Tag: prose
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Braving the Days: One, One, Seven by Jordannah Elizabeth
January 1, 2023 It is the first day of the 2,023 year of the marking of the evening following the stigmata that completed a story, 33 years long. I read many stories, but tales of history allow years, numbers to ascend. So, when the ancient is uttered in any fashion it has become of some […]
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“In Every Creation” by Sam Jowett
a sliver of me astral infused queerness myself laid bare upon the mountains I carved the forests I etched the nebulas I painted […]
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“Used Planet, Slightly Worn” by Barney Sperlin
Talking to fruit wasn’t on my list. This casual walk was an after-dinner treat, strolling under the bright moon and stars, searching for owls along the cleared path in the woodlot behind my house. I moved toward a burbling-chortling sound associated with raccoon families, and dropped into a swale. On the opposite side of the […]
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“That Shining Moment” by Drema Deòraich
They say you don’t see the bullet. They’re wrong. The shooter pulls his trigger, time drags to a crawl. I see mine. It flies toward me like a bee to a flower. # Before, children squeal delight at the sight of the zoo across the busy public square. Teachers remind Margot for the millionth time […]
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“In the Endless Perfection of Your Absence” by Sahar Khraibani
It is here, in this specific spot, across from this sky, here, where it all began. Monday, January 30, 2017 at 2:23 PM. Beirut, Lebanon. I have not written about the sea in a while. It has become increasingly harder to think about it, to imagine it, to smell it. I went around telling […]
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“The Elephants in the House” by Avra Margariti
The elephant in the room can’t breathe. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson sit around the dinner table with their two teenaged children. They talk, but only empty words drop from their mouths to rise above the clinking of cutlery. How was school? Fine. Pass the salt, please. Thank you. The next day, the elephant in the […]
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“First as Tragedy, Then as Tragedy: on Christian Petzold’s ‘Transit’” by Oscar Mardell
They say about this land that the projectiles of the last war unearthed the projectiles of the one before. – Anna Seghers, The Seventh Cross (trans. Margot Bettauer Dembo) But war, of course, consists not only of projectiles but of peripatetics: every legion of soldiers produces another of refugees. And few have been more sensitive […]
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“Arundhati Roy’s ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’: The Worlding of Queer Lives Under Neoliberalism” by Mauve Perle Tahat
“’You’ve already been to my funeral. You’ve already laid flowers at my grave. What more can they do to me? I’m a shadow at high noon. I don’t exist.’The last time she met him he said something to her, casually, jokingly, but with heartbreak in his eyes. It made her blood freeze. ‘These days in […]
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“On Mothers and Daughters” by Rowan Aubrey Sloane
My mother grew up moving. The only place she has told me about is Dayton, Ohio. She grew up moving, orbiting Wright-Patterson Air Force base where her father, the colonel, was stationed off and on. She grew up orbiting, but people aren’t satellites, and she doesn’t bring up her past much. The only […]
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“Reality’s Shelf-Life” by J.T. Hamilton
She died with a virtual reality headset strapped to her face. Jaw agape, cheeks sunken, polygonal patterns of crystallized sweat stuck to the fabric of her clothes. Her body was splayed out on an undressed mattress. A ceiling fan wobbled above. It was hot. Real hot. Alabama mid-summer-sun-expected-to-implode-this-decade hot. Scattered around the mattress, small plastic […]