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We thought you’d remember us. Trisha dreamt her kid tumbled down the stairs and opened the flesh below his knees. She’d woken up, sweating, trembling, and his sharp cries ringing in her ears. The next afternoon, as they left the local mall, the memory like a framed photograph still nailed to the insides of her skull, she recognized the bobbing head of her kid hopping down the white stone steps. Trisha leapt in an attempt to grab him but knocked him over, and there he was, wailing, blood everywhere. Soon, the neighbour’s dog was squelched under a mini-van. Angry wasps attacked an old woman who’d poked the hive with a stick—she was dead and it made the local news. Trisha dropped a kitchen knife on her foot while chopping carrots. A Russel’s viper bit the gardener of their countryside house in India, left him foaming from the mouth under the scorching sun. Her twenty-year-old nephew was mugged, beaten, stabbed, and left to die by a couple of gin-soaked thugs in the wet and dingy streets of East London. Trisha didn’t want to sleep. She was terrified more of her nightmares would manifest. She would lie awake for as long as she could beside her snoring and oblivious husband. But then she’d fall asleep, and dream. We thought you’d remember us. We remember you. # Trisha dreamt again. Vivid as always. But this was good. Her husband was on top, and he wasn’t the lifeless machine she was used to. His muscles shifted under his smooth sweaty skin while he fucked her, smiling, breathing heavily, the scent of his favourite musky cologne lingering in the room. Trisha didn’t want him to stop. She squirmed in her sleep, moaning, her cotton panties wet. He grabbed her breasts, her tiny, pointy… those weren’t her breasts! Trisha looked around frantically. She didn’t recognize the stained green wallpapers or the red neon lights bleeding through the shabby white lace curtains or the soft hum and the occasional clunk from the air conditioner. She was horrified, but he continued to fuck her as if he never noticed—smiling, breathing heavily. We thought you’d remember us. We remember you. We remember the sight of your muscles shifting under your smooth sweaty skin while you fucked her, after you’d finger-fucked her whilst twisting her perky little titties, making her feel things she’d never felt before. We know she breathed in the scent of your musky cologne determined to remember it. We know she ignored her usual amusements: the nasty green wall, the stupid red neon lights outside the shabby white lace curtains, the barely-functioning air conditioner. We know she’d fuck you every day had she not been pimped out to the fat bald uglies that grunted like breathless pigs as they emptied themselves inside her in less than thirty seconds. Trisha sat up, shaking. Her husband was about to cheat on her the next evening, fuck a small-breasted woman like he’d never fucked her—with heat and love. She glared at the back of his sleep-enveloped head and fumed. Then she smiled. She used to stand before the bathroom mirror and stare at the dark green woven into her hazel irises, unsure where that green came from. Dr Barnes was a tad confused. He tested her eyes, and suggested she get thoroughly checked, but she was fit as a fiddle. Then came the dreams, the vivid nightmares, haunting her, chasing her into dark corners and rattraps. She hated the dreams, hated herself, and when she suspected her new set of corneas could be responsible for the sudden clairvoyance, she cursed the donor and wanted to gauge her eyes out. But now, she could catch her husband in the act, and she smiled. We thought you’d remember us. We remember you. You adored us, said we were the most beautiful things you’d ever seen, that we reminded you of oases in the Sahara; you said we looked sad and it broke your heart, that you’d love her and fuck her every night if you could… just to see us laugh over and over again. # “Surprise, darling! I brought you your favourite sandwiches,” said Trisha, swinging open the glass doors at her husband’s office and prancing in like she belonged. He was shocked for a split second and his secretary was amused. Trisha left after lunch, having noted the small breasts on the red-head. She lurked outside the building all day while the kid stayed with the sitter, but her husband and his lover took different routes. He returned to the house and headed straight to his study, unaware that Trisha wasn’t home, unaware that she crept in twenty minutes after he did while he was crouched before his laptop, typing away. We thought you’d remember us… You didn’t. Trisha felt invisible. She wept and screamed silently in the shower. He was about to fuck his secretary that night, yet there he was, calm… typing, typing, typing. # The detective raised an eyebrow. “What?” Last night, your wife read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to the boy and put him to sleep. She doesn’t know… she doesn’t know… her boy only scraped his knee at school, the neighbour’s dog is still yapping away in another house, the wasps chasing the old woman was a cartoon illustration on Facebook, her foot was never sliced open, the gardener died of a sun-stroke, and her nephew was an extra on TV in a police procedural. Last night, we watched your pretty face contort in confusion and anger as she accused you of fucking your small-tittied secretary. And we liked it… “The woman says the flying monkeys from Oz are after her—” We tried. We tried so hard. We baffled Dr Barnes. We thought you’d remember us, but you didn’t recognize the little dark greens peeking through your wife’s hazel irises, part of the same deep green that you claimed reminded you of oases in the Sahara. “She the one that killed her husband with a meat tenderizer because she caught him cheating, uh… in the future?” We thought you’d remember us… Tejaswinee Roychowdhury is a Bengali-Indian lawyer, writer, poet, and occasional artist. Her fiction has been/will be published in Muse India, The Unconventional Courier, Misery Tourism, Alphabet Box, Borderless Journal, Kitaab, and Active Muse, among others. Currently, she's a fiction/screen/stage editor for The Storyteller's Refrain. Find her tweeting at @TejaswineeRC and her list of works at linktr.ee/tejaswinee.

