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This photo is representative of an idea I had about selfies being artifacts, not of narcissism and vanity of which they are charged, but of self-introspection and feminine control of female perception.  MORE

(Alisa Hope Wagner "I'm Losing Her")

Childhood moments mourn

While secrets shade the soul

Can’t confess to perfection MORE

(Ale Cota "Plucked") Ma, there is a winged girl atop your rooftop. Enveloped in

Night, she exhales a birthing cry. Death is cyclical like that MORE

(Annie Huckabee "Random") “Cucumber martini, Titos, and one Turks Head, please.” 

It’s the usual drink order here at the Shelf Life Swim Up Bar in the Caribbean, where I’ve worked as a bartender for the past twenty years. Varieties of vodka are endless today, and everything having to do with  

 MORE

(Alondra Usai "Hasta...") Luogo di nascita: Veracruz, Mexico, it’s printed in my copper-red Italian passport.

Whenever I showed my passport at the airport, I would always get second glances and puzzled looks until they saw my dad, whose skin was a few shades lighter, as confirmation of my nationality MORE

(Azrael Montoya "Love You") It was hard to find you.

I really had to try.

You drove me to work and I was MORE

(Alyson Greene "Firsts") I didn’t want to go out on the water. Seth, Amber, and I had spent our childhoods running along the soft sand and splashing in the warm surf. But we weren’t kids anymore and Amber had moved away. In the MORE

(Alyanna Mena, "Early Evening") When the sun and the moon pass off shift report as the moon dresses for work.

Being a white night owl, the hue in the sky signals my need for candy. MORE

(Ana Varela "My Desert Jay") The valley knew that it would change my life forever. The longer that I spent in it, the more sure I was of where I needed to be. Nothing could be the same after that summer in the desert. MORE

(Dante Silva "Fog") You are ambling

Over a bloom

Of jellyfish.

The soles of your

Bare feet touch MORE

(Donna Huddleston "Customary Prayers for Marie")  “I’m only thirty-four years old,” Marie said. "I’m too young to die.”

That morning, she ran away from her husband, ten-month-old daughter MORE 

(Dustin Hackfield "Conjuring") we follow the tarantula across the caliche path

into the oak’s shaggy head

electric with the bronze scream of cicadas MORE

(Dennis Denman "Heart of a Rancher")  I drove west through the small towns of Banquete and Agua Dulce and turned on a Farm-to-Market road and drove another four or five miles. I passed the shop and farm house and turned into the entrance to the ranch  MORE

(D. Weiss "A Meeting...") I once had a meeting with the Fae. 

Seeking answers to questions long pondered, I wished to settle the matter for good. 

Just how accepting is the Fae of a new companion in their vast woods? MORE 

(Elizabeth Flores "Tribute") I wish I knew the boy's name. 

He paid tribute to my dad, 

a man I'm sure he didn't know MORE

Esther Bonilla Read "My Mother Finally Speaks Up") Mother and Daddy came from Mexico, and after they met and married, followed the Mexican protocol in raising their families. My father was the head of the family and made all MORE

(Jason Bond "Ghost Box") Brian watched Timmy reach as far as he could under his bed. Imagining his chubby fingers tiptoeing like spider legs over dust-bunny covered Cheetos or long-lost Lego pieces or whatever else might be under there MORE

(Joseph Wilson "I Always Knew...")

one hundred years ago

my grandfather

Paul Herbert Cline

fought in WW One MORE

(Javier Villarreal "Jim") At first sign of dawn 

the uncertainty of your movements

troubles the stillness of the day. MORE

(Jim McCutchon "Zombie...") While taking a tour through Pass Christian on my way home from a trip to Biloxi, I stopped at Live Oak Cemetery to see if the gravestone had been placed on my aunt Rebecca’s grave and to just look MORE

(Jimmy Willden "Bright Static") I can’t recall if it was the sound that came first or the realization that there was even a sound at all – but at some point, just before the sun rose, I found myself staring at an empty pillow as the windows rattled from the tune of a heavy wind that whipped against our nearly two-hundred year-old home MORE

