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The elf hits me doing what feels like eighty, blowing through the light at the new intersection by the outlet mall. One of his headlights glances off mine, and he swerves on two wheels before slamming into a construction barricade with the sound of a typewriter dropped off a roof. No seat belt: he is thrown from the car and sails into the desert.
By Samuel JensenMarch 2024There is something hard in me, a seedlike malignancy. I can’t say how it got there or when, but I can’t remember the last time I felt pure love or sadness or joy. It’s always a mix of things, some confused and muted in-between.
By Lucy TanFebruary 2024I was considered “good,” considered a “good influence.” It amazed me — like the cool feeling of Marshall’s tongue on my labia had amazed me — that I could possess all of these qualities; that I could be both warm and cold, virtuous and defiant; and that someone could love me for all of it.
By Lauren HohleJanuary 2024I had thought nobody understood dark matter — that it was, fundamentally, an encapsulation of all we didn’t know. But it turned out other people’s lack of understanding took the form of complex theories, mathematical equations, computer programs that turned impenetrable data into different impenetrable data. Other people’s confusion was a castle you could live inside, a whole architecture of the unknown. My confusion was a wall I kept walking into.
By Emet NorthDecember 2023At the hospital two nurses, a doctor, and Dave all stand and watch as I transform into animal. My body expels fluids, feces, and finally a human baby. I grip the bed, howl, grunt, and writhe. Outside the window the trees are sunlit, and the leaves stutter in the breeze. I try to forget that I took a shit in front of Dave.
By Bethany MarcelNovember 2023She had read of various roughened skin patches that the Internet described as “scales,” but these were not those. These were not, in fact, human.
By Jen SilvermanOctober 2023My classmates were all getting their driver’s licenses. Like any of us had anywhere important to go. They drove cars their parents had gifted them, either a hand-me-down or a brand-new lease. I was the last without a provisional license and the only one without a car parked outside Shane Yamamoto’s house.
By Joseph HanSeptember 2023My insomnia began just when my baby girl started sleeping through the night. Anytime my head hit the pillow, my heart pounded like a million galloping horses, and I would tremble and sweat and eventually get up and stand on our back porch to beg the gods for peace.
By Maria KuznetsovaAugust 2023The waiting room was mostly full of pregnant women that day, and then there were the rest of us. It made me feel sorry for the ultrasound techs, who must spend their days bouncing back and forth between rooms with babies and rooms with not babies.
By Molia DumbletonAugust 2023As the new millennium drew near, Erin’s family began preparing for the apocalypse. Jesus was going to return at the stroke of midnight, appearing in the New York City skyline as the ball dropped on TV and the moon turned to blood.
By Virgie TownsendJuly 2023Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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