You are afraid you’re not strong enough for her to lie to you. You are afraid that if you cannot trust your mother, you won’t know how to love her, and you are trying so hard to let love in.
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The Runaway Restaurant by Tessa Yang
I pictured a tiny window opening in my sternum: out whooshed all my fears like a cloud of bats. I really believed I could do this. I could bring our daughter home.
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Leaning into the End of the World by Matthew Hawkins
The punishment at the commune for having relations that weren’t explicably geared toward procreation was exile. The risk made it even better.
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What Grew From The Earth by Lorinda Toledo
Girls, she knew, did what they could for each other. Boys, though. They grew into men.
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Growing Pains by M. M. Kaufman
Then I met this guy—and he was really very good at parties. Maybe that’s when I should have run.
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Stasis by Ryan Bloom
The sweet scent of basil, the sharp bite of rosemary, in all the years since Tristan Mallory last breathed them in, they remained as vibrant and alive as ever, even here, light years from Earth, in an Observation Chamber floating in outer space.
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JAC by Joseph Rakowski
There isn’t a code to yell when a 12-year-old tries to commit suicide in his cell. You just yell help.
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Sara Conjures The Devil by Leyna Krow
Sara wished her brother dead. She wished old Pastor Brookes dead as well.
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The Height of My Apex by Alex Sagona
Someone shit in the men’s sauna again, and now the entirety of Apex Fitness smells like the aftermath of a ruptured septic tank.
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He Was a Friend of Mine by Munib Khan
Murad’s gaze meets Saad’s. Two dozen feet between them. There is no hatred in Murad’s eyes, only pity and kindness, if boys can possess pity and kindness, certainly not desire, and it is not an unforgiving gaze, but that is how Saad will remember it later. He will remember it often, at will, give himself shivers, like reciting a beloved poem. It was love, he will say.
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Love Nest by Marshall Howell
Lynn met me at the airport, and we took a yellow taxi into Boston and pulled up in front of this dilapidated building on Boylston Street and walked up five flights of stairs. She put a key in the lock and opened the door. “How do you like it?” I put my hands in my pockets so she couldn’t see them trembling and gazed into the tiny room.
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How the Rain Remembers by Shebana Coelho
My curls return in rain and in sudden wind. They returned that day, on the beach, standing beside a sand wall, scooped out by wind. We were on vacation, him from his regular self, and me from the self that pretended he was truly like this.
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Mermaid IPA by Linzy Garcia
I remember even the most beautiful, mystical things still die.
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Hard Salami by Kent Kosack
How am I supposed to know where here is? How does anyone?
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A Brief Affair by Thomas Cardamone
Every weekday at four PM, a small piece of Paulita Paulo died and went to heaven.
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The Salesman by Terek Hopkins
In two days, Roger turns twenty-seven. But Roger doesn’t want to turn twenty-seven. He’s more afraid of it, of turning twenty-seven, than he’s ever been of anything in his whole life.
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Ape Destiny by Ethan Chatagnier
I’m at the high school to meet with Derrick’s counselor. I don’t know I’m about to say those words, don’t know what they’ll mean. I’m even mistaken about why I’m meeting Mr. Crenshaw, but there he is, waving me into the library.
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Resolution (in Twelve) by N. H. Azmi
He was her first in a list of firsts: first kiss, even though that should have been in high school; first hook up although that should have been in college. He was a second or third love though, but the first to ever leave her imagination and take root in reality
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The Inspired Painting by Derek Updegraff
Once a person looked down from a cloud, and she thought to another person…
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Somersault by Mally Zelaya
I once got lost in a forest at the bottom of the sea. That’s what I told Suzanne, my therapist, but she didn’t believe me. She gave me that look of hers which always made me feel like a little girl, a lying little girl, a bad little lying girl in need of a scolding. “Seriously,” I said, retreating into the protective breast of her couch. “It’s true.”
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