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The Shuffler, John Waterfall
“I have another theory as to why nobody is coming to get me. Perhaps instead of being murdered by the Shuffler they simply evacuated and forgot about me. Which would go hand-in-hand with me never being invited to any of the birthday parties that might have occurred.”
Quantum Summer, Josie Tolin
“‘What’s in the bag?’ I finally asked the old woman during her next visit. That morning, she’d forced me to sniff her toes three times before I convinced her there was nothing to worry about: feet just smell worse in the summer.”
Birthday 10, Ezra Solway
“They plop a birthday hat on my head, / String coiled firmly around my larynx, / So the blood flushes, / In my eyes, they search, / They demand happiness, my parents.”
What Breaks Us Is What Separates Us from the Animals, Hilary Gan
“I have just passed Picacho Peak along Interstate 10 on the way home to meet Shane for dinner, Tucson spread out before me in the dusk, when the sun grows so bright that the clouds turn black like an old film negative. When I come to, I am picking glass out of my neck.”
The Justice of Foxes, Maggie Damken
“All through the rest of the afternoon the foxes wait in the tall grass. The sunlight limns each blade with liquid gold and crimson blush. Purple night mushrooms across the sky, swallowing the coneflower and milkweed. Moonlight makes ghosts of the swaying leaves. With the impenetrable dignity of statues, the foxes wait.”
Triple Moons, Charlotte Peale
“there were triple moons last night and I thought of you / shit-faced by the river we exploded flaming moons”
Crazy Knights, Ryan Werner
“I had a Peavey Butcher from the 80s, which is the kind of amp people buy when they want to be louder than the people who buy nice things, and I turned it up so goddamn loud that it wasn’t even notes that came out of the speakers. It too was the noise of life, but the right kind.”