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Ode to Rosalind Franklin I have three letters D, N and A I believe in them but there is more than flat symbol acronyms and chemicals there was more to life I was more of life I was both atoms and window eaves I was both pattern and matrix but I was more sill than cell more fascicle than fascia I believe in particles colliding strains, mosaics, spirals It can be like a mother hamster eating its own small pink babies I believe science has some sums, and a little of the authority that wrests in truth but you can’t begin explanation hypothesis, method without words And are words true? We make ourselves with them despite not anything Origin I begin in the cervical atlas (when it’s all ending) my selves assemble involuntarily days were splitting merging, reforming like cells multiplying to malignancy shedding off death skin the alphabet biology began my next words made a little girl buskers snatched and dragged her to a dragon tail swinging, a crowd looked on as she screamed, I am in the third womb world, the womb swimming words are red, read again misspelled, immersed in water the headwaters of time time was made of swimming tests floating through her grandmother's house the rafters filled with cartoon faces flooded to the brim who are we, these little girls? the cervical axis, sequences made rearranged around her mirror twin, someone else lives in her books now (but sunflowers are still in the alley) Head Lines I spend my time sewing word order into salad days and circling turns of phrase in already read yellowed newspapers in the third womb I learned to read black, white, red above the fold the tempo of the once new news is forgotten daily my next-door neighbor died after I slept walked to his front door he was reading a newspaper every time I saw him the markings embedded on my face: who, what, when, where, and why Lily Rose Kosmicki is a person, beekeeper, and librarian at the public library and by night she is a collector of dreams. Her zine Dream Zine won a Broken Pencil Zine Award for Best Art Zine 2018. Her work appears in The Raw Art Review, Bombay Gin, Interim, Seisma Magazine, and elsewhere. Her chapbook The Eyelash Atlas is forthcoming from Francis House.

Flight delayed. Just kidding I’m at the Marriott. There is this dad who looks like Cat Stevens with AUD who has two teenage sons and the sons are both on their phones and the dad is using a straw to water the little cactus on the table the way you put your finger on the top, dip, release, he’s on his fourth G&T, god bless the dark. Awake on the fourth night, I want to find and strangle the grandma who was short with her grandson on the playground of the resort. She came over to us because he was being “too loud” and she called him queer in front of us. He was fat and must have been eight years old. They were from the Carolinas. He didn’t stand a chance. He’ll kill a classmate, I thought. I’ll never forgive that blackguard witch grandma of his, and will remember her mortal coil always. I finished The Moon Down to Earth by the inimitable. I left it by the pool, the humidity of the air already giving it a bend. Second to last night I watched its author drown a paperback copy of a Sparks' novel in his sink, and now I want to ————————-. This is Orlando. I love it. But goodbye. Adam Johnson lives in Minneapolis. His first poetry collection, What Are You Doing Out Here Alone, Away From Everyone? was recently released through HASH Press. His second collection, White Paint Falling Through a Filtered Shaft is forthcoming through Anxiety Press.