Pearl Mussel Do not tell me to heal. I want no poems that call the wild geese home, or command me, behold the winter sunset, or, consider the fox frozen in river-ice. I want no poems that tell me how to mend, or how to mourn all the world’s little losses, and little gifts, I know what we are giving up. Do not tell me, make peace and grieve. The lifespan of anger is long in the wild, and if left alone, it will become a living relic, rooted and sightless in the deep. If left alone, its small, dark life will outlast by far this brief season. Is that not reason enough to let it live? Untitled “GOD HATES —” (A sonnet) If I believed in God, I would use Him The way He has been used against me. Those who have condemned me, I would condemn From my high pulpit, and rain hellfire down On what I deem hypocrisy. If I had faith, I would wield it like a flail, barbed-wire tails, A velvet grip, soft only to the hand That holds it. This is all to say, I know I am no better than my enemies. I know the human heart to be a sponge— When squeezed, it oozes whatever substance It has been soaked in. If mine believed, I would Seep the same pap as I’ve been fed, I would Suck up this lake of poison and call it Love. Hesse Phillips lives in Madrid, Spain. Their poetry and prose have appeared in The Bridport Review, the époque press é-zine, Embark: A Literary Journal for Novelists, and is forthcoming in Emerge Literary Journal and other publications. They were a 2022 finalist in the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair.

Awake Raindrops hurl to the pavement, pooling, streaming, Seeking inlets in which to rest. I lie in bed hearing the swoosh of tires as cars glide by, Infrequently, at four in the morning. Too early for all but the most industrious commuters, Too late for revelers, passed out in beds. I listen, so I don’t start to think. Those thoughts that come in the dark of night Those streams of questions coursing through my mind, Demanding answers. I choose instead to listen. The rhythmic breathing of my partner, at times punctuated by a snore of surprise. The dreams of the dog, defending us. Brave, even in slumber. The shush of the rain, cleansing us, quenching us, so that we can rise, Glistening in the light of a new day. The One Who Never Leaves How quick the return. A harsh comment A look of disgust A threat to leave Brings him back to you. That weak-kneed little boy Standing so small Deep inside your soul. Eyes brimming with tears Voice shaking, whispering, “I’m so scared”. You thought you dealt with this, In years of therapy. You held him Heard him out Told him he was safe now. Then you moved on Got tough, grew a pair More polished than a brand-new pair of shoes. At least you thought so. Oh, how vulnerable we are. How thin the veneer How fragile the shell How deep the wound, That never Truly Heals. Brian Christopher Giddens (he/him) is a writer of fiction and poetry. Brian’s writing has been featured in Silver Rose, On the Run Fiction, Glass Gates Collective, Flash Fiction Online (pending publication), and Hyacinth Review (pending publication). Brian is a native of Seattle, Washington, where he lives with his husband, and Jasper the dog. Brian can be contacted at BrianChristopherGiddens@outlook.com, and his photo haikus can be found on Instagram @giddens394.

