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Alex kept digging until her forearms were on fire. She crouched down, clawing through layers of hats, purses, belts, wishing she’d worn leggings instead. The field of cardboard boxes surrounding her mocked her hurried efforts. Dropping her head low she moved faster, ignoring the heat clinging to her skin. So far she’d only brought out the essentials. A file box with text books and trophies now doubled as a TV stand. "MISC" was written on the box in her own hand. Bridgerton was a cruel master. Alex liked her new apartment. Mostly. The walls were a strange shade of beige, though. Neutral, like clay. She blamed her apprehension accordingly. Perhaps that was why she was still fishing out shoes and silverware weeks after moving in. When her wrists complained, Alex stopped looking and went with her only option – a mustard belt that turned her sleek outfit into a veritable Batman costume. At this point, she’d be driving like the caped crusader to get to her dinner meeting early anyways. Walking to her car, she wondered how much longer until it didn’t feel like she was winging it in the city * Alex got the greenlight from Mandy Laparkan that night, then ran right into Karen D. Andrews. At dinner, she let her tacos get cold, studying Mandy’s pout as they discussed statistics. Alex was suddenly glad for her recent bout of insomnia. She’d redo the SWOT later on and submit three new KPI's for each quarter. Potential clients loved pageantry. Mandy would have the report by dawn while Alex drifted off to the sounds of the stirring city. * Alex waddled from her car to the apartment, arms and bladder full, grateful for ground floor convenience. Dashing through the door, she was halfway down the corridor as keys-iPad-jacket landed on the only chair in one swift move. The plush, cognac-brown loveseat had seen several seasons, almost all of Alex's cliffhanger episodes since college. Alex was getting ready to shower when she remembered her leftovers. Grabbing the paper bag, she pinched at the cling-wrapped contents and almost tripped over a box marked ‘Assorted’ on her way to the fridge. She eyed the box sullenly, suddenly sure of where her chic black belt was. Alex closed her eyes and sighed. As she lifted her head, she stared straight into a curious gaze at her kitchen window. * “Hi there!” came the cheery voice. The woman waved as Alex blinked to banish the mirage. “I came by earlier. I hope I’m not intruding,” she continued. “I’m Karen…Karen D. Andrews. From upstairs. Well, not from upstairs, but you know what I mean,” she said, laughing at her own joke. Alex’s breath was still lodged in her chest. It was her turn to say something. “Um, hi,” she managed. She checked the watch on her left hand. “I just thought I’d check if you were settling in ok. I brought you these,” Karen said holding up a package. Her smile widened. It was 9:11pm. But Karen wouldn’t budge. Beaming in bright pink gym clothes, watching her through the blinds. “That’s nice of you,” Alex began. “The thing is –” “Oh, I won’t stay long, dear,” Karen chirped. “Right,” Alex sighed, crawling to the side door. “I just thought I’d introduce myself, see how everything’s going,” Karen said as she entered. Her eyes wandered around the space — long duffel bags, boxes stacked in corners. “These are for you,” she said, handing Alex a new set of kitchen towels. Fruit print. Neutral. “Thanks,” Alex said. “I’m great actually. I’m kind of in the middle of ten things right now though so…” “Oh! Well, I’ll let you get right back to it then,” Karen said, slowly stepping off. She stopped again suddenly, picking up Alex’s rag doll off the kitchen counter. More signs there was still much to unpack. “Is this your daughter’s?” Karen asked, smoothing the doll’s brown tresses, wearing a different grin. “Nope,” Alex said casually. “Not about that life.” Karen D. Andrews pulled her eyebrows together. “Do you have kids?” Alex asked, leaning against the door. Karen’s answer was in her eyes. “Not yet,” she said. “Anyway, good night dear,” Karen said, disappearing into the dark. * One morning, Alex was awoken by a faint knock. Whoever it was guessed correctly that she was still straddling sleep and wakefulness. It was Karen’s husband dropping off the new gate remote. Like his wife, his eyes darted elsewhere, everywhere when she cracked the door. Without a greeting, he gingerly handed her the remote. There was a chill in the gut of his silence, even at dawn. * On a windy Saturday in the summer, the neighbors threw a birthday party for their daughter. Alex watched Karen from her living room window flitting among the parents, sans spouse. When she saw the birthday girl, Karen brushed back the little girl’s curls and bent to tie her laces. The toddler ignored Karen’s smile, busy bouncing a large pink balloon. As she watched her, Alex remembered the dull pains in her legs, times she’d gone numb in her new home searching for essentials not yet unpacked. Sometimes she’d kneeled while looking, trusting it would be there. Hopeful. Staring as Karen slowly spun the shoelaces, she pictured the couple’s matching Toyotas, always several paces apart. She thought of Karen's sunny bearings; her husband, a shadow. When the laces were in neat bows, Karen scooped up the toddler, spinning her in the air. The shocked child shrieked as the pink prize left her palm. Her tears fell harder the higher the balloon went. Alex’s eyes followed it until it was a dot in the sky. A withering stare was waiting. A florid face met her own. Karen eyeballed her in static silence, the bright balloons between them lined up like ellipses. Nikki is a multimedia journalist and writer. Her work appears in The Citron Review, Ellipsiszine, Sublunary Review, LEON Literary Review, Literary Yard and is forthcoming in HOOT and PreeLit. She munches trail mix and takes stunning photos when not busy writing. She tweets: @ohsashalee / See more: linktr.ee/writenowrong

