MAY 2023, SHORT STORY, 4300 WORDS He sits, hands on knees, as the warm pyramid of the sun climbs his legs, sifting in through the open window. His back is unbent, and his hair is thick but where once it was black as night water, now it is streaked with grey. The body on the …
I. TELL ME “how did we decode his body? meta —made of dust?or silver —made from rust? Hey, Icarus, how do understand your biology after your brain was coded with binaries? you, who dared gravity & space- walked your way into the mouth of the sun in an attempt to be luminous. you who coughed the moon out of your lungs where it …
Let me tell you a story. Three days before our dog died this past September, he was in the back yard early in the morning, lounging on the trampoline like he loved doing, when a shadow fell over him. He didn’t bark, like he would have if any other stranger had entered our yard. He …
A Dog, a Heart, a Box of Ashes, or Whom Rhodope Shed Tears For, by Maria Haskins Keep Reading »
APRIL 2023, SHORT STORY, 3500 WORDS We were fourteen when Edith fell into the millpond, but for years after that I wasn’t really sure if she was dead. We had the funeral, and the next day she showed up at my house just as usual. We continued to hang out together after school and at …
Things We Did by the Windmill, by Katie McIvor Keep Reading »
On the street of Ikorodu, a boy painted in the color of his fatherland stuffs all periodic elements in his mouth like a bowl of akamu. I don’t know what it means when a white language pulls a body to the center of transcendence. This boy doesn’t know what it means to be a tongue …
Death Do Us Part Anonymous writes: Hello! I have always been interested in the occult, but my boyfriend has always warned me against becoming a witch. Is the occult really that dangerous, and how would one learn to use occult powers in a way that would not put anyone in harm’s way? I may not …
APRIL 2023, SHORT STORY, 2000 WORDS 1 They say the Jar standing high on the hill above the city, silhouetted against the sky, alone and imposing, is the eternal stomach of the River God of the Valley, who is praised to devour us one by one. But one doesn’t have to be in the Jar …
Sometimes a painting reminds you of a story,other times, it becomes a map leading you back to all the places you grew up running away from.Like madness, God is a word you can taste on your tongue. It is a word you can hold in your hands and moldinto models of people you love— or …
Alternate Beginning, Alternate Ending, by Animashaun Ameen Keep Reading »
My lover killed meAs lovers are wont to doAnd buried me beneath the lilies I paid for, beside other regretsI’ve become close to a few of them We spent years coating our rotten bodies with our lover’s memoryBut—and I mean this disrespectfullyNo longer. Beatrice Winifred Iker is a Rhysling Award-nominated poet and author whose work …
The owls in the vault of your mouth confess their grieving silence to the chapel of the dead when a tarantula uplifts a ruined man& washes him clean of every ectopic morpheme refusing to ripen into a wet independent clause outside the night’s womb. Rudely tucked into your voice box, the owls brawl for harmonious hoots with the choir of the living. The loneliness of …
Tower of Owls, by Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan Keep Reading »
