Search Results

irreconcilable breakdown my wife told me to take a bath then she handed me a folding knife and told me to do it right this time you see two years ago i tried to hang myself in the garage but my belt from Marshall's broke and she had to take me to the ER i fractured my C-2 when i fell from the beam since then she has openly cuckolded me our youngest just went off to college my wife is living with her boyfriend she's just here to grab some things and run a bath for me she said she needs her passport and my mastercard she and what's his name are going to turks and caicos the falling out between Kaye Swiss, Esq. and the Knights of Columbus Kaye Swiss stopped off at the outback steakhouse across the street from the mall of america and perked up his ears as per his wont he was thinking of a little rum drink and the prospect of his giza dream sheets from my pillow well he decided to stay for a sixth rum and coke and he picked up on a conversation across the bar most discrete and the like there was a group from the Knights of Columbus they were in a conversation most confidential so Kaye was naturally inclined to listen in about a possible retainer, &c. to do so he thought it most apropos to order himself a little white russian nightcap, &c. well one of the knights had a gimlet eye and picked up on Kaye, see he could spot an ambulance chaser from 10 miles off so he told his crew to go all sotto voce and the fucking like lest Kaye gets wind of their business, &c. well you should know if you don't already that Kaye was born with a most apropos gimlet eye himself and his eye didn't just twitch it twerked all beside itself Kaye drew up near the group of knights where he naturally asked pardon or asked that he be given leave something technical with a touch of ipse dixit and a dash of the retort courteous, see Kaye naturally said he knew a good lawyer in town, the one who offices next to The Buckle and enjoys his orange julius and brandy, &c. well so Kaye pulled out his business cards and his pocket edition of poor richard's almanac and went to town on the knights by reading them a little passage he went on for about a half hour and the knights were all polite on account of a good breeding and manners attendant upon their rank and file but at the end of Kaye's little soapy-eyed speech and his quotations from the Constitution as he sees it and some other ramblings that revealed not a smidge but a smudge of dutch courage and such it was then &c. that Kaye dropped the bill for his services, not a paid invoice but from his lips $175 for the half hour of blarney, dig well, that didn't sit well with the knights not as they saw it and such and who boycotted the payment &c. while ordering wings &c. they folded their arms in true style and told Kaye he wouldn't get so much as a wagon wheel (which Kaye took as a silver dollar insult) they stood on ceremony to the point where Kaye exploded on them, called them all father fuckers from squaresville and set off three smoke bombs all tri-colored right there in the outback steakhouse in order to make his usual exit and the like the bartender asked after the knights to try and square the beef but all they knew was that some most psychopathic counselor-at-law, esq. and the like made yackety-yack and beat it a faint pleading legal beagle, his crumpled suit reeking of an otto of brandy and julius collar stays in the shapes of stalagmites and cuff links by K Swiss jaundiced eyeballs aching in yellow shades veiny, trembling hands, bloodshot crosses a scar from here to there, he was the lawyer with the teardrop tattoo magic dancing john had kids, 4, 6, and 7 he was redoing the main bath himself he was changing out the light switches he forgot to turn the breakers off john got a good zap that sent him spinning and swearing his heart felt like it was going to explode his whole body was trembling he got pissed and ran to the fridge for drinks he got there, and started chugging beers he polished off eight beers in a row it was the time dad got electrocuted and drank his ass off but the kids only knew it as "the time dad got struck by magic and danced to tell the refrigerator." friday morning, march blaring "day O" by harry belafonte to try and smoke my wife out from under the covers i have the speakers set up at the bottom of the stairs and aimed up at the bedroom it's my opening shot in the dog days of our private war christ, what battles will there be today? what hills will i die on? maybe today she'll get a lawyer while i'm at work things have gone down hill thanks god we don't have kids i'm ready to move on i think i'll go back to my stag days where all of my friends were women who were older and fatter and drunker than 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.

