**selected as Editors' Pick for Issue One - listen to it here, recorded audibly by Liz Zimmerman** Minus Tides by Cassondra Windwalker Sea spray left salt deposits on her thick glasses. She shoved them up her nose and squinted at the flash of white against the volcanic sand. Fingers stiffened with cold pulled the artifact free of its tidal bed. A fan of snowy eagle feathers. She looked down the beach, but the other remnants of the carcass must have been swept out to sea or ca

Today by Maddie M. White I look at the newspaper clipping that is held to the wall by a thumbtack. Beside the article is my calendar. Big red X's mark every passing day until this one. I can't eat or sleep. I put one foot in front of the other and walk to the park down the block. I contemplate going to her apartment, but I don't. It's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding. Even after knowing her for the majority of my life, I can't stop myself from the overwhelming anx

"Light" by Stephen Biseño Darkness Within Me by Maddie White In the garage freezer was a blue, soulless man. I opened the lid and was sickened by the gruesome reminder. Hours earlier, he tried to rob me outside the Black Tavern Saloon. I had gone there to unwind after work every day. Walking out, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a fist connect with my left cheek. My training took over and I wasn’t outside of a bar, I was in Iran. The gravel in the parking lot was dunes of san

Jack and Frank by David Rae Frank Jack was what you might call soft. Mum told me not to be mean, but Dad says Jack needs to toughen up. Dad’s right, once Jack gets past third grade, he’ll learn all about life. I’m trying to teach him for his own good. He’s just so gullible. He makes it easy. “What’s that behind you, Jack?” He turns around to look every single time. “Mum, Frank stole one of my chips.” Mum would start on me. “That’s your brother; be kind.” But Dad would be laug

Thaumatrope by Christopher Iacono His Side Eric lifted his right fist, ready to knock on the door. His gold wedding band glittered. He tried to twist it off, but it had been a few years since he had put it on and it wouldn’t budge. He sighed. I shouldn’t be doing this. But Karla hasn’t been the same since Jeffrey was born. Working and caring for a child, who had just turned eighteen months old, left Karla with very little time for him. So now he was inside the apartment build

Places, saved and lost by Joaquin Fernandez Obviously, you will choose the worst possible day to clean out your mothers house. Fallen mangoes will congregate under her favorite tree, shriveled in the Florida sun, betrayed by the density of their own sweetness. The grass will be tall with secrets and aloe plants will burst boldly from among the ferns, untrimmed and unafraid. On the chain link fence behind you, the lizards practice their side eye as you fumble with keys at the

"Image from a Field Trip", 2017 by F.E. Clark Counting Elephants by F.E. Clark She’d asked for an hourglass. It was supposed to help her breathe through the tornadoes that raged inside her head. The plain-clothes Dr had become so enthused when the girl recounted a meditation she’d remembered reading about, that the girl thought the Dr was going to orgasm right there and then in her beige office with the sad sunflower painting on the wall. But all that happened was the request

"Daily Painting 6th of June", acrylic on canvas by F.E. Clark **selected as Editors' Pick for Issue One - listen to it here, recorded audibly by Liz Zimmerman** Frozen Hearts Never Thaw by Danny Beusch The cruel arctic wind ravages everything. Other villages fled but we cling on while it snaps and howls around us. We survive, somehow, although our land is barren and we are hard and bitter. One night I dreamed of a stranger who burned through the mist and melted a trail throug

"Misty Morning" by Sulyn Godsey Escape Velocity by David Alexander Energy is all around us. Every action we make, everything we do, takes energy. Cameron would read about physics when he was shut in his room. He would close the door and climb headfirst under his duvet with the book and the dinosaur lamp he got two Christmases ago. That way the noises from downstairs didn’t distract him. There are different kinds of energy in the universe; kinetic… Kinetic energy was movement.

Magpie by Susannah Violette I dream of magpie an oil slick in snow dark sky and moonlight her brittle nest lined with ruddy fox fur late summer grass and rabbit - whose bones make a cradle for one egg inside the egg I guess she laid her diamonds cubic zirconia, broken glass all the same under nights - orange street lights the rings on her clawed feet also dangle from twigs, like discarded ring-pulls earrings make her an indian queen her beak-nose shimmy shakes sh