Ya’ll love these themed issues, and WE ARE HERE FOR IT. Thank you to all of the amazing and talented folks who submitted their work to our second installment of Monster Summer.
If you enjoy themed issues, be on the lookout for what we have planned for next year!
As always, thank you for being a part of our community. We feel so honored and lucky to have you all in our universe.
Donation Announcement:
A part of our mission includes expanding creative opportunities to others. We do this by donating a portion of our submission fees to nonprofits whose causes bring art, poetry, and writing to communities around the United States. We’re thrilled to announce that with the publication of this issue, we’ve made a donation to Denver Writes.
They describe their mission: Our mission is to provide young writers in the Denver area with a supportive community and creative opportunities to express themselves through writing. We offer monthly workshops, intensive and expeditionary summer camps, and after school programs.
We invite you to learn more about this wonderful organization.
I’d like to end with an excerpt from Kayla Solis’ poem, Supernova, which you can read in full below…
Little monster, don’t you understand?
We are all broken,
that is how the light gets in;
and you have such a way of breaking people.
Monster Summer 2024
TWILIGHT by Thomas Lesh
I have seen them gathering at twilight
Before the lamps are lit,
Or when the lamps are about to be lighted,
Not winged things, but creatures of the half-light.
They feed upon our longing,
They glide between the doorposts
And live there among memories and regret,
Saying nothing nor having power to resolve.
Shun them, as you shun death itself,
Nor solace give them lest like the siren
They should lure you and you drown.
I have seen them gathering
When the day is not yet spent,
Creatures of the half-light,
They are tied to earth and shadow.
They feed upon lost desire,
They slide between memory and regret,
They whisper soft soughs
As the wind in empty branches.
Heed them not nor tarry
Lest you join them when night has fallen
And are closed in their soft silence.
A Furnace in Name Only by Richard L. Matta
In our new home’s master bedroom, the stashed suitcase is now unzipped.
Beneath decades of adulthood, the dark, musty alcove of my childhood
basement. Thirteen steps below the deadbolted-off family room, a fire-
breathing dragon watched, waited to expel its pincers, gobble me up.
In that basement—at the depth of cemetery coffins—a garment bag of
bold skirts and dresses, another filled with green military flight suits with
frightful stories. Everlasting food cans covered shelves for survival
scenarios, or in the event kitchen cupboards didn’t fill dinner needs.
Mom sends me on a chili recipe basement trip. I delay. Excuses rejected, I
unlock and open the door, switch on the few dim lights from the only
switch at the top of the stairs; quietly creep down the stairs while holding
my breath to conceal myself and hide my state of mind.
Find my way to the shelves, grab a blood-red tomato can—then darkness.
Panic. I hear the lock latch turn, the bolt slams into the lock’s box. I bump
the dress bag, spin into the flight suits, nearly nose-dive onto the concrete
floor. I recover to find my hands against the sweaty skin of the basement
walls where fishing spiders reside.
Grope my way upstairs, sweep the wall with my shaky hand, and turn the
light on. I disguise composed, knock, am released by mother who had no
idea what she’d done. I cope. Spend newspaper route earnings to buy
canned foods I’d likely be asked to retrieve. Kept them in a suitcase under
my bed.
I reassure my now grown-up self our new home will leave only good
memories. The suitcase is now zipped up, covered with an old blanket,
tucked away under the king-sized bed. I’m kitchen bound, the dragon left
alone, my wife’s asked for can of tomatoes in hand.
The Visitor by Aleksandra Scepanovic
Bitch-Breaking in the Gulag by Ailish NicPhaidin
When girl children are born
A grim foreshadowing
Un-talked of acts to come.
The church seduces
Women to make themselves available
To men’s sexual dire straits
And pleasure and command,
Synchronized with filthy rags and traded pottage.
Fast forward to 2024.
Maybe don’t!!
It’s all too gut-wrenching,
It’s all too close and closed,
Too cloistered and mindless.
It’s all too impossible
It’s all too juxtaposed
With yesterday’s yesterday
When men roamed the lands
In search of younger flesh
To strap homogeneous babies
Into a singular perambulator.
Bitch-breaking is solid work,
A man’s job,
Deserving weighty consideration
At least initially, treacherously,
Misery and restrictions,
Harsh etiquette will surely follow.
Brothers: Amen to that.
Sisters: Stand up and stand by.
Neighborly.
Modern-day Witch by M.A. Fox
Inspired by author, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Call me the crazy cat lady, the girl boss with too much caffeine.
I’m a modern-day witch with spirit guides in-between.
Be the woman who refuses to cut her hair, always bare.
Soft yet strong,
wild yet secure,
beautiful yet fierce. Be the woman you are, for you and no one else.
A woman of the seasons who doesn’t explain her reasons.
Be the woman who is too tall, too thin, too fat, too loud, too quiet, too much.
Let them go find less.
We are not born to shrink & shrivel, to apologise & plead to be understood.
We are not born to live buried in the earth while still breathing.
We are not Ophelia, and this is not Shakespeare’s play.
This is no pantomime, no dress rehearsal, no lump of clay
to be remade by rough, coarse, cruel fists.
We are alive. We are women. We are still beating & hammering our fists against lungs,
screaming beneath a Triple Moon, be too much!
We are only buried to be planted. We are only drowned to be cleansed.
We are only burned to become the fire.
We are enough before we even begin.
We are strong, intelligent, beautiful, gorgeous, sexy, fierce,
talented, inspired, growing, growing, growing.
Show your belly, your laugh lines, your wrinkles and your bones.
Own the cellulite, stretch marks, scars & tattoos.
The ink that snakes & seeps into you, the power of art & words,
be the woman they call a modern-day witch.
For wild women are rich in ways that others can only hope to know.
Out of the Folly Theater by Mario Duarte
When I was a boy, my mother told me bedtime stories. It was the only way she could get me to sleep. Often, they were ordinary fairy tales but sometimes when the mood struck, usually on a gray, cloudy evening like today she would repeat a different, stranger, more personal story.
One morning a gray, ethereal light crept through the eyeholes of the mask in the sky. When the light touched the headless, red clay sculpture beside the Folly Theater, the sculpture came to life. On top, four tapering fingers writhed as if awaking from a deep sleep. In the middle was a lean, elongated trunk arching backwards. Down low, two arms, in a clawing pose like that of a praying mantis, twitched.
When it slowly lifted its thick as tree trunk legs off their white, round pedestals, the brick courtyard boomed as if pounded by giant hammers. On enormous feet, the torso twisted with each halting step down the sidewalk. The sculpture stopped at the edge of the nearby park secreting a musky scent. It struck a motionless stance, one of many hands reaching outward.
Singing to herself, Esmeralda, a girl in a yellow rain slicker, skipped. She picked up a motionless, pink worm stretched over the sidewalk bricks, held it close to her eyes, inspecting it rings until it wiggled in her tiny hands. She giggled and left it under a leafless tree.
After a moment, Esmeralda removed her hood and stepped into the open. Under her breath, she whispered goodbye to the worm. Her shoulder-length raven hair bounced as she ran in and around the trees. She eyed a dandelion and snatched it up, the head was like a golden lion mane or a blazing yellow sun she thought and rubbed it on her chin. “Butter,” she said aloud thinking it smelled like sweet butter. “I made butter!”
“The girl was really me,” my mother would always stop to say. And I believed her.
When Esmeralda caught sight of the sculpture, she squealed in delight. Spiders and snakes and stinky toads and other things that scared other children did not frighten her. She ran as fast as her chicken bone legs could carry her and climbed onto one finger arched like a tarantula leg and just sat there with her legs swaying over the sides.
She blinked at how the fingernails drank in the light. Down, she said, “Your feet look almost like shoes,” and shook her head. “And where are your clothes?” She giggled. “Didn’t your mother dress you for our playdate. Well, never mind. I think I like you just the way you are.”
Esmeralda studied the four fingers on top. “Well, if I had fingers instead of a head, I wonder how I would think.” She leaned her head against the long, slender torso. “Strange, why aren’t you cold?”
I wish you had a mouth, but then again, I can talk for both of us. Mami always says, ‘Mija, you can talk rings around others.’”
