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My Grandfather left me three things in his will; a John Wayne-signed movie poster from Rio Bravo, an assortment of low denomination coins from around the world, and his crippling fear of water. I sold off two of those things, but the other has followed me all my life. He was my mother’s father, and an eccentric fellow. Convinced that water would kill him, he was deathly afraid of the ocean and avoided baths at all costs. He wouldn’t leave the house if it was raining, and the very sight of a puddle would entice a nervous breakdown. I never met my mother, so I can’t be certain if she shared his phobia. She drowned whilst giving birth to me. It was a water birth, you see. Floating in a paddling pool of shallow water, the midwife delivered me without complication, until she turned back to my mother – face down and not breathing. I don’t believe the solace in validation provided my grandfather much respite from his grief. Years of therapy have helped me overcome my fears, but everyday is still a struggle. I can’t use ice cubes. I’ve never seen Titanic. And I definitely can’t listen to the rock band Wet Wet Wet. I thought I had my phobia under control, until a recent trip to Japan for work. Lost in thought whilst on the toilet, I was assaulted with a surprise burst of water in a sensitive area hitherto untouched. The shock of the experience sent me spiralling, and I rushed from the hotel like a hurricane unfurled. I had to leave the country, but this tiny island was surrounded by oceans. Stuck between a bidet and a hard place. No justice for those with aquaphobia. Water, water, everywhere… I can’t remember the next line, but it feels prevalent. Samuel Edwards was born and raised in Leeds, England, and no matter how far away he gets, he is always compelled to return to Yorkshire. He has a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree from the University of Leeds, and enjoys dark coffee, even darker chocolate, and long walks. Samuel writes mainly to impress his pet cat, a feat he will never accomplish. Previously published in Vestal Review, The Birdseed and Fairfield Scribes. Tweets at @Sam_Edwards1990

He kisses me deeply, his cardamom-flavored saliva mingling with mine. Cardamom disgusts me; I like ginger tea. Yet he refuses to add ginger to mine. Is it too much work to make separate cups? How do you feel about the news? I ask, and he repeats the kiss. More passionately this time. A sensation tickles every pore of my skin. And I abandon the idea of leaving him. Maybe soon, if not now. I can eat a whole one-pound plum cake right now. He brushes off my craving, saying I think about plum cakes too often. And that I should have carried apples with me. Apples! To the clinic? He strokes my belly and presses his ear on it, listening to the heartbeats, trying to feel the kicks. Just four months more; so, be careful with the raging sugar levels, the doctor warns us. I drool at the sight of a confectionary shop when he stops our car to pick milk packets, but he’s oblivious to my desire. Despair hooks and squeezes and wrings my heart. I complain to my mother later about him being heartless, and Maa advises not to linger on it because sometimes husbands are indifferent. Maa knows better. And I abandon the idea of leaving him. Maybe soon, if not now. Whenever I propose to watch a late-night movie these days, he makes an excuse. Work call or pending documentation for a client. Else he’s too tired and says, I should sleep better and not invite anything that can erode my erratic sleeping further. But after I half-sleep, he watches the web series I’ve been craving for. All night, all alone. And enjoys the sensual scenes, every second of them. Keeping my eyes shut, I toss and turn and moan, pretending to be waking up soon. The doctor says I should try to rest more for being energetic in the third trimester. So, he complains jokingly (or jokes complainingly?) about how bravely he pampered and curbed my cravings to binge-watch A-rated flicks. Pampered? You deceived me, you traitor. I complain to my mother later about him being a nagger, and Maa advises not to chide because husbands sometimes grumble about nothing. Maa knows better. And I abandon the idea of leaving him. Maybe soon, if not now. As I try to take a turn in the night, my eyes sleepless and throat burning with acid reflux, I ask him to make me something tangy, preferably tomato soup. Instead, he makes me a banana shake and cuts an apple. “Anytime in the next week now,”he says, cuddles with me and drifts to sleep, feeling the occasional kicks. While he snores lightly by my side, I trash the apple slices and flush the half-drunk shake away in the toilet. I message my mother in the morning and ask her for the tomato soup recipe, one of her best. Who cares if the kitchen gives you nausea? Cravings need to be satiated. But I throw up twice and dump tomatoes, chilies, garlic pods, carrots, and vegetable stock in a bin when the chimney makes no effort to digest those peculiar smells. I complain to my mother later about him being uncaring, and Maa advises not to overthink because husbands don’t care unless necessary. Maa knows better. And I abandon the idea of leaving him. Maybe soon, if not now. When the first wave of spasms, just a tiny tickle, hits me, I ask him to take me to the hospital. He says to wait for three hours, and I hate him even more, wanting to leave him after my twins arrive. How can I not go now? I huff and wait and rant and sulk. A while later, he calls me, his voice a clink of coins. Fragrances hit me, a myriad of them, alleviating my throes. Our dining table is loaded with soups, cakes, pastries, and all the food I have been craving for. He plays my favorite movie and asks me to relax for two more hours because the doctor says we can wait and I should eat what I like. Also, the hospital is just ten-minutes afar, he says. Time to worry about your gestational diabetes is over, he adds and pours me a cup of tea. The wafting smell of ginger admonishes my fickle apprehensions. I call my mother to tell her the story, pangs of pain writhing my insides and a nurse consoling me while pushing my wheelchair through the spirit-washed corridor. Maa advises I should enjoy his pampering while it lasts because husbands pamper little beyond honeymoon and pregnancy. Maa knows better. And I abandon the idea of leaving him. Perhaps that’s how marriage is; part denials, part approvals. She has survived it for thirty-three long years. I’ll learn too; maybe soon, if not now.

