WOULD BE A SHAME by Mary Dittrich Orth
...we never even noticed a voyeur, Shana—a girl new to the school, friendless and odd—hiding behind the monkey bars, spying...
THE INHERITENCE / LA HERENCIA by Sam Moe
I think we’re all stuck to the Manhattan apartment, its thick coatings of paint intertwined with our veins, which crisscross around the city, glowing in the night, fraying when we argue.
FARM HANDS by Mark Abdon
The rocking horse was hideous, though. It was the eyes. Wide open and vacant, set too high on that giant head. The foot-pegs had snapped off on Black Friday.
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.