“You know, I think she’s right. I might be a big talker, but you’re a good listener and we make perfect friends! It’s good to have friends. I don’t have any friends here yet. That’s why I came to the park—to make friends. We’re new here. I think you can be my friend.”
After giving the statue, a small peck on the fingernail, she said, “I have to go now, or mami will worry.” Quickly, she wet her fingers and rubbed the yellow as best she could off her chin. “Adios. I’ll see you tomorrow. Same time.”
As she ran, some clouds moved, and the sun glowed for the first time that day, streaking down and her shadow stretched from the yellow grass to the gray sidewalks and then out of sight as the air punctuated the honking cars and their rotten egg smoking tailpipes.
The sculpture crawled out of the park down the brick sidewalk, feeling its way. The shadow that followed close behind was shorter and squatter and its movements were slower as if it did not want to leave the park.
The statue returned to the Folly Theater before the manager, the usher, and later the orchestra, and all their gleaming instruments arrived. That night while the orchestra played, the notes swirled, the sculpture was content in a way it had never been before. It seemed to hum.
And for days and weeks, Esmeralda returned to play in the park with the sculpture. She ran around it, playing tag, and its arms would stretch out to touch her. Or if it was very early in the morning, she might take a nap leaning against a leg, the scent of cut grass in the air.
She would talk to the sculpture about making friends, like Justine, the girl next door and in her grade who was so nice and how they would ride their bikes, and talk about the boys in their classes, mostly how squirrely they were and how their armpits reeked!
One morning, Esmeralda failed to return because she promised her mami she would never leave the house alone without permission. The sculpture never left the side of the Folly Theatre again, stuck in the same poise, as if it were a headless person falling out of sky.
My mother always got teary at this point. She would look away, and I would too.
“Mijo, go to sleep,” she would say. “Tomorrow, look up at the sky. Once in a great while, the sky rips off its old mask and wears a different one, and the gray light that fingers down through the eyeholes is otherworldly, magical. What the light touches, well, it changes, it comes alive, and it never really dies, not as long we tell the story.”
The Sickly Sweet Reek of Life by Jill Bemis
A chef-d’œuvre of decay fills the air,
Where Horace the Horrible sat without a care.
Decaying flesh, rotten eggs and skunk alike,
In this realm of greenery that reeks does spike,
But center to the foulness. a flower blooms tall,
Horace the Corpse Plant, odorous above all.
The Incredible Shrinking Man by Lou Storey
I remember you
handsome
between blades
of grass
shrinking
in there
somewhere
smaller
smaller
so alone
ever reductive
things
bigger
bigger
have you
gone mad
chased
by amoebas
battling
swirling atoms
a smile
twisted Möbius
bite into
infinity
are you
lonely
knowing
nowhere
is now
home.
The Tribe by t.m. thomson
You & I slink over midnight
fields. Moon is November’s
candle, & crows fly through
its flame.
Bare trees act as armature,
severing sky into stained
glass panes—clouds
with beveled edges
mottling sky
like cats paw.
We weave our way through
tall dead grass, crisp gold
pennants for the unrepentant
as we scowl our way farther
into forest, away from sowing
& reaping, here where skullcap
& funnel scatter & cluster,
deadly tribes.
We are a tribe of two, woman
in black & cat white as bone—
we stay close to ground,
keep our own counsel,
our eyes never stray
from night’s orb.
You & I cradle each other’s
heart. Moon is November’s
sun, & we prowl & bask in
its warmth.
~inspired by Inge Schuster’s “Portrait of Woman & Cat” series
Abandoned Bathtubs by Rebecca Dietrich
Lou of the Loo by Frank William Finney
(Pub Ghost)
Sure I still hang around
to haunt the old house
and it’s always a laugh
when I howl in the loo
till the help hustles in
and the real fun begins
when I flash them
a face
in the bowl.
The House at 73 Church Street, Charleston by Susan Blair
Built before 1733, rose brick
imported from England. Walls fortress-thick,
three stories, third lopped off one hundred
years ago by the guillotine of remodel.
Per antique deed, Colonel Miles Brewton
conveyed the house for love and affection
to daughter Mrs. Mary Brewton Dale,
wife of Doctor Thomas Dale.
Once storehouse, once butcher shop,
Now it’s mine, Mom crowed, peacock-proud,
Old enough to harbor a ghost. I hope.
I stayed the night, tried to make friends
with the middle front bedroom
but it tossed and turned me in its blanket
of heat, provided not even
a wisp of sea breeze.
Moonlight romanced the room,
ushered in a woman full-skirted, tight-bodiced,
baby in her arms.
She crossed the room,
stood at the foot
of my bed looked
at me.
Stared.
No word.
No sound.
Then, no woman.
Shock vibrated the air terror crept
over me like glue poured from a pot,
stuck a cry in my throat.
My fingers fumbled, numb, managed
to turn on the light.
Horror dripped in the room.
I watched the clock tick
every minute till
breakfast broke the strain.
Coffee – mercy in a mug – normalcy of kitchen –
safety of day – Mom’s rattled
on about her ghost-wish.
I could not conquer the tremble
in my voice –
Mom, you have a ghost.
I wish I didn’t know this.
Next day
Mom moved out
never went back.
The Yellow Songbird by Katie Bowers
Once upon a time, in a narrow cavern, with sooted walls and echoed breaths, a man sought a yellow bird.
Billy knew he wasn’t supposed to be in the mine at night, but the way he figured, his lungs were already ruined—they ached when he took long
strides up the steps to church, could hear the wheezing and ragged puffs of air—sleeping in the mine wasn’t gonna do them any more damage.
Setting up his little tent, something to keep some of the dust from his face while he slept, he heard her call pierce through the silence, much
louder, almost violent, without the sound of the other men working.
Once upon a time, a yellow bird named Eileen had found him; it was his turn to find her.
—
A long time ago, lying in the grass outside the church, Billy looked up at the sky. At his mama’s funeral, someone said, “Sky sure is purdy.” That
made his stomach hurt.
He rolled over and knew he was gonna get grass stains on his good shirt and slacks, knew Granny’d fuss at him, but he couldn’t be bothered
about it. The day was not purdy, he thought, because he was an orphan now. He’d never known his daddy—him having died in a coal mining accident
when Billy was just a year old, and now his mama being dead. Granny had said that the blues ate her up; Billy hadn’t been so sure what that meant.
He wondered why the sky had to be so blue. The blues ate his mama. The sky was a purdy blue. He decided then he hated the color blue, and
he pressed his face into the grass, squeezing his eyes shut. Billy could feel hot tears and snot pooling together at his mouth, could feel a bug
crawling on the back of his sweaty neck, and he clenched his little boy hands into fists, unsure of what to do with what he felt inside his body. At
some point, Billy fell asleep, relaxing his fist in his slumber, and when he woke up, it was to a soft chirp and the feeling of something hard and
gentle—a peck against his skin.
On the back of his hand, a bird was perched: a yellow bird; a songbird; a canary—like the ones his daddy might’ve carried into the mine.
The bird was chirping at him, telling him things: Just him. She said he was special, said he was to call her Eileen; she, too, hated the color blue, she
lived in the mine, and she was just as lonely as he.
She cooed when Billy gently petted her soft plumes, adoringly and lovingly.
She beckoned him to follow her home, and he did. Every now and then Eileen would nip at him, encouraging him along. The bird fluttered
towards the entrance; her yellow plumes bright in contrast to the gray-brown mine.
Billy’s ear throbbed. Touching it, he pulled his fingers away, finding blood from where she’d pecked him. As if an enchantment had been
broken, Billy remembered his mama’s funeral and longed to be back in the warmth of his granny’s kitchen. The sight of Eileen at the entrance to the
coal mine scared him, and he turned to run with a ferocity he hadn’t known existed.
—
Billy had tried to forget about the bird and the mine; he wanted to forget, but she haunted him. All his life he was reminded of his potential, of
what he could make of himself: he was smart, had done well in school, played ball, helped bring home a state title; he was liked by everyone, adored
by the girls. Yet, despite all this, when he graduated high school, he found himself only thinking of Eileen; her somewhere in the depths of the mine
which was where he found himself in the end.
