I’m thirteen. And the Miller Junior High class of 1985 has, in some unspoken, telekinetic election, chosen me as the ugliest and fattest kid in school. I’m the kid who doesn’t even get a store-bought Valentine’s Day card from that really nice Christian kid who smiles all the time. One day I’m standing outside before […]
Nonfiction
You Seem Really Lonely
GROCERY STORE ARTIST
by Joshua Gottlieb-Miller
Whitney reads the poem he is quoted in [0:20 – 1:03] THE ART OF BAGGING “It’s an art,” customer says, “what you do.” Self-conscious of whatever she thinks I am. “Very aesthetic,” I say. Words mean each thought inside them. I’ll admit, it is aesthetically appeasing. Ode to […]
Persian Night
by Douglas Cole
Angeline was mixing up the medicine from her shelves stacked with mason jars full of herbs and roots and eye of newt. A smile on her face. No sandwich made with hate, here, but a humming lovely music in the background of redbird warm mist as the dream potion bubbled and alchemized under her hands. […]
First Monsoon
by Nazanin Knudsen
10. Early Mornings The 5:00 AM train that goes through the Sixth Street underpass whistles in the distance. Shuffling the pillows, I try to find a position that offers some relief from the pressure in the back of my neck. I live in an apartment near the University of Arizona campus. As an only child […]
You’d Just Be Different, That’s All: Revisiting Catcher in the Rye in 2020
by Sam Rebelein
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know about is that crumby article I found a few years back. It was a really phony piece, in The Guardian or something and all, written by this very intellectual guy who says he re-reads Catcher in the Rye every […]
Being Fred
by Leslie Absher
Being Fred My Dad’s first CIA field assignment was in Athens, Greece. It was the late 1960s when my uncle Tom came to visit our family. He didn’t know his older brother was a spy then, though he suspected it. “One day your father and I were about to enter a store,” he told […]
Villain
by Holly Laurent
I want to kick the shit out of Facebook and Fox News. It’s an instinct I get from my dad. Whenever I got hurt as a kid, he’d launch into a physical comedy routine, beating the hell out of whatever hurt me. If I fell out of a tree and sprained my ankle, he’d haul […]
Your One Phone Call
by Lori Jakiela
I am eating Greek salad at Panera when my phone rings. I don’t usually pick up, but it’s been a week since my biopsy and I’m still sore and my right boob is bruised black and yellow and I’ve been waiting days that have stretched on like 600 miles of bad road. My boob looks […]
Twelve Steps Ahead
by Evan Lavender-Smith
This is one of two instances in your life when you will receive these instructions. There is only one step you’re allowed to hear this time—the last one. It will be the first thing you hear when you’re born and it will be one of the worst things a human being could ever be told. […]
The Po’ele Box
by Kirby Wright
I SWEATED IT OUT on the floral-print couch between Troy and our mother. We were waiting for my old man to get home. My brother gnashed his gum. Jenny was visiting her friend Heidi Bathen and I was glad she was gone. I saw our reflection in the living room mirror—we had looks of impending […]
