James Diaz

The Way We Know Things

Your eyes adjust, little one
this cradle is a highway 

your mother knows 
the winding 
of these roads
and the soft kill 
of the fatherland

a poisoned heart

breaking bread
on the asphalt 
behind Pete’s 
abandoned Motel

Prairie Dallas prays for mercy 
in an empty bathtub
what feels like a dark redemption 
coursing through her veins

I don’t regret it
she says to the ceiling 

her boy is playing in the headlights
of a stranger’s car 
by the road to nowhere 

wind blows 
through a paper bag world
and the evening news says 
brighter days are ahead

most of us 
have to work a little harder 
for that kinda light.

damion snow

jack and his french gurl

whistle winds wash
over the meadow
the grass tall
and whipping

there are borage flowers
that sprout wild
in patches of blue
like little islands
in an ocean of green

her eyes are agile
and hazel

they remind me of dead leaves

naked and mounted
she pushes herself
into me, holding her breasts
the nipples a heathered pink
and her skin soft and
flawless

i eject
my seed
the milky
mass festering
in her
ovaries

and the leaking blood
down her thighs
like a creek

the red stains as
we lay adjacent
on the earth

it becomes like
a tattoo, to remember
the pain and the shame

Paul Tanner

boring

never got 
the psycho thing.

I get the thrill 
of control and domination 
in the bedroom, yeah

but not to the extent of 
nonconsenting sexual violence
and/or murder. 

truth be told,
I don’t see what the ego boost is:
the human 
is a stupid 
self-sabotaging
soft bag of organs.
not exactly hard prey.
we’ve been killing 
and repressing each other 
for centuries
because it’s easy.
we’re pretty low hanging fruit if you ask me. 

so no,
I don’t kill people 
because I think 
it makes me special. 

I just do it
to shut them up,
like any other normal person.

Casey Renee Kiser

+ Applause +

I wanted to disappear, with him
I think he wanted that too, sometimes
But mostly, he just wanted my rent

We were starting to work together
on this stage of life…

I had the magic and he had the act
He had the hat of tricks
I had the white rabbit fix

When he sawed me in half, ha–
the audience roared for the illusion
but I will forever be reaching

for myself

Anthony Dirk Ray

Here’s to New Friends

Harold was planning on making homemade bread, which he loved to do, but was about a cup short of flour. He used a recipe that he found online with 298 reviews, with an average of 4.9 stars. The loaves had always turned out well for him, so there was no need to deviate from this tried, tested and true recipe.

Harold would normally ask his neighbor Molly, but he knew that she was out of town at her mother’s for the weekend. His only other option was the new neighbor Gary. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that Gary was on the sex offender’s list, because they were notified when he moved in, but no one knew exactly why he was on said list. 

Harold wasn’t one to judge, and believed that everyone needed a second chance. He wasn’t going to pass judgment on someone that made a mistake in the past. Harold thought to himself that it was more than likely a huge misunderstanding between an old girlfriend or something, with only their word of events taken into account. 

Harold locked the door behind him and walked over to Gary’s. As he approached the porch, he recognized the colorful day lilies and camellias in the front flower bed. Harold thought to himself that Gary had extremely good taste and was a master of color coordination. The swing on the porch, beside an elephant ear plant in a large pot, gave it a homey feel. Harold thought that Gary just might be his new friend. 

He opened the screen door and knocked. 

“Just a second. I’m coming,” Harold heard from inside. 

He then heard footsteps approaching, and the door opened. 

“Well, Hello. Can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m your neighbor Harold. I live in the blue ranch style house right next door.”

“Oh, yes. I’ve seen you out in your front yard weeding your flower beds. My name is Gary, but you probably already know that.”

“Nice to meet you Gary. I see you have some beautiful flowers yourself there.”

“Thank you very much. I have a young Latino man at the market that has been a total godsend. He has taught me so much.”

“Well, the way you have them arranged is just brilliant. I may get your assistance someday if that’s okay.”

“Of course. I’ll do what I can. Lord knows, I need all the friends I can get. It’s been really trying lately, but thankfully, all of that legal stuff is behind me.”

“Well, that’s good. I can’t imagine how hard it must be.”

“Believe me, you just don’t know. What brings you over?”

“Goodness, my apologies. I am about to make some bread, and unfortunately, I am a hair short on flour. Would you happen to have a little to spare?”

“Of course. I believe I can scrounge some up. Come on in.”

Harold followed Gary into his living room. It was so pristine and organized. The tidiness almost made Harold jealous. There was absolutely no clutter, with seemingly everything in its place.

“Wow, you keep a spotless home,” Harold said, as he marveled at the immaculate neatness that surrounded him. 

