by Shannon Frost Greenstein “I love you!” My friends laughed as only sixteen year-olds can, but I wasn’t embarrassed. My mother and I were as close as any single parent … Continue Reading Abandon All Faith Ye Who Enter Here
by Dave Gregory “Bioluminescence often appears at night,” the youth hostel manager told us. “Microscopic plankton light up the entire beach.” Curious, we walked half an hour in the dark … Continue Reading The Imagination Game
by Eve Lessard A large hand reaches out to a young boy with a tear-streaked face. The boy’s clothes are covered in mud and blood dribbles down his temple. He … Continue Reading “Who Are You?”
by Mark Crimmins My wife was seeing George Shepard in Manhattan, and with the swift calculating power of the math teacher I was, I decided to drive to the Big … Continue Reading Highway Star
by Don Stoll Father James Thayer was more thrilled than anyone could have known to come back to Massachusetts. He was thrilled in particular by his specific destination: Cravemoor Abbey. … Continue Reading Heat
by Dallas Raquel Klein “Gathering” “night swim after matrimony” for Richard Anderson and Christopher Ryan Shaver on their wedding day fireflies birth night light and I invite the river to … Continue Reading “Gathering” and “night swim after matrimony”
by Joel Fishbane Let’s play that old game: I’m going to tell you two truths and a lie. One: a while ago, after months of delaying a wedding we didn’t … Continue Reading Shipwreck
By Anita Kestin This is probably nearing an end I think, as I see the shorter one start to fidget a bit in her office chair. The taller one stares … Continue Reading Blue
By Don Noel Harry looked frail when he came home in August. His wan cheeks sagged down his face; his drab gray hair was even thinner; the body Kate helped … Continue Reading Vigil
By Joe Ducato The first time it happened, he felt like his bones were breaking one-by-one. He wouldn’t be liberated from the feeling until he was in his 20s. Liberation … Continue Reading The Weight
By William Cass When I was a little boy, I lived for a short time with my uncle’s family while my mom, his younger sister, spent a stint in rehab. … Continue Reading Reckless
By Zhihui Zou It was a peaceful hilltop covered by clovers, three-leaf clovers. But that spring, a four-leaf clover grew from a seed that had traveled over in the wind … Continue Reading Four-Leaf Clover
by: Rylan Hynes The children were older than they looked, crouched down behind the iron fence surrounding the graveyard on a hill. Here, at the crown of the small town, … Continue Reading Ghost Stories
by: E.B. Taylor Claudette went to the Halloween party as a slutty nurse, the only costume she could find at the last minute, and ate canape in the corner as … Continue Reading Through His Lens
by: Karen Schauber We were dirt poor back then. We used to imagine being anywhere else but Poêlée Bayou; a low down nowhere town, with nowhere people, and nowhere jobs, … Continue Reading “For You, Birdie”
by: Taylor Napolsky In which the local asexual kings and queens of the neighborhood (because they felt like royalty, and that’s what matters) open something like a Yeezy compound—if that … Continue Reading No Luck Needed Because You’re Pure Talent