The Unfilled Branch My father tells me that there was an Indigenous woman who married into my family back when my family was divided based on the spelling of our Irish surname, back when one of my grandfathers named a farming community in Michigan after the Garden of Eden. I do not know her name. I do not know her tribe. That information was left out of the three-ringed binder passed around at my grandmother’s funeral. I do not know if she walked through the woods owned by my grandfather, if she braided her hair while sitting on a fallen log, if she collected acorns, pebbles, or feathers she found along the path. I do not know how her hair reflected the sunlight that peered through the trees of if the sounds of the creek gave her a respite from the sounds of the white men harvesting nearby. I know she is a part of my life and the lives of my siblings, cousins, aunts, grandfather, and my father. I know she probably cooked for her children and sang them songs to help them fall asleep on cold winter nights. I know she once lived on this earth, even if she’s now spread out through those woods like my grandfather’s ashes. I know she’s out there. I just wish I could find her. Then I could slip a page about her into that binder the next time it’s passed around. After Joy Harjo You In the Pond I stare at the water’s surface and wait for you to emerge, your skin pulling you deeper into yourself. I imagine the lines form curves like your signature on the last letter you sent to me before you went into the depth. I toss a rock into the pond, hoping to stir you from the sand you blanket yourself in. I imagine what you dream about as you sleep down there. Maybe it was the moment you sank, or of what you hoped to do once you stepped back onto the shore. It will take hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions, if not billions of years for the body to swallow me from my post on the shoreline bringing us face to face, vision marred. I imagine I’ll see you then, but I’ll stare until your flesh, white as the full moon’s reflection on the mirror above breaks apart and becomes part of the body’s ecosystem, until I’m left alone with bubbles for company. Then, I can confront what I caused and allow myself to be chained to the bottom as well. After Rita Banerjee

Discovering that most supermarket, free-range turkeys primarily congregate in overcrowded, dirty sheds, Evie bought herself a free-range bird from a local organic turkey farmer, who she believed provided her turkey with a few good daily meals and a hygienic semi-private coop. After mentally patting herself on the back for a more humane purchase, Evie moved her turkey to her kitchen sink. The bird’s featherless body, covered in pink pimply skin, filled up the entire basin. As she opened the wrapping, Evie smelled raw turkey, and she started to gag. Stored in the turkey’s cavity were its neck and giblets, wrapped up in a disturbing-looking parchment package that she struggled to yank out. Finding all of the dead parts nauseating, Evie felt the acid churning in her stomach, rising up into her throat. Evie quickly pulled herself together and moved the turkey to the countertop, where she began the process of dominating its headless body, tying together its lifeless legs and tucking back its wings. She grew increasingly hysterical from the sadistic nature of her task as she molested the bird further, stuffing crumbled bread, sausage, sage, and mushroom through what was once its ass and up into its throat. Finally, the job completed, Evie got quiet as she stared at her turkey display, trying to recall how she had ended up wrestling this bird in her kitchen. But then she reminded herself, her mother had traveled across the country to visit her sick, elderly aunt. So, it was up to Evie to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for her dying father. Evie assumed the local organic farmer provided a balanced diet of high-quality feed, full of protein and nutrients to ensure his turkeys were healthy. But, up until this moment, Evie never considered that the farmer’s delicate treatment of his flock was intended solely for high-end consumption. Evie wondered if the farmer succumbed to industry pressure and debeaked this turkey, a barbaric attempt at decreasing acts of cannibalism among his feathered gang. But Evie guessed that bit of irony was lost on the farmer as he held her bird upside down by its wiry legs, waiting for blood to flow to its head, leaving the turkey weak and defenseless, ready for the farmer’s chopping block. Finally, Evie speculated whether or not the farmer experienced regret as he stared into this turkey’s tiny black pupils, knowingly selecting him for her table. Probably not, Evie thought sadly and then felt a slight pang of shame bubbling up as she continued her preparations for what might be her ailing father’s last Thanksgiving dinner. The smell of death surrounded her, and Evie began feeling queasy. But then, thinking of her father in the next room, whose cancer had insidiously spread, Evie took a deep breath and began vigorously rubbing butter all over the body of her bird, ensuring a tasty, crispy coat. Finished, Evie placed her fully dressed bird into the oven and closed the door. And soon after, she walked into the living room and took her father’s hand, helping him into the bathroom. Evie’s mother had left her with clear instructions and ample supplies for her to help her weakening father complete his business. After returning from the bathroom, Evie and her father sat quietly in the living room, watching football while they awaited their bird slowly roasting in the nearby room. The doctor said it could be months, perhaps a year; there was no way to know for sure. Evie’s father, once a round-bellied, broad-shouldered man with a loud voice who was always ready for a laugh, was now but a shell of his former self. Cancer pecked away at him, slowly eating away little pieces of his mind and body until eventually there would be nothing left of him but hanging flesh and bones. Evie’s mouth watered as the smell of roasted turkey filled up the room; her earlier repulsion and nausea were suddenly forgotten. Evie’s father still managed small meals, but only if the food was cut up into little pieces and the texture soft for chewing. So, Evie lovingly prepared her father two side dishes, consisting of mashed potatoes and a sweet yam casserole. And then, thinking of the dead parts around her, Evie made a mental note to slow boil the picked apart turkey carcass after dinner for her father’s soup. Margo Griffin is a Boston, MA area public school educator and has worked in urban education for over thirty years. She is the mother of two amazing daughters and to the love of her life and best rescue dog ever, Harley.