Former Lives In Last Night’s Dream I follow her through candlelit mazes. I watch her bathe herself in flowers, painting her wings one feather at a time, or all at once. She whirls in purple sheets, saffron ribbons in her hair, touching things that grow, spending whole lives dancing in the buds of spring. There are former lives storied between her lines, patchwork quilts, thick multi-peopled memories. Encyclopedias. There are dry pages and traces of ink within her fingers. Her voice is like a shower of bees escaping my attention. There are violins and otherworldly languages in her xylophones. She is cat mobile, purchases dresses and purses to swing dreamily on garbage streets- the only color. Poetic, all at once artistic. Reposed in pastel rooms, unfolding. These hours are spent in agony, above all else ecstatic. Return to where the years forget themselves. Kite I could know you in a full cup of whiskey. I could know you with bent legs, face painted in the spring picking up the pieces of your lover. I could join you in the southern hills. Together we could slip into a marble pool filled with freckled tears, our outstretched hands learning the surface of the sycamore tree. Hieroglyphs in our eyes, we will plunder your temples, expunge the air of incense and sacrificial doves...I will carve your totem onto the back of my hand, with blood dripping down long porcelain halls, ever deeper beneath the sand, euphoric I will stagger. Daughter of the earth and sky, your hair in knots, you cause the rising tide. The Girl Who Spoke Swords The girl who spoke swords wears blindfolds, stands in air. She scrawls spells that won’t be sung, into piles of spit and dirt. She lays out a table of windows to souls, entrances to eternities. The girl who spoke swords perceives meanings in deft lines. She touches repetitious fissures; futures set in magic, frightened skin over soothed bones, epidermal runes. The girl who spoke swords wanders. She steps on edges. Her balance is pressed with presence. She instructs. Advises. Cautions opportunity with patience. Her very words are burdens. The girl who spoke swords lessens the pain of doubt, for those who would have her. She settles the night in silence. She hangs her hands toward ground and lifts her crown. The girl who spoke swords crosses her heart with Juniper. Tonight, she swallows bold riddles and exhales ill omens. Her stare is one of recognition. She is many open eyes. Tim Moder is an Indigenous poet living in northern Wisconsin. He is a member of Lake Superior Writers. His poems have appeared in Penumbra Online, Paddler Press, Tigermoth Review, Sisyphus, and others.

The news came over social media that Carlton Monroe died. Tragically. Accidentally. But at least while doing something he always wanted to do. Pretty sure he even once joked that he’d been dying to try deep sea diving. The gods answered his prayers in one messy moment. The paradox was lost on nobody who knew him. Retirement from the military at forty-five with still so much life ahead of him. A wife. Two kids. They watched from the boat as Carlton went under the shimmering blue water in one piece then came out of the ruddy water in chunks. The memorial service resembled a pharaonic sendoff for a life once viewed overall as thriving. Edward Weathers, a civilian co-worker, viewed the sum of Carlton’s life as worthy of respect but not so much adulation. By comparison, Edward wondered what his might be worth in the end. With that, Edward felt really old. Not falling apart in body or mind, just the interpretation that most of what occupied his thinking happened in the past. Time for me to do something about THAT, he thought. The first step was more like dipping a toe in a puddle. He first became Eddie then settled on Ed. Plain, old Ed. The few people he encountered seemed to be happy for the one less syllable of his company. The new abbreviation meant nothing to anybody he met after his great transformation into Ed. The novel confidence manifested at times when the new Ed appealed to people in bars who couldn’t see the reality of his age advancing across his face in the form of lines, wrinkles and gray hair. Deep pockets to intoxicate certainly helped. More drinks than necessary and effusive compliments tended to seal the deal. Then the inevitable morning after, filled with expectation turning to disappointment then dismay. A lonely shower washed off the smell and outward evidence but inside Ed felt cold in spite of the scalding water turning his skin beet red. Summer ended with Ed’s more concerted stabs to feel valuable. He needed someone in his life to make him feel important but nobody needed Ed in their life. The time came when more leaves littered the ground than the branches. A chill had yet to maintain its permanence during the day but the evenings hinted at what the following weeks might bring. Out for a walk as the sun began its descent in the west, Ed thought about the fact that he had entered the autumn of his life. More beautiful foliage had fallen and been trampled on several times already while reminiscing. He couldn’t look at anything without feeling old. Dry, crumbling leaves cracked and shuffled along with his feet. The noise and smell carried him back many years since a love of the season remained constant. Usual delight gave way to a feeling more forlorn, wistful about days and times gone by like a morose Romantic poet. The neighborhood stood still, cast in the golden sheen of sunset. But it was fool’s gold. A bitter gust of wind whipped to remind him what nipped at that beauty’s heels. Ed preferred to move about in silence so he took great care in avoiding the dusting of dead leaves on the sidewalks leading to his