[fiction] Dr. Goon was the principal of Gecko Wacko High School and all the students loved him because that’s how he programmed them, and how did he program them? With the Gecko Wacko De Facto Smack-You-Later. The Gecko Wacko De Facto Smack-You-Later was an archway, kind of like the entryway at an airport that electronically […]
[fiction] Kristen’s dog is named Banjo. He’s big—not just tall, fluffy too, and cream-colored like the living room carpet. When I pet him, my hands sink down all the way to the second finger joint. He’s so big, he reminds me a little of the horses up at the farm. I was never really around […]
mother 1. noun. presence, as in constant ex: “the mother is here.” see also: mama, mommy see the child cry out in fear, in loneliness see the presence quiet the child see presence beyond himself 2. verb. to rear, as in to create ex: she mothers and mothers and mothers until she is no […]
Christine Imperial is a queer Filipino-American poet. She is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing at CalArts. She won the Loyola Schools Award for the Arts for her poetry in 2016. Her work has been published in NoTokens,Heights,Rambutan Literary,among others.
Ada Limón is a poet and author of Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World (both debuted in 2006), Sharks in the Rivers (2010), and Bright Dead Things (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Kingsley Tufts Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her latest book, The Carrying, is the […]
Triptych of the Adobe-Cotta Army East Palo Alto, Circa 2000 AD My fingers are desperate to unearth the ruins of my countrymen. Only to find a Tesla on the second floor of our apartments —now a parking garage. The Amazon logo smirks above me, like a biblical cloud. * Out here, hooded saints tore the […]
You dip the sugar-speckled Parle-G in your tea and take a bite of the mushy biscuit, savoring the milky memories, watching the rain peter out to a mizzle in the garden outside the verandah where you sit in your bamboo cane chair. After the incessant spells of kalbaishakhi showers, the earth smells of rain, as […]
Rodolfo Montalvo is a Los Angeles-based children’s book illustrator with work published in both traditional print and digital media. His illustrated books include The Contagious Colors of Mumpley Middle School and The Amazing Wilmer Dooley (both written by Fowler Dewitt), and the picture book Dear Dragon by Josh Funk. Bye Land, Bye Sea will be […]
[fiction] Nora Brown was running. Not the strained, sweating through a rough cotton t-shirt running of gym class—this was different than any running she’d ever done in her life. She was a human laser, slicing along the roadside fast enough to pass cars moving in her direction. She could hear everything happening within her body […]
It was a cloudy September morning in San Francisco and my body had decided that everything inside of it was poison. It was 8:34 a.m. on a Thursday and I was hungover at work, sitting behind my desk praying that my breath smelled like coffee and not vomit. It wasn’t very often that I was […]
[fiction] My name is Charlie Heron, and I am Jesus Christ. * * * Of course, you can’t possibly think that I’m telling the truth. Probably think I’m a tweaker or a schizo. But I mean, you can think what you want—I won’t judge. I’m Jesus, remember? It’s the first day of my senior year […]
I am not a girl who is pretty in all seasons. With the russet of fall painted on my mouth the scar across my face (climbing from the lip) Splits the silence with a noise less like Mozart, Closer to clanging; Rock metal, metal and rocks. Winter blues recall the time, Drowning in surgery, waves […]
I only have five minutes to make my flight. I rush to the gate, slip into my cramped seat, still breathing hard from the mad dash to the gate. I pull out my journal to write. Writing settles my nerves. It’s my safe haven. It’s my security blanket. The well-meaning stranger next to me spots […]
The February I am twenty-six, on the day before I’m supposed to fly to Portland to rent a house, I come down with the most brutal and short-lived flu I’ve ever had. My body aches so badly, I can’t move. When I say this, I don’t just mean that it hurts to move—I worry, when […]
Turkish Coffee Mama tilts the cup to the side, rolls it around, examines each line, dot, drop. They look like black, crusty Jackson Pollock paintings. She doesn’t take it too seriously. “Ah, habibti, it’s a man in a hat. You’ll meet him soon, and he will be very important to you,” she says to my […]
[fiction] I know I want Lea the way I do long before she pulls me into her room, but the way she shrugs the button-up off her shoulders still undoes me. She closes the door, reaching up and over her head to tear a wad of gauze off her back. She makes the white pad […]
The cover of my phonics workbook is plaid like my uniform but in reds and pinks and whites. Inside, each page is covered with little pictures. Crowns, shoes, fruits, stars, each in its own little box. Then there are the letters. I know them all and know the sounds they make, but in English they […]
[fiction] Stage One—Let Go of Your Fear Start out in shallow, warm waters. If you’re learning to swim where there’s a current, be aware of the flow. If you insist on learning to swim this way, make sure you’re with someone who knows what she’s doing. Try floating. Try breathing underwater. Don’t panic. Wear goggles […]
אמר רבי יודן Rabbi Yudan taught: פעם אחת חזר על כל המניקותOnce, Mordekhai searched but ולא מצא לאסתר לאלתר מיניקהcould find no wet nurse for Esther, והיה מיניקה הואso he nursed her himself. • My breasts judge a handshake, have five-o-clock shadow. I know the proper verb for a deal with God is To Cut. […]
Mack has been hit by a Mack Truck more than once. I know this because he tells me the story often. It is fuzzy though, because I ignore him every time he shares it. When I tell my family about the things that Mack has narrated to me, they look at me funny, like maybe […]
[fiction] It is Laurie’s cross to bear, this cat that’s found a home in her abdomen. From its nature it must be a Bengal. It is frighteningly active at night. Laurie will be at a Meditation of Surveillance seminar, and she’ll feel it lunge at her stomach wall. Or she’ll be in the kitchen getting […]
1. Despite my protests, neither my mother nor my father will concede the point. I was not, according to them, in my right mind when I called from a hospital bed at Ajou University Hospital. They detected something. An aberrance. Like an incoherence of speech, or a delirious register of voice. It’s only natural they […]
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