I feel like Pluto. That is to say I feel for it. Amidst days that have been like a sore, numb limb, I have only experienced a sensation of sympathy for an outcast planet. Only because I happened to read a poem about it. Although I am afraid my relatability to it may just be an exercise in self-pity. I have been wishing for an asteroid to strike this dinner table at this very moment and wipe all of us lunatics out in an instant. They’re not bad people, it’s only because I am tired and I need a permanent occasion of rest. Plus, dear god, this is getting boring. Here’s how I am. Body discomfort incarnate, but the hair looks neat. Nails are chipped. My hands are fidgeting, acting on the constant need to scratch my neck. My stomach’s a little upset but that’s because I didn’t shit well in the morning. I look at the guy sitting across from me to confirm if I look nice. It makes me sick. I think I need more ice in my drink. Nobody has asked me a question about the particulars of my life yet, I hope they don’t. Meanwhile I am thinking about writing a note for the instance of my sudden death, just in celebration of its unpredictability. Something nice to leave behind because there can be no possible relics to my life. Last night, I dreamt of a graveyard underwater. I was breathlessly submerged by engraved proofs of endings. I wasn’t afraid when I woke up. I had been reading the suicide letters of famous people before going to bed. In an effort to make myself feel things, I tried to imagine how broken her letter must have left Leonard Woolf, as he held the final remnant of her departure. I don’t imagine the tenants of this table would like to hear how I didn’t cry at the thought of the rocks that she put in her pockets. Or my dream, in which I too was drowning. They didn’t appreciate the joke I made about my best friend’s funeral either. It’s been three months now, unclench a little. Jesus. The chair beside me has just gotten empty. And there it is. Another reminder of absence. Listen, listen, listen… but all echoes are left in vacuum. The table, like my life with one chair now vacant, emptied after contacting a life and a burial. It’s fine, I am telling myself again. It’s just like we’ve had one big fight and we won’t be talking for weeks. Which is why I remember her contact but have removed it from my phone. I have put all her things in my bedside drawer, except my sadness which refused to fit in. I beg it, please let me forget. But memory’s persistence is frustrating. When she had lost her pet, bawling she had said, “the evidence of love has to always turn into grief, at least once and sometimes twice and many times over. The universe demands it.” There is no other explanation of death except the universe's sadism. It feeds off the love we have nowhere left to give. I’m thinking of adopting a cat and calling it Fish. She would have found it amusing. The asteroid has kept me waiting, but that betrayal isn’t new. I am feeling a little fuzzy, so the night doesn’t feel half bad now. Maybe I’ll ask that guy to drive me home. Listen, listen, listen… Tonight, like so many others, again became about you. But all these thoughts are just to say that I am looking at the empty space you’ve left behind, trying to fill it up, only to find it staring right back at me. It makes me miss your kindness.

