By Tiffany Michelle Brown: My body aches as I trudge down yet another graffiti-blasted alleyway. The heat is oppressive, rendering my limbs heavy, my skin crispy, and my sight dubious at best. But I keep searching, because I’m hungry, oh so hungry. … Continue readingA Girl’s Gotta Eat

By Carrie R. Hinton: My daughter has beautiful teeth. Tiny freshwater pearls, lacking the sharpness and staining of age. Sometimes I think she looks like a PEZ dispenser with her big head and candy teeth, the way they trickle out of her piece by piece, each replaced slowly but surely by an adult’s clunky molar or a wicked canine. … Continue readingCravings

By Greg Beatty: “Read it again, papa!” the little girl cried. “Again?” her father said. But he was smiling. He opened the very worn, very faded children’s book, and began—again. Truthfully, though, he barely glanced at the pages. He could have retold the story without the book at all, if his daughter hadn’t loved the pictures so much. … Continue readingThe Werewolf Story

By Angela Sylvaine: It started with the red heel. Or pump, as my mother called them. I saw it while walking to school with the other kids in my neighborhood. A single red high-heel in the middle of the street. … Continue readingCarapace

By Madeline Mora-Summonte: The phone rings, a shot through the silence of the boarded-up house. Marjorie stares at the old wall phone, a corpse calling out from beneath its shroud of dust and grime. … Continue readingDead Line

By LM Therrien: You’re in the mood for a movie on your new TV. Packaging is everywhere but the ultra precision color screen begs for that heartfelt drama—We Blitz On Sundays, perfect. It washes the room in images. Two hours pass, but all that close up cheering draws your eye to the smudges along the bottom. You wipe them off with bulk-sized cleaner. … Continue readingResidue

By Brandon Applegate: Gunsmoke smell. His failures written on the wall in blood and brain matter. Jesus Christ. The shotgun still propped in his bleeding mouth. His eyes are white, glassy. … Continue readingDaddy’s Home

By Kenzie Lappin: Last night I dreamed that my friends and I were solving a missing person’s case in a Claire’s. No one else would look for a missing girl. I felt something poking at my gums, and pulled a whole chicken bone from my mouth. … Continue readingNormal Girl’s Trip

By Warren Benedetto: This is the safe space, inside, before my passage into the unknown After. The rush of Mother’s blood and breath soothes me as I drift weightlessly in her womb. When I stretch, I feel the pressure of her hands caressing me, letting me know she is there for me, holding me, protecting me. … Continue readingBefore