By Myna Chang We see the body on the way to drop our kids off at school. It’s in the median at the Parkway stoplight. We don’t recognize what it is, at first. Understanding comes in pieces: leg, arm, slender foot. Naked, of course. We try to look away. But is it someone we know? [...]
By Tristan Richards I meditate on this line while hiking away from the waterfall, and a doe pokes her head out of the snow, watching me, her eyes black and beady, her body sandy, the color of spring gravel turned mud. She is beautiful. I freeze, my heart in my throat. I become too aware [...]
By Nikki Blakely It is a universal truth that a man of good fortune must be in want of a wife, and Jayne set her sights on Edward, despite his reputation for being of a most disagreeable character. On their first date, they went to Possum Pond. Jayne had always been told the way to [...]
By Bex Hainsworth A nymph unburdened by beauty is a nightmare. My barnacle flesh scratches against stone as I curl up in my cave, full of octopus cunning; folding many limbs around myself, cruel, content. This was Circe’s gift: to make me a monster, a maneater. The distant roar of Charybdis rocks me to an [...]
TW: SA By Frances Koziar He speaks of his reputation while I think of fates worse than death, his name, when I would gladly give up mine for a good night’s sleep, to see those nightmares shaped like ordinary men slain before their groping hands reach me; he speaks of having a life ruined, not [...]
By Alma Ariaz Everyone tells me It wasn’t my fault, That karma will get him, Will leave him to rot. Everyone tells me I should have fought harder, And why did I wear that, I was asking for trouble. Everyone tells me, That ‘no’ isn’t binding, It’s fluid, it’s blurred, I am overreacting. Filthy, contaminated, [...]
By Skye Wilson I want to break his bones for what he did. No metaphors, just snap against my skin; pain blooming in his eyes like burns on flesh. I’ll scorch all of the skin he touched me with. I want to grow to twice my usual size, drink in the pain and terror in [...]
By Alexander P. Garza Editor’s warning: assault, violence against women “Mira a mi tia.” Look at my aunt. “La mataron.” They killed her. She shows me a photo on her phone: a black honduran woman, motionless, face down, half-naked, ass exposed, top torn. The girl tells me her aunt’s just been raped and murdered, left [...]
