Stranger

by Anna Scarpone

There’s a room alive with the heat of bodies, and a booming bass its ever-pulsing heart. Limbs press against limbs, flushed skin is illuminated only by the opening and closing of the bathroom door. Now and then, some shrieking, drunken laugh rings out over the crowd like a descant. In this darkness, I’m no more than a body. No sun casts a shadow on my face, revealing its familiar imperfections. Hidden is the bump on my nose, the freckle on my upper lip. The telltale inflections in my voice become another part of that universal chorus, the beat blasting from the DJ stand. In this ocean of bodies, we are all grasping desperately for anything, anyone to ground us. Continue reading

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Book of Regrets

by Dorian Kotsiopoulos

If you trip over it on the way back to bed from the bathroom,
don’t plan on falling back to sleep. Continue reading

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Homecoming

by August Straumanis

This morning I was woken up by a marching band. The parade was in town—horns crashed through the treetops, majorettes passed out smiles like electrocutions to the crowd. A biker gang rode by with a caged tiger in tow, a small mirror lodged in its jaw. Continue reading

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In Praise of Grocery Shoppers

by Daniel Donaghy

Winding through the aisles
with my oversized cart,

I smile at everyone:
the pink-haired stock clerk

bobbing to a song streaming
through her AirPods; Continue reading

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All the Grandfathers

by Josephina Hu

“A girl,” I read aloud, “found herself in a strange room, where the ceiling was sky and the walls open air. In the center of the room stood a lone mountain, and its solemn shadow obstructed all to her left. On the right was a forest of flowering trees, and among them, in the distance, an apparition. The girl decided to venture into the forest.”  Continue reading

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