by David P. Scaggs

“My father was a murderer and addict who was never clean enough for me to really believe that he loved me, but I wanted to be proud of me.”

by Brittany Miles

“Seven years of ignoring every sign. In me. / To only see the signs of madness. In her. / Her madness outweighed me. / But today, my body said, stop.”

by Christie Ellen

“‘Just say the word and we can get in the car and drive to Mexico’. Your maid of honour’s eyes don’t blink as she waits for you to respond.”

by Jack Etzler

“So, like, fuck man, if I knew about this Midwest Emo shit back in college I feel like I would’ve hit new levels of emotional depth…”

by Kathryn Reese

“My ex beside me, blocking my view of my daughter. My daughter, the sort of fighter who hides behind her hair.”

by Aaron Tomey

“He lived in a shed in my grandparents’ backyard, hidden from a world that had trouble looking into his one remaining eye, surrounded by “walls… covered from floor to ceiling with pictures of adult pornography”

by Zary Fekete

“We stood by the river. The fishing line in his hand like a quiet reward. Behind us, Váci Street shimmered with glass storefronts and clean white signage. Leather handbags, crystal shops, wine bars with English menus. The river didn’t care. It flowed between both lives, unbothered.”

by Basil Rosa

“It drove me to realize there is no single moment when we happen.”

by JD Clapp

“Wait…You gave your friend a hundred bucks to give Pops a hand job? In Chris’s car?”

by Anthony David Vernon

“Ghost trees, gators, and green grasses act as hosts to a wide river. The Everglades is an exit, a slow race to the sea, the type of host that invites you to leave.”

by Michael Templeton

“Blanchot tells us that “(f)orgetting causes language to rise up in its entirety by gathering around the forgotten word” (The Infinite Conversation, 194).”

by Johanna Nauraine

“What else might I expect from a man whose ancient language is ‘a means of communication and dialogue by the Hindu Celestial Gods.’”

by Eva Alter

“The poem’s central metaphor invokes the mythic Chimera—a creature composed of disparate animal parts—as an embodiment of fractured identity.”

by Basil Rosa

“The payments on accrued interest alone for each of the creditors I owe money to will keep me pumping cream into doughnuts in this kitchen for up to fifty hours a week until I’m a corpse.”

by Marcia E. Williams

“The sun's orb, brilliant orange from smoke particles in the air, dipped below the western horizon as lenticular clouds morphed from warm pink to flat gray.”

by Leah Mueller

“My best friend Ezra, a huge fan, was flat broke and lived on my couch in Madison. He never offered much monetary help, but he was good in bed.”

by Emma Wilkins

“We can’t begin, or can at best only begin to understand, this place—its origins, and ours. And we begin, time and time again, with words.”

by Casey Jo Graham Welmers

“The twin towers still punctuated the skyline in New York City, and I could have easily boarded the plane with a chunky shoe full of prison shanks were I so inclined.”

by Adrian Kresnak

“There’s a children’s museum that used to have a severed head in a freezer.”

by JB Polk

“…I believe that life, whether one is young or old, must be lived and commemorated as it comes.”