apartment. Easier said than done, considering the multitude blanketing the concrete. Motion on a balcony across the street stopped him in his tracks and stole concern from quietness. A boy dressed only in a white t-shirt and black running shorts watered plants too green for the season. He himself appeared too sensitive for the oncoming cold, and even too green for Ed. A perfect view of the boy illuminated by a gentle and glowing outdoor light had its rewards. Vivacity radiated from his face, his skin, his movements. Too much life had yet to break his skin with troubles or hunch his back and shoulders with burden. A lithe body hid just under his clothing. Dark hair crowned a head that saw the world through eyes even darker than the oncoming night. Then the boy went inside and the balcony light went out. Ed followed suit and opened his front door to enter but never turned off his porch light. Anytime Ed went outside for any reason, casual regard went in the direction of the boy’s apartment and balcony. The blinds stayed closed day and night. No sign of life showed for an insufferable duration. Ed joked to himself that he must’ve seen a ghost but then one night, lights peeked through half-opened Venetian blinds. He took it to mean that the boy had returned from the dead, a sign of spring in the chill of a fall evening. A miniscule vigil began as Ed hoped to see some other sign of life coming from within the apartment across the street. Nothing happening on either side afforded Ed time to ponder why he obsessed so much over a boy he had only barely seen once. Curious desires conjured many things for this starved imagination: How old was he? Who was he? Why the compulsion to know? Other examinations about personality types, what his voice sounded like, experiences so far, his sexuality, so much possessed his head to keep his gaze fixed on the lit apartment across the street. An answer or two promised to reveal themselves at some point. “See something interesting over there?” a detached voice asked. The accusatory tone held a hint of jest but to the startled Ed it translated into irritation. Quick glimpses right and left detected no one. Sweeping looks slowed down the more confused Ed became. Until the voice spoke again. “Over here,” it said, calling Ed’s attention at last to the source. In the dark, the boy stepped from his expert concealment among the shadows of the trees. “Is there a reason you’re spying on my house?” “What makes you think I’m spying? I’m standing in the open. You’re the one hiding in the dark watching me. See something interesting yourself?” Ed’s attempted swagger cracked along with his voice. Nerves took full responsibility for the uncharacteristic behavior. The boy offered an apology. “I’ve noticed you around the neighborhood,” he continued as he approached Ed’s balcony. More of him came into better view. “I can’t say the same about you,” Ed returned. He instantly regretted the comment. Now proof existed of his espionage. That the boy took notice of, along with Ed’s mortification. “Noted,” was all he said in return. Following an unbearable silence, he offered his name. “I’m Noah.” “I’m Ed. Pleased to meet you.” “Finally, huh?” A coy smile formed on his face as he teased the older man. “So are you gonna come down and talk to me or just stay up there? Don’t be scared. I only bite if I feel threatened. And you don’t scare me so come on down.” Ed smiled, not really knowing why. His apprehension came from fear of that unknown motive, not from a fear of violence. Noah presented a slighter build than Ed’s. The young physique appeared better suited for offering fantasies instead of pain. Once outside, Ed approached Noah, the diminishing space between them awful with energy. A sense of completion came from nowhere. Noah extended his hand as a further greeting. “You’re even more handsome up close.” He delivered the sentence with Ed’s hand still in his. Ed blushed like a schoolboy and thanked Noah for the compliment with a stuttered acceptance. The chill in the air was used as an excuse for the stammer and shaky hands. Noah only smiled back. Small talk went back and forth but within that limited expanse of time, both learned quite a bit about the other. And the back and forth ended with the expectation that both would learn quite a bit from the other. “It’s time I get back inside. My window is that one,” Noah said, pointing to the window directly across from Ed’s “I’ll wave goodnight before I go to bed.” “Okay,” Ed said, not knowing a better response. “It was nice to meet you,” he then said, offering his hand to shake again. Noah looked down at the goodbye gesture presented then back into the face of its owner. “I’d really rather kiss you, instead.” The statement’s deliverance came so matter of fact that it took Ed off guard. Noah’s face moved in and stopped Ed’s lips before they could protest. The taste of respective suppers mingled on their tongues while their mouths moved in uncanny unison. A stupid look remained on Ed’s face after Noah pulled away. Noah smiled and delivered a final peck on the older man’s lips. “Talk to you later,” Noah said over his shoulder before licking his lips. He had already begun walking the few yards home. Ed cursed himself for not getting his number and almost asked, but glaring at Noah’s ass while he walked away hypnotized him. He was lost to other things. Like staring at the window directly across from his anytime it was dark outside and lights indicated Noah was home, for instance. For a week Ed saw no sign of Noah. During the day, all the blinds in the windows remained closed and at night no lights signaled an empty house. Which to Ed meant no contact. And since no new information about Noah flowed