Every Tuesday night the guy in the red baseball hat sits alone at a table for two in the café area of the bookstore, focused on the hardcover in his hands—and every Tuesday night Jane promises herself this will be the night she asks him what he’s reading. Lori Cramer’s short prose has appeared in Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Funny Pearls, MoonPark Review, Sledgehammer Lit, Truffle Magazine, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for Best Microfiction. Links to her writing can be found at https://loricramerfiction.wordpress.com. Twitter: @LCramer29.

My dreams were served with Cabernet – seduction by commercial taste, peeling vanity off the apple’s core, taking away unwanted skin, marketing by genome. My first bite into liberty, left me naked as a peach; the vigour of a romance, supple breast the waves caress, the fragrance sells itself. Cereal competes for calories, a promise in each crunch - the body awakening to Adonis, brands flexing muscle, a grain-built fantasy. Steak breeds success, the money is in the meat; a raw ambition, grilled to potential, seared in vision, relishing wealth - a job well done. Fondant into luxury, a flavour of the elite, a spoonful of temptation, the suit, the heels, the liquid status; a tongue-seducing product. A different world – a sense of the exotic; spices awakening adventure, open streets– stir it, fry it, buy it; piercing the mundane, perfect holiday is a scent away. The last bite – the perfect placement; mouth-watering potential, taste the subliminal violence; sales are up, reproduction is down, nutrition is not our biggest seller. A word from the author: Poem is a speculative satire playing around with the ideas of consumerism and genetics

We saw each other at the grocery store – then a few hours later, at the same cafe. Riding the bus home, there she was again. She sat next to me, smiling wildly. Her face was joy, and tired as the summer heat. She turned her head to me and said, “Hi I’m Josie. I want to take a walk with you and maybe make out in a park.” “Sounds great,” I said, “Let's go.” It was as if we had known each other for a thousand years, walking down the street holding hands. Everything was easy. We talked as reunited lovers talk, of things past and forgotten, of intimacies and secrets. In the park I lay on the ground, my head in her lap, like we had always done this. I looked up and gently pushed some stray blond hairs behind her ears. I had no idea about the malignancy beneath her ribs. We knew each other for an afternoon. I might even call it love. She died two months later in bed and I was broken all over for a while.

In walks a Van Gogh salesman, and not the sunflower kind. “No starry nights neither,” he winks at Jen and me as we sit there. Like always. Like Thursdays. Usual coffee and scones. . The barista, a parenthesis of a girl, hunchy and tall, leans across the counter. “Espressos for everyone!” the salesman sings and lines up his prints against the curvy glass of the sandwich case. It’s a gallery of wheat fields and empty rooms. The salesman stands back and nods in approval. He is all bowtie and red-haired bangs. Pen clipped on to his shirt pocket. “He’s cute,” Jen says. And here we go. “You just broke up with Larry,” I say. “You saw how he winked at us,” she says, and then, again, “he’s cute.” There are only two other tables. A guy with a laptop and headphones, the other a mother feeding a cookie into a stroller. The barista has lined up five espressos. “That’s twenty bucks,” she says, “ten for renting the space.” The salesman puffs and releases a loud sigh, starts to gather up his prints. “Change of plans,” he says, looking around. “Not much of a customer base,” he shrugs at me and Jen. The baby in the stroller has started crying. The laptop guy is staring into his screen. “See that?” I say to Jen. “Poof! Gone.” She crumples her napkin and tosses it on her plate. I know she isn’t listening. Out walks the Van Gogh Salesman. The barista is shaking her parenthesis head. Through the window, we can see the salesman arranging his framed prints around his legs. He is looking in every possible direction. Jen stands up and goes over to the window. That’s when he turns and smiles at us, at her. She looks back at him and stands there, watching him for a moment like a giant sunflower eye.

It was no surprise to Dharti that the pedicure would go awry. Being made of solid earth created a habit of clogging drains. Ankle deep in mud, the aesthetician would feverishly rinse her legs with clean water from a hand-held spigot and apologize profusely. It only made matters worse. Dharti knew it wasn't her fault; she was born this way, a bog maiden. There would be no beautification here today. She extracted her brown limbs from the thick silt with an embarrassingly loud sucking noise and watched as the two dark holes filled themselves with pudding-consistency mud. Dharti tracked footprints as she made her way through the salon. Past the desert-warm air of the nail dryers, past the gel-tinted fingernails of gossiping ladies looking up but avoiding catching her eye. Lumps of mud slid down her legs and plopped gently on the floor. The salon owner quickly mopped up behind her, murmuring unveiled criticisms regarding her lack of cleanliness. The heat of embarrassment was a fire kiln that hardened Dharti's flesh again, and she closed the door behind her with a hard push. Its gentle regress into the door frame with the soft, welcoming bell tinkle was infuriating. Her eyes flashed, and her mouth set into a stony grimace. She was trying; she wanted to scream. Dharti strode down the street. The small town was bustling with morning shoppers, bags hanging from elbows, cheeks kissed, lattes in hand, children in tow. She looked down at bare arms composed of long withered roots and thought lonely thoughts. Was she doomed to the periphery, never fitting in? Hugging herself for warmth, her loamy skin soft and inviting, she walked away from the crowd. Perhaps she should just mulch herself amongst the impatiens or get lost in the marshlands. She found herself in the town's park with its memorial gazebo amidst the trim, well-kept lawn, wind whipping an American flag into a frenzy. She could smell salt in the air and caught the faint scent of lavender. She remembered why she rose from her native soil, the dry, harsh environs of her youth, to move where it was green and lush. Where rain danced on asphalt and winds chimed from porches. Where neighbors brought you pie and asked about your landscaping. She'd close them out with polite thanks, fearful of friendship she assumed would inevitably wilt. Awkwardly tried to adapt to her new environs solo but failed to thrive like a neglected orchid. Suddenly it dawned on her that she was no potted plant. Her containment was all her own making. Her toes dug into the soil below the clipped greens, rooting themselves to the town, absorbing its history and role in her life thus far. Vines crept up each leg, leaves opening across her abdomen and whirling around her arms, giving her courage and strength. She opened her palms, and morning glories erupted, unfurling their trumpet-shaped flora with silent fanfare. Their violent purple adorned each finger. She basked in that moment of earthly beautification, decorated in nature. Manifesting her skill with the local flora, a gift she could share with others. She walked back to the nearest Starbucks, ordered a half-caf latte with no sugar and almond milk, and smiled when the barista remembered her name. She sat facing the window to soak up the sun, to be noticed, releasing tendrils of hope that someone would come and join her. This time, she would let relationships grow and friendships blossom. Nina Miller is an Indian-American physician, fencer, and writer. Her work can be found in TL;DR Press's, Mosaic: The Best of the 1,000 Word Herd Flash Fiction Competition 2022, Bright Flash Literary Review, Five South, Five Minutes and more. Find her on Twitter @NinaMD1 or www.ninamillerwrites.com.

It will be dead soon. Poached slowly in sun warmed plastic, steam droplets suspended inches above the waterline, like chandelier pendants on an egg timer of mortality. I lift the bag to my face and confront dull, bulging eyes and a tiny mouth puckering in desperate kisses, little round Os getting faster, losing rhythm; jarring as a badly dubbed film. I copy the movements, my own eyes staring through the pliant barrier, equally unblinking, my lips flapping impotently in reply. I didn’t want the fish, but my reticence was smothered by his peacocked posturing. His validation coming, not from me but from the stall holder, a girl mere years older than myself who pulled strings of pale pink bubble gum from her sticky mouth. As the cheap plastic balls sailed ever closer to their target, a cloud of foreboding settled heavy on my shoulders, boring down to meet the anxiety rising from my belly. With a pop and exaggerated fist pump, my fate was sealed with excited squeals from the girl. She reached behind her and passed the prize to my father, who in turn bestowed it on me. This life, this sentient being, that I would have the privilege to watch die. I cast my eyes around and note how much is discarded at the fair ground. Popcorn kernels, only half eaten, rattle within boxes, trampled by oblivious feet. Thin wooden sticks lie scattered, pink fronds of candy floss hardening darkly on their surface, clinging fast in an onslaught of regimental ants. Disposable joy, temporary, just like me and the fish. He is talking now to another girl, he flicks his dyed hair, basking in his athletic prowess. I stand shuffling beside him, frustration building as hope slips like ether, into the charcoaled nutty fug. He looks in my direction and with feigned benevolence, pushes ride tokens into my free hand until it’s overflowing. The tokens thud onto the dusty ground and I have to crouch down and retrieve them while he rolls his eyes to the girl, giggling at my expense. I look at the creature beside me with resolve and approach the big wheel. I’ve always been afraid of heights but I will put that aside for the fish; now listing on its side. The kisses are slower and wider as I step into the swinging carriage, and with a grasping hand find the seat. Within moments we are rising over buildings, and with trembling hands, I hold the fish aloft. In the distance, golden rays bounce like lightning off the frothing sea. A glimpse of home before death. Within moments the fish swings onto its back, kisses stopped, lips a pinhole. As the wheel descends, I look over to a clearing and the faded blue house on the hill. I picture her crouched low in the garden, tenderly digging the beds. Love spills salt from my eyes as I approach the ground, leaving fish and my mum in the sky. About the author: Marie-Louise is an Irish writer who enjoys writing from a sensory perspective.

