On the Interpretation of Dreams

by Daniel Webre

The dreams were never the scary part. It was Allison’s interpretations. Even these weren’t terrifying in a conventional manner. It’s just that Allison’s mind could make connections no one else would ever think of, and though most of these made no sense, once they were in her head, she’d become so convinced of their reality that a part of me was never quite sure anymore.

Let me give you an example. Once I dreamt of my cousin Fred. Fred and I were picking pineapples with a machete, reaching carefully inside the palm fronds and cutting just below the ripe fruit. I had not seen Fred since my childhood, and this was a grown man with a Hemingway beard. But in my dream I knew the man was Fred in the same way you can tell in the movies when time passes and someone has aged and maybe isn’t even played by the same actor. This was Fred all right, and the thing was, even though we were out in the tropical heat and there were a lot of these pineapples to harvest, we were having a wonderful time. Continue reading

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Ka ‘Iwa ‘Alua

by Eric Paul Shaffer

_____ If a moment under the sun happened only once,
that would be one, but as I lay in the sunlight reading,
a shadow flicked over the page beneath my eyes.

I looked into the light, and through the clouds soared
_____the ‘iwa, the glorious crook-winged glider of sea
and shore, veering waveward after a long, luxurious turn Continue reading

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Cold Uterus

by Ann Yuan

I have a cold uterus.

Its hard to explain. In traditional Chinese medicine, one cause of infertility is that your uterus is too cold. Of course, when they saycold,” it doesn’t mean it’s cold to touch. Also, the term uterus” includes the whole set of reproductive systems instead of just the pear-shaped organ itself. The point is, you have to provide an optimal environment in order to grow something as delicate as a fertilized egg.  Continue reading

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Self-Portrait With Wellbutrin & Pig Roast

by Connor Donovan

We don’t speak of it anymore: the hilltop
bonfires holding natural light, bottlenecking

the cans & burning them green. The cathedral
clock tower above us like a jaundiced eye.

Being passed an apple packed with burnt nubs
—sucking where everyone had already sucked. Continue reading

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A-Okay

by Court Ludwick

In the wooden swing, in our backyard, in the darkest part of summer right before my seventh-grade year, my mother suddenly grabs me. She grabs the smallest part of my wrist, twisting hard so this fragile underbelly of mine faces up toward the sky and I become a fractal under the light turned shadow, under the overhead tree, under the dimple-making leaves that will eventually flake and fall and die and be swept up by my father’s metal rake.

My mother’s index finger and thumb are bony. Her tanned skin stretches tighter here than finger skin should stretch. No wrinkles. Knuckles smoothed out like knuckles never look. Acrylic nails painted fuchsia pink because true red is for whores. I imagine she tells me this once. No smile lines when I look at her face. In between her eyebrows, there is one line, a sweet deep furrow. Continue reading

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