It was years before he heard her, and, in the time that he waited, he grew obsessed. He worked all day, barely speaking to anyone—lest his
voice distract him from the sound of her call—and then snuck back into the mine at night, waiting in his tent for either her call or sleep. He’d thought
of her silence as punishment for his abandonment all those years ago. He wanted to explain to her why he’d left, how he’d been scared. Billy needed
her to know that he finally understood where he needed to be.
When he heard her again, it was a quiet call from somewhere deep in the mine, echoing softly against the walls that surrounded him and the
other workers. Despite its softness, the sound seemed to press above the noise of metal clinking, the grunts of the men, the coughing, the bitching,
the agony, but Billy heard it, heard it clearer than any word from God.
He worked for weeks trying to find her, digging deeper, crawling into tighter, darker, hotter places. Each night he set up his tent, intent on
sleeping just a few hours, but she sang and sang and sang, and he slept less and less. Finally, he stopped setting up his tent altogether; the soot
would cover his face regardless.
Sweat pooled underneath his armpits as he lay on the ground, looking up at the ceiling of the mine. It was low; soon he’d be crawling on his
belly to find her. He hoped he’d find her soon. He was so tired. It was hard to breathe. She was still singing. Still calling him. His breathing was labored
now, and he exhaled slow, difficult breaths.
Billy shut his eyelids and could feel grit from the soot coating his eyes; they watered from the irritation, the pain of the burning and scratching.
The particles of coal slowly rubbed away at the bright blue of his irises. That’s okay, she reminded him, she didn’t like the color blue, and soon he
wouldn’t need to see.
Soon, Eileen sang, they’d be together, happily ever after.
To Erode by Robb Kunz
I LOVE YOU FOR YOUR BRAINS by Hannah Behrens
according to a firsthand account:
“brain hunger is nothing to snuff at”
it’s temper ropes wallflowers with untied laces
voodoo spits hogwash from attic planks
limp courage wrapped in a newspaper roll
to beat away the deity of carnal arms
fingers self-incriminate with saturated tips
even the citrus of blood orange is no cure
for the scurvy of the undead
the elongated night spares no ambrosia remorse
undeath wags her finger at indifference
and belief is only a stretchy cord of sane notions
interrupted by a swift crack
or a slow corrosion
teeth meet soft tissue
creased with spittle
dark eyes reanimate in the brief first bite
the rest is eaten with mechanical vengeance
a catastrophe with all the subtlety
of a grey sky
The Visitor Comes Haunting by Catherine Coundjeris
The chiming clock in the empty room
tells a tale of passing gloom as
afternoon slips away into evening,
and a visitor comes by fair seeming
to sell their wares of awful woe.
The earth quakes from its footfall
and beasts hide in den and hole.
The old hound bay’s balefully
as the bell tolls the bewitching hour.
The grim figure comes garbed in power.
The unlocked door gives easy way,
and the rising moon sheds a ray
that lights the path up to the door
as the shadow man passes within
to sit and wait and scowl and grin.
The house in sad disrepair,
cluttered with age old despair:
books no longer read and treasured,
porcelain figures dusty and broken,
dirty dishes and crumbs on the floor.
Falling down stairs and noisy warped doors.
It was to this manor forsaken that
a group of young fools did troop unbidden.
to peer into mysteries of life and death.
A wealth of misery did they uncover.
It followed them home no more to roam,
and settled down into their lives
to confound, confuse, and despise.
Bewildered the youth did complain
until they were driven quite insane
by the unwelcome visitor who moved
along, leaving no sign or trace behind
save lives destroyed down to the bone.
For the fruit of knowledge dearly sought
can only with flesh and blood be bought.
The Tycoon Tutankhamun by Jonathan Jones
Advert Reads – WANTED : Priest required on call 24/7. Must have own transport. A friendly disposition is essential. Salary $ 2,500,000 per annum
The individual who wrote those words now stood with his back to me staring out of the window of his office. From the 93rd floor of the World
Trade Centre, New York descended. He raised and placed his hand against the tinted glass.
”What actually makes you think you’d be suitable for the job?”
There was a T.V. playing silently on the wall only instead of some stock market commentary I found myself watching Joe Pesci yelling “You
Motherfucker!” at someone off-screen. Playing dumb I thought to myself.
“You like gangster movies?”
“Strange question given the advertised position.”
“It’s just that most people fall for the number. Takes a genuine lack of imagination to pretend to be a man of the cloth.”
“It was actually my Diocese that sent me.”
“Nothing to do with the money?”
His voice had a clicking staccato rhythm. I had no intention of accepting any recompense.
“No, not that. Only the nature of your recent classified has caused some consternation.”
His voice filed to a point, a perfectly manicured nail on which he balanced the entire world spinning in its petri dish. The glass squeaked with the pressure of his palm.
“Perhaps it might sound trivial, but I don’t know a single joke,” he sighed, “Do you know any good ones?”
“I can’t say I do,” I tapped my voice back quickly, “Like I said the Diocese sent me to ask you . . .”
“So do you want the job?”
There was a sudden thud against the window. A trio of three bronze feathers drifted up from the other side although there was no sign of any
bird.
“You can’t just hire a priest as a company employee.”
“Isn’t that what the church does? Surely it isn’t afraid of a little friendly competition.”
The air in the room was stirring full of sound. A digital mechanism faintly discernible like voices speaking over each other as though unsure as to what they were seeing. A speck on the horizon becoming ever clearer.
“We’d like you to withdraw your classified.”
“You didn’t have to come all the way up here to ask me that.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
He pulled a small pillbox from his jacket and swallowed the contents. The window-frame trembled.
The man seemed to crumple and collapse before my eyes. The room was quickly full of other people. No-one asked me what had happened.
Automatically I went to his side in anticipation of administering the last rites.
“Is the building all right?” he asked me.
Plastic surgery had given his eyes and mouths the look of a circus master. Two mouths to be precise, each one identical to the other. So that’s
what a billion dollars really looks like I thought to myself. It was the youngest face I ever saw.
After by Carolyn Phillips
Native plants succumb
to their wild cousins,
poison oak and sumac abound
herbicides are gone.
Leaf blowers rust,
silent in their sheds
as trees drop their burden
for the last time.
Sear scouring winds
scrape the landscape,
a blank canvas
for what is to come.
Supernova by Kayla Solis
I stare into her heart and see
lambent dawn breaking
darkness into light, like daises in a field
trying hard to turn to gold.
Shattered bones and bloody jaws,
wolfish cravings and elf-like dancing
in the snow. There are rotting corpses
upon her feet. She wears a mask
of vicious ivory, and bottles up
her guilt and rage. Her hands of ice
are made from the souls of demons.
One day, this supernova will implode.
Little monster, don’t you understand?
We are all broken,
that is how the light gets in;
and you have such a way of breaking people.
Something Wrong With Me by Kayla Solis
I drew back,
withered away like autumn coated
in rotten flesh,
silent crying, constantly
disappearing at the last
moment, curling inward like
a dying spider caught between
a scream and
sewing my lips together
There was no other place like
the nightmare I conjured
for myself; I was bitten, decomposing
in darkness; I may as well have
been buried alive; death did not kiss me,
but drank my soul
and did not apologize
I thought I was made of guilt and sin;
I thought after years of looking
in the mirror
I knew what lurked inside me,
yet I was not prepared
to see you staring back
You burrowed yourself deep,
somewhere between my kidney
and appendix, shining a light on my darkest
shadows like a torchlight
stripping me bare; you were ready
to place me
onto Death’s maw once again
Raquette Lake by Emily Teltsworth
The sun illuminates six pine trees across the lake. The rest are shadowed by fast-flying clouds. When a small red boat speeds by, waves echo
from its wake.
She is on a dock. Not her own, a cozy airbnb. A small house, with scratchy plaid blankets and a deer antler chandelier. All the towels have acorn print stitched along the edges.
The dock is pale wood, held together with rusty nails. An old boat rocks to the right of the dock. To the left, there’s sand and black seaweed under clear, cold water.
