by Sacha Bissonnette

“I thought about her now, her unwillingness to settle, and her secrets. And though I swore to not be like her, maybe that too, is futile. And how we never figured it out. My mother’s truth.”

by Kalan Cordell

“My heart knocks against his; a vacant space not seeking any settlers.”

by Kathryne McCann

“Water rolls down your body, tracing your ribs, finding your hip bone and falling below just as his fingers did not even an hour ago.”

by Caroline Huckeba

“Cards flicker through the air, a fast red-and-black rain. One lands near my shoe, face-up: the Queen of Hearts.”

by Camryn Brennan

“I see them everywhere. All around me. On my pillow. Under the seat of my car. On the kitchen counter. It's like I'm meant to see them. It feels like someone is leaving them for me.”

by David Agyei-Yeboah

“He pushes his weight onto the floor and lies prostrate, then kneels and lifts his eyes to the ceiling, mumbling for his sister to return from the dead.”

by Kate Forbes-Riley

“He’d quizzed her on her favorite Otis song. Put her on the spot…”

by Zia Musgrave

“And there we hang. I fall and I rise, but at least I never have to look away from her beautiful face.”

by Karen Walker

“The table became elbow to elbow to elbow, and, to make room, I was shoved to the back of the highest cupboard.”

by Mikki Aronoff

“As he lay quiet in the dawn of his dying, I pressed my ear against his scar. It sounded like hush. When I brushed my frantic fingers over the thick of its tissue, it almost felt like touching.”

by Sumitra Singam

“You rub my back, and there is something achingly familiar, a muscle memory of me holding countless vomit bags, rubbing endless revolutions of the clock on all the overdose girls’ backs. “You’re okay,” you say.”

by Adam McOmber

“Remember the past is merely an invention of the present.”

by Michael Minassian

“Elephant brains are four times larger than human brains. I wonder why an elephant is not President of the World.”

by Louella Lester

“You wake up on a roof—no idea how you got here until you see the ladder, as spindly as a daddy long-legs’ legs, and there’s no one about, except the cat licking your face…”

by Ivy Nabangi

“The only thing she knew for sure was that her baby loved the sky. She knew he loved staring at the stars, pointing at them and drawing the various constellations. Her motherly spirit took this as a sign that he was probably more capable than he was given credit for.”

by Amir Szuster

“A year later, watching her bleed, I thought: How long does it take to empty a human body?

I still do not know.”

by Kit Zimmerman

“This…lingering—it’s harming others, too. Those you love. You can endure it. They cannot. Try to remember that.“

by Luanne Castle

“Where she expected to find smooth keyboard geometry, she discovered a grotesque smile of cadaver ivory inset between the ebony keys…teeny bits of gold, silver, and porcelain sparkled…under the fluorescent light overhead.”

by Katie Goto-Švić

“ …they thought you’d go far. They didn’t think it ever needed to be said. You’re gonna go far, kid.. But now…with gentle pity, they tell you how well you’ve done just getting out of bed this morning.”

by Rachel Racette

“…she watches the swirling vortex of darkness and death. A massive blackhole that’s slowly sucking in the other darkened ships filled with soon-to-be-dead passengers…She still hears them --those agonized screams over the screeching sirens…”