CW: Sexual abuse I listen to a survivor of incest telling an interviewer about how there were days when we would sit as a family for a TV dinner, a plate of sausage, egg and chips on our laps, watching Top of the Pops as if we had not a care in the world. Sometimes, a few peas rolled off my plate onto the floor. I would scoop them up and put them in the bin. Our delusions of normality, our figments for the outside world. Doryn Herbst, originally a scientist in the water industry, now lives in Germany and is a deputy local councillor. Her writing considers the natural world but also darker themes of domestic violence and bullying. Doryn has poetry in Fahmidan Journal, The Dirigible Balloon, CERASUS Magazine and forthcoming in Sledgehammer Literary Journal. She is a reviewer at Consilience science poetry journal.

The reports of my creation were greatly exaggerated. Everyone believed that Prometheus carefully crafted me from clay, that Athena breathed life into my newly-formed body. Yet, birth, whether it be of an idea or a being, has always been messy. The stories of my making neglected to mention Prometheus' calloused hands or Athena’s morning breath. They certainly didn’t include my half-finished predecessors, their faces frozen in pain, partial bodies contorted. These failed drafts stared at me from the corners of the room as I was brought into the world, giving me a glimpse of my possible future. Who stood to gain from embellishments surrounding my birth? Who benefited from positive PR? The very Gods who cursed me into existence – the Creators. After my construction, they abandoned me, and I found a worse fate than any I could’ve imagined: eternity. I walked this earth for millennia, desperate to return to the dirt. No rain could melt me down, no heat could burn me to ash. I was unwillingly man, held captive within a fleshy prison. When Prometheus first gave humans fire, I preferred to stay in the dark. From the shadows, I watched humans evolve as I was forced to remain. But at the foot of Mount Olympus, I appreciated the gift for the first time as I stood over a small fire. I poked the flames at my feet with a branch, watching it dance, alive and free. Like a painter with a brush, I threw the lit stick to the ground and smiled as the blaze began. It spilled into the dry forest of olive trees, each fallen leaf and rotting log acting as tinder for my growing masterpiece. “This is for you,” I whispered, letting the wind carry my words to the Gods. I watched the destruction unfold - the creation, finally a Creator. Sky Sprayberry is a DC-based fiction writer. Yes, that’s her real name, and yes, she’s actually the plucky heroine with a catchy moniker. Move over, Lois Lane. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Molotov Cocktail, The Dillydoun Review, littledeathlit, and Rejection Letters. Say hi on Twitter @writtenbysky

