by Kelly Sundberg
(Sorry, hippy bros, but your calls for "peace" and "love" aren't helping all of the women who know how it feels to be held down by your "peace-loving" friends.)
On the Other Side
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Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival
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by Melanie Bishop
He hurls a wet toilet brush, hurls and breaks her cellphone, tries to block her from escaping the apartment, and, during the resulting chase scene through the lobby of the dorm, calls her a” fucking bitch.”
La Strada
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by Veronica Golos
The woman standing at the door of her hut. Blazing sun, the air clouded with insects. The girl, you, skinnier than in the film, hungry thin, owl eyes; blistered roads, never meant for auto or truck or
tank. The silence here is heavy, another burden, the girl, you, thin as whitethorn. Threshed from your own flesh.
S Deeper
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by Céline Mathieu
S had landed not long before our decision to leave the place of eternal screenings. She had flown, trying to be aware of her being off the ground for the entire four hours of the flight she attempted to turn her awe into a skin filling paste of awareness. And deeeeper. S would meet us by the tilted slope of beige and green in the afternoon.
Turning Glass into Sky
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Melanie Bishop
Each character is introduced with one specific detail, and then bam, surprise pregnancy. Marriage. We've slid into the world of this essay with so little fanfare. Another writer might spend pages developing the romance, building the relationship, pondering the pregnancy issue. But Sundberg gets right to the crux matter: two people, a child, a lot of unknowns. A crap shoot...
Further from Home: Deforming Dan Fournier
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by Erik Rasmussen
So, as like Exhibit B, when Patsy sees a power eating, drum annihilating, from-what-he-can-tell-on-a-run 6’2” -or 3” galoot with a passion for making serious fucking noise, he knows its molding potential. Patsy’s feet hit the pavement at about the same pace Dan’s sticks hit the drums. And rumor has it he snatched Dan out of his drum kit...
Aba Abedin: Poems 14 & 15
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by Aba Abedin
Any poem I start with your name
smells like fire.
It is like living in a house that
has been burning for years
Further From Home: Dopehead Theology II
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by Erik Rasmussen
Larry could practically see the dishonesty rippling wildly out, a toxic impression his behavior stamped into reality and would eventually, he just knew it, kill this relationship as the substance had killed so may emotions inside him.
Forgiveness on one shoulder, a killer on the other.
I’ve Got AIDS
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by Michael Wiener
I’ve got AIDS, man. Not sure how it happened. Life’s cheap, here. It’s funny, ‘cause this used to be a pretty vibrant neighborhood. Then they starved it on purpose, swear to God. Powers that be, the bankers, Mayor Koch, probably the Fed. NYC, Drop Dead, exactly right. They don’t give a shit.
To Sit on Sidewalks (A Conversation with Wang Ping)
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by John Casquarelli
Wang Ping’s Ten Thousand Waves is the telling of the migrant explorer’s story for survival. Packed with voices of the dead, Ping’s book reminds the reader how sacred each laborer’s life is in the face of unjust labor practices. Each person is more valuable than their labor, even when multinationals, banks, and political institutions act otherwise when...
Three Poems by Laura Metter
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by Laura Metter
He bowed, bent at hip like
a statue toppled by revolutionaries
or candle contorted by
its own flickering wick.
Liven Up Your Next Party with a Dark N Stormy Daniels™
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by Phineas Lambert
Need a cocktail to serve at your soiree? Bored by traditional options, old fashioned Old Fashioneds or Cosmopolitans that leave you feeling lost in suburbia? Then look no further than a Dark N Stormy Daniels™, enjoyed by drink connoisseurs since its long-ago invention in the seedy confines of a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament.