Current Issue

A Domestic Skirmish

Mississippi, 1834                         Sarah and I, we was only eight when we saw a dog fight for the first time.  Just behind our house, where our pop would round up some twenty dogs over the course of each and every month, he’d put up a new wall for each fight and watch the devils [...]

Puppet Master

Pitiful…unusual…pitiful…unusual oh, what a tale. Oh, what a story, one may expect to come true.   A doll sat up on the old, grandfather clock. It seemed to be staring down at the floor with glassy eyes begging to be on the ground. Lifeless eyes followed your every move and the silent beating of a [...]

Spelling “Kindergarten”

I am clutching my father’s hand like I do so well, because, God help me, I am not going into that classroom if it is the last thing I do. I’m not crying, because that would be out of place and embarrassing and my greatest talent is staying quiet. But, I am silently protesting, tugging [...]

Tips

Characters AMBER, an ambitious 18-year-old who dreams of being a beautician. ATTENDANT, a woman in her late fifties who works as the restroom attendant of a five-star Italian restaurant. MAN/RICHARD, a forty to fifty- year-old man who pays young AMBER to keep him company. PREGNANT WOMAN   (A young woman around twenty, Amber, storms into [...]

A Natural Departure

From you, I grow farther

Blue, by an Optimist

Blue is the color of the deep, salty ocean; cold, but warmed by the shimmering aquamarine rays that filter down through its rippling surface. Blue is the sky reflected in your eyes when you laugh.

Cigarettes

the man milling near the lamp post

On the Seine

Nobody sits alone on the Seine,

The Beast

Cramped and crowded, hot and dirty.

With Every Movement

We can see the discipline in her—it absorbs

6:30 a.m.

6:30 am: Coffee is my lover. She protects me, wrapping me in her steaming arms. She swims in my stomach and widens my eyes, exciting me. She stirs my fears into her muddy hues and sends me on my way.

Rutu Patel

Gateway

Because Thorn Bushes Have Roses