blake's opinions over his digestif (strega) they were sitting around after dinner his daughter told him that none of the girls in her class liked her she said they said we don't want to be friends with you like they had all conspired around it it was the same thing that happened to him back in 1997 he told his daughter to hang in there it gets better they don't know what they're talking about "they don't know themselves." "they are upset about their own failures!" she shrugged her shoulders she said okay dad she was tough as nails she had mettle, at seven she could teach him a thing or two he realized in the men's room i am looking down there is fresh ice in the urinal 15 seconds elapse i am staring into a mirror now the sink is on it is an abyss this is it the men's room door opens it is time we scream into a private stall latch, hook fumbling, bic fuse glowing rock red-eyed release score junkies in hushed light November 15, 2009 tonight my son is laying on my wife in the living room it's tender he asks where do you go when you die she says heaven he says I'm going to hold your hand when you die mommy so we can go to the same place you see, we are not lone pebbles the tree fighting inside craziness madness murder tits out dick out a storm death threats wine shrieks and drywall holes neighbors blinking their lights like they'll call the cops and after the fight i step over the broken plates and the busted-out fish tank the one that was overturned in a different fight last week i step over the fish bodies i go to the bottom of the stairs my old lady is up there, ranting packing, breaking, cursing, pitching a fit yelling divorce at the tops of her lungs yelling lawyer this and that yelling "you'll see" bitching about affidavits and pictures of bruising broken phones, broken lives all that bullshit thank christ we don't have kids thank christ we're getting divorced i go over to the window at the back of the kitchen i raise the sash and light up a square i look up into the trees out back and search the sky for answers but i don’t find any instead i see a man up in one of the white pines naked under a moon beam he sees me see him and leaps down and runs down the alley so i go to the fridge and grab a coors light i take a long drag off it then i go back to the window and finish the beer then i go back to the fridge for another beer then i go out to the garage and retrieve the stepladder i climb up and get his clothes out of the tree a tee shirt and tommy hilfiger jeans no wallet/no id just his clothes and his size 10 shoes on the ground an old pair of k swisses a little bit of trampled down grass i pick up the artifacts and i go back inside scruffing along the burnt vapors of domestic hell clinging to the scattered ether i can still hear her up there thundering in her whisky tenor the stomps and rumblings of a broken woman but cooling off, i know her it's all my fault i grab a fresh bottle of screw-top white and two plastic cups i ascend the stairs to the horns of hell she's calmed down i can tell she's ready to make up she wants wine i pour out two cups worth we sit on the bed she half-packed a bag she gets up and throws it into a corner we both gulp wine it is thursday, 8:20 tomorrow i'll put the stranger's clothes in our recycling bin they'll help suppress the crash of bottles on pick-up day on fridays our recycling bin releases a vineyard of empties this is our life i still can't spell massachusettes walking through the wan light of dawn field sun crack cloud streak, mugged coffee, fighting autumnal flashbangs tossed by Nature (hell's pixies, dig) imposing of long cello sobs into mind matter (presence) scents of life, soil sacks and such uprooted moss glimmerings, illusory flicker memories that scratch with each step this is the field that once was there are dead dirt piles living here worm screams underfoot, tread heavy, muck, dying six-feet downers plowed, walked upon, earthed you know me Adam Johnson lives in Minnesota. His forthcoming poetry collection, What Are You Doing Out Here Alone, Away From Everyone? will be released through HASH Press in December, 2021.

