My creations fit into my mouth to be birthed out of it, the way all forms of life come into the world, melting like chocolate, hard as earth. Moving between soft and solid, hardening like boiled sugar in water.
Unwritten by Shaun Levin
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Issue #33
The End by Shaun Levin
We have nothing left to say but neither of us wants to get up. Tell me a joke, I say. You say you’re bad at jokes, you never remember them, especially not in English.
Mom’s new boyfriend is a liver fluke by Cole Beauchamp
He attached quickly (can I buy you a drink, let’s hook up, sure I’ll meet your kid), slid into our house unnoticed (toothbrush here, pair of socks there) and two months on, here we are, host and Fasiola Herpatica.
Farmland by Elizabeth Conway
Above-ground the turquoise pool is the only color for miles. A stain on the landscape, it is obvious it doesn’t belong. It belongs. To a fourteen-year-old girl born with a heart condition.
Gallows Pole by Kathy Hoyle
In the dead of summer, while the whiptails hide in sagebrush shadows, and everything blisters in the amber heat and there ain’t nothin but buzzards hummin for miles around, a hanged man dances on a gallows pole.
Gentian Violet by Liz Rosen
While I held our daughter’s bleeding index finger high over the kitchen sink, I knew that somewhere on the highway, you were driving to work, listening for word of catastrophes on NPR or unironically singing the words of an 80’s song made-over by a country boy.
When Bebe and Kumar Met Halloween Night at the Lizard Lounge in Vegas by Kathryn Silver-Hajo
She was dressed as a belly dancer—all fake-silver coins and gauzy material—cheesy for sure, especially given her Afghani heritage, but she had the outfit already so what the hell?
On the Morning Dance Floor by Alex Juffer
Jakey, face pressed to the window and eyes cupped into makeshift binoculars, could see Mrs. Claddagh sitting perched on her couch, speaking to herself.
The Subtle Light by Hetty Mosforth
Word of mouth gets him the job and gets him past the gatehouse. He tramps towards the house like a stray dog, turrets and crenelations coming into focus.
You, Visitor by Jane O’Sullivan
You don’t like her much, not that you can tell her that. Slugging along behind you, hands in pockets. Sullen as a fish despite the fucking dawn rising over the city, the glory of it.