A Walk into Light Midnight trails between my toes, I pace the garden’s perimeter, as if mapping a treasure hunt, squirrelling eggs. This is not my home. From each plant: a leaf, a petal uncurled onto my tongue like wafer. Each a new word: joy, forgiveness silence. I pause for Fibonacci to show himself in leaflets, stamens – me – expound infinite scriptures across my tongue. Through the dark I taste a nettle-green promise. Blossom melts, hope-flavoured as fleeting as sky. All the Skin I Have Did you cut your teeth on the injustice of it all? Was the answer always too far away, never a long enough stick to hand? Did they mock you? For the sounds and smells nights you wound it all about you like a pain to be crushed, squeezed into submission? They have all left their marks. Brands, tattoos, scars, each and every one invisible. Making Jelly From the pick when we weaved together meeting at prickled ends, smiles stained to the smush and squash, the squeeze of a scarlet muslin, hung like a stick-bladder dripping, syrupy, into the Mason Cash. I never really asked what, why; watched you like telly and asked to squidge the fruit bag: worse than a nappy, a bleed, sating enough for a onetimeonly into the bowl. I think of it now, pressing sauce lumps with the back of a spoon. It feels like a lesson.

New York is a town that contains many people. The people are like rats, except instead of tails they have no tails and instead of four grimy little rodent paws they have two normal human feet. Sometimes when I am on the subway I try to count the people I see all around me. One, two, three. Four, five, six. And so on. Seven, eight, nine. I could go higher(1)—but I think you get the point. There are, of course, more than nine people on the subway at rush hour (when I typically avail myself of mass transit). I take the 4/5/6 line, but its name does not derive from the presence of only 4, 5, or 6 people riding it at any given time. No, there are definitely more people than ________________ (1)For example: Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five. I could go even higher than this, but by now I’m sure you get the point. that—at least during the times that I ride it! It is called the 4/5/6 for some other reason. You can probably look it up on Wikipedia. I’m not interested in the facts of this great city, if you want to know the truth. I’m interested in its essence. The crazy mundanity; the mundane insanity—the street-corner buskers and the sidewalk artists. The pizza rats and the Thomas Friedmans. The people who make the city go, who watch it go, who go from it and return. The mole people who live in our subway tunnels and our sewers, waiting to pop up from our toilets and take a big old bite out of our butts. In a way, the mole people are the perfect distillation of New York. Robbed, beaten up, abused by the metropolis and yet unwilling or unable to leave. They survive by feeding on the people who have not yet known suffering. They bite the butts of those people to teach them suffering. To me, New York is its sidewalks, its pedestrians(2), its pigeons and its pigeon ladies. It is the arguments between the aforementioned pigeon ladies and the Wall Street Fat Cats who live in the buildings outside which the pigeons take their meals. ________________ (2)Pedestrians are of particular importance. As Jane Jacobs pointed out in The Death and Life of American Cities, “eyes on the street” shape our urban communities and keep them safe and thriving. She refers to the daily bustle on city streets and sidewalks as “an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole.” Of course, it must be understood that while Jacobs was undoubtedly brilliant, Death and Life is nevertheless a product of its somewhat less enlightened time. A time, sadly, that couldn’t spare a moment to acknowledge the importance of the eyes under the street. Yes, I am talking about the mole people, of course. A blurb from the author: "This is a stirring ode to the greatest city on earth. It is a fully-realized version of what E.B. White was trying to accomplish when he wrote "Here is New York." It contains footnotes about mole people. In fact, there's a lot of mole people content in here. The author may have gotten a bit carried away."

