by McKenna Ashlyn
It was the winter everyone was moving east,
chain smoking cigarettes, snorting cocaine.
Trying to curate a museum of themselves.
I’m sorry, I’ve been writing anything but myself.
by McKenna Ashlyn
It was the winter everyone was moving east,
chain smoking cigarettes, snorting cocaine.
Trying to curate a museum of themselves.
I’m sorry, I’ve been writing anything but myself.
by Jessica Tan
The long, yellow bus screeches to a halt next to the curb as you lift your eyes up, watching the doors fan open for the first time this fall. You spent all morning organizing your school supplies, thinking of what your new schedule would be like. But first, you have to make the journey there. And if you had it your way, you would drive there yourself. If you were old enough.
Read More »by Rachel Nicholson
Walking barefoot on the pavement, my soles begin to melt.
It sings of the dirt that came before it—
It hums with heat and memory.
by Katarina Pavičić-Ivelja
He left back in the 90s and never returned.
The stranger smiling at me
from the other side of the bench
somewhere in Uppsala.
Read More »by Jeffrey Zable
A 6 or 7 year old boy was crying, “I want my balloon back …
I want my balloon back …”
by Stacie Eirich
I don’t have to dream the warmth
into being today. Today the sun
a perfect blue. Today birdsong
and breeze are as golden and light
as spring. Rippling, soft, Brilliant.
by Audrey T. Carroll
[Author’s note/content warning: As the title suggests, this piece does mention several kinds of trauma, including PTSD, childhood sexual abuse, medical trauma, etc. Nothing is graphic here, and these content warnings ended up becoming part of the piece itself.]
1. You pick up a glass baking dish fresh out of the oven with your bare hands. Your brain tells you it is too hot and should be released. You
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