by Tim Sisk
I.
I wanted to be a girl,
To be treated like a delicate thing,
And rough like bones, china.
A cup of spilled honey.
I always imagined myself entered,
bottomed out,
top heavy and tilt-a-whirled
for a blue-jeaned boy with a dozen pink. »
by Anirban Acharya
The central city poems, slightly
curved at their edges, imagine
how the cattle keep moaning
sculpted in the habitual. »
by Ashaki M. Jackson
E is for Edifice:
this structure of bones. Pelvic curves and vertebrae, requisite arches of its entrance.
Imagine lovers dripping off warm beds.. »
By Ted Cox
It must have been two-for-one vasectomy night. During the day, the clinic is usually brimming with apprehensive-looking teenage girls and young women. But that late in the evening, it was all men with their wives or girlfriends. OK, not all men had their wives with them. I was there with my best friend,. »
by Jason Cook
That Don Henley song is playing and all the guys at the bar in their navy pea coats with collars popped high up are cheering and ordering beer in bottles not on tap and the girls at their shoulders look like vampires showing their white teeth behind candy red lips. They chant over. »
by Jessica Bodford
The cell was cold.
It was always so, but as she stared out from behind her long bangs she wondered whether it was the darkness that seemed to bring with it yet another surge of icy misery. With a shudder, she buried her face farther beyond her crossed arms until she felt her knees. »
by Michael Meyerhofer
Actually, it’s farting cows that’ll kill us,
claims an ecology professor at the party
passing around joints and Heineken.
Think of all those cattle ranches out there,
two billion cows planted hoof-deep,
blossoming into T-bones and burgers,
those leftover tons of methane flop
enough to trump the smog from cities,
great human herds of cars and planes.
Mark my words, he promises. »
by Reuben Hayslett
Markus sits on the edge of my bed on night in January. His bulky arms stretch down to his pale work-rough hands, resting on his knees. I’m sitting next to him. He stares down at his shoes.
Markus says, “I’ve never had sex with a guy before. I want to, with you, so bad.. »
Fiction by Julia Phillips
The old man’s dog kept barking. I called to Alex and we swam to each other and kissed, our mouths tasting like lake water. The dog swam over too and circled us… “Anya?” I called. She shouted, “This is the first really crazy thing I have ever done!”. »
Emma Komlos-Hrobsky
Zoe Banks wasn’t particularly surprised when her mother, Adelaide, casually mentioned at the end of August that Zoe had both applied and been accepted to. »
Poetry by LaToya Jordan
Our Father, who art in Heaven,
However he be: drunk, sober, slipping strippers dollar bills, belligerent with a large group of men who look like him, I pray the Lord his soul to. »
Fiction by Shome Dasgupta
Did you know? Did you know that he and he took out my spinal chord and used it as a piano-. »
The main thing I see in the writing is this strain of what I call “hysterical lyricism.” Certain younger writers are just so saturated by visual media. »