The Toll of Fame Loki has traveled to Iceland again. Loki is not, technically, at home in Iceland, but it feels right. Better than most places. It feels, breath woven icy into wind, like Asgard when he was a child. Loki knows he is a murder mystery without conclusion motive or causation. Hollywood won’t allow him to go back to what he was. Enough is enough already, he wants to say. Find someone else to be your antihero. He turns, back to the mist-held fjord, land a troll’s ribcage. Bleached bone. Green cloak dusting kneecaps, fur soft at his clavicle. He doesn’t always have to look this way. Doesn’t always have to be Tom. He can be anyone. Anything. But the world has given him this body to inhabit: lambskin boots dissolving into heat without water. Heat lightning a reminder of Thor across a bloody gash in the cosmos. God, Jotun, Actor, Illusion, Truth—these are all words, but words can inhibit as much as they can define. Loki is sour-sweet blueberries against the tongue. Loki is wine within a piano to better make a bath. It often still rains in Reykjavík while the northern towns collapse into snow. Here, now, over him, the sun only lifts for a few hours a day. This country, golden for a buttered slice, bears an uncanny resemblance to a collar clasping a throat. Repository, or a New Prayer A blindfold the color of eels or sand pushed rough through stone or air siphoned from a ghost and sold skyward or loneliness metastasizing in the dark or a hand reaching for dirt or melanoma on a beloved forehead or how all kneeling is supplication or a cat o’ nine tails making rivers of a stranger’s back or sex like juniper smells or a lamp’s shadow tricking dying eyes into sight or two starlit boys kissing in secret or a hungriness gathering the last of the milk at the bottom of the bowl to shape an ocean. Jared Povanda is a writer, poet, and freelance editor from upstate New York. He also wishes, sometimes, that he could be a do-nothing king.

All Things Are Poison, And Nothing Is The sleek silhouettes and tips of their words Dropped like wrappers on footpaths in the night Go playing darkness, darkness, darkness – light! With my blended-egg-yolk brain. It writhes, kneads Pain, sloshing and frothing behind the beads They call my eyes. Past all their cries I slide, and from the pulsing crook of birds’ Wings pressed into floating foam, I wring out A truth strong and clear as a child’s mad shout, And as brutally shushed. I drop away Return to them and the barbed every-day. I conjure mists, they martel through in glee, So I turn to this. Cubes of death and bliss, Come. Sweeten and quicken this draught for me. Dwarf Planet My rocks, orbiting the relentless Sun Ache more than yours, o Earth. Two hundred years Of your giddy merry-go-round, and one Year of my toil is not done. Yet your spears – Whom may Time soon rend! – Your tubes tilted to the sky, peering past Your single serene Moon bathed in sunlight Sufficed to cast me out! So, yours will last As my five dim, melt into their own night, Seeking their own end, Betrayed by the System. Even Neptune, My first neighbour, my best friend, turns away From me now, for the Sun too sings your tune And calls me ice-dwarf. Earth, do you betray Thus all you befriend? It’s Pure Laziness, I Tell You The bones plant me firmly on the work-chair The eyes rivet themselves to the right screen - Down comes the monkey and steals the brain’s keys. The lizard clicks at it with a sour glare Screaming of deadlines and of being seen Idling thus. Terror seeps into the knees But the monkey will not yield me the keys No the monkey will not yield me the keys, Though down in the curling stomach’s last pit The magma whispers to the flaking crust ‘Nothing really does rhyme with horror No terror nor honour nor humour fit This bill. Break now, weakling. For I too must Have my day in the sun to turn purple.’ But when the crust erupts, laughing though dead It pours out a murky white stained with red. Vulture Your kite is a scavenger, just like me Yet with the kite you soar, rejoice In its dive, yearn to fly as far and free. Your hearts lift, not stop, at its cry. For I am the one you bind to the death You cause. The one waiting for breath To fade out of the children you famished. I am the ill-omen, banished - Your hawk is a scavenger, just like me And not just when it has no choice Your symbol of valour and grace can be Found stripping the dead just like I When all is said and done, I will still repel you. Could it be Quite simply That you find me ugly? Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Plainsongs, Microverses, Sylvia Magazine, Better Than Starbucks, Post, Wine Cellar Press, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her. Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez

Sister How regally you sit in funerary black— a touch of blush, collar, torn, and lips, naked as the day you were born— by the wedding silver. Remember me, sister, Mother’s little king that faded into chairs and the dark of lonely corners (now erudite and battle-worn)? What magical current settled you, there, in that chair at father’s table (at the right hand of God). O, dandelion in the wind, how glorious the ride on Zephyr’s wings, to and fro, deep-diving into life in rushes and bounds—without care— with velocity that keeps delicate fingers unsoiled and pristine for the turning of a registered page. So glad to see you slip-in, mayfly, from your lingerings in the periphery, far, far away from the rank skin-stink of pill dust, sweat, and soiled linens. No. Absence’s subtle bouquet, riding your forgetful breezes suits you best like a signature scent. How the call of home (or better things) must pull your teary eyes from the antique, porcelain chickens— so gingerly fingered on the china hutch— out of the dining room window and away. Now, come sit by me, sister, and let’s have a drink, here by the gold watch she left on the windowsill, and let’s toast to you and me, and the mess she left behind. The Healing Clock Memories fade (like hours) and fall away, lost down the crack between the bed and the wall— dissolving images in dusty frames, slipping the catch of rusty nails down yellowed wallpaper in thudless freefall. The shadow you left behind retreats, silently, with each rising of my morning sun, behind that thick curtain of red velvet to take your rightful place at the head of our communal table for the jubilee. The gentle angles of your face. The plumpness of your cheek. Even those sad eyes of brown that smile, escape me like ashes in the wind. All are just the stuff of legends, now. David Estringel is a Xicanx writer/poet with works published in literary publications, such as The Opiate, Azahares, Cephalorpress, Lahar, Poetry Ni, DREICH, Rigorous, Somos En Escrito, Hispanecdotes, Ethel, The Milk House, Beir Bua Journal, and The Blue Nib. His first collection of poetry and short fiction Indelible Fingerprints was published in April 2019, followed by three poetry chapbooks, Punctures (2019), PeripherieS (2020), and Eating Pears on the Rooftop (coming 2022). His new book of micro poetry little punctures, a collaboration with UK illustrator, Luca Bowles, will be released in 2022 Connect with David on Twitter @The_Booky_Man and his website www.davidaestringel.com.

“You know the stolen vehicle from that police chase in the city last week? The one that wrecked with a mother of five? Well, that was mine.” The subject came out of nowhere, sucker-punching her with the suddenness of its violence. Her body had been relaxed at first. She had worked at this place for 10 years and had good relationships with her coworkers. She had seen this man before; he’d come to work on the office security systems a few times, but he had waited to address her until just now, half-up a ladder and towering over her desk. She froze reflexively and stopped breathing for a moment. “Wait, “she said, “was it YOU?” “Na, na…” he chuckled slightly and took off his stained baseball hat, exposing his paltry threads of graying hair. He wiped his hand across his slick forehead. “She died though.” “My God.” She put her hand to her mouth in shock. What do you say to this kind of information being thrust in your direction on a Wednesday? He continued without prompting. He kept puckering his mouth like an asshole to keep the spittle from raining down on her. Excited, his belly shook, punctuating his convictions. She remembers it like this: Insurance: “They’d better total it! I mean what the hell, it wasn’t MY fault this guy got out on that new bail reform law! They are letting these thugs out for violent crimes and then this happens!” The Cops: “Yeah, the cops told me the black box in my car said the guy was going 80 miles an hour when he hit her! These boys were great; they apologized for my inconvenience over and over again. They’re gonna tell me all about this guy later.” “The Higher-Ups”: “I want a new vehicle! I shouldn’t have to drive that car after this! My insurance company keeps saying they need to talk to the Higher-Ups about my situation, but I know people and I WILL go to the media if I’m not satisfied. These Higher-Ups better be careful. “ Victim Blaming: “That woman, she was pregnant —WITH ANOTHER ONE! I mean she already had FIVE! And the cops told me she didn’t have insurance.” She stood stock-still, her mask disguising her disgust. She felt held hostage, wondering if it was possible that he was venting because he felt traumatized. No, his eyes were red and barely making contact with hers. Was it his nonchalant dismissal of the death of a beloved mother, and the now-parentless children, and the dead baby? Or was it his absolute certainty that HE was the real victim here that made her hate him? It reminded her of the time she was stuck in line at the DMV behind two men who chatted openly and loudly about what bitches their wives were and the lies they told just to get some peace and quiet. As if what they had to say was of the utmost importance and universally accepted as true. THEY were the real victims in this world, and it was high time we all knew it. She remembered her heart beating in her ears. She had longed to tell them about her ex-husband, and his midnight texts and the smell of another woman’s body on his face. About the humiliation of gaslighting, about a paralysis perpetrated by audacity that left one unable to defend themself. About the certainty that he was telling similar stories to similar men stuck in lines just like these about her. She stood quietly then, her eyes transfixed just beyond the man still babbling to no one. The wall behind him held a glass case that contained a fire extinguisher. An ax rested just beneath it, as glass can be tricky to shatter otherwise. The sign above the case read “Break for Emergencies Only.” It was then, in the fog of this memory, she decided to kill him.

