By: Don Tassone I have a story I’ve never told anyone.  I thought I’d take it to my grave, but dying changes the way you think.      In the time I have left, I’m going to write it down.  Maybe…

By: Srinaath Perangur Incarceration I have known who they aresince I was littleI’ve seen himlike this. Reading theEconomist. Hidden in his bag:littlebottles of vodka. Willfulit is a different kind of forgetting altogether.I search for himThree quarters of a blueberry muffin…

By: Jodi Nathanson I have read and re-read The Great Gatsby so many times that I can recite its lyrical and descriptive passages from memory. My first encounter with this classic of the Jazz Age was in high school in…

By: James Aitchison One of literature’s great mysteries concerns Miss Havisham in Great Expectations.  Did the real Miss Havisham live in Sydney, Australia?  And if so, how the dickens did Charles Dickens hear about her? Well, the first myth we…

By Vanaja Malathy An AI-generated image of a woman with a Bindi on her forehead “There’s a mark on your face.”  I was on my walk in a beautiful park in Denver, when a four-year-old little girl’s attention drew close…

By: Rachel Chitofu Because in the past, you fell in love with the wrong woman,when I show you the scar of my heart’s sparked love for you,you mistake its burning intensity for infidelity or insult.Its redness resembles a moon’s incongruous…

By: Brian Michael Barbeito it was a long day. sometimes the rains arrived out of nowhere and other times the impossibly hot sun that also blinded us. I was sitting beside the tarot reader at a fair. heck, i thought,…

By: Michael Craig Debby No diamond in the rough.This woman so exquisitely cut.Set within her, a heart of gold.One that tarnish shall never dull.A beauty so very desired,even artists are inspired.So stunning, an impact,never before seen or heard.When painted on…

By: Jacob Keating Eggs Under soft sun you make eggs in the morning.It’s distressing me how little you look at the pan.Wrapped up in amber, and tangents about something or other. Perched on the kitchen counter, spatula as a microphone,You…

By: Leena Adhvaryu A doorisaboundary.Itcanbeclosed;itshuts off.Butitcanbeanentrancetoo,athresholdtocross,a pathtobegin,towalk togetheroralone.