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How do I look darling? Everybody is a drag queen in life manicured in silky garbs or wax museum faces to suffocate their inner skin. On the morning train you carry an empty leather briefcase crammed to overflow with lies sat next to other men with heads hung low. The smell of your lunchbox makes you wretch as you unwrap another white bread sandwich- canned pig hiding under shotgun cheese- spill that crumb trail to your place in life. Screwed up New Year’s resolutions in the breast pocket of your dinner suit that hasn’t been worn for years, and doesn’t fit unless you squeeze out like pus. Seed already spread before you’re dead so you can smile watching reality TV- call the premium number and vote vicarious. Reduced to yelling from the sidelines at football games and strip bar shenanigans. Have another shot, adjust your makeup. To kill a mockingbird I tried to walk on water for you. My feet made star-shaped ripples as I started to sink. You spent the entire time smirking and scrolling on your phone. You didn’t even raise your head when I stopped my hearts beat to create suspense like an orchestra; My only attention was a grasshopper on a single green blade rubbing his legs together in anticipation, but his love song was for another. The male mockingbird is a more prolific singer. It yearns for attention, mimicking the sound of anything. Somebody look at me. Damien Posterino (he/him) is a Melbourne-born poet writing in Mexico. His poetry explores themes of characters, commentary, and capturing moments in time. He has been published in recent editions of Fiery Scribe, Neuro Logical, Analogies & Allegories Literary Magazine, Abergavenny Small Press, BOMBFIRE, Jupiter Review, Fairy Piece, Poetic Sun Journal, Green Ink, Zero Readers, Melbourne Culture Corner, Sledgehammer Lit, and Rough Diamond. You can find him on Twitter @damienposterino

Live gold macro offensive line crowded swelt numbskull sit branch seek letter underwhelm harbinger of horizontal mania ironing t-shirt necklace back brace a hero’s welcome tho a bee in ritual Crimea & knowledge trials an ordeal courtly leg up against aghast harpsichord an ocean brittle to defeat besieged, a trapped mattress fer-de-lance consummates taxable mortar without uttering knife’s blade artifact filled to the top breaking point shuttered intact Inca ghost town but still preserving photography demonstrated stone popularizes a thaw as work submarines scorpion we request feuding most shocking captured in organic expedited hull emerging draped b/t two miles all allows stalactites to eat iron as a bacteria researches collapse to a mortally nicked superlative indisputable reduction largest alliance embittered onward vocal technocratic pamphlets printing deficit deal skimmed issue tones domestic loan circulate abroad silver a de facto water from export wine feast value agricultural meanness reacts unsavory minister told light striking common evident profile emerge scope tactician edifice errors haunting fault lines certain examination deficiency context traded boom flows sectors studied risk force borrow a fluctuation normalize a benchmark absolute a core interest a publicity liquidate a relativity secondary nadir basic peak since per capita Bird is shining You once wire willow tiptoe tipped tooth a crowned hollow plaything housed behind aquarium fuzzy— scoffed grinning growl made out to moan through braille—. Last you uttered pursued bigfoot jazz hands latitude a marble patch stranded near oceanic peeling skin cramp tug of war. Expose cloudless not curvaceous pointedly caressing effective labor movement momentum only provides fundamentally popcorn making writing opaquely mysterious captivating guided empire of senseless scales rooted platform for physical sublimations strikingly perverse tonal mocking context provide a civilization present an illumination protestations warn bubbles concentrated confidential warped media mind distorted veil experiments to third degree levels papered over bus terminal window harpoon house from beginning to secret Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is the author of the books combustible panoramic twists (Trainwreck Press), Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals including Otoliths, M58, The Sparrow’s Trombone, Coven, Scud, Ygdrasil, RASPUTIN, Ink Pantry, and Synchronized Chaos. You can find links to his published work at joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com

Dash Shaw’s sophomore effort is a hallucinatory environmental and anti-war romp through a cryptid-covered world eerily like our own! Austin stands outside the theater holding a metal bowl of popcorn and a vape pen with fat odorless clouds rolling from their nose and mouth, maybe their ears. It’s unclear. Behind Austin, a Cryptozoo poster shows a woman descending on a pegasus from an orange sky, volume to her brown hair pulled back tight around a face with anger along the brow and fierce lips swollen into a red oval. It is lit up by movie theater bulbs and wildfire sunset. The sky here is orange too. I order popcorn with lots of butter and salt and a tallboy. There are two others in the theater, and they are alone. No judgment. I watched Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises alone in the theater, dazzled and undistracted, thinking about passion and violence as I ate Sour Patch Kids and Reese’s Pieces passionately by the handful. On-screen, two hippies walk naked through the forest saying hippie shit, and some creature sucks nightmares from a woman’s head. Everything is patched together in an undulating collage, a tillage of childishness tainted by an underlying depravity. There is a blood bath happening as a unicorn moves frantic across the screen goring and bucking, while humans die invoking the mystical, tempting the natural. It’s a horse with a horn and it’s considered magical. If unicorns are magical then every plant and animal and living thing is magical. Mystical shit has been running through my head all day. I’ve lit incense, blood let, and chanted in rituals where weird things happen—telepathy, snake gods, merging with the infinite—but I don’t know what it means. Twice I watched a green fireball creep slowly through the sky, five years apart, and I believe completely that it was something extraterrestrial or interdimensional. The first time, I sat in dried moss next to my ex who drained all the magic from the world. She said it was just a piece of space debris, a defunct satellite or a dead astronaut. She was wrong. It’s a UFO studied by Dr. Lincoln La Paz, an astronomer who declared the fireballs did not move like a natural thing and must be of alien origin. I didn’t tell her because I thought she’d lose her cool. Her temper was short—she harnessed unparalleled brutality toward those around her and toward herself. I’ve seen signs of witches and ghosts and fairies too around rural lakes and attics, but my senses aren’t enough to explain it. The woman in the film is a cryptozoologist not due to her passion for science or knowledge necessarily, but because of her love for cryptids. My girlfriend has spent the last four summers in the wilderness tracking bears so we can know what is left, what we can still protect as humans continue to thin out predators—wolves, bears, and mountain lions. I tear up thinking about the rate of extinction. The Sixth Mass Extinction. The Holocene Extinction. It’s unnatural. Paranormal. I didn’t cry at Grandma’s funeral, because I don’t cry at appropriate times. I cry about existence when it is inappropriate. A faun named Gustav sits cross-legged on screen, smoking a large pipe, the smoke lingering a long time as he oversees a moist, bodily orgy. I think of Pan, god of the forest and the fields and the mountains, purveyor of those fantastic and depraved pleasures bound by flesh, expansive and touching the hallucinatory. Austin is into woo woo shit—astrology, chaos magic, divination. That kind of thing. We get along. After the movie, I ask them, “If we were more connected to our bodies could we stop ecocide?” I mention Élisée Reclus who said, Humanity is nature becoming self-conscious, but I don’t like debating philosophers and theory. I just enjoy shooting the shit about ideas. Austin says something like, “Our bodies are suffering because they are embedded in this ecological mess. We aren’t separate from it, know what I’m saying? My lungs and eyes are burning like a motherfucker because of this wildfire. Don’t get me wrong. Even before we started wrecking the Earth, we still felt the pain of existence and embodiment. But it’s always an indicator of something. All this pain tells us something is wrong.” I say, “I’ve been meditating. I suck at it, but I put in fifteen minutes when I can, and it’s like I’m more aware of the world and the feeling that the planet is suffering, more and more. It’s hard to ignore. Gives me this fatalist anxiety.” Austin says, “We’re hurt by progress either way. Even if we don’t say, ‘Ouch, this hurts.’ It’s slow violence.” There’s a stint of silence. Austin says, “This is gonna sound cheesy, but it’s a psychic attack because of this, like, uh, consciousness that moves through shit. Pan-psychism, I guess? I don’t really separate mind and body like that… I dunno…” I guess it seems pretentious now that I’m writing it, but that’s what we were talking about and that’s what I was thinking about after watching Cryptozoo as we walked over the river listening to the water on the rocks, gurgling black heaven at twilight, and through town listening to the tires on the streets—scattered shouts from the ruptured throats of crust punks laying sidelong across the walkways. We sit down at this burger joint that everybody tells me has the best burgers. I order a tallboy. It is a wet ass burger, like a burger meets a sloppy joe. I like burgers, and I like sloppy joes, but I’m not into sloppy joe burgers. It sits in its own muck and my muck, merging then indistinguishable from my spit as soon as it touches the tongue. For a moment that stretches through me, I am the burger. The wet burger. The fries are on-point, though, balancing the sog and the crunch down the length of each fry, perhaps oversalted but well-seasoned. Still, I’m feeling underwhelmed with the meal when Kirsten walks by waving, arm-in-arm with her fiancé, Steve, and a friend from Ann Arbor. “Yo, what’s up? You get a burger here? Aren’t they bomb as fuck?” “Eh, yeah, it’s fine.” Austin is fidgeting. They are in that weird space where two people have met and they recognize each other, but neither is sure that the other recognizes them, so no one says anything, and they just sit and sweat a little in silence. I don’t reintroduce them. Kirsten says, “This is my friend Aaron from Michigan. We did a forty-mile bike race this morning. So. Much. Fucking. Incline. Dude, it was redonk.” She points back. “Aaron finished 148th out of 150.” She laughs. “I kept telling him to prepare. Get in shape and shit. But this motherfucker didn’t listen. He was huffing and puffing. I had to leave his ass behind.” Aaron says, “I tried to tell you that I wanted to drop out this fucking morning. We biked up that hill from our campsite and I was like ‘fuck this,’ but you insisted and now you’re talking shit. I knew you were gonna talk shit. I thought about all the shit you were gonna talk for forty fucking miles.” Kirsten keeps talking shit, and I zone out a little bit. I’m getting tired. “What’s the deal? You look tired,” Kirsten says. “Yeah, I am tired.” “Well, we’ll let y’all finish dinner. Enjoy that bomb ass burger!” “Sure, yeah. Have a good night!” They walk away and Austin gets right back to talking Rosicrucianism. I’m zoning out. This underwhelming hamburger has me all fucked up. We finish our food and walk toward the bridge. I swing by the corner store to snag a tallboy. The fresh air is stilted by the smell of burning wood. Everything smells like fire. I cannot see the stars to imagine the things that might live up there, gazing toward the weight of empty space. I stare inward and see little things like atoms and anxieties. I hold them in the same way. The bridge is lit up and the lights are reflecting off the water flowing slowly because rainfall is scarce, and I wonder where all that water goes and where it comes from, and I’m pissy, angry about the drought. I get this pain in my left side when I drink heavily. My body is telling me something is wrong, because a river runs through me—a river of beer and Wild Turkey. When it comes to excess, I never listen to my body. I continue to live excessively. Yet, a river still flows beneath me too, a river that has carried me and quenched my midnight thirst. Frozen then thawed in spring, ice from winter’s last throes floating through Noxon and Cabinet and Heron. A 12-point buck drinks from the river as we stand focusing our slack vision, watching for a while; its spine crooked, unconcerned through the skittishness shaped at the tip of evolution. I stare at it and wonder if there is any way to imagine a creature that is truly unique without conjuring visions of animals we already know. They must exist out there, but a pegasus and a unicorn are just horses with extra parts. Every creature in Cryptozoo looked like something that already exists—a hairier primate that walks on two legs or a giant, slithering megasnake. Even the xenomorph in Alien resembles a slobbery praying mantis. I believe in mystical things—aliens and witches and interdimensional fairies—but even without them the world feels magical to me. There is a deer on the riverside. Overall, Cryptozoo is a film that stands on two legs with a message of ecological compassion for the non-human world through a collage of psychedelic visuals and animal liberation. Yeeeaaah, man. 3.5/5 Mason Parker is an Okie-born, Montana-based writer. His work has been featured in or is forthcoming from X-R-A-Y, Cowboy Jamboree, and BULL, among others. He recently won the Bear Creek Gazette writing competition for his short story My Child, Leviathan. In his free time he enjoys exploring the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness with his partner and two dogs.

His frail hands are pale like the full moon and I can trace the intricate pattern of deep veins beneath the surface, like a leaf from one of his old bouquets. He used to pick wildflowers on long walks, and point out peculiar insects that were crawling up his arm, while I skipped by his side – searching for animals with my pockets full of pinecones and interesting fur. His bouquets always ended up on the kitchen table, where they would sit in their little vases until the flowers slowly wilted and the delicate leaves, with all those deep veins, finally curled and fell softly to the earth. Molly Greer lives in Maryland with her husband and two children. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, 34 Orchard, Sledgehammer Lit, and Outcast Press Poetry. You can find her on Twitter: @MKGreerPoetry.

He says we’re stressed, exhausted, I say that’s true but that’s life, he ponders, I don’t like life, he says, while he loves life, but not this life, the life we live, I tell him about hygge, where do we buy it? he asks, you don’t buy hygge I say, he seems relieved but also suspicious, I google it and it says hygge costs nothing but a minor effort, so we start by cleaning the house, to make it hyggelit, no time to hygge this time, and we need candles, so we go shopping, buy some cheap candles, which smell like the house’s on fire, we throw them away, go back to the store, buy an ocean smelling candle, that hygge thing ain’t cheap, he says, we sit on the floor, try to relax and hygge, dive into the moment, but the floor is cold, we need soft carpets, he says, we can’t afford them, I say, we look at each other, we think, think, so we work overtime, save and starve, let’s go buy hygge, I say, and we buy that fucking carpet, we clean again, how do they do it? he asks, we may be too stupid, I say, or too poor, he says, let’s give it a try, just this once I mean, cause we know we’ll never be those who renovate bathrooms and display them and show off, those who have time to cook fancy meals, or travel to favorite getaways when bored. The floor is shiny, the candles lit up, we order a pizza, we don’t argue, don’t even speak, we play it safe, we’ll watch a movie, we’ll chill, and finally we’ll hygge, the way to hygge is to not try to hygge, to not think about it, only we’re too tired to hygge properly, we fall asleep, we dream of hygge, which is the most hygge thing we’ve done so far, but then again dreaming of hygge is easier than the real thing and probably the closest we’ll ever get to hygge at all.

Photograph by Amy Bassin The 8:22 a.m. Kennedy Boulevard bus paused at the red light on the corner of Bentley. While staring at the line of idling cars in front of him, and without turning his head, the driver honked his horn and threw a mechanical wave. This gesture of recognition was directed at an old man making his way down the street. As the light turned green the bus operator glanced in the old man’s direction. The driver smiled and shook his head. For the past six years, at precisely this time, the senior citizen always appeared. It amazed the driver since it was obvious the old man had suffered a stroke. He moved as though his ankles were bound by shackles. As the bus zoomed past, the old man halted. By the time he had lifted his head he was waving his walking stick in a cloud of black exhaust fumes. Coughing seized him for a few moments, but he was pleased by the driver’s show of camaraderie. A thick blanket of humidity flattened Jersey City. In retaliation, the old man loosened his tie and unbuttoned the vest concealed under the stained sports jacket. He pushed forward. After a few minutes, he succeeded in reaching the end of the block. Checking vigilantly before crossing, he decided to make his move. Everything seemed to be in order: the light was still green, but more importantly, the DO NOT WALK sign was not flashing underneath it. He had at least sixty seconds to execute the crossing. In the past the old man had this street crossing down to fifty-six seconds. Now the government had decreased his time by making it legal for cars to turn right on red lights. This called for more caution. Since his retirement nineteen years earlier, he learned car horns replace brakes when drivers compete with pedestrians for space. Halfway across the street he panicked. The light clicked amber. Horns screamed. The old man froze. Directly in front of his outstretched walking stick (a cane was for old geezers), a battered Lexus screeched past. “Get the hell outta the way, ya old fart!” A young head popped out of the back window. “Why don’t you die?” it shouted before disappearing into traffic. Three other cars whizzed by him. A fourth car released him by stopping long enough for him to arrive at the opposite corner. Smiling at the driver, he did a playful hop over the curb. The old man felt good. At least a half-dozen would pass before permitting him to proceed. It was not unusual for him to be trapped in the street until the light once again turned a comforting green. What disturbed the old man most about his daily journey was the block on which Martinez & Sons Glassware Company was located. The store took up nearly half a block with mirrors lining their storefront windows. No matter how hard he fought the temptation, it was impossible not to glance at his image as he crept along. His reflection was an obscenity to him. The day was really looking up. The store, which usually opened promptly at 9 a.m., was closed. This pleased the old man because the iron gate was strung across the huge display windows. He looked at his reflection and giggled. His likeness looked as though it had been captured and jailed, peering back at him through thick metal bars. The old man threw back his shoulders, disregarding the ache. Picking up his pace, he reminded the reflection that his birthdate fell in the same year as Robert Redford’s. “That’s right. 1936. Good Lord, the girls knew it, too.” He pointed an accusing finger at the gated mirror. “Maybe I forget the exact day, but I’ll never forget all those women.” The old man took a seat on a bench; overhead hung a sign, BUS STOP. On the end of the bench sat a young girl dressed in frayed blue jean cutoffs and a tee shirt that read ‘Shit Show Supervisor.’ “Mister,” she asked, “can you lend me a dollar so I can catch the bus?” No reply. “Excuse me, sir, do you have a dollar I can borrow?” The old man reached into his pocket and produced a fistful of change that he dropped into her hand. The young lady leaped off the bench. “Gee, thanks! Wow!” Seconds later she disappeared down the street into a candy store. The old man checked his watch. He was fifteen minutes behind schedule. “Oh my God, I’m going to be late.”’ After pulling himself up from the bench, he cursed the once strong arms that had made him New York Local 638’s number one steamfitter. After conquering four more blocks he arrived at his destination. It made him feel good to watch the busy activity associated with the morning opening of the Post Office. He looked up at the flag dangling limply from the mast, as if suffocated from a lack of breeze Inside the building were the usual hoard of people in lines, mostly immigrants and mothers with young children. The passport section was mobbed. Twenty minutes late, he feared the worst. Gradually he inched towards the wall lined with post office boxes. “Why, Mr. Goldshlager, I was worried. I thought something terrible happened.” “No, Ma’am. I guess this humidity took more from me than I had anticipated giving. Kind of you to wait, though.” The aged woman who reminded him so much of Colleen, the wife he buried shortly after his retirement. “Well, after all, Mr. Goldschlager, today’s my turn to buy the coffee...” “And I the donuts.” “Correct.” “Have you received your check yet, Mildred?” “Yes. I saw them put yours in, too.” The old man went over to his mailbox and withdrew the envelope. “Life sure plays some strange games on us, Mildred. Funny how we both decided, on the very same day, mind you, to put an end to all those stolen checks every month. Scary how accustomed we had become to missing them.” Mildred nodded. “And you can’t trust direct deposit because the banks are all so corrupt.” “You know something? Losing those checks is the best thing that’s happened to me in six years.” Mildred pretended to dismiss the flattery, but the added wrinkles at the corner of her lips gave her away. “Colleen always thought I was too angry with banks. I can hear her now, saying, ‘Horace, you shouldn’t resent what happened in the past. It’s dangerous.’ She was some woman, my Colleen.” “She certainly must have been, Mr. Goldschlager.” Strolling around the corner to the diner gave the old man a thrill, as it had most mornings. It felt good, it felt natural, to be with a woman. The few times Mildred hadn’t shown up it always made the rest of the day melancholic. The small table to the left of the grill was reserved for the elderly couple. Josh, the proprietor, issued strict orders not to seat anyone there until after nine-thirty. As they were led to their seats Horace contemplated Mildred’s appearance. She wore bright red lipstick which showed telltale signs of extended coloring past the outline of her lips. In fact, it reminded the old man of the happy smiles painted around the mouths of circus clowns. The red lipstick made a striking contrast to the black hat pinned to a thin crop of platinum curls. Her eyes were a sparkling gray. Those eyes reminded the old man of something his father had once told him about his great-Aunt Kathleen: “Horace, whenever you meet an old woman, say like your Aunt, never forget that despite the years she’s still got a young girl’s vanity. I know it’s hard and I brought you up not to lie, but listen, the one safe thing you can compliment them on is their eyes. Leave the wrinkled skin around them alone. Just tell them how beautiful, or lively, or even better, how sparkling their optics are.” There was no need to falsely charm Mildred, or her eyes. What an attractive woman she must have been, mused the old man. Her face, now caked with powder, was probably as smooth and clear as Colleen’s. During their coffee and donuts each spent about a half-hour bringing her husband Ted and his Colleen back to life. Neither one would pay much attention to the other; after six years of repetition, it didn’t matter. Yet missing these weekday interludes was unthinkable. The old man loved the chance to relive his youth. While talking (or listening), a vivid portrait of himself and his wife materialized. Horace had to think seriously about settling down and raising a family when he was younger. This was a tougher decision than most fellows were faced with since young Horace was engaged to two girls at the same time. One of his fiancées lived in Hoboken, and the other was a burlesque dancer in Union City. While mulling over the choices before him at his favorite Brooklyn bar, in walked the bartender for the upcoming shift with his handsome daughter. It was lust, later love, at first sight. Colleen’s nut-brown hair offset a cute turned-up nose. Her pale green eyes sent an inviting message over to his stool. Such a petite figure who filled a sweater rather nicely. “And Ted would pick me up and throw me into the pool right in front of all the children. I pretended to be angry but I loved it!” The old man took his last gulp of chilled coffee and signaled for the check. “Would you like anything else, Mildred?” “No thank you, Horace.” She watched his eyes following the progress of the waiter. “I really enjoyed myself this morning, dear.” The old man nodded. “Yes, but it’s so hard to keep track of time these days. So much to be done. Isn’t that so?” Mildred smiled. “Don’t I know, Mr. Goldschlager! I detest all the running around I’m forced to do in order to keep up with this crazy world. I get exhausted just thinking about it.” With this last remark they concluded their visit and returned to their respective schedules: she to a park bench in nearby Bayonne, he to the bus stop across the street. When the bus arrived, the old man was visibly upset. Hector was not driving. The doors flung open and the old man was shoved aside by boarding passengers. After everyone had paid their fare and secured a seat, the driver waited impatiently for the old man to complete his attack of the high steps leading to the fare box. As the old man strained to maintain his balance via the walking stick, two thoughts flashed. One was to fall forward should his legs fail him. The second was how differently he was treated when Hector was behind the wheel. Hector made sure no one pushed him around and always helped him up the steep steps. On reaching the top step the old man fumbled for the Senior’s discount pass inside his sports jacket. As he turned to find a seat a swarm of indignant glances greeted him. He gave pleading looks to the men seated directly behind the driver. They in turn, almost as if on cue, rotated their heads and fixed their eyes on some object outside the window. The bus lurched forward before the old man could get a firm grip on the overhead strap. He was flung to the other side of the bus. His back smashed into the knees and packages of a pair of horrified women shoppers. Unable to control himself, the old man let out a cry. It was a soft cry, but it lingered. Upon the scolding of the women shoppers, two men raised up the old man. One sacrificed his seat. Laughter broke out from the rear of the bus. Perspiration beaded on the old man’s bald spot. It dripped onto his sports jacket as he tucked his chin into his chest. Once again, he drifted off to that first encounter with Colleen. Outside his apartment building children were jumping rope and an impromptu soccer game was in progress. “Hi ya, Mr. Goldschlager! Wanna play with us?” “Sorry, kids. I’ve had a rough day. I think I’ll go rest these tired old bones, if you don’t mind?” The children giggled. The old man enjoyed children and children liked him. But he knew how defensive most parents were these days, and he was embarrassed by their reactions whenever he stopped to speak to their kids. The old man was appalled by the fear he generated whenever he spoke with kids at the playground. Or stopped a young couple to congratulate them on producing the beautiful child they were wheeling in their stroller. His attempts to shake an infant’s hand or stroke underneath a baby’s chin with his finger usually made the parents irritable, and they would quicken their pace. Being around children began to make him feel dangerous and dirty and he hated that feeling. He comforted himself by imagining that one day these parents would understand the desire of the elderly to once again feel the smooth flesh of youth. Touch was a superior memory to any childhood photograph. The old man refused to stop his attempts at making contact with fresh life. Yet despite the humiliation of parental disgust and annoyance, he would always mouth a silent prayer that none of these parents would ever experience his horror of outliving his child. The elevator ride to his eleventh-floor apartment was noisy, slow and as frightening as always. It took him a few minutes of fumbling with his keys, but eventually he gained entrance to his home of forty-seven years. The odor of stale air escaped into the hallway as the door closed behind him. The first thing he did was throw off his sports jacket and switch on the television. He surveyed the apartment. It was filthy. “I will give you a good going over this weekend,” he promised the living room. The old man hobbled into the kitchen to prepare his daily staple of cornflakes and milk with fresh fruit. After eating, he left the dishes on the table next to yesterday’s plates and lunged for the bottle of cognac propped up on the kitchen counter. He shook it and was upset. “Did I drink that much last night?” The old man phoned the liquor store around the corner to order another. The shopkeeper refused to send it until the previous bills were paid in full. Horace apologized and promised to pay when his overdue pension checks arrived. The ploy did not work. Clutching the cognac, he passed from the kitchen through the living room to his bedroom. He paused to raise the volume of his television set. Although he disliked watching it, its voices replaced the music that once echoed through his apartment before the radio shorted out. The babble was comforting. The old man balanced the bottle of cognac on a dusty night table and walked over to a closet. He pulled out a large cardboard box and dragged it to the bed. The old man was surprised at how light the box was becoming. He dipped his hands inside the cardboard box. The clinking of glass accompanied his search. When his fingers locked around a heavy piece of crystal he smiled and pulled up a large, ornate goblet. The old man carefully poured cognac into the crystal goblet. He swallowed it and poured another. And then another until he drained the cognac. He dropped the empty bottle on the floor and it rolled under the bed. Horace stared at the fancy goblet and fingered its engraved designs. When he realized he had no more cognac to pour into it he tried to soothe himself by pressing the cool crystal against his cheek. Sorrow gave way to anger and he heaved the heirloom with all his strength. It crashed into the wall, splintering into pieces of jagged, dangerous glass. About forty minutes ahead of schedule, the old man passed out. Mark Blickley grew up within walking distance of the Bronx Zoo. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center.

More Noise Worth Writing Down My son had too much screen time today, yet I still gave him my phone after his tablet died, reminding me how some parents buy goldfish regularly to replace the dead ones, desperate to keep words like “death” dry enough that it would never dream of sleeping with the fishes, but my six year old son says few words, so his smile is the day at the beach he never asked for and the imaginary roar of make-believe waves another reminder how we can drown in silence only if we choose to. Smothered by the Open Air Charred wood gone cold because the fire has burned out, and smoke gone from sight, distant as a memory of a first kiss, when sweaty palms clutched at the shapeless darkness we call “young love,” but we can never keep hold of it, leaving fingers to eventually go numb, only to search for a pocket for warmth and to try to reassure ourselves we still exist, while trying to forget the lies told by touch that turned night ablaze, until it wasn't. One of my Last Nights in Whycocomagh I remember being drunk enough to think the night sky polluted with tiny specks of flames, only to clean it up with cigar smoke, and a friend pointed out the fireflies, even though his sense dulled by the same canned sunlight we lined up for Fridays after work, as if the darkness that easy to control.

Types of Damage, or The Michelin Man Has a Bad Day Tread Damage happens when someone ignores the warning "don't tread on me" having trod, damage ensues. we were warned. Sidewall Damage you know how when you come out of the bar and you're drunker than you thought? but damn you're good at faking it! until that wall comes out of nowhere, blindsides you. Bead Damage Beady eyes. Always watching. This does not bode well. Failed Tire Repair So damn tired! SO tired. the nap didn't help. Impact Damage is the result of that sidewall thing that happened. If you're lucky, only bruises Undulation Yeah, see, the floor? It's like it's got waves in it. You tried to be good. It didn't work out. *With apologies and thanks to the Uniroyal Tire Company. Kyla Houbolt (she, her) occupies Catawba territory in Gastonia, NC, USA. Her first two chapbooks, Dawn's Fool and Tuned were published in 2020. More about them on her website, https://www.kylahoubolt.com/ Her individually published pieces online can be found on her Linktree, https://linktr.ee/luaz_poet. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet.

You were always reading stories Of girls who did what you could not The ones who searched for spindles, dug their Flesh in and pierced their thumbs, emerged stronger And bloodier and more beautiful and danced off to New adventures, new desires while you Lay on your childhood bed, half-asleep Tired from homework and diets and Exercise routines, flipping the pages of A Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog Knowing your parents were downstairs In separate rooms, watching separate TVs Guarding the home, guarding your dreams So that your mind could not dare to clothe you In the lacy lingerie; your mind couldn’t craft You into something worthy of a different kind of Attention, something more than grades and Graduate schools, something you so desperately Wanted to become, even if it meant possession Even if it meant being awakened by a stranger’s Touch, his tongue, but you would have had to take the Step, had to touch the spindle and you were a Firstborn, coddled and protected and Imprisoned in a world of shouldn’ts and Couldn’ts, so you shrank and slept and Wandered enchanted castles in Reveries: dungeons and towers Beasts and princes, walls weeping moisture On stone and balustrades blooming moon Flowers; you, cursed to make beauty with Your words when you wanted so much to Be beautiful in your body, wanted so much To be a youngest daughter fleeing through The forest, lovely in her loose-limbed Abandon, to be the creature each demon and Every savior yearned to consume; but no Adventurer came to the house your parents Guarded, no one arrived to rescue or ravish you So you slept and by the time you realized you could Only wake yourself, the pearls of moonlight had faded The sun was dull as an old spindle Struggling to pierce through the clouds. Stephanie Parent's poetry has been nominated for a Rhysling Award and Best of the Net. She loves myths and fairy tales, and she's written almost an entire book's worth of fairy tale-inspired poems.

“Look at that.” My wife points across my body as I slow to pull into the driveway. Her arm irritates me, but her tone lets me know not to address it. I squint into the midday sun and follow her finger. The port-a-potty the contractors have set up in front of our new home is tagged. Big block black letters cover almost the entire side. It says “DB Lebo”. At least I think so. I ease the car forward and she starts. “Really? What kind of neighborhood is this? We’re fine at my parents. Why did we rush into this?” I put the car in park and try to gather my thoughts. We are not fine. Another month with her parents and I might just kill one of them. And this neighborhood’s good, gentrifying. “Just some stupid kid probably. I’ll ask Paul,” I say. “Come on. I’m dying to see the kitchen counters.” Paul lives three blocks away, a plus for me about this move, but after our pick-up basketball game, we sit at a bar in an adjacent and hipper neighborhood. I tell him about the tag. “That’s fucked up. I hate that,” he says. “You sound like Sharilyn,” I say. “It’s no big deal, just some punk kid I bet.” “It is a big deal. I thought the hood was done with that crap. But you’re right about the kid,” he says. “You know who did it?” “There are some apartments a few blocks down. Every evening, these kids hang out. Wannabe cholos. Little shits can’t be more than fourteen.” “Cholos?” “You know, the Mexican version of gang-bangers.” I stare at my longtime friend. “That sounds racist.” “Whatever. Probably a gang tag. Could you read it?” “DB something, didn’t make sense. Googled it - nothing.” Paul contemplates his beer. “You got some time?” It’s not dark yet, but I know Sharilyn will be getting in bed soon. Midway through the third trimester, she’s tired all the time. From Paul’s house, we walk in the opposite direction from our place. A couple blocks down, I notice more of the houses have chain fences, with the occasional candy wrapper or plastic bag stuck between their edges and the dirt. Sharilyn would disapprove. Across the street at the end of the block, I see a small apartment complex. A boy jumps his skateboard on and off the sidewalk while another sits on some concrete steps. “That’s them,” Paul says. “Wait,” I say. But he’s into the street and I pick up the pace to keep up. The skateboard kid has straight dark hair and milk chocolate skin. He wears baggy jeans, an oversized t-shirt with a familiar logo that I can’t place, and black Vans. As a teenager, I’d worn the same outfit. The kid sitting has a lighter skin tone and kinky hair. It looks like he could grow an afro if he wanted. I guess that he’s biracial. We stand by the curb in front of them and neither acknowledges our presence. “Hey,” Paul says. The biracial kid looks up. He’s got a pimple on his nose and I flash back to similar issues. He doesn’t speak. The other kid kicks up his skateboard and catches it in his right hand, stopping close to me. I smell a mix of sugar and sweat. “There’s a house about six blocks away. Corner house, light blue with green shutters – know it?” The boys shrug. “Paul.” I touch his arm. He pulls it back and looks from one boy to the other. “What do you know about a certain tag near the house?” I visualize the port-a-potty, feel ridiculous, and want to leave. The boy with the skateboard speaks, looking up at Paul. “You accusin’?” He’s trying to be hard but his free hand twitches against his thigh. “I got this,” the seated boy says, looking at me rather than Paul. “You buy that house?” “Yes,” I say. “What’s it to you?” Paul says. As a response, the boy pulls out his phone and snaps two pictures in our direction. “What the fuck?” Paul says. “I know that house,” the boy says. “I’ll ask my mom to look it up. She works at the courthouse. Course maybe a reverse image search will find both of you first.” He looks at his phone. Paul’s face has gone red and I hear a laugh from the skateboard boy. The seated boy stands. “Forgot to mention, my mom’s dating a civil rights lawyer. He could probably use another case about now.” He slides the phone in the pocket of his baggy jeans and looks at his friend. “Let’s bounce. We’re mama’s boys, can’t be out here too late.” I hear the skateboard hit the ground then the sound of the wheels on pavement. The boys leave. I glare at Paul who looks stunned. Back home, I’m grateful that my in-laws are watching a movie so no conversation is required. I pour a full glass of red wine and remember some emails I need to answer. Instead, I Google civil rights laws and defamatory speech. I drink more wine and pee three times before crawling into bed. I spoon Sharilyn and place my hand on her taut belly. The baby – my son – kicks right away. Sharilyn gives a low moan. My son kicks again and Sharilyn shudders. She pushes my hand away. “You’re riling him up, he wants to play,” she says. I pull my arm off her. “How’d it go with Paul?” “He’s turning into kind of an asshole.” “Hmm,” she says. I’m grateful she says no more. I know she shares that opinion. We lie there, her breathing deepens and I think she may have gone back to sleep. I have to pee again. “I might have overreacted earlier,” she says. “You know with the porta toilet thing.” I squeeze her leg. “The counters look great. It’s turning into a beautiful home,” she says. I lean forward, kiss the back of her neck, and hoist myself up to go to the bathroom. An almost full moon brightens the room as I lie awake, awaiting dawn and a reasonable time to get up. Sharilyn snores lightly beside me. I consider the symmetry of ages. In fourteen years, my son will be the age of those boys, and they’ll be my age. Men. And I’ll have been a father for fourteen years. A good one, I hope. But I’m not sure. A word from the author: The port-a-potty tag was just down the street and the anxieties of getting it wrong as a parent never fully leave. I teach math and write fiction.

Chris Baxter was the new guy at SubWorks Sandwich Factory. He had a head like a cube, bushy eyebrows like caterpillars, and drove a rusted out Chevrolet Chevette with Iowa plates. He was from Dubuque and worked his hometown into every conversation. “Back in Dubuque we used to huff paint thinner by the riverbank,” he told me as we sliced vegetables together at the prep table. “Then we’d go over to Spider’s house and take acid and listen to Butthole Surfers.” “Oh yeah?” “There was always rad shit happening in Dubuque.” I tried not to be defensive. “Omaha’s cool too.” “It’s alright,” he said, feeding bell peppers into the crank slicer. “But back home in Dubuque it was easier to get drugs.” For reasons beyond our understanding drugs were scarce. Even small quantities of pot, normally cheap and plentiful, were unavailable from the usual sources. What a time to be alive, bored stiff and living through the drought of 1995 on minimum wage. “It can’t stay dry forever.” “I hope you’re right because I’m losing my fucking mind here. Back in Dubuque there were hot girls. Nebraska girls are fugly.” Girls from either state weren’t lining up to fuck us. Who wants a guy who works for minimum wage and reeks of onions? Chris offered to drive me home after work, but the Chevette wouldn’t start. Instead of walking for help at the 7-11 down the block we smoked cigarettes in the parking lot, waiting for someone to drive by for a jump start. “I’m so fucking desperate to get high,” said Chris. “I can check in with my weed guy again,” I offered. “He told me he was hoping to get a quarter pound of dank buds sometime soon.” “Call that motherfucker!” No luck. Omaha was the new dust bowl. Chris stood on the edge of the road, waving his jumper cables at passing cars. Eventually a guy in a Ford F-150 pulled in to help; a wispy, no-nonsense older gentleman with tightly furrowed wrinkles. He popped open the hood of his truck, and five minutes later Chris and I were in the Taco Bell drive-thru listening to The Melvins on the Chevette’s tinny speakers. “These guys played the Capitol Bar a few months ago." “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen The Melvins,” said Chris. “Dubuque is practically their second home.” We ordered burritos and ate in the parking lot. • There was nothing to do after that, so we drove around in circles. They called it cruising, and it was the thing to do when there was nothing else to do. Carfuls of drugless young midwesterners going out of their minds. “Back in Dubuque there were bonfires every Saturday night,” said Chris. “We’d get cases of Keystone Light and drink until we puked.” “I can’t wait until I’m 21 so I can get drunk.” “My older brother Kenny used to buy us beer. Now he’s in jail.” “What’d he do?” “Armed robbery. Three years for being the lookout. That’s why I’m here, I used to live with Kenny but when he went to prison I came to live with my Aunt and Uncle.” “Jesus Christ.” Chris accelerated through a yellow light in the instant before it turned red and pulled into the Walgreens parking lot at the top of the hill. “I gotta get fucked up tonight,” he said. “Are you with me?” “I wanna get fucked up too.” “Have you ever taken Robitussin? It’s a cold medicine, but if you drink the entire bottle, time slows down and you end up tripping balls.” “From Robitussin?” “Yeah, but it’s got to be the kind that says DM on the package. The active ingredient is hallucinogenic.” “How much should we take?” “Two bottles each should put us in another dimension.” Chris sent me into the Pharmacy. I found the Robitussin in the cough and cold aisle. I inspected each package carefully to ensure we were getting the highest possible dosage of the active ingredient. I put the Robitussin in a handbasket along with a bag of Werther’s Originals and a copy of Guns & Ammo magazine. “Is that everything for you?” said the woman at checkout. I nodded. The woman scanned the magazine and the candies, but paused when she saw four boxes of Robitussin DM. “I’m afraid I can only sell you two boxes of cough syrup at a time.” “Why is that?” “It’s flagged as a frequently abused item in the store database.” “Look, I’m Mormon. I’m the oldest of eight siblings and we’ve got a bug going around right now, terrible stuff. I got sent out for medicine because I haven’t got the cough yet.” The clerk folded her arms across her chest. She wasn’t buying the story. “You’re Mormon?” “Yes ma’am,” I said. “I just want to do right for my brothers and sisters. I don’t want to see them wheezing and coughing like hyenas. I shouldn’t even be here, because I’ve potentially been exposed to whatever is causing the cough. If you help me out, I’ll add your name to our daily prayer list.” She scanned the remaining boxes. “Fine, but if I see you buying any more psychoactive cough syrup I will call the authorities. We take over-the-counter medicine abuse very seriously.” “Thank you, I knew you were one of God’s people I gave Chris a thumbs-up and got back in the car. As he drove us to his aunt and uncle’s house on the edge of town I told him about how the clerk bought my Mormon sob story. “That’s brilliant,” he said. “Back in Dubuque the pharmacies could be dicks about buying more than one package of Robitussin. Sometimes we’d have to go to two or three different stores to get enough to get fucked up on.” “You should’ve seen her face when I told her I was going to put her name on my prayer list. Her eyes nearly popped out of her skull.” Chris pulled into the driveway at his aunt and uncle’s split-level house but no one was home. “They go to the casino on Friday nights,” he explained as he unlocked the front door. He led me down a half-flight of stairs into a shag carpeted rec. room. The wood panelling and velvet Elvis painting were relics of the 70’s. Also in the room was a large stereo system, a dartboard, a red lava lamp, a bear’s head rug, a glass coffee table, and two plush leather sofas that had seen better days. “Whatcha think?” “This place is fucking awesome. Who killed the bear?” “Nobody. My uncle got it at a flea market. I don’t think it’s real.” “Either way, it’s badass.” Chris loaded a Primus CD into the stereo. It sounded ferocious on his uncle’s top-of-the-line speakers. He brought two glasses of water and a large plastic bowl down from the kitchen. “Are you ready to trip your balls off?” “Bring it on." We each opened a box of Robitussin and cracked through the child-proof safety caps. “You’ll want to drink it fast, but not too fast because you might puke. It says raspberry flavoured, but it tastes like shit. If you’re gonna throw up, make sure you get it in the bowl and not on the shag carpet, or else my uncle will beat my ass.”