She reads a book of short stories. The sun is burning her. The dock is agitated by the slightest wave. With each miniature nudge, she startles as if falling in a dream.
She wonders if there are fish big enough to flip the dock. Her imagination suggests that trolls under bridges might like to live under docks too.
Some noises seem too human to simply be waves. There is an uneven jerking every so often, as if some hidden monster is trying to pull the dock into the depths.
When she thinks these things, the waves get larger. There are no boats. No wind. She keeps reading her book until the sun doesn’t even reach the six pine trees.
There is a black fly too, biting her neck. By the time she realizes the dock has gone unnaturally still, there’s no chance to run. She never thought drowning would feel so gentle.
Seemed a good way to vanish. Last time in a bathtub. This time, she couldn’t remember. Had she gotten too close to the edge and fallen, or had something had dragged her under? It didn’t matter.
Sickeningly sweet, pine-scented breeze.
An echoing absence of breath.
Later, her little sister will come looking for her. The red boat will pass by again, leaving a wake that starts the dock rising and falling. The water
isn’t clear anymore.
It’s dark and clouded and warm. The sister finds the book with five fingerprints of water slowly dripping down the front cover. A moment more and the water will have dried up.
Monster Aisle 4 by Jonathan Brooks
Metamorphosis by Fang Bu
Blood sets
on whitewashed walls,
the sun in its low furrow
And the moon
hiding in a blue cove
the appointed timekeepers.
The waiting, yes,
worse than immolation,
strapped to my electric chair,
And I Frankenstein’s monster,
the moment of birth
cindering like a second death.
Then the quickening:
salty, metallic pour
down throat and parched tongue,
Baptism by blood
pounding eye and burst eardrum,
cracked bone, warped sinew,
Catechism stuck in teeth,
clamped jaw, scrabbling claw
tearing flesh and cast-off curve,
And at last the cry,
not yawp at all, but howl
of a demonic child, hell-born, earth-raised,
Agony disguised
as ecstasy, melts into the space
between darkness blinding as light
And light terrible as eternity.
Strain by C Show
Around the Anderson household, no one mentioned Jordan’s Double. The unspoken rule began between Mr. and Mrs. Anderson in their bedroom when they noticed the stranger in their home. The person—their daughter recreated to perfection save for her voice—haunted the house silently, accompanying Jordan everywhere she went. They wondered what her teachers thought, but they agreed it was better not to bring any attention to the problem at all.
They reasoned that if they acknowledged its existence, they gave it power, but by ignoring their daughter’s shadow, they theorized they could banish it from their family eventually—with patience and prayers.
Jordan’s Double said nothing and ate nothing, so there was no economic strain on the family. The only strain came from catching a glimpse of the Double and thinking it was their daughter, only to call out and find themselves mistaken.
They didn’t necessarily think it was healthy for Jordan to have a Double. In fact, they’d never heard of any other families who had a child with a Double. But they didn’t want to bother the doctor with such a thing when it would probably just go away with time. Why bring something up and
make a big deal out of it if it would disappear on its own?
Jordan’s brothers, Tristan and Tyler, enjoyed the Double. When Jordan was busy with homework, they would haul the Double out and play basketball with it. Or make it throw baseballs or double-jump them on the trampoline. It was a sister without all the complaining that came with being a teenage girl, and frankly, they preferred it to Jordan.
If asked, the Andersons would have said they had everything under control, but this control slipped away with a visit to grandma’s house.
Mrs. Anderson tried to inform her mother beforehand on the phone not to say anything about Jordan’s Double, but when they parked and walked inside the screened-in porch, Mrs. Anderson could see the judgment in her mother’s eyes. Halfway through a conversation about how 5th grade was going for Tyler, Mimi looked to Jordan and said, “Now I can’t pretend like I don’t see what I’m seeing. Who is that?”
“Mom, I said–”
“I know what you said, Tonia, but something about this isn’t right,” she sucked her teeth and gestured at the Double from her seat on the screened-in porch. “How long have you let that thing live in your house near my grandbabies? You don’t even know if it’s dangerous!”
All eyes found themselves locked on the Double, looking for any reaction to Mimi’s outburst. In response, the Double tilted her head curiously at Mimi, looked to Jordan, then moved from her position in the corner of the room. Jordan watched nervously as her Double exited through the glass and screen door into the finely manicured backyard.
“I told you we should have said something sooner!” Mr. Anderson lectured his wife, but Mrs. Anderson didn’t respond. She was stricken with
embarrassment at her mother acknowledging the Double, at making the problem real.
No one asked how Jordan felt, and if she had been asked, she would’ve requested her family to stop referring to her Double as “it” and “thing.” They were just as much a person as Jordan was, and no one at school seemed to have any problem acknowledging that fact.
But before anyone could make too much of a fuss, Jordan’s Double returned with someone—a withered woman with the look of someone born and abandoned in a tornado shelter. The bent woman raised their head, and in their face, Jordan saw her grandmother reflected back at her. She felt a jolt of pity and then a writhing sense of vengeance like the tangle of an anaconda engulfing a hard won crocodile, settling in to digest the scene with animal pleasure.
Mimi gripped the armrests of her wicker chair as the starved Double approached her, taking a good look at the woman who’d locked them away before devouring her whole. The Double’s mouth stretched to accommodate their prey, and Tonia watched in a daze as her mother struggled against the Double’s jaws. The screams were short-lived as Mimi’s arms quickly stopped resisting.
No one reacted except for Jordan, disgust and satisfaction churning within her until her own Double reached out to take her hand. A message
between them.
This will never happen to us.
Death arrived quickly as the suffocated body of Jordan’s grandmother strained through her Double’s shrunken stomach—destroying the pair in a single swallow.
The Creature by Maria Pianelli Blair
Forever Winter (For Narnia) by Alison Jennings
Who has made it Winter here forever?
When will the missing warmth return,
the gentle wisdom of the just and true?
Never doubt the magic:
You, who may feel too old
for fairytale enchantment,
will someday reawaken
in mystical abandon,
your forces once again restored.
Escaping
from a frozen waterfall,
you’ll cease to suffer
from the cold, as icy monsters
melt and dwindle
underneath
your burning gaze.
Wandering
like brave Ulysses,
wrenching free from Circe’s grasp,
you will reach
the islands of the sun,
where Winter will be dazzled
by ten thousand flames
of faith and truth,
the midnight hour over,
daybreak soon.
Communion by Julian Calico
Rain spat from the jet clouds in sharp bullets, created by mother nature with the purpose to cleanse the streets. An empty glass bottle moved in the current. Riley covered a hand over his forehead, shielding himself from the cold droplets, sprinting towards the bus stop, hoping that the public transportation would steam roll through the tall waters, headlights beaming, driver smiling and waving as they saved this moist and desperate man from the storm. He stood underneath the white spotlight, sneakers so drenched that the white mesh chameleoned into a dull clay. Clamping the withering fabric of his cheap jacket over his chest, Riley squinted his eyes scanning up and down the streets. The temperature in his body has dropped well over five degrees. Blood rushes to his cheeks. His ankles drummed each of his feet, hoping to stir enough heat circulation throughout his thick physique to keep him warm long enough for that precious rectangular vehicle to arrive. An hour passed. With clammy finger-pads Riley wiped his cracked cheap watch, revealing the time; it was half past midnight. By that point, his vision was blurred, the weather producing a mystified flash bang that caused him to be blind further than three feet from where his eyes searched.
