Madelyn sets the crossword to the side. None of the answers are right, but she still managed to make everything fit. Making yourself...

Madelyn finishes The Plain Dealer’s daily crossword puzzle in thirty minutes flat. She gets up from the kitchen table for a second cup of...

Diagnosis with the Crypt Keeper The first time I meet my psychiatrist, he asks if we’ve met before. This does not bode well. He asks...

Writing every day used to come easily. Once, a professor asked my class who there wrote every day. No one raised their hand but me, and...

This room has four walls, but it is also without walls, expanding past the fragile steel of my skull. A fragment of me looks at rows and...

Hill of Beans The doughnut shop isn’t up to code; danger makes a delicious dish. Here, hello is flash-fried catfish. Go ahead, eat up,...

Lesson in Lockjaw My grandfather’s jaw is locked into the smoothness of my chin, a mechanism that helps me chew the fat at Christmas,...

I need to write something. It needs to be 500 words. It needs to be posted today. At first, I was going to post a poem because I have...

Continuum of Care Pen clicks mark time in a unit where no one gets to leave. This purgatory; sins never really purged, impossible. No sin...

The cover art was done by our friend Elizabeth Noble. As a preamble, I want you to know that Richie Smith and I released an honest-to-god...

We aren’t ready. When Sebastian holds the door, and the sky blinks into blackness, we aren’t ready. When everyone is left standing in the...

I’ve been working on some really big projects these last few months, which means less time for writing smaller pieces like short stories...

Writing in the middle of a pandemic is hard. Everything is hard. But I assure you that I am working, or at least trying to work. This is...

Mudbug Mood I’m thinking about crawfish and the way they boil brackish in the high heat of June, seasoned spicy in a galvanized washtub...

ATLAS, part 2 restless road rage knots you in asphalt ribbons tied to sunset suicides––glass shards bleed out into the next life full of...

Sheol My littlest sister braids her Barbie’s hair in the middle of her room, and brings some cogent questions: I understand the sun...

Whenever I finish a project, I feel empty. It’s not a scooped out feeling, it’s more of a “I’m not here” feeling. It’s like existing in a...

Autotomy I’m passions paled away ashy, waiting  for a word to flutter, hinging on this  fingernail, and that one scratching  out phrases...

Mucha will remain vigilant, waiting for his lady love. It’s funny how quickly we bond, to the point that we get so used to life together...

The Forgetting Season Gideon’s fur finally grew back,  two years after you shaved him  that summer, despite his undercoat.  His dappled...