by Howie Good The Gates of Eden I’m up on a ladder picking apples. My hands really hurt. You should be holding the ladder steady. Instead, you laugh and run off under the trees,…

by Kyle Hemmings “The three of us were an island of protoplasm shaped like pre-war Paris. From Emily’s once banned memoir, Flowers and Vaginas.” Emily’s words to her father before lea…

by David Lerner At first, I went to see the leopard. And in my head, I’d already panned out the meet. I knew he’d bare his teeth and straighten his stride. His yellow and …

by Donna L Greenwood Ever since she died, my daughter has been difficult to love. She doesn’t feel right; she doesn’t feel like Alice anymore. She even smells different. She three mo…

by Michelle Geoga Penelope was already thinking having some babies would make her feel better then she found one at the Kmart, a sleepy one with long dark lashes, tiny fist balls clen…

by Michael Grant Smith I shut off the alarm and get out of bed. A dog sleeps on the floor; his coat is the color of gravy-soaked bread. I don’t own a pet. Careful not to disturb the a…

by Matthew Dexter I stretch Grandpa’s scrotum with the inertia of a butterfly in a blender so the skin becomes translucent in the sun as the nail gun spits its obstinate shadow. Blood…

by Donna L Greenwood Ever since she died, my daughter has been difficult to love. She doesn’t feel right; she doesn’t feel like Alice anymore. She even smells different. She three mo…

by David Lerner At first, I went to see the leopard. And in my head, I’d already panned out the meet. I knew he’d bare his teeth and straighten his stride. His yellow and …

by Michelle Geoga Penelope was already thinking having some babies would make her feel better then she found one at the Kmart, a sleepy one with long dark lashes, tiny fist balls clen…

by Howie Good The Gates of Eden I’m up on a ladder picking apples. My hands really hurt. You should be holding the ladder steady. Instead, you laugh and run off under the trees,…

by Erik Fuhrer You love horses, their strong sinewed necks, how their throats rattle like a carburetor. So, I decide on a mythic proposal: Dead Horse Bay, in Brooklyn, NY, where I ima…

by Mason Binkley June 5th He came home early from work yesterday afternoon, still wearing his white coat. A stethoscope remained coiled around his neck like a noose. As he drifted ins…

by Mike Lee The light from the lamp illuminated the photos on the wall, obscured by the glass reflections. He knew what they were of–he took them. Photographed them all. Yet the…

by Matthew Dexter I stretch Grandpa’s scrotum with the inertia of a butterfly in a blender so the skin becomes translucent in the sun as the nail gun spits its obstinate shadow. Blood…

by Michael Grant Smith I shut off the alarm and get out of bed. A dog sleeps on the floor; his coat is the color of gravy-soaked bread. I don’t own a pet. Careful not to disturb the a…

by Matthew Dexter I stretch Grandpa’s scrotum with the inertia of a butterfly in a blender so the skin becomes translucent in the sun as the nail gun spits its obstinate shadow. Blood…

by Ishmael A Soledad Daniel McWhirter was strange. He wasn’t like other guys. He didn’t go out, shoot pool, shoot hoops, watch Netflix, like porn or drink beer. Daniel McWhirter liked…

by Michael Prihoda I had a parrot named Attila the Hun. Quickly taught it to say “Attack” on command whenever my sister came over and started talking about her job at the marketing agency s…

by Darryl Price 1. Everyone disappears. 2. Stars map themselves. 3. The moon fills her bathtub over and over. You can’t watch it for too long or you go mad, shouting, “Ju…

by Matthew Dexter I poke Jazz’s scrotum with a soggy stick. Jupiter boogies through fire ants, ashes, blackened marshmallows. Menstruating in the backcountry is beautiful. Mom&#…

by Simon Webster Auntie Dee is dying you see. She says it’s the best thing that’s ever happened. She loves life now. Everything is all turned up, she says, the colours and the fragra…

by Andrew Lavender “Do you want anything else?” Long purple nails were tapping the counter in front of me. My eyes travelled across the hand, up a sleeve to a girl with a nose ring a…

by Michael Grant Smith The words you express are projections on a scrim of smoke dispersed by your exit. When you vacate this place, the message disappears behind you. A proxy war ra…

by Corey Mesler “When we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.” –Herma…

by Danielle Epting The woman whose son hung himself off their back deck was standing behind me in line at the grocery store. I fingered through the chap sticks in the aisle, trying t…

by Ron Riekki I am looking for a key in a Utah hazmat field. The deer look for leaves in the same field. They look for radioactive leaves. They don’t know that the leaves are radioa…

by Richard Knights A man named Skops poured me into his own mouth. I burnt all the way down. I took the fervour that made his pupils shrink and the whites grow, I took his single deep…

by Bear Kosik They wore pre-Goth clothes, were confused by hair care products, and hung out in the Gilman coffee shop. They were pretty pleased they weren’t in Iowa, but not completel…

by Steve Carr Sunlight sparkled on the glass jar that lay on its side in white sand. Inside it, Itsy opened her bright blue eyes, yawned, and stretched. The jar was long enough for he…