THE CARRIAGE ROOM by Mary Ann McGuigan
He returned home silent, even more sullen. I asked him about Mrs. Marra once, but he looked at me as if all memories, good or bad, had been erased.
SWEETNESS by Tina Kimbrell
On the morning that she died, I don’t think I knew that it was the day that we would stop waiting. We were just going to her bedside, as we did. As we had done for days. Suspended in that grief fog, gritty and spinning.
CLAIM OF VALUABLES by Kristen Swan Morrison
You’re too busy thinking about the bag that held your common sense, dignity, and your partner’s trust in you, the bag that’s undoubtedly getting further away the longer you sit here.
GETTING QUIET by Emily Marie Seibert
The parrot needed quietude and a sense of security in order to come down. My neighbors must’ve pegged me as mad.
JUST THE EDGES by Molly Wadzeck Kraus
Rolling down the window, I decipher through the breeze, Listen, I think we need to stop this. Hours ago, you had my breasts in your hands. OK, whatever, it’s fine, I said.
CRYING IN THE SEX SHOP by LHC
The thing about being in a sex shop is that you’re trying to signal with your body language *I feel cool and normal about sex.*
UGLY BOYS by Daniel Isaiah Elder
Men. A constant desire, sometimes simmering, often burning. Never sated. And for him, I knew, it had been even longer.
ENTER MY OWN FLESH by Sofia Drummond-Moore
I made this dangerous anomaly. I think I might have made it on purpose. I think maybe I asked for this interruption.
DOING VERY WELL! by Tippy Rex
It was cold on the floor, I confess, but I thought it was OK. Since he left, I wake up every morning and marvel at all the me-warmed space on the mattress.
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.