Dancer, Rose Horell and I can’t stop thinking  about how I’ve gotten so used to doing everything alone. so when I reached into the fridge for a dozen eggs for the week with my right leg out to catch a door that never hit, I was startled when I looked over my shoulder to see you…

Gas Station, Oscar Zenteno I was born in the room where my mother ate her first hamburger, the room where my father sat at her bedside, licking every crumb off  her collarbone—where, years later, we hung fish-shaped lanterns  on the smoke detectors, bellies glowing the shape of bombs,  the room where the curtains held themselves…

Molten Medium, Chloe Moulin He kisses his hand through my stomach I am a butterfly display, mounted under glass  —pinned with a needle—  pleasure with an exit wound. My stomach wound round the  puncture. Taxidermy angel, dying  a little death. I know why it was  the seraphim circled  the throne, ejaculating,  “Holy! Holy! Holy!” I…

The Complexity of Detail, Olivia Offutt It rises And falls Like breath Between whispers It twists Turns upon itself forever  always will it swallow itself moment gorging on moment A snake eating its own tail turning always  to consume. About the Author Colette Creamer · University of Richmond Colette Creamer is a senior Biology, Latin,…

Opulent, Taharah Islam embodied stories pass me on the sidewalk & my head is a balloon / floating above / but I still cannot see through skulls to the thoughts & narratives inside / from my inflated position / I suffer from a buoyancy complex / KOM-pleks (n.) an assemblage of featureless stick figures engaged in…

Demonology, Jack Hoye There once was a man from Nantucket  Who ate a pufferfish straight from a bucket. He said with a grin As he wiped off his chin, “The tetrodotoxin from this fish will bind to my voltage-gated sodium channels, thus blocking the passage of sodium through the bilayer, killing me in four to six…

Haku, Anna Hiltner My sister and I grew up between golden hills that glared against the rough blue sky of Tahoe country. Mom and Dad sat us down in a too-small,  too-expensive California home to tell us  we were moving to Florida. My sister and I pierced our home  first with shrills for Disney,  and…

Fever Dream, Emily Lawson I met a woman early August,across her skin I felt tearful years.It was written on her stomach and thighs.  A burning wish fired from her own tongue:  “Loving arms and a pulse to be alive.”  Breathing in your raspberry vapor,take me through each of your faded scars,  I’ll carry those tearful years…

Dusk in the City of Angels, AJ Favorito i step into a massage chair designated for patients one man is distant enough we stare into each other   as plastic balls knead my shoulders into tenderloin i make that disgusting enjoyment face I sometimes make   trying not to laugh  our eyes roll inside our heads I…

Cotton Candy Woman, Kiara Florez funny, isn’t it that Eve bit into knowledge and all of my citations slither their way back to sons of Adam funny, isn’t it that we bore the brunt of it ate too much, too soon burped ourselves to exile funny, isn’t it the girl in the movie is sad…

Dorothy, Ciera Land novel is new, but The Novel is not. Poesis. Poesie? Poetry!  Glass shatters, I escape God. Forget the Book, I want to create, to produce something new– What is new? God isn’t new.  And neither is equating sunlight to heaven. And maybe a long time ago someone wanted to grasp at the…

Untitled, Robert McGrady परदादा in the veranda. White kurta, square glasses. Sitting in the giant of a rocking chair his father had graced before him. Every time we would return, we could see him from the driveway, right where we left him a year ago. A concrete image of my first seven summers. He would…