map (of) rust i rode the wings of the great beast: you. in time, in turn, your hopeless melody— you sit in the dandelion skulls with piano keys under your eyes to dine in the death voice of your sadist mind. you brought fire to the snow, each touched lost their individuality, becoming all the rest, a drop. my morning mother my mother slept adversely. though through the night her face unfolded. it smoothed over. her lips were pink earthworms. her tongue became sober, a softened sword. in bed she was a cocoon, half-exposed. anxiously at the wound i sleep in the fog of your morning breath in the overspill we disappear catching the hook, the dream glints in the murky water glimpses i shape into your image // i wake, empty headed afraid confused weights sewn into my palms where are you the cold wraps me like a grave john compton (b. 1987) is gay poet who lives in kentucky. he lives in a tiny town, with his husband josh and their 3 dogs and 2 cats. his poetry is a personal journey. he reaches for things close and far, trying to give them life: growing up gay; having mental health issues; a journey into his childhood; the world that surrounds us. he writes to be alive, to learn and to grow. he loves imagery, metaphor, simile, abstract language, sounds, when one word can drift you into another direction. he loves playing with vocabulary, creating texture and emotions. he has published 2 books and 5 chapbooks published and forthcoming: [books]: trainride elsewhere (august 2016) from Pressed Wafer; stranger in the attic of clouds (tba) from dead man's press inc; [chapbooks]: that moan like a saxophone (december 2016) from kindle; ampersand (march 2018) from Plan B Press; a child growing wild inside the mothering womb (june 2020) from ghost city press; i saw god cooking children / paint their bones (oct 2020) from blood pudding press; to wash all the pretty things off my skin (sept 2021) from ethel zine & micro-press. he has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.

MONK “None of you are called to cure the broken people in your life,” the monk teaches. “You’re called to care.” Kayla is sitting cross-legged on a meditation pillow like everyone else in the auditorium. She’s out in the desert this week, staying at a Buddhist Center to attend a retreat. Five days of Dhamma classes, sitting meditations, walking meditations, and private sessions with counselors. Today is the third day of the retreat. “If you’re emotionally exhausted it’s because you’re trying to cure broken people,” the monk continues. “Caring often brings more healing to someone than any attempt to cure.” A few minutes later the bell rings to end the class, and everyone moves outside for a walking meditation. Attending this retreat was the best gift Kayla could have given herself. Her job as a social worker has been heartbreaking this year. So many sad people and situations. It’s been difficult to remain hopeful. During the walking meditation she can’t stop thinking about the monk and how he said she’s called to care, not cure. The bell rings to begin the next class, and everyone heads back to the auditorium. But not Kayla. Not this time. Instead she hurries down the path to her room, packs her suitcase, and leaves. As soon as she arrives in the city she parks in front of a large building and rushes inside before she can change her mind. A volunteer guides her from one room to the next to help her find what she’s looking for. “This one,” Kayla says, pointing to a small pen. The Humane Society volunteer opens the door and hands the Chihuahua to Kayla. “I need a dog that will care about me while I care for others,” Kayla says, smiling when the tiny dog nuzzles her neck. “He’s a sweet soul,” the volunteer replies. “What will you name him?” The little Chihuahua rests his head on Kayla’s shoulder. “Monk,” Kayla says. “His name is Monk.” A SLICE OF PIZZA This is the best vegan pizza Evelyn has ever eaten. It’s over an inch thick, layered with vegetables, vegan sausage, and vegan cheese on a puffy rice crust. Unable to finish it, she saves a slice for a homeless man she saw in the park. But when she leaves the restaurant she can’t find him. All she sees is an elderly man dressed in shabby clothes walking toward her on the sidewalk. “Can I ask you something?” Evelyn says to the man. “Are you homeless?” He snorts in response. “Of course not!” he