in, he had to fill in the blanks himself. Whatever he asked himself needed answers from Noah in order to be truly understood. Ed tried anyway. But only a more incomplete picture formed between the intended introduction and where their friendship might go next. Ed realized he was getting ahead of himself. He always did. Instead his concentration turned to remembering to ask Noah for his number next time. While staring in the mirror Ed asked himself why Noah would find him handsome. Nothing exemplary. Not even anything that he himself as a gay man would grant a doubletake. An assortment of skin care containers dotted the sink and he thanked them for living up to their claims. Regardless, he believed everything about himself could improve. With better exercise, more sleep, and all the other self-preservation routines men his age undertook to regain vitality, Ed knew the possibilities of transformation. Every morning before breakfast he began to bend, pull and mold his body into something more formidable. Blood flowed again with the quick circulation of youth. Soon he might see what Noah did: some handsome man more than twice his age worth kissing. Then one night, as Ed finished his nightly constitutional and last bout of cardio for the day, a whistle brought the attention he focused on breathing towards the apartment across the street. Noah’s light was on, and the window, open. He leaned out of the frame, beautifully backlit and glowing in the middle of the windowsill. He appeared dramatic and spectacular clad only in his underwear. He motioned Ed closer, his finger extended over his lips. “Been a while,” Noah said, barely above a whisper. “Agreed.” Ed replied. “College and stuff,” Noah offered as an explanation. “Can’t really talk like this now, parents are in a mood. Give me your number? I’m bored.” Ed laughed and flashed the digits of his phone number with his hands, observing Noah’s request for silence. After a thumbs up from both parties, Ed turned to walk back to his apartment. Before stepping inside, he turned to look again in the direction of his neighbor’s window. To his surprise, Noah still stood bordered in the soft glow of his bedroom light. His gaze remained locked on Ed, who could only quickly walk inside and lock the door. How stupid to be scared of an eighteen-year-old boy, he thought to himself right before his phone buzzed its notice that a message arrived. What was the best part of your day? the message read. Ed took a moment to reply, careful not to assume an excessive familiarity. It’s been a shitty day so I’ll say talking to you has been the best part so far. Heart emojis responded to Ed’s sappy text. That opened the floodgates for more intimacy to develop. As the conversation veered towards a more delicate nature, Ed began to test the limits. He wanted Noah. He understood that now. But he still had no idea why he found someone so young, so compelling. “Stoopid childrens” Ed called Noah and his useless generation at one point, the deliberate misspelling for emphasis. Then came a series of pics, one after the other, a slow strip tease out of his underwaear that showed off the contours and lines of a body with still so much to learn about itself. For instance, the shots displayed how well Noah’s body looked, but he had no idea the authority it commanded. Taut flesh held fast to muscles under construction. Hairless from the waist up, his legs and ass blanketed with dark fur. And when the last picture came through, Ed’s eyes bulged at seeing one of the most perfect cocks he’d ever seen. Ed followed suit and sent his own sequence of shots. He was delighted that Noah found an older body attractive, let alone worthy of praise. Esteem grew as Ed congratulated himself on the workouts and felt his uselessness slacken. Both saved the series of pics for later, and for inspiration. So close though so far, the rest of Noah’s first semester had to be spent learning remotely from home. All Noah disclosed at first wreaked untruths and new explanations fell through gaping holes in a poorly maintained lie. After only a week of near constant messaging, Ed knew to expect he’d be left in the dark about many things in the boy’s life. Despite living yards apart and an urgent insistence about how Ed rose to a place of prominence thanks to a combination of brains, handsomeness and compassion, any outward displays from the boy had yet to manifest. Ed quickly realized his fate of giving more to their friendship than Noah ever would. But the precociousness of youth only helped Noah get away with so much. Well-timed messages and sexts kept the hook firm in Ed’s cheek. As Noah began to act out, to both their astonishment, so did Ed. Both needed attention and the other sufficed, proximity playing the bigger part. The boy’s dad stayed away due to work while his mom stayed home but in a haze of pills with vodka. Working the rest of the school year from home meant long hours alone, trapped inside and neglected. Ed related to the feeling of isolation. Though this stemmed from self-seclusion, the effect of loneliness reminded Ed to disparage his own while speculating how it should play out for Noah. So much life ahead of the boy and so much behind the older man. Their little shared experience was unimportant. Many other commonalities and interests made for much to discuss and allowed a comprehension to develop and deepen the friendship between the disparate neighbors. Both benefitted from conversations about their views on life and growing up gay in different generations. Noah finally had an adult to talk to and Ed finally had someone who acted interested in what he had to say. They found in one another exactly what each of them needed.. Ed just