Water splashed his pants, gluing the—made in China—fabric to his leg like a protective skin as he treads down the flooded sidewalk, shivering. He’d met with a late-night rendezvous. Completely unaware of what the weather that night would be, yet still believing that sensational climax he encountered an hour ago was worth it. Riley’s ideology would change before the night was done. Like a rabid animal it would grind the poor man between its ragged teeth and spit him out like gum. As the helpless Riley continued down the block, his body now entirely dripping wet, he heard the beautiful and alluring sounds of hymns coming from every direction. Bewilderment struck him like lightning. Who was singing during this time of night, let alone during an awful storm? He took another step forward and ran into two hardwood doors, a dampened thud echoing as the bumper of his sneaker bashed into the lumber. Riley glanced up. A chipped artifact of Christ hung from the door; it was a cross. Blood or red rain ran down the material in thick droplets, and Riley was no longer sure if his eyes were deceiving him because he hadn’t even noticed the towering building of the church as he searched for shelter, and who’s to say this odd run-in isn’t an act of a higher power? Gripping the rusted doorknob, Riley pressed an ear against the wood, hearing the faint angelic voices of a choir. He was a cat stricken by curiosity. Glancing over his shoulder, he only saw a white mist without a promise of a bus coming. It wasn’t. And while everyone remained inside where it was warm and safe, Riley had been out in the streets like a sewer rat scampering for a hole to crawl into. To hell with being some vermin, he thought of shoving the door open and slamming it shut. Upon entry the singing ceased.
The temperature inside the church was warm. Inside the structure of the walls were red bricks that were decorated with candles that bathed the corridors dark orange, flames swaying as if greeting the stranger. Tiled flooring was stained with multiple mudded footprints. Riley turned down the narrow corner, scanning for any trace of life, certain he’d heard voices of some kind. The thought of him being taken as an intruder made the hairs on his neck sprout. No. He’d explain his situation. This was the house of god, and he was coming as he was. They couldn’t deny him. The lord’s rules, not his own. As he moved further down the wing of the building, he came across a hooded figure, cloaked by dark green fabric, his hands gloved by cloths used for potato sacks. The person stood with their back against the wall, head pointing towards the ground.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for a place to stay until this dreadful storm passes over,” Riley explained, with his hands out palm-opened like a beggar’s gesture for change. “Or at least a phone, I need to tell my wife and child that I’m somewhere safe, they’re probably worried about me.”
The stranger didn’t respond. Instead, they moved along the wall with their back scraping against it, the friction echoing like sandpaper, bone chiseling against the matter. The cloak they wore blanketed their entire physique. Riley followed behind, leftover rain rolling from his clothes and creating swimming pools for ants along the linoleum. The hymns returned. And as Riley looked behind his shoulder, the path back out into the streets, and into safety, was gone as if it dematerialized. Perhaps it had. Evil has illusory tricks. Inhaling, his nose gained a strong breeze of mildew and rotten tuna. He furrowed his eyebrows, nose wrinkling, trying to find where the source was coming from, unsure if this stranger was deprived of a good bath. Turning another corner, the rhythm of hymns returned as angelic as ever coming from just past the kitchen. Passing the former, Riley glanced through the window on the silver double doors and saw a fish being devoured by maggots; white, tiny insects gnawing their way into dens of flesh while green and viscous bacteria and mold bloomed on the untouched parts of the sea creature. Hot and clustered bile poured from his mouth and onto his hands, the aftertaste as sour and rotten as the sight he just witnessed. His eyes widened and glossed over, chest heaving while his hands fumbled for his knees trying to keep his balance. A long, yellow thread of spittle dangled from the corner of his lips, and he wiped it with the back of his hands. He decided this wasn’t the place for him. Just find a phone and leave. It was as if the cloaked person heard his thoughts, they held open a door into the sanctuary, beaming yellow lights flooded the dim hall, evaporating everything in its path. Riley tried to catch a glimpse of the decaying fish, but it was blocked by the aura from the room.
“I just need a phone,” he said, walking into the sanctuary. Inside the beautiful, heavenly light withdrew, and a vile and inhumane and ungodly atmosphere returned. The sanctuary at night was a place for the damned and dead to hold service and sing praises unto the name of death.
The heads inside the room turned toward Riley. Skulls. Eyes gouged out, replaced with roaches and gnats, some still had pieces of flesh covered in moss that remained glued, others were freshly dead, their blood brown and black, dripping all over the velvet seats, eyes blinking as if life stirred inside. The masses’ clothes were ripped and tattered among their shapes and forms, the choirs’ robes were splintered at the seams and had bullet-like holes embedded in them. Behind the choir of the dead was a symbol unlike one he had ever seen: it was a decapitated head, the cord and spine ran out of the neck as if it impaled the skull, the eyes ripped away and replaced with thick and red scratches and gashes, and a mouth that had a contorted smile. The smile of the god the deceased served. Riley’s chest tightened and his heart acted as a piano thudding with suspenseful music, sweat replaced the rain that soaked his body, and his lips quivered—a weak attempt to hold back his scream. He was greeted with the stranger’s true face. The nose was ripped away, sludge and grime spurting out in an abundant substance that hit and stained Riley’s clothes, the eyes were blue and staring deeply into the man whose face lost all color, and as the cheeks pulled back to mimic a humane smile, it revealed black and receding gums, and a pink worm for a tongue that peaked out from the abyss of the monster’s mouth.
Riley screamed, brushing past the damned, down the dark halls, slamming nostril first into a brick wall. A blistering and razor-sharp pain shot from his skull. If there was light, he’d see the broken nose and blood flooding from his face. Smudging the scarlet fluid along his face, gasping for air, heart going full speed, phalanges shivering, raking against the sediment searching for an exit. Riley found an open space and sprinted through it, stumbling into another room.
“B-but how?!” He looked in every direction of the sanctuary, baffled and amazed at the defiance of the laws of physics.
The damned all stared at him, coveting the life that pulsed inside of him, tasting the copper of blood vessels that streamed throughout him. Bitter ivory. Beautiful substance. All at once they rose and started towards him. Velvet drapes billowed in a breeze that came from nowhere. The bones clanked and rattled against one another as the undead pursued their precious meal. Sensing the impending doom, Riley gaining an immense and spectacular adrenaline rush, bombarded through a small mass of predators and towards the exit? Entrance? Of the room. Successfully fleeing, careful not to run into anything else, he moved into another opening, this one thinner than the last, and once again found himself tumbling back to where he started. Monsters standing where they were just seconds before. Riley’s lungs were tangled in knots. His exhalations piercing and slow, one eye closing as he endured the suffering. A rough hand clamped over his shoulder. Something flat and rugged drilled into his flesh, ripping away clothing fabric and the skin above his clavicle. Boiling blood bloomed into the air and ran down his chest in three different paths going this way and that. He bellowed, throwing his hands into the air, tongue rolling out his lips. Something snagged the rosy flesh and pulled and tugged and thrashed it free from the muscles that bound it. From all over skeletons ripped and clawed into the man, taking in as much of the flesh they could. Helplessly Riley watched from all angles as the lights rolled away, and darkness and the damned devoured him. A communion for the dead.
Suffocation by Ameythist Moreland
The air hangs heavy with the sound of life—
wildlife rustles and squeaks,
tires fly by,
rounded out with the chirp of insects,
emerging from hibernation’s slumber.
The air—
I know there’s air…
A vacuum carries no sound,
and I still hear the robin’s cry,
though muted
under the racing throb of my heart.
So why is it so hard to breathe?
SINFUL METAPHORS by Scott Mills Jr.
Limbo.
Falling, like a grain of sand to Earth,
Burning, like a match upon a hearth,
Crashing, like a train derailed from track,
Digging, like a mole within a pack,
Lust.
Breeding, like rabbits in a Spring heat,
Touching, like false love between white sheet,
Kissing, like lips parched of bread and wine.
Mating, like a whore on stage to shine.
Gluttony.
Biting, like a wolf starved in deep cold,
Chewing, like cows with values of gold,
Drooling, like dogs with their tapping paw,
Licking, like a toad stuffing its maw.
Greed.
Hoarding, like a dragon in its lair,
Stealing, like a thief with jewel rare,
Sneaking, like a snake in tall green grass,
Hiding, like shadows from sun’s harass.
Wrath.
Hating, like a man whose wife he caught,
Loathing, like a priest who God forgot,
Killing, like a murderer at night,
Beating, like beast’s territory fight.
Sloth.
Napping, like a cat in the sun’s beams,
Sleeping, like a man trapped in his dreams,
Snoring, like elephants on the march,
Yawning, like a hippo full on starch.
Envy.
Stewing, like a pot brought to boil,
Roiling, like a worm digs through soil,
Wanting, like a child starved of love,
Waiting, like a monster from above.
Pride.