exclaims. “Do I look homeless?” Evelyn offers the pizza box. “Then you wouldn’t want this slice of pizza I saved for a homeless person,” she says. He snatches the box from her hands. “I didn’t say that,” he says. Sitting on a low wall next to the sidewalk, he balances the box on his lap. “It’s vegan,” she warns. He opens the lid. “I don’t care,” he says. “Pizza is pizza.” While he eats, they talk about his grown children, his wife who recently passed away, the marketing conference Evelyn is attending in this city, and her online boyfriend who can never seem to meet her offline. “You’re a nice lady,” the man says when he finishes the pizza. “You deserve to be treated well.” Walking to her hotel, Evelyn feels her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. It’s an email. He’s back. And right on schedule, just like her girlfriends predicted. Now she knows why her boyfriend acts so moody and erratic. He’ll treat her like a queen for a few weeks. Then pick a fight and disappear. A month later he’ll reappear as if nothing happened. Thank goodness for girlfriends who know about internet predators and men who catfish women online. She deletes his email and blocks him. Thank goodness for girlfriends who treat her well. Thank. Goodness. DO WHAT YOU LOVE This is one of those mornings when the sun streams through the bedroom window, toasty and warm, and all I want to do is roll over and bury my face in the pillow. To pretend I didn’t hear my alarm clock. To forget that it’s time to get up and go to work at the accounting firm where I’m a partner. If I were an electrician, for example, I could stay in bed and sleep. Why? Because it’s Sunday, and electricians don’t work on Sunday. But I’m an accountant, and it’s tax season. And you know what that means: I have no life. Not this time of year. On the other hand, if I were an electrician I wouldn’t work in a nice, air-conditioned accounting office all day. And I’d miss that. I would. Instead I might be like the electrician who tackled my punch list when we built our house years ago. One afternoon I heard laughter coming from the second floor. I walked upstairs to find the bathroom door open, and the electrician on a stepladder, replacing the fan in the ceiling. My energetic kitten dangled from his shoe. Pumping his leg up and down, the electrician couldn’t stop laughing, as he gently swung the kitten back and forth in the air like a pendulum, his shoestring clenched between her teeth. Obviously, this electrician loved his job. But I’m not an electrician with a crazy kitten dangling from my shoe. I’m an accountant, and the thought of working with electricity terrifies me. I’d much rather work with numbers in a nice, air-conditioned office. After all, we should do what we love, right? Okay then. Good to have that settled. Now I can get up and go to work. Laura Stamps loves to play with words and create experimental forms for her fiction. Author of several novels and short story collections, including IT’S ALL ABOUT THE RIDE: CAT MANIA (Alien Buddha Press). Muses Prize. Pulitzer Prize nomination. 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. Mom of 5 cats. Twitter: @LauraStamps16. www.laurastampsfiction.blogspot.com

She Wears a Blue Bandana and uses the phrase “on the lamb” to describe most anything: Her legal status. Her state of mind. Her philosophical leanings. Her birth-control. Her favorite summer shirt. House of India #60 This globalization of loneliness plays out by railway. Postcard. Grass skirt. Blue paint puddles on black dirt. We meet the minimum standard without meeting each other. When we wake up, we drain the excess moisture from our skin and wipe away what never got inside. We hear music and start our days. The orchestrated wolf calls that seeped into our dreams overnight have become beeps and blips. Plastic eyelashes. Toys. And it will be mine. The world’s sorrow. Rare actions barely exist. The waitress is pretty, and her home is clean. Like a distant candle. Like a radio left on in the woods. I was practicing precision contentment in the mirror. The day was fragile. I was reading a magazine. Glen Armstrong (he/him) holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters. He has three current books of poems: Invisible Histories, The New Vaudeville, and Midsummer. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and The Cream City Review.