My neck aches from gazing at the clear glass ceiling in the Grand Gallery but I don’t know what else to do. I’ve studied every detail of every painting on the teal walls and still I wait. The smell changes from antique polish to vanilla-musk, heralding the entrance of the cutting-edge make-up team. Futuristic goddesses with angled hairstyles, straight faces and clean monochrome lines, they are alien to anything I’ve seen. Walking straight by me to the foot of the stairs, they begin the liberation of their cosmetics from their Tardis-like Samsonite cases. A carnival of dresses enters from the left, wheeled by four animated women, who laugh and chat. I’m relieved to see embroidered screens being erected and hope I can change behind them. This is my first time. The theme for today’s photoshoot is Vintage Hollywood, and every colour, shape and fabric of dress is here, along with a myriad of underskirts, shoes and bags. As the hairstylists join us and search for sockets for their equipment, I think how different this is from my everyday life - a life where sales assistants grimace when I ask for a garment in my size, or point me to dull clothing designed to cover and never to dazzle. I thought decent plus-size fashion didn’t exist, but it does and with the average Irish woman taking a size 16, here they call it real-size. I like that. A young man approaches me with intent, his jet-black eyebrows and beard manicured, his velvet purple suit moulded to his narrow physique. He click-clicks across the mosaic floor, his Lego-hairdo firmly fixed. “Well, hello beautiful! I’m Marc with a C and you must be my lady from Real Agency?” He’s already walking so I follow him. He turns and examines my face too closely. I feel myself reddening and divert my gaze but he raises my chin so I have no choice but to look into his dark eyes. “Stunning,” he declares. “What is your name, mysterious one?” Orla Maguire, I tell Marc with a C and he clicks his fingers. A tall ice-blonde instantly appears at his side. “Look at her, Tegan babes. Can you see it? Tell me you can see it,” he pleads and she studies me through the fringe of her sharp bob. “Jane Russell?” she asks. He claps and smiles widely, displaying perfect teeth. I run my tongue over my own. Summoning the beauty team, Tegan directs in a language I don’t understand. I’m crowd-surfed into a high chair and plonked in front of a mirror surrounded by bulbs. Then, I’m turned 180 degrees to face a painting of an ample woman with a young girl on her lap. Lady and Child by Stephen Slaughter, the description says. I drift into the painting as the team work away, wondering when a fuller figure stopped being sexy. I remember my last weight-loss class. The leader, Shirley, put a grey plastic chair in the centre of the room and invited us to think back to when we first felt ashamed of our weight. After a few moments, she asked how many of us were children. We all raised our hands. “Imagine that child is sitting in this chair,” she said. The lady in the painting has a dour expression and reminds me of Aunt Eithne’s face when she first saw me after Mammy died. “You’re awful fat. We’ll have to get you on a diet before you burst,” she’d exclaimed, hauling me off to a seamstress to let out my school uniform. Standing in my cotton vest and knickers, I tried to hide my thighs and little pot belly as they whispered about me. I was nine years old. “What terrible things do we say to ourselves?” Shirley asked. Orla the Orca, the size of Majorca. “Now, say those things to the child in the chair.” I jolted. “You can’t, can you? If you wouldn’t say it to a child, you shouldn’t say it to yourself. Now, travel back in time to meet your younger selves. Go to the chair and tell that little girl what you wish you’d been told back then.” Women approached the chair, some crying silently while others hugged. I didn’t move. I remember myself, a child who never knew her father and had just lost her beloved mother. A child, confused and alone, in need of love, not judgment. My heart breaks for the life that followed and the innocence that was lost forever. “Hon, are you alright?” Tegan asks, dabbing my eye. “I’m so sorry I’m probably ruining your make-up,” I say, wiping a tear. “Not at all love, we’re just finished anyway. Take a look.” She spins me around to face the mirror and my mouth falls open. The whole team surrounds me and claps. I feel the tears coming again and Tegan smiles, squeezing my hand and I cherish her touch. “Thank you,'' I say. “Thank you for making me look like this.” “Our job was easy Hon, sure you’re stunning,” she replies and I look for hidden cameras. That’s twice I’ve been called stunning since I arrived, a word I’m not used to hearing. But she’s not joking. I stare at my reflection. I am stunning. I look back at the painting and see the child is holding the hands of the woman and I feel my mother with me, embracing me. It’s time to love myself as I am, as I was - Lady and child. A word from the author: I live in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. Wife to Brendan, mother to Eva, Ben and Anna and committee member of Our New Ears charity group. I have written three novels and countless published articles. I am working with a publisher on my last novel Listen, which I hope will be published this year.

