CRJ, Author at X-R-A-Y | Page 45 of 48

LIKE NIGHTSHADE AND PERIODONTOLOGY by Rebekah Bergman

May 12, 2021 · Fiction

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?…

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HYDROGEN AND HELIUM by Peter Krumbach

May 10, 2021 · Fiction

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…

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THE ROAD 2 NOWHERE by KKUURRTT

May 7, 2021 · Fiction

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…

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FROG CIGARETTES by Brendan Gillen

May 6, 2021 · Fiction

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…

CRJ

COME HOME NOW by Danielle Chelosky

May 5, 2021 · Creative Nonfiction

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…

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SONATA by Daisuke Shen

April 30, 2021 · Fiction

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…

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

April 29, 2021 · Issue

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

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DYLAN KRIEGER in conversation with VI KHI NAO

April 20, 2021 · Interviews & Reviews

VI KHI NAO: Your bios over the years read like a poem: “Dylan Krieger is a transistor radio, a poet, a performer, a repository of high hopes from hell, a pile of false eyelashes growing algae in South Louisiana, an automatic meaning generator writing the apocalypse in real time, a divining rod of ungodly proportions.” Where and when in your life are you not a poet? DYLAN KRIEGER: Over the course of my life, poetry has slowly permeated more and more of my speech, my encounters, my rituals. There are fewer and fewer places where I am not a poet,…

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SEALED by Kathleen Gullion

March 31, 2021 · Fiction

The day of my baptism, I wear a neon orange swimsuit underneath my white dress. What was I supposed to do, go naked and let everybody see my brand-new nipples? As I wait by the river, bullfrogs jumping from bank to bank and croaking like a choir, the swimsuit keeps finding its way up my butt crack, giving me what Paw-Paw would call the “cowboy’s hello,” a term he coined for what happens to underwear on a saddle. “That’s why cowboys go commando, Darlene,” he always said. I yank the suit out of my crevice. Mom, perched up on dry…

CRJ

DOG DENTIST by Stephanie Yu

March 26, 2021 · Fiction

Dog Dentist comes home, takes off his shoes, puts his feet up on the table, and says in a voice too loud, “Man my feet are B-A-R-K-I-N-G, if you know what I mean!” He laughs uproariously to himself. A joke intended only for one. I’m fixing up his favorite: meatloaf and mash. After a day of grinding down dog teeth, he’s only in the mood for food that is barely reconstituted. My meatloaf is a special recipe that’s super moist. More “fudgey” than “cakey” so the enamel faces zero resistance on the way down. I can tell that sometimes Dog…

CRJ

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