Winning, like an athlete of true skill,
Standing, like a statue on a hill,
Bragging, like a bully at his school,
Cheering, like a human that turned fool.
Eternal Darkness.
The Dragon Room by Sam Kealhofer
From the Journal of Sarah Halloway…
Mount Mitchell University, Sweet Briar, Virginia—September 23, 1983
It all started in the fall—both the time of year and general trajectory of events.
My last alcoholic escapade left me with someone else’s blood under my fingernails and a jackhammer of a migraine to babysit. But a bottle of Tylenol and a carton of cigarettes later, and I was getting back to old habits. Classes in the mornings, and in the afternoons teaching intro level literature courses for my T.A. job.
Everyone settling into the semester. Professors hurrying along in their tweed jackets, grad students pounding espresso in the union and cranking away at their dissertations, and my freshmen buckling down for midterms after realizing college wasn’t all bong rips and beer funnels.
I finish teaching for the evening and decide to head over to the library to look for something to read over the stormy weekend: the works of Edgar Allen Poe. He’s a new obsession for me, one I’m considering for my own approaching dissertation. It would be easy enough to come up with some drivel my advisors would fawn over. Something about the American perversion of imagination, the distrust of romanticism, or the early extrapolation of psychosis. But really, I just appreciate his fixation on the macabre. Working title: people are fucked up, end of story.
I walk across the Mount Mitchell campus; pull out my pack of American Spirits and light one up. My hands shake as I attempt the ritual—for an addict in withdrawal it’s an action as exacting as threading a needle. The smoke tastes like shit but the buzz makes the cold walk bearable, fun even.
The campus centers around a circle-shaped courtyard. The sidewalks intercept each other in the center like the spokes of an old wooden wheel. I pass by this center, where the tall flagpole sits at half-mast. A murky stream of rainwater, silt, and scarlet leaves pool at the bottom of the flagpole, the leaves teetering on the storm grate before plunging into the darkness below. I flick the cigarette butt in to join the flush.
I reach the library and its scent of dusty books and outdated wood interior fills my lungs. The librarian gives me a confused look as I walk by, but I think nothing of it—surely something patronizing along the lines of “what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a stuffy library on a Friday night.” I stroll to the back of the library and there I find a tattered copy of the complete works of Poe, as well as some literary criticism on him. I walk back to the librarian to check out. She’s still looking at me in that pensive way, but I’m not open to her condescension.
“Hello miss, what are you doing here so late?” she asks.
“Here we go,” I think to myself. “Just checking out some light reading,” I say before dropping the comically tall stack of books onto the counter.
“Have you not heard about the curfew?”
“Hhmm?”
“Yes ma’am, it starts in 30 minutes.”
“I’ve never heard of a curfew on a college campus before.”
She gives me a look like I’ve said something reproachful, and tilts her head like she doesn’t know what to say next.
“University police notified everyone. announced in dorms and left in employee mailboxes. uhm… a freshman, Grace Hamphill, I think, went missing over the weekend. No one knows where she is.”
My mouth goes slack jaw. How had I not heard about this? Am I really so self-absorbed?
The shock of the realization hits me like a freighter. The reality of this past week shifts into place like a seismic jerk. It wasn’t just another bender. I mean, sure, it might have started that way, but then after I had blacked out at the bar, something else happened.
The nape of my neck sizzles like a fried toaster, my eyes glaze over as the floodgate of memories open: that ghoulish smile, him handing over the red solo cup, the acidic taste of the punch, the drunken caper across the midnight campus. Where was he trying to lead me? Down, down, down somewhere. But my gut wouldn’t let me. It seemed like horsing around in the moment, but then he got too pushy. It always seems like horsing around in the moment; they always get too pushy. I knew it better than most. The alarm bells from my past started ringing, and it ended with a slash across his face instead of whatever sinister plan he had in mind.
I look back at the librarian to find my center but her face is twisting within itself. The acid and other drugs fighting to take back over me. But I won’t let them—in fact, I think I just now sobered up.
God, I had been drugged. I had escaped—and I knew exactly where Grace Hamphill was.
“That’s… that’s terrible,” I tell the librarian, trying, but failing, to sound as sympathetic as possible. “Uhmm… anyways, I forgot, do you have any spray paint to rent out? I’m starting a new art project.”
***
I skulk around the courtyard, evading the university police as they patrol the campus. I light up again as I come to terms with my situation.
Therapy is no help in a circumstance like this. Like Montresor in the Cask of Amontillado, I had borne the injuries best I could; but with the memories of the past week unblocked, all the fear and shame and confusion were souring into full blown rage in the pit of my stomach.
I must not only punish, but punish with impunity.
The patrol regulates and a pattern develops. Once the second officer rounds the library, I should have about three unobserved minutes. He turns the corner and I begin my jaunt.
I reach the center of the courtyard and grab the storm grate. I heave as hard as I can. My muscles strain, my sinews writhe, my cigarette bobs in the corner of my mouth. I feel the grate giving way. I yank it from its encasing, causing a loud metallic SCREEEECH! The blare echoes in the courtyard. I see the patrol officer’s flashlight beam whip back in my direction, bouncing this way and that as he runs over. I scramble to my feet, tugging at the stubborn storm grate to follow suite. The gutter is darker than ever, and I see only a faint shimmer of runoff at the bottom of the culvert, some 4 feet down. I pull the grate to the side of the hole and jump in. My ankle rolls on the curved edge of the culvert, the strands of ligament tear like paper RRRIIPPTT! I stifle a bark of pain, biting on the knuckle of my fore finger and rocking in the sludge.
I pull myself up on my good leg and reach up for the grate. I strain to grab it but find purchase and carefully, quietly, place the grate back.
I begin my slink through the sewer, dragging my useless foot behind me. I find my lighter and strike it up, its sickly light illuminating off the concrete tunnel. A grotesque collection of graffiti art stares back at me. A psychedelic kaleidoscope of creatures lines the walls like a demonic funhouse: rats with bulging eyes and slobbering tongues, Wolves smiling with their razor sharp teeth, topless hippie women with eyes protruding from their foreheads.
I steady my breath and continue down the sewers. Over the next hour, I journey deeper and deeper into the maze.
I make a final left turn at what I am sure is another dead end, and instead find just what I’m looking for. There, lying in the middle of the floodwater overflow room, is Grace Hamphill: gagged, bound, and unconscious. On the wall, a giant purple dragon looks over her, he’s flashing his crooked row of yellow dagger teeth, his nostrils flaring smoke, claws out front as if he’ll pounce at any moment.
Grace’s clothes are ripped in tatters. She’s twisted sideways, sprawled on the dirty ground. Her wrists and ankles are bruised from the knots holding her to the metal chair. I drag myself over to her and kneel down.
“Grace, Grace!” I whisper shout, “are you alive?”
No response.
I give her a shake. Then pull back an eye lid. It rolls back in its socket.
“Damn it, what fucked-up druggy cocktail has this psycho been feeding her?” I think to myself.
My chest tightens, and I wave the lighter around hoping to reveal some miracle.
What am I to do now? Damn it, what was I thinking?
I feel the room start to spin as my anxiety crescendos, assuring myself that it can’t get any worse than this. But then I hear it. Distant, barely perceivable, but unmistakable: The storm grate being pulled open.
This is what I wanted, right? to punish, and with impunity, right? The anger reignites as I realize this would be my only chance to do so.
***
His flashlight proceeds him. He comes rounding the last corner 10 minutes after entering through the storm grate. I hide in the shadows of a corner near the entrance. He walks right past me, his flashlight never deviating from Grace, lying there in the middle of the room. He kneels down beside her and kisses her cheek “Hello, my love,” he whispers, “ready to try my new punch?” He takes a mason jar from his army jacket pocket, swirls it around, and begins to unscrew the lid.
I limp out from the corner, blocking him from the exit. He hears my footsteps and whirls around wildly.
“Oh hey there Corey, want to introduce me to your girlfriend?” I ask him as I walk out from the shadows.
His eyes are bloodshot and wide in confusion; then narrow in comprehension. His left cheek has 2 thin scars that have clotted over.