“Thanks. It’s mainly just me in here for the most part. I’ll have guests in here on occasion, but it’s extremely rare. Let me get that flour. Make yourself at home. Would you like something to drink?”

“That would be nice. What do you have?”

“I have water and a few sodas, but I also have some imported beer and a great wine selection.”

“Well, if you’ll have a glass too, I’d love some wine.”

“I couldn’t think of a better time to open a bottle than right now with my new friend. Which do you prefer, red or white? I have a luxurious Malbec from Argentina that’s a must if you like reds.”

“That sounds tremendous. I love reds.”

“Excellent. I’ll be right back. I keep the wine in my basement.”

Gary took out a set of keys and unlocked a padlock on a door near the hallway. Harold thought that it was a little strange to have the door locked with a padlock, but he just assumed that he had an expensive wine collection, and possibly other valuables down there. Harold just sat on the couch and looked around, still in awe of the uniformity of everything. 

Gary was gone for about 5 minutes when Harold stood and walked near the door. He thought he heard Gary talking, mixed with other muffled noises. He couldn’t make out the sounds clearly, but they closely resembled a rustling mixed with whispers. This sparked his curiosity.

Harold took a few steps down and called for Gary. There was no answer, and the mysterious sounds suddenly stopped. He descended a few more steps down and noticed what looked like cage material. Only the bottom portion of the cage-like structure could be seen, but Harold swore that he saw what appeared to be feet. 

“Gary. Are you okay?” Harold inquired in a slightly cracked tone.

“Yes, I’m here. I decided to grab two bottles instead. I have them right here.” Gary said, as he came around the corner and swiftly up the stairs, as if to usher Harold back up. 

Once both were out of the stairwell, Gary shut the door and went to the kitchen to open the wine. Harold could hear Gary opening the bottles and getting down glasses. He was confused, yet intrigued by the previous events. Harold wondered what the strange sounds were, why Gary was talking, and what exactly that was that he had seen. 

“You are going to absolutely love this Malbec,” Gary said, as he entered the room and handed Harold a glass.

Harold swirled, sniffed, and sipped the red.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding. This is spectacular.”

Gary put on some light jazz, and the two sat enjoying their drinks. They made small talk about the neighbors that lived close by, the local farmer’s market, and the different cafes in town. Both realized that each were vegans, and the conversation flowed effortlessly between the two. 

Halfway through the second bottle, Harold got up the nerve to ask about what he had heard and seen earlier. 

“Gary, what were those sounds that I heard from your basement? I swore that I saw what looked to be feet behind cages. What was that?”

Gary shrugged, shook his head from side to side, grinned, and in a nonchalant tone said,

“Oh, don’t mind them. That’s just my suffering suckboy stash.”

Harold took a long pull from his wine glass, placed it on the table, and casually made his way down the stairs to the basement. 

J.J. Campbell

a little hole in the carpet

it’s the sound of coltrane
on a rainy evening
 
a glass of wine spilled
on the floor
 
yet another bent spoon
burning a little hole
in the carpet
 
you don’t think of 
yourself as a junkie
 
you are a hip cat
from another planet
with a bit of soul
and still a little class
 
a top hat given to 
you from the last 
homeless man you 
stole cigarettes from
 
you like to tell that 
story as a game of 
poker among old 
friends
 
even aliens believe in
honor among thieves
 
but as the sound builds
on that old record player
 
the thirst arrives yet again
 
you still believe in redemption,
love and whatever it takes to 
get a piece of ass these days
 
and you’ll gladly get back to 
that discussion as soon as you 
find a decent looking needle

J.J. Campbell

my sphere of thinking these days

i can’t remember the 
last time i looked into 
the eyes of a woman
 
i can’t remember what
true love, real love
fuck, even fake love
feels like anymore
 
and they tell me i still
have plenty to live for
 
that suicide should be
nowhere in my sphere 
of thinking these days
 
sure
 
a fucking pandemic
 
a presidential election
 
a country fading into
a totalitarian state
 
all the circumstances
that say isn’t this
just fucking grand
 
what a life
 
all my heroes tasted 
at least one barrel
in their lives
 
my patience only
has so much thread
left on the tires

J.J. Campbell

a major accomplishment

another day 
avoiding death
 
some people think
of such a day as a 
major accomplishment
 
i applaud those people
 
i’m not one of them
 
death has been at the
front of my mind for
over thirty-five years
now
 
countless people have
tried to help
 
therapists, friends,
lovers, family,
jack daniels,
jim beam,
 
even a few fine 
fellows from mexico 
tried their hardest 
a few years ago
 
not everyone gets
the  picket fence
and trophy wife
 
my father always told
me there would always
be a need for people to
dig ditches and graves
 
he always claimed
he knew something
I didn’t

Otto Burnwell

Accidentally Shot for a Deer

You stare at your fiancé kneeling between your legs. She looks up at you, your crank in her hand, her lips wet, her lipstick not quite rubbed away.