The only sound, other than the baby lion purr of the train, was the screeching of some bird on the horizon line, darting in and out of the sun’s rays in direct defiance of both life and death. It was a hot and holy war fought alone and boldly, brazenly in the forceful rays that occasionally broke through the half-overcast. She sat alone by the window, three new records loaded onto her mp3 player, shifting the weight of her overnight bag on her lap. She had switched trains an hour before and got her heel stuck in the escalator going down, resulting in a knee-jerk and a deliberate step - one, two. Her dress was white and pleated on top, navy and somber on the bottom. Her face was made up, her expression indifferent. He told her once that she was cold and aloof, but that was only part of the story; the secret was that she summoned that behavior only when she wanted to. A man invited himself into the empty seat beside her, a booming apparition in pressed white linen. He was over 70 — mostly an open collar, a mustache, and a tan; a life well lived and leaking out of his pores (or perhaps that was the gin). He reminded her of someone on a cigar box. The man told her he noticed her at the station, taking her deliberate step - one, two. She nodded, her finger flipping the volume up in her headphones. She could only partially hear him, something about Panama or panorama or Pamela his lovely wife, God rest her soul. She wasn’t sure and assumed the man wasn’t either. M. Ward was singing the blues, and she wondered why she was there. It wasn’t because he told her that the reason he hated her so much was for being a better writer than him. It wasn’t for the 300 plus women he’d had, claimed he’d had, made the unbelievable claim he had had. Maybe one of them was Pamela. God rest their souls. The man turned to her then and winked, face creasing in a shark-like smile, vapid and predictable. He asked what a pretty girl like her was doing taking a train so far away. A pause heavy with answers she didn’t have. Out the window, the sunbird had multiplied, a flock of unfriendly screams drawing her attention for a moment, circling a figure 8 above an empty cornfield. She didn’t like too many birds in one place (a little too Alfred Hitchcock). She didn’t like the number 8, how she saw it repeating on clocks and in movies, how she felt it kept her locked in rhythm. She didn’t care for the man in white linen. She wasn’t sure about him either. She meant to tell the man about love, but it came out as “fondness.” White linen shook his head. “Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?” The man had a faint British accent now, possibly a put-on. She turned her volume all the way up. The trip was supposed to take six hours, and it took twelve. In truth, it had also taken the three years prior and would linger on until the end of the present one. Every time the train slowed, shook, heaved to the right, and sighed, another train rolled past them. She looked at the passengers. Ponytails and fingertips, elbows and noses, all a blur but containing some stand-out piece. She quietly questioned their story. The man in white linen had moved his bags to the seat across the aisle and waited for her to turn her head so he could engage her further. She didn’t. The sunbird was alone then, still flapping and screeching, apparently irritated that his warning went unanswered, unheeded, unnecessary because she already knew. She thought about home, about going home, about how getting there would require another Donner Party-style family dinner or inane lecture on her indifference. He had bought her a ring once and tricked her into wearing it, into the implication of wearing it, into the sand trap of guilt that he only wanted because it bothered her. White linen fell asleep for a while and she snuck away to the cafe car for a soda. On her way back, a group of Boy Scouts asked her for city directions once they got where they were going. She told them everything she knew, displayed a pop-up map she kept in her pocket, not because she wasn’t tired of talking (she was), but because she was kind and good. That’s why she was there. That’s how she got everywhere she didn’t want to be. The train arrived. She flipped open her phone to read “I’ll be out by the car.” He had been at the station for six hours and was already annoyed. Her stomach lurched with the hopelessness of regret, her lack of courage a boiling pot overfilled, one more