Andrea Chang can’t sleep. Her wrists hurt. It’s a throbbing ache, deep inside her bones, that reminds her of growing pains from her adolescence. But it isn’t so much the pain that keeps her awake as it is the worry. The last time her wrists hurt like this, the doctor told her it was the […]
Read moreRow Your Boat Ever After | Ariel Carter-Rodriguez
Stephen Stevens had been deathisized, or desensitized to death, at an early age. It had begun when he discovered Stuart Stevens, his older brother, playing God in the attic. Not only would he pluck each leg off the small house spiders that coexisted with the Christmas decorations, he would slingshot squirrels, birds—and even the occasional […]
Read moreIntro to Lesbianism | Rachel Charlene Lewis
I’m sitting here eating what’s left of your cheese puffs and telling Derek the story of my life with you. As soon as he walks into our apartment, I say, “Lily left.” He says, “Oh fuck.” He looks around the apartment as if to see if you’re really gone. It doesn’t look like it. Your […]
Read moreEli’s Boys | Zach Nabors
Only three hours prior had Hopper been engulfed in a surrealistic frenzy, a haze of anxiety and shouting, when he and Finn had hit a hard right directly after the Sparky the Squirrel sign, an oversized, gray, bucktoothed squirrel denoting his distaste for forest fires, disrespect for nature, and beer cans being lobbed into his […]
Read more2 poems | Drew Pisarra
Despair A man who looked just like me, whispered (in my ear) something low and unexpectedly porno- graphic –- a crude come-on that basically meant, I should fuck myself, letting one of the me’s be he. Kindly I declined. Still, my alter ego persisted with one obscene suggestion after another. Initially, I pretended I had […]
Read more2 poems | Glen Armstrong
Floating in an Above Ground Pool While the Last Pill of Summer Goes About Its Business of Filling my Head with a Gentle Fuckery that Could Be Described, in the Broadest Sense of the Word, as “Anachronistic” The pill dissolved inside me. Then I dissolved in the swimming pool on a sunny suburban afternoon. Soon, […]
Read more2 poems | Jesse Back
Sex Is sex is the great affirmation more than anything else it tells us we’re alive heart pumping blood to the dick that throbs in anticipation. sex is our only goal in life to make another live so when we do it our purpose is fulfilled bodies pumping sweat heat spilling from our naked selves […]
Read moreMammywood | Gloria Holwerda-Williams
As it goes, even J-Lo was maid up to remain the same Driving Miss Lazy just sticks to The same crazy creed racist fantasy greed Everyone else is maid to serve their old rule colonial need In just one movie Latifah, Alicia, and two more mammywood made all 4 one white child played the past […]
Read moreThe Frost Came Early | Scott Burr
The frost came early, and all of the flowers died. The gardeners were out in the morning, and you could hear them cursing in Spanish. Nobody thought that the frost would come and so no one bothered to cover the flowers. By eleven o’clock it was warm again, and you could stand on your balcony […]
Read moreClarity | Dana Yost
Christ, this is good. Twelve hours of a clear head, no slog, no drag or the gauze-curtain of fatigue. Just a little ache under each eye, in that baggy flesh that turns dark upon deep tire. But that has only come late. Before that, a spree of writing, reading, and finding music videos on the […]
Read moreGirls’ Night Out | Nina Bennett
Friday is our night. Because I talk with my hands, broad exclamation points, the bartender flags me when I knock over my drink, first of the evening. Because she watches you get in the driver’s seat, she is back behind the bar when you tap a Mercedes as you pull out of the parking lot. […]
Read more2 poems | Zach Nabors
Manic Young Writer And The Misadventures of His Alter Ego: Laughing Boy I have a voice goddamnit! No matter What your robotic rejection email says. “We wish you luck publishing elsewhere.” They ALL say. Thank God for all the Lit-Mag wishes. Where would I be without them??? I got style mothafuckas. The substance is somewhere— […]
Read moreAvian Flu | Lilly Barels
I want granite instead of bones for ribs. I want cold stone to remind my heart that it has a bad habit of bumping up against flesh. I want to stop the sparks. I do not want a crow to live imprisoned in the granite cage. I would prefer he not wear his velvety black […]
Read moreWhat I feel about Jack Kerouac | Denise Mostacci Sklar
I feel his, Oh Boy baby innocence ( IN- no- sense world) pure blue-eyes warm pouring sadness in cold winter hiding—boy jumps snow bank Abandoned, Joy-self destroying…4-ever jumping The frozen flake, iron Triumph caught in flash of billboard sky avec tout le monde–fiery moment HOT alone in simple AHH!-mazement of scribbled truth —– Denise Mostacci […]
Read more2 poems | Walter Beck
Reflection in a Steam-Covered Mirror at Lorenzo’s Apartment It’s no longer the face Of a freewheeling kid on a wild weekend; It’s the face of a young man Growing too heavy around the eyes, Running and burning out Before his time. When Did the Rose-Colored Glasses Come Off? My brother asked me one night, Over […]
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VAGABOND CITY 