By Erin Binney / Nonfiction / A family of seasonal wreaths has taken over my childhood home. They alternate which ones greet visitors at the front door, hang over the living room fireplace, and perch above the toilet, adorned with doodads and whirlygigs indicative of various holidays and times of year. Meanwhile, the dozens waiting to be called into service lie about the house in various states of repose, like passed-out frat brothers the morning after a party. These wreat

By Melanie Maggard / Fiction / We decided to build a treehouse after they found one of us dead in the abandoned mall parking lot. That morning, we had ridden our bikes through the field behind the high school, jumped tiny hills and kicked up dust that clung to our calves. We yelled at each other, “Faster, faster!” hoping one of us would take flight. This was what we did during the summer days of our fastest-growing year. We were weeds sprouting, blades sharpening, buds bl

By Trinity Catlin / Poetry /

By Steph Rantz / Flash / Many years ago, it snowed inside my parents’ house—in the family room where there was a Christmas tree. None of us ever thought to move into another room. At first, we greeted the miracle with great levity; it was Christmas after all, and so we laughed and feasted on snowflakes. Some tasted like little tin stars and others like old laundry pegs; still others were like stale chamomile flowers that had been left out in a dusty room. Eventually our

By Kira Santana / Nonfiction / In the rainy blitz of a March afternoon, I walk into The Museum of Modern Art in Midtown, Manhattan, with my blue wounds and my leather boots full of grief. A new exhibit, “Frida and Diego: The Last Dream,” has just opened, and my heart thrashes in my chest like a wild infant, hoping that a face-to-face with Frida Kahlo’s art can somehow return me to myself. In the dead cold of winter, I become very quiet and mistake my loneliness for the suspe

By Conor Hogan / Fiction / Dearest Callie, First, allow me to say that I understand: I am not the same man you once fell in love with. I no longer deserve your loyalty, much less the expiation of your guilt-stricken illness—yet despite my unworthiness, having once known your love, I refuse to endure a life without it. I do feel I owe you an explanation—although it is not clear to me what exactly happened, or when, or why. Perhaps the place to begin is with the joke I use

By Rory Strong / Poetry / with nothing but a balaclava & a swim tan my bell is getting rung again. i throw a bandolier all up and over me and pack it full of PBR and long lash lavender. in the day, the light can’t fully be forgiven. it’s the sound of surprises— still rustles in the thicket. sweetly, as the paranoiac paints straw figures, men in the distance higher than them, the silhouette of our sign tells pilgrims their imaginary travel time. at times i lie

By Sherry Shahan / Flash / squirm when he walks, plus he wears a wife-beater t-shirt, the worst ever name for clothing, and I pinch his arm hair when he picks up a deck of playing cards, thinking he could at least pretend to have a job—like shave and carry a lunch-pail, and he’s in such a damn hurry to leave he forgets to kiss me goodbye, so I press my nose to the window and flip him the bird; when he slows to wave, my nine-year-old fists freeze to the glass, then I att