MISS SPENT • by Adele Evershed
(content note: absence of a baby and obliquely implied rape of a character who might be a minor) I didn’t set out to lead a life of crime, but then again, I didn’t set out to do a lot of… Continue Reading
Literary
FATHER OF MINE • by Jason Schreurs
He barely remembers “Uncle” Willie leaving, just a blur of the man’s back. He’s just shy of two years old and that man who walks out the door is never truly his father. He’s a distant “uncle” his mom protects… Continue Reading
YOU ARE A WOMAN • by Jessica Klimesh
(content warning: rape) You are a girl. A young girl. Naked in front of your bedroom mirror, you run your finger down the barely perceptible indentation between your undeveloped breasts. You are not yet ashamed of your body, but you… Continue Reading
FINAL VISIT • by Amanda Barusch
“Your father loves you. He just doesn’t know how to show it.” The screen door slammed and Dad’s boots pounded down the stairs. Mom said he wasn’t himself since the war. I never met “himself” but I learned to take… Continue Reading
THE LANDMINE • by Antony Paschos
Everyone in the village knew that Mitros was humping my wife; but what can you do? All I had belonged to my father-in-law: the house, the land, the donkey — hell, I had even worn an old suit of his… Continue Reading
WE’RE ONLY HERE TO SKATE • by Jason Schreurs
We’re screaming down the highway in a VW bug and I’m sitting in the back seat, my ass burning. Will driving. Martin shotgun. Me doomed. “Um, guys, I think there’s something wrong back here,” I stammer. “What’s up, dummy?” Will,… Continue Reading
PROUD FLESH • by Teresa Burns Gunther
In her English class, Gillian was assigned an ode. She wrote to the jagged Zorro scar above her knee from the August night she taught Benny to surf in the rickety trailer camper their father towed. They’d been banished from… Continue Reading
WANDERER • by Russell Heidorn
Natalia’s wrinkled, spotty hands fluttered over the piano keys like a butterfly dancing on the breeze. Elegant, beautiful, serene, the sound of the aging instrument felt like a long lost friend. Her favorite was The Seasons by Tchaikovsky. Each movement… Continue Reading
OUR HOUSE ON THE CLIFF • by Lindsey Baker Bower
Our house on the cliff had damp walls that huddled over us as we slept. Ma and Mary shared the bed in the loft while the rest of us kids slept below on pallets we kept behind the stove during… Continue Reading
SOMETIMES A GIRL CAN WAIT SO LONG • by Francine Witte
Sometimes a girl can wait so long that love goes bony and cold. Take, for example, my Harry. Another Valentine’s gone. The usual chocolates and roses. I will eat them and smell them. They won’t be a ring. I will… Continue Reading