in the dark, i find a new boy’s tongue in my mouth like the searching hand
of a clock: the witching hour, the rhythm of his hips, magic
against mine. sweat pools at his nape, soaking his dress shirt,
but i grip a handful of hairs, pulling his sour heat into my palm.
when he tucks his name into my ear, the syllables bounce from me
“When did you start climbing?” Evgeniy asked me while we lay in his bed after showering together. One of the things that kept me coming back to him was how he liked to clean up immediately after we were done. He did not linger in filth.
“Come with me next time I go,” I said instead of answering, taking on the active voice to combat the antisocial, post-coital placidity.
Exercise: v. middling, meddling, 500 years ago—To put into action. Circa 1340: to raise from the dead. Circa 1729: to exercise one’s tongue. To practice one’s genius. To exercise one’s pipes. To bring to bear. Circa 1738, of Psalms and Hymns. A prompt of no serious exchange—except one’s rights. Take advantage of property laws. Speak out. Hear me out: i.e. to exercise power.
Isabel Yap is a Filipino writer of fiction and poetry. Her debut short story collection, Never Have I Ever (Small Beer Press, 2021), contains thirteen unique and extraordinary stories based on Filipino culture, history, traditions, legends, and mythology. Full of monsters, magic, and miracles, each story has its own touches of fantasy, horror, mystery, and/or hope that will keep readers enthralled.
The year I turn 9, my father hurls a telephone across the kitchen. My dad has just received news of a friend’s death from brain cancer. I suspect he figures the receiver might as well die too, and wound the kitchen on its way out. By the time he is shoved up against his own cancer diagnosis, 17 years later, my father is too weak to weaponize telephones.
Young Adult is a privilege. When you write for them you have to be hopeful because your audience still has a lot of living to do. When a kid reads my work I feel lucky that they read my words, that they entered a small world I created for a little bit.
It was a sluggish day at the salon. Raining outside; a Saturday. The boss lady was on edge all morning, going on about the taxi strikes and the Arab grocer up the street. “Mariana!” she snapped at me twice while tugging a boar-bristle brush through a woman’s gray bob. She doesn’t like when I stare out the storefront window, gnawing at my cuticles.
I write for children and young adults because I see in them the greatest capacity for change. And that’s what we need in this country and in this world. We need informed youth who can take action that will build better communities. The level of ignorance in today’s society is astounding, and a lot of that has to do with what we had—or did not have—available to us to learn from when we were growing up.
I met Lia in an ad for her Haunted Doll Hotel. I suppose I didn’t meet her, but her personality was clear:
YOU’RE SEARCHING FOR A HAUNTED DOLL COMPANION.
THESE ARE MY HOURS: WKNDS, 8 P.M. / 4 A.M.
PINE BARRENS. FOLLOW SIGNS.
She was right, and I wasn’t busy, so I drove down there.
For twenty plus years, Lise Quintana has worn numerous writing-related hats: author, editor, publisher, book reviewer, educator, and more. She’s the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Zoetic Press, which publishes cutting edge short-form literature. Zoetic is the home of the award-winning journal NonBinary Review and the fiction and poetry podcast Alphanumeric.
At the beach house, Mama cooked whole crabs alive.
Through the steam, we watched them slowly seize up
and stiffen like the dead fish that washed ashore
the day you cut your foot on shattered glass.
When sand stuck to your weeping wound, I couldn’t clean it
the Russian train runs on only time
bones come from its exhaust pipe
we twirl our black umbrellas
and there is no dream
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