Two Poems, by celeste doaks
Like everything else
non-white and woman
the doctor said, it should go.
A History of Ghosts, by Faylita Hicks
It was an oddly warm night in November when Ray decided to jump from my third-floor balcony and into the mostly abandoned parking lot below.
In Favor of Romantic Love’s Inevitable Destruction, by Haley Holifield
“You have to teach them all that stuff,” she says, “Men don’t know what to do. They need help figuring it out.” I pump the brakes for dramatic effect.
High-top Serenade, by Serena Simpson
When you’re a little kid growing up in urban America, especially a little kid growing up in public housing in urban America, hardly anything gains you more clout on school grounds than the right pair of kicks.
Like Breathing, by Vonetta Young
Today, a Saturday, in the mall, there are lots of men who remind me of my dad: going bald, not-too-tall, skin the same color as the bark on the pine trees behind my school, tummies starting to poke out.
Good Girls, by Lindsay Ferguson
We’re on a smoke break when Claudia tells me that her husband said she’s ugly when she cries, and I almost ask her, What he do, what happened this time, but then I think, Don’t be a fool, this is what you been waiting for, and I take her hands, look into her eyes, and start to give her all my best ideas on how to leave Greg
HBCU Love, by Lauren Francis Sharma
Of course, Evelyn would bring up the list. Because, inevitably, Evelyn will ask Sanaya about a man. And it won’t be in the way people asked when Sanaya was in her 20s or 30s, it’ll be in the don’t-mean-to-but-have-to-ask way of her 40s.
The H in Heartache is Silent, by Diana Veiga
The front of the white envelope had her name scribbled in purple ink. She had not noticed it before when she had first grabbed it from atop the pile of stamped mail, but now the more she stared, the more she could see that he had squeezed the letter ‘H’ between the ‘C’ and the ‘O,” as if he had forgotten how to spell her name.
Dear Reader, by Tara Campbell and Christopher Gonzalez
When we posted a call for “Funky Flash” submissions, we threw out some loose guidelines—and our eager, open palms—and waited for your wonderful surprises. “Give us your unique,” we said, “your unusual, your hard-to-place flash stories yearning to be read.” We were interested in hermit-crab style pieces, we wanted to see experimentation in form, and we wanted voices that were strong and confident, if not completely absurd.
The Manual for a Boy’s First Grill, by Derek Andersen
When you awoke this morning, you were a boy. But tonight you’ll retire to your racecar bed a grown-ass man with hair on his chest. Assuming you don’t singe it off first ha ha.
Jenny Watches the Exorcist, by Emma Stough
in her sleepless room with the shades drawn and a bowlful of neon peach rings. Blue TV light is radioactive, but after years of exposure, Jenny’s skin has grown a thick, radio-proof layer. It is gummy to the touch.
The Day When Nothing Happened, by Leigh Raper
August 3 is most well known in the United States as The Day When Nothing Happened. In the United Kingdom and the European Union and parts of Eastern Europe, it is also known as Nothing Day. The Day has never been recognized for unique remembrance in Canada, as it has never been determined to be remarkable.
The Virgin Girls, by E.J. Schwartz
The Virgin girls are not virgins. The Virgin girls are not virgins—not yet. They are here to redo themselves and reassemble their youth.
The Birthday, by Ilse Eskelsen
“I’m tired of having created the world,” said the boy with the snow-soft hair.
Though he was, as a child on the cusp of thirteen, the youngest of the group, he was also the eldest.
#bringbackthebush, by Elisabeth Ingram Wallace
I worked with Soraya before she was famous – back in ’93 when she was 14 years old, 6 foot 2 and size 0 – with ankles and wrists so snappable, so daddy-long-legged, she looked like she could crawl up a wall and live on the ceiling.
After/life, by Kevin Kong
Somewhere along the coast, a man buys a house swollen with light – on the abandoned street, but it’s all he can afford. His agent mentions thestunning view, proximity to cliffs. Some maids have left the home smelling of lavender & bleach.
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Reimagined, by Téa Franco
Nothing seemed off until I was fourteen years old, eating handfuls of soil straight from the bag. My mom caught me one day with brown flecks in my braces and called the doctor.
Witness Statement, by Yamilette Vizcaíno Rivera
I’m just glad everyone knows now.
The neighbors know. The children know. The visitors know. It’s not just the chair legs and the light up pineapple sitting with the imprints of things that weren’t supposed to happen anymore.