by A. L. Smith

“I should have realized something was wrong when I saw the rag stuffed into the floor vent and heard her lingering on the other side of the door, barring my escape.”

by Shena Cavallo

“I had always imagined divorce was something that happened when you are betrayed, when you fight and scream and treat each other poorly..There is sometimes no terrible event, no great betrayal or revelation, but an itch that never ceases to irritate you.”

by Honor Teoudoussia

“Now, she is tired of his attention. And his crises, and his ADHD, and his PTSD, and his weed smoking. Tired of all the attention on him.”

by Monique Quintana

“The rose garden is dead but not dying. I prop my phone on steps and pillars to take thirst-trap pictures I can pepper my Instagram feed with. In one picture, I am lounging on a rock path, and it looks like I am giving birth to one straggling rose.”

by David Capps

“The kept world dies. The world kept lives. The virtuous grow more virtuous. The weary grow more weary.”

by Erica Anderson

“That little sh*t stop patch of land is permanently burned into my brain. Like Pavlov’s dogs, the sight alone makes my body remember unloading brunch onto very expensive dirt.”

by Kristy Money

“I didn’t have my first orgasm until I was 40. This was by design: In my adolescence and early adulthood, being able to hold myself back from orgasm was my ‘superpower.’”

by Molly Higgins

“‘I host S&M and sex parties in this apartment. Big community for it here in LA.”…“I bet.” I said, hoping I looked natural and cool, nonchalant, like someone who was more than at-home in a sex dungeon.”

by Scott Bethay

“Other hallway chats with [Mr. D] concerned my procrastination, my lackadaisical nature, his not infrequent dirty jokes, and his admonishment to “be careful” because the other teachers thought I was ‘thinking about sex all the time.’"

by Swapan Samanta

“The best horror shows us we've been the monster all along.”

by A. L. Smith

“Every part of my skin glistens with sweat from the unbearable heat of this summer night. The sticky discomfort tempts me to shed the covers, but I will not.”

by Zary Fekete

“Every few blocks a mosque appears, immaculate and bright against the waking streets. Someone is sweeping the courtyard with slow deliberate strokes. The gates are open. They seem to remain open always, as if the building itself is quietly reminding the city that prayer is never very far away.”

by Dyre Copenhale

“Along the way, we collect moments, memories that made us feel alive, to remember that this is all temporary. Life is only transition.”

by Tafara Gava

“The ease in my step wasn’t stoicism. It was acute cluelessness.”

by Lorette C. Luzajic

“In that moment, he had vowed to become the greatest artist who ever lived. Picasso, as epic and brutal as God.”

by Ari Cordovero

“The cabbage on the cutting board. My grandmother’s knife. My father’s son. Every room where men startled at the sound of a girl wanting something.”

by Zary Fekete

“I think about how much of my life has been engineered for ease. How many ramps I’ve taken without noticing. How often I’ve mistaken friction for failure instead of proof of contact.”

by Daniel Bailey

“I finished the coffee even though it tasted terrible. The app still wanted data. I put the phone face down. For a second nothing happened. No lesson. No insight. Just me in the kitchen breathing like it still belonged to me.”

by Lillian Taylor and Richard Leise

“Principal Morgan would be retired by the time their offspring were old enough for secondary school.  So, Tucker was it.  No more Nolans.  No more Nolans, he said, melodically.”

by A. L. Smith

“The library book says you need a candle, a personal item from your target, and the incantation— then, BAM! Hexed!”