Blue Fire When in the morning, the star grass Freezes like frostweed, I feel at home. Save for this brown button-up, which chokes Half my neck. These clothes Are a costume, and though all clothes are (costumes), Some suit me better, & I know, like Plato his Forms, That my costumes elude me in the closets of strangers. Nothing Of mine fits, Nor do I like anything I own. The dog is wrong The food is wrong The furniture suffocates & this house is too small for its fire, which burns Within, & whose flames’ tongues Are too long & too blue For the square feet They’ve been given. Variation on Gwendolyn Brooks First fail. Then fiddle. Read a poem. Decide to mimic. Fail. Do this first. Then fiddle. Take someone else’s idea, try making it your own. Realize you can’t. Let it go. Let years go by. Find what you think is your voice. Find out it isn’t. Find out it both is & isn’t. Return to stealing. This time fail at failing. Steal well. Steal only that which you need. Know it was never an issue. Know you were the issue. Change. Know how to change. Self-Portrait He wants to be a brutal old man, everything Robert Creeley has described in his perfect poem, Self- Portrait, which one would like to be a portrait of one’s self. But it is not. One is not a brutal old man. One is a young man who wants to be a brutal old man. Who wants to be aggressive, & mean spirited. I am a young man who does not want to be young, perhaps because he is not young enough, & so would select death, instead. Or perhaps because he does not feel young, does not feel it is right to be young & therefore happy. Perhaps he can forefeel the dread, the slaughter-room babies must enter one day. Vonnegut spoke of the artist as a canary keeling over in the presence of disease. When I was still unborn, I wrapped a cord around my neck & hoped life would choke me the moment it happened. The son of immigrants, Ulyses Razo is a graduate from the University of Washington, Seattle. He writes poetry, and has written fiction, creative nonfiction, film criticism, and translations of Spanish language prose and poetry. He has also worked with collage and erasure. His work has been published or is forthcoming in: Barzakh Magazine, Outcast Press, MORIA, The Metaworker, Life and Legends, and Months to Years. A librarian, he has lived in London and Seattle, and currently resides in Washington.

How would they know? in the moments before freezing to death warmth overcomes you like a blanket of acceptance like an embrace of forgiveness like a reminder of what life used to be or so say most of the survivors Test for echo voices bounce off hard snow through black trees across grey lakes into white skies we wait for the signal to return to report with a message of any kind it never does Slowakening white is the colour of hibernation (not black) because it is waiting for warmth to arrive with sleepy eyes heavy limbs and a heart full of hope Penny Sarmada is from Ontario. Recent and upcoming: Versification, Sledgehammer, Selcouth Station, Pink Plastic House, Bullshit Lit, Tiny Wren

The hunter is haunted by images of a home he once knew, destroyed — a deconstructed fox hole, a pile of sticks and stones patiently waiting for the howl of a broken, desperate man to revive and rebuild something not as revolting as it once was Somewhere in the distance, an owl or mourning dove practices cutting the space with its melancholy melody, the refrain at once familiar and strange, echoing a time between time, nestled in the crook of calamity I calmly take it all in, content to watch the slow unraveling of a life that isn't mine, one or two worlds apart yet close enough for me to realize how it, too, yearns for another realm, for a chance to burn the old parts, to be revived by the only song desperate enough to crawl back to the very place that had destroyed it I had hoped you were hiding I waited alone in the sterile room for the surgery, too stunned to even consider goodbye. Instead, my legs shivering against the stirrups, I prayed hard for a miracle, for a giant "aha! Just kidding!" moment from the expanding universe that would never be large enough to hold space for you. Pity I received from the ones closest to me, words murmured to soothe, and I was grateful — still, in the cloying silence that crept in months later, I realized: I alone was left to somehow trudge through the thick muck of this loss. They expected me to swim and not sink, and I did, all the while hoping the currents would pull me under. How could anyone else truly know what it's like when your very own body becomes a thief who turns hateful against you, prolific cells with cold fury driving your demise, to snatch up the very thing you wanted more than life itself? Lamentations These days, I am bound by a tightness in my throat only offset by forced deep breaths that inflate my sense of belonging, at least for a moment. These days, I feel at once overabundant and lacking in time: those delicate matchbox moments that swirl in a never-ending masquerade of murky glasses and coffee mugs to clearly show just how not alone you are. Yet, if I somehow disappeared from the next afternoon matinee, if my wide beaming, familiar face no longer appeared immediately at your front stoop whenever you rung me to tell me you felt lonely, would you realize that I was no longer among the living? See, that’s the funny thing about the grandiosity of life and its chess moves: those who coldly push ahead eventually still end up falling off the board anyway in blessed descent: arms outstretched, bloodshot eyes bulging at the basest seams that swell and threaten to burst in the most gallant manner atop a carousel while peering down at those below who are still most eager to ingest the same candy- coated curses that no longer consume you Melody Wang currently resides in sunny Southern California with her dear husband and wishes it were autumn all year ‘round. She is a reader for Sledgehammer Lit and can be found on Twitter @MelodyOfMusings. Her debut collection of poetry "Night-blooming Cereus" is coming out on December 17, 2021 with Alien Buddha Press.

