Dessa Bayrock
A girl in the garden says she’s haunted by water: by the leaks in her roof and under the washing machine. How can I tell her that water haunts everything?
Read MoreAnjali Bhavan
The bus is crowded, and the conductor only keeps taking in more people. They get in, slip some coins into the conductor’s callused hands after haranguing over two rupees, five rupees, how is this fifteen rupees it should be ten!
Read MoreShelby Tuthill
Sophia biked through the twilight and into the break of day
just so I could find her at the festival of one hundred white doves.
Emma Johnson-Rivard
can you make wine from a sunflower?
sure. the seeds roast well. pair with salt.
Mary Thompson
So I’m in this bar with Christof when a young girl rocks up at our table. She’s a tiny thing with sallow skin and stringy hair and I’m guessing she must be on something as she has these wide, non-blinking eyes and won’t stop talking. She says she’s 28, and we’re both like “WOW,” as she’s so small. But then I’m thinking, 28 is still a hell of a lot younger than we are, although the lights are dim and she’s fucked, so we could easily be the same for all she knows.
Read MoreMarisa Crane
I am obsessed with my roommate’s cock. If he knew this, I would have to repost my Craigslist ad:
“Male roommate wanted. No previous experience required.”
He emailed me a day later asking, “No previous experience as a male or a roommate?” and, confused by his message, I’d written back, “Yes.” He toured the place and mentioned that the rooftop pool would be a great way to bring girls home. I nodded and wordlessly pointed to a photograph of my girlfriend and I that I’d put on the refrigerator using a magnet from my mother that said, “Your prefrontal cortex is overrated.” She’d sent it to me during the week in 1998 when I’d wanted to be a neurologist but then my pet turtles died and my sister cornered me in the basement, demanding that I perform a brain autopsy on them to practice for my future. I cried then buried Kiko and Josie in the garden, placing a do-it-yourself tombstone above them.
“Is that your girl?” He asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I gave him a head nod to communicate that I was cool and nonchalant then shoveled a handful of Xanax in my mouth when he wasn’t looking.
Read MoreKatie McGarry
Everyone is pregnant
so I am too. At the hair salon, arched
backwards before the sink, listening
to three women talk about episiotomies
and water births, I jump in:
Lizzie Derksen
the tulips roll out and in their great tongues
and spread the legs of their barnacled flames
and unfurl and fling themselves from the vase—
Matan Gold
Consider a marriage auction. A room of honor-bound, salt of the earth men.
A makeshift stage. The kind of traveling circuses and wagon
pharmacies. On the stage are daughters endorsed by the church.