WEIRD ENOUGH TO BE DANGEROUS by MJ McGinn
My 7th grade English teacher was just three toddlers stacked on top of each other. The middle toddler googled every question we asked on an iPhone. You could see it through his shirt, star-bright.
LOVE LETTER by Nick Plett
The world felt like something awful impending. June gloom had set in early; Mercury was back in retrograde. Everyone was jittery, uncertain, a little gun shy.
RAINBOWS by Tim Frank
A rainbow is feeling down, suicidal even. It takes some pills and a bottle of gin to a park, ready to end it all.
NUMBER 30 by Jonah Sheen Tan
I studied the rustle of the stately rain tree when I couldn’t see the blackboard and knew Pollock’s Number 30 before I ever experienced autumn.
A PORTRAIT OF JOHN WAYNE’S COLLARBONE, SELMA BRAUN, 1992 by Will VanDenBerg
It’s 5:34 am and John Wayne is singing to his horse. The shoot is behind schedule; they’ve gone all night. Wayne’s singing voice will be dubbed over.
ANCHORAGE by Marc Tweed
That’s the Way of the Boss. That’s the Way of the Boss! Well, fuck.
OUR STORY by Rhea Ramakrishnan
You can tell yourself anything you want about yourself, even if it’s not true yet, and eventually it will be. Maybe.
DOOMSDAY APOCALYPSE MELANCHOLIA BLUES by Nathaniel Duggan
It was an easy thing, that winter, to realize that you were not, in fact, you—rather you were the untitled, draft email of yourself, addressed to no one.
MY IDEA OF SELF IS SELF-INFLICTION: Jared Daniel Fagen in conversation with Vi Khi Nao
I don’t feel free, Vi. Never have. I know you don’t either. I don’t know anyone who does, or has. Maybe nothing is, nor should it be.
ON BEAUTY by Amber Burke
I don’t mind when men talk and talk; then I don’t have to do anything. They fall in love all by themselves.