HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS by Aaron Burch
It was exciting and sad and over too fast and underwhelming and amazing, all at the same. It was all of it. It was beautiful.
PEGGING by Josh Sherman
Like anything, Hot Wheels has a language. Like any language you encounter, you want to make this one your own.
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.
SUPER BLACK by Sasha Brown
“It’s not that it disappears,” he said. “It’s just deep. It’s like a cliff. It goes all the way down. But it’s something new, Rico.”
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.
I AM MARKED SAFE by Ian Crutcher Castillo
A year and three months ago a stray bullet caught Mina in the face, just grazing it. She has a scar that trails down her left eye, back to her left ear. The scar looks like one tear crying. Sometimes, lightning strikes twice.
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.
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.
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.
DAVID’S GOING TO DIE by Aurora Huiza
Everybody in that coffee shop was always standing around, walking into each other, then backing up and trying again, like Sims, walking into the fridge, backing up, trying again.