Untitled & Untitled

Untitled by Birch Miller

Untitled by Birch Miller

Jenny by Emily Ragsdale Letting Go by Rachel Plotnick

It is Veteran's Day, but I never knew any soldiers. The morning is quiet and tiny, fading from black. Everything looks like lights on water and I'm thinking about how she loved grocery stores in the morning the perfection of produce stacked grapefruits and sweaty lettuce. But she never liked to shop.

I drive to the usual spot, day nineteen. The grass, bright green reminds me I'm new at this. Jenny was 41 and now a neighbor to a soldier and a miscarriage. She lets the water run long, lets blood, like mortar, fill tile cracks, lets her cheekbones sag and her clothes hit the floor. She lets her skin unfold, lets bruises and burns congeal on the surface, lets her breasts buoy to kiss the air. She lets her eyes grow dim, lets dizziness swim throughout the room, lets her hands unclench and her stomach grow soft. She lets her tears billow out, lets hatred trickle from her veins, lets her tongue lick her wounds and her heart collapse. She lets night wash away, lets her wrists bound, mouth gagged, legs spread chest pound, coarse hands, ripped blouse, chafed lips slammed door, stifled scream, lost eyes, sharp breath seep from her mind; She lets her body slip away.

A high school girl is putting yellow flags on graves. She looks at me with sad eyes the way Jenny did, sorry about my respirator until I tell her Jenny was my daughter. And it was a drunk driver,

a Cyclops headlight.

I hear a bird chirp while my vision blurs.

My eyelids fall like blue velvet stage curtains.

A car drives by and pop music escapes the cracked window faking fashion in the cemetery.

For the first time I notice

a shopping center across the street, but I know that no world exists outside of this. I wait a few minutes after the girl moves on, wondering which symbols deserve flags. I get in my black Buick and start the engine. Even the wind blows away.

Am I/I Am (Supposed to Be) Learning by nightingailmirajsiintzenith

If you steer a bed properly, it will fly around the room. Did not know until the other kids on the other beds began flying theirs around me, whilst i, stationary-goaded by and envied those slim nimble beds, crossbred with Christmas lights and fire flies-accredited my floor-borne fate to my ineptitude, the rust on the poles, the un-white, yellow antiquity of the mattress, and the moth-farmed quilt. The others hover near me-here then gone-to help, pretending to want to help; happy, half-hearted instructions falling on the ears of a kindergartener in Calculus.

Next day confronted with long division; two teachers work the room saying "Divide, multiply, subtract, bring down." in a left, left marching cadence, and i trip over my thick shoelaces keep untying, and they say i should have bought better shoes-good shoes have good laces.

The only advice and she should be able to do this like the others, not sit bewildered on her rusty bed unraveling threads surrounding moth holes.

Divide how many times you've said this by the number of times i've tried: get 1. Multiply the number of times i've tried by how many answers i've correct: get 0. Subtract from how many in the class do not understand the number of those who do: get something negative. Bring down value, repeat. Get it? If you do not it's certainly because my words are fuzzy and not because you do not wish to comprehend-not like a child, 0 Teacher, who simply does not learn because it does not want to, but i still can't fly my bed, and i am not afraid of heights.

the Ram by nightingailmirajsiintzenith

fire's out, fire's out media let the monkeys out brought the fanatics the leaders out

which dwarfs a dying secretary

masses think they're supposed to be angry gawking at the television-sad

headlines and so much depends upon a muddy flag

watching the news repeat itself

'America Under Attack" that got you to place your hands over your hearts and mouth your loyalties to a piece of cloth in the corner

make McCarthy proud like they did in kindergarten

children love thy country kill thy neighbor

atheists, defend it from the

the fagots, dissenters join the witch hunt

boycott Afghani restaurants

explode a city when nobody knows exactly who it was to keep your approval ratings high because the people want

then nationalism is hip beat dark-skinned students up

retaliation

fashion says stick the stripes and stars on bikinis and T-shirts, out windows of cars

stand in line you can support the war against terror for $19.99

and announce that you're proud to live in one of the states that allows men to walk the streets

and tries to arrest women for

breast feeding in the wrong places or kids over the age limit pop culture, mob mentality

manufacturing robots from high school graduates

nephews and nieces who signed up to help their uncle weed his garden sitting bald on the conveyer

decorated with pelts

flushed out by the government funded digestive system and reassembled with mass-produced interchangeable pieces

inside their pupils

off-on battle switches soldered into place-world war three: the tools unknown world war four: with sticks and stones

stand in line

behind the Ram take the feeding tube down your nose

they pump into you

halt salute with the hand off the chest your fingers away from your forehead and raise your arm at a forty-five degree angle straight! topless

fades the line betwixt?

getting whipped by his belt

communist radars installed

patriot pride

digest the soup

Roadhouse: A Story of Helium and Fire Eaters By Emily Ragsdale

Sometimes you learn the hard way that people are too fat to fit in booths, that boys who are tiny with tiny voices are sometimes fifteen and unappreciative of children's menus, and that the floor of the kitchen is covered in grease and grease is quite sllick under the soles of the dressy shoes of a hostess.

Amy always told me about Brisco Melts and beer buckets as if I was like her, as if I longed for her badge and black polo of assistant manager, as if familiarity with a helium machine created for me the guarantee of stability, success, satisfaction in the future, as if I'd be around that place past October. Silly Amy.

And Rick breathed that stink of cheap cigar and coffee, of seven days plaque and of fifty years misuse as if I couldn't up and leave and heave it up.

The food was terrible, she told me and I laughed as she left because who was stupid enough to clean pig off her plate? not me and who cooked here anyway? also not me.

And will sick, sweaty Brandon ever stop asking for tables and silverware roll-ups? oh, Brandon, if your eyes weren't so bloodshot. what did you do, eat fire?

Before I Go to Hell By Brant Fechter

If I met God I wouldn't knock on his door, I would wait patiently And pray he hears.

I would ask him what His favorite movies and music are, And smile and laugh Whenever he did.

I wouldn't stare, But I wouldn't blink, I wouldn't even dream of leaving Until he asked me to.

I would ask him Where he shops, But I wouldn't ask him About politics.

I wouldn't be angry if he didn't Offer me a seat and a drink, But I would run as fast as I can, If he decided to talk on the go.

I would ask him What sports he plays, And then challenge him, But I wouldn't win.

I would take off my watch And put it in a waste basket If I had time, Because I wouldn't need it.

I wouldn't tell anyone, But I would listen to Everyone that had questions About our meeting.

If I ever saw him again I wouldn't care if he remembered me, Instead I would tell him, "Oh my God, It's good to see you"

Of Rain and Water By Kellen Ressmeyer

We held the atlantic once, trials of earth-in palms of tide, cupped and curtained blues: indigo and sapphire pleats clothespinned into beaches, the sand patterned ankle-high; our bodies raw with grainy mischief after hours

Spica in Virgo, our June canvas skies perspiring oiled beads a light rain applause, air-fingers snapping in feathery nights, star pierced and moon strung polka dotted orbit kept in the lines of my tongue echoing I do, I do the aftertaste of seasons frothy-sweet bathed in cloves and morning-after charm

the ocean spell was ours, girl-pink and sunset blue, lost in autumn's decomposing now clutching pastime: our Bermuda sands in fingers wrinkled blue: indigo and sapphire

Death by Jorge Rios