Archives

CAMPARI SODA ISN’T AN AMPHIBIAN by Vi Khi Nao

May 13, 2021

In real life, the girl on the toilet is named KAY. Another girl, Vada, walks in and silently holds a gun to Kay’s head. Without making any demands. She turns to Kay and automatically offers one key to her. Vada takes a look at the key and contemplates whether to kill her or not. Vada pulls the trigger and Kay drops to the ground. She turns to the bathroom door and realizes that there is a key already in the lock. Vada walks towards the bar after exiting the bathroom. And, turns to the bartender and says, “My sex drive

LIKE NIGHTSHADE AND PERIODONTOLOGY by Rebekah Bergman

May 12, 2021

She scheduled all her overdue appointments for the same week. She went to the doctor, the dentist, and the gynecologist. She came back with three minor diagnoses and referrals for two other specialists. It was right around this time that all science started feeling like pseudoscience, modern medicine especially. It began with the nightshade. She could no longer sleep through the night for the itching. A rash that looked like raspberry jam had formed on the back of her neck. The allergist told her to stop eating nightshade. She was unsure if she had been eating nightshade. What was nightshade?

HYDROGEN AND HELIUM by Peter Krumbach

May 10, 2021

I misspell people’s faces. Cup them in my palms, kiss some, give a playful tug on the jowls of others. Good evening. Never better. Burghers of landfills and oak-lined boardrooms, white-collar criminals and donors of kidneys. Calculated together, they equal a mean designed to obscure the edges. I apologize, parties do this to me. The low ceiling track lights, the shag underfoot, the heads bobbing like olives in brine. I could have sworn it was Frank. Dressed as Biff. I bend to greet the elders collapsed in mid-century chairs. Boredom, meet urgency. I bend to your aunt Wilma, who turns

THE ROAD 2 NOWHERE by KKUURRTT

May 7, 2021

My friend Brian joined a cult. He was always doing stupid shit like that. This one time when we were fifteen he jumped off a bridge cause fucking Mike Langer dared him to. He broke his shinbone when he hit the water and spent the rest of summer in a cast. It wasn’t all bad though. Langer sold weed and gave him a half-ounce for free because he felt terrible about daring him to do it even though we were playing Truth or Dare on a bridge which was dumb on everybody’s part. Honestly, we’re lucky it came up as

FROG CIGARETTES by Brendan Gillen

May 6, 2021

Two at a time, take the steps ’til I’m out of breath. Mom doesn’t know. Attic stiff with heat. Cobwebs like lightning. Know I’m after something important, just haven’t found it yet. Up here there’s a tool chest by the mannequin. Been around long as I’ve been sneaking up. Since I was seven maybe. The years feel like gym class. Around and around and leave me dizzy. The dust is thick and my eyes itch. Not supposed to be up here because it’s where Dad used to come and hide. Maybe Mom thinks part of him is still up here

COME HOME NOW by Danielle Chelosky

May 5, 2021

When apologizing to you for fucking up, I’d buy you flowers. The first ones were blue—not like the sky, but abrasive and ethereal like from a video game. I broke the stems so they would fit in my bag without peeking out, and the color dripped onto my palms and stained them for days. If it were red, it would have felt accusatory; this ultramarine was comforting, safe. * The risk for fucking up was lethal. Not for me, but for you. * I was seventeen. I fell in love fast, curled up against you while we watched movies. My

A VIEW FROM THE CITY by Elliot Alpern

May 3, 2021

I see the backs of your shoulders—there you are, right there—on a bench by the harbor, where it’s windy, and where there’s a nice clear view of the monster ambling toward the city. “Hello,” I call out. You look each way, left and then right and then left again, but not behind, and so I jog lightly to your bench, take the seat beside you. “Hello,” I say again, this time a bit breathlessly. “Oh,” you say, “hey, I thought I heard your voice.” You look the same. And that’s with some years, a different haircut, a sort of quiet

SONATA by Daisuke Shen

April 30, 2021

For a long time now, all sound has been damp. Wrapped in mildew, white-fleeced, everyone’s voices turned to mist. I am the only one not contained within this quiet—me, who has always wished to be, more so than anyone else; me, the girl who could never stop singing. I had tried all of the tricks, of course: stuffed my mouth with lagan scrounged from sea beds, weaned off of proteins and greens, hoping to become weaker. Yet the avalanche of notes poured out of my mouth like sludge; my crazed melodies frenetic and pinched as sand fleas. The silence started

X-R-A-Y LITERARY MAGAZINE | COLLECTION IV | SPRING EDITION

April 29, 2021

Stories by and interviews with: Zac Smith Sarah Freligh Caleb Lyons (+photos too!) Natalie Warther Kathleen Gullion Francine Witte Jamie Etheridge click the image for the PDF

SOMETHING IS KNOCKING by Sean Ennis

April 29, 2021

Grace and Gabe, after saying something very cutting—Grace, not Gabe—have gone to visit her parents and I am home with the dogs, in the shower, flooded with the memory of a woman I once slept with who kept demanding, “Look at me! Look at me!” It’s not, like, eudaemonic. Then the dogs are going crazy. Something is knocking. They get very protective of the house when I’m in the shower. I don’t hurry. And let’s be real clear: the dogs we rescued from the shelter? Did not rescue us. We do the nice, expensive things, and they basically hang out