the world’s eyes must have first beheld kindness. it was the first thing to move across the hot, emerald-dark mouth of the earth,...

after Frank O’Hara / after Roger Reeves / after Ocean Vuong You’ll be grateful for the way the holly leaves tore at your skin with sweet...

I’ve never gone a summer without seeing you. Burrowing out of the skirts of the earth to peep through sidewalk cracks, splintered mud,...

Today some things worked as they were meant to. Mine are the night and morning, the power that gives with liberal hand. Tell me the...

after Ocean Vuong It’s unlike any sound that’s severed the air before. Like a heart, rupturing and leaking her ruby love all over and...

Because the keening cry of mourning never came. Because his mother’s tears didn’t curl and burrow into the earth silver and sharp as the...

after Ilya Kaminsky “The calf won’t live past morning.” The farmer didn’t quite believe that. She ran her fingers along the calf’s snout,...

Soon. I fold the soles of my feet into the velvet, perfumed soil, to pretend like I am resting. Something in the dirt recognizes the...

after Rebecca Gayle Howell from the Norwegian folktale, Katie Woodencloak Running was never my first choice. You are stronger than I am,...

after Kayleb Rae Candrilli It takes me twelve minutes to finish deciding what home means. The tea rolls over my tongue like the verdant...

The brooke meanders across the arboretum, a ribbon of tinged silver in the glint of the midday sunlight. The sky is overcast. The highway...

“I did not kidnap them.” To even have to say it felt stinging and backhanded, as if I were having to prove something to my estranged...

Author's Note: This is an excerpt from my larger, unpublished novel, "Superstitions: The Grimoire of Callings." I am currently trying to...

This post is a continuation of the first 10 pages posted by the Phoenix. Visit them here. This story contains elements of domestic abuse,...