May 16, 2025 | Poetry
Why I Pulled All the Reds from My Crayola Box
Patrick G. Roland
Before the internet had all the answers,
before Siri, before Alexa,
before TikTok teens with ring lights
explained the universe in under thirty seconds—
I had my dad.
Dad was my Wikipedia.
Dad
May 15, 2025 | Fiction
She Wants Her MTV
Mallory Smart
They said it was a record-breaking storm. I wasn’t paying attention. I was trying to find a clean bowl and wondering if the radiator was supposed to make that noise. I didn’t think anyone would be out
May 15, 2025 | Fiction
Excerpts from STEALING MARQUEE MOON
Christopher Kennedy
In those days, it was popular to ask, What would Jesus do? I crucified myself for days.
May 14, 2025 | Poetry
Playing House
Emily Sperber
Look longingly
out the window. Wait for myself to come home.
Rewriting Sentences
Tara Layne
We shouldn’t have become friends. Everything about our separate lives suggested we wouldn’t meet—me in the comfort of my sunny Los Angeles home, framed by blue skies, and Frank confined by barbed wire
BUT THEN YOU’RE OUT OF ARROWS
Carly Kaste
The hamster was actually a mouse. We were calling a lot of things by the wrong names back then.
Called Back
Megan Ortiz
Silly’s hands were tangled in his hair. His gaze snapped back to mine. “You didn’t hurt me, Elle. Not at all.”
Kate Folk on Sky Daddy
Anna Dorn
One time years ago, a friend threw herself a birthday party and bought her own birthday cake, which I found surprising. She said, of course I bought my own cake. Who else was going to do it? I think it’s the same with book promotion. You have to buy your own cake, and make an event of it.
Excerpt from 'Wedding Crasher, Marin County'
Wilson Koewing
Somebody is going to roofie them, I said. Dave laughed uncertainly.
Language Exchange
Skyler Di Mauro
It was the summer of 2018, and I had just returned home to California from Italy, where my relationship exploded after we had lived together for only four months.
Last Poems
Patrick Kosiewicz
He warned me once about being all-in with poetry.
Russian Class
Angélica Pina Lèbre
I look at the curtain. I haven’t touched the red box since my new friend from Russian class opened it. It feels like a different object now that she’s touched it.
after your world ends
Liana Sonenclar
You are not proud of the answers you’ve given him. But as you leave, it strikes you – you are proud you’ve answered him with the truth.
Love For The Modern 19-Year-Old Gender-Case
Wolf Indigo Baker
Perhaps this is why trans people crave romantic love with a curdling, obscure undercurrent of self-doubt, of rage.
Love Spells
Ginger Jones
When you rearrange my insides you leave me for dead.
the godhead
ry downey
Please dont forget to play. Can you remember
the last time you danced?
FOURTEEN POEMS
Mike Topp
I think the interview went pretty well, although at one point I remember asking the interviewer to speak slower this time, using simpler words, words with no syllables if possible.
The Darkness We Cannot See
Bea Chang
After three flights, two chicken buses, and a strange bout of illness, I arrived in El Nido, a small backpacker nest at the far edge of the Philippines.
Four Poems
Thom Waddill
Wind in the ears like / Water ungathering / In and out of baskets.
How to Be Loved
Yasmin Lagarde
When his heart is an ashtray—cigarette butts put out on a surface that will not flinch
It Starts When You Are a Child
Jean Richardson
why does it feel so much harder to see something happen to someone else than have it happen to you?
Make Me a Steak?
Colleen Grablick
When I finally swallow, it feels like an admission of failure.
After boys become some kind of man: 3 poems
Simon Wolf
The door is broken, the home is not
as we begin to compare our splinters
before our squinting eyes.
We Fuck Despite Hell: A Review Of Cletus Crow's 'Jesus Freak'
Conor Hultman
In Crow’s version, Proverbs become advice on how to tell if someone gives good head.