HOSPICE CONFERENCE Remember second grade on the field for gym and you saw your mother’s car drive by on Brown Street? She was running an errand, but the thought that she was in a place you were not prepared to see her made you feel like you would never see her again? So you did the worst thing possible, you broke away from kickball and ran crying to the chain link fence after her receding car which turned a corner and disappeared and a teacher had to restrain you and make you collect yourself on the concrete steps. You don’t know how this non-encounter could possibly end or help but erase the feeling you’d have later when you got off the bus played for an hour then she came home from her job at the hospital still herself in the L-shaped kitchen still a cloud of maternal molecules. Now at the four-star hotel where you work, in the wing where all the conference rooms are, you wonder if you might see her again, thinking it’s possible you might. These adult days it never gets clarified, the moments the family will all see each other again. Somehow the thought of her— not necessarily seeing her or speaking about her with other hospice nurses in attendance at the conference, possibly co-workers— makes you want to transcend the typical corner-cutting you do with these conferences you’ve come to hate. Today you bring extra ice water and coffee, check the microphone’s batteries twice. You search in the hallway for some outlet to plug in the lamp for more light. Today you can’t turn away a single person, not a single soul. But there are close to a hundred nurses, her same age, hers might be one in that long wave of women’s faces coming in from the dining room. They have the whiff of the afterlife on them, a little daffy, but they are full of some wisdom of the life-force no other hotel staff seems to recognize. Halfway through the hospice conference you get a glimpse of what it all means. About ushering souls to their next destination, being that person standing still and pointing “that way” while a torrent of souls pours down a never-ending dimly lit corridor. If heaven has job openings, this is the one you want. Reading the puzzled faces of new arrivals, approaching them: “Can I help you?” “I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go.” “Which group are you with?” This is part of the crippling significance, the gnosticism you see, the profound machinery behind the mundane curtain. Flimsy evidence of God but in your spirit’s secret court it seems the smoking gun. THE ME-BOMB 1. Here’s the stolen hospital scrubs I wore To her C-section. I never took them off, I had them on The rest of my life, And no one seemed to notice. The sentimental kleptomania was there At her first breath. “What a glue-pot I have acquired in you!” Paraphrasing Byron at his daughter’s birth. “No idea that job and family Would extract such life-force from me.” Paraphrasing someone at the give-up point. The me-bomb was set off by a triggering device I left on the coffee table for anybody to stumble upon. I have had to shield my daughter From my character arc. I wonder, when we are tranquil. And observe our tiny daughter play Or select the next crayon by her system, Will I fear her? Will I one day Never have liked her? 2. In the backseat, she’s humiliated, furious She made all those mistakes at the concert. Although her xylophone just got lost Among the din of other students. There’s no way anyone would have noticed. But she’s convinced she was awful. Maybe. And I’m in the driver’s seat, bald and paunchy, In a sad unhip jacket, mulling over whether To leap into this latest hero-sized gap. I just have to speak the right enzyme of words To act on adolescent substrate, Never moving from behind the wheel. Or, do the dictates of dad drama make me pull her out And hug her standing in the flood Of other dads’ departing headlights. (At age six she hid from the TV in the dark, Whimpering, “Hold Me For The Shere Khan Parts!”) The high school parking lot in as a frozen still-point, The soundtrack shatters and crests Like it did in those John Hughes movies I rented twenty years ago. I studied the bored Chicago ‘burbs, the white teen angst. I was so taken with the smart-aleck oddball drummer girl. She cried and pined and got the earrings in the end. Everything past and future with my daughter Is seared and flared In an instantaneous flash of memory paper. Three times this weeping girl rescued me From myself. And when I embrace her, I’m playing tug of war with time.

