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The Art of Birds
Sioux Falls Mill, Benjamin Etten Cam’s father is a miner. His large hands are defined with rings of dark beneath his nails, rings Cam hears echoed in his father’s raspy voice. Cam’s grandfather was a miner, before the cancer got him, and his father before him and so on. Mining is not simply in…
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Cherry Tomatoes
Number Five, Hannah Kucharzak [Trigger Warning: Depictions of Animal Abuse] Cherry tomatoes grew on the side of the Strayford’s house, near the driveway but sheltered from the cars and the gravel by a short picket fence. Olie Strayford helped his mother in the garden everyday, picking at the dirt with a small garden spade and watering…
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Pressure Cooker
Excerpt from The A Bao A Qu, Zoë Goehring [Trigger Warning: Depictions of Body Gore] DAUGHTER It is morning. She remembers because when the day is bright, the linoleum tiles shine brightly in return. That morning, she hears her mother cry out, and runs into the kitchen. Rice porridge is spreading slowly across the floor in…
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This is Not the Whole Story
Library, Brittany Whiteman [Trigger Warning: Graphic Depictions of Sexual Assault] In the night, there will be a sound like a beating heart and it will be your own. In the bunk below yours, the girls are up to the usual shit. Tracy has stolen a bracelet from Ms. Jenkins who does rounds and is trying to…
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Benevolence, Georgia
Persephone, Esther Tang When I think about 1945, I think about peaches. Sweet and fuzzy with a fat, brown pit smack in the center. I remember biting into a fresh May peach from the backyard when my mother ran into the kitchen yelling the war was over. I was twelve. Mother hugged Aunt…
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Graffiti in the Library
Chalkboard, Brendan Hunt The graffiti scribbled into the desks of the library intone different levels of cryptic messages. Suck a dick! well that one’s clear. A more delicate hand chides me to Be mindful! and adds diagrams: happily welling from a lumpy stick figure’s self. Does it precede or respond to the dick? This is my least…
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Voltage
Lettuce Hug, Christina Guzman [Trigger Warning: depictions of alcohol consumption] Ivy turned the living room lamp off and back on again for the eleventh time when Hal finally looked up from his book. “Should I read somewhere else?” he said. The worst part was that he meant it. Ivy knew Hal would gladly get up and…
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The Newly-Minted Dyke
War is Over, Ernest Volynec For what we knew to be our second date We went to go see some spoken word poet the campus had brought in. For the most part, she talked about the female experience and being queer. I felt confident enough to hold your hand in public but still made…
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The Restless Spirit of Ernest Hemingway Inhabits the Body of a First-Grader
A Meal of Crayons, Bryan Rubin It is human nature to disobey. Refusing to follow orders is treason, but refusing to follow one’s ideology is treason all the same. The measure of a man is not whether he is disloyal, but to whom. “Stop stalling and eat your zucchini.” Oh, Mama. If only you knew…
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Metastasis
Blue, Linnea Schurig Dana Scully had copper hair and wasn’t afraid of God or strangeness, but Gillian Anderson’s hair is blonde so maybe I’m not really sure who it is that I love. I can make a list that always begins with Mom and always ends in different places— sometimes in Grand Rapids where…