Handyman Special Handyman Special: it’s just right for someone with a few skills, some time on their hands and some elbow grease. That bowling ball size dent in the drywall just needs a small piece from the box store and a quick patch, hasn’t even spiderwebbed across the wall yet. The discolored carpet just needs to be pulled up and I’m sure a good sanding or a quick patch of some of the boards will get rid of any seepage or lingering smell and if it leaked down into the basement the dirt floor surely covered it up like nothing. The flecks of metal that shine with the light, the ones imbedded in the frames of the windows and doors really add a unique touch, something I think most would agree adds value and if you still want to replace them prying off a trim board or replacing a door is a quick job. The property is secluded and has a private lot; someone could scream for joy and wouldn’t wake the neighbors. I’m sure anyone with a green thumb can get grass to grow over those patches and they are already rectangular, so why not use them as garden beds? The previous owner has left many useful tools: the axe would be great for cutting your own firewood, the shovel is a needed tool for anyone who works outside and a length of rope that sturdy would be good if you got stuck on that long dirt driveway. I’m sure you’ll love the place; people say old houses have personalities, the walls whisper, you just have to listen! Cracking Eggs I once heard the pleats in a chef’s hat represent the number of ways he can cook an egg, 10 pleats for 10 different ways and 100 pleats for 100 ways! Really though, I wonder which way that chef prefers his eggs because that’s really what matters, right? I know some people like sunny side up, but that’s a little messy. Some prefer poached, but that takes too many steps. Some love hard boiled, the cooking is easy enough, but I don’t have the patience for peeling. I wonder what it says about me and my love for scrambled eggs and no milk right in the frying pan. Matt McGuirk teaches and lives with his family in New Hampshire. BOTN 2021 nominee with words in various lit mags and a debut collection with Alien Buddha Press called Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities available on Amazon and linked on his website. Website: http://linktr.ee/McGuirkMatthew Twitter: @McguirkMatthew Instagram: @mcguirk_matthew.

April was wearing a polka-dot scarf at the picnic where she fell in love. She untied the scarf and swirled it in the air to announce her joy to the world but the linen got entangled in a tree, the loose end soaring like a balloon tied to a mailbox. She turned to call her new love for help—an excuse to talk—but found him gazing away, wistfully at another girl. To rescue her scarf, April stood on a plastic chair and yanked at the cloth. A rip left some polka dots quivering on the tree, others flattening like misshapen hearts in her palm. Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American writer. Born to a middle-class family in India, she later migrated to the USA. Her work has appeared in Reflex Press, Flash Fiction Online, Kahini, and elsewhere. She has been highly commended in National Flash Microfiction Competition, shortlisted in SmokeLong Quarterly Micro Contest, shortlisted in Bath Flash Fiction Festival. She is currently an editor at Janus Literary and a Submissions Editor at SmokeLong Quarterly. Her debut flash fiction collection “Morsels of Purple” is available for purchase on Amazon and in local bookstores. More at https://saraspunyfingers.com. Reach her @PunyFingers

