• “What the Hell is Hauntology?”: A Reading List for 2019’s Theme by M. Perle Tahat

    2019’s theme for TERSE. is hauntology: nostalgia for lost futures. As our columnist Jordannah Elizabeth bluntly asked, “what the hell is ‘hauntology’?” Hauntology, as we’d like to explore it, is a way to describe a phenomenon related to resonances of traumatic events; a coming to terms with “what’s been done” in the present based on…

  • “Befrust” by Gabrielle Lawrence

            Gabrielle Lawrence is a writer and editor. Her writing can be found in The Squawk Back, Rising Phoenix Review, Gravel Magazine, A Gathering Together Journal, Sundog Lit, and others. Even when she isn’t doing the most, she is still in the spirit of much. Follow her on Twitter @gabrielle__l or visit gabrielle-lawrence.com for…

  • “How a Girl is Born Brutal” by Weslyn Rae Newburn

        I spent the summer pretending my legs were confined in a sheath of iridescent scales, swimming with eyes closed, nose pinched tightly shut. The burn of chlorine in my throat, greasy shine of sunscreen on my shoulders, cool juiciness of lemon yellow freezy-pops, that tasted nothing like real lemons. That summer my bitterness…

  • “Pest Control” and “Dissociative Amnesia” by Kristin Ryan

    Pest Control I. There are always roaches in the corners of my mind. I’m in the kitchen washing cups at the sink and time skips. Skips as in: I’m six and splinters are in my back. Skips again: roaches crawl over me. Skips again: the sink is overflowing and soap suds run down my arm.…

  • “Pine” and “Tuileries” by Kristin Garth

      Tuileries   Twilight, Tuileries, trembles, tulips, then tomfoolery. Cafe au lait, collar new beneath her trenchcoat, navy blue. Her yin, the silver links his yang, the gold. She flew to him nineteen years old. His growl “good evening,” telephone — a voice with fangs, a face unknown. She’s hotel howls with bit, licked lips,…

  • The Price of Peace: A Review of Nguyen Phan Quang Binh’s ‘The Floating Lives’ by Tini Ngatini

    I recently came across a Vietnamese film, The Floating Lives (Canh Dong Bat Tan), which was released in 2010 by Nguyen Phan Quang Binh. Although this film is a few years old, the issues that the director addresses still feel fresh and progressive from my perspective as an Indonesian woman who teaches courses on women,…

  • Playing ‘Exquisite Corpse’ By Myself by M. Perle

        “And it kills me, the word sorry. As if something like music   should be forgiven. He nuzzles into the wood like a lover,   inhales, and at the first slow stroke, the crescendo      seeps through our skin like warm water, we   who have nothing but destinations, who dream of light    but descend into the…

  • Detours and Triple Deuces by Keysha Whitaker

    I once took Route 1 from Virginia to New Jersey by using a AAA atlas. This was around 2000 – way before Google Maps or the guiding voice of Siri. In my black Dodge Neon, I pulled over periodically to check the way, using my finger to follow the road off the page and onto…

  • Flesh Inaugurate by Wes Bishop

    The other day I was riding in the car with my friend and colleague Angela Potter, and we began discussing how popular views of health, genetics, and modern material reality shaped everyday thinking and belief. We had just come from giving papers on a panel together at the Indiana Association of Historians. The topic? The…

José Guadalupe Posada