To my face you questioned, criticised, chipped away.
Behind my back you blamed, sidelined.
I saw you today for the first time since I left that job.
I kept walking, straight ahead. Kept my dignity.
The scars no one can see are still healing
But you have lost your sting.
Brian Maycock has stories due in June in BFS Horizons and Lost Horizons Horror. He lives in Scotland.
“Let’s have some friends over,” she probes.
I nod, because I love her.
When they come, their lips call.
Their gestures implore.
Their eyes beseech.
My smile is a rigid rictus.
My words, a shield or a sword.
When they go home, I close the door and retreat into myself.
Seth Pilevsky lives in New York with his wife and five kids. His work has appeared in What Doesn’t Kill You, a YA anthology published by Indomita Press, Maelstrom, The Inner Circle Writers’ Group Literary Anthology 2019, Long Island Literary Journal, Literally Stories, Memoir Magazine and Stinkwaves Magazine. Sign up for updates at his website, spilevsky.com.
She said she was okay. She said things were getting better. We laughed. We cried. Thank God for friendships that have no secrets; until she did.
She wasn’t okay and things were not better. She left our friendship, her family, her world. Another piece of my heart went to heaven.
Terri has published her first book, “Three Little Words to Look at Things Differently”. She lives in Bucks County, PA, with her “Hubbles” and their “Fat and Fabulous Calico – Gracie Girl”. She’s working on other writing projects so stay tuned!
Suddenly he’s an expert on whales. Their weight, their songs…
…evolved from land animals the size of goats. And eat 5,000 pounds of fish every day. If they still lived on land…
Tuning him out, I watch the whales. Imagining all the delicacies they missed out on, settling for krill.
Kayleigh Shoen is a writer and teacher in Boston, MA. Her stories have appeared in X-R-A-Y, Milk Candy Review, [100 word story], and elsewhere. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Her tweets can be found at @Whowantssoup.
Night train to London. Just me and you. Is there an us? I don’t know anymore.
I gave you another chance, the fourth time. I have been counting.
You are sleeping. You look so innocent when you sleep.
Next station. Cambridge. Grabbing my stuff and leaving the train. Leaving you.
Jana von Fellenberg loves to drink iced tea while writing essays.
The non-stop drip drip drip from the faucet is my own private water torture. Each drop that falls into the pile of dirty dishes cluttering the sink pops, the way your kiss used to pop on my cheek every night in bed just before you would snap off the light.
Kip Knott’s debut full-length book of poetry, Tragedy, Ecstasy, Doom, and so on, is available from Kelsay Books. His second full-length book of poetry, Clean Coal Burn, is forthcoming later in 2021, also from Kelsay Books. More of his work may be accessed at kipknott.com.
The carriage crept quietly along the cobblestones.
Its occupants, a handsome man and a beautiful young woman, barely spoke.
Harsh words had passed between them.
Silently, he wished he’d never found the glass slipper.
Secretly, she hoped he would turn into a pumpkin.
Oddly enough, they lived happily ever after.
Susan Gale Wickes is from Indiana. She still believes in happily ever afters.
A man (not her husband) had loved her last summer. He never said so, never kissed her, so maybe he hadn’t, but the wondering lit her up like a firefly. His absence weighed a thousand pounds and made her ears ring. Having almost certainly been loved still made her dance.
N. West Moss has had her work published in the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Salon, and elsewhere. Her short story collection, The Subway Stops at Bryant Park, was published by Leapfrog Press. Her forthcoming memoir, Flesh and Blood, is being published by Algonquin in October 2021.
My hands are ambitious
though
they do not want to
conquer the world
Nor build monuments
create beauty
or find treasure
My hand’s ambition
it seems
is to be ready
to catch you
when you fall in love with me
My hands are ambitious
but they can’t see the future
Joshua Benitez wishes he could use his feet as a second pair of hands.
Elbowing open the back door, he shouted his daily love letter to his wife: “Cuppa tea?”
A brazen wind from the garden stole his words away. He glanced around to mime instead, but found no audience.
The kettle whistled urgently.
He turned back inside, shrugging. “She’ll be in soon enough.”
Lucy lives in England and tries to write and read as much as life allows. Sometimes she wishes the wind would blow her away, too.