by Kenna DeValor

“he smell of floral rot: the rose,  peony, and soil swirled around me in a delicate game of tug of war.”

by Marcus Silcock

“It was 2am and they walked past the parking with license plates covered for privacy. We are only resting, they said. Nothing more.”

by Rebecca Karas

“Someone would microwave fish every Tuesday, and the oily scent affixed itself to every plush surface in the vicinity: the shitty office chairs, the fabric cubicles, the stained couch in the break room. I worked in a fetid, hungry mouth, ready to swallow me whole.”

by Rick White

“Once they pry and weedle their way inside they’ll find the tiny souls of all the unsuspecting, wide-eyed creatures who daydream-dawdled into that crooked maw.”

by Kate Horsley

“I hole up in the living-room where Bob Ross tells me humans don't make mistakes and for a while I can feel that each stain on the lino is one of Bob’s happy little trees.“

by Alex McNicoll

“‘Everything’s on fire—it’s beautiful,’ Colin said. And then, finally, I could hear them too, whistling like hummingbirds picking flowers. Bombs. Bombs that weigh as much as buildings and burn biblically.”

by Robert L. Penick

“This is the ass-end of the American dream, the part no one films for posterity. Gone with the Wind from Mammy’s point of view…”

by Kevin Richard White

“I want to be your shield and guide, and when I go to drive or move to try to find anchor, she just turns into unbreakable white snow ahead, and I’m afraid of skidding.”

by Benjamin Drevlow

“Every morning I mount my throne in the handicapped stall of the rec fields pavilion men’s room bare-assed with my sweatpants between my knees trying to do my business with 3 trash dogs trapped in the stall with me…”

by Karen Schauber

“He’d come to collect fees, long overdue fees, fees from a previous generation we didn’t know was owed.”

by Michael Grant Smith

“It’s time to save the world. Consider applying a shellac topcoat to prevent smearing. Garnish with sliced hardboiled eggs. Here’s some useful advice for you neophytes . . . please stop being smooth, incontinent babies.”

by Marcus Silcock

“They were the burning bush in the wilderness of starched fathers. The wolves howled outside. Mother leaned against the dresser to pop out another sister. What big eyes, said mother.”

by Tom Misuraca

“I should’ve left a long time ago. But here I stay, mesmerized.”

by Casey Jo Graham Welmers

“We’ll look at the stars every night…We’ll wish on them, because what else can we depend on when all the lights have gone out?”

by J. Agombar

“A voice whispers in your ear as you close your eyes in defeat. ‘No…you…don’t.’”

by Benjamin Drevlow

“When my ex-wife dies, and I promise it won’t be by my hand, I’ll bring her back home and have her stuffed and it won’t be for any sexy stuff…”

by Swetha Amit

“It will take a while for Pa to clean up the mess.  I wait for the storm to arrive.”

by Marcus Silcock

“I do not like to expose my neck to the barber. My head is full of migratory birds, thinks Kato, walking the dust park remembering the lush fish.”

by J.B. Kalf

“I can still smell the cockroaches, hear the crickets on the wall, taste the headlights on the cars. I am part of the hotel ecosystem, along with cleaning ladies and the teenage clerk and this ecosystem known as the hotel..”

by JD Clapp

“I just don’t have it in me to go back. But hell, at least she has Elmo now.”