“You… you’re that bitch that scratched me!”
“I am, indeed, that bitch.”
“You fucking cunt! You’re going to regret that!” he snarls as he turns his complete attention to me. He’s crouched and slings out a pocketknife. He starts approaching me, creeping left and right as if to corner me.
“What’s your plan anyways? Thought you’d come down here and convince me to turn myself in?” he spits in a bark.
“That’s not it at all. See, you’re a monster and monsters don’t get turned in—they burn.”
He lunges at me with the pocketknife.
The scene plays in slow motion in my mind. He rushes at me, and only when its too late does he see me spark the lighter and pull the spray-paint can out from behind my back. The dragon’s roaring figure silhouetting me as I press down on the nozzle; the aerosol jets out through the flame and ignites in a brilliant hue of yellow. The incendiary mist gushes over his face and chest. I wave the homemade flamethrower all over him. The sticky paint clings to his clothes and skin. A putrid smell fills the air; his clothes, his hair, his skin start to decompose from the fire. His skin chars and blisters, crackling in open flame, showing the deep red muscle fibers below. Fatty tissue begins to drip from his wounds and sizzle like fried bacon.
He wheels about as his skin melts. Chunks of flesh fall in flaming heaps as it shrivels from its connective layer. He whacks himself in the face over and over to put out the fire, but the sticky paint substance refuses to release him. He howls and shrieks as his hurls himself across the room. He bashes into the wall and falls in a heap on the grimy floor before me, twitching madly. I just stand there and watch him burn, burn, burn; a thin smiles spreads across my face.
Like I said—people are fucked up, end of story.
Ghost Mirroring Self by Tianyagenv Yan
BOOKHOUSE HAIKU by Cody Beck
(For Diane)
Mirrors whisper
The owls are not what they seem
Are we meant to know?
(Forensics)
Grains lost in carpet
Salting ice-hardened torment
For J’ai une âme solitaire
(Fir, Douglas)
Sunlight through branches
Tracing her unseen outline
Homecoming phantom
(Four Queens)
Oil-spill coffee
Purity and pollution
Conjunct inside me
Unremembered by David Lawton
Put away out of view
Into cold storage
Behind closed doors
The lost souls
The delicate angels
The shadow playmates you remember vaguely
You remember shadows,
don’t you?
In shadowy corners of a dank basement
Are packing crates with dirty wood shavings
Behind yellowed curtains with mildewed water marks,
Something is rotting under silk sheets and blanket
Inside briny water tanks like outsized specimen bottles:
Preserved curious acquaintance.
This made a kind of sense
Remember?
At some point a kind of sense
A wrinkle in my brain tells me
Or told me then
Or told me it told me then
Remember when?
Something to be done
For my neighbors cloaked in never
Dust motes floating in the sunbeams
The shiny cottage in the shire by the alligator creek
How to save people from an obscure time?
Obscure people from an unremembered time
A time that ran by rubber bands
Toothpicks, pearl buttons
Paper clips and rice
A wind-up clockwork broken down celeste
Smothering without a tune
I’m trying to do something
But I don’t know what it is
Everything depends on what I do
But I don’t understand how this once made sense
I don’t know how I fit in
I pray that I don’t fit in
And my shadow friends paw me and hug me
They hang on my coat tails
And my every word
While the sun in all its glory
Ever so slowly descends
And I have to fight the urge
To run away from it all
Whatever it is
I feel for it
I fear for it
I fear it
And like a rickety player piano
I repeat in an endless roll:
“Figure it out,
Figure it out,
Figure it out.”
Carnivorous by Katelin Garner
It was easy to dismiss the wrecked apartment.
The scattered articles of clothing, the glass shards, even the splotchy tracks of mud could easily be explained by an impromptu party with a few friends from school. God knows, more than once I had woken up in the bathtub cradling a bottle of wine and failing to recall chunks of the previous evening. Besides, between waitressing and studying for a full load of college classes, the state of the apartment wasn’t high on my list of priorities.
It was the bones that kindled the first few whispers of doubt.
Small bones, animal bones. They laid in piles across the living room, malodorous and sticky, as if they’d been licked clean.
I shoveled them into a plastic bag and chalked the whole thing up to a prank, the sort of weird joke a frat boy would find hilarious.
Whoever decided to leave roadkill in my apartment last night needs serious psychiatric help, I typed, firing the message to the group chat. Pull that shit again and I’ll call the cops!
What are you talking about, Lupita? The messages pinged after a short pause. We were all downtown last night. No one knew where you were.
There was no reason to dwell on the incident. With midterms fast approaching, it made more sense to devote my sanity to something more productive, like research papers and upcoming exams. Weeks passed. The sky darkened to a blanket of gray, and the winds blew longer and colder. I began wearing sweaters and drinking coffee with classmates in the early autumn hours, tired but content.
That changed the morning I woke up on a mountain of bones.
Sharp edges dug into my skin as I rolled off the bed, trembling with the effort. Strange, hard shapes spilled with me, clattering to the floor. Pressing my palms over my mouth, I muffled a shriek as I gazed upon the rotting mound, eyes watering at the stench.
A graveyard of animals—rodents, cats, rabbits—laid in scattered pieces over the bedroom, soaked with blood. They engulfed everything, swallowing up the room so completely that I couldn’t see the floor. There was nowhere to move without a telltale crunch haunting my steps.
Were the bones from weeks ago a warning? Did someone want to hurt me, torment me with carcasses?
The police didn’t seem to think so. Twenty minutes after I called the emergency line, they arrived to take my statement, but the tone of their voices faded from concern to annoyance as their questions trailed on. No, I said. I didn’t see anyone enter the apartment. No, I don’t remember falling asleep on the bones. No, I don’t have any enemies. No, I don’t remember. I don’t remember. I don’t remember.
In the end, an officer scratched the number of an animal sanitation service on a sticky note and advised me to call again if the problem escalated.
I couldn’t bear to enter the bedroom after that. Long after it had been stripped and scrubbed of the blood and decay, I slept on the couch, waking up every hour to check the doors and windows. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see. A stalker, maybe, lurking under the curtain of night. Or a monster with rows and rows of razor teeth and eyes that glowed in the dark.
In my nightmares, the skeletons of those animals surrounded me, their high-pitched wails climbing to a choir of screams. I could do nothing but lay frozen in bed, watching them crawl ever closer.
It goes without saying that I failed most of my midterms. The professors who allowed me to scrape by with passing grades glanced pityingly at the sallow pallor of my face and the sunken bags under my eyes, encouraging me to get some rest. My friends echoed the sentiment, begging me to call in sick or take a leave of absence.
But rest eluded me. I found myself sagging with exhaustion, hungry in a way I had never felt before.
In the weeks that followed, my appetite knew no bounds. Raw beef patties, pork chops, rotisserie chickens—none of it could satiate the endless well of my hunger. I stalled in grocery store aisles, shaking with the effort required to keep myself from vaulting over the deli counter and devouring that menagerie of savory flesh. The more I fed, the stronger the cravings grew.
When my eyes finally wandered to a woman on the street, mouth tingling at the sight of her rosy cheeks and voluptuous hips, I ran back home. Locking the door behind me, I collapsed to the floor and choked on my sobs.
The word for my sickness came later. It came as I paced the confines of my apartment, fingernails tearing at the wallpaper and upholstery on the couch. No stars penetrated the night sky, but the moon shone yellow and bright.
My body shuddered violently as it changed. My hands went first, fingers breaking and stretching, clawing jagged scars into the floorboards. Then my spine snapped, and a voice that wasn’t my own thundered from my chest, an ear-splitting sound that rattled the windows. I could do nothing as each of my appendages revolted against me. An exquisite, white-hot pain drowned all other sensations.
The word came as my jaw extended and snarled, as new rows of fangs protruded from my snout.
Werewolf.
I Am A.I. by KB Ballentine
After “I am Taliesin”
I am A.I. Everything I do is flawless,
and I can learn whatever I don’t know
about everything in and out of this world.
I know your secret thoughts,
why you spend hours glitzing
and sparkling your images; why you purse
your lips when you snap a photo
(I even know why you use snap for photos);
which Netflix and Amazon Prime shows
you watch the most.