You’d asked her a question you meant for a compliment. The kind of nonsense question you might blurt out when a woman has you so close to a climax that unruly words fly out of your mouth.

Now you wish you hadn’t. You were not prepared for her answer that would make you an accessory-after-the-fact to murder.

You were tense. She asked if it was pre-wedding jitters. You let her think that was it. So, she led you to the bathroom, sat you on her mom’s vanity stool, and went to work making magic with her mouth.

It didn’t take long to melt the tension, because she is spectacular. Her head bobbing, coming down left, lifting, coming down right, taking you all the way in. Her nose brushes against the skin of your belly. It’s somehow more intimate and immediate than her tongue on your balls. She had you breathing harder, making that long, elastic moan that let her know how fine a time you were having, and what a great job she was doing.

Loosened up like that, the question popped out of you.

“How did you get to be so good at this?”

It was unintended, but it was not a totally random question. You did mean it to be a compliment. For as long as you two have been together, you often wondered how she acquired such a delightful skill.

But last night you had all the more reason to wonder how she achieved such oral artistry.

Some guys from her graduating class got together and hauled you off to the Horseman out on Division Road for a pre-wedding boozer. It didn’t take many drinks before they got around to celebrating your fiancé’s magnificent mouth. They all had opinions on what you could expect if you lived long enough to reach your honeymoon, but they denied any personal experience to back it up.

You played the good sport, went along with the joking. She’s allowed to have a past. As long as it stays in the past.

But one thing you did notice was the way they denied any first-hand knowledge of her talent seemed less about saving your feelings and more about convincing each other.

The question remained at the forefront of your mind this morning. It kept you keyed up, which you tried passing off as those pre-wedding jitters. Which led your fiancé to prevent you getting cold feet by hauling you aside and sucking you off. The question, percolating in your head, popped free when your brain was otherwise engaged.

You didn’t really want an answer. You figured she would hum an appreciative “mm-hmm” that would buzz you through her lips.

But she didn’t. She sat back on her heels, still holding your pecker, rubbing her thumb over the tip.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked, and you said, “what?” because your brain wasn’t taking messages at the time as you savored how your entire nervous system melted into a hot, liquid state.

“Do you really want to know?” she repeated, and now you floated up through the fog of fellatio to focus on what she was saying.

“How I got to be so good,” she said. “At this,” she added, waggling your pecker like a sock.

“Sure,” you said. Because you did. Even before the guys last night, you would let yourself drift into fantasies about how she mastered the mechanics of oral sex. You would imagine her studying the geography of the penis in a Biology class full of girls. Or practicing on toys and vegetables with her girlfriends at slumber parties. Or fumbling with the real thing on one or more of those guys from last night.

“Did somebody say something?”

“When?”

“Last night?”

“Last night? No. Nothing special.”

“What did they say?”

“They talked about a lot of things.” You told her you couldn’t recall all that much, there was so much to drink, but you were deflating in her grip, an inverse Pinocchio, shrinking the more you lied.

She leaned forward, mouthing you a little bit more, as you tried to conjure some great distractor to put her back on track.

“All I meant,” you said, “was how good you are. Like you studied.” You don’t know when to shut up when you’re nervous, or embarrassed, or lying. With your dick between the teeth of a woman you know can get really angry. Whose years of orthodontia would ensure a clean bite-through if she decides to take your balls off.

“I’ll tell you,” she says, “since you asked. But you promise not to freak out?”

“Freak out?”

“I just don’t want you freaking out.”

So you prepared yourself to hear her tell you it was every one of those guys. Like a lending library of dicks checked out to take home and practice.

“Sure.”

You held your breath.

Instead—

Instead, she starts off by telling you her nickname from back then. Two-by-four. It made her insecure having a younger sister already wearing a full bra, and herself still flatter than a baloney sandwich. It frustrated her, making her feel insecure. She mentioned it to Doc who lived next door. A friend of the family. Not a doctor doctor, but an assistant professor at the community college. A teacher tutoring her in math. He was way older, not someone she thought twice about. She felt safe mentioning it to him, treating it like a joke. After a few times, he told her a trick he knew that was guaranteed to help girls fill out. Very scientific, he said. Kind of like a jump-start to wake up the reproductive system. Guaranteed safe, he told her. One hundred percent natural ingredients. You might not like the taste at first, he told her, but it only works if you swallow.