drop to spill exquisitely, destructively all over her pretty dress. White linen was due off at the stop after hers. As she disembarked, he called to her - “Good luck with your fondness!” She dismissed him with a wave over her shoulder and a “what the fuck, good luck with yours!” under her breath. On the stairs, her legs felt heavy. On the cement, the evening cool struck her right in the throat. It was a long walk around the station building. Late night, big city. The sunbird had disappeared, back to its nest she assumed, but she still heard it crying for her; slow and constant, the audible inevitable. She listened, mentally listing all of the things she knew. She knew if she fucked him tonight she wouldn’t have to do it for another 8 hours at least, and she could get some sleep. She knew he’d demand to know if she’d been with someone else. She hadn’t, but she didn’t like telling him anything, much less the truth. She knew his cutting remarks were waiting, tucked into the corners of his ancient car, coiled snakes in the backseat with their venom ripe and dripping. She knew his mother hated her until she read her writing, and may have still hated her after that, just less because a starving artist is better than simply starving. She knew this was the end’s final beginning, doomed and dismal, a sad pirouette two partners toddle around each other for fear of the unknown. She knew she’d look back on this time and say she did it because she was kind and good, quite the little martyr, always face-down in someone else’s misery. God rest her soul. Her steps were less deliberate now, purposefully slow, one THEN two. She tightened her arms around her body and said aloud to the sunbird, to herself, to the no one listening - “Scream it ‘till you’re blue.” Tiffany M Storrs is the editor in chief of Roi Fainéant Press. She is a writer above most other things, but there are so many other things, and she is properly qualified for none of those titles. She loves a lot of stuff but we're not going to get into all of that now. You can find her here, on Twitter @ msladybrute, on Instagram @ lady.brute, and out back honing her wit.

device step away from the screen, two way mirror it's me, i'm the one you've been wanting won't you please – no. be object, be artifact: lie down with the stone. set the body to briefcase, device, universal kill switches most delectable tricks to watch over, what we have here is // // how do we blow it up deliver yourself from the dread of being live in a room you should know how to read under glass, is it safe?, it's been tested holding cell body set on vibrate off your wall love the cage you've been placed in, for your protection, in truth, more than for the amusement of your occasional captors slash resentful partners in a previous crime (cut for time) sever the bond that still makes you roll a finger on the lock in a whisper how you will show them a sick void if they just slide that bar, open sear yourself from all hope; is there a way out (there is not), frost yourself with the sweetness inevitable you will be unleashed you will invade and explode take the power of sky beam, throw it high and above remain light I will build you a blood house my man's a dream killer, he kills dreams for a living he got into the spiel after family business least that's how it started: the vocation came later freeze and bone six roads removed from the spectacular now so every day for night he suits up in his sneakers shakes himself out the fear jacket and off he goes, butchering yes indeed they work shifts there's a wheel night for day, it's a murder on nerves one week in you start seeing body shots in the water and I wait until dawn in our house with no doors no woods to be found but a crack in the window I take my picture I do the dishes, this is pace, empty ashtrays it's a good life we've got here would be a shame if something happened to it Barbara Genova (she/her/they) is the pen name of a public woman who went private. Poetry and stories written as Barbara have been published / are forthcoming at The Daily Drunk, surfaces.cx, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sledgehammer Lit, Scissors and Spackle, The Final Girl Bulletin Board, Fahmidan Journal, Misery Tourism, Hallowzine (2021), Expat Press, The Bear Creek Gazette, Discretionary Love, and the Hecate Magazine anthology issue #2 (DECAY, winter 2021). She can be found on Twitter @CallGenova and on Instagram @thebarbaragenova