The Art Gallery I pop into the art gallery lined with textured paintings of the seaside. The artist greets me as she works wielding a palette knife through thick clumps […]
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Tag: relationships
“That Damn Selfie” by Laurel Osterkamp
If only Joyce hadn’t taken that damn selfie. Her and Tate, laughing at a truck stop in Mexico, drinking beer with lime, his cotton t-shirt sticky with sweat, her tank […]
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“Alligators to Ashes” by Margaret S Mandell
Prologue to a Memoir Based on Love Letters to my Dead Husband By Margaret S. Mandell Sunday, December 10, 2017 My Dearest Love: October 2015. I am swimming laps alone […]
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Four Haikus by Constance Mello
When I awake I Like to think about us two Alone forever Sweetest saccharine Inside your mouth I lose my Self hour after hour Diet Coke kind of Love. I […]
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“Inaccessible” by Connie Woodring
I was afraid of my abusive and controlling ex-husband, but I didn’t know this until 10 years after I divorced him. I wrote hidden poems, feelings hidden. Hidden in notebooks […]
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“What Lay Beneath” by Christine Yount Jones
In the sweltering summer of 1966, I have a kitten who will not cooperate under the Arizona sun that glares at me from its cloudless sky and scorches all things […]
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“I’ve Barely Been to College” by Kailey Tucker
Autumn snapped my spine like the sudden flash of a spark, waking up the dark. She brought rain and left me blooming, treading my fresh soles on top of crumbled yellow bladed leaves that change […]
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“Rare” by Joanne Howard
Two a.m., well into her night shift at the NICU, was never a good time to receive a call on her cell. “He’s gone,” Jason’s slurred words garbled on the […]
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“Eyelash Extensions” by Clive Aaron Gill
Brittani, the unmarried maid of honor at her younger sister’s wedding in a small village church, spent years in graduate school. It infuriated her that the bride’s marriage license meant […]
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“Scrutiny” by Tim Frank
I played with the curls of your clipped auburn hair that I kept sealed in your grandma’s silver locket, because you always said I didn’t truly see you. But I […]
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“In the Willow Garden” by Isabel O’Hara Walsh
Down in the willow garden, where me and my true love did meet,There we sat a-courting, my love fell off to sleep – “Rose Connelly,” traditional Appalachian ballad I hear […]
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“In the Kingdom of Songora” by Linda McMullen
James was a senior when I was a freshman at Salem North High School; I fell in love with him when I heard he’d persuaded the principal to let him […]
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“Abracadabra” by Christina Marable
The man I loved as my grandfather was a tall, strong, broad-shouldered man who carried a fake ear in his back pocket. With his indigo skin and smile brighter than […]
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“Passing Through” by Dale Cottingham
“There is no answer” you said “to whyin an inquiry because an inquiry is to find out why,”your voice rising over us like a storm,a sample of the truth from […]
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Microfiction by Megha Nayar
Grievances David calls as I’m retiring for the night. “You really need to stop spoiling that dog, Mom!” he begins without preamble when I pick up. “How many more plushies […]
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“In Between” by Kelly Claytor
Are you dead, Maria? One Hour It seems so. Seven Days Their black clothes. Their black veils. Their white handkerchiefs, dry in their pockets. None linger at my grave. No […]
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The Metaworker Podcast – Rangoli Man by Mina Rozario
Matthew, Marina, Melissa, and Elena talk about Mina Rozario’s flash fiction fantasy story, Rangoli Man. We gush about saying a lot in very few words, the utopian fairy-tale tone, and the story’s fascinating dive into Indian culture.
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“The Living Room Express” by Jared Cappel
You tell me I’m a bird. Calloused hands pinch into my ribs and lift me overhead. In your eyes, I’m soaring through the clouds like an eagle. I brace against […]
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“Tethered” by Sarette Danae
His is a lariat love, beginning with a wobbleAs it starts to unwind. Then stretching fastInto a wide-spreading circle, swinging wild,Arcing high, landing without warning,Just a thump and a cinch. […]
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“The Wish” by Paul Rabinowitz
What if I couldpaint like youpiercing light throughdarkening skies if I could weave storiesby blending chaptersabout love and discontent what if I stood nakedsang love songsthat pry hearts openlike the […]
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“Coffee with David Lynch” by Thomas Morgan
“Say I had the power to grant you one wish,” his wife said. “What would you wish for?” “Hmm…” her husband said. “Can it be anything?” “It can be anything […]
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The Metaworker Podcast – Minotaurs by Lane Talbot
Episode Description: Matthew, Marina, and Melissa gush about Lane Talbot’s Minotaurs before asking him about how he approaches his craft, the art of writing the thriller, and how his personal […]
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“Fanfare” by DS Maolalai
I piss. it feels okand then after I walkthrough the house going backto the kitchen.and you are not herein any of the house,or at least you are notin my parts […]
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“A Vacation” by Matthew Brinkley
While his children bickered and his wife ignored him, Charlie tugged at the thin paper flap of a packet of tea. His eyes scanned the breakfast buffet line. If he […]
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“Picnic” by Matt Dennison
Jane floats her tablecloth across the floor,sets out fruit, bread, wine, says: Here, look closely. See the red so forcefullywoven into the curtain? Mother’s blood. Scattered like burst petals across the sofa? Mother’s […]
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“The Sands of Time” by Rebecca Johnson
