Category: VOLUME V
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…
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.…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…