needed to keep his expectations low after placing Noah on so high a pedestal. Personal information was coaxed in a way Ed employed before, even if unintentional. The method worked. He got upset when the boy refused to see him in person, choosing instead to deflect with an insipid meme. Ed already detested the existence of memes, especially when the joke was on him. Another reason to loathe the internet and its bastard offspring, social media. Flippant responses infuriated Ed further until a meltdown occurred, complete with all the trappings of self-righteous indignation. Stoopid childrens Ed ended those arguments thinking. And Noah ended up reduced to what resembled a whelping Spaniel, head low with remorse and eyes full of desperate forgiveness. But then all these passions came flooding back to a lesser degree on a lower tide with Noah’s refusal to make up in person, a kiss the bare minimum asked. To keep the delicate balance, Ed maintained his push at a minimum to keep Noah in his infectious good spirits. And all the reservations the boy’s excuses promoted remained locked away for another time. Late one night Noah messaged Ed, a picture of him half-naked. Expecting another round of hot pictures and empty promises, he jumped up when instead a request came over to meet Noah outside. Put on clothes, it’s almost winter Ed texted. Within minutes, both of them stood outside under naked tree branches and the harsh glow of a bare overhead streetlight. “You’re not afraid your family might see?” Ed asked. “They’re not home. First time both are gone at the same time in months.” “Then why are we standing outside?” Ed asked with an impish grin. “Because we have cameras. That’s why I have bags of trash. I’m not allowed out otherwise. I only have a few minutes.” “Then let’s go inside my house. The owner won’t care.” Ed felt his attempts to seduce were becoming useless. “Walk with me to the dumpster?” Noah said, a single eyebrow raised. Ed found that affectation irresistible so he complied with what the boy asked. Trash discarded, Noah grabbed Ed’s hand and hurried them both behind the dumpster. A slash of darkness concealed them from the waist down. The boy smiled before placing both hands on Ed’s shoulders to push him down to his knees. Shrouded in darkness, Ed freed the boy’s dick with expert precision. Never had the appeal and the fervor combined to such astounding effect than when Ed sucked Noah off, as if communicable beauty and youthfulness existed in his uncurdled seed. Within five minutes Ed got his wish and waited the rest of the night until early morning wide awake for proof positive he had been restored. The expectation of more physical contact withered along with the properties of Noah’s fresh sap. Flimsy excuses piled mile high but blew away with ease. Ed’s previous method of maintaining dialog fared little. Light slipped from his sky. Energy faded to a melodramatic degree as the older man suffered from the consequences of an abrupt exclusion barring him from confidences and the source of his recent exhilaration. Affected, Ed promised himself that everything must be done to stay in Noah’s good graces, in the light of a sun with well over seven million more years than he had left to burn. If only Ed knew the satisfaction of that need reciprocated. No proof still materialized thus far. Thanksgiving loomed a day away and a bitterness sparked in the gray air of November. Winter nipped at the autumn splendor enough to make Ed stay inside most days. Noah used the excuse as well, but only to echo Ed’s reasons for hibernation. But the boy’s family left their son alone and to his own devices inside the prison of surveillance, mood stabilizers and neglect. But his friend kept him company through text, happy to help and distract despite Noah’s unusually heavy and somber disposition. A threat of anger held impending hostility. Ed was scared enough to mention his discomfort. Noah’s tones and language shifted and turned a sharp right. A new erratic pattern directed the boy’s responses. Intense jabs at Noah’s parents bruised the conversation until Ed signed off. He understood his frustration but tried to remind Noah that he still lived under his parents’ roof and paid zero dollars in rent. Did that give them the right to incarcerate their son? No. And if he really felt like a prisoner, he could always run away. Or, Noah texted, they could just fucking die already. An onslaught of texts first thing in the morning had become commonplace so Ed smiled at seeing all the messages from Noah. Thinking the boy slept off whatever was bothering him the night before, the reality of rage seeping from the blue message bubbles confirmed the opposite. Fury-filled sentences waited to be read and sympathetic replies expected. A question followed every vile accusation from the boy. Can you believe they treat me like this? When he repeated his parents’ request that he stay home for Thanksgiving. Why bother having a kid at all? Noah asked after admitting his parents detested having a gay son. So much already to deal with before the sleep was wiped from Ed’s already tired eyes. Retorts came as the caffeine infiltrated his blood and brain. Easier to think at last, Ed noted a marked difference in the quality of Noah’s messages. The boy had been upset at his parents before but the flagrant frenzy of menace caused concern. Once Ed declared his worry, Noah switched gears and back-pedaled. I’m only kidding, he promised. I’m just angry because I’m tired of being a prisoner in my own home, he assured. And Ed accepted as long as Noah kept his promise to redirect that negative energy into something productive. An hour plus later saw the completion of Noah’s one-hundred and