Posts Tagged ‘issue 3/summer 2025’

Mydalis Vera aka Guerrera Writer I don’t remember when the front window cracked                                                                                    …

Marissa Quintero 1. The Violin Grandpa would be so proud, she used to tell me, and I wanted to carry his legacy with me. I’d be dropped off and try to place my fingers properly. I’d make sure my nails were trimmed; I didn’t like to be scolded by him.   He slowly found his…

Erin Redfern he just has to choose the right time for the right words.   If he’s quick, he’ll nip your first ‘no’ in the bud, then keep pruning, those loppers snick-snicking You don’t know how to love.   If he’s good, just a fancy dinner you can’t afford, the care of his daughter, the…

Brandi Shaffer You slide the green, plastic M&M’s minis container from under its hiding place beneath your mattress and use your thumb to open the lid. It makes a popping noise that you’ve come to enjoy, to anticipate. You stick two fingers inside the tube and slide a Benson and Hedges menthol cigarette out of…

Christi Siebels Did you ever move to a different place in the same world and pretend it was a new one?   ///   I remind myself I don’t have to prepare for the past. I say it over and over   but he shifts his weight         just a little, just enough—and I twist  my…

Barbara Ford The end was marked by a blooming archipelago, violet and maroon with highlights of green colonizing the terrain like algae, his going-away gift   forever wedded to the convergence of circumstances preceding it, how a sliver of bone was chipped off the underside of the pelvic curve on impact, how the mirror revealed…

Dion O’Reilly Since My Parents Were Godless I had to find god in broken bones,   broken on blacktop,   find god in air, smacked from the gut,    god in the exquisite   smashes to my elbow, in falls    from recalcitrant stallions  I was forced to ride.    I could go on and…

Ali Haqq How could I be so blind I let my self-worth be destroyed in harm’s way. I would play by your rules, losing every moment of my dignity for you. As you never remain true to me. Time after time, I try to get free from your darkness. I was a prisoner to your…

Mary Zelinka Just to be upfront, this essay has no tidy little wrap-up at the end where I say I am grateful for all the hell you put me through because it made me a better person. Stuff like that is bullshit. Anyone is capable of becoming a perfectly fine person without having to be…

Anonymous Can a woman who is repeatedly beaten and ferociously pummeled remain completely clear-headed? Not for long. According to Bessel van der Kolk, an expert on how trauma changes brain processes, the woman’s brain will secrete endogenous opioids to numb the pain and ease the terror of these beatings. If she has enough of them,…