Gods can’t die // yaroslava
“I can’t,” I said, hoping that my unformed argument as to why not wasn’t noticeable in my voice.
my life as a moth // sophie Höss
I make a left-hand turn. I miss the street I’m looking for. I make a left-hand turn.
Repeat.
Lobo, King of the Dogs // Lenore Weiss
I grew up amongst older kids, counting bees and straining chunks of sandstone into empty soup cans. I watched cats play with dead mice and then ran up the block to an abandoned house filled with ceramic bowls heaped with flies. Like us, there were dogs, strays that wandered in the neighborhood sniffing garbage cans.
Infant Of // Patricia Knight Meyer
“At thirty-eight, you want to find her?”
My mother is stewing in her wheelchair, pulled up alongside the bar in what she calls her “shithole shoebox” senior-living apartment. Although she still walks short distances, she likes how the footrests of her wheelchair rise to meet her feet, accommodating her short legs, “which don’t go all the way up,” she sometimes jokes.
To the Saber-Toothed Tiger Cub Found in the Permafrost // Eliza Marley
When your eyes open again, it will be with glass and wood wool, foreign fiber coaxing the ghosts of orbital muscles back to full roundness, how you might have looked at your mother when feeding from her or basking in the sunlight, your claws not yet sprouted and your fangs not yet seasoned
Sneglen // Brian McNely
The saddle of the purple loaner bike squeaks when I pedal, and the wicker basket hangs from the handlebars with zip ties—if I turn too quickly, it slides around and attacks my knees. It’s a 20-minute ride to Kastrup Søbad from the AirBnB in Christianshavn.
Pavlova // The Poet Mj
For the meringue of my early life:
4 large free-range egg whites (There were five free-range eggs in the nucleus recipe; the younger atom I.)
Metropolitan Thoughts // Tor Rose
I show up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a MoMa hat. “Oh fuck,” I text my friend. “And?” she replies. This is only embarrassing in a self-imposed, insular way. No one actually cares.
Where’s New Haven? // David Capps
On the walk from Gray Matter to The Graduate, and past the couple on the steps singing a light-hearted jingle about Adderall, we overhear an old man asking, “Where’s New Haven?”
To Know Everything (on the Camino de Santiago): A Story of Connection // Eliza Hayse
We sit quietly, the stone wall cool, the chapel shadow leaning left in front of us. We eat around the dark bruises in the white flesh. You take the pit out of your nectarine and place it between us, like an offering to the God we mock.
Redheaded Angel // Wendy K. Mages
I stare at the message. It says: Doofus Howser just walked in…
In my hyper-focused, hypervigilant state, this antithetical autocorrect strikes me as hilariously funny.
The Duality of Homes // Madison Summerville
My mother throws the casserole in the oven after adding expiring ingredients and vegetables to the beat of raucous drums playing in the background. When the casserole finishes cooking, we all grab plates and serve ourselves. Sitting in the living room with the television playing a crude adult animated series, we eat.
Scene(s) from a Chain Restaurant in Papillion, Nebraska // Zach Benak
Scene(s) from a Chain Restaurant in Papillion, Nebraska
I’d balance my feelings when openly flirting with the girl I’d pined after my entire junior year, while secretly hoping the hot male lifeguard I worked with would show up and notice me, catching adrenaline as I negotiated who I was in public with what I longed for in private.
The Ritual of Killing the Crab // Ruby Marguerite
The Ritual of Killing the Crab
I watched as bubbles rose form the submerged fruit, spilling out in columns. She tore the thing apart with her fingers, familiar and soft to me, and the cracking red skin echoed in our chipped kitchen.
The People Who Live Here // Rebecca Rotert
The People Who Live Here
Beauty pulls him into a brand new place, one that does not require memory. This might be at the heart of beauty: it doesn’t require you to remember; it doesn’t even require you to be you.
The Burnt Plane // John T. Price
The Burnt Plane
I crawled into the space behind him and sat on the wet grass. The last time I’d seen this plane was in the newspaper photo my mom had shown me, its black tail smoking and sticking straight up out of the corn field where Mr. Murphy had been crop-dusting.