You and Leroy are in the Moon’s parking lot. Leroy always says that if you go between the hours of 1 and 3 am, you won’t have to deal with the police department. Leroy was never wrong. The Moon is the highest point in St. Charles County. It is a 75-foot tall pile of grey […]
Read moreFAMILIA/FAMILY: ON FAMILY, LANGUAGE, AND WALLS by EUGENIA VELA
We are on the I-37 halfway between Austin and South Padre Island, Texas. We started our trip late today, the pink sky already changing to a deep orange on our rearview mirror. It’s my favorite time. When my husband and I drive together to Savannah, Nashville or the closest Texas town, we reach a point […]
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DEGREES / OF / SEPARATION | Torii Johnson
I wasn’t even part of this — but it’s spread into everything like motor oil — stays around — I wonder what decides critical — sticky and forcefully there — I wonder who decides who gets a house — I want to know how much money they lost — to lose even more — what […]
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EVERYTHING TO NOTHING | McKenzie Dial
I. The dash, scattered with photographs of the girls you had kissed, and me, sitting in the passenger seat, placing my cheeks on the chilly tempered glass, never wishing that one of those pictures might be of me. Your summer breath – popcorn hulls, jalapeño juice, tobacco leaves – all so close to my mouth, […]
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RITES OF AN OLD WAR | Sophia E. Terazawa
Imagine the struggle for interracial love as a series of group discussions, nothing more. Nobody shrieks and flies for the throat. Plates, unbroken. Ground rules. “Safe” space. Imagine that the interpersonal work against racism is at a round table, in a concert hall, within a forum. Nothing more. Curated. Conducted. Logged. To my mother, Angelina […]
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CEILING | Léna García
Palm trees and military barracks fade white from the sun, the way it was before they got here and plucked all the butterflies, like candles from cake, and rust red water poured into rivers mixing red dirt with ocean, forming clay, the kind I painted and sold on the sides of desert freeways. 1964. The […]
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THIS WILL DESTROY YOU | Bethany Mary
My coworker asks me what I’m doing with my life, as if this is a question I know the answer to instead of one I ask myself every day. She also asks me why I don’t use my low reserves of energy to find a boyfriend. Through the haze of depression and chilling dreams, I […]
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A CONVERSATION WITH AN IMAGINARY FRIEND | Becky Yeker
What does it feel like to feel? It feels like the thoughts of every living person are inside of you, like they are thumping against the side of your head and they are reflecting off of your eyeballs like they are mirror images of yourself, even when they are not you. Does it feel like […]
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THIS IS THE CLOSEST I’LL GET TO PAINTING YOU | Ayah Elbeyali
the beat of your heart– one. two. three. four. the gleam of your sweat– heat. shimmer. hips. quiver. the almond of your eyes– green. kind. honey. mine. the space behind your ribs– ache. flood. furnace. blood. the palm of your hand– red. flower. touch. devour. the bend of your thumb– square. raw. hook. trace. the soft […]
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LOVECHILD | Negesti Kaudo
Pregnancy was everywhere. That’s what happens after having really good unprotected sex. I bragged about it to my best friend: about how my lover and I had been spontaneous and placed our bets on the pull-out method, how I’d broken my rule of saying his name. Hundreds of miles away and with her face bright […]
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13 POEMS FOR SOULS HOUSED BY BODIES I HAVE COLLIDED WITH | Chantal Paloma
Editor’s note – trigger warning for discussion of sexual violence I. buckle-punctuated tenderness, steaming vodka lips press to my neck / the church spire spears swollen dawn, i cry / make you drive me home, sneak inside before my mother stirs / thank you for not making me ask twice. II. your mouth melts gold […]
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If You’re Afraid | Sage Kubis
smoke the bowl. it’ll put you to sleep. you and your best friend smoke out the window in the middle of the night and you both dream that the room is on fire. you’ve started having dreams that he’s kidnapping you. they stick in the back of your head even when you’re saying i love […]
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Tongue-Tied | Krista Varela
Few things give me more anxiety than going to the dentist. The moment I walk into the office, with the high-pitched whirrs of the drill piercing my ears, my primal instincts kick in to high gear, and I have to stop myself from bolting out the door. Even as I write this, I feel a […]
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I Am Not A Cure | Abigail Staub
The first man to name me “goddess” was twenty-one and drunk on gin. Breath heavy with lust and booze, he told me that most nights he carved poems into the walls trying to write me alive in the room with him, so when the light hit the scrapes just right, he could catch his breath […]
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The Stone Inside | Molly Robinson
Sometimes I swear there’s a rock in my stomach. It shakes a little when I lie on my back at night, staring up at the starburst-textured cement ceiling of my bedroom. The rock is always there, but there’s something about the time I take to fall asleep that makes it want to be known, like […]
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For Girls and Grief | Abigail Staub
The first girl I ever kissed had a mouthful of luring words and veins full of Percocet. I wore the potent perfume of pineapple vodka on my breath and wilted forward into her lap, all curled up at the edges like a water-logged book. We were perched on the end of a leather couch in […]
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that’s why they call her the trauma queen | Jasmine Lomax
Alcoholic Anonymous’ Thirteen-Step Guide on How Your Addiction Destroyed Her Life: {for best results, follow the curve of the theory. trace it to the bottom of its backbone so you can find how best to hollow out her spine.} i. get a young woman. be her father. tell her she’s your sun. your stars. tell […]
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The Place Under The Pastoral Skies | Brian Michael Barbeito
It was a knowing. A Gnostic phenomenon. I had seen the place before, a place that stood quietly at the edges of a town. It was the type of place one intended to visit, but intentions are not actualities. There were around it wheat fields to one side, and large quiet looms on the other. […]
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9 things to know before you crawl into my bed | Lily Cigale
1. I don’t want to be begged. I am turned on by a steady affection, an unwavering rationality. I want you to do my taxes please memorize my social security number darling. 2. Be careful be careful be careful I am sharp in unexpected places I will remember your mother’s name and kiss your earlobe […]
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Named | Hea-Ream Lee
I’ll be at a party, clutching a plastic cup of something that probably doesn’t deserve to be called beer and making the motions of small talk but actually just shouting to be heard over the loud music. A tall econ major and I will be talking about something utterly banal, maybe an observation about the […]
Read more2 Pieces | Kirby Wright
Reunion with a Friend Lost for 38 Years Meet me at the pub’s fire pit. I have a wife and you do too. I consider this a test. Who picks up the tab?
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VAGABOND CITY 