. She has nine rooms left on this floor, and she’s supposed to be off work in two hours. She pushes her cleaning cart out of room 311 and…