The charts told me he’d be the one to seal my heart with him, that we’d rampage together, articulating the living proof and all that comes with sitting on rocks, raising the soul up from the rectum to the sky. But I felt the beat of the automaton in the darkness—he was howling for want…

A debacle with ice and a shortage of rum—phone calls rose through the elevator chute like steamas courses played tag with the oven.Doused in alcohol and set aflame,from the bright holiness of Easter morning only the moon survived,the rest succumbing to midnight char we dirtied our evening wear with. A meeting of the minds—theorists, poets,…

“Were you ever married?” “Yes, I was married once,” Bridget’s grey eyes looked out of the nursing home windows at two pigeons quarrelling over a piece of bread. “Was that when you were in Chicago?” “That’s for you to find out.” Sometimes following Bridget was confusing, like tracing the silvery trail of a snail on…

Barry planted ivy plants from Home Depotin the flowerbed on the northsideof the rental house next doorwhere he lived with his wife, Irene. Why, remains a mystery. If he plantedivy on the southside, it would thrivein many hours of direct sunlight. ground creeping, clambering evergreen, expanding and climbing, intricate beauty and profound wonder. dark glossy…

There is a minnow in the dog’s bowl. He turns and turns unendingly, flashing silver  when broadside to the setting sun, finding each next curve as though new to it.  Particles of sand in his wake. Grass. Going in circles. Next to the dog bowl, a camp chair is weighed down by someone. Their right…

In a village such as this, one so close to the brush of the dark forest, there is a certain stifling suspicion. Evelina, the youngest girl of the village, found it to weigh heavy and humid, thickening as the leaves moved from their coat of dew, to frost, to their shriveled fall. From her home,…

As we go, dictating our disastersupon the next limp leaf,time lapses, lingers (still),sounding off seconds like blastsin the announcement of our barren plea. We are first among those who cradle themselvesas common casualties.We hear stories of our predecessors occupying gravel bedsof rouge and ruin. Prioress, you rise to breatheflesh onto the bones, fur warming the…

Walking off my lament,I fumble with the path towards home,wander and graze the tennis courtlike the close shave of a bullet.Sprinklers high as indomitable fencesspray the concrete down. Night bankrupts the sky of its yellows,keeps only floodlights as a loanaround which a parish of gnats swarms and staticslike a clipped nerve.Monday, so bacchanalia are free…

Crossing linesover romanticized landmines,my heated pace pulses the ground. Turning sand hills to seaside,this wreckage, detonatingseconds in the surgeof eroded defenses. Lush discourse, ignitingsparks from the shrunken.Legends of our dawn emulsifyingapparitions of our loss. Swelled, now dispelledin duty. This frontlinedoes not mobilize madness;it commands wailingfrom our shallow beds. A fight that is ill timed.A dropped…

Content Warning: references to self-harm. Suicide I came to see you despite my best interests. The buzzing humidity of Azizpur’s musky air swarmed my face. The palm leaves were so bright that they looked wet — like they’d been weeping too. I felt the sun biting my skin, but nothing stung more than the hot…