Amber, scarlet, gilded daffodil. All sits quiet, calm,and the sun sets as I turn to you. It takes a second but then I see a granuleof sand that chips away, […]
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“Avril” by Hadley-James Hoyles
The dull beep raises my guardas the seconds canter in the frostlit up by an anaemic starin the echoes of the morning. A glib voice asserts itselfinto my tame fantasy:-Not […]
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“Jupiter’s Raindrops” by John O’Brien
Jupiter’s raindrops area phenomenon thatfollows close behindmoonlight and aftersexand the sonnetof moments wherecollecting my pantsmixes deliberately withstaring and thispale shimmer ofmelancholy. This isa lesson inanger, incorporating goodsexualized, paltry moodsand little […]
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“The Shape of the Laugh in Your Throat” by Edie Meade
From downstairs I hear you playfully yell “panties!” with the tantrum-bound toddler who is disemboweling my underwear drawer. By the shape of the laugh in your throat I can tell […]
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“Self Portrait as Woman with Scarf” by Paul Rabinowitz
I have no hair atop my head but if I did it would be like yours and I’d wash it brush it out and take care of it and on […]
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“Moving Among the Changes” by Tim Suermondt
The aspirations of man are simpler— a plate of fruit, a bottle of wine and my wife about to cook a chef’s dinner from disparate items found hiding out in […]
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And Then He Died by Matthew Maichen
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, nonbinary individuals of all ages. It’s been a while since we had an update from the editor-in-chief, but I’m out of work for […]
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“Barbed Wires” by Ria Banerjee
Did you, my beloved, notice the barbed wiresthat run along the length of the city,to separate you from me?Such walls of divisiveness are man-made:penetrating your blue arteries, they weavenarratives of […]
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“Maui” by Cameron Morse
We go grocery shopping with a pregnant woman who does and does not want the Hawaii rolls, a woman who drops the cockroach in a salsa jar full of bleach, […]
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“Stripped” by James la Vigne
Having little to his name when he died, the reading of Henry Fromm’s will went quickly. Nothing surprising or contentious. On paper he never did anything surprising or contentious. He […]
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“The cops have Julia” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
I knew already, struck with the phantasm of a dream that I had taken the reins of my life at last. Like a drowning man finding the hole in the […]
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On Watermelon Street by John Short
It was the upper floor of a solid 1950s style house in Piraeus with heavy ceiling fans and dust-laden blinds obscuring a view of the interior patio; they hadn’t been […]
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“Ice Cream or Moxie” by Kristy Gherlone
In the heat of the summer, back when Willow’s mother slipped in and out of lunacy, sometimes she’d wake up at night to find her sitting on the edge of […]
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“Teeter-Totter” by Sanjeev Sethi
Spindrift from your biocellate field leaves me smooth and serene, your voice hijacks my uneasiness. In the parlor of our pact flurries of foregoing circuits miss their bourn. In […]
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“Nothingness” by Anne Strand
I’ve been awake since 4 a.m. But that was twenty hours ago, and now we’re here, at the party, and the sky seems low and […]
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“Cold Frame” by Sanjeev Sethi
Love like Eucalyptus or Lavender was sabuline. Cacoethes for your company I understand now: the arenosity I had to encounter by cholla-like jabs too. Nursery a green-thumber creates when […]
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“Ship Inside a Bottle” by Charles Rafferty
Her new boyfriend had a ship inside a bottle. You’d ask him how he got it in there, and he’d act like you had to be a mason […]
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“Four Teacups” by Irtika Kazi
Four tea cups lay unattended since Mittag – on the black, bedraggled table in the canteen. You and I – drinking each other in— Slow, dainty sips. Each tea […]
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“The Clues Within an Adirondack Glade: Son to Father” by Greg Lucas
Now that you’ve passed-through woods deeper and darker than these — climbed into eternity — can you tell me, when our hearts stop, and we’re poised among the mysteries that […]
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“Heartbreak Search History” by Elizabeth Reitzell
can people see when you look at their facebook calories in chocolate shake calories in wendys chocolate frosty how to get into hiking hiking for depression hiking for people who […]
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“He Stared Down the Barrel of a Gun and He Saw Me” by Stephanie Luka
I watched you slide swiftly into the fog encapsulating Eagle Junction railway station. Scraps of rust leaking with oil-stained dew flung into the past, and in the faint glinting of […]
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“This is What We Do Now” by Becky Shirley
You come home, half gallon of milk in one hand, the other snaking around my waist. Head buried in my shoulder, no words, just small noises that I can feel […]
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“To the Best” by Anna Keeler
We sit on the precipice of Heaven and pollution; you hand Me an empty box and promise Desultory protection. Our bodies, superimposed From two different tangles of lake water […]
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“Masquerade” by Laurie Frisbey
I reveal the parts I want you to see you think you know me masquerade ugly thoughts inside my head mourning at the side of a haunted bed empty womb […]
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“Water” by Gabby Catalano
“He laid his head in my palms And I watched as he grew a garden of roses Across a dying field. He had the power to entrap me in flesh […]
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“Casualties, or I can’t f*#!ing understand this Ikea Diagram” by Dani Neiley
Hello, everyone! It’s Friday again and we’ve got another extra thing to share. When we were all talking, we realized we’ve all shared some of our writing on this blog […]
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