By Damieka Thomas The first time I was catcalled, I was eleven years old.Since it was laundry day, I was wearing underwear with princesses on them and a yellow shirt that was a little too tight. My hips had spread, taking me from a tall lanky girl whose jeans would not stay up on her waist to this half-woman-half-girl creature. I wished that I’d stayed the same. I was utterly crushed the week before when the scale at my grandma’s house told me that I was 102 pounds. I didn’t eat dinner that …
Reve
By Nicole Anderson Ellis “Just let it settle in,” the black-eyed technician said as he pushed the elevator button. Sid, his nametag read, though Lina was sure yesterday he’d introduced himself with something longer. Over the past two days Sid and a blur of other nametags had prompted Lina through the onboarding checklist. They’d slapped stickers with her id number on the side of warm urine samples, and vials of dark blood. She’d initialed dozens of forms after the final psych review, the …
Epilepsy Eclipsed
By Grace Lynn When you lie sleepingin a bed secured to the wallby the cableof a nurse’s call button,I count my worried fingernails.They exceed the weeks we have leftto waste in this room,so I distract them withdeleting the postsfrom schoolmates who want youto be a porcelain doll witha broken wrist andget well soon.Early evening moonlightshimmers across disposable bagsthat trickle you tears of diazepam,and the light surfaces numbas it glides up the wall.Near the end of her rotationwe order …
Privilege
By Salvatore Pane Tony knew he was headed for trouble when Cole texted him the name of the restaurant. Schadenfreude was located on the edge of North Minneapolis in a mostly abandoned trench between the Mississippi River and a raised strip of crumbling highway. He exited the Uber with his wife and felt mildly ashamed of the blight, like he was somehow responsible. Weeds and shaggy bushes colonized empty lots. A panhandler pumped a sign near the onramp. The neighborhood on the other side of 94 …
Vernalia
By Joshua Schneyer April is the cruellest month... - T.S. Eliot At least, that’s what they keep telling ussince T.S. Eliot laid it down more than a hundred years ago. I confess, I like spring, its warmth, its long days, its zephyrs, its green leaves first appearing on winter’s bones, the small shoots shouldering their way through soil rich with decay. I like to walk in it, to feel its …
OPEN YOUR EYES
By Leslie Pietrzyk May 1971: the year before Donna disappears Donna and I clamor side-by-side onto the bench of the Ferris wheel gondola (probably the fanciest word I know!). I’m eagle-eying the scrawny man, making sure he latches the safety bar correctly. “Sure that’s tight?” I ask. His too-close breath smells like peppermint covering cigarettes mixed with leftover morning mouth. “Don’t worry kid.” He gives the bar a wiggle, and it stays put. Everyone knows I think too much. His feet …