Untitled, Tess Vinnedge Trigger Warning: Depictions of  Sexual Coercion of a Minor/Sexual Assault; Fatphobia] My sister stands in the backyard and looks at the bleach-blonde sky of the morning with her head dropped back far as it will go. Her freckled…

Bicycle Gesture Drawing, James K. MacWhirter       She was rubbing ice on herself, and that was entertaining, but when she leaned over and started rubbing ice on me—that was it, I was in love. I didn’t like her much in…

Nothing’s Gonna Happen Without Warning, Chris Winterbauer     Last night Fausto broke open a light bulb at home to see its innards. He held the precious thing by its screwy silver base, inspecting the wire and pieces, shards of hair-width…

Troy, Eyla Cuenca     I dream of the desert often. I have never been to a desert before. The one in my dream is flat and purely tan. There is nothing else there other than the color tan—no bushes and no…

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…

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…

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…

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.…