(Joshua Bridgwater Hamilton "Song..." ) I ate my own desire. There where

the mirror reflected fruits, vines,

a sickening pace to rot faster MORE

(Joel Ortiz "El Gallo") There he struts, like some brown Travolta, tres viejos in his hair,

Demanding a tortilla in the chinese buffet, 

Once he brought his own music, Bach on the tape recorder, on full blast MORE

(Julieta Corpus "Her Cross...") The beast beats up his wife
For no other reason, than to
Assert his manhood MORE

(Judy Mastenbrook "After I Die") After I die, my dresser drawers will be filled with well-worn sexy underwear, including the camisole with imported lace MORE

(Kristopher Cisneros "Hallelujah...") Make love power to the people were the slogans. However, too many great people had been shot down, and the bombs were bursting in the air. We came in peace for all mankind. The sixties were nearly over, and I stopped believing in God MORE

(Kristi Sprinkle "visible briefly")  visible briefly Is

A lone metal chair Inside a grove of California trees

Just under a turnpike MORE

(Louise Pettigrove from Bright Fields) One of the barriers Wallis and Mollie encountered in their relationship was the Nueces River between them. It often flooded, and crossing it would’ve been impossible on horseback or with a horse and buggy. A ferry had been there since 1877 MORE

(Kailey Hamauei "Taita's House") Off Ocean Drive, in the old neighborhoods, the homes have all been through the cycle: growth, stability, decline, and revitalization. Some have been through the cycle more than once. MORE

(Lizbette Ocasio-Russe "The Girl...") Perfect makeup, manicured nails, hair done. 

CLICK

more 

(Lizz Cosgrove "Late") I’m running late again…

My morning writing, that attempted to become my afternoon writing,

has manifested itself into my evening writing MORE

(Kenneth Bennight "Zeke...")Wheel Colony XJB776, Interstellar Space

The blue chick’s bright mane was no yellower than a jonquil and her clothes no skimpier than a clumsy pickpocket’s purse. She stood at the bar, her stripes pulsing to the beat of the music. I let out a deep breath MORE

(Sister Lou Ella Hickman "i have been thinking about aliens and music")   i know this may sound strange . . .

(then again, maybe not)

recently

i have been thinking about aliens and music . . . 

(Neina Chapa "The Snake Escape" from CCW2023) We used to slither through the marsh

Peek out under brush and burrow in soft karst

 Nestle in between the bark and heart of a warm tree MORE

(Nausher Nash Banaji "A Waft...") there is a waft of Chanel in the air

the room is bare and you aren’t there

I see a flash of fabric, a shimmer of skin MORE

(Neesy Tompkins "Life of a Ship") It was like any other day, the day my father died. Oblivious to the crying and runny noses on the other end of the phone line, it seemed surreal, like the way talking sounds through the fog across a ship channel MORE 

(Roberta Dohse "Montevideo") I once read a book about a woman who ran away from her life,

changing her name to that of towns through which she passed,

names so unique and different MORE

(Robin Carstensen "Prizefighter 101...") No. 15

Dear Search Committee for English Faculty at Midwest Prairie University: 

I am a swinger. I can swing from one vine to another all day long, on and on. I am the tree and the vine. MORE

(Theresa Kuhl-Babcock "Empty") Staying in the present drains the life right out of me. The current negative moment is that our son Corey is going off to college, and I am about to be an empty nester. My chest aches with the knowledge that while I MORE

(Tom Murphy "Terry Martin") I remember Terry Martin, Terry Martin.

His father was a longshoreman, had tattoos MORE

(Tonantzin Rodriguez "...Chingona") If you grew up without the protection of a father and were raised by two powerful women, Mi Madre y Mi Abuela, you knew a little chingona was in the making... LONGER EXCERPT 

(Tyre Carter novel excerpt) Blue River (1876)

The fire rose wildly and high. Winds of peace frisked the red heat near Deuteronomy, and Melicarthus. Deuteronomy licked at the wind, practicing his duty given to him by his master MORE