by Margaret Elysia Garcia His proposition arrived as a notification from a kink dating site she’d eagerly signed up for and then promptly forgot. His message came between a reminder for her annual colonoscopy, and an announcement that her insurance premium was increasing, along with several ads by her favorite shoe designer which she, of course, opened first. Christopher was not a stranger to her—she’d met both him and his wife at a BDSM convention in Los Angeles back when Monica thought …
by Deborah L. Davitt The words written by wavesare always unwritten again washed away by the next rush of waterlifting the sand in a stormthat lashes at your anklessucks your feet deeper into the shore the words written by stormsdon't last much longer ephemeral runes wroughtby lightning's jagged arcsand pronounced in thunder's voiceterrifying, sudden—and then gone it shouldn't surprise then,that your words didn't linger traced in the air like a storm,electric as they werein …
by Jac Shihadeh On the way to the city yesterday, I thought I was going to die in the tunnel with a Bible open in the backseat. I looked out the rearview to gauge how much time we had left, Mom talked about the apocalypse, and suddenly we’re spit out on a Manhattan street.It’s funny how that happens. How I’m here again and I’m me whoever that is these days. These days I drive fast down suburban streets and scream because no one can hear me. I said, drop me off on Canal Street …
by Vaibhavi Kerkar Your roommate’s voice is as tender as a fresh wound when she offers to pay you two favours in exchange of accompanying her to a funeral. When you ask her whose funeral it is,she hooks her fingers on your collarbones and presses down until your knees buckle. Shepoints to an ex-lover’s name scalpeled in the nook between her heel and her ankle, the woundhaloed red around the deep …
by Dana Diehl The first time it happened, Lana was standing in front of a shop window, trying to see past her reflection to the business inside. She doesn’t remember anything special about the moment, but suddenly her insides were collapsing into themselves and the Styrofoam cup of coffee was pulled out of her hands and she dropped to her knees, gasping, everything around her taut and bright. The feeling passed quickly, so quickly that for a moment she wondered if she’d imagined it. But …
by Morgan Hobbs I still mailed them in, even though mail had long since given way to email, which itself had been replaced several times over by more technologically advanced systems. I still mailed them, even though there was nobody left to read the mail, much less deliver it. Kind of like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out into the ocean. I still wrote everything by hand in a notebook and typed it out later on an electric typewriter that always seemed to …