Loss of Clear Blue // Ryan Doolittle Fried Chicken Pizza // Laura Shrago

Bleed Out // Allison Zheng Fix // Brian Yang

3AM dreaming about digging through a swamp, meandering through muddied memories of affection never manifesting. Prancing for a fix of DayQuil dancing — muddled trancing through Freudian feelings. My flu-filled pharynx fails at filtration. Fighting for breath, my brain floats from my physical imagining fraud fixations, fetishizing faux fantasies, fancying father fabrications, and falling for them. Am I such a fool to wake up famished to be fixed?

The Black Kurti // Sharvari Ajit Deepti Narendra

“This seems like a good place to stop,” she said, smiling a little and wiping her glasses on her black cotton kurti. “We will continue again tomorrow, but you are doing really good,” she reassured him, as he stood up, his dark brown hair a slight mess from the number of times he ran his fingers through them in frustration and discontentment. “Thank you,” he shook her hand and smiled back at her. He took a few steps towards the door, but stopped, and looked back at her hesitantly. She was immersed in a stack of papers, her glasses sliding down her nose a little, her sharp, black eyes focused on the document in front of her, and yet, for some reason, he thought she had stopped breathing. May be it was the way her fingers played nervously with a loose strand of her hair. May be it was the way her eyelashes fluttered for a fleeting moment. May be it was the way her entire body seemed too still. She looked at him a split second later, as if just realizing that he was standing right there. “Yes, Manav?” “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “I will see you tomorrow.” He almost reached the door but stopped again, and turned around. “Avanti,” he called out, her name swirling like an unfamiliar, nostalgic mist on his tongue. “You’ve got cake on your kurti.” “Oh,” she seemed slightly flustered as she tried to wipe it off. “Thank you for telling me.” “No problem,” he shrugged and added, “It’s a nice kurti.” He left abruptly, and not a second later, her phone rang. “H-” Avanti could barely get a hello out before Tarika interrupted her. “How did it go today?” “Fairly well. He has lesser trouble opening up now.” “I want more than fairly well, Avanti, I want to see actual results. I am paying you a good amount of money for this and if you cannot get it done, I will find myself another therapist.” Avanti sighed, pinching her eyebrows. “I understand.” She kept the phone, her hands shaking from the conversation. She opened her purse, and removed the photo that she had carefully placed inside. Her eyes lingered on the handsome man in the photo for a moment as she recalled what Tarika had said to her, her voice cracking. “Our wedding’s in a month. I want him to remember me. I just want him to remember me.” Her eyes slowly wandered to the woman standing next to him, her eyes on his, adoration and love shining in them. “I cannot risk him remembering you, Avanti. Please.” Her eyes were now on the black kurti that the woman was wearing. “Help him forget you before he has to go through the pain of forgetting you again.” Avanti closed her eyes, her fingers grasping fistfuls of her kurti like straws. “It’s a nice kurti.”