Edge We will run prints in the sand down to the rock pools come up jagged with emptiness. We will walk the rounded wall of lobster pots, post a stone through every hole incanting hopes. We will toe the water where it’s coldest, testing the blueness of veins until we are pale with regret. We will smooth our path home by attrition, leaning into the swell. How not to stargaze That long summer month when the sky caught alight I bit dense black cake from the mouth of a bad lad but did not fly. His dreams screeched past on flaming tails but my bare soles stayed grounded. I dug my toes into powdered peanut brittle nights rolled back my eyes tasted sweet dark nuggets of midnight sparked up a poem rolled tight. Of Trees I grew from the apple tree sometimes clinging like mistletoe sometimes waiting for the right gravity like a bitter Eater. Shaped by the holly my whole life tangled forwards into many places I couldn’t breathe: no footholds no nests so I borrowed others’ pushed children ahead of me through sticky leaves full emersion like regression therapy backwards. Someone's little sister with a weak name always reached the fir tree top me down below planning my angle of catch. At the end of the garden laburnum fascination hung with poisonous bridesmaids little girls’ ponytails I would rub along its bench lick your finger hope to die. I will scrub school bark with crayon stubs lash a tyre swing to the public trunk my children smile from for photos I will smooth the knot in me that betrays my many rings. I grew from the apple tree sometimes clinging like mistletoe sometimes waiting. Marie Little lives near fields and writes in the shed. She has poetry featured in: Ink Sweat and Tears, Cool Rock Repository, Full House Lit Mag, Fevers of the Mind, Anti-Heroin Chic, Honeyfire, Zero Readers and more. She also writes and publishes short fiction. Marie is part of Team Sledge at Sledgehammer Lit and is on Twitter @jamsaucer. www.marielittlewords.co.uk

There was no light in the sky. True, scientists never expected the pole star to go supernova, and yet it so unceremoniously blinking out of existence seemed anticlimactic. One minute it was there; the next minute, it wasn’t. “Does this mean we are no longer meant to find a purpose?” wondered a woman. “Of course not; it means a new north awaits,” assured her friend, but her voice wavered. Fallen autumn leaves skipped in loops across the quiet street. To the onlooker, Umeed was stirring his coffee and pondering on their fate. But his eyes never left the shapeless stain on the glass and the world outside the window remained a passive blur. Sitting on an isolated mahogany stool, he heard the women but thought nothing of it. The words flitted past his ears; they bumped into him and hung around a little while, hoping to solicit a nod if not a response. Little did they know of Umeed having to bury his north beside an old oak the year before. Umeed didn’t need to muse over the fallen autumn leaves; he was them, drifting aimlessly, waiting to be erased by time. Coffee, from anywhere but his home or office brewer, was his therapist’s idea, as was the journal that lay blank, gathering dust on his cluttered desk at home. Leaving a ring of espresso at the bottom of his cup, he stepped outside the quiet little café. He longed to go home, his demon by his side, to the cold arms of the ghost of Nora, his Nora. At the square, where the town road met a wishing well and forked in two, there was a delicate yet firm tap on Umeed’s shoulder. He stopped. A woman, cheery and made of curves, stood before him. “Not interested,” he said, irritated, and turned to leave. “But I’ve been following you since you left your apartment this morning,” she pleaded. Umeed stared at her. The universe was playing a cruel joke if it thought a stalker would strip him of his wounds and kiss