eighty-degree turnabout. Delight filled the effervescent blue bubbles instead of the previous indignation. When asked what changed his mind, Noah replied with a cagey wisecrack about finally leveling out without help from his medication. The boy always had difficulty convincing him since Ed knew the games of an eighteen-year-old boy starved for attention. Noah won in the end by asking for a ride to his aunt and uncle’s house a half-hour away in Great Falls. The assurance of proximity to Noah’s literal fountain of youth, knocked reason from Ed’s thought process. Sweet words and even sweeter promises swept enough concern away for him to cave in to the request. Any harm done wouldn’t be on him, Ed concluded at the thought of Noah starting a food fight during turkey dinner. What a laugh. In person Ed detected a different hazard lurking beneath the surface of Noah’s demeanor from earlier. His hands shook a bit whenever he talked, and an impediment chopped up the fluidity of any sentences he spoke. “I’m just nervous. I owe you for the ride.” Noah said, placing his jittery hand on Ed’s upper thigh. “I’ve never done this before,” he admitted as he undid Ed’s belt, zipper and fly. Another fib, Ed thought as the boy expertly withdrew his dick and eventually his substance. The few minutes between finishing and reaching their destination among the mansions of Great Falls stayed full of conversations about Thanksgiving plans. Ed had none and intended to keep it that way when Noah asked if he wanted to join him. How awkward to show up unannounced as a complete stranger. “I could tell them you’re coming. They’ve been blowing up my phone since we left.” Noah meant what he said about the extended invitation. “Why are they doing that?” Ed asked. “They’re probably worried when I’ll show up. If I show up.” “You told them you were on the way, right?” “Kinda.” The two syllables floated in an air of eerie distrust. Ed rolled the window down to clear the atmosphere but that only made the space in the car colder. One minute away, Ed noted to himself after a glimpse at the phone’s GPS. Parked one house down, Noah thanked Ed for the lift after keeping the man suspended in an insufferable silence. Noah’s goodbye sounded more like a farewell than a “see you later.” Ed agreed to a hug outside of the car with a reluctant tear nearly escaping his eye. Their heights matched so the embrace felt to both like a perfect fit. Something hard poked into Ed’s belly during the tightest part of the embrace. An alarmed look at Noah’s waist provoked him to blame a belt buckle and apologize. Noah said he hated his family’s dedication to dressing for dinner. Then the stutter returned and the trembling took over his hands again. “Well,” Noah began, “one more kiss goodbye?” Without waiting for permission he grabbed Ed’s face and kissed him long and deep. Care was taken to keep their waists from meeting. “See?” Noah said, “you’re not useless like you think. You’ve truly made my day. Twice.” The boy smiled demurely and Ed blushed. “You’re not useless either, even if you’re Stoopid Childrens,” Ed reminded Noah. “Go. I’ll see you later.” “More than likely,” Noah replied without hesitation. Ed watched Noah walk to the gate of the house’s long driveway, type a code or speak into a box, then enter the gates.They closed to swallow him up into a world he truly hated. Forlorn, Ed got in his car and drove home. His head filled with all the matters collected since knowing Noah, their subsequent concerns and wistful regret, and dismissed any forthcoming resolutions as insubstantial without input from Noah. An early bedtime for sure. Unsure of the compulsion, Ed woke up the next day to watch the news. The Black Friday Wal-Mart fights always entertained, this he knew and looked forward to seeing. But the local news only reported on a murder/suicide in an affluent neighborhood in Northern Virginia. Ed recognized the neighborhood and one of the faces flashing across the screen in sickening HD. Breakfast cereal went soggy by the time he had his fill of the morning news. A knock on his door led to an interview with the police that cleared Ed of any knowledge or involvement of the crime. And at the end of the examination he felt glad his possible fifteen minutes of fame got cut in half by not being more than an unwitting driver in the crime of the holiday season. Ed still had seven and a half minutes left and who knows how many useful years ahead to ruin however he deemed acceptable. Though he would always be grateful to Noah and the juvenile infatuation that developed, doomed but certain to provide an aftershock lasting for years. Ed never stopped thinking of all the promise squandered to render Noah so tremendously useless with just six loud and quick flashes of light. A word from the author: "Useless, Useless" is a story about how the feelings of powerlessness experienced by a young gay male and an older gay male, and how they intersect to either inspire or ruin. Jarrod Campbell is an author living in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. His stories, essays and reviews have appeared online and in print. He is currently working on a new collection of stories, a novel, and a play to be performed in 2023.

I bet I'll forget the clammy shirt collar, sheepskin lined coat and brown angola school jumper, uncle-close to my skin in the September sun. The swapped knee socks that offer brief relief to my weary, stinging soles. The male jogger lunging in jest, almost toppling my heavy load. The cherry red hatchback stopping eight miles in and two men offering a ride to me, a trembling twelve year old who forgot her busfare. I remember thinking when I reach home, eat and rest I bet I'll forget.

