The New Government announce that all categories of love now need to be evidence-based in order to guarantee full citizen rights. Parental love is top of the list.
Unconditional Dependence by Sarah Salway
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Special Issue: Banned CDC Words
The Pink Balloon by David Drury
My daughter chooses blue, but the balloon man talks her into pink. A helium-filled latex teardrop bouncing at the end of a long string at the end of a long afternoon brining in the smells of the county fair.
Laboratory by Nod Ghosh
It’s quiet in the laboratory today, so I do some paperwork. The office has made a code for thingy-maternal hemorrhage kits, so I can order one without typing the f-word. Without appropriate testing and treatment, pregnant women might develop antibodies.
From the American Medical Association Keynote, 2050 Annual Conference by Robert John Miller
Remember, no one uses the term “fetuses” anymore. Call them “man-babies.” It makes people think of themselves, remembrance of times past and all that.
The Word Is Diversity by Dan Crawley
I’m sitting with my mother this morning at the rehab hospital. She is learning how not to be so vulnerable, using a walker, working at not dragging her leg after her like a heavy sack, lifting small weights over her head.
Soft Spot by Jude Higgins
Since Brexit, they’ve opened a tanning studio where the Polish deli used to be. I’m inside, curled up on a sun-bed like a fetus. Going to make my skin invulnerable.
Shoveling My Snow Does Not Make You Kind by kerry rawlinson
Neighbor-Bill’s a pill! we joke—at first. New in the neighbourhood, we begin on friendly enough footings. Bill offers endless help. To hear him pontificate, you’d swear he’s President of The Entire Fucking Universe—but he’s a retired mailman.
Based on a True Story by Kat Gonso
He asked her if he could try something. Her lips were wrapped around him, so she looked up to meet his eyes. She nodded. In one swift motion he grabbed her head and pushed it down once, twice, three times—harder each.
a blue so bright it hurt your heart by Jennifer Harvey
It was a bright morning, when they came. Blue-skied and yellow, and so beautiful it left you feeling vulnerable, and wondering how it was a sky could fill you like that, with so much joy. A blue so bright, it hurt your heart.