I lay with the mulberries under my grandparents’ tree. It’s July 4th, but they smell like the tired soil I played in on Thanksgiving.
I jam them into my mouth, fast.
They taste like visiting, but never staying.
They taste like home, but not my home.
They taste like hunger.
When Jaye was little, she would skip school to go to the library and then go home and draw on walls. Not much has changed. Find her at ThirteenthStory.com.
a big old plantation house
or a drafty shack over the bayou
your home
before you set out
visit every corner to behold
what all not to miss
what all to forget
it’s your home you’re leaving behind
never to return
don’t wave good-bye
don’t talk to anyone
glide away
J.S. O’Keefe has published over three hundred short stories and poems in print and online literary magazines. See more at szjohnny.net.
My mother called me in the night, her profile picture glowing. She announced she was moving us: to a place she once called home. A place I have only ever visited. In my bones I feel how right it is.
My gaze still lingers on the people who cannot follow.
Seven is a writer living in Brooklyn (but not for much longer), who is trying to accept the reality that things never stop ending.
I lost my sandal as the rain fell, clattering like stones. Peiling parked the scooter under the bamboo trees. It goes dark early here, I said. You must feel homesick, she laughed. I recalled quiet lanes, ethereal evening light, cold drizzle, the undramatic temperate zone. No, I replied, I don’t.
Julie began writing in her sixties and has since been published in a wide variety of online journals and anthologies, most recent being Synkroniciti, Dark Moon Rising Publishers, Pesto Comics (Big Smoke Pulp), Lucky Lizard (Poetry) and many others. Twice nominated pushcart prize 2024, nominated for Micro Fiction Anthology 2025.
Winged shadow blues the snow. Arrows in, drops a key into the window box. Brings you gifts, this crow─ green ribbon, pink pebbles. Remembers your kindness from when he was a chick.
Does he know you’re leaving? Fasten his key to your chain in case one of you gets lost.
Cheryl Snell is fluent in subtext.
I can hear the mountains whisper, the rain clouds call.
Come home.
I can hear the subway, heels click on Manhattan streets.
We do not need you.
I close the plane ticket tab on my computer.
Sometimes you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.
Seven is a writer living in Brooklyn (for now), who knows there is more for them to do before they can find their way home.
My grandmother grew up on a southern farm, spending her youth with blackened feet that beat against the ground. Her stories trailed behind her like a veil to Massachusetts. Spitfire was inside her; a resilience that kept us warm during the New England winters.
As hot as a Carolina reaper.
Regine Jackson is a writer who was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts. While Jackson mainly writes short stories within the science -fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, she also writes prose and poetry revolving around her life living in an inner city. Jackson hopes to not only hone her own craft but to bring more creative work to her city and encourage more creatives to write their truths.
She steadied herself against the console as she chose the coordinates to her destination. The tired metal warped and shuddered around her. Centuries of dust and debris fell away as the spaceship broke free from the ground. Soon, she would be on her way to a home barely remembered. Earth.
Simon Kaeppeli is a scientist and writer. He currently lives in Scotland with his senior cat.
Monday, midnight. Not again.
“Hey, anyone up there?” the man on the street yells.
I open my curtains. The street is wet. The man paces in front of Lenny’s Pizza parlor.
I could use a slice of pizza.
“Go home,” I say. “You’re keeping me up, again.”
“I am home.”
Jennifer Lawson is a former Senior UNIX Systems Engineer with a BA in Motion Picture Technology, an MA in Instructional Design, and an MS in Information Security, as well as a former college radio personality.
Aleah Kattan watches new refugee Ruslan lean over her student contest entry of karabij halab, nutty cookies fragrant with hints of orange blossom.
Ruslan nibbles. Smiles.
An Arab proverb fragment (feeding another nourishes two souls) confirms her hope: today’s tasting quickens repair of his heart’s distress.
He reaches for another.
Gary Thomson is himself a descendant of refugees, from the Highland Clearances.