Two Returns to Water I’m so tired. I should be writing but instead I scan the room for spiders, the Adderall waxing off as the images wane in. The blue screen of my computer is too bright, highlighting the tips of my fingers, creating bony silhouettes that create bony words. No flesh. No life. Two returns to mark a new point. I can’t get angry in this space. I can’t be fired up, because igniting dry limbs will only turn me to ash. I need to be of water. I need to return to the water. The Fire This is what happens when we resist the destruction. When we build dams and construct reservoirs instead. When we block the flow of life and think we know better than the cycles that made us. The foolish attempts to control our mother when we are still in our infancy. Come, my petulant child. Rest quietly in my embrace and let’s watch the fire burn. The Other Sun I think about you every day as the sun rests on the horizon. Memories float in, uninvited— until they are. Lauren Theresa (she/her) is a queer neurodivergent writer, chthonic poet, botanical sorceress, and Jungian trauma therapist. She lives in NJ with her husband, two daughters, and myriad of plants, and her publications crawl the pages of laurentheresa.com.

magnolia’s cream-mottled cheek marking yet another bygone era plunked into the abyss as sorrow burrows into our roots, unfurling our prisons / our refuge, the delirious journey into what we've come to recognize as our shadow selves' last fragments of a fallen season that last slanted sunset reflected off the lake hinting with its brilliance at what we simply could not admit to ourselves. The expanding distance between us we hide in and seek thereafter Melody Wang currently resides in sunny Southern California with her dear husband and wishes it were autumn all year ‘round. She is a reader for Sledgehammer Lit and can be found on Twitter @MelodyOfMusings. Her debut collection of poetry "Night-blooming Cereus" is coming out on December 17, 2021 with Alien Buddha Press.

She pushes her hip against his. Slender teenage hips, denim-clad and barely there. She can feel a burn beneath the fabric, chafing on her knicker line. She imagines the new ink spreading; bleeding and vivid, leeching and settling into her skin before becoming permanent. Becoming part of her, another new part, a part she can’t erase. Becoming part of them. The last thought makes her smile, makes her lean further and press deeper into the pain. She is trying to angle herself so her throbbing, clingfilm-covered spot is touching his exactly. She is trying to track the identical place that has made them one. Made them whole. It’s hot here under the pier, hidden from the tourists and the brightest part of the day. And as she clings a bit harder, nudges a bit closer, she thinks she feels him shift. Feels him start to pull away. She chooses to ignore it just like she ignores the pull and tingle of her skin. And his slight impatient sigh, as he fumbles for a fag. Instead, she closes her eyes and makes herself retrace their steps along the pier. Drifts back to the neon lights and thudding bass, back to the pierced, bearded man who flashed his surprisingly white teeth and asked, ‘You ready then?’ And then looked away with a wink when she handed over his sister’s ID. It makes her glow to know they’ve done it together, on the same day, in the same space. Same design. Even if was a choice made by money, by time. By him. She shakes that thought away. He has pulled away now, his arm hanging loose on her shoulders, as he blows curls of blue smoke up to the boardwalk above them. She turns away and tries not to breathe. Instead she looks at the rubbish collected by the breakwater. Things washed up, things abandoned and thrown away. Suddenly that thing she read is in her head again; about how pathologists use tattoo ink to identify bodies with missing limbs. How the ink tracks through the skin and pools in the lymph nodes, creating a rainbow that runs through your body forever. And something in her shifts. And she thinks whatever happens now, they are joined. These colours in their flesh. Forever. Tomorrow then, tomorrow she will tell him about the other two inky straight lines. Parallel and blue. Their other creation. And that butterfly stamped on his shoulder. Maybe that will fly away. Rachel Canwell is a reader, writer, teacher and blogger but not necessarily in that order. She is currently working on her first novel and falling in love with flash fiction a little bit more each day. You can find her on Twitter @bookbound2019