away his scars. He loved Nora. He would always love Nora. And his demon was witness to that love. “It is not what you think,” she smiled. “I would’ve gotten hold of you before work, but you looked busy. I would’ve joined you at the coffee shop; it looked warm, but you were in need of solitude.” Jaw hard and lips a line, Umeed scrunched his brows. “I just wanted to tell you that I love the music you make,” she said. Brows still knit, his jaw relaxed and his thin lips came undone. Umeed wanted to think, but his mind groaned and snapped. “What music?” he finally asked. She tittered, “Oh, come on!” Umeed shook his head, his lips still parted and brows slightly raised. “Hmmm,” she hummed, gazing into the deep brown of his eyes. “Troubled lover, come lie by my side; troubled lover, don’t you give up your light. Troubled lover, come lie by my side; troubled lover, I promise, it’ll be alright.” She sang in base, snapping her fingers, her shoulders alternating in rise and fall, and her heels clicking the pavement. She sang until a wisp of life appeared under Umeed’s skin, until his soul peered through his dull eyes, and until a smile started to linger on the inside of his lips. “That was fifteen years ago,” he said. “I was twenty and it was at a college fest.” It was before Nora too, but he didn’t say that. “Really?” she contended; her eyes narrowed. “Feels like yesterday to me.” A smile bled through his eyes. It was strange, that feeling bubbling in his heart, but he didn’t mind. Having been submerged for so long in a sea of regular, he liked the irregular, for after all, there wasn’t pity in her eyes or an apology on her tongue. The church bells rang seven. “It’s late and I’ve been gone a long time,” she said with sudden urgency, taking a step back. “I should go.” “Wait, at least tell me your name,” urged Umeed, taking a step forward. She puckered her lips. “There are many, I like Stella the best.” “Stella, it’s pretty,” mused Umeed. “Are you going to be following me again?” Stella beamed. “I don’t think I need to!” Umeed hesitated. He thought of Nora. As ink invades the water, guilt unfurled its ugly claws and perforated his veins, its cold dark essence consuming his blood. He wanted to ask if he’d ever see her again, but struggled to spit the words out of his mouth. “If you know where to look, you’ll find me,” she offered, and he nodded, grateful. Stella smiled and started running away from him, her yellow satin dress flowing behind her, and her hair, dark auburn curls, bouncing away. As Umeed watched her disappear into the crowd, his demon crept back to him. “Hello, old friend,” he muttered, and together, they walked back to his apartment. Umeed kicked away his shoes and turned on the television while the demon climbed off his shoulder and nested himself in the musty sun-deprived walls. The newscaster couldn’t contain his excitement. “In a surprising and extraordinary turn of events, the north star or Polaris, presumed to have died earlier today, has reappeared in the sky at 7:07 PM EST, after almost an eleven-hour disappearance. Scientists are unable to explain the phenomenon, but we certainly are relieved. Jillian, what is—” Umeed had stopped listening. “Polaris,” he muttered. “Stella… Stella… Star. Polaris. Polar star!” The demon screeched in contempt at Umeed’s burst of laughter, and fled the apartment to the sound of him humming ‘Troubled Lover’ through the evening. Tejaswinee Roychowdhury is an emerging Indian writer and lawyer. Her words are published/forthcoming in Gutslut Press, Dollar Store Mag, Bullshit Lit, Storyteller's Refrain, The Birdseed, Third Lane, Kitaab, Borderless Journal, Active Muse, Funny Pearls, and elsewhere. She has also been featured and interviewed in Issue 2 of Alphabet Box. Find her tweeting at @TejaswineeRC and her list of works at linktr.ee/tejaswinee.