I can suggest a movie, a shirt, a ring,
a car that fits your personality. I can write
an essay and do your taxes.
I can create an image from your words:
you never have to think or invent
again – my sonnets will make Shakespeare
look like a preschooler.
I can find your perfect mate,
and I can tell you what items are missing
from your fridge. I can lock your doors
and close your garage; I can turn on the air
and turn up the heat. I can watch you fossilize.
I have never been alive. (And now I don’t need you.)
I am A.I.
Walnut by Charlene Stegman Moskal
I see a walnut
its two halves coming apart
separating at the seam,
a thin slash, a dark mouth.
Air a paradox;
it enters the heart of the nut
through that
tight mouth
slowly
sucking out its essence,
shriveling the meat into a black, bitter mass
of what used to be tender and sweet.
Sometimes I feel my brain shrinking.
Creatures on Monroe Drive by Angelica Terso
Wheels. Check. Helmet. Check. Sword. Check. Sandwich. Check.
Alex adjusts the metal strainer on his head and slides the pointiest stick he could find in his backyard through his belt loop. He takes a bite of a ham sandwich before securing it in the basket attached to the front of his bike.
Word on the street is, there are giants, ghosts, and beasts living at the old house on Monroe Drive.
“Feet so big, the street shakes when he takes a single step. Ghosts in white long gowns circling the house. Beasts with long sharp fangs who will eat anyone that dares step foot in their yard,” Garrett whispered at recess today.
Garrett is the most picked on in Mr. Reed’s second grade class, his high-pitched voice and off the rocker stories the constant subjects of mockery. It doesn’t help that he’s also the smallest and wears glasses thicker than a thumb.
Alex pedals as fast as he can, counting exactly twenty-eight minutes until dinner is ready. His mother wouldn’t understand it if he told her he’ll be late after sparring with giants and catching ghosts.
When he makes the turn on Monroe Drive, he doesn’t have to look at the mailbox number to know which house it is. It’s the one with a rickety-looking fence ready to collapse if he so much breathes on it. The white paint on the house peels so that it’s no longer white at all, revealing rotten wood posing as four walls that make up a house. The overgrown grass stands as tall as his hips that Alex wonders if there’s more creatures hiding within.
With a pointy stick in hand, he marches forward, peering inside the gate, ready to fight any mystical beings protecting the ancient house. Alex shields his eyes against the sinking sun, blinking multiple times just to make sure his sight is working properly.
And sure enough, there are large boots as big as the length of his thighs tapping against the wooden front porch. Alex has the mind to wonder if giants are so stupid that they can’t be bothered to tie their own shoes. Dancing around a tree are ghosts in long white gowns, all wearing the same hollow expression with eyes unseeing and mouths seemingly permanently wide open. And finally, not just one, but two beasts emerging from behind the overgrown bushes, sauntering their way toward him.
Before they could catch him, Alex retreats and gets on his bike, sparing himself thirteen minutes before dinner.
The next day in recess, the whole class surrounds him, abandoning their heated game of kickball.
“Well? Is it true?” Russell, the coolest kid in class asks.
Alex thinks of the white plastic halloween decorations on a bare tree, two big golden retrievers chasing squirrels, an old man with big funny looking shoes sitting on the porch, and a boy with thick glasses peering out through a grimy window from inside the house.
Alex nods, “It checks out. Definitely haunted.”
He pretends he doesn’t see Garrett breathe a sigh of relief.
Partying at the Boneyard by Alan Bern
Tell-tale Mouse by Peter Venable
The furry dart skitters along a pipe,
claws and chews at the hem of sleep.
Yellow-chisel teeth gnaw at my eyelids.
The thief strips bacon for days
until the spring snaps,
fractures midnight silence.
Its tiny spine is crushed—
eyes forever open.
For weeks
two black suns
stare at me in the
whiskered dark.
The Water’s Edge is Where the Teeth Dig in by Rachel Racette
It was always the teeth. The first and last thing she’d see during her deep slumber nightmares. She always knew when they were coming. Those nights she’d close her eyes with a churning in her belly and a tightness in her chest. She would shiver as the Sandman pulled her under. Praying over and over that she’d be safe from what lay in wait behind her eyes.
She dreams of a starless sky, a vast expanse of hazy nothingness, save for this small island. This beach where every night she saw more and more of her own death. The jaws of her end coming down upon her, bright beacons in the void. Shoved down, laid amidst the frigid waters, that grinning maw falling to meet her. She’d open her mouth to scream –
Only to wake to her bedroom ceiling. Shivering. Weeping tears of joy. She’s never felt those teeth finally collide. She’s never fully tasted the horror of those teeth finally clamping down on her. To tear or feed, she doesn’t know.
But the dreams have grown more frequent over the last few months. She returns again to the edge where dark water meets silver sand. Frigid waves kissing the skin of her toes. She waits, heart pounding, frozen like a statue. She trembles, the phantom breath of her inner demon on her neck. Hot as a furnace. She never sees it approach. She only knows it’s close when she can finally move.
Her limbs unlock, and she runs. Bolts across the damp sand threatening to trip her with every step. She dares not look behind, but she knows it’s coming. She can hear her hunter not far behind. Can almost feel the sharp grip of those hands digging in. The hot breath on her face, the beginnings of that final bite. She knows she’ll be caught. She runs anyway.
A body collides, knocking the breath from her lungs as she hits the water. Her legs kick for purchase, all for not. Harsh hands flip her over and press her into to giving sand. The cold-water parts for her head. She stares up into a grinning mouth.
Teeth. Always the teeth. Sharp and gleaming, the perfect pearly whites of a predator. Her own face stares back at her. Twisted with a gaping mouth of teeth and bulging dark eyes so unlike her own warm hazel. Her demon smiles, pressing her down in a bruising grip. Her bones creak as she cries. The mouth above her begins to open, widening around a slippery red tongue, and a gaping void of a throat.
She doesn’t feel the usual pull of waking. Her eyes widen as she thrashes, sending water splashing across the face of her hunter. She screams, and this time the sound carries. It echoes in this dark space. She’s not waking up. Why isn’t she waking up?!
Dark eyes smirk down at her. She stills, heart thundering in her ears. Is this where it – The maw comes down, and she is swallowed.
A woman wakes, gasping for breath as she arches off her bed. She blinks, rolls over, and sits up. She turns to look in the vanity mirror. She touches her face, tracing the lines with dark eyes. She licks her lips, freeing them of the small stains of red. The predator smiles, lips stretched over a hidden mouth full of perfectly pearly teeth.
When the Alphabet Speaks by Helga Kidder
Angels flit through sweetgum at dawn,
but fairies lounge on tree stumps,
cinch the flow of air with fragrance.
Decide which you want in your life,
either one a blessing from chaos.
Fairies wing our fates, cast waves of
glamour and magic around our lives.
Heaven and hell. But you need purgatory:
island with a weigh station for sin.
Jesus loves you and gives you free will.
Kind of like asking, what flavor do you want?
Love or hate or indifference?
Maybe if you kept fairies that blow away
numbing dreams, grant wishes, heal the sick.
Or angels that sashay through your house,
purr on you belly at night so you forget,
quit wondering what if. All these things
ruminating as when you eat too much pudding.
So many wishes without a cherry on top,
tearing your peaceful days to shreds.
Up in third heaven, you will sing in angelic,
voluptuous white robes. No earrings or
wavy hair inserts or bracelets, just harmonic
xylophones, trumpets, violins, and voices. Did
you study the piano for ten years like I did with
zero success as your fingers feared failure?
Time Rumbling Out of Town by Helga Kidder
I cling to the latitude of each day,
watch the ridge appear out of fog,
remember the tunes of the Beatles
quivering my belly and bumping
against my soul.
Last night’s rain stem-stitched leaves
of mint, aloe, and thyme,
strolled through the garden’s gazebo.
This morning I taste the sun’s warm rays
like a biscuit slathered with butter.
Rain slicks and stigmatizes the rails
of time rumbling away from me
until the conductor pulls the switch
on months, weeks, days – coins
I hoped still jingled my pocket.