Of course, she wanted to believe him. He taught college. Read books and stuff. He was way smart. It made a kind of sense. She thought it worth a try.

“You can learn a lot, she said, from a horny guy who lives alone.”

“Shit.” The thought of your fiancé’s mouth wrapped around some old guy’s donk was creepy. That seemed worse than a bunch of kids her own age experimenting on each other.

“Yes.” She flicked you with her fingernail, but it was siesta time for Mr. Pony.

Shit.

“Is he going to be at the wedding,” you asked, because you already hate the smirk on his face as you two face each other in the receiving line after the ceremony.

“No,” she said.

“Good.”

“He’s dead.”

“Good.”

“Out hunting with Daddy and Uncle Peck. Accidentally shot for a deer.”

You were relieved. You won’t have to look the guy in the eye and see a merry little twinkle of mischief, seeing himself as some kind of old stud, in her mouth long before you were. You said out loud, “Sorry to hear,” but not really. Then it registered.

“Shot? Hunting with your Dad and your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“An accident?”

“Everybody says so. I wasn’t the first one he ‘helped,’” she air-quotes with her free hand.

Shit.

“You should count yourself lucky,” she says.

“Why?”

“I couldn’t get near anyone else after that.” She gives you a long lick.

“But an accident?” you repeat, like you may have to get out a dictionary and read the definition to her to be certain you both mean the same thing.

“Says it on the coroner’s report. Accidentally shot for a deer. You can go look it up if you want. Just—”

“What?”

“Don’t mention it to Mom. And do not go hunting with Daddy and Uncle Peck until after we’re married.”

You tense up all over again, because her father’s mentioned to you how it might be a good time to get some shooting in.

You’ve gone soft. You’re worse than soft. A penis made of cotton. If a negative erection is possible that’s what you’ve got. You may never be hard ever again. She keeps thumbing your dick like there might yet be life in it. She nips at you with her lips tucked over her teeth, sucking as she pulls it out, making that popping sound.

She stretches your pecker like a chew toy. “You know I’m kidding, right?”

You push out a chuff that you hope passes for a chuckle. You try to focus on your fiancé, the way she’s swallowing you, and massaging the taut cords of your thighs as you spread to give her room.

You tense up again and lift your head to look her in the eye. “Which part were you kidding about?”

She doesn’t say, her mouth full. She just gives a shrug and a throaty chirp dismissing your question.

Then, just as you’re hoping to ease back into a world-class blow job to take your mind off your future father- and uncle-in-law maybe killing the guy who taught your fiancé such stellar tricks with that tongue of hers, she adds—

“Hey? You think when they got Doc out there, it was like that scene? From that movie? You know? Like in Deliverance?”

Fuck.

Chris Vola

Meme Lord 

give us a like dear 
the body gets no rest 
behind this swelling glass abscess 
and next week’s podcast 
the one you blocked 
because something else 
more than remembrances 
makes fuckboys go mad with flesh 
buried in mute drama
swallowed in listless indolence 
& belched content 
babies doing the worm on coffins 
tear-suckling athletes 
extreme sushi fatigue 
& glorified misfortunes
you’re trying to feed something 
i.e. everlasting war 
on my behalf (ha!)
the photoshop blasts 
your attention to ruin
(rejoice & click the link!) 
(rejoice & click the link!)
(rejoice & click the link!)
simple pleasures rule America 
I want to slit you 
like a mouthless equestrian 
brandishing lollipops 
a kitten’s tongue 
scraping your eyelids black 
the symmetry of underfed youth
unfollowed & obliterated 
put this cis dick on repeat
keep it alive by gripping 
tell me it barely exists
in your thumbnail
that you’ll never visit 
my page again 
(ohfuckohfuckohfuck yes)
or whatever 
deal with it
make me the brand ambassador
of loneliness 
a vessel of joy & feminine brutality 
spewing stock character macros 
with limited engagement 
confined bodies sliding
into non-physical adventure
selfie-flushed
these prisons sanitized 
for memorable hints
of a larger void 
i.e. the real authenticity 
of our passions 
my dying will be etched in screenshots 
enraptured by a city of DMs 
& unfiltered sunsets 
forever convinced that newsfeeds 
are superior to genius 
drifted to sleep mode 
i.e. a real tragedy will always 
get mucho hits 
hate to say I told you but
those buried hours
this surfeit of pain 
a carpal fog inflamed 
thick in every direction
when night is not night 
& intellect is pantomime 
strangled in self-interest
the browsing starts anew
& we contain 
multitudes