By: Jasmine Barber The blackness of my curls begins to plummet from the root to the end. Layers itself in texture and shape like a game of tetris. I am playing against time twist and turn strands. Into a new design this is a level up move. I only get better in time. As I steep into my years the colors slowly seeped out. Revealed the stress of too many attempts. To win in a hostile environment. I used to pull out the evidence straight f

By: Julie Benesh may or may not own a television or allow children to eat ice cream; might worship at the big white church or the dark cathedral, at the altar of consumer goods or dynastic fortunes. must live in the present as the slimmest of gifts, mere stocking-stuffers; or the future: master the universe, smart in-every-room, die with all the jacks. Deniers of empathies or downright enemies in your fancy-crap cars off to your crap-fancy jobs not making eye contact with ped

By: Rebecca Thrush Joke that she is busy. That she has many blocks to stack and to store. Joke that you are basking in the newness of quietude. The trees are buttoned up around you. Because you have scared off her many wings. The birdhouse matches the gate and shutters. Cold winds keep her at bay. She shudders at the thought of what you might say. She jokes that you are green, to strangers. That you are too green to stay golden. The joke is bathed in roses. They are not sweet

By: Theresa Rogers as a child in Catholic school I was made to pray in church I slid off the pew to the kneeling board to repent as I was told a fat Bishop slapped my face to welcome me I didn’t believe then you left in your Jesus year it was not the blue hour or gold but deep night when you walked out into the world to leave it and us behind I would get on my knees now and every day not to pray but as a beggar I might even be humbled by the gift of pink streaks acros

By: William Rieppe Moore -after George Scarbrough’s “Blue Iris” Sorry as a suckegg dog and hot with the possibility of fraud, I was light as an empty bank note and full as a college idea; that’s when I saw the shootin’ star break trail—uncertain if it spent the light of the last quarter moon or just multiplied the darkness to another power. Elevated to the height of the cuttin’ room just off the barn floor—untouched by rain for ninety somethin’ years where the grain is

By: Claire Haynsworth Coenen Early November. The sunflower stalks lean like strung-out, skinny men against the vinyl siding of my house. The knock-out roses droop, hungover now. Zinnias sag from too much sun. Their yellow perms turned mousey-brown. On my way to fill the birdfeeder this morning, I’ve given up on shiny new arrivals. Yet past the sleepy coneflowers and the burnt-out beauty bush, a spread of silky, heart-shaped leaves drips from the trellis unphased by fall, almo

By: Lindsay-Rose Dykema It was just a (series of) misunderstanding(s) s tarting with my saying let’s be mono -- a few months later I started flirting with someone you labeled it ‘emotional affair’ but I just figured I’d forgotten to add ‘for now.’ Is monogamy death or paying taxes? (then you should have known it was only for now) death, taxes, and the ennui of never-ending Sisyphus laundry (you won’t be done with it until you’re lying on your deathbed sheets) and the greatest

By: Lance Kayser It feels like Taupe. That’s what I tell him. Eyes glide across my skin in search of cracks, fissures of my fragmented mind. Why Taupe? he wants to know. His calloused hands catching a thread untethered as he grips my shoulder. His only language for empathy. Cuz death doesn’t feel like Black. It’s Taupe, the color of numbness. Crinkling forehead like paper being crushed after a mistake. His fatherly expression I expected But his response --a surprise. I feel

By: Sarah Durrand Dream of me like tall, overgrown grass, subtle and attuned to the breeze around me. I’ll dream of you like a westbound train pouring over its tracks, loud and complex and beautiful and gone. I’ll bend a little deeper with the windin your wake. Sarah Durrand resides in San Diego, CA. Their work has been published in Sad Girls Club Literary Review, Maya’s Micros, and In Parentheses. In their spare time, they enjoy reading, rollerblading, and talking about the