It’s been, hmm . . . a year. Enough said. Let’s read some creative resistance instead. To get you all started, we’re excited to announce publications by two of our editors. Poetry Editor Candice Louisa Daquin’s novel, The Cruelty, was released by Flowersong Press in November 2025. The Cruelty focuses on the legacy of abuse. […]
By M. M. Adjarian Texas women love and curse with fatal bless your hearts. Sun burned plains enclose them, their multi-colored bodies corralled in branded jeans. Tender cuts on man-sized platters piled high to heaven with heaping sides of disrespect, they live to be consumed and then discarded like Porsha Ngumezi. Doctors wouldn’t scrape her […]
By Christine Strickland January 15, 2020 Dear Pineapple, I’m tired of thinking of how to explain this to you. I’ve been trying since you were a blueberry, remember? What to say to you when the day comes when you ask me: Did they really throw kids into cages? Did you all really let them? I’m […]
Hottentot Venus – Sarah Baartman “Nature is a temple, where the living pillars sometimesutter indistinguishable words. Man passes through theseforests of symbols which regard him with familiar looks.” —from Baudelaire’s poem “Correspondence” There is a leash plagued with fancy, enough to dog a Negro round the continent. this one comes to England of her own naked […]
By Kirsty Nottage Sandwiched between middle-aged, middle-class people in suits, I feel like a clown. The costume doesn’t help, but it’s more than that. I know, I know, it’s my own fault. Why would I stand for election as an anarchist? “Let’s protest the system,” Matt had suggested. “It’s elitist, corrupt and outdated!” I’d jumped […]
By Frances Koziar Skin colourdoes not dictate culture— I could tell you all the waysthat this is true, speak of abandonmentsand adoptions that sink deeperthan flesh, of homes and not-homes,of the erratic mixingof bloodlines; insteadI want to say that being whitebut not Whiteputs you in a uniquekind of danger. We are attackedby our own and […]
By Robert L. Reece She saw him coming. She always saw them coming. As he trudged through the musty swamp to the small shack in the distance, he began to realize why no one had bothered to interview this woman before, and he was beginning to wonder if the meager check was worth the effort. […]
By Andrea L. Fry The authorities will start with shame—the lecture on personal propertyas if it would reform. But not even close—the claim of ownership is as aliento ghost writers, as the acceptance of defacement is to those who own. But how persistent, how alive the calling card! Yesterday, the overpasswas grey and mournful […]
Resistance Wears Many Faces By Nina Pak Resistance wears many faces. Sometimes it marches in the streets, a cry against injustice that refuses to be ignored. Other times it is quiet, invisible. Nothing more than a refusal to yield, a single word withheld when obedience is demanded. Victory is never guaranteed. You may rise against […]
By Myna Chang Maria peered at the items locked inside Trillion Mart’s display case. The packet of birthday candles cost only $25, but the environmental tax was 300 carbits. That would put her way over her monthly carbon footprint allotment. She sighed and leaned against the cool surface of the display. She’d hoped to give […]
By Sophia Carroll I worked in a medical tent. Do they still have medical tents? I’m not a doctor but in my dream, I could tell who we could save by touching them. Some people burned from infection. I knew we didn’t have medicine. I heard mothers scream, that sound that predates language. I hugged […]
By Marianne Xenos Sylvia stood at her worktable polishing a crystal diadem with a soft flannel cloth. The handcrafted headpiece was adorned with prisms and thrift-store rhinestones. Afternoon sun slanted through the large bay windows of her makeshift studio, the dining room of her late mother’s Victorian house. Sylvia smiled, remembering her mother with a […]
By Suzanne O’Connell “I’m not happy,” the therapy client says.“Tell me about it,” I say.She tells of a broken marriage,a husband, who when he does come home,is drunk and abusive.“He tells me I’m ugly,” she says,“I’m afraid all the time.”“It’s hard for me to imagine howyou could find happinessin such an unhappy situation,” I say.She […]
By J.L. Scott John Jacob tried to keep his eyelids from falling over his eyes, his chin resting in his left palm. The 7th-graders had to report to school at 7 a.m. now, which meant a bus pickup time of 6:15 and a wake up at 5:30. His mother grumbled about it nearly every morning, […]
By Bethany Bruno You were twenty-fourwhen your brain went silent.No dreams.No waking. But still they kept you warmbeneath the weight of wires,your skin bathed in fluorescent blue,your breath machine-fed. Not for you.For the small, curled possibility inside.They called it life,but what they meant was labor. They turned your bodyinto a hushed roomwithout windows,without voice. A […]
By Melissa Moschitto Marianne went out for a walk in a smart men’s suit of houndstooth print, so they arrested her. A woman must not look too masculine, too modern, too severe. The arrest was meant to deter us, but it only tantalized. It was 1850 and there were those of us who wanted to […]
By Rabia Akhtar I was raised in patriarchy.Not an idea—a weight.It sat on my shoulders,pressed into my lungs.Silence was law.Obedience—oxygen. I cracked it open.Spoke when I wasn’t meant to.Walked where I wasn’t welcome.Burned their script,page by page. Crossed borders,thought the fight would end.It didn’t.It just got dressed up—new clothes, better manners. Racism at the table.Sexism […]
By Odette Kelada When I first saw them outside our little suburban library, I thought it must be a festival or civic event. There was noise, movement, and chanting. It was only when they came closer to the windows, and I saw their faces. A man with a cap too small for his large forehead, […]