.” Chris tossed his cube-shaped head back and chugged. Then it was my turn. The Robitussin was thick and sickly sweet. I drank half the bottle and felt the urge to vomit. I grabbed the bowl, but kept it down. Chris was already cracking the cap on his second bottle. “This shit is nasty,” I said. “Just wait until you’re drooling into the carpet.” I got the first bottle down and started on my second. I felt myself drifting into an altered state. At first it was a sensation in my ears, like a Nitrous Oxide buzz, but soon it started to impact my perception of the room. Time slowed down. Objects in my field of vision appeared shimmery and distorted, as if I was looking at everything through a rippling mountain stream. My motor skills failed and I found myself, as predicted, drooling into the carpet, face-to-face with the carpet bear’s toothy grin. I was so close I thought I could see plaque on its long sharp teeth. “I’m so fucked up,” said Chris. “I feel like my heart’s gonna stop.” I started laughing. The Robitussin in my system made everything funny. “This isn’t funny, dude, I think I’m fucking dying.” I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees and crawled over to him. He was face down in the shag carpet and convulsing involuntarily. His skin was pale and grey like aliens in movies. “You should make yourself puke.” “I never had to make myself puke back in Dubuque.” “You might feel better. Lemme get the bowl.” I crawled slowly through the thick carpet. It seemed like it was alive and growing taller. I pictured amber waves of grain as I retrieved the bowl from the coffee table. “Here,” I said. “Puke into this.” “You’re a demon and you’re trying to fuck with my head just like you did back in Dubuque.” Chris started crying. His trip was going all wrong. “I’m Jason from Sub Works Sandwich Factory, remember? I’m not some demon.” Chris pushed himself up onto his knees. His eyes rolled back in his head and he became completely unhinged. “Devil, I cast thee out of this house!” he shouted. “I smote thee with my righteous fury! I condemn thee to eternal damnation!” “You’re killing my buzz,” I slapped him across the face. “Get a grip, you’re just having a bad trip.” Chris collapsed on the shag carpet and sobbed into his hands. “Why does this always happen to me?” “If you make yourself puke you’ll feel a lot better.” I slid the bowl across the carpet. Chris leaned over it and stuck his fingers deep into his throat. He dry-heaved a couple times before it came up, in short hot bursts. Pieces of tomato and lettuce from his burrito floated in a sea of raspberry Robitussin. Taco Bell seemed so long ago. “That’s it, get it all out,” I said. “Doesn’t that feel better?” Chris looked at me. His eyes were watery and stomach fluids oozed from his nose, but he looked better, as if the worst part of the trip was over. “Where am I?” “You’re at your aunt and uncle’s house in Omaha.” “Am I dead?” “You look like death but you’re still alive.” “I miss Dubuque.” • Chris eventually mellowed. Without having to babysit, I could finally relax and enjoy the psychotropic effects of Robitussin. I put Jane’s Addiction on the stereo and flipped through my copy of Guns & Ammo, wondering what it would be like to shoot a human head. Chris’s aunt and uncle got home from the casino as I contemplated the physics. “What the hell is going on here?” demanded Chris’ uncle. “Turn down this goddamn music and answer me.” “He invited me over to listen to music,” I gestured at Chris, who was writhing face-down on the shag carpet and giggling uncontrollably. “We work together at SubWorks Sandwich Factory and we like the same music.” The uncle surveyed the room. Four empty bottles of Robitussin DM and a large plastic bowl of vomit sat on the glass coffee table. He shook his head. “Drinking cough syrup?” I shrugged. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.” “This shit fucks you up,” said Chris. “The devil chased me here all the way from Dubuque!” “You haven’t been huffing paint again,” said the uncle. “You’ve already been to rehab once for solvent abuse.” “Rehab?” said Chris. “Fuck that place.” “Get your things” the uncle told me. “I’ll drive you home.” The presence of reasonable adults sobered me quickly. I climbed into the passenger seat of the uncle’s Ford Ranger and buckled my seatbelt. “Where’s your place?” “Just drop me off at SubWorks,” I said. “My parents will kill me if I come home tripping on Robitussin. I have a key to the store and can sleep in the back on the prep table.” “You seem like a good kid. Why are you hanging out with Chris?” “I don’t know, he seems okay.” “He’s got a lot of problems,” said the uncle. “His brother went to prison and we’ve been trying to give him some structure in his life.” “He said his brother was railroaded, that he was just the lookout.” “That’s what Chris wants to believe. He loves his brother, but the truth is he was a bad dude. He got in over his head and started robbing gas stations.” The uncle pulled into the SubWorks parking lot. “It would probably be for the best if you stopped hanging around Chris. I’m afraid he might be going down his brother’s path.” • I woke up hours later in the back room of SubWorks Sandwich Factory, naked on the prep table with a dry mouth and pounding headache. The morning shift workers would be arriving any minute. I dressed myself and poured a Mountain Dew from the soda machine. It was cold and sweet, but my stomach couldn’t handle it after a night on Robitussin. I threw up into the prep sink, rinsed away the chunks, found a piece of paper at the manager’s desk and started writing. I, Jason Robertson, being of sound mind and body hereby resign from my position as Associate Sandwich Builder effective immediately. My tenure at SubWorks has been one of my greatest pleasures thus far, but all good things must end. I must pursue the next steps in my career advancement outside the sandwich industry. I affixed my notice to the cork board with a pushpin and left without locking the door. I walked to the pay phone and vowed never to abuse over-the-counter medicine again. I dialled my weed guy. There was good news, the drought of ’95 was over. J. Archer Avary (he/him) was born in the USA and now lives in Northeast England. He used to be a TV weatherman and is the EIC of Sledgehammer Lit. @j_archer_avary

Spilled Abstractions Flowers emerge a seasonal blossoming finds them on the front lines that separate liquidity from gravity nature as we understand it is a battlefield we ourselves are floral from within an explosion of color and deviation the bifurcation of working systems the border erased the gauntness of integument a knife drawn a shattered sternum the redness of mouths that spill paint onto canvas Jackson Pollock as an angel in steel capped boots a set of wings as broad as eyelids that quietly close and hunch into silent winter. Woodstock Glass In Woodstock I looked into the glass and there I found me lost in the layers of inside and out of cars and street and the baubles for sale behind the panes I was there as a man but also there as a kind of monster both of those things in parallel indivisible I held no malice against this town that trapped and crystallized me creating the sudden perception of life inside that cold transparency holding me immobile despite your presence at my shoulder. Cavities Noiseless shaping cavities into walls of cartilage stained with mucus and the thrash of breathing as you gasp for gasp for gasp for the possible air the cold clean air of winter’s dryness the grasping air that twists you into shape and back to the present tense into a world of premonition where you gasp again for the pinkness of gum for the elasticity of clean fresh artery that mainlines from wisdom to repudiation and now your breath catches as your lungs burst into flame and your heart is only meat is only a charred and flaming token of a memory. Floating If only we could float -- then surely the air would be thicker layers of coldness and solidity that the light must fight to penetrate and trees would stub their leafy twigs against an unexpected hardness as we rested our gin and tonic upon a slowly drifting slab of density somewhere higher than we ever dreamed of reaching climbing upon an invisible staircase to a place where we could throw our bodies down and there we would sleep and dream of the plasticity of the fabric of everything lost in visions of the drifting twists of cloudsmoke. Poet and songwriter Paul Ilechko is the author of three chapbooks, most recently “Pain Sections” (Alien Buddha Press). His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including The Night Heron Barks, Rogue Agent, Ethel, Lullwater Review, and Book of Matches. His first album, "Meeting Points", was released in 2021.