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.
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.
REGENERATION by Hayli Cox
Momma’s bones are broken in so many places that the images look like fins in their oceanic blue-black glow. She’s lost so much lately.