She’s the only thing left in the freezer, a chicken, hard as a rock. He calls her Chick-la as an endearment. His ex disappeared one fine evening last week like ice melting in spring, and left a cold puddle on the tiled kitchen floor. Brrr… she was cold, he thinks, she was cold-hearted. He rubs his hands together. They were together for three years and sixteen days. He only knows the number of days because she told him, just before she left. Typical of her, to count days, and yet it was her directness he’d always most admired. Shilly-shallying was his personal talent, as she so often told him. He should have asked her to marry him, he considers. Is that what he did wrong? Underneath that no-nonsense exterior did she secretly long for flowers and heart-shaped chocolates? She might have warmed to him, looked at him differently, had he come home with a dozen red roses held behind his back. “Honey, I’m home!” he might have said and she would have turned from the kitchen sink, and her heart would have jumped and her wide smile at seeing the roses might have made him human, a loved man. But too late now. Chick-la looks at him, or maybe stares at him, he can’t be sure. She’s wrapped in cellophane and has a sell-by date of ten days from now. “Red or white, Chick-La?” He opens a bottle of red wine. “Italian or Indian?” He takes a jar of pesto sauce out of the cupboard. He lays the table with the white tablecloth still stained from the New Year’s Eve dinner. A couple of old bread crumbs are still clinging to the cotton. That night’s argument still not forgotten, he sets the table with two plates, two knives, two forks and two wine glasses which he fills to the brim. “Cheers!” he says and some of the wine spills as he raises the glass to his lips. Clumsy, that’s what she always called him. Chick-la says nothing. She sits on the chair across the table, thawing, slowly but surely becoming softer, fuller and fleshier, white as sorrow. Everything she kept inside oozes from the pores of her skin, a puddle forms. Then something tumbles inside him like great blocks of ice, and he wonders where his ex is now. He keeps looking at the chicken, dazed, filled with terrible disbelief. Nora Nadjarian is a poet and writer based in Cyprus.

Midnight Apple Picking In the harsh despondency of night, When tears have dived into their sepulchers And the mists, heavy with every defeat Have exited the scene, leaving The thick black, which has coated The red apples hung aloft like lost dreams Waiting to be plucked. The floor is coated with the corpses of Eve’s first sin And memories, long anchored, rise like Cumbersome whales of deep-tide sadness For air, For the fresh breath of surface tranquility. This year of grief, of fresh pink screams Has shotgunned through the fragile cadences of hope. But here in the midst of the midnight hour With my girlfriend and dog, I catch The apples doused silver by the moon – Samurai sword sliced in half, expertly With clinical precision With my bucket, frightened I’ll do a Newton and know the concussion of stars. In these moments I know love. Its fragile body of flame Still burns in the dark of the deepest winter And even though the hole left by your premature departure Can never be filled with the notes of soft tears, I hold the hand of childhood promises made flesh Thinking on the always uncertain future. For Amelia Let sorrows ripe and devouring depart with the sun descending below the pigeon smudged rooftops and the children weary, red coated by evening fall, are catapulted through joy’s essence; tumid with the moon’s nameless desires. Lying upon the newly sprung grass of spring, Amelia sits upon my back, and with fake anger I cry ‘I’m not a chair’ but with a disconcerting honesty she looks at me and demands, ‘well what are you then?’ I am silenced; the philosophies collected in my now faltering youth sink into nothingness, and I can only shrug and say simply, ‘I don’t know’, like a teacher she nods sagely and without being told I get onto my hands and knees; she climbs onto my back and we begin to traverse the front garden unexplored during this day of beers and babies and petty parental judgements. She clings to my collar and for the first time in months I reach an equilibrium denied me in the waged hours which dictate even the days unbound by their measurements of worth. As we sojourn across natures domesticated self, the adults drink and talk wearily of joys passed or passing. We find a worm, fat and half sunken into the black earth. We stare and watch, as you wonder in your fractured tongue where it is going, and why it lives in the world below our feet. I tell you that’s its home, it is where it is supposed to be, and without acknowledgment you get off my back, imitate my pose; fixated by its slow movements. I think of Coleridge holding his child in his frosted midnight and try to capture this moment, this wonder seen through the eyes of a child, not burdened by mortality or the price of beer. David Hay is an English Teacher in the Northwest of England. He has written poetry and prose since the age of 18 when he discovered Virginia Woolf's The Waves and the poetry of John Keats. These and other artists encouraged him to seek his own poetic voice. He has currently been accepted for publication in Dreich, Abridged, Acumen, The Honest Ulsterman, The Dawntreader, Versification, The Babel Tower Notice Board, The Stone of Madness Press, The Fortnightly Review, The Lake, Selcouth Station, GreenInk Poetry, Dodging the Rain, Seventh Quarry and Expat-Press. His debut publication is the Brexit-inspired prose-poem Doctor Lazarus published by Alien Buddha Press 2021.