Wandering Still The waves roll against an empty shore, each one strong and steady and painful, the sand grating like life across my skin. Here we stand, years gone by, dreams like storybooks from half-remembered childhoods, nothing how we once hoped it would be. Wandering still, my feet carry me here again and again, just as they carry me through life, plodding along like some faithful old mule, despite my questioning that faith with each step, that reason for walking forward when all I know is behind. Grief is the good days: it is sorrow for something good, remembering something good. It is the nothing that hits harder: the lack, the emptiness, the too many reasons to stop. And yet—I return here: I look out at that horizon, memories fading like morning fog in the sharp light of day. I walk, step after step in the roaring silence and wonder still. A Summer Road This road is cracked: baked so long in the sun, flies buzzing languidly; the bushes spark green against the heat. Footsteps steady below me, quietly: like promises made to the sunrise, yet spoken more surely than a name. I wonder if the air I breathe remembers other travellers, pilgrims set upon the same path for different reasons, winding through the trees, never knowing what the end looks like or even if there is one. Dirt sifts in the breeze, light as whispers; leaves tremble before the passing of a truth, the passing of one more set of weary feet, sandals dark with road dust but sturdy, yet. I walk, searching for the glimmer of water, wondering at the questions I have asked, feeling for the heartbeat of home. The Tower The tower stones beneath me are cold as death, crumbling and forgotten, shaped by the wind that grasps at my clothing with bony fingers, whistling through the cracks in us both. The trees shift and sway around us; the sky a cauldron of churning mercury. I brush rough lichen with the soft pads of my fingers, and wait, not knowing who or what I wait for. No life rings its footsteps on the ashy stairs snaking up, no hope sifts out of the gathering dark like sand beneath a desert sunrise; I listen for answers or assurances in this place of ruin, but all I hear are whispers: apologies never spoken, and promises lost to the echoes of the past. A Summer’s Day Lovers walk / shining like exotic butterflies / shimmering in the sunshine of a perfect day. Manicured gardens segment / the park beyond; laughter / is paired in couplets / like the birds / flitting above. A low stone wall / marks the beginning / of dappled shade, of the old watching / the young, of me / waiting by a stone / for only one. Growing Up My bracelet says Believe: not Believe in yourself or Believe humans can be good. I stutter and stop, stumble and run a few steps, always questioning whether a path so strange could be real or worth it. I believed in goodness once, a fairy tale to hold onto through the long years of abandonment. Believe I didn’t need to tell myself then. Believe back then was the air I breathed, not the bracelet I wore. FRANCES KOZIAR has published over 70 poems in 40+ different literary magazines, including Vallum, Acta Victoriana, and Dreamers Magazine. She is a young (disabled) retiree and a social justice advocate, and she lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Author website: https://franceskoziar.wixsite.com/author

it’s just a different sunrise in the fall the sun is bright but muted the clouds are dense and low and I am thinking about the future about how there is no manual for it no all-knowing oracle to show me the way I have taken the first step with a gentle nudge but now I stand frozen one leg firmly in the future, one leg in the now stiff with fear unable to move forward or back my mind trembling like a newborn fawn unaware if I am walking into the land of milk and honey or the spinning blades of a woodchipper and like the spider in the bouncing web on this cool windy day I am merely hanging on Ken Tomaro is a writer living in Cleveland Ohio whose work reflects everyday life with depression. His poetry has appeared in several online and print journals and explores the common themes we all experience in life. Sometimes blunt, often dark but always grounded in reality. He has 4 full-length collections of poetry, most recently, Potholes and Perogies available on Amazon.

Kyle Denner is from Tucson, AZ. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Blue Collar Review, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and Manastash.