sometimes i think of you & what it feels like to be so far away we used to read on the bookstore floor, escaping from eating lunch in the bathroom to a kingdom which we could rule & sometimes i think of you & how we used to flip through your favorite books, the "choose your own adventure" kind of books, trying to change our endings we used to run across the schoolyard in search of each other, but maybe we are moving on or shutting the book but i want to believe, i need to believe, that it is just one chapter of many. Ilana Drake (she/her) is a freshman at Vanderbilt University, and she is a student activist and writer. Her work has been published in Ms. Magazine, YR Media, and The 74 among others. She is also the recipient of multiple Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She can be found on Twitter @IlanaDrake_ and her website is https://ilanadrake.wixsite.com/mysite/projects

Midnight Clad It is late. The night sky is a cool blue, its air carries to us whispers of jazz threading the needle of a secondhand vinyl player. "What do you think happens to us when we die?" I ask the night, or maybe you; a man whom I love, and your blue eyes Crackle with all the majesty of God, or a storm over an ocean, and maybe I am a ship And we are in the eye of a storm looking out at walls of water crashing up and down defying gravity, or God Or destiny or fate because there is an intensity in your face that falls away - "I think the people who love us will miss us," you murmur and jazz carries us back into the night air, and memory. Refuge We take refuge from the world in a dive bar made out of the parts of trains that never left stations; you and I are the same - Built out of parts that no one knew how to weld, so we drilled holes in the walls and tried to hold on to the pieces of sanity someone else left us; Tonight, we take refuge in tall glasses of brown poison, and the space in each other's eyes where there is space even though we promise ourselves that we are enough - Maybe we are. Maybe I am. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see you walk barefoot on the hardwood floors of a house we made out of parts of the world left by the train tracks; It doesn't mean I wouldn't want you and I to take refuge from the world in each other, to hold worlds between our interlocked fingers, I want to see you wear an oversized hoody of mine when you wake up hungover from your last shift of a long week, I want to see you wake up when you realise there is already coffee in the air, and you do not have to do everything alone; anymore. I want to see you come home to a platter full of pasta served on plates made of cogs coughed up by belching beasts hunkering for railroads reminiscent of the first time that I met you, When we took refuge in a dive bar, and you looked down into a tall glass of brown poison, and looked up into my eyes; and smiled. 84 Charing Cross By accident, I lend you a book your mother loved; wrap it in brown paper, and pass it to you beneath a table on a date like we are in school, and the words on the pages are too important to wait for recess; worth the risk of being caught by a teacher, a ruler; worth having my note read aloud in class, or being kept back afterwards because I need you to know that I see you, and I need you to know that now, and not later, so I pass you a note under our desks; brush your leg lightly with my hand, hold you for a moment and I do not know a lifetime ago your mother held this book like I want to hold you; gently, passionately and well, but you tell me afterwards; smiling.

The blood moon eclipse revealed its power on a Thursday night in November. I took the letters journals and stationery that plagued the last few decades of my life. This opportunity was unexpected. But I was desperate to find the right moment. One that has been deferred for long enough. The night was unseasonably mild despite the crisp of the fall. I grabbed the lighter and gripped it tightly in my hand. The back door swiveled behind me as I navigated my way towards the backyard. I could hear the crackling of the leaves in the distance. The soft gallops of the land that primarily belonged to nature. I glanced at the sky and searched between the trees. The full moon hid behind the clouds. There was kindling gathered by the fire pit. The straps of my tote bag slumped onto the ground Weighted as heavy as my heart. This is why the time has arrived to burn. Burn it all. The first to go were the letters. The promises. The lies. The apologies. The prison. The dead. Next were the journals. Pages torn by the dozen. Reaching every year of my childhood. Penned to remember the pain anguish triumph and guilt. 1993 Burn 1994 Burn 1995 Burn 1996 Burn 1997 Burn 1998 Burn 1999 Burn 2000 Burn 2001 Burn Lastly were the notes. of love. of romance. of sleepless nights. Notes of the blade. The abuse. The suicide. The medical documents. Burn Burn Burn. Burn. An additional light appeared above the flames. The moon peeked through the clouds to shine its own blood but then quickly disappeared. The flames recaptured my eyes discovering the sketch of a heart that melted the words Just for you. Underneath it displayed the return address to the correctional facility. Unlocking the bars to my mental prison. I followed the ashes floating by my side. This was it. The action I was frightened to take cannot be undone. I retreated back inside. Stared out the back window to Watch the fire subside. Minutes had passed before hearing The clatter of raindrops Fall against the house. Was the sky shedding its own tears on my collection? Cleansing the toxic fumes from the air. The people who love me will never know the stories that burned. But soon I will reveal those stories to strangers And introduce who I was Before you met me. Agatha Sicil is a full-time special education teacher and a part-time writer. She was born in New York City, but has lived all over the state. She is the author of many works including “Burn,” the prologue to her creative nonfiction piece, “Before You Met Me.” She lives in the New England region with her husband and children. You can visit Agatha Sicil at https://agathasicil.onuniverse.com and follow her on Twitter @agathasicil and on Instagram @read_agathasicil