Advice Don’t be stupid he said to her and I saw the cannonball leave him and hit her splintering her sternum and entering the cavern where she stored them all like a clown car full of pain that never unloaded to show off how much it could carry. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to keep it that she could let it pass through and exit out her back leaving a circular blast hole of blown away skin and that it wouldn’t even be a ball anymore when it flew out but four and twenty blackbirds escaping, leaving her weightless. Instead, I filled her coffee even though she had not asked. Chicago Let’s go to Chicago and stay in a hotel where we can see the lake from our room, and do nothing except walk up Michigan and back down Wabash picking out people to practice on. There will be a business student from Columbia turning up her collar in the wind and a fast-moving doctor biking home from Rush. He’ll have a wife at home but will come back here later after the kids are in bed to that weird dirty space that the Tribune forced Macy’s to clean up in the tunnel under the street to meet his former nurse who quit three months ago to get her master’s degree but instead watches cooking shows all day and lives off her dead mother’s money wishing she were in Italy Madagascar Mexico City anywhere but Chicago where everyone can see her.

For Stewart Nestled in the coves of Paris, with amaretto biscuits and an egg cup of espresso, I listen for your call. As the daylight calms, tempering into a blue lull, I tap my foot to the buckling of the sea — honeydew moon. O’ Paris, with your hourglass, lead me to my odyssey. Shipwrecked in your hollowed out torso, starry eyed. Astride in front of the mirror, you flexed your muscles. They bobbed playfully like large pearls on a silver spoon. How long can a memory last? Will I remember the subtle inflections of your candour? Maybe, however slowly. Your decadence colours the Seine —as tart as a strawberry. O’ honey, we had a blast.

I taste of salt. salt of the ocean and salt of your palm. you move your thumb back and forth / back and forth across my back / across my back I carry the worry of water that rolled me back and forth against flanks of sand and a bed of stones so that I may carry yours. I know your blistered soul. I see where you go when you turn out your light. I know your keys / your leather wallet / loose coins / the many man-things on your nightstand. I am volcanic — your flare, your flash. when you wake, you summon my heat and spring creeps closer. daphne blooms. a phoebe sings her name. the shadow of a wasp outside your window treads across the sunlit blinds, builds its paper house. Liane St. Laurent is an old dog learning new tricks. She has washed dishes, driven horse-drawn carriages, picked apples, taught English and is currently an IT professional. Recent work appears online and in print in The Banyan Review, The Penmen Review, Sidereal Magazine, The Poets’ Touchstone, among others. Liane lives in New Hampshire with her husband, their two dogs, and an array of woodland creatures. Catch her online at lianestlaurent.com or connect on Twitter @lianestlaurent.

Flying west as the sun sets It’s like we’re trying to catch the last bit of light Before the night rolls in, Vainly attempting to remain in that twilight haze Where everything looks so strange and beautiful —perfectly preserved, frozen in time— Before the darkness swallows it all And hours later, When the sun rises once more, We bear witness to the shifts and changes. Is that what we were doing Those last few months? Chasing the last streaks of orange before they faded into black, Trying to stave off the inevitable? Or did we really give it a shot To change and mend and fix the cracks in the foundation? Or was it just time to let nature take its course, To let dusk bleed into night so dark Even the shining stars were swallowed whole? I don’t know anymore. I’m just sitting here In this void Where I can barely see the outlines of my fingers and legs to know I am in fact alive, Despite how oppressive this night is, how it Crushes my breath from my lungs And leaves me with stinging eyes And sticky cheeks And a throat raw from screaming a voice I no longer have left. I like to think I’d give anything to see those last rays of orange light again, To feel the smallest warmth on my skin from those few tendrils of the dying sun, But I wouldn’t. Because knowing what comes next —isolation— It’s a pain I don’t think I’ll ever have the strength to bear again. Besides… Daybreak will come at some point, Meaning I’ll shift and change too Though how remains a mystery. It’s only a matter of time. “What are you?” is a question Saroya gets asked constantly since she's ethnically ambiguous, and wears the occasional wig, whether it be black, gray, or green (like a mermaid). She is a biracial, bisexual feminist born and bred in the golden state of California who writes about the challenges of identity. Follow her on twitter @SRWhatley and find her poetry and collages on IG at @saroya_creates.

I didn’t notice the bullet holes right away. They had hit the faux wood paneling in what the lawyer called his conference room, just another office he rented in the brutalist-style building near the courthouse in the Justice Center. The area was all built in the 60s, of poured concrete and bars on the windows. The central atrium in the lawyer’s office complex held a lone beach palm that had yellowed and was straggling toward the sunlight. Street parking only. Outside was parched landscaping dotted with litter. Even in winter, the rains didn’t soak into the dirt, and there were endless arguments among the tenants as to who was or wasn’t paying their fair share of the water bill. The way the lawyer talked about it, I thought the holes in the office wall were important. But I couldn’t see these scars when I first entered the room. They blended right in. I kept looking around trying to find them while he gave me what he called a “reality check.” Court calendars were crowded, judges were tired, nobody told the truth. My retainer would only go so far. Then he came over to my chair, held out his hand, took me to the wall, and pointed t the bullet holes. Clean edges, bullets still in the wall. He said he wasn’t targeted. It was a random shooting, the kind that just happened. A lot of offices around the Justice Center had bullet holes. He hadn’t bothered to fill his in. “Plead guilty,” he said as we both looked at the wall.