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Chocolate
Conch, Alessandra Leo I’m a firm believer that it shouldn’t be cold without snow. There is no reason for the air outside to freeze in my lungs as I open the window and clamber out onto the fire escape in the blue-grey of the predawn morning. The metal railings burn my palms as I…
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Hairy Girl
H2O, Erin Lee You must have stared at your reflection for an hour before the choice was made. Your eyes followed up the slope of your nose to your eyebrows and the jet black hairs subtly connecting them. It was an easy decision to make if you didn’t think about it, but that was never…
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Krousher
Volatile, Anna Koeferl I once read that an eye could be removed from its socket, the optic nerve still attached and functioning. Can you imagine such a careful operation? I imagine a white coat surgeon— a doctor, perhaps, steady hands lovingly twisting the scalpel and pin, circles onto circles onto circles, lens onto iris onto pupil,…
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Tuesday
A Better World is Possible, Ernest Volynec Paint rollers on sale today, thankfully. Which color suggests my walls will not miss the pale space where your painting used to hang? About the Author Katherine Tison · University of Florida Katherine Tison graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida with a B.S.…
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Choices
Still Life in Blue and Yellow, Hayley Cormier, Boston College When they met they fell in love and decided to get married and all of a sudden they were in California. The successive events were short and definitive as knife wounds. His father was dying and needed someone to stay with him in…
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The Space We Have Left
Interlocked, Roma Parikh Everyone I want to love is knuckle-distance away on a map the size of my hand. We are fingertips on opposite sides of glass, telephonic voices in adjacent time zones— it’s all too far for me. The airplane leaves a trail of chalk in the sky. In seat A, my arm…
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Mokita
Karla with Candle, Kreuzberg, Berlin, Samantha Metzner It is the worst at nights when everything is still and silent and when everything that is left is the whisper. In the darkness Harold cannot see my face; I feel the warmth of his body lying next to mine, and I am waiting for his…
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Seventy
Throwback, Abigail Jackson When she turned seventy, my grandmother stopped pretending to quit smoking. Though her days consisted mostly of coughing and burning holes in the tablecloth, she never parted with her Salems. “I’m ready to go,” she used to say, as the rising smoke yellowed the ceiling in patches. …
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Galway, Ireland 1993
Small House Near Nowhere, Emily Hill Friday, Kristin cuts vegetables into finer things, searches the weekly chicken like a dead body. The bones are boiling away for soup— six o’clock and the house is Catholic for the day. The walls are warm ochre, but Kristin shivers, trying not to think of her parents’…
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The Nudist on Pine Street
Untitled #2, Karl Rivera [Trigger Warning: Mentions of pedophilia] Mr. Walker didn’t give us a warning or indication of any kind when he decided to become a nudist. I had pulled into my driveway after a long day at the lab when Mr. Walker came strolling along, walking Rocky, his pit bull. What was more disorienting…
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An Adjustment
Wish You Were Here, Nia Owen After Rainer Maria Rilke Sometimes a claims adjuster stands up during an HR meeting and walks out of the office, drives away and keeps on driving, because of a glacial tarn somewhere in the Rockies. His co-workers talk about him as though he’s committed suicide. And another adjuster,…
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Sugarcane
Popcorn, Karlen Lambert My father’s calloused hands force sugarcane broken as he pulls leaves clean from stalks. This dusty town fills our lungs with stifled coughs. The wind writhes between fingers clamped across mouths. The sun thrashes like a hooked trout. I stop and bite a clean stalk and taste faint honey and dirt.…
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How to Have an In-Vitro Fertilization Baby
The Not-So Virgin Mary, Julia Broeker First, make sure you’ve tried every possible method. Peer at Jenn’s list, an inventory of conception tricks longer than a wedding DJ’s playlist. Drink less caffeine. Check. Eat more fish. Check. Lay flat with feet raised after copulating. Check. Suspend like a vampire bat after copulating. Check. Spooning. Check.…
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The Newly-Minted Dyke
War is Over, by 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…
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Friday Morning
The Funnies, Justine Newman My father drank orange juice with extra pulp. I never cared for the texture, but it was the closest we could afford to fresh squeezed. In those days, he owned an auto repair shop. He opened late every Friday—no one asked him why, or what he did with his free mornings. I…
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Black Box Equinox
A New World of Light, Jacob Fisher As the lights dim and the curtains open, my heart beats its own symphony. I realize I am trapped. The only two seats left when we arrived were in the middle of a row, so not only would I have to clamber over the laps of…
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Rapid
Emerge, Meagan Dwyer [Trigger Warning: Graphic discussion of suicidal ideation and self harm] When I was seventeen, I wanted to die. There was something terrifying about it, more terrifying than the depression or the self-harm, something about wanting to end everything and realizing I actually could was frightening. And yet soothing. I was in control for…
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Black Man Floating
Dreamscape II, Meagan Dwyer [Trigger Warning: Depiction of death] “if a man cannot drown in his struggles, at least he can float for a while” black folk be boat be shipwrecked be sinking be [w]hole in bottom be covered in water be sinking black folk be swallowing sorrow today and tomorrow be dreaming of days…
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Fidelidad
Blue, Linnea Shurig I watch her cracked, leather hands dig deep in distilled earth soft from water long gone her voice softer still ‘fiel es el Senor’ faithful is the lord she hums silently, bending her hunched back over Creation smiling through aches grandmother, sending praises up as she digs deeper…
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In the Dark
Radioactive Beach Hypothesis Illustration, Elly Call [Trigger Warning: Graphic depictions of injury, death, and cannibalism] Todd shouted as he felt the bike slam back down to the earth, pumping his legs to keep up his momentum. “I can’t believe no one goes here!” he shouted over his shoulder. “That’s what Ryan said!” Tucker shouted back,…
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Pages
Conch Shell, Alessandra Leo Folded into you, ardent asymmetry. What harmonious origami of bare skin and paper-white bed sheets. Our pages such jigsaw canvases, smoothed-over here, crumpled there, our ripped edges in union- such indulgent dichotomies. All creases and delicate synchronization, warmth and earnest loving- a testament to miracles to be so crisply perforated…
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Folding Blankets
Hand, Kaitlyn Fitzgerald [Trigger Warning: Brief mention of a stillbirth] Two bleary, beady eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the rounded head of the thing had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lip of which quivered and panted and dripped saliva. The whole creature squirmed…